Official EQ2 Q&A Thread

[schild]

Any questions you want answered about EQ2, go ahead and ask me. As a member of press, I am allowed to talk about anything that occurred from level 20 and down. That's not to say they are anywhere near finishing the content for level 20 and down - but I won't sugarcoat things in light of that. Lay them on me. I'll try to be as in-depth as possible.

P.S. I thought about going through all the EQ2 threads and post official responses - but SO not worth the time.

Edit: Oh, and the other people in the beta (which would be Joe, Haemish, Alluvian, Signe, and a few others) aren't allowed to answer questions (or so it would seem). So unless they send me a PM, all of your answers come from me. So consider me the source for your [mis]information.

[WayAbvPar]

Question one- Where is my beta invite, you bastard??? =P



Question two- Is there anything worth playing for someone who completely burned out on EQ/DAOC/ any game with a long ass treadmill that requires grouping/uberguild membership to see the end game?

[schild]

Question one- Where is my beta invite, you bastard??? =P

I don't know. Those 3 questions marks make me afraid.

Question two- Is there anything worth playing for someone who completely burned out on EQ/DAOC/ any game with a long ass treadmill that requires grouping/uberguild membership to see the end game?

Yes. The low level game is fantastically polished. Take that with a grain of salt but newbie island is one of the most fleshed out experiences I've ever had in any game (single or multi). They did a really fucking fantastic job.

Yes, you can level all the way up by just questing. I think my level 14 toon has done over 100 quests. I'm not exaggerating. While there weren't many rewards in place while I was heavily playing, there is just an overwhelming amount of content. And by content I mean full on stories with characters who give out quests for a reason, with fantastic voice acting.

Guilds...I'll talk about them in my writeup. At this point it looks as though an uberguild can fucking dominate due to the nuances of the resource gathering system, but that might change. Hell, it needs to change. Soon.

[Rasix]

1. Soloing. Have you soloed, is it possible, is it non-lame? How's the advancement rate for the soloer? I'd ask more in depth about this, but I'm afraid I'd venture too far into NDA waters.

2.  This may be out of bounds, but, how is you computer handling it? Please post some specs for a reference point. (I know this is possible NDA fodder)

3.  Is this a game you can play at the lower levels in one hour chunks?

4.  Are the classes, while still basic, interesting to play until 20 (when you make your final choice)?  Is life as a base class boring?

5.  What's the variety of quests like? Is it typically fedex, gathering, or kill "x of y" type? Are they repeatable?

[Nyght]

I wonder if you could talk a bit about solo vs. group play.

Are certain classes better solo? If so which.

Is group experiance way faster then solo or just a bit of an advantage?

Are the tools there for easy pickup groups?

Thanks

[schild]

Real fast, from everything level 1-20, I can break the NDA all I want.

1. Soloing. Have you soloed, is it possible, is it non-lame? How's the advancement rate for the soloer?

Right after I stopped playing constantly (I refuse to burn out on betas - decided this...after City of Heroes), they upped the amount of exp for soloers drastically. This is good, and from the sound of one of my friend's experiences, its pretty good. As far as fun goes - I prefer grouping with people I know. But, that's just me. The solo experience is better than most other games I've played.

2. How is you computer handling it?

Up until the last patch, phenomenally. I run a 2.8ghz P4 with a gig of DDR33 and a GeforceFX 5200 Ultra.

3. Is this a game you can play at the lower levels in one hour chunks?

Yes.

4. Are the classes, while still basic, interesting to play until 20 (when you make your final choice)? Is life as a base class boring?

Life as a base class doesn't last long. They are working on level 10-20 subclasses now. Or...at least I hope they are.

5. What's the variety of quests like? Is it typically fedex, gathering, or kill "x of y" type? Are they repeatable?

Some are repeatable, some aren't. The amazing thing about the quest system is where you will find them. The first time I was in game, I killed a skeleton, it dropped a treasure map. I went to the location on the map, interacted with the object, and a ghost popped out I had to kill (needs grouping). It's just a very clever system and you'll find quests in the oddest of places (not odd, just unexpected given past MMORPGs). I did 18 quests on Newbie Island, I thought I'd done them all. Apparently there about about 21 quests. It took me 7 hours to complete newbie island the first time. That's level 1-6, not because I couldn't get to level 6, but because I truly wanted to experience everything. This game sucks you in, with an opening like Morrowind. VERY MUCH LIKE MORROWIND.

[schild]

Are certain classes better solo? If so which.

Every class here has it's advantages. Since there aren't that many classes and they widely vary at the most base of concept, they all interact well in battle. A group of 1 mage, 1 priest, 1 warrior, and 1 scout really can tear some shit up. With a max of 6 people on a group (beside raid groups), you have room to fudge. Maybe 2 priests and 2 warriors. I would always recommend having at least 1 toon from each class in a group.

Is group experiance way faster then solo or just a bit of an advantage?

After the exp bump, it apparently is roughly even in terms of what you'd expect. Of course grouping is faster due to downtime, but not because of exp.

Are the tools there for easy pickup groups?

Yes, an LFG tag that is seen from /who and visibly that disappears when you get a group. Note: The amount of smacktards in EQ2 is just as horrible as WoW. It's just not as pervasive because it's easy to get distracted by how beautiful the world is - it truly puts Blizzard to shame. All those worries about the models looking like plastic were unfounded and those who made the assumption will feel like an asshat when the game is run on a decent rig.

[Fargull]

1)  How fast paced was the combat?  Scale say (eq1 to COH)
1(EQ)   3(DAOC/SWG)  6(WOW/Shadowbane)  10(COH)

Sometimes 8, sometimes 6, sometimes 1. Really depends on the class and situation. I can think of a time in some caves where it was as fast paced as CoH though. I'd say on average between 7 and 9.

2)  How varied were the spells from 1-20, say as a mage vs cleric?

Very. And despite what some people have said, the skill gain here is much faster than WoW.

3)  Do the cities feel alive, which is something in my limited WOW time I noticed as a positive.

Yes. Also, almost every person in the city has quests - I'm not kidding.

[schild]

Holy shit. I just hit edit instead of quote next to your post. Sorry about that. Sigh. This is going to be a long day.

[Xilren's Twin]

Holy shit. I just hit edit instead of quote next to your post. Sorry about that. Sigh. This is going to be a long day.

Now it looks playing EQ2 allows you to read minds!  Amazing!

Serious question: character power compared to gameworld.  Is your toons effectiveness solely determined by level and gear, or do skill choices make a difference?  Can a single character fight multiple mobs of near equivalent level?  As you increase in level does your effectiveness vs same level mobs go up, down stay the same?  Speaking of gear, what are we talking, camping specific mobs to certain items in a lotto thon, random drops from anything, only drop raw materials: Howz da phat lewt dude?  Hows the downtime?

Basically, how is the gameplay different from EQ1.

Xilren

[MrHat]

What's the mention on the beta boards re: any pvp of any function?  Answer as it pertains to L1-20.

Edit to make it relevant.

[Ardent]

From the official FAQ:

Will there be player-versus-player (PvP) combat?

Just as the original EverQuest was geared towards PvE (player vs. environment), EverQuest II has a similar focus. There are currently no plans for player vs. player combat in EverQuest II.

[Sky]

How has downtime been addressed? I made the mistake of keeping track of up/downtime on my lvl 30 necro, it was 1 minute of uptime for every 4 minutes of downtime.

Is feign death in or what? Necro/sk/monk? I've read that they want to remove feign pulling, but I find FD a required skill in EQ.

You get death penalties if you live but your whole group dies? Wassupwitdat?

[Fargull]

That is damn funny Schild.

Another question, are humans bat fucking blind at night still?

[Polysorbate80]

You get death penalties if you live but your whole group dies? Wassupwitdat?

Not necessarily a bad thing.  Some classes in EQ end up eating deaths a lot more than others (tanks when the brown stuff hits the rotary unit, shamans on failed slows, etc).  With a 96% res, it's not a huge deal, but it does add up--and with a lower res or no res, it adds up much quicker.

Might as well share the pain.  Just because someone took one for the team doesn't mean they should get stuck with _all_ of it.

[Sky]

Yeah, right. Play with many pickup groups? No thanks, I'll take my feign death for the 'get out of idiocy free', thanks. It's not like mmogs aren't punitive enough about your own actions, without pinning /other/ people's fuckups on you.

[Polysorbate80]

When I group at all, it's *always* with a pick-up group. Some of them suck, but most are at least adequate.  

Anyhoo, that's neither here nor there.  Of the three classes I play the most post-60, my cleric only dies on a wipe, and my ranger dies only slightly more often than the cleric ("Ranger Down!" jokes be damned), while the shaman can be expected to die at *least* once a night, no matter how good the group is.  It's just the nature of the class; I usually have to pull a ton of aggro and I pull it early.  

Think of group death penalties as promoting teamwork.  If someone dies, then really the whole team's fucked up somewhere, so why should just one person pay for it?  Share the blame.  (This excludes the possibility that the person is just a complete incompetent or deliberately dying as some sort of suicidal grief measure; in which case the team's potential fuckup is not ditching the loser as quickly as possible to keep it from happening again...)  

Or even if it was nobody's fault and shit just happened, it's not fair that a portion of the community continously suffer the burden of an inflated death count while the others 'get out of jail free.'  Not everyone plays a necro, y'know...

[Margalis]

IIRC the downtime is handled by making characters heal a fixed percentage of their HP as they rest, so you heal at the same rate at level 1 as you do at level 50. (As opposed to say FFXI, where to get 10x the HP back you have to rest 9x as long)

I think, again IIRC from a while ago.

[Sky]

Or even if it was nobody's fault and shit just happened, it's not fair that a portion of the community continously suffer the burden of an inflated death count while the others 'get out of jail free.' Not everyone plays a necro, y'know.

Right, which is why it might be out of the game for necros. I expect that kind of move from McQuaid, but I thought the new dev team was less sadistic. I could be wrong.

And technically I consider it a 'get out of your crappy game mechanics free most of the time' card. Wouldn't play EQ without it. I originally played a wizard on release, sold it and started a necro. My two alts were a monk and a SK.

With a 96% res, it's not a huge deal, but it does add up--and with a lower res or no res, it adds up much quicker.

Because there's always a cleric around to give you a 'good' res, right? Why should someone else have to clean up a crappy game mechanic for 'interdependency'. Bah.

Really, let's not walk down this road, it's too easy to slag on EQ for its' crappy game mechanics. Sorry I got started.

[schild]

Too much shit to respond to. Let's try to keep the chatter in the thread to a minimum. I'm just trying to ANSWER questions with minimal noise. I won't be doing much speculating. One of the things I will address real quick is pvp.

There is very good reason to believe PVP will be added to the game. They already have an arena for it that has a unique NPC outside of it (a unique guard) that says that the arena is closed.

They wouldn't have gone through that trouble if they weren't going to have pvp.

Hmmm, I'll answer some other easy ones.

No humans are not blind but there's no reason to play a human. Just play a half-elf that looks human. You're a human in real life, playing a human in a video game isn't escapism; it's silly. I've always been a fan of not allowing humans in RPGs.

There doesn't seem to be a feign death. Scouts can de-aggro though. I use it to silently grief teammates who get on my nerves.

The group debt thing is dumb as shit and needs to be removed. There's no other way to slice that. If you are fighting grouped monsters and someone in your group dies - there's no chance you'll live. Well, there's a chance but they need to do a lot of fixing for the aggro code. Right now a monster will chase you all the way across the goddamn commonlands.

Character power is based on loot and class. Mages need strong robelike armor. The weapons for the magical classes are negligible. Interesting thing, because loot is level ranged and quite easy to get the decent stuff - I don't think it will be an issue. Making stuff is easy as well - as in, crafting is a joke. Nice, but a joke. Problem is, prices will be artifically driven up because getting the damned books that teach the crafters the recipes is a pain in the ass (since it's random loot). Whoever came up with the system is a putz. Plain and simple. It's unimaginative and caters to power guilds who can order people to go out and hunt til they come back with a frikkin book.

Downtime is fantastic. There's very, very little of it.

Server patches have been AMAZING as well. Every Thursday we've had between a 100 and 500 meg patch and there's been less problems with them than the little putzy SWG weekly patches. The dev team deserves props for their ability to code quickly and efficiently. Some interesting weird shit went on when they added falling damage though. There was no checker for height, so you could die when you fell off a barrel or you feel into the water.

There, I think I addressed everything.

[Merusk]

Ok, Schild.  First how about some background.  Did you play EQ1? When, and to what level? Just want some frame of reference for the first two questions I've got.  Seems from some of your responses that asking about the archtype system & how diversified the first split is (still at level 15? ) would be pointless right now.

1) How is the game LIKE EQ1.

 EQ1 did some good stuff, some bad stuff & some horribly, sadisticly bad stuff. I'm not expecting to hear things to bash EQ2 with.  I want to know if they kept any of the good of it. So far you've hit most of it, though.  Level of detail, depth of world & immersion of character.  What about depth of gameplay? Casters had some good gameplay (which most other classes felt was 'broken' or exploiting game features) in EQ1, while melee was, truly, hit auto and snooze.  How's it working out so far?

2) How is it NOT like EQ1.

Tied into the gripes you see forming in this thread already.  How has EQ2 addressed these at the low levels?  Is shared XP debit a big pain in the ass, or is that just the grousing of people w2ho don't understand it.

Also, you said they 'upped' the XP for soloers.  Ok, why?  The usual 'beta bitching' of a vocal minority or was there a legitimate reason to change it? EQ's strength has always been it's community, and I see it as a concern that they might abandon the grouping aspect in the face of competetors.

Edit:  Hell you responded while I was typing.

Cool on the patches.  Like I said before in some other thread, I think this is going to be EQ2's strength and WOW's weakness.  SOE is good about getting patches and pushing them quickly and efficiently (no BT, damnit!) plus they've taken the right stance (IMO) on exploits.  Bliz is glacial by comparison, and has said a few times they won't punish anyone for taking advantage of exploits they broke in the code. (Hello AC1.)

[schild]

I will compare the two in an article sooner or later (hopefully sooner). I just have to get up the jones to write something. I've had a bad case of writers block (read: Lack of liquor worth drinking).

I can put it shortly though:

When I first started in EQ2 it was a unique, fun, overwhelmingly fleshed out original experience. Due to the inability of "Friends and Family" and "Power Guild Kiddies" to criticize SOE and glorify everything they do, it's slowly drifting towards the EQ1 territory.

Companies really need to grasp the idea that Friends and Families make the worst critics on the freaking planet.

I don't want to toot my own horn, but I posted a very long (about 5 pages) piece in the EQ2 beta forums about exp and other things below level 10. A lot of people said I was wrong about things like upping exp and a few other little cosmetic things. They fixed them. I don't want to over-glorify it, they may have already known they needed an exp bump. Point is, whenever I wrote something that challenged their mob mentality, I got slammed. So I stopped posting there. Why? Because screw them. I don't beta test to fanboi out. I betatest to make the game as likeable as possible. Anyway, there's a chance the "vocal minority" was me.

I got absolutely slammed for making a lot of critical judgements of the game from the jaded gamer/armchair critic standpoint. Needless to say, the beta forums left a bad, bad taste in my mouth. Note: Not because it was like normal Vault level fanboi spew. But because it was intelligent fanboi-wife/child spew that just wasn't critical enough.

Praising a game during a beta does nothing. You need to slam the shit out of it so that they can fix/change as many things in a positive manner as possible.

That said - you can't get a sandwich during combat. Meleeers (is that a word?) Close combat types play a lot like mages now (i.e. how scrappers and blasters play in CoH). I haven't been on a raid. Well, I have but I don't consider it much of a raid. I have however done a lot of dungeon crawls and despite some truly uninteresting level layout, I can say I love the look, the lighting and the experience but they could really use an inspired level designer. They felt like the kind of shit I'd expect from an FPS circa a decade ago.

I'll reiterate - the immersion of the game is fantastic. Freeport is really dastardly fucking evil. Qeynos is so pretty and nice it approaches homosexual stereotypical flower land. The voice acting is FUCKING GREAT. I'm so glad they spent the money on it. Other than the one girl, Ingrid or whatever, on the opening boat (The Far Journey), I have not found a voice I don't like. (That's to say, I don't like Qeynos, it's not my type of place, but it's still very well done. If it turned me off, they did it right).

The music - fantastic. All the beta people have the music in unencrypted MP3. I have it on my iPod - it's just that good.

EQ2 will still be about community. But smaller ones. There's supposedly going to be a max guild size - which is good. Splitting up the uberguilds could go a long way towards fixing the economic control. Haemish once told me that the chance for infighting would be huge. It's true, it will be. And I'll be in the front row with popcorn.

I stopped playing EQ1 a few months after release. I did beta test it for a long time though. The only reason I didn't stick with it was time restraints and moving to a new school. All my real-life friends I played with stopped playing when I moved to I just stopped as well - as much as I didn't want to.

[Ardent]

You're a human in real life, playing a human in a video game isn't escapism; it's silly. I've always been a fan of not allowing humans in RPGs.

((applause)) Couldn't agree more.

Can you address character creation? (EDIT: Bold added to be clearer, based on Morphiend's comment below.) From the murmurings I've gathered, the general consensus for character creation seems to be:

COH > EQ2 >>> WoW

[Morfiend]

How long does it take to leve, avarage per level, and total time to lvl 20.

How complete is the game 50%? 90%?

Do they (and you?) think they have any chance of beating WoW to release?

When do you *think* they are going to release, and how complete do you think it will be when released?

I understand a lot is speculation, but, go on, speculate.

*edit* CoH !> WoW (IMO)

[Trippy]

Any questions you want answered about EQ2, go ahead and ask me. As a member of press, I am allowed to talk about anything that occurred from level 20 and down.

Yea, finally some real info on the game. Okay here is my first batch of questions.

Graphics

* Do the character animations still look like they are done by students just learning 3D animation? Examples I've seen in videos include the super stiff movements like the stick-up-the-rear walk/run animations for Barbarians, sword swings that look like they should hit twice cause the sword goes all the way around the back and out the other side on the follow through, hand on the hip spell casting making you like a cheerleader and so on.

* Are arm swings still tied to the leg movement speed when moving backwards? E.g. in some spots when moving backwards your legs move super fast and your arms will swing super fast as well cause the animations are sync'd. Looks really bad.

* On your system (what video card are you using?) can you play with dynamic shadows turned on all the time?

* Do dwarves still look like scaled down humans or do they look more like the classic Tolkien/D&D dwarves now (short but wide)?


Gameplay

* How well does the Scout "combat wheel" work? Is the system similar to FFXI skill chains or is it more complex than that? Do you get visual indication of what's going on with the combat wheel in the main window (for all group members) or do you have to watch your chat window to follow what's going on?

That's one of the things I disliked about skill chaining in FFXI -- you ended up having to keep your eyes glued to the chat bar to participate (especially if you were a caster and wanted to tack on skills) rather than being able to watch the main window. The game could've been a text game given how little many players actually look at the graphics in the game during combat.

* How does the leveling speed compare to WoW?

* Is combat like EQ/FFXI where a group mostly fights a single mob at a time or is it more like CoH where you are fighting big(ger) groups at once?

* Can evil races/classes group with good races/classes? Can they quest together? Does that affect your alignment/faction standing?

* How much storage space do you get per character? Is it enough to store stuff even if you are a pack rat or do you have to mule like so many other games?

[Mesozoic]

You're a human in real life, playing a human in a video game isn't escapism; it's silly. I've always been a fan of not allowing humans in RPGs.

((applause)) Couldn't agree more.

That's a weird distinction.  Playing an elven ranger is escapism, but playing a human rogue is silly?  Not all of the fantasy role has to be tied up in race, does it?  Can't some of the escapism come from - ya know - the dragons and the swords and the spells and the dungeons?

And to keep with the questions:

Have you have any luck creating a heterosexual character?

[Luxor]

Making stuff is easy as well - as in, crafting is a joke

Can you clarify that for me, as it flies totally in the face of what i'm getting told by my guildies in the beta. I'm guessing you wouldnt like me to post info from folk in the beta even if i'm not covered personally but the above statement seems to be well out of whack.

[Soukyan]

How long does it take to level? Rough estimate. I know you mentioned 7 hours from 1 to 6 on newbie island because of all the quests. That's not too bad. Staying with the same playstyle of doing lots of quests, how long did it subsequently take from, say, 6 to 14? 14 to 20?

In regards to groups, what kind of aids are available to assist players in finding groups?

If you haven't played with a "bring-your-own" group, has it been difficult to form one up?

How long do you typically spend forming a group (including travel time, etc.)?

Would it be possible for you to time some downtime? You said it was minimal, but everyone has different opinions of what that should be. I'm looking at not wanting to ever rest for more than 30 seconds. What kind of downtime in seconds or minutes are you looking at at some different levels that you've experienced. Say 5, 10, 15 and 20. Note: I'm referring to solo play with whatever class you happen to be playing.

Are most quest spawns static? Or did they actually implement dynamic spawns (as WoW promised but failed to do)?

Do you start off killing snakes, rats and jiggling goo in typical lame-ass RPG style or do they actually give some real enemies to fight as a new adventurer?

[Sky]

When I first started in EQ2 it was a unique, fun, overwhelmingly fleshed out original experience. Due to the inability of "Friends and Family" and "Power Guild Kiddies" to criticize SOE and glorify everything they do, it's slowly drifting towards the EQ1 territory.

<star wars>
I've got a baaaad feeling about this...
</star wars>

[Signe]

Have you have any luck creating a heterosexual character?

Schild may not create attractive characters, but I believe all the women he plays are heterosexual.

[Mesozoic]

Have you have any luck creating a heterosexual character?

Schild may not create attractive characters, but I believe all the women he plays are heterosexual.

OK, OK.  Let me put aside the sexist POV and be clear:

All of the EQ2 char screenies posted on F13 earlier all looked like HOMOSEXUAL MEN.  Have you, Schild, had any luck in creating a HETEROSEXUAL MALE character?

[schild]

There's a whole lot of questions. I'll try my best to do it in an organized manner. Here's one I'll answer real fast. I refuse to play male characters, they make Pauly Shore look butch. Also, it's near impossible to play a bull-dyke female.

[schild]

This is what I read, in order, since my last post.

Character Creation
Character creation in EQ2 has the potential to be amazing. The guy designing the character traits and clothing is an uninmaginative ass. I don't know who it is, but it looks as though he made female hairstyles and burnt out. Still better than WoW. Which has, what I consider, the worst character creation I've ever seen.

Leveling
Leveling isn't that harsh. I could easily get a level a night if I wanted to just by questing and/or grouping.

The Gaming Completion
I'd say the game is 60% done from my angle, 80% done from SOE. I say that because I have a LOT of problems with the game which I'll address in my article or address as you all ask the stuff.

Can they beat WoW to release?
Haemish won't agree with me on this (because EQ is RAPING HIS COMPUTERS) but EQ2 is less buggy than WoW. It's also more feature complete. Far more feature complete.

Graphics
The walking animations were just redone. They are doing a lot of what we would call 'shiny' right now. It's kind of nice too, every week brings a lot of changes that I hop in, look at and hop out. Like I said, I'm not getting burnt out on it before release.

I have dynamic shadows turned on sometimes. It runs fine. I turn them off because I don't really give a shit about shadows when I'm in a group of 6 people fighting hordes of the undead or stuff in the Wailing Caves or wherever.

Dwarves are fantastically tolkeinesque. Seriously, the races that aren't humanlike are very very well done.

Gameplay
I play a scout on my main. I don't even have to look at the chat bar. Ever. It's just not necessary, everything is visually intuitive. I can tell when and what Ineed to do. This game is very very visual. Monkeys could play a priest. Even the heroic oppurtunity wheel (a system for getting crits/extra damage/enhancements for your group) is very very easy.

Leveling is on par with WoW. But I don't wish to compare them like that. In EQ2 you get stats, skills, everything automatically. New abilities just appear on your hotbar - EVERY LEVEL. If we want to talk about low end game and usability - from level 1-15 (being low end, 15-30 beyond mid, 30 and up being high), I used every single skill except for one (due to not being implemented at the time). They were all useful.

In some places you will fight a lot more than one enemy. In other places one enemy is too much to handle. It's a nice mix. Nothing is on par with the frantic pace of CoH though. At least not all the time.

I never did the betrayal quest. I can not talk about the interplay between the good and bad players. Only because I don't know. But like I said, there IS a betrayal quest and people have done it. I refuse to go good.

Storage space is REASONABLE and there are ways to improve it. You won't need a mule if you aren't a packrat. Even if you are a crafter.

Meso - elves don't look like humans. They are much more feminine. I play a darkelf and a halfelf. In real life I could tear the tarnish off an antique chest with my masculinity. Errrr, tmi? k.

Crafting
It's really fucking easy. You push some buttons, combine very few materials, and wala, you have your item. Anyone telling you it is hard is a stupid mouthbreather who needs to not be allowed in a guild.

This is the easiest crafting system I have ever seen. But it's effective and that's important. Oh and I've died while crafting. Not because I'm inept but because my mage didn't have enough hitpoints to take a furnace blast.

Having Crafting be like Combat is stupid. But they won't change it. They are very excited about it.

Soukyan - I ran out of titles

The exact time it takes to level is hard. I could easily do 1-10 in one night. Just because I know how to be uber efficient.

LFG. What else do you need? You aren't actually going to have your chat channels turned on are you? In which case I say, turn them off.

Making a group is simple. I sit at the entrance of the place I want to group in, and within 5 minutes I have a group. That may be because I'm a rogue wielding two spears looking all sorta of darkelf badass. Or not.

Haemish was telling me he didn't like the downtime. Personally, I think it's much better than CoH. Perhaps we just have different experiences. I also have a laptop next to me that usually has a movie on it. So my judgement of downtime is fubar.

Quest spawns are static and dynamic. Or so it would seem.

You start off killing goblins, sharks, lots of wierd shit. It's neat. There's a little graveyard on newbie island. Lots of pretty. Trust me when I say this, you will LIKE newbie island A LOT the first time you play it. A WHOLE FRICKIN LOT. It is the most fleshed out place in any MMORPG I've ever seen. It's also the only good level design in the entire game (this is, I think, the biggest flaw of EQ2, other than gay males).

Keep the questions coming. I'm trying not to be biased, but I've had a pretty positive experience in EQ2. I got in before the other people here and before the EQ Legends/General Applicants got in. In other words I was playing with 500-1000 people while they were playing with 3000-10,000. I'd say they got a raw deal, but that's just how the cookie crumbles, etc etc.

[HaemishM]

Can they beat WoW to release?
Haemish won't agree with me on this (because EQ is RAPING HIS COMPUTERS) but EQ2 is less buggy than WoW. It's also more feature complete. Far more feature complete.

Actually, I won't disagree with you there.

[Morfiend]

Can they beat WoW to release?
Haemish won't agree with me on this (because EQ is RAPING HIS COMPUTERS) but EQ2 is less buggy than WoW. It's also more feature complete. Far more feature complete.

You just stated that EQ2 is more feature complete, but before that, you said the game is about 60% done in your mind,a nd 80% SOE.

Does that mean you feel WoW is less than 60% complete? Personally I feel WoW to be about 85% complete, and about 90% feature complete. But thats just me.