Via Cuppy, the Rise of Kunark Beta application is now up.
I’ve been waiting for this for years. Kunark turned EQ1 from a casual game to an obsession with me.
Maybe that wasn’t entirely a good thing. Pre-Kunark EQ1 was a very casual game; there wasn’t a whole lot to do in the end game (Vox, Naggy, Hate, Fear and Sky… and all those were contested), and so few people really were trying that hard to level. Back then, we hadn’t yet been trained that the goal of every MMO was to level as fast as possible and then cry for more content.
Kunark changed all that. A HUGE number of things to do (starting a trend that even today leaves EQ1 the absolute, undisputed MMO leader in content, if you can find anyone to do it with), a real way of marking your guild’s progression, and an easy path to uberness.
What will it do for EQ2?
It’s unlikely to have as much impact as Kunark did to EQ1. I doubt it will reinvent the game in the same way. A new race, a new newbie experience, and some content for 65-80. More a Luclin than a Kunark. Luclin, you may remember, was the first time a significant number of EQ1 players felt the game had begun its gradual slide to irrelevancy. Locked zones, significant time needed for raiding, and a growing separation of casual and hardcore players…
These things persist today in World of Warcraft, and I suspect a lot of those same people who grumbled at Luclin happily do the faction grinding and attuning for WoW… but I digress…
I liked Luclin. It brought me back from DAoC. I’d place the turning point for EQ1 at Gates of Discord, even though once the cap was raised to 70 in Omens of War (and they removed the ridiculous Ikkinz keying quest requirement for every person in the raid), the content suddenly became enjoyable.
Anyway, going severely off-topic here. Short summary: Kunark could change EQ2 — for the better! Get in the Beta and see what they’ve got planned!
4 thoughts on “EQ2: Rise of Kunark Beta? Sign me up!”
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I hope it not to much change.. but i am excited about this expansion and hope i get in to beta.
I started EQ1 about three months before Kunark went live so I didn’t experience the end game jam in LGuk (though I did participate in a Mask of Deception camp.) Kunark was definitely a groundbreaker for the EQ1 crowd, but I think I was too new to the game to notice it. For example, how it spread out the level capped players or how it took the raid playstyle seriously.
The major shift I saw was with the Luclin expansion that introdcued the Nexus. That shifted the major player gathering hub from West Commonlands (on my server, go Nameless!) to the Moon.
After that it was smooth sailing as my small family guild finished expansion content two or three expansions after it released. Then GoD hit and we hit a wall. A few months later, WoW and EQ2 launched and few of us looked back.
We did return briefly after seeing how DoN made it easier to get nice equipment upgrades for non-raiders and we abused the afk-mission mechanic in DoD to max out our levels, but it wasn’t enough.
Ah, but I digress also. I’m looking forward to the Kunark expansion in EQ2. Half my enjoyment of this game is revisiting places I knew and loved in EQ1. Plus, epic weapons!
I remember the run up to the RoK release, I was level 48 and pushing hard to hit cap before the expansion dropped, grinding my brains out in LGuk, attending my first Vox and Naggy raids. I remember getting my copy of RoK in the mail(no digital downloads in those days!) a few days early and just being like a kid waiting for a candy store to open, it was fantastic to me, and too fantastic for my computer I lagged like crazy on the new continent but still I was happy. I don’t expect the kind of excitement with the EQ2 exp but every time I see a screenshot I get that gleem in my eye, and my heart races a little bit at the sight of something familiar, and in the same theme I’m grinding my toon up in an attempt to make cap, in short I’m really excited, and have little doubt that SOE will deliver with this one.
@Cheston: I was level 30 or so when Kunark came out. I had been playing since launch, but wasn’t really driven to level until Kunark.
That did mean, though, that I could enjoy FV, LoIO, Frontier Mountains, Kaesora, Dreadlands and all them the first time around because I was the best level for them! Maybe that’s why I love Kunark so much…
Those RoK teaser videos are amazing. Seeing Chardok in EQ2 made me so glad; they did it just right. Instantly recognizable, but better.
I’ve been working on a EQ1/Kunark retrospective the past couple of days and talking to the EQ1 people I’ve met along the way — when I could find them. EQ1/Kunark is pretty much deserted these days.
I even found some old, old screenies I took the day Kunark was released.