So, I logged in last night...

[Alkiera]

I talked to a friend on ICQ the other night who's been in EQ2 since shortly after launch.  We chatted about changes to the game, and she mentioned there was some kind of 'come back and check out the changes' thing, so I re-installed EQ2 from my 10 CD set, patched(45 mins), and logged in; without re-subbing.

It seemed pretty much the same as before.  She and another friend of mine mentored down to my level, and grabbed a couple people from their guild to group with us, we ran around killing green/blue mobs.  I did notice a lot of my SKs spells were missing.  They've made changes to a lot of the other things, as well.  I don't know that it's any better or worse than it was, tho apparently SplitPaw and the new expansion have instances that scale to your level/group, in a way less inane than the original instances.

I aim to play again tonight, solo some, and see if that's any better or worse than before.

I also noted that it doesn't run much better than it did before, even tho I've increased my RAM by a good bit, and my CPU/mobo is much more powerful than when I last played.

Alkiera

[jpark]

I played for several weeks a few months ago.

I did notice a number of changes.  Some good.

Honestly though, I just find the game so uninspiring.  The utter absence of art in the game just crushes me.  I never find myself saying "neat".

The classes and racials still seem a mess. It's hard for me to even find a web site that has Current information on racial abilities and spell/trait progression.

My Templar is level 29.  I checked the pvp arena following their latest expansion - what a total failure.  Expansion was 1 week old at the time - and SOE must have decided that since arenas were such a big success in EQ  that they would do well in EQ2.  On my server there were less than 10 people in the arena across all instances of the arena.

Here's the best part: in the arena you can fight people 20 levels higher than you!  To hell with using sidekicking to control level differences!  And if there are only a handful of people even paying attention to the arena - good luck finding a "match".

I would give this game another shot - AGAIN - if I saw:

1.  Racial armors.  You know, so EVERYONE does not look the same.  How about level 40+ armors that actually look good?  Rather than looking like newbie starter gear unless you inspect them.

2.  Zones that do not feel like a golf course.  A vast expanse of....

3.  Talent trees or some goddamn theme to this scattered trait/ racial / spell focus system they have.

Don't mean to rant - but I have given this game a chance on several occassions.

[UD_Delt]

The classes and racials still seem a mess. It's hard for me to even find a web site that has Current information on racial abilities and spell/trait progression.

The last patch added some new models (SOGA models). I've just started playing around with them but some of them look a little better although there are still improvements needed on some of the armor types. Specifically the cobalt vanguard armor is somewhat megaman meets the smurfs at the moment.

[Toast]

As primitive as it was, classic EQ really got the armor and item art right. Races were distinctive, and it was possible to tell "status" by what a player's armor looked like.

[jpark]

As primitive as it was, classic EQ really got the armor and item art right. Races were distinctive, and it was possible to tell "status" by what a player's armor looked like.

Absolutely.

Because more polygons does not in itself seduce me - I really do believe the character models and armor sets of EQ rival EQ2.

[schild]

Maybe the design of the armor and races were on par with EQ2, but the actual execution? That's not even a reasonable comparison. Apples and oranges. They're simply too far apart in terms of graphical power at the time of release.

To add, there's something to be said about subtlety. But where it counts? The frogloks, dwarves, halflings and humans are all light years away from eachother in EQ2. In EQ1, the differences in the bodies are pure exaggeration because of how few polygons they had to work with. Simply put, differences in humanoid races should be more subtle - much like EQ2. EQ1 was not subtle. Subtle simply couldn't be done back then.

[Toast]

I'm not sure the racial differences need to be subtle. The exagerrated races were actually fun. I played an Ogre, and the game engine made it feel like my character was actually too big for much of the game world.

It was cool getting advantages of a "big" race while actually having to pay a price. Every time my character got stuck in a narrow passage way or got yelled at to get a magical "shrink", it drove home the reality of my character. Immersion ++

Likewise with Barbarians and Trolls.

The races also had very unique armor models. The skins for each race's armor were great. I'm not sure how they did it, but I wish the devs with all these polygons could recreate it.

[shiznitz]

I popped back in after a few week hiatus (thank you Civ4) and found the default UI changed to something un-fantasy but I liked it. My ebon armor is also now navy blue. The SOGA model are interesting but I turned them off. I also claimed all the veteran rewards and they filled up a large pack. I thought the rewards were going to be choices from a list, but I got everything for each term (a one year subscriber.)

No intention to quit yet, but my play time has new competition in Civ4 and a new baby. The former being much easier to quit on short notice than EQ2.