Haven't seen much discussion about it post-release, what's up? Is everyone too busy having a good time? And the silence of the pro-WoW anti-EQ2 people sure does say alot, lol... :)
I have been so busy, that I've been unable to get it yet. I last played in beta the end of last month, and I was having a great time with it. Is everyone enjoying it? Should I be rushing to the shop to get it?
Personally so far I think it sucks. They hurried up the release with bugs galore and instability. Why AMD 64 users have so many issues is beyond me. I cannot play at all on my game box and I even switched to my P4 box and it is still laggy. I play on a 3.0/784 broadband connection so I know it is not network related. The techs of course ignore the posts from hundreds of users.
Gameplay is mediocre I think. I have spent 7 levels on the Island of Refuge and some of it is fun, but most is just hit attack and go. To me it seems like a glorified version of EQ that doesn't included Beastlords. On the contrast I have been playing WoW beta at the same time and it is much more fun and much more stable. Even in beta they are running things better than what should be a proven EQ2. I really regret buying this so far.
Keep in mind that the Isle of Refuge is the newbie training ground -- it's sort of the same as the semi-ingame EQ1 tutorial, or a level 1 EQ1 newbie fighting Orc Pawns outside Kelethin (even wizards get to melee at that stage of the game :P). You learn the interface and controls, see how simple quests work, experience rudimentary tradeskills, get some basic equipment, and get a few levels out of it all. If you want to really see the game, choose a city, leave the Isle, and explore Antonica or the Commonlands some. :)
I'm reserving judgement on it right now. I've only just got off the Isle and noticed the horrible fps dip in Qeynos, so I'm playing the side quest - Adjusting Your Graphics Settings. I've spent more time in the options menu than anywhere else today. It feels like I'm tradeskilling. :roll:
I am not liking it much atm. I am sick of the quest. THey pretty much force feed them down your throat. I dunno. Just let me go and kill ish!
Well I played beta for about 2 1/2 months. And I canceled my pre order about 2 weeks before release.
I have a high end system and the fps were really bad in some areas. I HATE the shared exp debt. Overwhelmed with quests,although I do like quests. Only having 4 characters per account sucks. I have about 5 other things I dont like about it, I will spare you those.
Overall just not what I was expecting.
I tried it cause my eq guild was doing nothing . Got to lvl 8 . Eq2 sucks imo .
Quote from: avsfanboiWell I played beta for about 2 1/2 months. And I canceled my pre order about 2 weeks before release.
I have a high end system and the fps were really bad in some areas. I HATE the shared exp debt. Overwhelmed with quests,although I do like quests. Only having 4 characters per account sucks. I have about 5 other things I dont like about it, I will spare you those.
Overall just not what I was expecting.
Personally I love the idea of the shared XP dept, so the lazy bunny clerics just can't sit and collect XP and let the tank die. We should have that in EQ1 so those who just let their party die and port out will think twice before screwing over the rest of their party!
Meh, I've seen nothing but negative replies, so I'll post a good one =D
Mind you, I have played EQ1 since pre-kunark and have a 68/301 toon, so I was kinda looking forward to the idea of a change of scenery-
First off, don't expect eq2 to be the same game, cause it is definitly NOT. Also, alot of people have issues with the game and I respect their veiws, but some of the things people don't like, could be good ideas to other poeple.
I personally like Exp debt.. you can NEVER loose a level, but there is a penelty for death.. and group exp debt is a nice touch cause it makes everyone be more careful.
Every zone in the game other than city zones can/will have more than one instance of it... so if one is too crowded for you, you can move and find the mobs you need not camped in another version of the zone, it's awesome imo.
Quests are worth doing!!!
I don't like how you are REQUIRED to do some quests before you are allowed to level.. I think any quest in any MMORPG should be optional, but they aren't too bad for the most part in this case, and you still get other nice item/cash rewards for them.
I like how melee get a new ability almost every level, and how Power or "mana" is just as important to them as it is to casters. The spell variaty is fairly lacking for the casters, since you don't get spell sets, but my main atm is a level 11 cleric, and I'm still enjoying how he is progressing.
The game is huge, zones are amazingly realistic... the commonlands/Antonica LOOK like they are big enough to truely be farmlands with roads that matter, rather than like EC/WC which didn't.
There's wildlife, and cows, and pet cats/dogs running around. There's a billion quests in every zone , I didn't like quests in eq1, never ever did them.. I had to FORCE myself to do the bst epic rofl, but I'm enjoying quests in eq2
Repairing armor sucks, but it's a penelty from death and only gets damaged when you die-- easy solution, don't die :p .
Everyone gets a gate-to-home spell at like level 6/7ish, and that's very very nice.
Meh, that's all I have to say for now I guess =)
I'm kinda curious on those playing atm though. How's the lag and stuff like that.
Reason why I'm asking is I was thinking of trying it but my one computer is way below the spec limit but other one has a 1.2ghz amd athlon, 512 sdram, ati 9700 vid card.
Also, I run off a cable modem through a router cause of the other computer hookup.
Just been reading how the game is intense on graphics and such and hoping my machine can handle it.
One thing I've noticed is how underhyped EQ2 has been. On release day the big thing was Halo 2. EQ2 quietly showed up on store shelves and just as quietly disapeared from store shelves, and yet some servers are reporting over a thousand players in the zone Antonica, spread over 4 or more instances during prime time.
I believe that WoW is way over hyped much in the same way as Star Wars Episode 1 was. I think that many people are setting themselves up for a big disapointment on release day.
Some people think eq2 is a dumbed down version of eq. I disagree. EQ2 is atleast an order of magnitude more complex but many of the diferences are subtle and hard to distinguish without careful observations. Take tradeskills. Each tradeskill has 3 reactive/buff effects. However, each tradeskill behaves differently. So how you use those reactives changes depending on which tradeskill you are working on.
QuoteReason why I'm asking is I was thinking of trying it but my one computer is way below the spec limit but other one has a 1.2ghz amd athlon, 512 sdram, ati 9700 vid card.
EQ2 is a cleaner design than EQ, thus it should actualy run better than EQ as long as you meet the minimum requirements.
Some higher end set ups have had lag problems because their graphics settings are set too high. This can easily be solved by lowering the graphics settings a bit.
Yeah, that's what I wanted to make sure. I was two boxing EQ sort of. (I had an account and wife had an account).
Other comp I know cant handle EQ2. It's just a amd k6-III 450 with 256sdram and the ati 9700 vid card.
But from what I read and look up. EQ2 is in a way kinda how I use to play pen and paper D&D back in the day. :)
Quote from: AneyaI believe that WoW is way over hyped much in the same way as Star Wars Episode 1 was. I think that many people are setting themselves up for a big disapointment on release day.
I've been playing the WoW open beta and I've been enjoying it very much. I didn't believe the hype of those who had played earlier betas, but now I see where they're coming from.
However, after reading many posts on different boards these last few days, of people who are enjoying EQ2 a lot, I might try it out. Most of my guildmates have already started playing, my girlfriend really wants to play it, and I am having trouble arguing against it when I haven't even tried it personally. :D
So I'll probably be getting it...I wanted to buy Metroid Prime 2 tonight but maybe I'll get EQ2 instead. I probably shouldn't buy both anyway...not with Christmas coming up.
/sigh...
Game on,
Make sure you don't have a GeForce 4 MX440 video card or you cant run EQ2.
Georey
Whaddya mean ya drank more than I did?
The folks playing WOW beta are too busy playing to reply (I am at work). As much as I loved my beastlord, I have had more fun playing a gnome rogue in the last few days than I have playing my beastlord for the last few months.
And then there is my troll hunter.....
who needs spells....I got a GUN!!!!
Strangely enough, I find the fact that tradeskilling is integral to developing your character really great -- in EQ I hated tradeskilling.
BUT -- the most fun is reading the boards on WOW and EQ2 and seeing all the same complaints that are on the EQ boards....and the FXII boards....and the DAoC boards......and all the fanbois and girlz defending them. :P
I keep coming back to check if they are gonna fix my beastlord enough to get me playing him again.....
That is the biggest drawback to me for EQ2...no Beastlords or the equivalent. In both WoW and Guild Wars they have a Beastlord/Ranger hybrid...especially in WoW I love it, a pet and Tracking and *good* ranged combat (especially once your pet gets Growl and can keep aggro off you)!
/sigh...I definitely see myself wanting to play WoW...but I am still going to try EQ2...
Game on,
I played both betas (well, WoW only the open since yesterday, lvl 17 hunter and lvl 7 warlock) and i enjoy both games. Since most of my friends move on to EQ2 i will play there as well, just hope im able to create an char on the server theyre all on because they banned already creation of alts due to the high playernumbers on that server. I will most probably buy WoW too and play it, but since im based in Europe i will have a lot more time to wait on it since Blizzard doesnt let us play on US servers and releases the game later over here.
QuoteI believe that WoW is way over hyped
There is a huge difference between WoW and Episode 1. The people shouting about WoW are people who have played it. That's like people seeing Episode 1 and going "Wow, that's the best movie I've ever seen" but they didn't. The hype was done by people who hadn't seen the movie or by people who had a vested interest in the movie's success.
I have no vested interest in WoW and I have to say that it is the best, most polished MMOG ever put on the market.
You're not seeing hype. You're seeing praise. There is a WORLD of difference between the two.
BTW, 10 days of WoW > the last year of EQ. Quests all work, content all works, very polished, con system just works. The game just rocks.
Finally i got my retail box of EQ2 and played it after wow beta shut down (yes, was there til the end and even dinged 20 on me and pet :)).
Yes, i still like it, its a very playable game which is fun for me, i just love my attacks, my tradeskilling (which i hated in EQ) and the way quests work, yet there is still work to do for SoE. Things like fish swimming a few yards above the water or the crappy level cap on isle of refuge is something they should adress (btw, artisan levels are not capped). Since leveling seems to be way slower and you have to do so many different things, like your adventurer levels, artisan levels, status points, guild status points, society status and so on, there is a good chance this game has content for a very long time, count in the nice higher level raids and guild raids and it can be quite some fun. It is not as solo friendly as WoW by far although you can solo, so there is quite a bit of "multiplayer" playing involved and i think thats pretty good.
I dont think it is better or worse than WoW, it is a different game and different players will play it probably. It wont be as successfull as WoW will be since WoW draws a lot new players into the MMORPG world, but it will have its playerbase nonetheless.
I'm haveing a really good time in EQ2. I started playing a Fighter/Brawler since I wanted to become a monk but I felt that melee was such a hassle to play because of targeting etc. So I switched to playing a druid and its really fun! I can be main healer with no problem at all. I have HoT's wich is really nice, hp buffs, stat buffs, ok nukes, debuffs and can even melee some! ;) Just target MT, nuke, heal, complete HO's and just reap in the exp :).
What I dont like is that since all fights are so short its impossible to relax for just one second if you are main healer. Almost as playing bard in EQ1.
Its a little to arcade like for my liking, but I guess it will take a while to get used to it. :)
And I think Ho's should be dumbed down even more since there are ALOT of people who have no idea how they are supposed to work. The ideal system would be that the person who triggers the HO is the only one who can break it until someone else advance it.
But I think I want to give EQ2 a 7 out of 10. Hehe, its fun to be considerd "high level" at 20 ;)
Hmm, I really think I should get back to work now :P
I was in beta and still playing EQ 2 now - The people complaining above have a right to their own point of view but most seem to be aimed at the HARDWARE issue
QuoteWhy AMD 64 users have so many issues is beyond me.
notice when you boot up it says played best on "intel 4". I personally beat the minimum specs by quite a bit but even so i am still having trouble running the game in more than high performance setting.
The game has been designed with the future in mind - some of EQ 1 selling points for expansions was "improved graphics" and "enhanced performance" because when EQ 1 came out it wasnt top of the range - it had to improve regularly to keep up with the technology.
EQ 2 however has set its self at the extreme end of the market - thus providing its longevity with people who cant upgrade each year. Ok you need to have a high end system now but in 3 years when you next upgrade, EQ 2 will not have to upgrade with you (or force you to keep up with the jones's) and you will still see an improvement in your play experience.
QuoteI've only just got off the Isle and noticed the horrible fps dip in Qeynos
Lag issues in Qeynos is expected on release - the Freeport and Qeynos Districts are NOT instanced and the zones are small - you can quite easily have 100 people cramed into each one. add to that Qeynos is more popular than Freeport on almost all servers. Antonica on Runnyeye was seeing as many as 8 instances (thats over 1000 people) while Freeport was capping at 4.
Once the populations have spread out more over the zones (artisans into their individual tradeskill instances and the higher level people have started exporing the higher level "access" zones the video lag will slowly fall.
QuoteI am sick of the quest. THey pretty much force feed them down your throat. I dunno. Just let me go and kill ish!
If you dont like quests why play a game called Ever
QUEST :)
seriously though quest wise you only need to do 4 of the 5 IoR quests, the Ambassador Quest, The citizenship quest, your "what class do you want to be" quest at level 9, and your "what subclass do you want to be" quest at level 19. once you done that you can kill your way to 50.
QuoteI HATE the shared exp debt
The only bad thing about shared xp debt is the fact you can get xp debt by being grouped by idiots.
I really cant understand why people get so stressed about xp debt - its not even close to the pain of actual xp loss (and possibly level loss) that exists in EQ 1.
XP debt disappears over time - you dont have to work it off
All xp debt does is half your xp gained. for example if you have 50% xp and 55% xp debt you will need to earn 10% xp to pay off your xp debt and bring your actual xp to 55%
XP debt looks huge when you are missing your shard - collecting your shard will reduce it by about 90%. on average at level 20 you gain about 2% xp debt from each party member death -a full party wipe will leave you with a little over 10%. At level 20 you can grind that xp debt in under an hour easy.
QuoteI tried it cause my eq guild was doing nothing . Got to lvl 8 . Eq2 sucks imo .
level 8 is nothing in EQ 2 - i have played 4 beta toons to 15 to test out each class archtype. my main now is level 20 and with each new level and new ability i see more and more diversity and uniqueness in my class to others. Up to Level 6 the game is still teaching you how to play (you dont learn about grouping until level 5! Then as you progress to level 7 you are being introduced to your choice of alignment.
Once you reach level 10 and have completed your class quest you get much more freedom to do what the hell you like.
Overall i love EQ 2 because to me its like playing Morrowind online - i stopped playing EQ 1 for a while to play morrowind because i really enjoyed the sense of achievement i got from completing the quests and advancing the storyline.
EQ 2 fills the window that alot of people miss in EQ 1 - just look at the Hype and requests EQ 1 has had with Epics, Progressive quests (coldain ring and shawl) and more recently tasks. These are the biggest personal memories i will ever have from EQ 1.
I will refrain from commenting on anythng to do with WoW - ive not played it but i have followed the website - It appears to be taking a different direction to EQ 2 so i believe BOTH will do well. As to wether EQ2 or WoW is for you, only you can decide.
A quick word of the shared xp death system.
About a week ago I was lfg in Antonica. I got an invite from a group that was on the other side of the zone. Alt+W to get a waypoint up and I headed off towards them.
In the time it took for me to get to them (about 7 or 8 mins) various members of the group had died around 6 or 7 times. Could be more, I actually lost count. By the time I got to them, the bastards had all disbanded, except for the cleric who had 2 shards being camped by 4 angry gnolls. So, I had accumulated a boat load of shared xp death from a group I didn't even meet. I shoud have just disbanded at the first sign of trouble, but I'm not the type to bail like that. Maybe I will be from now on?
The next day I logged on and soloed my xp death off. It took me two hours.
The shared xp death system is there to ensure players are careful and mindful of their actions. LOL, everyone knows that's simply a crock. Nobody is any more or any less careful with it. All the shared xp death system does is promote distrust and bad feeling. Why get a pickup group or group with people you don't know? What if they screw up and you're left with 2 hours of debt?
Get it gone, it has no place in a social setting like EQ2 and it simply doesn't do what it's intended to do.
Ok, rant over. That's the only thing I find fault with in EQ2. That, and the lack of Beastlords of course. :wink: Other than a few niggling bugs, right now my 18 Crusader is having a ball and fast becoming one powerful hate holding champion of justice. I can't wait till I get to Halas..
So far I am enjoying myself. Can only play weekends which doesnt bother me too much.
Working on my Class quest and some others at the moment which is fun. It takes time on some but it doesnt bother me.
I still need to up the memory on my system but I am working pretty good on minimum specs at the moment.
My scout should ding 10 this weekend and become a predator then I need to work on my Kerran fighter(monk eventually).
So far I have done all my exploring in qeynos. Maybe eventually I'll make a greedy character and run around freeport for a bit later on :twisted:
But since I dont feel the pressure of level level level (one reason why I stopped playing EQL) I can take my sweet ole' time and enjoy a game for once.
Quote from: LorathirSo, I had accumulated a boat load of shared xp death from a group I didn't even meet.
Yeah, they really need to make it so that you will get dept if your in a certain radius from the person who died. Just like exp is done, if I cant get rewarded I should not get penalized either imo.