So anyway, I tried the EQ2 island demo...Follow

Ooh boy, that's not going to be easy :)

But I'll give it a try, played EQ II for about 4 months and WoW for about 2 months now.

Benefits of EQ II:

-Good graphics, even if the game is quite hard on a computer, with a fair computer you can get graphics that are better than WoW's. This is ofcourse personal opinion, the cartoony looks of WoW are nice too, but the spell effects, the surroundings, the mobs tend to look better in EQ II. (1 gig of ram is quite necessary though)

-Good quest system. A quest journal of 50, not 20, with good description of what to do, the npc's involved and the mobs to get or the npc's needed to talk to. Not that different from wow's though, just the 50 instead of the 20. (50 might seem like a lot, but after a while, it's filled too)

-Good and varied quests. This is only up to lvl 27 though (then I stopped with EQ II), and it's about the same with WoW. Some quests are repeated (Wow has its ghoulash quests, EQ II has the exploration quests and collection quests, ...), some are useless, some are excellent, some are next to impossible. Some bad quests lead to a lot better one, so it is often hard to say that a quest is useless. An npc with a quest will talk to you, when you have the right lvl ofcourse, not as handy perhaps as an exclamation mark, but it's fun.

-Death system. Now this is something quite different than WoW. If you die in EQ II, you face two consequences: you have a shard ingame and your armour gets damaged. The damage can be repaired with a mender (and this should not be put off, the cost can get very high) and also preferably before the armour and weapon gets down to 0%. The shard can be found ingame and be absorbed back. However, you are not forced to do this, if you want, you can leave it there and deal with the stat penalty for 3 days (after 3 days the shard is automatically absorbed), this penalty can be quite irritating though.

When you die, you get an XP debt, which is reduced when you absorb the shard. You do not loose XP, it just gets harder to get new xp for a bit.

WoW's death system is easier, but a bit too easy. I still prefer EQ I's system: corpse run, tough but a load of fun most of the times. (and yes, I have experienced the disadvantages too, having to get my corpse at lvl 15 out of the middle of a lvl 40 zone, lol)

-Good interface, good chat system, voice overs are very good (and can be turned off too, which is nice, you only listen to an npc once, not hearing him repeat himself every time you go past him), almost no bugs (wow can get buggy, I often experience sound bugs, mining bugs, spell bugs).


Benefits of WoW:

-Soloing: a lot easier and faster. EQ II does allow soloing, but after lvl 25 it gets quite hard. A lot of quests require grouping, even the so called easy ones. And mobs give more xp in WoW than in EQ II, or they just go down easier.

Which I feel is a major difference between the two games: group mobs and solo mobs in EQ II to the WoW system that only has elite mobs and the rest.

At a higher lvl, the solo mobs are getting scarce, most quests involve group mobs and can thereby no longer be done solo, or you have to wait untill you get to a lvl that you can solo a group mob, but then the quest will not give the good reward xp-wise. And even this is not always possible, I've fought with my 27 paladin against lvl 20 group mobs and had to run, doesn't happen much but most group mobs can only be soloed when you are about 4 to 5 lvls higher. And then the xp is minimal or nothing.

-Exploration: WoW is one massive zone, you run from one point to another with no need for any access quest. Sure, most zones will get you killed, but it is fun to just be able to run around. EQ II is very lineair in this regard, you start on the island. At lvl 6 (with 220% xp, advisable) you go to the city. You do the citizens quest and then you hit the small beginners areas around the city. At lvl 13 you can fight in Antonica for about 7 levels. And then it's Thundering Steppes. It's just not open enough. You need to do access quests for about 5 zones I know of, which might not seem much but the access quest system never did feel right to me.

-Spells: I like to play a Paladin myself, I blame Weis&Hickman myself but anyway, I played one in EQ I, II and WoW so far. The EQ I version is so far the best: specific spells and weaponry and armour. The paladin in WoW is also quite good, it has a specific spell range that seems right for a paladin. Not so in EQ II, it seems to be very limited. Although the system in WoW can get confusing with all the aura's, blessings and such, it is quite elaborate.

-Buffing: plenty of buffing possible outside a group (level limited, but that's understandable), no buffing outside a group at all in EQ II. In wow you can help others during a tough fight, which I like to do and do often. In EQ II you can forget all about this, no aiding anyone when they fight. All fights are locked there.

EQ II is a good game, it is just not much fun after a while, at least for me. There are plenty of people who do like it, even though perhaps not as many as with WoW. I might even return to that game myself, after a few expansions. When the content is extended, the fun of it might largen too.

Oh yeah, the daily downtime of EQ II is still going on I believe? Advantage is ofcourse, it is in the middle of the night for the US (which wasn't an advantage for me, lol) and you always know it is going to happen.

Actually right now I'm playing WoW and honestly, I'm getting bored with the game.

Furthur comparison would be nice :)

I play both games a lot and I like both games for different reasons. I can probably give you some unbiased information.

Combat is a slower paced than in WoW, but not a slow as EQ1. I think it's a good balance. WoW gets so crazy in groups sometimes that you don't have time to do anything before the mob is dead. Also in WoW if you bite off more than you can chew, or get pops, often you can't do much but take the death. I think that's why WoW's death penalty is so light. Combat in EQ2 is also more predictable. You can pretty much always tell going in whether or not you're going to win, that can get a little dull. I think I detect signs they've been working on that recently.

Exp. and leveling is also slower. You can probably get to level 10 in a day in WoW, not so here. In my 20's with bonus experience almost always on it takes me 3 or 4 4-hour sessions to get a level, which is 3 or 4 times as long as it took in WoW.

Overall I think the quests in WoW are better, more varied and easier to load up on. EQ2 needs to work on that for people in their 20's.

I'm not the best person to ask since I solo a lot, but I don't think there is an adventuring class that's overpopulated. There's also no "must have" class for groups and no class that never gets groups.

Tradeskilling is much deeper. If you liked it in any other game I think you'll like it in EQ2. Making something is almost like combat in EQ2, you have to react, cast spells and have the right materials to get the best results. I've gotten up to almost 200 leatherworking in WoW, and since everything is a no-fail combine it's just a matter of time or money to get the materials you need to make items that get you skillups. There are so many people doing trades in WoW that there's no player market for what you make, seems most people do it to make stuff for themselves. Most classes in EQ2 are able to make some money tradeskilling. With nerfs and patch loving the "best tradeskill to make money" is a moving target, so you might as well do something that interests you.

I like playing healers myself. You don't need to worry about being able to solo. My 24 Templar (cleric) got there mostly soloing. I can solo efficiently on regular mobs orange or sometimes more, the new solo mobs and I can kill green^^ group mobs easily (think elites) sometimes blue ones, if they can't heal or ward themselves. I can usually take an add or two if they're not group mobs. I rely on reactive self-heals, nukes and debuffs to win, always using heroic opportunities. If I run out of power it takes forever to melee them down. Regular mobs my level or below can't make a dent in my HP. Make sure you have good food and drink for regen and there will be very little downtime.

I also think I get pretty good loot. In a night of soloing I was able to get 3 nice drops and a lot of vendor fodder for some pretty nice change. Nothing in EQ2 drops money, just things you can sell for money. The things you fight solo don't generally drop as much good stuff, but then you aren't sharing it with 5 other people either.

You have to keep all your skills up. Don't stand back and heal from a distance, get in the melee. Nothing makes you better at taking hits than taking hits, so soloing will benefit you a lot that way. We get to wear plate armor at level 20 so we can take a lot of punishment.

Reactive heals are the greatest thing to happen to healers ever. Much better than HoT's. You cast it on your tank and they get healed whenever they get hit. If you cast the group version and then the single version on the tank, it covers a lot of damage, and you have breathing room if someone else in the group gets aggro.