This Game is Awesome.Follow

I can't express how much I was in the wrong.. I should have definitely picked up this game instead of wasting 3 months on WoW.
The classes are very well balanced. (some exceptions, Like ranger stands out due to its ranged dps so low) Heroic Opportunities > anything in WoW. The combat is way, way more dynamic. This game's Graphics are twice as good as WoW's,this is about as comparable the graphics are for the two games. EQ2 settings on low = WoW settings on high. More races and classes to choose from is a major Plus. EQ2 has just as many quests as WoW and wasnt even as close to completion as WoW was when it came out. This game is going to go alot farther than WoW's simple story line can take it. I'm Only level 15 at the moment and I can tell that the overall fun of combat is better than WoW.

Sorry for the rant but I cannot believe i wasted my breath on WoW.

Oh and P.S. non-craptasically crappy servers are a plus too, I like to walk into main cities and actually move around, Not wait 10 minutes for the server to catch up... oh yeah! one last thing, I love not crashing when searching the brokers.

Now this is coming from a player who totally thought EQ2 was not going to make it at all, And now that I have played the two games. It's clear which is the greener Pasture.

edit (WoW = World of Warcraft)

Edited, Sat Feb 12 18:53:35 2005 by Horothon

/agree this game is great...

Negs of EQII
Two problem with games:
-The restrictive loot system, should allow some pharming and lessen the trivials on equipping items (coming from an EQ1 to EQII perspective).
-Improve the hunting, allow for more freedom with solo (doing quests/hunting) Hunting also suxx with the xp share, that sucks alot....group with n00b(s) = lotsa xp loss (at least if you want to hunt the same day)

*ABOVE ALL = LACK OF PVP =(, definately need to put this in...

Pros:
Very nice balance on classes/races, fun from the beginning, and superb graphics.

Only other competition for EQII is EQI (and its upcoming Dragons of Norrath expansion).

Edited, Sat Feb 12 20:29:29 2005 by Ringkeeper

My view is diametrically opposed to this. What you quote as "Negs of EQ2" I regard as good points.

I have absolutely no wish for slackening of the current loot rules to allow "farming". What purpose does that serve except to have low level areas occupied by higher levels too incompetent to fight in their own zones.

Nor do I wish them to lower the level at which you can equip nice gear. This is just an invitation to twinking.

It sounds as if your strategy for playing EQ1 was to farm low level areas for cash then buy high level gear for your characters. Yes they have prevented that in EQ2 and in my opinion they did the right thing

And lack of PvP is definitely not a negative in my view.

As for your "Pros"

The "class balance", if that is what you want to call, it seems to me to be one of the biggest negatives of the game. The total lack of differentiation is of course balanced. How hard is it to balance 4 identical things? The classes really do lack a feeling of uniqueness, of bringing some quality to a group.

The landscape graphics are undeniably good. The characters are not. I am beginning to prefer EQ1 graphics where the landscape was nothing like as nice but the characters are better drawn.

As for lag EQ2 can have it's own wonderful surprises like totally locking up during combat and then everything happening at once, like rarely seeing casting bars during combat and having to figure out if the ability hit from whether the HO wheel is still up.

Put this together with buggy pathing, poor line of sight calculations, poor quest design (sure there are 1000's of quests - mostly the same quest with the names changed) and EQ2 has a lot of mending to do before it can hold it's head up.

I honestly like the group level balancing...

on the one hand though it does remove the absolute *NEED* for certain classes before you begin to get anywhere.. everyone has the potential to have a group, regardless of if you're in a guild or have a large circle of friends.. If you're just the casual player who happens to have 4 or 5 hours one day to play and feel like grouping, you have a shot.

however, don't think things are 100% level in all aspects.. in the grouping world things are very balanced, but not all classes solo equally. As much as I like my predator.. she can't even think to solo an orange con and live.... my Conjuror on the other hand.

add to that the game doesn't have PVP, and in PVP class imbalances that simply do not exist in PVE become a huge red flag. I suspect in PVP mages would dominate the field in most battles (particularly enchanters) due simply to binding you up... unloading a ton of dots or HO's.. then running while your HP slowly waste away chasing them.

Ye gods, the last thing this game needs is PvP. Why ruin a good thing?

I really don't agree with people that think all classes are the same. They are not.

Now, there is never that feeling that "oh man if we can't get x class, we can't play". And that's a GOOD THING (TM).

In EQ1, playing a cleric, you often felt needed. Wanted. Stalked. Because people desperately needed you, and at times demanded your presence. Not only that, if you wanted to, oh I don't know, sleep occassionally, it was very difficult to find a replacement at times, and you either had to break up the group or stay a lot longer than you ever intended. So then you'd start looking for a replacement up to an hour before you actually needed to leave, just so you wouldn't leave a group in the lurch, and that meant if you got lucky, you'd end up quitting early.

And if you weren't a cleric, you often ended up sitting around hoping to find one, because without one, at the high levels, you weren't going to do much of anything.

EQ2 has this fixed. Shaman or druid can easily heal, as well as or sometimes better than clerics. Personally I prefer the shaman wards over the slightly better cleric heals.

No class is indispensible. Even if you can't find a healer at all, you can still take on mobs, just maybe not as big ones and might need to take more breaks.

There's lag, just like any MMO, part of it is your system and connectivity, part of it is the internet, part of it is the servers. You have to take responsibility for your parts too, you can't blame everything on SOE.

I don't particularly care one way or the other about the loot system restrictions. I've always enjoyed twinking and PLing in other MMORPGs I've played, but I don't have to do it. Its just been a fun aspect for me, that isn't there in this game. /shrug

I liked starting a new char in EQ1, setting him/her up with a few grand of cash and some high end gear that I made myself or bought with my hard earned cash, and going to town on the mobs and watching that XP bar seriously cruise. That was fun for me, but its not a part of this game. So be it.

As I've said in several other threads on this topic, I'm sure WoW is a nice game. I don't feel any need to bash WOW in order to "feel better" about playing EQ2. I'm having fun and that's all that matters to me.