I'm looking for a game, thats as far away from WoW as I can possibly get. I'm looking for a game that harkens back to the days of old..with a massive world to explore, an excellent community and tons of adventure to be had..

I've narrowed it down to Vanguard and EQ2. I played both previously for a short time, but did not stick with either due to various reasons.. I'm currently installing Vanguard and will attempt the trial to see if it gives me that feeling I am looking for..

but does anyone still play?

Whelp, I just literally un-installed EQ2 a few minutes ago when the intent to switch back to Vanguard. EQ2 is a fine game, and has a lot of polish and things I like more about it than Vanguard. 

But..

Vanguard has the "giant world full of possibility" feeling that I feel EQ2 is lacking. EQ2 also seems to have evolved  to suite the raiding end-game which I personally cannot stand and don't do. Because of this you get more than a few classes "shuned" at upper levels, something that drives me crazy.

Vanguard is not raiding focused for the moment and the classes are still evolving so there's a flexability there. Another thing to consider is that while Vanguard has a much smaller community, the community in eq2 is mostly made of up higher levels classes while in Vanguard you still get a nice spread from low to high.

My advice is to try the trial out and go from there. See how you like the performance, etc and make that decision then. Personally, I'm looking forward to wandering around Telon and getting lost again.

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Originally posted by raystantz
I'm looking for a game, thats as far away from WoW as I can possibly get. I'm looking for a game that harkens back to the days of old..with a massive world to explore, an excellent community and tons of adventure to be had..
 
I've narrowed it down to Vanguard and EQ2. I played both previously for a short time, but did not stick with either due to various reasons.. I'm currently installing Vanguard and will attempt the trial to see if it gives me that feeling I am looking for..
 
but does anyone still play?

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Still plenty of people play VG and more so since the release of the Trial Island.

Well, you cant get much further from World of W**kers than VG.

Better community although it is still on the small side.

characters that dont look like they are from a Warner Brothers cartoon

Huge world to wonder around in, meet new and unusual critters, and get killed by them:)

Games a lot better than at release, especialy after gu6.

it might not be to everyone's liking, but with the new trial island, you can get a small idea of the game, but it is a trial. the starter areas for the races are not bad either.

like everything else, it's not to everyone's taste, having to work for your lvls and not being able to ucm in the dungeons might put off the lazy but give it a decent try for yourself. it's like marmite, you'll either love it or hate it - but you wont know until you actualy try it for a while (not just 5 mins)

DAOC best game ever, But id go EQ2 of those 2.

Ok, we'll see what happens then. I'm heavily leaning towards Vanguard at this point. SImply because I don't give 2 craps about end game raiding.

well for me it came down to 2 experiances.

EQ2: 2 hours in a dungeon that was quite complex (good) but group troubles and a serious lack of immersion (my personal view) caused it to seem much longer.  still much better than WoW was when it came to dungeons./

Vanguard: 5 hours in an open world (more on that later) dungeon that spanned over half of the island (it was underground).  weaving in and out of corridors and facing boss after boss with my group was amazing.  the open world allowed for friendly meetings with other groups (and for me to rez their fallen comrades...i even managed to stumple on a total party wipe and saved them) and a weird feeling that i cant describe...kind of like a freedom.  anyway those 5 hours felt like 2 and i was shocked to see how long i had spent going backwards and forwards through the dungeon.  i was even more shocked to find i had an urge to do it again the next day

so from my experiances i like Vanguard a bit more than EQ2.

one thing i will say, dont judge either by the trials.  these games really pick up after lvl 10.

I'd say Vanguard.  I've played both and think Vanguard is a deeper and richer game..... although EQ2 has more polish.

There's been a large influx of new players because of the free demo and populations are looking real good.

Originally posted by raystantz

Ok, we'll see what happens then. I'm heavily leaning towards Vanguard at this point. SImply because I don't give 2 craps about end game raiding.

For me Vangaurd is the correct choice ...please see my response in the EQ2 forums to your question :)

Originally posted by Death1942

well for me it came down to 2 experiances.

 

EQ2: 2 hours in a dungeon that was quite complex (good) but group troubles and a serious lack of immersion (my personal view) caused it to seem much longer.  still much better than WoW was when it came to dungeons./

Vanguard: 5 hours in an open world (more on that later) dungeon that spanned over half of the island (it was underground).  weaving in and out of corridors and facing boss after boss with my group was amazing.  the open world allowed for friendly meetings with other groups (and for me to rez their fallen comrades...i even managed to stumple on a total party wipe and saved them) and a weird feeling that i cant describe...kind of like a freedom.  anyway those 5 hours felt like 2 and i was shocked to see how long i had spent going backwards and forwards through the dungeon.  i was even more shocked to find i had an urge to do it again the next day

 

so from my experiances i like Vanguard a bit more than EQ2.

 

one thing i will say, dont judge either by the trials.  these games really pick up after lvl 10.

Good description to a dungeon crawl in Vanguard :)
 

Vanguard is my choice.  I really enjoy the crafting and diplomacy.  It adds an entirely different realm to the game.  I also enjoy getting mounts early as level 10 (in either adventuring or diplomacy).  The gear varieties are much better and VG even went so far as to give you different gear for different spheres of the game.

One thing that really seperates and defines both games are the races and factions.  EQ2, factions are defined at character creation and for the most part.. as far as character roles go you have Qeynos and Freeport and will not deviate from these 2.  In VG you can gain and lose faction as you build your character in numerous different factions.  You also have distinct varieties in racial home towns from architecture all the way down to the types of gear they use and wear.  Crafting is also effected by this letting the crafter craft pieces of his/her choice from the different types of races/factions in the game.  When constructing buildings and ships, you also have race specific structures for these.

What I like better in EQ2 has got to be the character models, animations and emotes.  Frogloks are done extremely well, and ratonga's look believable also.  In VG most of the animal bipeds look like human models with an animals head.  Orcs in VG are probably the worst design creation of an Orc that Ive ever seen in a video game.  Goblins arent bad, but again the skeleton structure is that of a small human with a goblin head.

in a nutshell, VG is probably the best (or closest to) sandbox game on the market currently.  The only thing I wish it had was a better PvP system.  Then again, EQ2 doesnt have a decent PvP system either.

Originally posted by raystantz

Ok, we'll see what happens then. I'm heavily leaning towards Vanguard at this point. SImply because I don't give 2 craps about end game raiding.

well not sure if this makes a difference but the next expac will have 20  group oriented dungeons with the 6 that are already in game + the tier 8 contested dungeons (Chardok, Karnors and Sebilis) there will be plenty to do without raiding.

only problem with EQ2 like most older games the lower tiers are pretty dead, but if you can get to 50 by the new expac the 17 of the new dungeons scale.

Vanguard = Everquest 3. 

Originally posted by Rekindle

Vanguard = Everquest 3. 

 

no because SoE would of made a better game then Sigil even with the guy who owned it being on the EQ1 team. Sigil was a new company whos owner is a good talker talked Microsoft on board then hired sloppy programmers and then produced bugfest of the century to show microsoft. They saw this pile and gave them the axe. And since the owner is im sure friends with SoE in essence for the EQ1 title they owed him one and they bought the project. FIRED ALMOST EVERYBODY ( why because they knew they didnt know crap about Coding and making a game) did a few tweeks and released it because well SoE didnt have money to fund this project at the time. Yeah they did have money but the money they were alloted wasnt going to pay next months rent. So they released it got 200K of $50 purchacers so they had a little more funding to move forward with the project. Come October of that year they finally make a somewhat playable version with update 3 and are still trying to improve the game to this day. but rant aside

EVERQUEST 2.

old news....Windows for workgroups has been made obsolete too.  I grow tired of keeping  the history of Sigil / SOE story accruate (which your statement is not).

Can we please start talking about the game as it stands today? Thats what patches do == keep the game current....we should focus on talkign about the current game.

Other wise lets talk about pre Trammel UO and debate whether UO is a good game today lol.

After owning both and playing both...Definately Everquest 2.

Vanguard is basically expanding, without official expansions.  APW could have been called an expansion.  They could have bundled a couple of Game Updates together and called it an expansion.  So the game is growing in all three spheres and in world size.  The new high level adventuring area looks fantastic and it'll probably be out prior to GU7.

I think as they try to win back players, and bring in new players, they are putting has much free content in has they can.  At some point, I would expect them to hold onto a few things and bundle it together for an expansion, such as AAs, level cap increase and a new continent etc.  

Well ive been playing vanguard sence day 1 with every setting maxed at 1920x1200 and i tried EQ2 for about a month with the 4 free months that sony was kind enough to give me
All tell you one thing vanguard runs 10 times better than EQ2 i couldnt play EQ2 with every setting maxed thats the only game ive tryed that actually lagged out my computer not even vanguard when it first launched was that bad at every setting maxed
It was fun to just look around EQ2 because it is an interesting place with good graphic's but for me vanguard rules all mmo's hands down.

Originally posted by Rekindle

old news....Windows for workgroups has been made obsolete too.  I grow tired of keeping  the history of Sigil / SOE story accruate (which your statement is not).

 

Can we please start talking about the game as it stands today? Thats what patches do == keep the game current....we should focus on talkign about the current game.

Other wise lets talk about pre Trammel UO and debate whether UO is a good game today lol.

 

QFT
 

Goldknyght always argues from the past ...its completely irrelevant but this is his spurious arguement