Pretty excited...

[Megiddo]

For the first real time since Norrath's introduction, I'm pretty excited about creating a new character. For the first time in EverQuest's history, I'll have access to every class, profession, craft, spell, skill, ability, you name it within Norrath...with a single character. This has never been possible (for a single account) for a single server! Are there going to be limitations that come with this? Certainly! But, I'm pretty excited for the first time that I'll be allowed to play an "all-in-one" character here! Anyone else?

[Vantose]

You are one the few people excited about it. Most people feel its better to just make a new alt. However i hope you have as much fun with it as you think you will.

[Doktor Kaputt]

Not excited at all. You basically only save 30 seconds to relog to your alt.
They could have finally made zone load times shorter and I would be more excited.
Also the close to zero level exp gain from kills and their insane amount of HPs are still there, which makes this feel like a completely different game and not like the EQ I knew.

[Vantose]

I honestly see it as a huge waste of resources. Could have had more zones out other content instead.

It even makes leveling as a persona harder because exp at late game is tied to progression quests and wont give it again for the persona's.

[Handoiron]

As far as I can tell, APs are catering to multi-box teams that can easily drop a campfire, use burn timers on 1 name, port their team to lobby / pok / GH / housing / home city, switch personas, and campfire back with fellowship click to have a second set of burn timers.

Also, to try to convince die-hard non-sub accounts to drop the 1 time price of LS to almost quadruple the number of classes they can play.


Now, if they dropped the idiotic non-combat zone / start city requirement to swap personas, it'd be one of the best additions to the game in a decade. But really only because it would provide a counter to their go to "challenge" mechanic of putting mixed see-invis mobs everywhere. I was really looking forward to leveling up a rogue persona to deal with that stupidity. Oh yeah, that's stupidity that 99% of multi-box teams have a bard in their team to deal with so I guess it "doesn't matter".

They really should have just gave it a 5 minute timer between swaps (or even 10 minutes) and not required people to stop what they were doing to run to PoK to swap then run back. Makes it an even worse feature than shrouds because even with shrouds you can pick and choose what level you are in order to fit the need you're bothering to shroud for.

[Megiddo]

There are a lot of cons with its current state, but I'm trying to keep in mind that it's a brand new feature. It is quite likely that they'll continue developing it and making improvements for it.

For myself, it's the first time in EQ's history that I'm allowed to play every class and every race on a single server. It goes beyond that and allows this for a single character even. These aren't singular characters, though, in the true sense that exist in FFXIV, for instance. A lot of general things aren't being shared between personas in its current state.

I'm in the slow process of restarting completely from the beginning with three characters. I'm planning to work through each expansion in an attempt to work through every possible achievement for it...before moving on to the next expansion and repeating the process. For anyone that wants to attempt a competionist character, this system has great appeal. It's not for everyone, most certainly, especially given many of its rather severe limitations. Given its current state, I can see why it wouldn't have much appeal to anyone that already has several end game alts that they could more easily swap over to.

[Vantose]

I wouldn't put to much faith into them doing any thing worth while with it. I mean you have every other xpack to off off of. Just look at the shroud system who's tab in your inventory they replaced to add persona's.

Honestly i would have liked it more if they would have updated and put all that effort they put into persona's into making the shround system better and go to max level.

[Krido]

Originally posted by Doktor Kaputt:

Not excited at all. You basically only save 30 seconds to relog to your alt.
They could have finally made zone load times shorter and I would be more excited.
Also the close to zero level exp gain from kills and their insane amount of HPs are still there, which makes this feel like a completely different game and not like the EQ I knew.

This isnt just "30 seconds". You need to get alt characters leveled up and gear them up before switching between them.

I personally never liked alts because i like to progress vertically, not horizontally. I always feel like wasting time just repeating same leveling on every character instead of putting that time on honing one character.

[Glyrion]

It's nice if you like levelling alts but up to a certain point. Not having access to the progression achievement XP if already completed previously will be a real pain...actually it's a show stopper to me. Then there's inventory slot management that becomes tedious. For now I think just making a different character is the better option in every way..

[shin.raijin]

Originally posted by Krido:

I personally never liked alts because i like to progress vertically, not horizontally. I always feel like wasting time just repeating same leveling on every character instead of putting that time on honing one character.

You still need to level all your personas and gear them from level 1 so I don't understand how its that much different from alts?

[Krido]

There is huge differences there.
First and most important, alt is starting from 0 on everything. Granted, you can transfer gear or gold but you need to repeat everything in order to bring it up to main character.

Bound to character items cant be moved between alts while all items you have on main character, will still be there despite changing persona.

General tradeskills are to be shared between personas, only restricted are class/race ones, so those will be needed to start over on each persona.

Seems pretty similiar to FF14 where one character can play all jobs and only job restricted items can be used on specific ones, while everything else is shared.


Big thing with this change is that it gives people options.

Option to not waste time, leveling alt from 0.
Option to not use persona and just create alt.

There is as many people who hates creating alts as people who likes to create those.
Its always nice to see, devs actually creating options for both sides. Its rare.

[Handoiron]

There actually IS a huge difference between making an alt and making a persona but you didn't point it out.

You can get an alt up to max level in days to weeks with the right setup.

You can get a new persona to max level in months with overseers.


The lack of achievement rewards to level at 110+, which were obviously designed to supplement the ever dwindling grind XP rate, means it will take significantly more time and effort to level a persona than it would to level an alt.

You'll have to get gear for your new persona just like you'd have to get gear for your new alt.

Any argument that persona's save time over alts is irrelevant considering it'll take much much longer to level a persona than it will to level a new alt because of the lack of access to higher content achievement rewards.

I know many people that have been able to create a new alt and have it max level within a week and the majority of that time is spent getting that alt from 100ish to 110. At that point it only takes them a few hours to run through ToV + missions to get to 120. Granted, that's usually with some decent bonus XP effects but still, losing out on achievement reward XP is a HUGE downside to APs.

[That Dodogama]

Originally posted by Doktor Kaputt:

Not excited at all. You basically only save 30 seconds to relog to your alt.
They could have finally made zone load times shorter and I would be more excited.
Also the close to zero level exp gain from kills and their insane amount of HPs are still there, which makes this feel like a completely different game and not like the EQ I knew.

From my understanding, it's even worse than an alt. You have to travel all the way back to a safe city that allows fast camping to swap, and then you have to travel all the way back to where you were. Meanwhile, with an alt, you could just park it in the same zone as the character you're currently on.