Actually, its up to your group leader. I was kind of annoyed by this at first.
By default, a group is set to free for all, where whoever clicks it grabs it.
If the group leader right clicks the group menu, and selects group options, they can turn the system to lotting. Then, anytime an item is gotten, a window will pop up asking you if you want to lot on it or not.
I think theres a 3rd option too, similar to FFXI's quartermaster, but I haven't played with that yet.
IMHO, lotting is the only way to go.
Also, as someone who played FFXI for a year also, here are some of the main things that are making me decide to cancel my FFXI and play EQ2 now:
1. Lots of quests. Most I've come across so far are doable in a short period of time. So there are more quests, taking less time, with better rewards than FFXI. No more doing the Rank 4 mission for a few thousand gil.
2. Crafting won't break you at lower levels. You will spend some money on it, and maybe lose a little while you're learning it, but it's not the money pit it was in FFXI.
3. Zones are big, but not huge empty areas who's only reason for existance is to make you walk forever (in other words, I'm not missing La Theine, Konschtat, etc).
4. Trivial Loot System. You won't have to compete for mobs in the newbie zones with 20 high level players AOE farming.
5. New instances of zones open up when too many people are in the zone. Kinda hard to explain. Think of it as if Crawlers nest had a 50 person cap. Once about 45 people were in there, when you zone in, it would offer you a choice to go to crawlers nest or crawlers nest 2. Same zone, just people spread out among instances to avoid overcrowding and lag.
6. Bigger variety in gear. You can see 2 level 7 scouts, and they don't look identical. There are more choices than Brass at 1, Leather at 7, etc..
7. Although you will want to group for stuff, I've been playing since Monday mostly solo. All of the quests I found in the city suburb zones are soloable at the level you get them.
I guess the list could go on. I was an FFXI player skeptical of EQ2, but curious because of all the problems it has. The broken economy, the huge time sink of doing anything, and the paltry rewards if you actually accomplish it. I realize getting 98 copper for completing a quest in EQ2 is considered little money, but its much better than alot of the rewards in FFXI.
Edited, Fri Nov 12 11:38:43 2004 by FFDinky