Older Freeport is Much Nicer than Live

[Evilary]

It's annoying to go through multiple doors to get to each part of Freeport but wow, so much was taken out when they revamped it. This version of Freeport feels more like a major city that has survived through the old days of things like the shattering, the blinding, etc. The Live version does not give that feel. I thought just activating the neighborhoods would be enough to make the towns feel like the old days but wow, reverting the zone sections really did a number on Freeport to make it feel more alive and nice.

I know it won't happen but I wish we could get this Freeport on Live.

 

[Araxes]

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. After 11 years of seeing broken down ramshackle buildings I think everyone was ready for the new look. But I agree, for this Origins experience, it's great!

 

[Groppstopper]

I remember being excited for the city revamps but when they actually came I quickly came to miss the old cities. There is a lot of flavor in both of them and the revamps suck all of that out and make them a shallow questing hub.

 

[Obano]

In EQ2 Beta they had armies of guards marching around Freeport. Then they reduced it to just a handful of guards for performance reasons. Be nice if they brought all those guards back too.

 

[Groppstopper]

The 2004 EQ2 gameplay video had that and it was the coolest thing to me as a young kid getting hyped for EQ2

 

[Sheisko]

I preferred the old Freeport as well. And now that the old city layouts are back, I really, really hope they bring back the trick or treating event for Nights of the Dead. I know they said no holiday events, but I'll hold out hope anyway

 

[Vlahkmaak]

I prefer the newer layout - it is more open.

 

[Muffincookie]

It's annoying to go through multiple doors to get to each part of Freeport but wow, so much was taken out when they revamped it. This version of Freeport feels more like a major city that has survived through the old days of things like the shattering, the blinding, etc. The Live version does not give that feel. I thought just activating the neighborhoods would be enough to make the towns feel like the old days but wow, reverting the zone sections really did a number on Freeport to make it feel more alive and nice.

I know it won't happen but I wish we could get this Freeport on Live.

I like it a lot more too!
Freeport is supposed to be a bad place where people are miserable and treat each other bad. It was never ment to look like a million dollar place like on Live imo. The Overlord prob wouldn't spend money on his city so that his people would have a happier life with pretty streets. No, he spends those cash on his castle instead.
This is the only correct way of Freeport to me!

 

[Groppstopper]

In EQ2 Beta they had armies of guards marching around Freeport. Then they reduced it to just a handful of guards for performance reasons. Be nice if they brought all those guards back too.

I wonder what kind of a performance hit that would be on modern machines. For being a 20 year old game, I still have fps dips at full quality mode even with a 3080

 

[Llopod]

I wonder what kind of a performance hit that would be on modern machines. For being a 20 year old game, I still have fps dips at full quality mode even with a 3080

gpu doesn't matter much. EQ2 only uses 2 threads of your CPU. 1 for the engine and 1 for the game iirc. if the game used ~4+ GPU would maybe be a limiting factor but to this day EQ and EQ2 are CPU bound games.

 

[Groppstopper]

Wow, only two threads? That's quite the hardware limitation... Bummer they rolled the dice so poorly back in 2004 on where hardware was headed. I didn't realize it was quite so limiting.

 

[Obano]

Wow, only two threads? That's quite the hardware limitation... Bummer they rolled the dice so poorly back in 2004 on where hardware was headed. I didn't realize it was quite so limiting.

The dice was rolled on engine choice back in 1999 or even earlier. The engine EQ2 runs on was originally developed for Star Wars Galaxies and that development cycle goes back to the late 90s. At the time they were looking ahead 10 years guessing what hardware would look like in 2009. The guess was that there would be single core processors running at 10 or 12 Ghz in 2009 or so. EQ2 would run amazing on a 10Ghz processor. Those processors never panned out as the tech industry shifted to developing hardware around having multiple slower clocked cores.

 

[Frogmancer]

The dice was rolled on engine choice back in 1999 or even earlier. The engine EQ2 runs on was originally developed for Star Wars Galaxies and that development cycle goes back to the late 90s. At the time they were looking ahead 10 years guessing what hardware would look like in 2009. The guess was that there would be single core processors running at 10 or 12 Ghz in 2009 or so. EQ2 would run amazing on a 10Ghz processor. Those processors never panned out as the tech industry shifted to developing hardware around having multiple slower clocked cores.

To be fair, this was a pretty good prediction at the time. There wasn't really a sense that personal computer CPUs were headed for multiple cores until like 2004-2005.

 

[Tkia]

I remember being excited for the city revamps but when they actually came I quickly came to miss the old cities. There is a lot of flavor in both of them and the revamps suck all of that out and make them a shallow questing hub.

The facelift on the shabbiness was very welcome. Removing large chunks of content and dumping shopkeepers etc. in the middle of nowhere and the like was not. Previously it had character, now it's just nonsensical bleh.

 

[Bella22]

It's annoying to go through multiple doors to get to each part of Freeport but wow, so much was taken out when they revamped it. This version of Freeport feels more like a major city that has survived through the old days of things like the shattering, the blinding, etc. The Live version does not give that feel. I thought just activating the neighborhoods would be enough to make the towns feel like the old days but wow, reverting the zone sections really did a number on Freeport to make it feel more alive and nice.

I know it won't happen but I wish we could get this Freeport on Live.

I personally like the new Freeport better. The dark elf town really IS just a slum and looks ugly. My characters hate living there. The good towns are much nicer and beautiful to live in.

 

[Rijacki]

I personally like the new Freeport better. The dark elf town really IS just a slum and looks ugly. My characters hate living there. The good towns are much nicer and beautiful to live in.

Nettleville and the neighbourhood for the dwarves/barbarians are rather broken down and slum-like, too.

But, even for most of the 'prettier' neighbourhoods in Qeynos, look closer, they're not as pristine or pretty on closer inspection.

The neighbourhoods are part of the character of the cities, though. old Qeynos has a sheen of pretty but don't look too closely or you will see the decay. Freeport has a definitive pecking order and it carries over to the neighbourhoods as well.

This is why I prefer the old cities with the neighbourhoods vs the new. It's a lot more nuanced.

 

[Groppstopper]

I personally like the new Freeport better. The dark elf town really IS just a slum and looks ugly. My characters hate living there. The good towns are much nicer and beautiful to live in.

I would have liked to see the neighborhoods in Freeport have a little more character to them. It feels as if that city was rushed a bit to make it for launch whereas there is much more love given to the Qeynos neighborhoods. A lot of the Freeport ones feel like copy and paste.