Alright...what's it all about? Gimme some info...Follow

I've been seeing people barking about EQII over the last few days/weeks on the other boards (mainly WoW)...and I have to admit, it's gotten me curious. I picked up two copies of EQII when it first came out, and I played for a little while and enjoyed it. Alas, the power that was (at the time) FFXI pulled me back in.

Coincidentally, today I get an email from my wife interested in reactivating either EQII or CoH...so I mentioned how I had been hearing all kinds of good buzz about EQII. So what's the deal??? I've read the sticky, and gone through a number of informative posts and sites to get as much info as I can...but I wanna know the nitty gritty stuff!

First...is it good enough to warrant purchasing the Expansion(s)? What are there, two expansions already? Am I going to regret not having them right away due to new content that makes it worth experiencing to make a final judgement call? And if so, are the expansions exclusive in content per each (meaning I would need two of each expansion for each account owned...one for me and one for my wife)?

Second...I see there is "customizable" methods for the User Interface. This makes me drool (that's half the fun in WoW!!!)! What type of script language does this use? And how modifiable is it really? I noticed that Ogaming has a similar site to wowinterface.com (eq2interface.com) and noticed a lot of familiar names from addon/interface developers. Curious...because I'm very much into the addon/interface modification portion of these games and was wondering if I could get a jump start on doing some of my own CUI's/Addons.

Lastly...has it really gotten that better? I mean, I've been reading and whatnot, and I remember what the game was like prior to leaving (very laggy, kinda group orientated, etc). I know games evolve so well when they're moving in the right direction, almost to the point where sometimes it's "wiser" to start playing about 4-6 months -after- release to give them time to tweak and work bugs out. I did like the game, loved the crafting system because of it's depth and "interactive" method. But here's the real question for this "last" part:

My wife and I have a baby due in August. I like WoW because I can casually play it (this is not a content driven question). With the updates in soloable content and whatnot in EQII, and the tweaking of the game overall...is it something that we could enjoy, as a couple playing together, without a large demand on time & stress of group play and long-term hardcore commitment?

We come from FFXI, so we know about hardcore end-game demand and time consumption with gameplay. Basically, can we hop on for an hour or two if time is a little short and still have fun and accomplish things? Of course on times we could play for hours on end we would...but I'm wondering more the "short game" and if it's worth it. Thanks in advance for replies, and I hope I'm not repeating something recently asked...I swear I read stickies & recent posts!!!

Pretty coherent post for a WoW player!!! Oh, wait... you didn't say you played WoW... just that you heard about EQ2 on a WoW forum... but doesn't that imply that WoW players can read??? :)

Anyway, to cherry pick a few items from your post...

You don't really need either of the expansions right away. The first, DoF (Desert of Flames) is for lvl 50-60 and the second, KoS (Kingdom of Sky) is for lvl 60-70. Even if you were going to grind through the levels, it would take you a month or so to get to 50 where you would be ready for DoF and you said you would be playing casually. Now, that being said, there are some nice features that get bolted on when you install the expansions, (like the AA system that comes with KoS), so you might want to plan on adding them as soon as you've decided to stay!

The UI was designed to be completely modifiable. SOE even offers potential UI developers a free toolkit. (not sure how you get one though) Anyway, http://www.eq2interface.com/ should be able to give you enough data about what can be done to get you interested.

Yeah I think so. In fact, I tend to adventure in duos a lot more often than in full groups. Almost any 2 characters can form an evffective duo although your "best" pair will be healer/tank or healer/dps. My personal favorite duo is warden/ranger -or- fury/ranger since the rangers pull well, have great dps and make decent tanks while the druids heal very well and have the best dps of any of the healing classes.

If you decide to return, welcome back and have fun!

Just to add onto what was said, as far as I know the ui mods use XML like WoW. I'm not sure what kind of tool OBD is talking about, but I do know that in my eq2 install folder I have a "UI Builder" zip file. I haven't payed for anything extra besides the 3 adventure packs (even though I can't access the newest one yet) and enabled a few extra downloads in the launcher like VO packs.

DSD and OBD pretty much hit the nail on the head though, and I really don't have anything to add. When you get on, if you are restarting with new chars try getting on either Najena (think that is the spelling) Blackburrow, or Nagafen (Freeport and again ? on spelling). The 1st two are (I believe for Naj) PvE servers and Nagafen is a PvP server. All 3 are have a fair amount of alla posters. So long as you aren't on a PvP server or Blackburrow, type /join blackburrow.asylum this is the alla chat channel that is set-up. If you're on blackburrow forgo the "blackburrow." part.

About the UI.

When they say the UI is modifiable thats exactly what they mean and no more.

You can change how the interface looks and how things already avaliable to you are displayed on the screen.

It's a much different from WoW's UI where Bliz said go ******* crazy and then put a few restrictions on it. To elaborate EQ2 will never see an enemy casting bar, CTraid, or decursive. However something like titan bar is pretty doable.

It's all DSD, she's been stirring up a storm over on the WOW forums!

Actually, the one that really caught my eye was Bodhi's post.

sigh

Actually if you are going to the store to buy EQ2, by the kingdom of sky expansion, it comes with the original game. Plus KoS starts the aceivement system at 20.

try hitting the 'L' key when in game. If a window with Achievment Points pops up then you just might have KoS. Also if you can use spires in Antonica/CL.

You can always click on "My Account" it will tell you what you have activated.

IE EQ2, DOF, KOS, adventure packs etc. Always a good solid way to tell.

Even without KoS installed you still see that splash screen and the achievment screen. The achievment screen is like a splash screen into your other skills and such.