So how is EQ2 anyway?

D

Direwolf20

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I see tons of threads about WoW. Tons :). Every forum I visit related to gaming talks about WoW. Barely any mention of EQ2.

How is it? Have you played it, do you like it, whats it like?

One of the big things I like about WOW is the solo-ability. I don't have many hours to play, and I like to login for 45 mins to an hour and just solo a bit. Is it at all possible to solo in EQ2, or is it like EQ1, where you better find a group, and find it fast.

Also, leveling in WoW isn't mind-numbingly long. I can get from 45-46 in a couple hours. In EQ1 I remember it taking a week to get a level.

I played EQ1 a lot. A real lot. I'd like to checkout EQ2 strictly from a storyline point of view. I'd like to check out Qeynos, etc.

I know they have that free trial thing that allows you to get to level 4, but all MMO's are easy in their first 10-15 levels. Whats it like after that?

Thanks in advance for any insights you have!
 
Boring, bland. Formulaic. Unimaginative. No real storyline, especially disappointing in terms of EQ1 continuity. The early dev team never played EQ1.
 
It sounds like its one of those types of games that you desperately want to be good, but it just isn't :(.
 
Soooo for the longest time when I was building my current sytem, my friend and I were all jacked up for the game untill we found out that the "Made for Nvidia" actually ment "Don't even think about it if you own an Nvidia" I have a 6800GT and when the game first came out, the 9800pros were outperforming the GT, SSAADD. Then I baught WOW and realized that I didn't like MMORPG's.

Don't buy Everycrack 2, it lacks the ingredient of fun.
 
I played EQ1 for years. I played EQ2 for about 3 weeks before quitting.

Most of the problems in EQ2 are gameplay related. The gameplay is just too limiting. There is not enough variety.

A class might have the special move "Kick", then a "Super Kick", then a "Super Dooper Kick"... All are the same except they do a bit more damage and take a bit longer to refresh. All special moves also have very annoying particle effects. If you kick, a big explosions of sparks comes off the foot. In battle all you can see is particle effects. Its really obnoxious. Every single attack has some sort of particles. Particles should be used for cool spells or items. Not be exploding off your foot from a simple kick.

One of the nice things about EQ1 were that alot of the spell casting classes shared spells. Like invisibility. Almost any caster or healer could invsible themselves. In EQ2, only 1 class can, and they can only cast 1 invisible spell at a time. In order to cast on a 2nd player, it automatically wears off the first player. If someone dies and has to start at the beginning of the dungeon and find their way back to the group. Well, its impossible. Even if you had someone who could invs come back to you, they can only invs themselves or you, but not both. If you died and respawned back at camp, you were booted from the group and replaced by someone in the vacinity, nobody will come back for you...

They wanted to solve the problems of camping, kiting, and powerlvling. Sure it sounds good on paper, but it didnt work on out actuality. Camping = Trival Loot code. For quest mobs or anything. One of the noobie dungeons give you a quest to learn the orc language. Items to help you learn drop out of chests. If you are too high of lvl, the chests don't drop. If you happen to out lvl the noobie dungeon without learning the orc language, you will never learn it at all. Kiting = Movement buffs such as "Sow" which increase your speed turn off during combat. They also removed spells like "snare." If they do have it, it lasts like 5 seconds making it even pointless to cast. Powerlvling = Locking encounters. Only the first person to engage a monster may hurt it, and while the encounter is locked, nobody outside the group can heal you. Leaving you with the mob to kill all by yourself.

In the end. All you do is melee mobs with any character you pick. And thats all you do... Then click your special moves buttons as soon as you can... All the challenge of EQ is gone. Mobs no longer aggro. Their radius is like 5 steps. If you run a hostile which did aggro on you through another group of monsters, they wont aggro on you. It always tells you when you attack exactly what is going to come with you.

That sums up the gameplay... It gets boring around lvl 15-25 depending on your attention level.

The good parts, the graphics, and the crafting system. However, there is just so much wrong with the rest of the game its just not fun.
 
Its not bad... I played it for a while, probably 8 months or so. But its certainly not good either, so its hard to reccomend it. That said I did have a blast for the first several months. They've changed a lot since release, so it wouldn't hurt giving at least the trial a shot, and if you liked EQ1 you might be interested in seeing the state of norrath. If you have nothing else to do I would say go for it, but when I left getting groups was hard and the servers were becoming pretty light in population, so I can't guarantee a compelling experience or anything...

Edit: I would agree with the above poster's critiques, but they've overhauled all the classes, and changed some of the systems that limited gameplay, and although I haven't experienced it since then, the changes seem welcomed.
 
Played it and liked it for awhile, then life got too busy and I quit and never went back. Still have my toons though I will probable never get back into the game. I'll sell ya mine (Collectors edition and everything, inlcuding the big ass guide book), $25 shipped for the lot (I am not selling the account, though as a bonus you get that for free ;) ). LMK if you would be interested.

My toons are mid level (between 13-19) on both Good & Evil sides (4 total, 2 good; High Elf & Froglok , 2 evil; Iskar & gnome)


edit: w00t!!!! 500 posts, yippee :D
 
It's ok , not great by any strech of the imagination. i played it a bit for about 4-5 months , got a cleric up to level 45 and after that meh i don't know, i just didn't feel like playing anymore. grouping at higher levels becomes, once again like so many other games, a chore. If you are missing a tank or healer forget about it, sure you can kill weaker stuff but then the exp you get just isn't worth it, i sat so many times at a zoneline waiting with a almost full group for a tank to show up only to have people leave one by one because none are available. the population density on the server i play seems realy low so that doesn't help either.

With that said , up until level 35 i had quite a bit of fun, grouping didn't seem too bad and you could substitute a tank for a rogue or something in a pinch, The game has a polished feel to it , there are a lot of small touches that makes your life easier, for example you can click on a party member's name and if they are in the same zone as you a glowing trail will lead you to them, everytime i play wow and i lose sight of a party member it always try to do the same thing and it is sadly missing. There are also a LOT of quests, they arn't all good quests but up to level 35 you can only do quests and level prety quickly is that is your thing.
 
Well I must be the only one who likes it then?

Solo ability is good, just don't expect to get the really really rare/good gear from doing it.

It's not without it's problems but than most games are.

Where are you? The European version of Desert of Flames contains the full original game and can be picked up for around ten pounds, worth a try :)

If you want I also have a buddy key that is valid for 7 days you can have, as far as I am aware it doesn't limit you to the Island like the trial which means you can get whatever level you like. Talking of leveling, I have been soloing mostly with my Half Elf ranger and getting a level in around 5 hours of play, just about to ding 50 later :)

SOE actually seem to be listening to the playerbase for the most part this time around and I for one enjoy the game loads.

Dano.
 
I had it for around 8 months (3 of those months I was in the hospital) when I came back to the game they had changed everything. Items I had spent weeks saving up to aquire were now literally unsellable. I had no money left and no real way to get anymore to get better items, my moves were gimped and to top it off there would be only 2-3 people in the hotspots for groups and of course they will pass you up unless you own the best of eveything. I was the only Warrior in my 80 man guild that was above leve 13 who hadn't ditched the game yet, ( the guild leader was at the capped level, half the guild was...) Having just come out of the hospital and recuperating I really wanted to enjoy this game but what fun is it when only 2-3 people or less are in a hotspot at one time and it literally takes 5-6 hours of standing in the same spot to find a group! I even started a new charactor on a more populated server, played him for a month until I finally gave up and decided it wasn't worth it. I was with SWG about the same time (not counting the time I was in the hospital) and SOE just sucks. I think I'm done with mmo's for good after having played those two.
 
I've been playing it off and on since release. It's ok, nothing great, nothing too terrible. It really isn't as good as some of the current games out there, but it's fairly solo friendly and a way to waste time. I'm personally waiting for Vanguard: Saga of Heroes. It probably wont' be as solo friendly, but should have more "character".
 
So it IS possible to solo and advance? Hrrmm. Perhaps I'll pick it up at some point. WOW is getting a little dull. Maybe I'll get COV too. Not sure.
 
EQ2 seems to be a game where hte development team tried too hard to keep it future proof (some of things that were wrong with EQ1, not a whole lot of future planning, was a shock to see it explode like it did). the game involves way too many complicated things, and while its great, with an awsome interface, interaction tools, it lacks simplicity in places where you REALLY need it.

EQ2 is a good game, and lots of solo'ability, but i think the devs just tried too hard on creating the "ultimate MMO" and didn't keep a vision of any sorts with the game

i like SOE, they do hire good dev's, they have the best patch system i've ever seen, their installs are usually not very complicated and install very fast, they just need to hire people with much more enthusiasm for the game (instead of pushing out a product with a name on it :D ) and someone with balls, like brad mcquaid
 
Scoobydo said:
I played EQ1 for years. I played EQ2 for about 3 weeks before quitting.

Most of the problems in EQ2 are gameplay related. The gameplay is just too limiting. There is not enough variety.

A class might have the special move "Kick", then a "Super Kick", then a "Super Dooper Kick"... All are the same except they do a bit more damage and take a bit longer to refresh. All special moves also have very annoying particle effects. If you kick, a big explosions of sparks comes off the foot. In battle all you can see is particle effects. Its really obnoxious. Every single attack has some sort of particles. Particles should be used for cool spells or items. Not be exploding off your foot from a simple kick.
I guess that comes down to personal taste, but you can adjust the number and frequency of displayed particle effects from within the options

One of the nice things about EQ1 were that alot of the spell casting classes shared spells. Like invisibility. Almost any caster or healer could invsible themselves. In EQ2, only 1 class can, and they can only cast 1 invisible spell at a time. In order to cast on a 2nd player, it automatically wears off the first player. If someone dies and has to start at the beginning of the dungeon and find their way back to the group. Well, its impossible. Even if you had someone who could invs come back to you, they can only invs themselves or you, but not both. If you died and respawned back at camp, you were booted from the group and replaced by someone in the vacinity, nobody will come back for you...
Not quite sure what you are talking about here, many different classes have varying invisibility spells, some are single target others are group target. Plus you can buy player crafted invisibility totems. Also, i have no Idea what you would be doing in a group at the bottom of a dungeon with no healer in the group. All Healers can ressurect, and all healers can give non healers an item that allows the non healer to res the Healer. Therefore either everyone wipes and you all fight your way back down to shards, or someone lives and no one needs to start again as they get ressurected.

They wanted to solve the problems of camping, kiting, and powerlvling. Sure it sounds good on paper, but it didnt work on out actuality. Camping = Trival Loot code. For quest mobs or anything. One of the noobie dungeons give you a quest to learn the orc language. Items to help you learn drop out of chests. If you are too high of lvl, the chests don't drop. If you happen to out lvl the noobie dungeon without learning the orc language, you will never learn it at all. Kiting = Movement buffs such as "Sow" which increase your speed turn off during combat. They also removed spells like "snare." If they do have it, it lasts like 5 seconds making it even pointless to cast. Powerlvling = Locking encounters. Only the first person to engage a monster may hurt it, and while the encounter is locked, nobody outside the group can heal you. Leaving you with the mob to kill all by yourself.
Totally incorrect. a) Language primers are corpse drops not chest drops, so you can get them at any level. b) There are Orcs of varying levels all the way to 60. They all drop primers, this is the same for all Language quests. Locked encounters are now turned off by default although you can enable them if you want. To prevent powerlevelling xp gain caps at 6 levels above your level. Speed Buffs do turn off in combat to prevent you kititng mobs (Running round in circles for about an hour killing a mob that is way above your level because it can't catch you) however if you 'Yell' the encounter off you give up all claim to xp or loot, but you get your run speed back and you can get away.
In the end. All you do is melee mobs with any character you pick. And thats all you do... Then click your special moves buttons as soon as you can...
One of the great things about EQ2 is the variety of different abilities you have for different situations. WOW always felt like I had a choice of about 3 buttons to press. In EQ2 I have 4 hotbars for a total of 48 usable buttons, all of which I use regularly
All the challenge of EQ is gone. Mobs no longer aggro. Their radius is like 5 steps. If you run a hostile which did aggro on you through another group of monsters, they wont aggro on you. It always tells you when you attack exactly what is going to come with you.
Mobs Do Aggro. Mobs do Add. Yes when you click a mob it does highlight which others are linked too it and will come with it, I prefer this, at least you know what you are getting when you pull the mob rather than it being a random event that might kill you if too many come
That sums up the gameplay... It gets boring around lvl 15-25 depending on your attention level.

I'm still loving the gameplay at level 50, always too many things to do not enough time
The good parts, the graphics, and the crafting system. However, there is just so much wrong with the rest of the game its just not fun.
Click to expand...


I think it's a great game, always something to do, and far more complex and indepth than I found WOW. I Played Eq1 for a while in 2001 and I think this is a great sequel. Give it a try.

You can quite easily solo all the way to 60 if you want, the best way is to use the quest paths in the overland zones, so 10-50 looks like this

Antonica/Commonlands>Thundering Steppes/Nektulos Forest>Enchanted Lands/Zek Orcish Wastes>Feerott>Lavastorm/Everfrost
 
I can't see how anyone can say it is solo friendly.....unless the game has changed dramatically. I played it for about a month after release and the problem is that 80 to 90 percent of the mobs are tagged for groups. Yes you can find solo areas but it is way too much work. In EQ 1 you could solo with relative ease.....at least I could with my necro, shaman and rouge. Plenty of targets and it was similarly easy to find groups to go after the higher level dudes.

The big mistake the developers made was to enlist the help of the uber EQ 1 clans to alpha and beta the game. They ended up turning it into a tedious, group intensive bore-fest.....which is what EQ 1 degenerates to at its highest levels, for all except the highest level clans who have no life beyond EQ. Unfortunately that's how the game is from the first moment off the newbie island, which oddly may be the best part of the EQ 2 experience.
 
Greenwit said:
I can't see how anyone can say it is solo friendly.....unless the game has changed dramatically.
Click to expand...

It has changed greatly since you last played and if you are curious you should find you can log in for seven days free too on your concelled account.

Dano.
 
Greenwit said:
I can't see how anyone can say it is solo friendly.....unless the game has changed dramatically. I played it for about a month after release and the problem is that 80 to 90 percent of the mobs are tagged for groups. Yes you can find solo areas but it is way too much work. In EQ 1 you could solo with relative ease.....at least I could with my necro, shaman and rouge. Plenty of targets and it was similarly easy to find groups to go after the higher level dudes.

The big mistake the developers made was to enlist the help of the uber EQ 1 clans to alpha and beta the game. They ended up turning it into a tedious, group intensive bore-fest.....which is what EQ 1 degenerates to at its highest levels, for all except the highest level clans who have no life beyond EQ. Unfortunately that's how the game is from the first moment off the newbie island, which oddly may be the best part of the EQ 2 experience.
Click to expand...

yes, It has changed drastically. there was quite an uproar from the Elite guys when it happened, but basically the way it is now is something like this:

Overland Zones - 70-80% Solo mobs
Dungeon Zones - 70-80% Group mobs
 
I've been getting back into it. Leveled to 60 in wow and wasnt really having fun anymore. Was happy when I heard they had put pvp in. An MMO without pvp is like running on a treadmill. The graphics in the game are great, you need a really serious system for all the bells and whistles. Lots of people have stopped playing though, some are coming back since the revamps but it's really hard to find a grp on a small server. Sony needs to do some merges.
 
$$grh$$ said:
yes, It has changed drastically. there was quite an uproar from the Elite guys when it happened, but basically the way it is now is something like this:

Overland Zones - 70-80% Solo mobs
Dungeon Zones - 70-80% Group mobs
Click to expand...

That's good to hear.......sounds like an EQ1 type ratio which most seemed satisfied with. If it ain't broke don't fix it.
 
Lol, I know what you're talking about. I'm not a fan of mmo's due to monthly fees, but I did prefer playing WoW to EQ2. Just felt better, like everything is where it should be, and it all working in a harmony. EQ2 seemed sort of loose, or random (im talking very abstractly). Can't really explain it.
 
I play EQ2 now. I migrated from WoW as a 60th level Mage. I'm currently 49th level Wizard, and I have a few alts on the Mistmoore server (main alt being 15th level berserker, with 24th level Assassin, 22nd level Guardian on the back burner)

I absolutely love the game. I liked WoW, but I needed a change.
 
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