Originally posted by Nonderyon
question: is it possible unlock the races without pay for it?

no

but SOE has Station Cash promotions a few times a year

example:

on Friday Dec 21 there was a triple SC promotiion for 24 hours

with a 15.00 dollar Walmart gamecard - it was worth $60.00 Station Cash

Total cost to unlock all 5 race packs is 37.50SC

alternatively,

players do trade ingame cash for SC cards or Kronos (worth months game time)

http://eq2wire.com/2012/10/29/krono-in-game-currency-going-live-today/

Originally posted by strangiato2112

Originally posted by Purutzil

I'd say no... least if you want to do the F2P model they have. Its quite terrible as is so I'd recomend against it. Extremely restrictive in some rather dumb ways. 

If your really dedicated to F2P, then Lotro might be an alright choice for you 

EXTREME contradiction here.

EQ2 has one of the least restrictive experiences whatsoever.  Yeah, classes locked.  You still have 8 to choose from.  Yeah, fabled gear is locked.  You dont need it. No content is locked outside of the recent expansions.  Yes, there is the usual bank/bags/auction type restrictions, but 2 bags in EQ2 (once you befrend a high level player Im sure they will give you 2 cheap 40+ slotters) is as much bag space as LOTROs entire inventory.  And if you decide to sub, all restrictions go away.

 

LOTRO, on the other hand, is the exact definition of nickel and dime.  Want to use a horse route?  pay up.  Want to join a crafting guld?  pay up.  want to quest in any zone 20+ (besides one)?  pay up.  Hey, you can use all the gear but you can only use a couple traits (not only is the content not free, but you miss out on the depth of the class system with only 2 class traits and are underpowered)... pay up

Oh hey you are a sub player now...

want shared bank slot?  pay up.   want to be able to disable your experience?  pay up (5 bucks per character)

 

thats right...LOTRO charges you 5 bucks to disable experence on a character (just one, not all)  EVEN IF YOU SUB

 

LOTRO is still an excellent game (EQ2 even better) but to dump on EQ2s f2p system and suggest LOTRO is just ridiculous.

Not to mention that he also suggested SW:ToR as a good F2P and it is incredibly restricted (to the point that you have to pay for extra hotbars).

Originally posted by Renton81
hey guys, I've been getting bored of WoW lately and wanting to try out something else, I saw that everquest 2 looked alright, and that it had recently gone F2P too (which is always a bonus, but not really an issue if it wasn't). I was thinking, does the game innovate enough to be worth my time, and will the F2P element show me enough of the game? also, how much per month is it to play in GBP, the site only shows it in dollars. I could just convert it, but sometimes games a priced completely differently even after currency conversion.

Thanks for your help guys.

It's still worth playing. Don't let the high prices and chunks of haters fool you. EQ2 AND EQ1 are very qualitative games. Though the game is pricy, it feels like worth the money, even if your F2P. Here's a quick comparison I made of the F2P content of EQ2 and WoW:

WoW: 20 levels, More open during these levels, grindy.

EQ2: 90 levels, line route, oddly a bit more fun.

EQ2 may be a bit P2W, but even if your F2P, it can be a huge demo of what's to come of some of the aspects and get used to the high difficulty. Membership is 5-15 USD a month. 2 kinds of memberships: Silver:5 and Gold:15. Memberships are cheap, but expansion packs are pricy and can even go up to NINETY DOLLARS! But you can experience the changed content, but maybe buy the expansion packs (40 USD-90 USD) for the content AND the content from previous expansions. So just buy the latest expansion pack and experience all the expansion at the time or wait for another expansion or 2 and experience more. EQ2 is the best MMO I had played yet. It's hard and fun, too. It's always been worth playing.

Originally posted by ideainsanity12

It's still worth playing. Don't let the high prices and chunks of haters fool you. EQ2 AND EQ1 are very qualitative games. Though the game is pricy, it feels like worth the money, even if your F2P. Here's a quick comparison I made of the F2P content of EQ2 and WoW:

 

WoW: 20 levels, More open during these levels, grindy.

EQ2: 90 levels, line route, oddly a bit more fun.

 (snip)

Wow, that is a very quick comparison, a little too quick in my opinion.

World of Warcraft has a trial that is open-ended whereas EQ2 has a F2P option in a hybrid model. I don't think you can really compare the two free options of the games.

You can do almost everything any other lowbie in WoW can do during the free trial outside of some talk and trade restrictions that were put in place to dissuade farmers from using trial accounts to spam players with ads or use them to send gold that was bought for real money.

EQ2's F2P option is restricted as far as what you can wear, learn, sell, race, class, amount of gold you can have, your bag and bank space, and character slots. You can either pay à la carte to unlock these things, or pay memberships.

To the OP, but outside of the F2P model, EQ2 does offer things that WoW does not and vice versa.

The crafting system is more evolved in EQ2. You have several tiers of items like crafted and master crafted, you can level up as a crafter before leveling up your adventuring class. There are work order 'quests' that allow you to level up your craft faster, special crafter-only mounts, gear, and other items, etc.

There are quests that WoW does not have such as lore quests that you get by reading books, catalogue quests, or there are city writs (based on levels, not dailies) that allow you to do small tasks that help you gain faction with your city.

There is housing as well that WoW does not have, and as a result furniture and fluff items for the house are important.

There is more social clothing, RPG elements and the like as well. You can use city status as a currency to delevel your character while soloing, or you can choose to join lower level groups and mentor the rest of the group.

Instead of talents, you get AAs, and you also can pick and choose other traits as you level. There are no talent trees. Skills and spells have different tiers and part of the game is either trying to find, buy, or craft better skills and spells.

EQ2 also emphasizes exploration and in some cases luck to do the quests. The dungeons are zones that are separate from the rest of the world, but they are not 5 man instances like in WoW. The dungeons are more 'old school' too in how they are designed, where you wander around discovering things and finding bosses to beat up rather than having a set path.

I hope this helps you make a decision whether it is the game for you.

this is offtopic

but the trade restrictions in WOW trial are harsh  (and should be due to gold sellers)

you cannot trade coin/items with other players

you cannot use your mail

players can send you coin/items but your mailbox is off limits to access

as WOW trial player

you are forced to be self sufficient for items and coin

Blizzard does give trial players access to all races and most classes  (except DK and monk)

I wish EQ2 gave players a chance to try all races/classes without having to spend anything

but at least SOE has x2 and X3 SC promotions -- helps to make everything much less expensive