Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
Final update added
I thought I'd add some comments, as a veteran EQ2 player now.
You mentioned you played as a cleric, highest level you claimed was 14, correct? If that is the case, then you never got to experience the cooler zones and story intensive quests available beyond the Thundering Steppes. The Ruins of Varsoon, Zek: The Orcish Wastes, and The Enchanted Lands are where I spend a lot of my time as a level 33 Monk. The game doesn't really take off until you surpass 20 and attain your prestige class.
Grouping
It is true, if you want to level and level fast, you are going to have to group. There are several little things in the gang to encourage grouping. For example, i cant seem to heal people that are about to die because im not in there group, i cant even help them fight the mob that is killing them if they are not in my group. I like this thinking, it makes it feel more of a MMO rather than a solo game that you group with to do multiplayer on elite quests. But, this again is a differant game style of what the devs intended, see my people section at the bottom for possible reasons.
When I pull a monster, either for a quest or to get a drop, the last thing you want is for someone to swoop in and steal the kill from you. Once a group starts the encounter, outside PCs cannot interfere. However, if someone in that group breaks the encounter, by pressing the Call for Help button, then you can cast Heals/reactives/tauntss/etc. As my monk, I've had people call for help around me a lot, in keeping with Enrin's honor, I attempt to taunt them off the poor PC, even chasing after then to get the mob off them. As my Warden, its a lot easier. Once they break the encounter, I can heal them and root/ensare the monster. I like the grouping in EQ2 myself, one of the draws of a good MMO is the social interaction, which EQ2 definitely has.
Crafting and economy
Pain in the butt, still cant get a grip on it. I cant seem to get a grip on the economy either, i prefer blizzard's centralized auction house city. They do have Brokers in EQ2 that can tell you where to find stuff that you need or you can buy it from them on commision, i dont know if players are able to tho, some of the more senior EQ2 players here can tell you more, because, i dont know.
Crafting can be daunting your first few forays into the tradeskill instance. Enrin is a 36 Provisioner at the moment. She makes foods and drinks to regen the power and health of other PCs faster, reducing the downtime between battles. Food and drink is usually in pretty good demand, although it did drop quite a bit when a patch came out that made food effects stay on after death. Previously, death cancelled the food/drink effects.
The economy in EQ2 is very realistic, actually. You have many crafters with goods to sell. They run their own stores and you can go to their residence any time they have their store opened and buy their goods. You can go to the brokers, and pay the 20% commision, or the 40% of the black market broker if you want to buy goods from the rival city. Provisioning is an easier crafting class to master, compared the weaponsmiths, tailers, sages, alchemists, etc. Basicly, every character starts as an artisan crafter. Artisan levels are 1 through 9. At level 10, you begin to specialize. Unlike the adventure classes, which require you to quest for next class, crafitng classes just require you to visit an NPC to 'register' yourself. At level 10, you can advance to a Craftsman, an Outfitter, or a Scholar. Depending on which path you take, different prestige crafting classes will be open to you. Enrin went Artisan>Craftswomen>Provisioner. Also, simply because an outfitter advances to an armorer, who makes HA and MA, they retain the ability to make VLA and LA, which the Tailer specializes in, they just can't make beyond T2. They retain all their outfitter skills when they advance.
Spells
Spells are given to you in game when you level as well as books that are dropped. This saves time so you dont have to go back to town to train your next spell when you ding, but it also takes away a slight bit money management skills needed.
Not sure what you meant by that last part. Spells/abilities are given to your when you ding each level. These are Apprentice I quality. You can buy Apprentice IIs from merchants and crafters, although this is usually a waste of money. When I get a new spell, its a simple matter to buy either an Adept I or an Apprentice IV version, which increases its effectiveness. Since you never advanced beyond level 14, buying anything more than AppI is a waste of money, as the upgraded versions have a higher power cost to cast. And at those levels, upgrading all your abilities to the highest level you could would not only drain your wallet, but also your power pool in a battles. With Enrin's high crafting class, getting enough coin to buy App4 or Adepts is usually not a problem either, especially with guild connections. Most guilds should be helping their members in such a fashion. I can't tell you have much food and drink I've given to my guild for nothing.
Grouping
Much easier due to everyone just about needs a group or could use another hand, otherwise they cannot do quests. EQ2 also makes it easy to find a group by people turning on the LFG tag and you can do searches for people that have these tags with a click of a button, i have to spend about 30 minutes in WoW to find a group big enough to get the job done, in EQ2 i can find or join one in less than 5 minutes. Both my EQ2 and WoW servers are rated low pop servers, but i dont know what each considers low pop.
Aye, grouping in EQ2 is very easy. Especially in zones like the Ruins of Varsoon. During peak hours, there will be around a dozen people sitting in the entrance trying to get in a group. My first time in there, I thought this was bad thing, but it fact it was the opposite. The zone is so active that those LFG get cycles into groups very quickly, just a matter of what the groups already in the zone need. If the right classes are present, then the LFGs usually form their own group and venture forth.
Quests
Quests as far as im a told are unsharable and a good bit of my time is spent grinding with a group. We do help each other on quests, but so far, most of my leveling has been killing scare crows over and over with a party. Many of my quests were errands, "go here, talk to him, get this, bring it back". These are in WoW also, just seem to be more of them in EQ2, but that is free XP and rewards if you dont get killed getting there, but boring as hell. Another interesting thing is that most animals have the quest item that you are instructed to get if it is a vital organ. I spent over an hour in WoW killing turtles (the correct type for the quest) before i had enough tounges to finish the quest. All and all i killed around 50 turtles, only 15 had tounges. One of my friends had to do the same thing for bats to get their blood, only 1 out of 5 had blood it seemed. This does not seem to happen nearly as much in EQ2.
Quests are unshareable, you were told correct. You can see what your group member's quests are though by checking your Quest window when you are in the group. Every MMO has errand quests, sad fact. There are several categories of quests in EQ2. Hallmark, access, zone specific, collection, Heritage, and a few others. Heritages, Hallmarks, and Access quests are usually your longer, more story intensive quests. For the Hadden's Earring quest, I am currently reading an explorer's journal and retracing his foot steps around the world, looking for his earring to return it to his heirs.
People
More mature by far and can speak english better than a 12 year old. I have yet to meet someone in EQ2 that is named Omgwtfpwn or talks like "were deth ef whee gho doun ter". I guess Blizzard made it a breeze to solo due to the fact that a decent portion of the people are not fun or usefull to group with. The ignore button is one of my favorite buttons in WoW, i use it on the morons as well as the smacktards. That being said, there are still plenty of good people in WoW. Play horde if you want more maturity out of WoW, it does have a share of the smacktards, but overall horde is more mature than the alliance. I have a lvl 40 on both factions.
EQ2 community is extremely good, on the RP servers anyway. No exp on the nonRP serves. EQ2 has its own ignore list. You can add people buy typing /ignore CharName, or buy opening the community window, ignore tab, and putting their name in there.
Patches
Patches come out almost everyday for EQ2, they are very quick to download when compared to "Blizzard's Updater" for patches of comparable size.
Very true, EQ2 patches are very efficient. Even on the massive patches, the servers are rarely down for long, and they all come up at more or less the same time. Usually within 30min of each other, at most.
Lag
Servers from what i have seen have very little downtime when compared to WoW, even when they applay the patch to them. I have also yet to experiance any server stress (IE no one screaming about trade lag, NPC lag, things vanishing, monsters running away from you but still attacking you and you cant hit it because it is too far away, stuck looting, etc.). I can sit down and play WoW and i will probably see some form of server stress on my low pop server (that i ping 45ish to) if i play it for just 20 minutes. However, EQ2 does have graphics lag on my rig, i am forced to run at balanced which makes it very playable but slow downs come when a good bit of stuff is going on. I never get graphics or system lag in WoW unless im in a raid group. Trading one thing for another i guess.
EQ2's amazing visuals do require to PC computing power, no doubt about that. I get more render lag inside city zones from all the buildings, NPCs, and PCs running around than I do out in the other zones. I keep my settings pretty cranked on my 3.4E and 6800GT though.
Fun
EQ2 is still not as fun as WoW, despite all the advantages it has over it. The feel of WoW is still much more deeper it seems, cant describe it but i feel more like my WoW character when im playing him and i feel distant to my character in EQ2. I will continue to play EQ2 untill my subscription expires. I believe that the lack of PvP coupled with my complete ignorance of EQ2's crafting system and economy holds down the funness factor.
Here is where we really disagree. WoW is not a deep game, its shallow, like all PvP games. Its the type of crowd it attracts that makes it that way, not directly Blizzard's fault.
If you feel 'distant' to your characters in EQ2, you likely created the wrong character. I feel very close to Enrin, my monk; and fairly distant to my Warden and Bard. Part of that reason is that my Monk is 33, and my Warden and bard are 21 and 10, repectively. Also, I took the time to write a very long biography on Enrin. I know her past, her present, and all the events that shaped her into who she is today. I haven't written those for my Warden and Bard yet, although I intend to.
If you are attacted to the PvP gameplay of WoW, thats fine, back you should never bash a game because of your 'complete ignorance' of its aspects. If you don't understand something in EQ2, ask someone. Most likely, someone will respond and help you out. You don't want to know how many times I had to ask quests when I started crafting. I still have to ask questions relating to tailors and such.
I will give you props for taking EQ2 for a spin though, at least you actually tried playing it instead of simply bashing it at every opportunity. You have increased your faction points with Bateluer.
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