General Discussion

  ALWAYS from a casual gamer point of view!!!!!!!

This is not a debate thread. I may be not right but they are still my opinions.

I have cancelled my EQ2 account after a couple of days playing it. Still have about 20 days left but really don't feel like playing it for so long. And yes it all happenned AFTER the praised combat revamp.

I don't play WoW either even though I have a friend who does; I might re-activate my account for a month or two (to play with him)but not for the long run;

No tradeskills (I just hate them)

Sound they are all about the same

Graphics:

  EQ2

Pros

·        Spell effects on EQ2 are the reason I play MMORPGs - When a mage I play casts a spell I want to see lightning coming from the sky, something grandiose and that’s what I get on EQ2.

o       If you didn’t see EQ2 with balanced or higher graphics you haven’t seen it (BTW balanced is kinda medium settings – I run it as customized a notch down from balanced in certain features)

·        Landscapes are gorgeous - Cities are very well done which increase immersion tremendously;

·        1^st person camera is perfect and there is even an option to make it follow the chars head, so during a fight it will move a lot, dodging blows – very realistic!

·        Char Customization is very well done

·        Realistic Style of graphics

·        Some MOB models are breathtaking (goblins for example)

Cons

·        Character models vary a lot, some races are very well done others aren’t; High-elf and dark elf IMO have terrible models, round faces on elfs?! Besides its very difficult to distinguish male from female sometimes.

·        Somewhat high demanding on hardware requirements in order to run at balanced settings (so it looks good)

·        Animation: walking/running/fighting isn’t on par with the rest of graphics (has improved since release)

WoW

            Pros

·        Low hardware requirements to play at highest settings

·        Colorful and interesting artwork; Landscapes are gorgeous;

·        Most models are well done

·        Animation: walking/running/fighting is done perfectly

            Cons

·        Ridiculous (non-interesting) spell effects: I believe its due to the lack of use of lightning;

·        Unrealistic graphics (even if its nice it works against immersion)

·        Very little customization – you will see plenty of clones of yourself

Conclusion:

EQ2 is vastly superior in terms of graphics. It doesn’t matter how much one may like WoW graphics (I do) CG is all about realism and MMORPGs immersion and EQ2 is more realistic thus provides a more immersive experience. Not even mentioning that the spell effects in WoW are a step back from EQ1 (not even mentioning EQ2). I need to mention that WoW does implement mountains and more realistic geography though;

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Gameplay (mostly PvE)

EQ2

Pros

o       Again it provides a more immersive experience with different factions and reactions from NPCs (again from different factions).

o       Grouping is extremely fun on EQ2, fights are longer and more tactical

o       Spells are more varied

o       It takes longer to level and reach your class specific skills; which is a good thing for then you have less clones of yourself running around;

o       Skills are more unique and varied; as you progress you really get unique skills at all levels and feel your power increasing

o       Combat is fun; SOE still implements the best game mechanics for casters; The root and nuke, interruption;

o       Love the skill based system since EQ1;

o       Community: on a Role Playing server people do role play and are very nice to talk to or group with!

o       Race Selection and lore are good and match the traditional fantasy genre with Dark Elf, High Elf, Ogre, even Iksar (lizardman); Don’t care much for Forgs and rats though. J

Cons

o       Trial of the isle is totally different from the game; gives the wrong impression to new players;

o       Also the permanent sprinting ISN’T possible after level 10

o       WTF is antonica2 – so much for being immersive (Instancing is evil)

o       Very little to no progress in short amounts of playing time

o       QUEST LOG doesn’t provide enough information on quests:

o      (example) you need to go to antonica and find some wolf hides! Yes I know I need to find wolves but WHERE? A mere “you can probably find them south of..” would go long way since antonica is a huge zone. I end up going to some map site and printing a map. J

o       No racial starting cities; everybody starts in either Queynos or Freeport and have to do pretty much the same thing; Racial towns in EQ1 was one of the most interesting things in the game; Huge step back!

o       ZONING: 1Gb Ram here and it takes from 15 to 20 seconds to zone; And the game “forces” you to ZONE a lot due to numerous fedex quests;

o       Quests do not provide good rewards; experience wise its better to grind than to quest;

o       Not only quests do not provide good rewards but they usually send you to far places (which includes lots of zoning) or back and forth which just suggests the game wants to merely slow you down;

o       Many quests are undoable due to Heroic mobs mixed with “soloable” mobs or just plain wrong in terms of level rating;

o       Too many heroic mobs and linked mobs - not enough solo content – awful for casual gamers; Original EQ had about A LOT MORE solo content - heck everything was soloable;

o       High level and/or heroic wandering mobs in newbie zones cause instant death experience to newbie;

o       After a couple of accidental deaths your experience debt will make give up and watch some TV instead;

o       Freeport and Queynos are a mess; I’d rather see small (one zone) racial towns like EQ1 (exception to the large ones which were already 3+ zones);

o       Money is really hard to come by as a newbie; gear the same adept I spells are impossible on the server I played;

o       Even though encounters are no longer locked by default (stupidest idea ever) you cannot buff players that your not grouped with; MMORPG Hello!?

o       No “good” PVP

o       Quests aren’t fun!

o        Grouping should give better rewards - Heroic MOBs should provide much better items and experience;

o        I might be doing something wrong but I do have downtime;

WoW

            Pros

o       Solo content is everywhere;

o       Fast-paced (style) fun combat

o       little to no instancing – only for missions that demand grouping anyway;

o       Decent PvP system; Not as good as DAoC but lots of fun on the PvP servers (improves immersion);

o       Quests are fun and give you huge rewards gear and experience wise!

Cons

o       Lack of spell/skill variety: by level 20 you already 95% of all the abilities you’ll ever have and they aren’t varied enough;

o       Game doesn’t offer enough in variety of possible builds per class; in other words, there are indeed a couple of best builds per class which means there will be clones of your char with most likely the same abilities.

o       The specialization (through talent points) doesn’t provide many unique abilities; in other words a Fire Mage and a Ice Mage would have access to almost the same spells though of course, they’d be much more efficient using their specialized spells;

o       Horde and Alliance aren’t balanced; Horde has only ugly race models, one single blood elves “cute” race would prob even out the numbers; So obvious and yet…

o       Some classes are unbalanced; Rogues and shaman for example rule until higher levels; reminder this is from a casual gamer (never gonna hit higher levels)

o       Troll (my favorite horde race) Jamaican accent;

o       Community; yes a lot of children playing WoW and yes it is annoying sometimes;

o       I hear there are PVp RPG servers now but they are all queued up;

Gameplay Conclusion:

I believe EQ2 had the potential to be the best game on the Market but SOE does not learn; I might be mistaken but I imagine their CEO/Lead developers to be real arrogant people who utterly ignore the world around them. In the world of today some time sinks that SOE implements are impossible to cope with. As a casual gamer I really can’t see myself playing EQ2.

For the casual gamer really WoW is the only choice.

My perfect game:

• EQ2 graphics (with some changes to some of the char models)
• EQ2 spells effects
• WoW questing system (simple is good don't need entertainment to be rocket science)
• WoW Solo combat System
• EQ2 Lore (races and such)
• DAoC RvR
• EQ1 spells/skill selection

Hope I can help somebody who is still undecided, I know EQ2 is now just $20 (for the CD version) but still I would rather have spent my money and/or time elsewhere.

thank you.

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Pros

o Solo content is everywhere;

o Fast-paced (style) fun combat

o little to no instancing – only for missions that demand grouping anyway;

o Decent PvP system; Not as good as DAoC but lots of fun on the PvP servers (improves immersion);

o Quests are fun and give you huge rewards gear and experience wise!

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well eh that last one(quests) is right on the mark, the rest, not so much. If you just plan on starting an alt once your main hits 60 then yes WoW can be a casaul game. Hell, I'm no way a casaul gamer and WoW at 60 just required too much time for so little reward for me. If you don't mind not-so-great PvE but awsome PvP you could get Guild Wars, that's pretty casaul(No I'm not a fanboy, I don't even have a GW account). Can't comment on EQ2 because I uninstalled the trial after about 30 minutes of playtime.

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Originally posted by Dinion

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Pros

o Solo content is everywhere;

o Fast-paced (style) fun combat

o little to no instancing – only for missions that demand grouping anyway;

o Decent PvP system; Not as good as DAoC but lots of fun on the PvP servers (improves immersion);

o Quests are fun and give you huge rewards gear and experience wise!

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well eh that last one(quests) is right on the mark, the rest, not so much. If you just plan on starting an alt once your main hits 60 then yes WoW can be a casaul game. Hell, I'm no way a casaul gamer and WoW at 60 just required too much time for so little reward for me. If you don't mind not-so-great PvE but awsome PvP you could get Guild Wars, that's pretty casaul(No I'm not a fanboy, I don't even have a GW account). Can't comment on EQ2 because I uninstalled the trial after about 30 minutes of playtime.

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Very unlikely a real casual gamer would ever reach 60 even in WoW. :)

I tried Guild Wars but I didn't like it too much. It was too much diablo, detached, not immersive and very difficult to solo some chars without a group (hench dont work).

EQ1 and EQ2 have a skill based system? When I played EQ2 I leveled. I dont know anything about EQ1, maybe it did, and I havent played EQ2 for some time, but I never heard that they changed the level system to skill based. Didnt the CU affect alot of other aspects while leaving the level system alone? Heck, people even think SWG has a skill based system. It doesnt because you still don't perform a skill better until you level it up. A skill system is where you actually get better as you use it. For instance, back in the day in UO if I had a character with 52.5 magery he wouldnt cast a spell such as recall as easily as another character with 58.3. Big difference from SWG and other games supposed "skill system". I could just be missing something though...... but if the skill changes changes at specific intervals after gaining an amount of XP thats a leveling system.

If EQ2 does now have a skill based system then lemme know. Id have even more interest in it again!

Originally posted by madazz
EQ1 and EQ2 have a skill based system? When I played EQ2 I leveled. I dont know anything about EQ1, maybe it did, and I havent played EQ2 for some time, but I never heard that they changed the level system to skill based. Didnt the CU affect alot of other aspects while leaving the level system alone? Heck, people even think SWG has a skill based system. It doesnt because you still don't perform a skill better until you level it up. A skill system is where you actually get better as you use it. For instance, back in the day in UO if I had a character with 52.5 magery he wouldnt cast a spell such as recall as easily as another character with 58.3. Big difference from SWG and other games supposed "skill system". I could just be missing something though...... but if the skill changes changes at specific intervals after gaining an amount of XP thats a leveling system.
If EQ2 does now have a skill based system then lemme know. Id have even more interest in it again!

Maybe it isn't the proper name but it seems we are talking about the same thing. EQ1 and EQ2 both have skills that increase with use, they are dependent on level of course; (you have become better at crush 52/65)... At defense... At focusing (called channeling in EQ), etc. So yeah its not a pure skill system but my point was I like it. Its better than not having any skills at all and only have levels.