Everquest 2

[Footie Mad]

Is anyone here playing this game? I'm thinking of going for it instead of World of Warcraft and would like som inside info about it.

[Harovan]

I'm playing it since launch and could write a book about it already. What exactly do you want to know?

[Dis]

the newbie island is the best part. I got bored after that.

[Footie Mad]

Basically, is it worth getting? Does it get repetitive in regards to quests, is there much variation when it comes to professions, is there more to it than leveling up and getting the l33t items, etc.

[Harovan]

"Is it worth getting" pretty much comes down to your personal preferrence, which I am not familiar with, so I will leave this question unanswered. For me it is bigtime, for you it may be wasted money.

As to quests, Everquest 2 is very quest-heavy. Their number is many hundreds, I dare to say thousands. I am in level 34 (of 50) at the moment and have about 220 completed, and I was not too eager to keep my jounral filled (you can have a maximum of 50 quests at the same time). Others in my age have much more. Quests are of very different types. There are access quests for special zones and dungeons, there are heritage quests, which are lengthy and hard to complete, but yield awesome reward in armor, jewelry or weapons, there are city writs, which reward you with status points in your hometown, for which you can buy special items, get a discount for your rent or for a steed, and there are ordinary quests, which yield a few coin, an item or just extra experience.

Ordinary quests are repetitive, yes. Basically all come down to "Take this bag of supplies and take it to X at place Y", "Go visit the following places (list...)", "My grandfather/niece/mother/whoever lost his favorite (item name) in area X; look at the monsters there who may have found it", "Slay n of monster X and bring me their hides/tails/whatever", "Go harvest n clusters of (common resource)", "Find a cluster of (rare resource) and have a skilled (professional) make a powerful (item name) from it", "Visit dungeon X, find the evil boss A and slay him (and while you at it, slay B and C also)", "Learn the language of giants/goblins/gnolls/orcs/whatever", "Beat the record for a roundtrip at this continent (list of places to visit, time limit)", "Find the grave/coffin/bookshelf/table/whatever at place X, inspect it and report what you found". To be honest, I couldn't think of much more quest types if I were a developer. However it feels, that it is put together with love and if you get bored, well, nobody forces you to do them. They are optional and you can do well without them. However I wouldn't know why, because basically what they demand is what you would do anyway (run around, harvest resources, visit places, talk to people, slay monsters), so why deny the extra reward they offer?

City writs are only available if you are guilded, they can level your guild and unlock extra nifty items to buy, guild tasks (extra raids) and things like this.

Heritage quests are awesome in both experience and reward, but hard to complete. You should be in a good guild to have hope to make them. More of this below.

Access quests are a must, if you want to see the whole content. Many of these dungeons you get access to are awesome. For instance, castle Nektropos is my current favorite. It is a wonderful instanced zone (every group gets its own instance) and has good fights, good loot and an awesome ambiente. Was well worth the 3-4 days I needed to gain access.

Now to your other question. Yes, if you see the big picture, the result of your efforts is to level up and to get "teh ph4t l3wtz". Every MMOG works like this. However, how you get there, comes completely down to your playstyle. You can get to the endgame quick (I think about 2 months), if you are experience grinding 8 hours everyday. But doing so, you won't have seen much of the incredibly rich content of this game. Or you can take your time, as I do. I am not too eager to level up. I want to see all places of this game, fight all monsters, get the majority of heritage items and so on.

As to the people who play this game, this heavily depends on your server. My main characters are on Lucan D`Lere, which is a roleplay preferred server. The main population of this server are mature people, you find very few 1337 d00ds, and the few you find are shunned in groups and guilds. I have another character on the server Runnyeye (now moved to Splitpaw), where the situation is opposite. I may have been unlucky, but 75% of the people I met there were jerks. I haven't yet abandonned this character, but I don't play him anymore, either. If you want good, mature players, come to Lucan D`Lere and join a nice guild. Of course, I can recommend mine .

By the way, the look-and-feel in this game is awesome. The graphics is probably the best of all current MMOGs, it has nothing in common with WoW's comic-like and candy-colored ambiente. It is scaleable and designed for a long future. Current top-notch computers can probably use only about 2/3 of the game's potential in graphics settings.

EQ2 has several downsides, I don't deny this. Here are some of them:
- The market system sucks bigtime. WoW's auction house is much better. In EQ2, you have to be online to sell items to other players. The developers gave vague hints, that this is about to change, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
- Tradeskills get a from me. They are better than WoW's click-and-ready system, you have to play a minigame and "fight" for the quality of your product, you have to keep your skills up to be successful, that's an upside. But the tradeskills are horribly imbalanced at the moment and undergo a heavy remake. Many tradeskillers let their trade rest, until things settle down.
- There is no PvP whatsoever. Same here, devs don't deny, that it may be introduced to some degree, but I wouldn't hold my breath.
- The game needs a top notch computer, if you want to have fun. 3 GHz, 1 GB RAM and a first or at least second tier 3D graphics adapter is a must. Don't take an NVidia GeForce 6800, the game has problems with it. I have a 6600, and it's just fine and lag-free at 1600 x 1200.

If you have more questions, feel free to ask.

[Skanky Burns]

Are there any free servers?

[Harovan]

About professions (sorry forgot about that):

Every player has 2 of them. One adventurer class, and one tradeskill. These professions come in tiers. There are four adventure archetypes: fighters, mages, scouts and priests. With level 10, you have to choose a class. I as fighter have chosen crusader. Other choices were brawler and warrior. Mages, scouts and priests have other choices. With level 20, you have to choose a subclass. As "good" crusader, my only choice was paladin. Were I "evil", I would be a shadowknight now.

Similar it is with tradeskills. Here classes to choose at level 10 are outfitter, scholar and craftsman, and with level 20 you have to choose one of 3 professions each class has (makes nine).

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Are there any free servers?

To my knowledge, not.

[Footie Mad]

Ok thanks, something tells me that EQ 2 has a longer lifespan than WoW.

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Skanky Burns
Are there any free servers?

Noob!

[DrSpike]

Originally posted by Footie Mad
Ok thanks, something tells me that EQ 2 has a longer lifespan than WoW.

Again, it depends what floats your boat. WoW has PvP (fledgling but more will arrive before EQ2 even gets started). This makes for good endgame content.

Other than that the game are quite similar, though lots of people will tell you one is great and the other sucks, naturally. There are a few balanced non-fanboi threads on mmorpg.com, check the general discussion and WoW/EQ2 forums, though the first is best for balanced discussion, unsurprisingly.

[Dis]

I might actually consider playing this again if I could find a good guild.

I had a hard time finding good parties. some of the parties just let me die (I was playing a barbarian at the time).

I did have a better experience playing as a priest. I'm pretty good at healing people. But I still lost interest. Even though I did find parties when I was a priest (everyone always looks for a priest for their party, so it's real easy finding one).

The single player game is worthless in my opinion. I wouldn't play it for that reason. There are some things just too tough for single players.

But even when I was in parties, I wasn't happy with their performance. What can I say, I prefer the single player experience. I like to go at my own pace. Parties either go too slow or too fast for my tastes .

[Skanky Burns]

Originally posted by DrSpike
Noob!

I'd be stupid not to ask.

[General Ludd]

I wish time could be erased and DAoC released as though it where new.


It really is the best MMORPG, even now. It's just been run dry.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Dissident
I might actually consider playing this again if I could find a good guild.

I had a hard time finding good parties. some of the parties just let me die (I was playing a barbarian at the time).

I did have a better experience playing as a priest. I'm pretty good at healing people. But I still lost interest. Even though I did find parties when I was a priest (everyone always looks for a priest for their party, so it's real easy finding one).

The single player game is worthless in my opinion. I wouldn't play it for that reason. There are some things just too tough for single players.

But even when I was in parties, I wasn't happy with their performance. What can I say, I prefer the single player experience. I like to go at my own pace. Parties either go too slow or too fast for my tastes .

I have played a few MMORPGs in my day and find that the biggest problem is that the only way to really play them ... fun ... is to find a great party and play with them for a long, long time (weeks, months, etc.) ... and I don't ever put more than 10 hours a week over the long haul into my game, and most parties with decent players go a lot more than that.

I need a game where levels are either irrelevant or quickly gained ... perhaps one where you have a low maximum level of character, but can start many characters, and are playing for something other than experience (gold, items, etc.) ... but that will be a long time coming sadly.