EverQuest 2 new expansion and adventure pack. True comeback?

[Rasix]

WRONG. It does not patch better. It does not have better guild support. Last but not least, the classes in WoW sound 10x more fruity than the classes in EQ2.

Warrior, Mage, Shaman, Paladin, Warlock, Priest, Rogue, Hunter, Druid (bold for overlap). Compared with EQ2 attack-of-the-thesaurus class naming, it seems pretty equal.  If anything, WoW's class names are a bit muted and bland.  Christopher Lowell it is not. 

Patching and guild support (tools) are not something I'd choose one game over the other for. Those aren't deal breakers I'd imagine for a great majority of people, unlike releasing a game that punishes solo gameplay (yes, I know it's gotten better). 

EQ2 probably has gotten to the point that I'd enjoy playing it.  But why? If I want to get my DIKU on, I already have a good place to do that.    And a place where I won't need to spend a bunch of cash on expansions. 

[shiznitz]

If KoS didn't bring in more people, I don't see why this would. The art in KoS is quite good and the solo quest lines are superb.

[schild]

The last but not least thing was something of a joke.

I also didn't mention player housing - which is a big thing for me. EQ2 has 100% more virtual world than WoW. That's a huge win for me, and not many other people.

[Murgos]

There are Druids and Shamen in EQ2 also...

[Rasix]

The last but not least thing was something of a joke.

I also didn't mention player housing - which is a big thing for me. EQ2 has 100% more virtual world than WoW. That's a huge win for me, and not many other people.

Yah, I figured.. People do that on the WoW forums a lot; I didn't expect to see that kind of crap here :) You'll always get a mention of Astral Recall being overpowered in any nerf shaman post to throw the fanbois into a fit.

I haven't liked player housing since UO/SWG.  Instanced virtual appartments really do jack shit for me.

[schild]

Instanced virtual appartments really do jack shit for me.

Of course, virtual ghettos like in UO and SW:G are game breakers.

[WindupAtheist]

I also didn't mention player housing - which is a big thing for me.

Instanced apartments are the difference between a shit sandwich, and a shit sandwich with ketchup.  Although I'd probably settle for a building existing inside it's own larger instance.  Give me something I can design creatively and have people look at from the outside, not just a box to push furniture around in.

EQ2 has 100% more virtual world than WoW.

And the sandwich with ketchup has 100% more non-shit content than the one without, but that doesn't mean I want to eat it.  Honestly, if I want me some "virtual world" I'll...  Well I sure as hell won't look to either EQ2 or WoW.

[Venkman]

WoW is a better EQ1.

EQ2 is a better WoW.

It's just that nobody gives a shit and plays WoW instead. Suck it up and deal.

[kaid]

Frankly after seeing the sprawling ghettos of swg and uo I just don't think to many mmrpg will go with non instanced player housing.

I think DAOC so far has done housing about as good as possible. The houses are useful its not to much of a ghetto and they are in their own instance housing area so if it offends you just don't go there.

kaid

[HaemishM]

My bard would kick your ass in SB.

Yeah, but he'd look like a fucking pansy doing it. I've never seen a gayer outfit than the high-level bard armor in SB.

[SurfD]

Frankly after seeing the sprawling ghettos of swg and uo I just don't think to many mmrpg will go with non instanced player housing.

I think DAOC so far has done housing about as good as possible. The houses are useful its not to much of a ghetto and they are in their own instance housing area so if it offends you just don't go there.

kaid

Personally, i think AC1 did the best housing i have ever encountred.  There were "villiages" of normal small and mid sized houses (1 or 2 room houses with basements) for people to show off their stuff on the walls / lawn / whatever.  There were scattered large houses in smaller clumps (5 or 6 rooms), and there were widely scattered mansions (10+ rooms, including portals to private meeting areas) which were usually snapped up as guildhouses.

To allow housing for everyone, without cluttering the landscape with eyesore ghettoes, they implimented the "Appartments", which were warrens of 1 room houses much like a normal appartment building, except in their own dungeons, hidden out of the way (about as close to "instancing" as you could get")

[Big Gulp]

WoW is a better EQ1.

EQ2 is a better WoW.

It's just that nobody gives a shit and plays WoW instead. Suck it up and deal.

Except that EQ2's graphics make me physically ill.  They're flat out amateurish.  A lot of people don't like WoW's style (I do, but hey, tastes are subjective) but you do have to admit that at least there's some style to be had in it.  EQ2 is completely without soul, and that's just something I can't ignore.

[schild]

Horizons had the best design for housing. It was AC1s system, with tons more customizability, cleanliness and polish.

Unfortunately that polish was applied by the hands of retards and turned out to be total crap.

But, IN THEORY it was the best housing system.

[Nija]

WoW >

I JUST played EQ2. I know this. Don't make me go to the dirge forum and grab some UI screenshots from the high level guys.

5-6 12 button hotkey bars jam packed with the exact same icons and every single one is needed. It's not a good game.

[Venkman]

Since WoW's UI requires at least three different mods to make playing it even marginally passable, I wouldn't hold WoW to any level of divine either. The UI, like EQ2's, is fine for the rank and file newb who'll be bored before maximizing efficiency is an absolute requirement anyway. But anyone serious about playing is going to be customizing forever, and finding programs to make up for whatever lacks.

EQ2 is much more customizable than WoW, almost incomparably so. But the end product just isn't as pretty. Uninspired art can suck the life out of any otherwise engaging experience.

[Merusk]

Min-maxing to that degree is stupid.  I play with one mod as a requirement, CT raid, and that's simply because the guild requires it.  I'd be fine using WoW's own raid interface for healing these days.   Saying 2-3 are required is a fallacy, just say you prefer EQ2 D, you're getting silly.

[jpark]

The removal of the tiered class structure tempted me.  I reinstalled the Trial and gave it another shot.  It was nice to log on and be an assassin or a shadowknight right up front, but in the end the graphics were still enough to kill it for me. 

Agreed.

Their latest expansion - plane of sky - supposedly addresses some of these graphical issues and livens things up a bit.  BUT IN TRUE EQ STYLE, OF COURSE THE CHANGES ONLY APPLY TO THE LATEST ZONE ADDED TO GAME.

[Sauced]

Having recently played both, and having tried desperately to come up with a defining difference between the two, I came up fairly empty actually.

The fact is, to me, WoW is super boring.  I've tried, so hard, because the people I've been MMOG-ing with since '99 are total crack heads for WoW, and even their company just doesn't help.  Wish I had the talent to put it into words.

[Rasix]

Since WoW's UI requires at least three different mods to make playing it even marginally passable, I wouldn't hold WoW to any level of divine either. The UI, like EQ2's, is fine for the rank and file newb who'll be bored before maximizing efficiency is an absolute requirement anyway. But anyone serious about playing is going to be customizing forever, and finding programs to make up for whatever lacks.

I've healed 99% of the available raid content in WoW using nothing more than CTRaid. If I was lazy and wanted one-button, half awake easy-mode would go out and get crap like benecast or decursive (if I was still playing that is). None of that crap is remotely necessary to even be in the top .1% bleeding edge guilds. People are just lazy.

[Venkman]

Min-maxing to that degree is stupid.  I play with one mod as a requirement, CT raid, and that's simply because the guild requires it.  I'd be fine using WoW's own raid interface for healing these days.   Saying 2-3 are required is a fallacy, just say you prefer EQ2 D, you're getting silly.

Let's just get this one thing out of the way right now: I played WoW for a solid year and barely logged three cumulative months into EQ2.  I'll probably be back to WoW when BC comes out, but otherwise it's a merely a conversation point to me. Just because I am not waiting for my 0.1% chance at some BWL drop doesn't mean I'm a SOE stooge.

Now, on the UI, if you're doing only one thing (ie, Raiding), yea, you can get by with CT Raid. Just like anyone who plays very casually would be fine with the basic UI.

But what about questing? You were probably done with your questing by the time Blizzard got around to doing what things like MonkeyBar did so frigging long ago. Maybe you suffered the quest UI nobly, or used Monkey or it's ilk. And what about the commerce side? Things like Auctioneer, Enchantrix? Those aren't a requirement to people who play that segment the game? And for normal play, you only ever had one hotbutton bar up until Blizzard got around to adding more of those too, something the CT folks had forever?

It's not min-maxxing. It's improving the UI to get a better play experience. Old discussion, new game.

[HRose]

My choice would be about static houses (farms, outposts, villages, cities, apartments etc..) everywhere in the world. Where the world and the buildings are really used and populated by players. And not just backdrops.

The point is: real houses, not portals to instances. Without the pop-up of shantytowns as in UO or SWG.

Take EQ2, make it so once an house slot is bought noone else can get it as another instance of it (which is lame), then make it persistent in the environment (open the door, go in).

I like what EQ2 does, I like that I can walk around a town and target a door to go to that house. But I don't like that if I buy that house someone else can come and buy another instance of it. It kind of removes the value of existing and owning a part of that virual world.

[HRose]

I'd add: at least WoW's interface doesn't lag the game of another 10-20%.

Really, EQ2 UI is another major lagging factor added to the already poor engine.

WoW's UI not only is well designed, imho, but it has also a really good technology behind. Both in power and performance.

[jpark]

I like what EQ2 does, I like that I can walk around a town and target a door to go to that house. But I don't like that if I buy that house someone else can come and buy another instance of it. It kind of removes the value of existing and owning a part of that virual world.

Antonica
Antonica2
Antonica4

It kills me.

[SurfD]

My choice would be about static houses (farms, outposts, villages, cities, apartments etc..) everywhere in the world. Where the world and the buildings are really used and populated by players. And not just backdrops.

The point is: real houses, not portals to instances. Without the pop-up of shantytowns as in UO or SWG.

This is pretty much exactly what AC1 did, just without living quarters on the "city" scale, and appartments werent buildings, but were connected to a portal.  The player housing areas were deliberately placed by the devs in specific locations. The only real reason the Appartments were added was because they couldnt feasably add their little villiages / outposts in great enough quantity to assure everyone an available house without covering the whole place in housing.

 When a house was purchased, that was it.  if someone else wanted it, they had to either buy it from its existing owner, or hope that owner eventually defaulted on the upkeep payments.

[Venkman]

I agree AC1's approach was pretty damned good. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you bought a deed, found an open anchor that would take the size of that house, and plopped it down right?

The only problem with the UO and SWG approach is that there were no control mechanisms at all (aside from the 13 Castles per facet thing in UO). I understand the reasoning behind the lack of controls, but I also think what was learned in UO should have very much been applied in SWG. Urban blight will come because players don't typically coordinate on the level of civic engineering. Even most Player Cities had pockets of organized thought, with the rest being a mess.

As a result of the chaos wrought upon the UO landscape (and then SWG later), we get overly contrived control mechanisms. But there's ways to give players their choices without screwing up the landscape. And that landscape includes the static and formula-based adventure content. This is simple real world zoning here, some thought given to what can go where by civic leaders.

[Falconeer]

Antonica
Antonica2
Antonica4

It kills me.

Anotnica 2 is not so nice, I agree.
But it's SOE answer to Blizzard's:
"You are 543 in queue - Estimated time is 241 minutes"

Now that actually killed my subscription.

EDIT: not SOE "answer". Just a different approach to overpopulation issue.

--
the Falconeer

[Jayce]

No, in AC1 you had to get  drop from a mob called "Writ of <something, refuge maybe?>".  Then along with a variety of other random drop items (quantity dependent on the size of house) and some cash, you found a house that was empty and paid up.  It was then yours for a month, at which point you had to add cash to keep it yours.

That ensured that you didnt just login to refresh the house, you had to make/keep some cash around.  There were also visual indications when the house was about to go on the market, so you could scout yourself out a house ahead of time and camp it.

I personally think that is a great model.

Regarding UIs - after Blizzard stole some ideas improved the UI with more on-screen bars, I think the need for mods has been close to zero.  I personally used to use Auctioneer, but at the rate I AH things (the typical rate I'd think, I'm not a powerseller), I can look up current prices just as easily at auction time.  The only mod I regularly use is CTRaid and Scrolling Combat Text.  I would not be surprised if something like SCT is eventually official-UI'd.  But otherwise, I agree that you really don't need that much any more.

[El Gallo]

I only briefly visited AC after housing, but it seemed to make the entire world dead.  The houses were these suburban/exurban gated communities far away from the lifeless, empty towns and travel routes.  Most of these little housing enclaves seemed to be guild only, which made me wonder how people met people outside their guild anymore.  Or how newbs met anyone at all.

UO and SWG were far from perfect, but I believe a more free-form model could work with better zoning and maintenance mechanics.   I'll say no thanks to AC's strip-mall model.

[El Gallo]

2 is not so nice, I agree.
But it's SOE answer to Blizzard's:
"You are 543 in queue - Estimated time is 241 minutes"

Now that actually killed my subscription.

EDIT: not SOE "answer". Just a different approach to overpopulation issue.
the Falconeer

I think SoE's approach to the overpopulation issue was not to sell very many games.  I don't think the queue is to prevent overcrowding in the sense of not enough places to hunt (since most of the best places in WoW are instanced too) but to prevent too many people on the server, which lags everyone to hell.

[Falconeer]

Hey.
I know they had to face two different kind of issues, but still the zone instancing (Antonica 2, Qeynos 2) was meant to switch people on different hardware server (thus preventing lag, for all I know. In fact when lag do appear in EQ2 it's usually a zone-wide issue, not worldserver-wide).
I don't know about WoW's net architecture, but if they could "spread" players that actually play on the same world-server, addressing them to different instance-server, that would be as ugly as Antonica 2 but probably a little less cluttered.
In fact the solution is so simple that I like to think it's impractical for some reason. I just would like to know this reason :)

Actually, WoW queues are still a mistery to me considering the sheer amount of money and resource they should have gathered in the last 18 months. I enjoyed the game for a while, but as I said Queue was the hardest solo mob I ever met. A real subscription killer

--
the Falconeer

[sarius]

I agree AC1's approach was pretty damned good. Correct me if I'm wrong, but you bought a deed, found an open anchor that would take the size of that house, and plopped it down right?

The only problem with the UO and SWG approach is that there were no control mechanisms at all (aside from the 13 Castles per facet thing in UO). I understand the reasoning behind the lack of controls, but I also think what was learned in UO should have very much been applied in SWG. Urban blight will come because players don't typically coordinate on the level of civic engineering. Even most Player Cities had pockets of organized thought, with the rest being a mess.

As a result of the chaos wrought upon the UO landscape (and then SWG later), we get overly contrived control mechanisms. But there's ways to give players their choices without screwing up the landscape. And that landscape includes the static and formula-based adventure content. This is simple real world zoning here, some thought given to what can go where by civic leaders.

I don't disagree with your assertions, but I do place the blame on those problems within SWG player cities on the devs.  28 months solid i watched the politician correspondents get blowjobs instead of answers from the devs on a pile of bugs and disjointed problems with player cities.  Not to mention, if they truly gave a shit about archiving old player items they should have perfected offline storage when a subsciption expired.  The implementation of player cities was a huge community builder for guilds.  Too bad they couldn't have taken the time to set controls that assisted zoning and active game maintenance.

[El Gallo]

You may be right Falcon.  On the "I can't believe they haven't fixed it" issue, they have been switching old servers onto some fancy new hardware that increases population caps and reduces lag by a lot (they say even Mal'Goonis is lag free now).  Of course, this process is proceeding TheBlizzardWay (i.e. slow as hell).

[Falconeer]

  Of course, this process is proceeding TheBlizzardWay (i.e. slow as hell).

With all the money they should have I think they could have hired enough people to develop WoW2 in the last 18 months.
When I try to figure how can they be so slow, I keep thinking they are all away, on a tropical isle, too busy spending all those money.

--
the Falconeer

[Ironwood]

You two know eachother, don't you?

Nope.
Although I read his thing sometimes.

"Welcome to Jamiaca, Have a Nice Day"  ?

[WayAbvPar]

You two know eachother, don't you?

Nope.
Although I read his thing sometimes.

"Welcome to Jamiaca, Have a Nice Day"  ?

ROFL!!!!!!!!!

I hope I am not the only one who understood that. Classic.