Hey everyone, I LOVED regular EQ. To me, it's the best game iv'e ever played....I had a level 65 Ranger and I was loaded with equipment. Anyways, I'm buying a new top of the line computer and I wanted to try EQ2.
Here are my concerns. Is the game basically like EQ in the sense of the amount of people etc. I loved how in EQ you would see tons and tons of people everywhere you went doing their own thing. Especially in the bazaar. HOW are the weapons and armor? Do they all look as cool as they did in EQ with glowing effects and really unique appearances? Basically , I wanna know if it's worth getting into or is the whole EQ thing kinda dying out? I'm pretty excited to start up again and develop a really powerful character. Any insight would be awesome. Thanks
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I'm not really the best qualified to answer your questions since i'm not a high level nor have I played EQ1... however, I would say how the armor looks depends a LOT on your settings. When I was playing on higher texture settings even some of the low level armor I had on was pretty detailed. When I turned them down some it became kind of "so-so" for level of detail. I've seen higher level people running around, and while I didn't see many particle effects around their armor, the armor looked good and the lack of any particles could have just been my low resolution settings for armor and such.
Quote:
Here are my concerns. Is the game basically like EQ in the sense of the amount of people etc. I loved how in EQ you would see tons and tons of people everywhere you went doing their own thing. Especially in the bazaar. HOW are the weapons and armor? Do they all look as cool as they did in EQ with glowing effects and really unique appearances? Basically , I wanna know if it's worth getting into or is the whole EQ thing kinda dying out? I'm pretty excited to start up again and develop a really powerful character. Any insight would be awesome. Thanks
1. Population: No, you won't see tons and tons of people in central locations because there is no central location except maybe the Desert of Flames dock. Considering the graphics are so heavy they didn't make a centeralized area for people to flock to. Get much more than 10-20 people on screen and it's like the Bazaar in EQL where it's a slide show.
2. Weapons and armor are pretty lame in my opinion. Not many have special effects on them (flaming swords, etc...). If you have a super top of the end PC then they look good (if you look really close they are very detailed but most of the time the detail is lost) but otherwise they are pretty plain. This game was really designed for computers years down the road. Even now 2 years after release no computer can run it at it's best graphics.
3. EQ2 is not very like EQL. It is EQ only in name really. BUT EQ2 is very fun for me at least. You will have to try it out and see if you have fun. If you do, great. If not then perhaps you might like Vanguard (Created by Brad McQuaid original designer of EQL).
Wuht wrote:
2. Weapons and armor are pretty lame in my opinion. Not many have special effects on them (flaming swords, etc...). If you have a super top of the end PC then they look good (if you look really close they are very detailed but most of the time the detail is lost) but otherwise they are pretty plain. This game was really designed for computers years down the road. Even now 2 years after release no computer can run it at it's best graphics.
Max Resolution
Medium
Worst/Lowest
So as you can see, they can be pretty detailed, but you do have to have a pretty high end machine. The graphics were made in such a way to be progressive over time, so eventually we may see more particle effects on armor/weapons. Like Wuht said, even though they are detailed, you often wont really be looking at them that much and you do have to look close.
Anyways, the graphics overall are quite a sight to see, especially if you have a semi-decent PC and can turn up the graphics to a semi-high level. I wouldn't be at all shocked if some super high end pc could be built right now to run the game on full out max... I know several people say they run on the highest defualt setting (which isn't everything at full max) with about 20FPS or more. Some people think is decent and some think is a total slideshow, but keep in mind that TV and video run at 24 (iirc) and that the human eye isn't able to see a difference above like 40 or something (i'm TOTALLY not sure on that number) FPS.
You would probably need something like:
At least 3.5-4.0GHZ CPU
3+ GIGS (PC3200 or higher and maybe DDR2) of ram (even having 2 gigs over 1 makes a HUGE difference and most people who said they play at the very high settings have 2gigs, so 3 would probably allow you to come damn close to the max and 4 would be best)
512MB (DDR2 or even 3 for memory type) Video Card (if not SLI of those for a total of 1gig VRAM and the extra power, however I hear the preformance boost for that isn't worth the price atm)
Physx Card (not sure if EQ2 is able to work with this though, but it is basically a PCI card that is designed to take the load off the cpu/gpu for particle rendering, so if it is...)
SATA HDD
I guess even that may not be able to pull on full out max, but it'll probably come damn close. Probably the biggest thing you can upgrade to get higher preformance is going to be your ram though... there are so many textures and such that having them loaded into ram for quicker access then the HDD will cut down on swapping on should increase preformance.
I wouldn't say EQ2 is a dazzling game as far a colors and particle effects, etc. are concerned. They went for a more realistic look. It's less colorful than EQ1 (and much less colorful than WoW).
It also depends on where you are. Freeport is just a dark and (IMHO) opressively drab, dull place. But it was designed that way. Qeynos is a better. When you get out to Maj'Dul (45+) you start seeing colorful environments.
The game was built with the future in mind, I'm sure they hope to have this thing still running after 6 years as EQ1 is now. Not only in terms of the graphics horepower you need, but it's been stated the they designed for a level cap of 200. You can't really have awesome looking pimped out toons at level 70 when there will eventually be much higher levels.
Armor can be kind of a mixed bag and people have been complaining about this since launch.
First off, I would say that EQ1 armor wasn't all that varied. With very few pieces as the exceptions a human cleric in plate armor (for example) looked the same from level 1 on up, unless they dyed their armor. A cleric in plate looked just like a warrior or bard in pate too. This may have changed with high level raids, I didn't do much of that. BTW, there is no armor dye in EQ2, and thank the gods for that. Players don't always the have best taste, and those hot pink and lime green ogre warriors were just a bit much.
Every piece of armor in EQ2 usually has a unique look - in style, markings and/or color. If you get a matched set of armor they can look great. But quest or raid dropped armor with the best stats for a given class will often look mismatched. Either way some of the color choices the designers went with are, shall we say, interesting. Some people hate them. They are adding matched sets of class specific armor with the next expansion that should look nice.
Obviously this is all very subjective.
Edited, Jun 12th 2006 at 12:06pm EST by Lydiaele
It also depends on where you are. Freeport is just a dark and (IMHO) opressively drab, dull place. But it was designed that way. Qeynos is a better. When you get out to Maj'Dul (45+) you start seeing colorful environments.
The game was built with the future in mind, I'm sure they hope to have this thing still running after 6 years as EQ1 is now. Not only in terms of the graphics horepower you need, but it's been stated the they designed for a level cap of 200. You can't really have awesome looking pimped out toons at level 70 when there will eventually be much higher levels.
Armor can be kind of a mixed bag and people have been complaining about this since launch.
First off, I would say that EQ1 armor wasn't all that varied. With very few pieces as the exceptions a human cleric in plate armor (for example) looked the same from level 1 on up, unless they dyed their armor. A cleric in plate looked just like a warrior or bard in pate too. This may have changed with high level raids, I didn't do much of that. BTW, there is no armor dye in EQ2, and thank the gods for that. Players don't always the have best taste, and those hot pink and lime green ogre warriors were just a bit much.
Every piece of armor in EQ2 usually has a unique look - in style, markings and/or color. If you get a matched set of armor they can look great. But quest or raid dropped armor with the best stats for a given class will often look mismatched. Either way some of the color choices the designers went with are, shall we say, interesting. Some people hate them. They are adding matched sets of class specific armor with the next expansion that should look nice.
Obviously this is all very subjective.
Edited, Jun 12th 2006 at 12:06pm EST by Lydiaele
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