The ramblings of a contented soul.Follow

I imagine this subject has been beaten to death and belongs firmly in the "beating a dead horse" folder, filed and never to resurface.

However i need for the peace of my own mind to write a summery of my impressions from my first full week of EQ2 after 3 1/2 years of EQ1.

where to start....

On a general level i am more than satisfied with the product, many of my preconseptions and fears have proved unfounded and the game seems to be pretty good.

The speed of leveling seems to be directly tied to the number of quests you are willing to partake in, often i will group for an hour to do a quest and get more XP from the completion of the quest than from the hours worth of grinding.

As to wether this is a good thing i am unsure, i am too low at present to judge if grinding is a usefull tool or if chain questing is the way to go. I think it wil be good but i do miss setting up at a good camp with some risk and using skillful play to break and hold it.

The subclass quests are annoying at best and i would rather not have to spend 3 hours in the laggiest zone in the game trying to find an unlisted char in an unlisted shop.

On a positive note there is only 2 too do but why not have them in commonlands/Antomonica instead of the hugly laggy city zones?

The tradeskill system is both fantastic and fataly flawed, i hate the fact that you are restricted to 1 tradeskill type while requireing items from 3 others to complete your recipies.

The forageing is great and collections an added bit of fun, but i already see people complaining about people harvesting thier nodes. Sheer greed on the part of both parties, live and let live i feel.

H.O's are well worth the hastle of working out but i find that groups at my low level lack the skill to make the most of it.

The Apprentice/adept idea i do not like, give me the spell and let me play, having to constantly upgrade <often at high cost because of the tradeskill factor that i cannot do even if i wanted to if say i had a smith not a scholar>

reply, disreguard, flame i don't mind, i have thick skin and i feel better already.