Does anyone play EQ2?

[WindupAtheist]

Even the Magic forum has more activity than this.

[Gorky]

I've been trying the Trial of the Isle and its given me a pretty bad impression of EQ2! The game mechanics feels very dumbed down (consolized if I'm allowed to invent words). Combat on both magic and melee chars felt oversimplified atleast until level 6, does it improve in the later levels? Worst of all would be the monster and PC models, goddamn awful to put it mildly! This is what they could come up with after all those truckloads of money and years of development?

Crafting seemed better than EQLive, but still catasstic considering the components/sub combines etc. The 'Interactive' casting mechanism was meh, neither bad nor very well designed, but thought it would be bad if you are trying to craft a lot of items.

Immersion wise I am guessing the Isle would be a bad place to judge on, can anyone else tell me if the main zones are better? That was one of the main things I loved in EQLive, great zones (mostly) with great atmosphere.

Quests were more of the same, nothing novel there from what I was allowed to see. Kill X mobs till you get Y drops, return for teh shiney! How are the quests in the main game?

Overall, I could get myself into this, if the game is much better after the Isle, and they dont pull the same crap as WoW, requiring a N American CC even if you want to use game time cards, shutting out the rest of the world. Anyone know?

But I am very disappointed with the trial, especially since I had to download close to 2gig for just that tiny zone and one week time limit.

[Murgos]

I'll go back to playing SOE developed MMOG's when they start putting forth some effort to appreciate my unique snowflakeness.  They have taken faceless treadmilling to a whole new level.  Their games play like you slide down very cramped chutes and have to get a ticket punched at each landing or you can't get on the next chute.

[Der Helm]

I just downloaded the free trial, I am so excited.

[Der Helm]

All the servers are down and the programm starts my browser to display a "thank you for playing" message everytime I close the application ?

And I can't remember putting everquest2.com in my favourites.

What
the
fuck

[Furiously]

I was playing until they announced the SOEbay thing - Then I canceled to let them know what I thought of it.

[AOFanboi]

What's that? Everquest 2? Tried the tiral as well, got immensely bored.

*Goes back to helping Zion/Machines/Merovignian against the other factions in a game with beautiful but somewhat broken combat*

[jpark]

I still maintain that EQ is better game.

Oh ya, it has less polygons.

[Furiously]

If you loved EQ1, but are sick of it. EQ2 is great in being able to see how the world changed, and some of the quests for the heritage items are fairly entertaining. When they are not a horrid grind.

[Gorky]

What's that? Everquest 2? Tried the tiral as well, got immensely bored.

*Goes back to helping Zion/Machines/Merovignian against the other factions in a game with beautiful but somewhat broken combat*

Looks like the trial had just the opposite effect to what SOE had hoped... way to shoot yourself in the foot SOE, now just aim a bit higher, like at the head, and end the pain.

But then I think of all the vault kiddies trying this and going oooooh! higher polygon boobies! and bet they got more subs than they lost. We lose either way.

[HaemishM]

I've said my piece about EQ2 before, and many of my problems with it may have changed, but I HATED the Isle. Of course, I also hated Qeynos, and especially the Qeynos Sewers Down Below level. If you don't like the Isle, you won't like any of the rest of the game, IMO.

[Rasix]

I actually LIKED the Isle.  The first part was rather cool, although later they just stopped bothering to explain things to you.

Then I got to Freeport.  SUUUUUUUUCKED.

[WayAbvPar]

If you don't like the Isle, you won't like any of the rest of the game, IMO.

Glad to hear it. I fucking hated the Isle in beta, but was always wondering if I was missing out. I could just see the SOE incompetents making the first entry into the world bad, but the rest of the game better.

[schild]

I did the isle in full 4 times. Loved it every time. Also loved the landlord/freeport opening scenes. Once I stepped out of apartment, I must have stepped in shit. Something smelled funky.

[Murgos]

I did the isle in full 4 times. Loved it every time. Also loved the landlord/freeport opening scenes. Once I stepped out of apartment, I must have stepped in shit. Something smelled funky.

The smell was probably coming from your video card.  Those graphics stink.

Does anyone play EQ2?

The more I think about it the more I think this is an existential question and I am going to go ahead and answer no, because I actually believe it to be impossible to play EQ2..

[raydeen]

If you loved EQ1, but are sick of it. EQ2 is great in being able to see how the world changed, and some of the quests for the heritage items are fairly entertaining. When they are not a horrid grind.

I think SOE is actively trying to push people out of EQ1 now. I've been playing on and off since Day 2 or retail and it's performance is worse than ever. It now takes a full 2-3 seconds to open a bag or cast/change spells. And now they're going to be charging $14.99 for a 'top tier MMOG' (or words to that effect). I've personaly had it. I'm in one of the oldest guilds on Cazic and even the hardcore catasses are hardly on any more. I think as soon a I can bring myself to log in and pass out the items from my account, I'm outta Dodge. But not headed to EQ2. No Fecking Way. I've found WoW to be pretty good along with CoH and GW. I think the honeymoon is over between me and SOE in general. Took long enough.

[jpark]

If you loved EQ1, but are sick of it. EQ2 is great in being able to see how the world changed, and some of the quests for the heritage items are fairly entertaining. When they are not a horrid grind.

I think SOE is actively trying to push people out of EQ1 now. I've been playing on and off since Day 2 or retail and it's performance is worse than ever. It now takes a full 2-3 seconds to open a bag or cast/change spells. And now they're going to be charging $14.99 for a 'top tier MMOG' (or words to that effect).

I argued here that exactly that would happen.  For various reasons I will spare you of here.

Anyway, in business terms I now think I am wrong.  EQ2 has fallen so short of expectations, encouraging people to move from EQ isn't going to bring them to EQ2, but the games you mentioned.

[shiznitz]

I am still playing. Wait, make that paying. I logged on for the first time in 2 weeks last night. I had a good time, actually, but the free preview of Catan Online at MSN Game Zone is more fun.

[AlteredOne]

I think Alkiera was the most vocal EQ2 player, and she has disappeared.  I attempted to "play" it for about a month, gave up in anger when they tied the availability of extra character slots to the Station Pass.  Yes I know, I should have seen it coming, but everything about SoE's handling of EQ2 screams "money grubbing soul-less megacorporate exploitation of gaming addicts."  And I refuse to categorize myself as an addict, despite frequenting these sites.

[schild]

It's not about addicts, it's about people that don't know better.

They'd rather have people not playing but still paying than people who play 24/7.

[Signe]

I liked the nubby island, too, but I always suspected that the fun would end when I left.  I wasn't disappointed.  I lasted until level 10 hoping I would find something fun to do.  I didn't.

[jpark]

I just can't get over they removed the skill of pulling from the game in EQ2 that was the hallmark of EQ.  Wow retained it - and it is great fun trying to lead a group with good pull strategies.

Group exp penalties actually made death worse than in EQ.  It really penalizes strangers to a group - and makes the burden of death heavier.

I know some here like the linked encounter system - I don't.  If you play a support class - the good will you can offer to others by way of rezzes, buffs and heals is part of the fun.  In EQ2 that disappeared, since all those actions are group/raid only.  Most support class players - using EQ as an example - got a big charge casting a SoW (movement buff) on a stranger or a friendly heal during a fight.  No more.

EQ offered tremendous class specialization - certainly unbalanced - but everyone was good at something.  EQ2 did not balance classes, it really just made 4 of them. 

Even on the EQ warrior boards I visit - people rail about the shitty graphics of EQ2.  Ya the polygons are there, but that doesn't make for art.

EQ2 made great strides, however, in preventing powerleveling so people would not burn through content 

[kaid]

Eq2 is the primary mmrpg I play although I still have my WoW account. Wow was just a bit to solo oriented and easy for my tastes. Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment but in about 1/8th the time put into WoW as compared to eq2 my WoW character is almost the same level. WoW is fun and I do enjoy it but it strikes me as more of a mmrpg console game than a long term game like eqlive was.

In eq2 now I am currently a level 41 conjuror and a level 43 sage with my main. If you think everything goes downhill looks wise after the newbie island it means you have never seen the higher level areas.

The initial areas and dungeons are a bit bland but man things get a whole lot more visually impressive as you go. Everfrost,lavastorm sol's eye or any of the blood line things are super neat looking.

My biggest compliant about eq2 is the initial part of the game is just to similar no matter what class you take. This unfortunatly is working as intended but things get so much more enjoyable the higher you get because the classes get more and more unique as they go.

Given that many people take a long long time to get past 20 I can easily see how some of the impressions I hear are made.  The sad thing is I think it is also the way many new mmrpg will go starting as one of a handful of classes that branch out as you go. This makes the initial leveling of alts pretty boring. This is one reason COH has tons of folks making alts is because right from level 1 your characters can be pretty damn different. In the first 6 levels you can have pretty wildly divergant characters even of the same arch type.

For eq2 though I am enjoying it more and more the higher I get as my class is really coming into its own and the areas we are going to now are way more colorful and unique than before. Everfrost and lavastorm look freaking sweet in eq2 and I have hardly done more than poke my nose into the entry areas of those zones.


kaid

[Mesozoic]

I was never a fan of any branching class system - not even its relatvely benign appearance in DAoC.  Newbies are not really helped by it, and vets generally know what they want immediately.  As I think EQ1 proved, if a game really captures people's imagination, they will not freak out and quit over some imagined inability to comprehend more than 4 choices. 

I may be biased.  If a person really is so fragile, I don't want to see them in-game.

[jpark]

Kaid - Thanks for your upbeat post there.  I do like characters that take a long time to develop - but are still enjoyable to play during that journey.  I do appreciate and accept the significant investment character development requires in EQ2 - but the mechanics supporting that journey weren't much fun for me.  To give context, I am former 62 EQ warrior.

[kaid]

Its kinda a shame that eq2 saves most of its really kick ass looking zones for the 35+ range. I have not yet grouped with anybody who when the first time I bring them to everfrost doesn't start cooing about how neat looking it is and lavastorm is freaking awsome.

I have been enjoying it I have a very tight family guild and even with our totally non uberness we have reached guild level 20 for very good quality mounts for those who want it. We have some folks who are just enjoying the crafting stuff and others who just do the adventuring stuff. Myself I like both as shown by the fact I am usually even or a level or two plus or minus between my crafting and my adventuring class.

I can't put my finger on why I enjoy the crafting system I think it is kinda like solitare to me one of those things that looks dumb but you keep having to play that one more hand.

The combat stuff though just gets better and better from what I have seen as the game goes on. I was not really blown away when I was in my high teens low twenties. Now I am having loads of fun. In my normal group we have a paladin, fury a conj and a necro. Me and the necro in one group look funny as hell. Between my big flaming gargoyle pet his giant zombie thing and his 3 rotting hounds and my pack of fish and sharks we are a 4 man zoo.

Having a full group is nice but with the four of us we have gone into and completed everything we have wanted to fight so far. A few things required us hooking up with our guilds other steady group but most of the content in the game is one group accessible.

The bloodlines adventure pack was super fun. We hit it at the perfect level and damn that was a blast. Its quite long and if you don't have a steady group it would be tougher to complete it but man it was a blast for us. Good rewards and some very tricky fights to figure out in some of the best dungeon cavern type zones I have been in.

My whole guild is looking forward to the splitpaw adventure pack which is similar to bloodlines but dynamic in level to offer a challange to groups from 20 to 50. The biggest gripe about bloodlines was some of our guild was already in their low 40s when it came out which made the first 3 or 4 missions pretty grey to them. Mentoring though helped fix that nicely though when that came out.

After exemplar/sidekicking in COH and mentoring in EQ2 I think any future game that does not provide something similar to this is foolish if they are level based. Alot in our family guild will probably never get past 20 as they just play to many alts to get any one up that far. I mentor down to them and still have a fun time kicking around stormhold and blackburrow. We use mentoring quite a bit even at higher levels to make our fights as challanging as possible. Its a good system and allows you to not mosh greens like in eqlive.


kaid

[Alkiera]

I haven't disappeared from here, but I did, a couple weeks ago, disappear from EQ2.  I had a 29ish SK, and a 23 Illusionist as my highest characters, everything else was under 12 or so.

I agree that the branching structure was much too drawn out, and it did make having alts really, really, really tedious.  Wanna compare a Warlock to a Wizard?  Well, the first 20 levels are exactly, and I mean exactly, the same.  Given the amount of playtime it takes to get to 20, that's a LOT of 'same'.  Also, it means that your playstyle takes a radical shift when you hit the branch points, which IMO is at least as jarring to the new player as figuring out what you want to be from a list of 24 choices.

I did get to 29 with my SK, and did start to see some neater zones...  Got Wakening Lands access, it was pretty...  but there was an awful lot of tedium to gameplay.  Not as much as EQ1, but still quite a bit.  EQ2 still has this core element of what I call "You'll See"...  It gets better at 30, you'll see...  No, things are really great at 45, come on, you'll see... You should see what you can spend these AA points on, it's pretty neat!  Oh, this expansion has some great stuff in it, just have to get thru these trials... you'll see!  The problem is, just like EQ1, you never really feel like you've actually gotten the carrot.  You've seen it there, at level X, and then you reach level X, and it's no different than when you level X-10.  Or at 32 AAs, or whathaveyou.

And don't get me started on the EQ2 crafting system.  They did figure out how to limit the number of people who play crafters...  by making crafting sooo time-consuming, sooo grindy, that most people try it for a few levels, then just buy what they need off the player market.

I finally, along with a couple RL friends, left EQ2 to go back to CoH.  I used the respec I had gotten around issue 2(I left in January), and I've gone from 22 to nearly 35 on my scrapper in about 3 weeks.  In fact, I've not been on here as much due to having a blast hewing up Freakz and Thorn Mages and animate plants in Paragon City, with a broadsword.  I have Headsplitter now... with Build Up I can one-shot even con minions.  Show me another MMO where I can do that.  And I can take out groups of +1's and +2's, with Lts mixed in, handle +2 bosses solo.  It's a great game to just log on for an hour and have fun with.

Alkiera

[Glazius]

Between my big flaming gargoyle pet his giant zombie thing and his 3 rotting hounds and my pack of fish and sharks we are a 4 man zoo.

They're still doing that thing where a giant shark can chase you right up onto land and surf across the grass chewing on your bum?

Please say no.

--GF

[kaid]

Heheh actually I was talking about a spell I have aqueous hunters which is basically the mage version of the water pet. It summons 2 elemental fish and one elemental shark to attack my target. Its like a very long duration dot that can be killed by damage and it is in addition to my normal pet.

[UD_Delt]

I'm still in EQ2 as well. Part of a very large raiding guild w/ rl friends despite the fact i'm not up to raid levels yet. Like Kaid I've also gotten caught up in crafting. I currently have a 38 Swashbuckler/49 Alchemist as my main.

with Build Up I can one-shot even con minions.  Show me another MMO where I can do that. 
Alkiera

Not sure how your CoH level compares to an EQ2 Level but back in the late 20's (26-29) I was able to one-shot kill blue-con caster type mobs in EQ2 w/ my swashbuckler. At 38 the best I can do is about 60% damage w/ my opening shot on the lower HP type mobs (casters, rangers, etc..).

[AlteredOne]

EQ2 is a classic example of the shiney overwhelming the gameplay.  Back when it released, there was a ton of talk about how great the graphics and voiceovers were.  A few months later, the focus is 100% on the grind, the faulty gameplay, and the casual-inaccessible endgame.

[Mesozoic]

SOE never expected EQ to do this well.
When it did, they didn't understand why.
When they tried to repeat it, they failed.

Its worth noting that "even (white) con" minions in CoH are "even" in name only.  PCs are supposed to be able to take 3-4 of them out at once, and in reality many heroes can take out several OJs or higher.  I'm not sure how that compares to the EQ2 even-con.

Question:  Is there any substance to being "good" or "evil" in EQ2?  Do evil characters get asked to do evil things, or is it just a matter of living in low light conditions and brooding a lot?

[AlteredOne]

Question:  Is there any substance to being "good" or "evil" in EQ2?  Do evil characters get asked to do evil things, or is it just a matter of living in low light conditions and brooding a lot?

In my experience, the "evil" quests did ask you to kill "good" people.  But of course, this was simply the inverse of the "good" quests asking you to kill "evil" people.  And of course, the good people are cute/pretty, and the evil races are ugly.

Other than that, the evil quests were remarkable for their moronic voiceovers which invariably insulted the player, in a ham-handed attempt to make them feel as if they were actually "good" people being manipulated by evil overlords.  Example:  "Here's a task for you, scum.  Go kill this elf, and I will reward you with a sack of dung if you're lucky.  Don't say no, wretch, or I'll string you up on a meat hook."  And so forth.  Somehow it did not appeal to me.

[shiznitz]

Is there any substance to being "good" or "evil" in EQ2? 

Do evil characters get asked to do evil things?

Is it just a matter of living in low light conditions and brooding a lot?

No, no, yes.

[Mesozoic]

Check.

Considering how poorly computer games implement morality, I'm not sure why I thought EQ2 would do any better.  I  guess I had some hope because EQ2 still works on a GvE principle, rather than the boring moral relativism of WoW or DAoC.

I'm reminded of SB.  How people always think they want to play lonely, brooding characters  - and yet when being lonely and brooding has actual consequences - no guild, no trainers, no home, etc - players suddenly reform and become socialable.  In the same way, many people think they want to be evil.  But if they actually had to do evil things...

We'll probably never know.