*sigh* More shallow design thinking

[shiznitz]

For me, a treadmill is simply achieving results (in this case, character progress) through inane repitiion. However, I disagree that EQ2 is as bad as EQ1 and is in fact a dramatic improvement if not a complete change. My last several levels in EQ2 have been anything but a treadmill. I have been chasing quests - mine and my guildmates'. Often times, we have different quests in the same dungeon so we run hither and yon hunting the appropriate mobs. This seems to be very similar to what WoW does although WoW apparently moves the character through the world more smoothly. I am still visiting zones I spent lots of time in 6 levels ago, for instance. I am just hunting deeper.

EQ2's biggest content strike out is the huge zones that are Antonica, Thundering Steppes, Commonlands and Nektulos. These four huge zones are where players spend an inordinate amount of time - either hunting or traversing. That is a game flow problem not easily addressed - and not even recognized as a problem, really. Once one can get away from these huge zones, the game is really excellent. I am on the cusp of that at 26.

[El Gallo]

I'd love to hear an argument from the WoW side of things telling me what great fun and challenge there was to playign a warrior in WoW that I somehow missed.  Solo play = slam, slam, slam.  Group play = taunt, taunt, taunt.  There was more to it than that?

St. G, I'd like to start by thanking you for taking a different position than what we usually get and defending it well.  New blood is a good thing.

On to your point here, playing a warrior in a level-appropriate group in an instance dungeon is fun.  Controlling 7 mobs in a pull, a mix of elites, non-elites, melee and casters, keeping aggro on all of them in a game with very limited crowd control takes some skill, experience and thought.  You certainly use a lot of your abilities and juggle stances.  It is not rocket science, but I have trouble believing holding aggro in EQ2 is rocket science, ether.  There is also the PvP element, which requires some quick thinking.

Now, you are right that, if you want you can turn WoW's 1-59 into a game of trivially easy, Dreadlands-style soloing.  But you can do the same with EQ2.  

Now, the achiever angle I can see is that a lot of people gimp the instances by either doing them when they are higher-than-intended level (the 1-55 instances), or zeging them with more people than intended (the 55+ ones).  They are fixing the latter problem with hard caps on the top end instances (also, one major cause of the second problem is that 2 of the top end instances were not balanced well for a single group, even though they were billed as single group dungeons.  They were doable, but very tedious, in a single group).  I think that a fair number of battle.net dumbasses and dedicated soloers will lack the group skills or social connections to thrive in that new environment, so there's one for the achievers.

You are probably right that there is more button-mashing in EQ2, but I have never thought that pushing more buttons = better, or even harder.  A lot of the button mashing in EQ2 is HO-related, and HO's reeked of so much immersion-destroying stupid that I throw up into my mouth a little just thinking about them.  Now that is obviously a personal preference thing, but the idea that my warrior takes a wild swing with his mace and then follows it up with a taunt resulting in lightning bolts flying down or some giant glowing bird descending from the heavens to cast some armor class buff on me just makes my eyes roll.

Now, a lot of the problem is that there are few people, and none here that I know of, who have played both WoW and EQ2 to high levels.  I played WoW to the high 50's in beta, and have been idling at 60 for a while in release.  I have never been above level 18 or so in EQ2.  I do have an account around to shoot the shit with some old guildmates that went to EQ2, so maybe I will mess around some more if I ever get a lot of free time.  

Also, I think this:

WoW is popular not because it might take 5 months to have a max char - but rather Blizzard has not stretched the time required to build such an avatar beyond the enjoyable content of the game.

is pretty much dead-on.  This is a stupid analogy that I have used before:  WoW is very, very "rich" in the culinary sense.  If you think of content as meat, WoW is a very, very thick stew.  EQ1 is a fairly thin broth.  EQ2 is somewhere in between.  Now everybody knows (except for the PvP enthusiasts and the player created content dreamers) that no MMO will give us pure meat, because it is just too expensive to produce that much content, and players are unwilling to spend $100/mo+ on a game.  So you water it down with treadmilling, to get the amount of meat you have to go further.  If you don't water it down at all, you get a game people love, but burn through in a week.  If you water it down too much, you get something that doesn't taste like meat at all.  The trick is to find the right amount of water for the amount of meat you can afford.  WoW went with the very rich route, and people are in a content coma.  The downside is that after ~300 hours of play, you run out of shit to do (and to try and hide this, they water down the last bit of content they have into almost EQ1 level broth).  The issue becomes "OK, it took Blizzard 4 years to make 300 hours worth of content.  Can Blizzard produce more content fast enough to keep up with even halfassed gamers?" and my money is on "probably not but we'll see."  EQ2 went with a somewhat more watered down approach (though not nearly as watered as EQ1) and seems to be keeping up with its gamers, and SoE has been willing to produce watery, rushed out content with the occasional gem for years (since Luclin, at least).

[Toast]

In other words, I think what a lot of you are really asking for, and what you like about WoW, is a game that is so trivial or flat that there is no room for more greatly achieving characters above yourself.  I'm not saying that is right or wrong -- I just think it might be a more accurate depiction of where a lot of people are coming from.

First, you should be more concise with your postings. That way you can be wrong with less strain on your wrists and keyboard.

We're all aware the "The Grind" is something that exists to some degree in any game that attempts to retain players over the long haul. Most gamers do not like the grind. It's boring, repetitious, and unfriendly to busy "real lives".

In the current MMORPG paradigm, "the grind" is a bitter medicine that must be disguised and administered subtly to an increasingly nervous and skeptical patient.

Game developers struggle to balance longevity with fun, and there are many different attempted solutions to this challenge.  This is a HARD problem to solve.

The bottom line is this:  Some games pull it off better than others. Everquest 2 did not do a good job of addressing this central challenge. The grind was more oppressive and less disguised than many of its competitors. So, EQ2 has joined its grindy cousins FFXI, Lineage 2, et al as niche games.

[jpark]

? collection quests are a great example.  The boat rides are very cool quests.  The class quests are very cool -- they range from finding hidden enemies, sneaking through an enemy headquarters to steal documents, dealing with an arena full of increasingly difficult solo encounters, etc.

Agreed the class quests were good.  But that ended at level 20.

There are creature mastery quests for each of the major creature type which can be done alongside other quests and are a combo of kill tasks and collections. 

These are not interesting.  At least in December - where such quests bestowed a trophy you could hang in your instanced apartment while you sit there alone before going into trader mode.  There is potential here - but the execution did not realize it.

There are sabotage quests which let you try to sabotage your enemy's city. 

This was only patched in a few months ago.  Care to describe what happens when a guard of the opposing city detects a player?  Again the execution of these quests is different from their vision.

I gather your level 31.  I was 27.  Describe 3 quests (or more) that were interesting up to level 20.

[StGabe]

We harp on EQ not because it takes so long to build a character to max level, but because the underlying mehanic supporting that journey is not "fun".

How?  I think that EQ2 has all of the same mechanics of WoW and more.  So I just don't understand this viewpoint and I see post, after post, asserting it with almost no backing whatsoever.  That digression post was a response to a lot of posts, but really struck a chord with that prior statement and with Haemish's postings.  But it seems either that people are simply deadset on taking the first thing they don't like about EQ2 as an indictment of the game, just because they were lined up to see SOE fail and will make that a self-fulfilling prophecy -- or for a lot of people the problem is really one of not being able to handle the fact that they can't achieve as well or as fast as others simply because they don't have time.  And they could care less if there is still an enjoyable game there for that period of time -- they just want to feel uber.

Because most players come into an MMO with really stupid expectations.  They expect it to be a game for them and about them.  They expect every nuance of content to suit them and they get pissed off if it doesn't.  So half the time, the person complaining about the grind to get to level 60 is really most pissed off that other people are there and they aren't yet.  And that's when you get into the really bad ranting about all those "catasses" that "have no lives" and "don't know what fun is" and are level 60 already.

Everquest 2 did not do a good job of addressing this central challenge. The grind was more oppressive and less disguised than many of its competitors.

Yet another person stating this without giving any rationale whatsoever.  How are WoW quests less grindy than EQ2 quests, for example?  Go look at my description of quests I've done and compare that to quests you've done in WoW.  Go look at the numbers of quests available.  Consider that EQ2 players have problems with the fact that they can only fit 50 quests into their journal (WoW has 20, right?).  Go look at my description of a character's abilities at level 31 and the diverse strategies which can be used to deal with enemies.

Anyway -- where is this oppressive grind?  I think it is an ideal, something that was foisted on EQ2 before it was even released, and in most cases doesn't really apply to the game that was released.  The first time most of these critics killed 10 orcs in a row they said: OMG, EQ2 is such a grind.  The first time those same people killed 10 orcs in a row in WoW they said: oh, well I'm doing a quest.  People were just that ready to condemn EQ2 and worship WoW.

Controlling 7 mobs in a pull, a mix of elites, non-elites, melee and casters, keeping aggro on all of them in a game with very limited crowd control takes some skill, experience and thought.

Don't you just tab around and spam taunt?  When I played a warrior it boiled down to two things.  Either I spammed taunt non-stop or I spammed slam (and later on the high level arms ability) non-stop.  I never found it tactically advantageous to switch stances really (although I did try a few builds centered around the ability to do so cheaply).  Either I was needed for my taunts primarily and that was what I did almost nonstop or I just went into DPS mode where slam was optimal.

As for warrior types in EQ2 they actually *do* have other interesting abilities.  Go to eq2.ogaming.com/db and click around the different skill lists.  Go check out monks, for example.  Just scroll down to the bottom of their list and start reading up (the top of the list will have more generic abilities).  You can do some really interesting tank stuff.  For example, monks are good avoiders whereas other warrior types are good damage mitigaters.  You can have a monk as primary tank, using sets of abilities that will boost their avoidance, and then have another warrior type steps up and uses an ability that will allow them to intercept a lot of the damage landing on the monk.  The result is then that the monk avoids most of the attacks.  Of those that land, many get intercepted and land on the heavier tank who mitigates the damage well.  The game is full of subtle things like that which you can do if are interested in a more challenging game.

Now, a lot of the problem is that there are few people, and none here that I know of, who have played both WoW and EQ2 to high levels.

Well I've made it to the middle levels in both.  I had a 47 warrior / 265 blacksmith in WoW and two level 31 characters in EQ2.  I actually enjoy "the grind" of EQ2 so much that I am grinding two characters up at the same time (they both rock and I can never decide which I want to play).

My last several levels in EQ2 have been anything but a treadmill. I have been chasing quests - mine and my guildmates'. Often times, we have different quests in the same dungeon so we run hither and yon hunting the appropriate mobs.

Aye, if you give EQ2 half a chance it really does have shitloads of decent content -- to the point that most players delete almost as many quests as they actually finish.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

I gather your level 31.  I was 27.  Describe 3 quests (or more) that were interesting up to level 20.

Before level 20 you mean?

The Antonica leg of the JBoots quest was a great quest.  I did it at level 18 and so I still had lots of aggro to worry about.  The first time I did it, I was so worried about my time that I jumped off a cliff by the Oracle Tower ... that was slightly too high ... and died.  lol.  But obviously it was an exciting and interesting quest.

The butterfly quests rocked.  They gave me something cool to do while I did other quests all across the newbie zones.  In the end I traded with several other players to finish off my collections and I got a great reward for it.

The Shattered Vale quest was interesting if not great.  But the Shattered VAle instance was a blast.  At level 19 or so, me and some friends got to kill a ton of gnolls and then take on a monstrous giant in very cool low level raid.  I remember my amazement when my poor little gnomey Illusionist got thrown across the zone (took me about 30s just to get back to the group).  And in the end he dropped a nifty robe -- and I was the first person in the game to loot it (although I wasn't exactly on the edge of the leveling curve at that point).

Of course my class quests were a lot of fun too.  Those were pre-20.

Is that enough?  I can continue if you like.  My second character did 110 quests by level 20.  I don't remember them all but I could bring up my quest journal next time I'm on and look up some more.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

I gather your level 31.  I was 27.  Describe 3 quests (or more) that were interesting up to level 20.

Before level 20 you mean?

The Antonica leg of the JBoots quest was a great quest.  I did it at level 18 and so I still had lots of aggro to worry about.  The first time I did it, I was so worried about my time that I jumped off a cliff by the Oracle Tower ... that was slightly too high ... and died.  lol.  But obviously it was an exciting and interesting quest.

The butterfly quests rocked.  They gave me something cool to do while I did other quests all across the newbie zones.  In the end I traded with several other players to finish off my collections and I got a great reward for it.

The Shattered Vale quest was interesting if not great.  But the Shattered VAle instance was a blast.  At level 19 or so, me and some friends got to kill several waves of gnolls and then take on a monstrous giant in very cool low level raid.  I remember my amazement when my poor little gnomey Illusionist got thrown across the zone (took me about 30s just to get back to the group).  And in the end he dropped a nifty robe -- and I was the first person in the game to loot it (although I wasn't exactly on the edge of the leveling curve at that point).  EQ2 has done a good job of making sure that you don't need to be level 50 to feel like you are taking on epic content.

Of course my class quests were a lot of fun too.  Those were at level 10 and 20.

Is that enough?  I can continue if you like.  My second character did 110 quests by level 20.  I don't remember them all but I could bring up my quest journal next time I'm on and look up some more.

Gabe.

[jpark]

We harp on EQ not because it takes so long to build a character to max level, but because the underlying mehanic supporting that journey is not "fun".

How?  I think that EQ2 has all of the same mechanics of WoW and more.  So I just don't understand this viewpoint and I see post, after post, asserting it with almost no backing whatsoever. 

I am not going rehash the WoW forums.  You can start with the thread "Favorite quests".  Read before you type.  Come back and address those specific points and exercise some concision.

 But it seems either that people are simply deadset on taking the first thing they don't like about EQ2 as an indictment of the game, just because they were lined up to see SOE fail and will make that a self-fulfilling prophecy -- or for a lot of people the problem is really one of not being able to handle the fact that they can't achieve as well or as fast as others simply because they don't have time.

In my case after 27 levels of EQ2 I don't think it can be said I did not give the game a chance.  But that misses the point:  if the game is not fun from day one - there is no reason to "work" at the game with the expectation that it will eventually be fun.  This is a great lesson from both WoW and CoH that escapes your "achiever" mentality.

Because most players come into an MMO with really stupid expectations.  They expect it to be a game for them and about them.  They expect every nuance of content to suit them and they get pissed off if it doesn't.

This is like a writer saying "my writing is clear, it is you who fail to understand it".  Or a developer saying "my program is user friendly, you just lack patience".  If users are pissed off in great numbers there is a reason.  A good one.  

So half the time, the person complaining about the grind to get to level 60 is really most pissed off that other people are there and they aren't yet.  And that's when you get into the really bad ranting about all those "catasses" that "have no lives" and "don't know what fun is" and are level 60 already.

Did you like "zone flagging" in EQ?  Think about the grouping implications and what says about the broader design strategy of SOE in EQ and EQ2.

Yet another person stating this without giving any rationale whatsoever.  How are WoW quests less grindy than EQ2 quests, for example?  Go look at my description of quests I've done and compare that to quests you've done in WoW.  Go look at the numbers of quests available.  Consider that EQ2 players have problems with the fact that they can only fit 50 quests into their journal (WoW has 20, right?).  Go look at my description of a character's abilities at level 31 and the diverse strategies which can be used to deal with enemies.

Your examples of quests were poor.  I am still waiting for the response to my comment on your quest examples above.  

EQ2's 50 quests in the journal vs. WoW's 20?  Don't stop there - EQ2 has way more polygons to its graphics than WoW does!  

People were just that ready to condemn EQ2 and worship WoW.

The sub base for WoW is so large a significant portion of the players are likely new to the whole genre.  Poor SOE, a little company like that with their small marketing budget, a big bad congolmerate like Blizzard did not give them a chance.  WOW went with no NDA and EQ2 had an NDA.  That says a lot right there in the confidence of their respective products.

As for warrior types in EQ2 they actually *do* have other interesting abilities... For example, monks are good avoiders whereas other warrior types are good damage mitigaters.  You can have a monk as primary tank, using sets of abilities that will boost their avoidance, and then have another warrior type steps up and uses an ability that will allow them to intercept a lot of the damage landing on the monk.  The result is then that the monk avoids most of the attacks.  Of those that land, many get intercepted and land on the heavier tank who mitigates the damage well.  The game is full of subtle things like that which you can do if are interested in a more challenging game.

The game is full of it alright.  As a healer, often working with several healers, we hated monk tanks.  Damage mitigation and damage avoidence work well for low level crap but at the higher levels it breaks down.  When you're dealing with a high level mob (relative to the tank) who is going to hit you pretty much every round - who's the better "tank"?  Take a deep breath before you type.  This isn't variety, it is class inferiority.

[Strazos]

(What I said)
And please tell us how whacking 2000 foozles is "an integral part of RPG design".

A Big Long Tirade by You.

What you're doing is talking Around the point, instead of just Getting to it. Whacking mobs for no reason is not bad content, it is Not content, period. Again, it's just a good way for a dev to keep an account active and paying.

Accusing me of having an inferiority complex because people are higher level than me.

This is just a farce and a red herring. I really don't care if people are higher in level than my characters, and I expect it. What I DO care about is if I feel it takes an inordinate amount of effort to get from one level to the next.

Here, I'll lay it out nice and easy:

I do not like EQ2 anymore. I got to level 27 before I got fed up with it. I tried to do as many quests as I could, some of which were very fun. Most of them were simply "Kill X, come back for shitty reward." This doesn't count as good content. After I had exhuasted all of my realistic quest options, my gaming sessions devolved into the act of simply getting a Varsoon's group and camping some spot. This doesn't count as content either - this is a grind, and a treadmill, and not a good game. I really wanted to like EQ2, but it just didn't work out.

Then I tried WoW. I felt it was more fun than EQ2. It didn't wow (no pun intended) me in any way, but it was fun from the start, and just kept going. Alas, I also quit this game, because while it had better content, the community was worthless.

[Sky]

This stgabe guy is hilarious. Don't drive him away, I'll stop insulting him. Well....I'll try not to.

I think that EQ2 has all of the same mechanics of WoW and more.

Going to be tough, though.

[Alkiera]

(What I said)
And please tell us how whacking 2000 foozles is "an integral part of RPG design".

A Big Long Tirade by You.

What you're doing is talking Around the point, instead of just Getting to it. Whacking mobs for no reason is not bad content, it is Not content, period. Again, it's just a good way for a dev to keep an account active and paying.

While I agree with what you say, I disagree that whacking mobs for very thin reasons is much better.  WoW, at least at low levels, has a lot of quests that amount to 'go kill a bunch of stuff so you can gain exp and move on to the next area'.  While the quests themselves did provide some exp, I'd argue that a LARGE percentage of it(50%+?) came from killing all the badgers/bears/boars/wolves/whatever to collect enough of $ANIMAL_PART to satisfy the quest giver.

Basically, I would say that the problem is not killing things for no reason, it's killing things for a reason outside the motivations of the character.  Advancement in almost every game to date has been solely dependant on killing badgers, so the PCs can advance to doing what they want to do, which frequently has absolutely nothing to do with badger extermination.  "I want to be a great and powerful wizard!" so you kill badgers.  "I want to be a fearsome warrior," so you kill badgers.  "I want to be come wealthy by stealing everything not nailed down." so you kill badgers.  UO and SWG had a slightly better system, in that you usually only killed badgers to get better at killing things, but not always.  And I'd argue that many a professional tailor has gotten to that state with far fewer than the many, many, many thousands of garments required to reach Master Tailor.

Most reasonably intelligent people, when making something that requires some effort, take a long time to make something the first time they try.  The second time is shorter, as they've learned a few tricks.  By the 4th time or so, they know everything there is to learn about making that particular item, and can frequently apply some or all of those tricks to speed the production of similar items.  Making thousands of them doesn't help, unless you are crafting in SWG.  The same argument can be made for combat.  Against a mob of a given difficulty, it only takes a few attempts to learn the simplest way to kill one, the ultimate combination of buttons that kills the fastest, or most efficiently.  And many of those methods apply to all similar critters, there is nothing more to learn as far as killing them goes.

This boils down to:
Killing more of something you already know how to optimally kill is not content.
or more generically,
Doing more of something you already know how to do optimally, is not content.

Which is more or less the point of Raph's book, from the reviews I've read.  Once you know how to kill orcs effectively, there should be no more reason to kill them... yet in almost all games, you still gain exp for killing them, until they turn green/grey/whatever, indicating they are too low level.  Typically, you move to a different area with higher level orcs, and use the same system to kill them as you did the lower ones... which is still effective, because either those abilities are more effective since you leveled, or because you now have AbilityX+1, which is better than AbilityX, which you used on the lower level orcs.

I'm looking forward to DDO for this reason.  I'm curious what changes in the game when you do not get exp for killing.

Alkiera

Really, I'm of the opinion that a game without massive character advancement needs to be tried.  ( In terms of modern games, say you start at level 45, with some effort you can 'level' to effectively 47, and with a great deal more effort, 49)  I'd think such a system would be good for PvP, as advancement would mean relatively little in combat.  Provide lots of other things to do, that do NOT affect your character in combat-affecting ways.  Don't go the ATITD route of NO combat, just make a game with combat, where getting better at combat is not the entire point.

[StGabe]

What you're doing is talking Around the point, instead of just Getting to it. Whacking mobs for no reason is not bad content, it is Not content, period. Again, it's just a good way for a dev to keep an account active and paying.

lol.  I'm talking around points?  You are talking through stereotypes.  EQ2 has MORE quests than WoW.  And many, many varieties.  Most players in EQ2 are at their 50 quest limit and regularly delete quests because they don't have the time to do them.

You...are....not....talking....about.....EQ2.

Going to be tough, though.

And which major features does WoW currently have that EQ2 doesn't?  It has a few slightly different things.  A slightly different encounter system.  Different graphic style.  But generally any sort of quest that WoW does -- EQ2 does too.  EQ2 has more different types of character abilitities.  More solo-specific content.  More raid content.  Etc.

Really the only two things I can think of are: PvP and the AH.  And those are cool features.  But they aren't really what we are talking about here (PvE progression) nor is the lack of these a gamebreaker for EQ2 -- the lack of PvP just means that it is a specialized game and the lack of the AH is made up for with any number of other content items that EQ2 has and WoW doesn't.  The AH itself creates some issues for WoW's economy, but I won't go there -- we already have way too many threads of thought going.

But hey.  Instead of actually engaging me in conversation of these issues why not just insinuate that I'm an idiot and assert that you are correct without giving any reasons why.   

Gabe.

[StGabe]

I am not going rehash the WoW forums.  You can start with the thread "Favorite quests".  Read before you type.  Come back and address those specific points and exercise some concision.

lol.  You asked for some good quests.  I give them to you, and discuss them with you.  And you give me this BS?  I type out exactly what you ask me for and you think I'm not concise?  Let's face it, you just don't want to listen to anything that actually indicates that EQ2 might be a worthwhile game.  The moment any such conversation comes up your mind shuts off.

But that misses the point:  if the game is not fun from day one - there is no reason to "work" at the game with the expectation that it will eventually be fun.

Go read posts on this very forum about people's reactions to EQ2 .... one common comment is that pretty much everyone liked the level 1-20 experience.  Even Haemish did I think.  I just gave you several examples of cool, fun pre-20 quests....

... which you ignored.  Because you simply have 0 interest in anything that indicates that EQ2 is actually a worthy game.

This is like a writer saying "my writing is clear, it is you who fail to understand it".  Or a developer saying "my program is user friendly, you just lack patience".  If users are pissed off in great numbers there is a reason.  A good one. 

It's not like saying that.  But I do agree with your conclusion, for what it's worth.  But that conclusion leads us to understand that you can't just create a game based on what players say they want.  Because they often say they want things that don't really make sense.  They want meaningful achievements in the game -- which would mean that average players won't have everything that other players have -- but at the same time anyone who isn't at the top of the achiever heap gets pissed off.

Did you like "zone flagging" in EQ?  Think about the grouping implications and what says about the broader design strategy of SOE in EQ and EQ2.

You mean access quests?  Yes, I like it. Have you realized that they are no different than any group quest in WoW?  No one can access the content of either quest without going through the required hoops.  Seeing as how most of the access quests that I have done are actually very fun quests and seeing as how I am not delusional enough to think that a game without challenges would be interesting, yes, I enjoy fun challenges that are required to open up new and cool content.

EQ2's 50 quests in the journal vs. WoW's 20?  Don't stop there - EQ2 has way more polygons to its graphics than WoW does! 

What a hilariously failed analogy.  I never said that EQ2 was better because it had a 50 quest limit -- and so your statement is absurd.  What I was pointing out was that players of EQ2 actually are doing so many quests that the 50 limit isn't enough and they delete almost as many quests as they actually do.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

Really, I'm of the opinion that a game without massive character advancement needs to be tried.

A.k.a an FPS?  Isn't this just Planetside?

Gabe.

[schild]

Really, I'm of the opinion that a game without massive character advancement needs to be tried.

A.k.a an FPS?  Isn't this just Planetside?

Don't be so small minded.

[StGabe]

This is just a farce and a red herring. I really don't care if people are higher in level than my characters, and I expect it. What I DO care about is if I feel it takes an inordinate amount of effort to get from one level to the next.

Well I did both say that this was a digression and that I thought it applied to *some* players. 

But the only thing that matters to you is that you ding in a timely fashion?  So if EQ2 went to 500 levels isntead of 50 and you dinged in 1/10th the time, then you'd feel fine?  I don't think this is really what you mean.

I do not like EQ2 anymore. I got to level 27 before I got fed up with it. I tried to do as many quests as I could, some of which were very fun. Most of them were simply "Kill X, come back for shitty reward."

Isn't the latter really all that WoW offers though, anyway?  Kill tasks for mostly crappy rewards with a few ubers thrown in?

. After I had exhuasted all of my realistic quest options, my gaming sessions devolved into the act of simply getting a Varsoon's group and camping some spot.

Well I only went to Varsoon's twice ... I barely finished off my 30 golem quest and a few others and I was out of there.  I think there are a ton of other options.  That said, if you didn't find them, and you didn't enjoy the game anyway -- then that's ok.  But it's not as though the game is a collossal failure just because it didn't fit your particular needs.  The content is there -- tons of it.  Cool quests, cool stories, lots of things to achieve and do.  I think of half a dozen places to go at level 27 that have plenty of quests and fun things to do.  And many of us are finding that content and enjoying it greatly.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

One other comment about what El Gallo had to say:
You are probably right that there is more button-mashing in EQ2, but I have never thought that pushing more buttons = better, or even harder.  A lot of the button mashing in EQ2 is HO-related, and HO's reeked of so much immersion-destroying stupid that I throw up into my mouth a little just thinking about them.

I wasn't saying that EQ2 has more "button mashing".  I actually think it has more options for what you might choose to do.  I think my WoW warrior mashed buttons about as often -- it's just that he was hitting the same ones over and over again (spam and slam, as I've said). 

Personally HO's are fine by me.  No offense, but splitting hairs like that in a game based in a world where magically inexplicably just works seems to be fairly petty to me.  Immersion for me though, has nothing to do with how well a world matches my reading of Tolkien, et al.  It has to do with with how engaging the game mechanics actually are.  And HO's are just a subtle, but cool sort of teamwork that you can pull off while grouped to make your group better -- if you want.  And so I think HO's are fine and dandy.

But all that is, as you admit, quite subjective stuff.

Gabe.

[AOFanboi]

Really, I'm of the opinion that a game without massive character advancement needs to be tried.

A.k.a an FPS?  Isn't this just Planetside?

Gabe.

Why does this remind me of that Knights of the Dinner Table strip where they were criticizing Tolkien's "novelization" of the LOTR movies by discussing how it didn't conform to the rules of their fantasy RPG?

Gabe, games do not need to be about teh combat or watching numbers go up. Or were you one of those who wondered how many levels Gandalf had?

[jpark]

The butterfly quests rocked.  They gave me something cool to do while I did other quests all across the newbie zones.  In the end I traded with several other players to finish off my collections and I got a great reward for it.

I am sure they did.  How many calender days did it take to complete this quest and what your reward was?  Tell me what you liked about this quest - what did it involve?

While you're at it - you can respond to my criticisms above about the quests your refer to, which in some cases I doubt you have first hand experience.

[jpark]

But hey.  Instead of actually engaging me in conversation of these issues why not just insinuate that I'm an idiot and assert that you are correct without giving any reasons why.   

Gabe.

Because you already did that:

In other words, I think what a lot of you are really asking for, and what you like about WoW, is a game that is so trivial or flat that there is no room for more greatly achieving characters above yourself. 

Gabe.

Not that you displayed arrogance to set any precedence in this thread:

For those of us achievement based players, who are looking for any way possible to use actual skill to set ourselves above the rest...

Not that you ever accused your opponents of being insecure because they did not share your opinion:

Designating the game a grind, just gives a reason to badmouth all those people who did achieve more than you and to blame the game for not providing a platform where you can be oen of the highest achieving players around.

[jpark]

Did you like "zone flagging" in EQ?  Think about the grouping implications and what says about the broader design strategy of SOE in EQ and EQ2.

You mean access quests?  Yes, I like it. Have you realized that they are no different than any group quest in WoW?  No one can access the content of either quest without going through the required hoops.  Seeing as how most of the access quests that I have done are actually very fun quests and seeing as how I am not delusional enough to think that a game without challenges would be interesting, yes, I enjoy fun challenges that are required to open up new and cool content.

That broke EQ for many people.  Zone flagging made grouping problems far more severe than ever.  To be flagged required a high level group for an encounter - that provided no reward other than flagging.  So once most people in your guild were flagged - if god forbid you away from the game or were 2 levels shy to be flagged - it made it very difficult to catch up since they were on to the next flag.  There is little incentive to assist in flagging if you're already flagged.  It's remarkable such a bad design choice was introduced late into the game.  I noticed it begin to emerge in EQ2 with lower level access quests.

If someone or a friend did not have a specific flag they could not participate. 

But for an "achiever" like yourself this is a good game mechanic.  It sets you apart from the rest.

I am not far enough in WoW to gauge this yet.

EQ2's 50 quests in the journal vs. WoW's 20?  Don't stop there - EQ2 has way more polygons to its graphics than WoW does! 

What a hilariously failed analogy.  I never said that EQ2 was better because it had a 50 quest limit -- and so your statement is absurd.  What I was pointing out was that players of EQ2 actually are doing so many quests that the 50 limit isn't enough and they delete almost as many quests as they actually do.

Gabe.

But you juxtaposed it by saying WoW quest book had 20.  You made this comparison for a reason - or were you just typing again?

[jpark]

Really the only two things I can think of are: PvP and the AH.  And those are cool features.  But they aren't really what we are talking about here (PvE progression) nor is the lack of these a gamebreaker for EQ2 -- the lack of PvP just means that it is a specialized game Gabe.

I am confused.  A skilled player like yourself who can solo group mobs, reach level 20 in 20 hours in EQ2, constantly looks for ways to display skill to set yourself apart from the rest, is not interested in pvp?

I am confused.  If people play WoW because they are jealous of achievers like yourself and want easy content - why would they go to game where pvp is a key element and will grow with the introduction of battlegrounds?

[El Gallo]

I wasn't saying that EQ2 has more "button mashing".  I actually think it has more options for what you might choose to do.  I think my WoW warrior mashed buttons about as often -- it's just that he was hitting the same ones over and over again (spam and slam, as I've said). 

Well, it sounds as if you haven't played since beta, because they changed the taunt skill by making it just like the eq1 taunt skill (puts you at the same threat level as the #1 person on the hate list +1) so taunt is just an "oh shit" skill now.  Here's what happens in a hard pull (note: not all pulls are like this, there are a lot you can slack on because losing aggro does not wipe you, and different situations -- e.g. an AE group or a cc-heavy group -- will require different methods.  I see the mobs.  If they can be engaged without aggroing others, I open with a charge (on a caster if there is one) otherwise it's bloodrage + bow to pull, using corners to pull groups with casters.  When they are in range, I'll hit a demo shout (attack debuff with moderate aggro), switch to Arms stance for a thunderclap (mild slow, moderate aggro) and then swap to a 2 hand weapon and Fury stance for a quick whirlwind (AE melee attack).  Then its back to Defensive and the - hander for a shield block, which triggers a revenge attack on the mob I want to kill first.  After hitting that guy with revenge (small damage counterattack, possible stun with talents, significant aggro) and a sunder (AC debuff, significant aggro) it's time for me to call out assist (unless someone else, like a rogue or hunter is main assist, in which case it's time to tell them to call assist if they haven't done so, which they will if they are good and we've worked together before).  Then its time to tab through the group and sunder, and if possible revenge, each one.  All the while I am looking for casters to interrupt with shield bash and any mobs that break away after the squishy people.  Then we work through the group killing the mobs in the order of the threat they represent or the ease of killing them (I like it much better when there's a great rogue/hunter MA to do all this while I am just worrying about aggro).  Throughout the rest of the fight I am balancing doing damage with weapon (and possible stance) switches to big 2 handers for instant attacks like mortal strike, overpower, cleave (a 2 target attack) and keeping aggro with shield block + revenge combos, sunder, and demo.  For emergencies, there's the 10-minute AE taunt and the long-recast "shit hits the fan" skills shield wall (short duration massive melee damage mitigation) retaliation (auto riposte) and recklessness (auto crits).  There's an anti-fear ability and I have a racial AE short duration stun that both get used.  I also have a temporary hit point increaser from a talent for when shit really blows up, an array of potions that do everything from healing and providing free rage to increasing crits and providing huge, short-duration mitigation buffs, and a collection of trinkets that create rune wards, increase resistances, summon pets, etc. 

That sounds like a lot, and sometimes it feels like a lot (WoW warriors = EQ1 bards).  Of course it isn't rocket science, and any decent player can figure it out.  Hell, I do it pretty well, and I am far from a great player.  And, like I said, you don't need to do all those things every pull.  Sometimes, however, you need to pull out every trick you have to get your group through a rough spot, and that is a lot of fun.

I am sure there are a lot of similar things that good tanks use in EQ2 to hold aggro.  But I hear a lot of people say that all you need to do is pull, recast your aggro-generating group buffs on incoming, and hit an AE taunt to have a pretty good hold on a group of EQ2 mobs assuming your group can use assist (or the autoassist implied target feature).  I am sure there are places where they have to do more, but I doubt it is much harder than doing the same in WoW.

Go read posts on this very forum about people's reactions to EQ2 .... one common comment is that pretty much everyone liked the level 1-20 experience.  Even Haemish did I think.  I just gave you several examples of cool, fun pre-20 quests

Really?  I had heard that the game got better after 20.  I haven't ever been able to play through the teens because Antonica feels pretty bland and sterile to me, and my brief experience in the Commonlands gave me the same feel.  I heard that the higher end zones had more characters, but deep down I suspect -- and SWG, PoP, LDoN and GoD seem to confirm -- that everyone who knew anything about creating appealing environments or even cared about zone atmosphere left with McQuaid, because since then SoE's zone design has been a joke compared to EQ-Kunark-Velious.  WoW's zones feel a lot more like original EQ's zones to me, though not quite as good.

Did you like "zone flagging" in EQ?  Think about the grouping implications and what says about the broader design strategy of SOE in EQ and EQ2.

You mean access quests?

I think you guys are talking past one another here.  I believe jpark was talking about PoP-style zone flagging in EQ1, which was an utterly asinine idea (PoP initially had raid-mandatory access quests for almost every PoP zone beyond Tier one.  This, combined with the fact that PoP raised the level cap and shrunk the range of viable xp mobs, meant that just about every solo or group player in EQ, who had about a dozen viable xp zones in the Luclin era, was corralled into about 2 viable xp zones in PoP.  Yes, SoE actually asked its core playerbase to pay money for a contraction.  PoP was to the groupers what Luclin was to the hardcore -- the beginning of the end of EQ.  While they bought the hardcore new fur coats in PoP, and the groupers new fur coats in LDoN, SoE was back to its spouse-beating ways with a vengeance in GoD, which managed to fuck both groups royally, and just in time for WoW's release.  GG SoE).  Anyway, I think Gabe is talking about EQ2 access quests, which seem to be one group affairs, which is less of a problem.  I still think they are a bit annoying for Joe Casual, who can't just get a pickup group in zone x, he needs to get a pickup group to do the quest to get into zone x first.  This will be more of a problem as the game ages and there are fewer people who still need to do them, I think.

While I agree with what you say, I disagree that whacking mobs for very thin reasons is much better. 

Truer words have never been spoken.  I think that a lot of people who think quest centered content is a huge part of the reason WoW is doing well are just wrong about that.  All bullshiting about butterfly collecting and zone exploration and whatnot, 99.999% of the quests in EQ2 and WoW are about killing mobs.  Killing x mobs, killing mobs until you get x drops, killing mobs to get to item x in the back of the mob cave, killing mobs while you escort some NPC out of the cave, etc etc.  I have never understood how people think game A, where you spend 30 seconds listening to an NPC tell you to kill wolves, 59 minutes killing wolves, and 30 seconds listening to an NPC tell you "thanks for killing those wolves" is somehow a million times better than game B, where you spend 60 minutes killing wolves.  To me, the key question is: is the wolf-killing fun?  Because that's what you are doing 99% of the time you are logged in.  The only thing quests do is give you more "dings" which is just more proof that people worship EQ1 style gameplay, they just want the pellets a little faster.

I am confused.  A skilled player like yourself who can solo group mobs, reach level 20 in 20 hours in EQ2, constantly looks for ways to display skill to set yourself apart from the rest, is not interested in pvp?

Good point.  In a similar vein, why did so many of the apex achievers in EQ1 move to WoW?  And why do so many of the apex achievers who did go to EQ2 seem to complain about how easy EQ2's endgame content is?  Not that WoW does not have (a lot of) endgame problems itself.

[HaemishM]

Treadmills and RPG's. Just because RPG's have leveling mechanisms or linear stories does not in anyway make them treadmills.

See, treadmills aren't fun. You walk/run on a treadmill to get fitter, i.e. to achieve a goal. I'd hardly say they are fun. When RPG's make the destination the entire fucking goal, that's when they become a treadmill. When it becomes immaterial what you do between start and finish, that's a treadmill. And when MMOG's make getting from level 1 to level 50 the sole goal, that is a treadmill.

You don't ENJOY a treadmill. And that's the point of my posting about treadmills. CoH could be considered a treadmill, except that I'm having fun along the way. The journey is interesting, not just the getting to the "end" at level 50. You can also have a quest treadmill, which is what MMOG's like WoW or EQ2 will devolve into if the quests ever get so boring, they aren't worth doing purely for the sake of doing them. To me, EQ2's quests were treadmills, because I wasn't the least bit interested in them. Could WoW have had a quest treadmill? Sure, but I was never not entertained for long enough to notice.

A treadmill is what's left when you've stop being entertained, and started achieving.

[TheWalrus]

  Only because I feel this is extraordinarily relevant, and my help the angles of enlightenment here will I post.

 StGabe, I can understand what you are saying. I don't agree with any of it. But I understand it.

 You sound very much like a pal that used to be in my gaming group. He was guild leader through EQ1 and on into EQ2. He was whats called a "catass". I'm sure you're familiar with the term. He was a good guy, but he lived for the fucking game. Ate, breathed, and drank EQ2. The problem was, the rest of us didn't. We had work, we had girlfriends, wives, ya know, lives. He expected us to show every night, soon as we got off work, and start grinding.

 I really wanted to like EQ2. Really did. Loved EQ1 for as long as I could. I play games for the game. After I get off work, I want to chuck the brain in neutral, coast downhill and hold my hand out the window and make "vroom" sounds. EQ2 is fucking work. So I dropped it. The small amount of fun I had was restricted to newbie isle. Everything after that was work. The occasional "oh hey, thats cool lookin" kept me going for a while, but in the end eye candy doesn't entertain me enough to keep gettin my money.

 So how is this relevant? Above guy finally drove the rest of us away. We like to screw around and have fun. He doesn't, in the sense that making an entire group of gnomes and fucking around doesn't entertain him. (Oh, and when that made us late for that nights raid, he demoted all us officers. Obsess much?) In the end, we all bailed for WoW. Its our kind of fun. (Oh, and the guild leveling thing was much ass, before they "fixed" it patrons or no.)

 WoW is fun to me. I'm one of those people thats all about the drive man. Sure, eventually you arrive in San Diego, but fuck, you knew it was going to end. It's all about whether you arrive and say "Hot damn, what a ride!" or "Well fuck. Time to turn around and go back." 

 So I'll see ya on the freeway. Gluck with your commute. My vacation rocks.

 

[StGabe]

You sound very much like a pal that used to be in my gaming group. He was guild leader through EQ1 and on into EQ2. He was whats called a "catass". I'm sure you're familiar with the term. He was a good guy, but he lived for the fucking game. Ate, breathed, and drank EQ2. The problem was, the rest of us didn't. We had work, we had girlfriends, wives, ya know, lives. He expected us to show every night, soon as we got off work, and start grinding.

Sorry, but no, that's not me.  I haven't even logged in for 5 days because real life has been kicking my ass.  I'm a fairly hardcore player when I play (in that I don't fuck about with stupid groups and I try to get stuff done quickly and efficiently) but I don't have the time for stuff like that.  As I think I said earlier this thread: it took me a month to grind 5 out the 5 hours of armorsmith in SWG just because I couldn't stand to grind for more than 15 minutes at a time.

You are still limiting your world to one where EQ2 must be about grinds and is boring by default and anyone who likes it is just some "catass" who likes to be rewarded for banging my head against the keyboard 8229 times.  But the truth of the matter is that EQ2 has a ton of good content, a very interesting combat system, etc. -- on the PvE side of things it has everything WoW has and more. It's all there and that's why a few hundred thousand players are playing it.  They are just the people that got past their preconceived notions and actually played the frigging game.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

Haemish said:
Treadmills, blah, blah, blah...

We already dealt with this -- it's a matter of semantics.  I was trying to accomodate the word treadmill (not my choice) but some took the meaning of that too far.  Said different, what I meant all along is that RPG's and stories all rely on progressions and essentially hurdle-jumping.  Stories present conflict after conflict to be hurdled by the protaganists.  When a CRPG attempts to capture a story it must involve these progressions as well.

And just saying that any and all progression are treadmill (i.e. is unfun) as though that were somehow always true, is missing the point.  Becuase all stories are just progressions where the protaganists deal with one conflict only to go onto the other.  This is why, for example, looking at access quests as somehow a gate to fun is silly.  Because the access quest is itself content.  If you can't enjoy a cool quest that grants access to a zone, then why would you enjoy that zone itself?  They are both just fun little adventures in the story of your character.

You can also have a quest treadmill, which is what MMOG's like WoW or EQ2 will devolve into if the quests ever get so boring, they aren't worth doing purely for the sake of doing them. To me, EQ2's quests were treadmills, because I wasn't the least bit interested in them. Could WoW have had a quest treadmill? Sure, but I was never not entertained for long enough to notice.

But you have never said why.  EQ2 is just a treadmill.  Because it has less robust quests?  I don't think so -- it has tons of different types of quests.  Because it doesn't have interesting character abilities?  It has tons of interesting character abilities -- as I have described in detail.  Because combat doesn't require thought?  Again, I've provided plenty of counter-examples to that.  EQ2 is a solid game and that's why a bunch of people are playing it.  Maybe it wasn't the game for you.  Well oh well.  Not all games will be.

But from your writings, which more often than not dismiss EQ2 game mechanics through incorrect understandings of what they are and rarely elaborate at all on why WoW is better than EQ2, that the failure of EQ2 to please you was more a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything.  As you played EQ2 you were waiting for the first thing that nagged you so that you could declare EQ2 a failure and move on to the game you wanted to like, i.e. WoW.

But then I could be wrong.  But if I am -- by all means lay out exactly where EQ2 fails.  And try to get your information correct -- try to judge what EQ2 actually is and not some misconception you have of it based on prejudices drawn from EQ1.

Gabe.

[schild]

Gabe, it's one thing to be a fanatic, but in doing so, try not to mock the administrators. No one who signs up for the forums should be that daft.

By the way, EQ2 is a year or so from being a good game - no matter how much YOU like it. You're still an anomaly. Stop marketing yourself as a sample size.

[StGabe]

For what it's worth -- I got tired of EQ1 and stopped playing it ages ago (I quit shortly after Kunark).  So if you are drawing some stereotype of me and EQ2 (i.e. I am a catass and EQ2 is all about grinding) then you should know that while I have fond memories of EQ1 and think it was a valiant effort when it was created, it's hardly my favorite MMO or a game that I loved and played to death.  And my catassery was such that my highest EQ1 character was level 44 or so and never even got to hit the planes.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

Gabe, it's one thing to be a fanatic, but in doing so, try not to mock the administrators.

And where did I do this?

By the way, EQ2 is a year or so from being a good game - no matter how much YOU like it.

Still stating opinion as fact?  You're an admin, so whatever, but still isn't a good argument.  And, no, disagreeing with your argument style is not mocking you.

You're still an anomaly. Stop marketing yourself as a sample size.

Yes, I'm just one of several hundred thousand players.  If WoW hadn't hit the market at the same time, and EQ2 had pulled in the same subs, people would have thought it was a decent release.  The sample of this forum isn't actually that much better than the sample of players I know who do actually quite enjoy EQ2.  You have what?  Maybe a few dozen people who regularly post about how bad EQ2 is?  And how long do you think the average person who likes EQ2 -- and is not as stubborn as myself -- is going to last on these forums when they are insta-flamed for saying that they happen to enjoy it?

It seems to me, and I could be incorrect, that you guys are awfully threatened by someone who dares to like EQ2 for what it is.  If so, why?

Gabe.

[StGabe]

I am confused.  A skilled player like yourself who can solo group mobs, reach level 20 in 20 hours in EQ2, constantly looks for ways to display skill to set yourself apart from the rest, is not interested in pvp?

I liked PvP in DAoC.  But just as a past time.  PvP usually leaves a bad taste in my mouth.  It's just a preference thing.  I don't like mushrooms on my pizza, for no really objective reason, and I don't like most forms of PvP.

Throughout this entire thread people seem to want to pigeonhole me and tell me what I MUST be if I dare enjoy EQ2.  Well I think you guys are trying too hard to fit me (and the other hundreds of thousands who are playing EQ2) into a box.

Gabe.

[schild]

Gabe, it's one thing to be a fanatic, but in doing so, try not to mock the administrators.

And where did I do this?

Haemish said:
Treadmills, blah, blah, blah...

If Haemish was awake you'd probably be getting much harsher words. Try not to be a cockknocker. I will praise the fact that you haven't let your fanaticism leak into the rest of the forums though.

And no, I wasn't stating from opinion. That was fact. If it was an opinion, I would have prefaced it with - "I think." And as per your other post after the above quoted - MMORPG players are easily put into a box, yourself included. They're a very predictable bunch and I'm pretty sure most of the people on this forum have enough experience to color that box any color they see fit. Yours is colored fanboi.

[StGabe]

Well, it sounds as if you haven't played since beta, because they changed the taunt skill by making it just like the eq1 taunt skill (puts you at the same threat level as the #1 person on the hate list +1) so taunt is just an "oh shit" skill now.  Here's what happens in a hard pull (note: not all pulls are like this, there are a lot you can slack on because losing aggro does not wipe you, and different situations -- e.g. an AE group or a cc-heavy group -- will require different methods.  I see the mobs.  If they can be engaged without aggroing others, I open with a charge (on a caster if there is one) otherwise it's bloodrage + bow to pull, using corners to pull groups with casters.  When they are in range, I'll hit a demo shout (attack debuff with moderate aggro), switch to Arms stance for a thunderclap (mild slow, moderate aggro) and then swap to a 2 hand weapon and Fury stance for a quick whirlwind (AE melee attack).  Then its back to Defensive and the - hander for a shield block, which triggers a revenge attack on the mob I want to kill first.  After hitting that guy with revenge (small damage counterattack, possible stun with talents, significant aggro) and a sunder (AC debuff, significant aggro) it's time for me to call out assist (unless someone else, like a rogue or hunter is main assist, in which case it's time to tell them to call assist if they haven't done so, which they will if they are good and we've worked together before).  Then its time to tab through the group and sunder, and if possible revenge, each one.  All the while I am looking for casters to interrupt with shield bash and any mobs that break away after the squishy people.  Then we work through the group killing the mobs in the order of the threat they represent or the ease of killing them (I like it much better when there's a great rogue/hunter MA to do all this while I am just worrying about aggro).  Throughout the rest of the fight I am balancing doing damage with weapon (and possible stance) switches to big 2 handers for instant attacks like mortal strike, overpower, cleave (a 2 target attack) and keeping aggro with shield block + revenge combos, sunder, and demo.  For emergencies, there's the 10-minute AE taunt and the long-recast "shit hits the fan" skills shield wall (short duration massive melee damage mitigation) retaliation (auto riposte) and recklessness (auto crits).  There's an anti-fear ability and I have a racial AE short duration stun that both get used.  I also have a temporary hit point increaser from a talent for when shit really blows up, an array of potions that do everything from healing and providing free rage to increasing crits and providing huge, short-duration mitigation buffs, and a collection of trinkets that create rune wards, increase resistances, summon pets, etc.

You are correct that I didn't play after beta.

But the taunt change you mention went in right at the end.  And seemed to be universally hated.  I thought it had been reversed.  Guess not.

I am a bit boggled by the rest of your comments.  Unless have changed I found thunderclap to be strictly inferior to pretty much anything else you could use your rage on -- and so I never used it.  I found mortal strike and slam to be pretty much strictly superior to any other ability that the warrior had.  Of course I would use kicks or the shield attack to interrupt and the long recast saveme buttons.  A lot of the stuff you mention isn't really abilities (potions, switching weapons).  I know you can change stances to use other abilities.  I just never found that it was worthwhile -- the cost in rage was too much and -- depending on what you wanted to do, it was almost always ideal to use one or the other ability.  Sunder never worked for me.  Grouped -- a rogue always did their armor debuff and so mine wouldn't stick.  Solo, the creature died too quickly for it to matter.  In fact creatures dying too early for my abilities to matter seemed to regularly be a problem. *shrug*

By my count there are maybe half a dozen abilities you're really using regularly (say: charge, taunt, mortal strike, demo shout, revenge and kick -- if you can even use all of those in the same stance, I forget).  I know that my characters in EQ2 regularly use at least twice that amount of abilities.  And there are huge swings in which abilities get used depending on the encounter.

I have had, and used, all of those abilities you mention.  But I think you greatly overstate how much they actually get used or how useful they are.  I think if you are really switching around to use all that stuff regularly -- then you are probably hurting yourself.  But that was just  my experience.  In the end I guess we agree to disagree -- but I still say that EQ2's classes offer a far more interesting set of tools to work with and that if you take the time to really play around with them you will be pleasantly surprised.

Gabe.

[StGabe]

If Haemish was awake you'd probably be getting much harsher words. Try not to be a cockknocker

lol.

That was mockery?

I was just paraphrasing him without bothering to put in the whole quote.  I could have used any filler word there, or an ellipsis -- that's all I meant.

Methinks you protest too much.  Again I ask, and again I say I could be wrong, but why are you guys so threatened by someone who dares to disagree with you?

Gabe.

[schild]

You come off as a shill, a fanboi, a pain in the ass, etc. Not as someone who is merely protesting.