Everquest II

You know their micro transaction thing they were talking about with station exchange and putting ads in loading screens and that, then if you want to get rid of the ads you can sub.

Now my trial comes to a end soon and I thought EQ2 has some fantastic features that other mmorpgs don't have, EQ2 has just a level of customization and features I havn't seen before. The card game and the little gobblin game thing and the character creation (which needs updated btw) and things like achievements and how much you can decorate your house etc etc.

However there were problems which puts me off playing the game if it's not free and that;

- Some character models are very bad, Humans females are the worst but anything with human type skin really just looks very nasty and needs a remodel. I know people will say theres the asian models or w/e but that's not the point, the standard default models is what everyone sees and they need to be totally remodeled.

- Obvious zoning really kills the immersion for me and like my transitions between zones to be smoother. Like in the cities when you travel on the water ways, i would prefer like actual boats that travel down them that you can jump or. If you're going to the gates I'd rather the gates be open and as you run through thrm that it stops you and loads but keeps you in the game, like in Half-Lie. I loved the new content where there wouldn't be obvious gates the the ships are back which take you to a new place whih was really kool, however they still kept them horrible loading screens which take you out of the game..... make them like Half-Life!

- Need to turn autofacing off by default because it just harms combat and when you're trying to run away it keeps turning you around and gets very annoying, plus in PVP it gives caster the edge where you can't run behind them so they have to keep facing you.

- The maps are shite! They need to make them alot more WOW like because them maps were fantastic.

- The starting zones I felt like they were a mess, it's like they've added new ones and forgotten about all the old content and I dunno it's hard to explain but feels like a mess and some zones just arn't needed anymore. I don't see the point in having the isle anymore, the main thing which made that really amazing, whichw as the boat, has been taken away now and I really thought that was fantastic. What I'd personally like is for that boat ride to come back with new quests on it and it actually takes you to the main docks of the two main cities (with no obvious loading times) and to get rid of the Isle. The game just needs to make the new player feel less lost and really update the old content to make it more fun. Put a massive dragon around the gates of Qeynos to make new players see something amazing like this picture......

I dunno how to improve the starting areas but please just get rid of the isle because it's very off putting to new players, the zones around the main cities are much more fun anyways and it can be an amazing sight for new players, just get rid of the obvious city loading times.


- Make Antonica, Nek and TS pretty.  They are the most ugliest zones and it's sad that players will probably come up across them as they're leveling, which is such a shame because everyone I know they quit the game around these zones. Now with Nek for me the content is ok but the visuals of the place just don't say scary woods, whats just a round the corner to me, it looked sooo much better in all the E3 previews back in 2002 or w/e.  Antonica is just plain ugly with them horrible grass textures and that, just needs a facelift and TS needs the same but it needs INTERESTING CONTENT! It's just sooooooooo boring and the first thing you're greated to is frigging crabs and birds and deer......

- I have a real problem with the classes in the fact that theres way tooo many of them and they all seem rather bland and very hard to choose what class you like. In WOW the classes are obvious and easy to pick out and each of them are fun. In EQ2 I just can't find a fun class and I stuck with Shadow Knight but found myself using the same 3 spells over and over again and the class has nothing kool or fun to play with and I'm level 35 and it's still no fun......

- Armour is piss poor for the lower levels and really needs a massive facelift cause it's sooooo ugly!

- The UI is another thing that needs a facelift because it just looks rather dated and while the function is there I just feel like it doesn't have nice look to it that say WOW has, but Im not saying copy WOW's at all but just make EQ2's look nice. However that said the job you've done on SWG I feel like you could just make it worse lol so please hire people who can design a UI.

So onto my main topic title;

The whole time playing level 1 - 35 I found NOONE to group with at my level range. Now that was on the EU servers but I also checked on alot of American ones and there was only about two which had any people at low level range, but not enough to make like a low level raid for that content.  I run round these two giant gorgeous cities and in WOW you see soooo many people trading in them and have a laugh but in EQ2 theres noone using them what so ever!

What the game needs is to get rid of the EU/US split and make it like SWG but merge the servers so theres only like 6 left because it's clear to me 90% of the servers are empty and I'd much rather be playing on a server which was as busy as beta with like 6 Antonica instances open than having no fun struggling to get a group together. I had no lag on the American servers so I really think the EU and th eUS should be merged together so newcomers to the game who are from Europe don't feel like the game is totally dead.

Also the game needs to be made free to play and SOE can make use of all the micro transactions, just EQ2 really needs the players in to make it fun and Free to play games are SOOOOOOOOO popular and crowded, even the crap ones and EQ2 has the potential to be very good!

Anyways They are all the changes I would make to EQ2 and I people are scared of change but the games population is the biggest flaw and things like plastic ugly character models put people off from just screenshots of the game. These changes need to happen and why SOE would be crazy not to do them, they even said they make more money off micro transactions than subs. you wont be forced to pay for stuff, you can play the game and get them yourself but the people who are lazy can just buy them if they want them with real life money, fine with me personally because I'm not being forced t pay for it myself.

Ive logged in to eq2 maybe 3 or 4 times with this free time they gave out.. not because I didnt like the gameplay but because I could never find anyone willing to group. Ive got character from lvl 20 to mid 50s on Antonia Bayle  AND Lucan Dlere and its just dead. it makes me sad. I would love to play eq2 but not solo.

Not again.

Look, this game is 4 years old. They aren't going to do a complete revamp of the character graphics at this point, they just aren't. It isn't worth the money and time. This is NOT a small revamp that you're talking about.

The zoning has been around forever. You'll just have to learn to deal with it. All the games from the time of release have zoning. The idea of "no zoning" is brand new on the MMO market. It was the way things were done.

This game was created to have zoning. They tried to remove the zoning with Kunark and it simply resulted in larger areas creating more lag. This is NOT EVER going to be a zoneless game.

Most people happen to like autofacing. I do. If you'd like the option, send an email to the dev team via the EQ2 forums. Do not just post it on here, TELL THE DEV TEAM DIRECTLY.

There is something called "EQmap". I can give you the link if you like. Even the devs have said that this map system is better than anything they considered. And, again, it would be a pretty large revamp for the devs to work on and isn't worth the money when the program already exists out there even though it was created by a fan.

Again, most of the starting zones are 4 years old. If you'd like better starting zones, try Kunark, Faydark and Neriak.

I love Antonica. In fact, its one of my favorite zones other than Kunark. It IS pretty.

I like the number of classes. There used to be alot more and it was alot more complicated. They've pared it down. WoW sucks, get over it.

ONCE AGAIN, START IN KUNARK. Its the best armour for the low levels in the game.

This is one of the most customizable UI's on the market. You can change it any way you like. There are even other UI's out there created by fans on many different sites. You can change it yourself if you know how. I happen to like the UI and its not much different from ANY other game out there. You can turn EVERY item of the UI off and on, resize them all, move them around the screen and, if you know how, you can change the colors, remove the borders, change the size of the icons, change the fonts, and everything else. Its really not that hard to do it either. Google it or use the EQ2 forums.

I've never understood how people can complain about things the way they do. They don't talk to the devs but post on sites about it that have NOTHING to do with the actual game itself then expect miraculous changes. How can the dev team change things when they don't know there's a problem? And why would you expect them to go changing old zones COMPLETELY after 4 years? Why don't people stop to think about the amount of money and time it would take to do such things? WoW is one of the most hideous games on the market and yet you don't see them going in to do a complete revamp of everything in the game.

As far as I have ever heard, the ONLY game that did a complete revamp of its graphics like you people want is DAoC.

Honestly, if you have complaints, GO TELL THE ACTUAL DEVS.

EQ2 has great graphics. But thier art director should have been fired long ago. Total waste of a great graphic engine

With F2P comes a bunch of noobs in my experience.

I wish it was F2p...

Yeah, the graphics engine has a ton of potential, I can't believe they STILL don't have the skeletal structure to allow new armor designs after all this time, that would make the game so much better. Just how long does it take the art team to do their job? Besides the art direction, the game is great though.

I like the art direction in E3 of 2002 and they showed off some great looking stuff and armour looked nice and character models looked much better than today. However when the game launched the graphics felt very different and everything was zoned which was a shame because youw ere running round Qeynos going "woah how big is this place" and then you'd hit a loading screen and it would kinda kill it for ya. Now though the new stuff is like they tried to copy WOW and I don't like all that at all.

I was watching the old videos of the cities thinking about how crowded SWG cities were and how great this would be in EQ2 round these amazingly big cities where we'd all meet in the taverns and stuff. In beta yeah it was greta with soooooo many people playing they were crowded but you never had any reason to go back to the cities really and everything was instanced so most people would just go to their house and you wou;dn't ever see them in the main city. I don't see anyone in that DOF city and it's such a shame because it's beautiful and would be such a nice place to hang out with monkeys and people but that just shows you bad design from SOE.

Originally posted by Kenze

Ive logged in to eq2 maybe 3 or 4 times with this free time they gave out.. not because I didnt like the gameplay but because I could never find anyone willing to group. Ive got character from lvl 20 to mid 50s on Antonia Bayle  AND Lucan Dlere and its just dead. it makes me sad. I would love to play eq2 but not solo.

Sadly this game is now... solo till you raid... the EQ2 pussification is complete.  As much as I struggled with the game as it was at launch.  I would prefer that game to this EZmode solofest.  Somewhere between the launch and RoK there was a really good game.  The magic, for me, is gone from EQ2 and i