MMORPG.com EverQuest II Correspondent Vernon Reich writes this overview of the races available in SOE's EverQuest II. In this part of his article, Vernon looks at the Evil aligned races.

EQ2 has nineteen races for players to choose from, and evil is the largest chunk of that, weighing in with seven races. The evil races of EQ2 are a diverse bunch, with reptiles, dark elves, fae folk, ogres and trolls. They also have the best range of starting locations, able to pick their hometown from three very different cities.

Here's the rundown of the Evil races.

Freeport is the primary evil city, with the most developed content and range of quests. Freeport has four quarters, racial slums for each race except Sarnaks and Arasai, and almost all of them have housing and quests. For the new player, if you take the ship instead of levelling up on the Outpost of the Overlord, you'll find quests levelling you up fairly well, and giving you a racial history lesson as well. If you instead let the evil newbie island wet your feet, You'll get a decent set of equipment and a fairly fun time levelling up to about sixth, along with three collection quests.

Read more on Races of EQII: The Bad

Geez, how about taking some screens of the new character models. Those look awful.

Is this the kind of crap that passes for advertising for SOE? Some editor of a magazine barfing up lame information about a 4+ year old game that everyone who has ever played this game already knows? Blizzard justhired Ozzy Osbourne and Little Steven Van Zandt to do television commercials for them. SOE gets some unheard of editor to rehash old information as if new players are going to rush right out and buy EQ2 just because he describes it in such wonderful detail??

WoW sold 2.8 MILLION copies of their new expansion in less than 24 hours...Just to put that in perspective that is about 30 times the estimated number of subscriptions SOE has for the entire eq2 title. Why does SOE insist in trying to try to take market share from Blizzard by making their game a clone of WoW? Why instead don't they use some imagination and create their own game? Probably because they don't have the money to hire people with real imaginations. Instead they steal ideas from other game, use concepts from their other games (anyone remember LDoN from EQ1? well their "new" expansion is taken directly from that) and reuse old content from original EQ2 and earlier expansions. There is nothing new...tnad there hasn't been a lot new for a long time. I can only ssume that his means they have no true developers working on EQ2. it's easy to cut and paste, a monkey could do it...

Originally posted by ohreally

Is this the kind of crap that passes for advertising for SOE? Some editor of a magazine barfing up lame information about a 4+ year old game that everyone who has ever played this game already knows? Blizzard justhired Ozzy Osbourne and Little Steven Van Zandt to do television commercials for them. SOE gets some unheard of editor to rehash old information as if new players are going to rush right out and buy EQ2 just because he describes it in such wonderful detail??

 

WoW sold 2.8 MILLION copies of their new expansion in less than 24 hours...Just to put that in perspective that is about 30 times the estimated number of subscriptions SOE has for the entire eq2 title. Why does SOE insist in trying to try to take market share from Blizzard by making their game a clone of WoW? Why instead don't they use some imagination and create their own game? Probably because they don't have the money to hire people with real imaginations. Instead they steal ideas from other game, use concepts from their other games (anyone remember LDoN from EQ1? well their "new" expansion is taken directly from that) and reuse old content from original EQ2 and earlier expansions. There is nothing new...tnad there hasn't been a lot new for a long time. I can only ssume that his means they have no true developers working on EQ2. it's easy to cut and paste, a monkey could do it...

Ohreally,

EverQuest 2 has still roughly 250k subs. 2,8 millon is not 30 times 250k to my estimated calculations.

{ Mod Edit }

I enjoy eq2 far more than WoW, I just can not lose myself in WoW like i can with eq2, different strokes for different folks I guess.

 I suppose the feller 3 posts up isnt into the eq2 lore, the world went into a shattering of epic proportions, lands were ripped apart and eq2 is placed in the future of eq1 and the people are starting to reawaken to try to explore and are finding these places all over again, yeah a lot of places are revamped from eq1 but i suppose if you dont get into the lore and understand why these places are resurfacing and such it would appear that it is meerly rehashed content from eq1 with no purpose.

Originally posted by TinkerGnome

Geez, how about taking some screens of the new character models. Those look awful.

Some prefer these models, and others prefer the alternative models. I know plenty who prefer the original models.

The bad as a title made me chuckle though

EQ2 is way more complex than wow. Wow is so special because of its simplicity. But only because EQ2 is to complicated for the most people doesnt make it a bad game )

Originally posted by Guillermo197

Originally posted by ohreally

Is this the kind of crap that passes for advertising for SOE? Some editor of a magazine barfing up lame information about a 4+ year old game that everyone who has ever played this game already knows? Blizzard justhired Ozzy Osbourne and Little Steven Van Zandt to do television commercials for them. SOE gets some unheard of editor to rehash old information as if new players are going to rush right out and buy EQ2 just because he describes it in such wonderful detail??

 

WoW sold 2.8 MILLION copies of their new expansion in less than 24 hours...Just to put that in perspective that is about 30 times the estimated number of subscriptions SOE has for the entire eq2 title. Why does SOE insist in trying to try to take market share from Blizzard by making their game a clone of WoW? Why instead don't they use some imagination and create their own game? Probably because they don't have the money to hire people with real imaginations. Instead they steal ideas from other game, use concepts from their other games (anyone remember LDoN from EQ1? well their "new" expansion is taken directly from that) and reuse old content from original EQ2 and earlier expansions. There is nothing new...tnad there hasn't been a lot new for a long time. I can only ssume that his means they have no true developers working on EQ2. it's easy to cut and paste, a monkey could do it...

Ohreally,

EverQuest 2 has still roughly 250k subs.  2,8 millon is not 30 times 250k to my estimated calculations.

{ Mod Edit }

Nice try but WRONG.  100k ACTIVE subscriptions is the number BUT even if there were 250K   2.8 million is the number of expansions sold in 24 hours. I am sure not every WoW player went out on release day and bought the expansion. therefore 2.8 million is an estimate. a LOW estimate...Eitehr way WoW out numbers EQ2 by a HUGE margin...you fanboys who still cling to SOE are going to get a rude awakening when Blizzard BUYS SOE because they aren't profitable. I am going to laugh my ass off.

Just joined the forum. Thought it would be a good thing, since I also just subscribed to EQ2 yesterday. Played the trial, and enjoyed most of the experience quite a bit (except for the loose PVP; need to watch which server I create my character on). After reading the thead, I've two comments to make:

1) the race selection is wonderful, quite varied. From other games I've played, race selection changes how the game reacts to you, giving a new experience each time. Should be interesting to see if this holds true in EQ2. And the designs are pretty decent as well. 

2) based on some references I read here about killing over and over, it appears that some of us have missed the whole point of a role-playing game. Life isn't just about killing, it's about the struggle to advance yourself and the pleasure you derive from achieving it. EQ2 is complex enough that, if I play the game the way it was meant to be played (i.e., don't cap your xp in favour of achievement points), then each ability advance, each new skill learned, each newly crafted item means something. It means I earned it.   So, my kudos to SOE (that's SOE, if you missed it the first time) for a truly enjoyable experience. I'm looking forward to all the other lands making up EQ2!!!

(Disclaimer: no, I don't work for SOE, Sony, or any other affiliated company. I'm a Systems veteran of some 25 years who simply loves fantasy roleplaying.)

Originally posted by Kilmar

EQ2 is way more complex than wow. Wow is so special because of its simplicity. But only because EQ2 is to complicated for the most people doesnt make it a bad game )

What exactly is to complicated for most people to understand? 

I've played EQ2 a few times and it seems to play just like every other MMO to me.  Nothing I couldn't understand or figure out in a few minutes.

I'd love a more complex game than what is on the market right now and if you can help me out with some specifics of what makes this game complex that would be great. 

Maybe complex isnt the right word, EQ2 is more in depth than wow, its liek comparing CSI to bill & Mandy. EQ2 has more detail to it in characters and what you can do. WoW is basically mmo for beginners, or as i like to call it, fischer price: my 1st rpg.

And i love the wowkids who keep parroting the sub numbers and expansions sold numbers who dont even realize that almost half are asian accounts and almost all of those accounts are multi accounts with some people haveing as many as 5 or 6. Not to mention Alot of Americans also have more than 1 account. I really wish they would release the number of unique subscribers, you would prob see the number drop by half

Originally posted by syllvenwood

Maybe complex isnt the right word, EQ2 is more in depth than wow, its liek comparing CSI to bill & Mandy. EQ2 has more detail to it in characters and what you can do. WoW is basically mmo for beginners, or as i like to call it, fischer price: my 1st rpg.

 

And i love the wowkids who keep parroting the sub numbers and expansions sold numbers who dont even realize that almost half are asian accounts and almost all of those accounts are multi accounts with some people haveing as many as 5 or 6. Not to mention Alot of Americans also have more than 1 account. I really wish they would release the number of unique subscribers, you would prob see the number drop by half

All games have people with multiple accounts and people from other countries I don't see the relevance? It isn't like every other game has a 1:1 ratio of players to subscriptions and it isn't as if any other game releases their subscription numbers to be discussed so openly is it?  

As for EQ2 being more "mature", how exactly is that?  I understand you want to paint WoW as fischer price and some nickelodean kids show, but does tearing down WoW with generalizing  really make EQ2 a "steak and glass of wine" game?   It is uncanny how many EQ2 posts have their foundations based on beating up WoW as if it somehow makes EQ2 shine. 

I didn't get the answer I was hoping for, but I got the one I was expecting so thanks I guess.

Quality not Quanity.  EQ2 has both.   Thats eqauls no Muda.(waste)  Gues who just went through Kaizen training......  Very buzzed at  this point..

Originally posted by syllvenwood

Maybe complex isnt the right word, EQ2 is more in depth than wow, its liek comparing CSI to bill & Mandy. EQ2 has more detail to it in characters and what you can do. WoW is basically mmo for beginners, or as i like to call it, fischer price: my 1st rpg.

 

And i love the wowkids who keep parroting the sub numbers and expansions sold numbers who dont even realize that almost half are asian accounts and almost all of those accounts are multi accounts with some people haveing as many as 5 or 6. Not to mention Alot of Americans also have more than 1 account. I really wish they would release the number of unique subscribers, you would prob see the number drop by half

Well first, I am not a WoW kid. Not only am I probably old enough to be your father, I don't play WoW. I have tried it but didn't like it. My post was made to show what kind of trouble EQ2 is in financially.

Second off...so what? you don't think EQ2 was capable of capturing people from Asian countries? You don't think that EQ2 didn't have the potential to entice some players to have multiple accounts?

And finally even if WoW's subs dropped by 50%, they would still have 15 times the market share EQ2 does. Thank you for making my point, I love it when people don't think about what they post before they start typing.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Originally posted by syllvenwood

Maybe complex isnt the right word, EQ2 is more in depth than wow, its liek comparing CSI to bill & Mandy. EQ2 has more detail to it in characters and what you can do. WoW is basically mmo for beginners, or as i like to call it, fischer price: my 1st rpg.

 

And i love the wowkids who keep parroting the sub numbers and expansions sold numbers who dont even realize that almost half are asian accounts and almost all of those accounts are multi accounts with some people haveing as many as 5 or 6. Not to mention Alot of Americans also have more than 1 account. I really wish they would release the number of unique subscribers, you would prob see the number drop by half

All games have people with multiple accounts and people from other countries I don't see the relevance? It isn't like every other game has a 1:1 ratio of players to subscriptions and it isn't as if any other game releases their subscription numbers to be discussed so openly is it?  

 

As for EQ2 being more "mature", how exactly is that?  I understand you want to paint WoW as fischer price and some nickelodean kids show, but does tearing down WoW with generalizing  really make EQ2 a "steak and glass of wine" game?   It is uncanny how many EQ2 posts have their foundations based on beating up WoW as if it somehow makes EQ2 shine. 

I didn't get the answer I was hoping for, but I got the one I was expecting so thanks I guess.

Not only that, but who cares if EQ2 is more "mature" (which it's not, there are many annoying, pimpled face geeky teenaged boys that play)? The point of my post is this. Advertising is the key to success of ANY product. PERIOD very few if anything ever made or sold was successful without it. SOE pulled the plug on their EQ2 advertising years ago, and since then the games population has dropped 75%. Now teh stock market has lost roughly half of it's value. Sony (SOE's Parent, you remember them) is a publicly traded company in the same stock market. Sometime in the not so distant future, Sony is going to look for ways to cut costs to try to offset the loss of their companies worth. When they get to SOE and find a product that has lost 3/4 of it's profit in a little over 2 years they may get rid of it . If that happens what are you SOE fanboys and bootlickers going to do? As a business man, I see this as a real possibility. 

Actually SOE keeps up a pretty decent ad campaign for EQ2 in magazines and such.  Especially right around expansion time.  They have adds on some of the major WoW sites right now like wowhead.com, etc.

Originally posted by Daffid011

Actually SOE keeps up a pretty decent ad campaign for EQ2 in magazines and such.  Especially right around expansion time.  They have adds on some of the major WoW sites right now like wowhead.com, etc.

 

 

print advertising is the weakest form of advertising, especially in publications already devoted to gamers as most readers of such magazines play their own favorite game and aren't likely to want to switch. (my wife is a print advertising executive) WoW advertises in print, tv and even radio spots all over the world. SOEs ad campaign deosn't hold a candle to Blizzrd.  Everquest 2 is a failed product, unable to hold it's player base. I say for certain, but I would be willing to bet that without the profit that comes from LoN, EQ2 would be in the red. Bandwidth required  for RPG games cost a huge amount of coin. 100K subscribers at $15 a month might not be enough to pay for bandwidth, infrastructure and employee payroll. I know some players pay $30 a month so their might be a smallish amount of profit right  now...

Keep this in mind, in the past SOE has banned accounts that found and used an exploit that involved the in game economy. They found 10,000+ accounts that had used the exploit in the new expansion, and no one get perma banned..because they couldn't aford to lose that many more accounts...

Its not more mature, but EQ2 is more in-depth, has more content, more lore more story more challange.  The one thing it doesnt have is unbelievably fast rewards with minimal risk. The majority of todays players sadly want everything handed to them on a silver plater and thats what WoW caters too. They took EQ and dumbed it down systemwise but never took the time to create any real story for it. It is based off of a rts game which at its heights does not have a terrible in depth story and carried that limited story into an MMO without bothering to flesh it out much even though this medium gave them the opportunity to expand on the lore and history. After getting 3 characters to 60 in WOW, the last one an unbelievavble struggle with boredom, i realized that wow really didn't have much to offer, there was no challange to the game. EQ2 on the other hand gives you a slightly distinct feel depending on the charqacter you play, each race some  different options, some more cosmetic than others but still noticable. Combat is  challanging and keeps you on your toes andplaying actually feels rewarding because of the work i did to get to that next level or finish a certain quest and thats imo is what a good MMO should have enough challange to give you a warm feeling without making things seems too hard.

Originally posted by syllvenwood

Its not more mature, but EQ2 is more in-depth, has more content, more lore more story more challange.  The one thing it doesnt have is unbelievably fast rewards with minimal risk. The majority of todays players sadly want everything handed to them on a silver plater and thats what WoW caters too. They took EQ and dumbed it down systemwise but never took the time to create any real story for it. It is based off of a rts game which at its heights does not have a terrible in depth story and carried that limited story into an MMO without bothering to flesh it out much even though this medium gave them the opportunity to expand on the lore and history. After getting 3 characters to 60 in WOW, the last one an unbelievavble struggle with boredom, i realized that wow really didn't have much to offer, there was no challange to the game. EQ2 on the other hand gives you a slightly distinct feel depending on the charqacter you play, each race some  different options, some more cosmetic than others but still noticable. Combat is  challanging and keeps you on your toes andplaying actually feels rewarding because of the work i did to get to that next level or finish a certain quest and thats imo is what a good MMO should have enough challange to give you a warm feeling without making things seems too hard.

At least this time you tried to support your claim even though you spent most of the post tearing down another game and its playerbase in an attempt to build up EQ2.  It is more effort than is normally seen around here, thank you.

Strangely enough most of the reasons you list are also reasons people have often said they chose not to play the game.  For example the quantity of content hasn't alway been viewed as quality content.  Smedly admitted such and promised to slow down expansions as a result.  Even the current playerbase is often torn over the effects each expansion has had over the game.

to Ohreally:

I agree with you about advertising, but I was only pointing out that SOE does still continue to advertise EQ2.  People often say that is what is holding the game back.  As for bandwidth costs and banning accounts I really would not know.  I don't know the extent of the EQ2 expoit, but in fairness WoW just removed items from people who bought them due to them being listed for free instead of their appropriate costs.  That was right before the expansion, but I don't know if it is a comparable exploit.

Originally posted by ohreally

Originally posted by syllvenwood

Maybe complex isnt the right word, EQ2 is more in depth than wow, its liek comparing CSI to bill & Mandy. EQ2 has more detail to it in characters and what you can do. WoW is basically mmo for beginners, or as i like to call it, fischer price: my 1st rpg.

 

And i love the wowkids who keep parroting the sub numbers and expansions sold numbers who dont even realize that almost half are asian accounts and almost all of those accounts are multi accounts with some people haveing as many as 5 or 6. Not to mention Alot of Americans also have more than 1 account. I really wish they would release the number of unique subscribers, you would prob see the number drop by half

 

Well first, I am not a WoW kid. Not only am I probably old enough to be your father, I don't play WoW. I have tried it but didn't like it. My post was made to show what kind of trouble EQ2 is in financially.

Second off...so what? you don't think EQ2 was capable of capturing people from Asian countries? You don't think that EQ2 didn't have the potential to entice some players to have multiple accounts?

And finally even if WoW's subs dropped by 50%, they would still have 15 times the market share EQ2 does. Thank you for making my point, I love it when people don't think about what they post before they start typing.

At first I figured you as a hater against SOE because of the NGE (SWG) or something similar. Instead, after glancing over all of your posts (which every single one bashes EQ2), It just appears that you are just the common troll looking for an argument. Fine, I'll bite.

Sure, EQ2 has some flaws just like any other MMO out there has. In fact, it seems to me that the game has less than most to be honest. Look at Age of Conan for example. If as much effort to advertise and to promote it had been put into the development, then perhaps it would not have been in the wretched form it was released in.  Now you want to talk about people leaving in groves? Don't even go there!!  EQ2 had a run of bad luck during launch. WoW was on the horizon doing alot of advertising. SOE, well... we all know how well that's handled eh? Did I mention you could run WoW on an Emachine straight out of the box? I'm sure that was a huge contributing factor as well.

Point is.. no game out there compares to WoW in subs. There will probably never be one either. The only MMOs that stood a chance (besides the upcoming Bioware MMO) was WAR and AoC. AoC flopped and WAR is in the decline and Dark and Light was probably the biggest joke in MMO history. Oh, and how about D&D Online? Should I talk about the legendary failure of one of the best I.P. for a publisher to take on? As you can tell, it's not just SOE that has failures of EPIC proportions (Star Wars Galaxies). I'll also mention City of Heroes. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the game but it's just not for me. How are their subs doing these days btw? Not as much as WoW's? Oh, well it must suck then!

Every day I see new people and old vets alike coming back to EQ2. It's a solid game. Yeah, sure.. you can blame RoK for destroying the game. Fact is, it's doing better now then when RoK was released. TSO has some great content to it and I am enjoying it quite a bit.

You can call me a "bootlicker" or "fanboi" all you want. As I have observed, those seem to be your favorite catch phrases. If you are as old as you say you are, then perhaps just getting out of gaming in general should be an option. Being bitter and hateful about a game seems to just end up turning people into trolls that end up forum posting than actual gaming. Believe me, I know all about it. I beta and/or Alpha tested alot of them. I played UO at launch until Trammel was introduced, SWG until publish 9 hit.  EQ2 from launch until about 2 months later. Played SWG again until the NGE. Alpha tested DDO (ugh). I was a Dark and Light Pioneer. I pre-ordered Vanguard (yeah..even after beta testing it)  and Age of Conan (special edition). I have plenty to be bitter about myself. I did not however try Warhammer. I think I have learned my lesson with pre-orders. (prob not) During all of this time I have made my share of posts, venting my frustration upon the forums, but c'mon. You sir are something else..

I am now playing EQ2 again. Since I got off the pvp servers I am enjoying the game more than ever.

Anyway, I'm done. Troll, flame, correct me if I'm wrong, or do whatever you feel you need to do to stroke your ego and / or  e-peen. I don't care because I'm enjoying what I am doing. It's just too bad you have to come here to feel the same way.

My two pence; I'll echo everyone else's statement about quality != numbers. By that logic, China is better than America, because it has more people. Not trying to stir anything up, just making an analogy...

And as far as EQII 'having more depth' than WoW, here are two examples. Character specs are over twice as varied; EQII's 200+ AA points vs. WoW's 71-ish talent points. I admit, both games lean towards cookie-cutter builds, but more points equals more variety. Second is crafting. Crafting in EQ2 actually takes skill, more than 'I have the mats and hit the button'. In EQII, you can create something, totally boof it, or make a 'pristine' piece that really shines.

That's not even mentioning the 19 races, 20-odd classes, player housing, guild housing, guild leveling, alignment betrayals....

     One of the things I really disliked about EQ2 was that I never felt like I had a home...In EQ1 when I made a Dwarf he had a home town (Kaladim)...When I made a Wood ELf he had his own home town (Kelethin)....Every race had a unique home town......In EQ2 you get a whopping 3 choices (only 2 when I played) and you dont really feel like its your races town........There was a response from an earlier post that said EQ2 made itself too much like WOW....It did....I played EQ1 then WOW then EQ2.......EQ2 felt way too much like WOW and not enough like EQ1......It did feel like they were just trying to copy WoWs success and not really make their own game.......

Just browsing this whole rant regarding EQ2 and took notice to your comment above Theocritus.

"There was a response from an earlier post that said EQ2 made itself too much like WOW....It did...."

Just wanted to remind everyone that EQ2 was developed and released prior to the release date of WOW.  That said, By technicality WOW made itself more like EQ2, it was through advertising and a niche market that caused WOW to be such a huge success and also to create the thought that it was delievered prior to EQ2.  Yes WOW was released weeks, not months, later, but lets give credit where credit is due.

That said, don't let me stop you guys, I just wanted to get the facts straight.  I'm enjoying all the bickering going on here - you guys are making my work day fly by!

I was surprised to see the ancient WoW vs EQ2 argument after the first few posts. Did nobody else notice how the races and descriptions were mixed up about half way down the article?... Did any of you even, you know, READ it? Or did you all just jump right into the discussion so you could fight over whose opinion is the "right" opinion.