Pro/Con Question regarding EQ2Follow

I wondered the same thing. I played WoW and FFXI, soon starting EQ2. I scanned all the FFXI vs. EQ2 threads before buying the game. There's way too many for me to paste the links lol.

Since i didn't play yet, i could be wrong but:

Basically, it's a lot easier to solo and be in small group instead of a regular FFXI party of 6 members. There's not really any basic party formation (tank, healer, DD, etc), anything seems to work from the threads i read.

It looks easier to find partners for quests than in FFXI where everybody just get rank 5, lvl up to 70 and start the missions.

I THINK (it's a feeling. i didn't read anything about it) that the average population of EQ2 is a lot older and more mature than FFXI.

I've seen no complains about the economy so it's probably fine. Or maybe the more mature players complain a lot less.

It's late, i'm tired and can't think of anything else currently. And what i wrote might be wrong, but think it's mostly right.

I'll throw in my 2 cents here (First post on these forums, long time lurker)...

I played FFXI for over a year, and WoW for about 2 months.. also tried CoH & Guild Wars during that time too...

IMHO, EQ2 is the best thing going. I wasn't too thrilled by it at launch, played for my free month and went back to FFXI.

I think EQ2, especially after the last combat revamp, has the perfect balance of what I'm looking for. It's challenging, so rewards feel like rewards (unlike WoW), but the challenge isn't can you sit in front of your computer for 18 hours while you put together the perfect group, etc in FFXI.

As for your major reasons:

FFXI:
Pros:
-Community - had the best community of any MMO I've ever played. I actually went back to FFXI after quiting awhile because I missed this
-Equipment - smaller selection than EQ2, but more variety on appearence
-Storyline - Missions had a great storyline (but, the con of that below)
Subclass system/changing jobs - Although it was a major timesink, it did help populate all levels with people to group with it.

Cons:
-Painful time sinks
-very long quests for minimal rewards
-technical ineptitude of network admins
-NO community involvement from Square itself
-basically felt like a second job level 40+
-10% xp loss for death (I actually quit my last time when I lost 20,000 xp in one week)
-You spend 8 hours doing a mission to get a piece of the storyline, which was great - and then you grind for 2-4 weeks on crabs, pugils, spiders, whatever for the next piece. By then, you've forgotten the previous piece

EQ2:
Pros:
-Can log in for an hour and still feel like I accomplished something (even if its a little something - in FFXI I couldn't even get to a fishing hole in an hour most of the time)
-Timesinks are least painful I've seen in an MMO
-Great community involvement via official forums from Sony
-Better variety in gear than FFXI, although appearences could use more variety
-Faster, more engaging combat than FFXI
-It's everQUEST - You can get quite a few levels by just doing quests. It really just hides the grind. But, at least you feel like you are doing something other than sitting in a corner slapping crabs for 8 hours.

Cons:
Community: I know Sony was hoping that DoF was going to boost population, I haven't seen that so far. Seems about the same. They really need to bit the bullet and consolidate some servers. Also, I'm not sure if it's because of the design of the game or not, but not nearly as much conversation goes on in EQ2 as FFXI had.

Some Cons and Pros for FFXI is a little different to me but i still play FFXI. I have a level 73 BLM on Valefor server which I haven't played since starting EQ2. EQ2 is definitely a break from the grind sessions and the hard time for me anyways of gathering money to advance further.

FFXI
73 BLM
52 WHM
32 SMN
30 RDM
27 BST
and the rest Range from lvl 1-21 I been playing FFXI since PS2 launch so really haven't use a computer much except to look up items or quest.

EQ2
12 Sorcerer/ 13 Scholar

Not impressive but I have been having fun. Some of the changes from the update are really bad while others I have to halfway agree are good. I think Your level vs. Monster is much better portrayed in FFXI then it is in EQ2 especially after the revamp. Although they did make the Heroic (Notorious monsters in FFXI) more challenging which they should be. Although I have to say Leaping lizzie never really was a challenge except in order to get her before someone else did. Quest wise you will have as much fun as you did in FFXI and if you crafted in FFXI then you will find this crafting system very unique and a lot more fun and rewarding then in FFXI where you had to farm for crystals so long or buy so many it wasn't worth it.

WoW didn't impress me and wasn't challenging enough to me to do that. EQ2 has plenty of challenges and is very similar to FFXI and will give you a good alternative home to FFXI or a good permenant home to FFXI if you are planning on quitting FFXI which I do not. I just need a break from the grind once and awhile.