Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
I decided to return to where it all began for me and loving it!
hellsnot
Member UncommonPosts: 49
I started mmoing back about 7 years ago when i broke my leg, my little brother was playing eq2 and i was always a rpg console fan so i figured what the hell i'll give it a try, i was hooked played eq2 for 4 years and was a member of one of the top raiding guilds server wide, i left when our guild had problems and have regreted it ever since. I have played every game u can mention and it has never lasted long nor felt like home, so after trying the rift beta and realizing it was another piece of garbage wanna steal WoW subs game i decided to try to make an eq2 comeback. It has been the best decision i have ever made for what mmo to play. Eq2 is so underrated and under played, the depth of character development story line and customization are unparaleled. I can believe what they have done with the game it is absolutly amazing. Can anyone tell me how a 7 year old game has better graphics than 90% of games released since then? I toured a couple guild halls and houses and was stunned to see the incredible variety of housing items, they must number in the 1000's. The community is a far cry from the troll chats of other games, everyone is pleasant and it is fairly easy to find groups.....even though i am 30 lvl's behind latest content. If ur are looking for a real mmo or just miss that feeling u got when u played eq/eq2 come back to the game it truly is the most underrated mmo out there and a true masterpiece of programming and artwork.
Comments
Odd..I played Rift, it reminded me of EQ2, but better. Reason I left EQ2 was cuz of the small community and the wasteland that is 1 to max level.
Graphics are subjective.
Drop the next-gen marketing and people will argue if the game itself has merit.
Quite simply, I don't think any other game really ever matches up to your first main MMO experience.
For me, it was SWG. Not my first MMO, but my first real experience. Nothing since has every come close to what me and the rest of my server community built together in those 4 years.
i won't deny it did feel like eq2 for a brief period, thats what got me thinking of trying eq2 again, i really was not enjoying the rift beta within a few days it was clearly the same thing over and over again, and when i returned to eq2 i realized all the things i used to love about the game that are non-existant in other mmo's. As far as graphics there are few games i have seen with the level of detail eq2 has.
While have never having a toon over 21 in EQ2 I wholelly concurr. I do a lot of game hopping and I have seen a lot of whats out there if only from the noob experiece and very few games seem to offer the same level of complexity as EQ2. I'm of course speaking exclusively of the fantasy genere here when I say this because I think most people will conceded that EVE, Fallen Earth, and the young upstart Perpetuum offer very complex games.
But back to my point or rather yours. As far as the fantasy based games go EQ2 has it all and more. Speaking to your point on graphics I agree with you again. Yes the graphics are dated but they have aged well. They consistantly upgrade their graphics engine and the fine detail offered is amazing.
A few things killed EQ2 upon my most recent comback.
1. The atrocious run animations
2. Lack of an in-game quest helper coupled with poor quest descriptions in the quest journal
3. Uninteresting quests that utterly bored me to death. Maybe SF has some great dungeons, but unfortunately I'll never see them as they're nearly for level 90 players.
4. Laughable battlegrounds system which requires players to log out of their server and to be placed on a seperate server for the duration of the fight. I didn't really find battlegrounds much fun either. If you and your opponent burn your big skills without dieing, you're mostly just throwing stones and spitting at each other until someone's ability pops again.
I have tried to get into EQ2, three times now.
The only thing that makes me unsub, everytime, is the lack of quest detail.
"Go kill x" is fine, but at least tell me where I am supposed to go.
Having to download eq2map mod to get anything done makes me want to uninstall.
No, I do not want hand holding, but I don't want to have to scour the world for hours trying to find whatever X I am supposed to kill. Not sure if they have fixed this problem, as I have not played EQ2 for quite some time.... which is sad because I loved my Mystic and my Swashbuckler.
yet another dysfunction of modern mmoing........i don't want a big X on my map as to where i need to go, i don't need to have my hand held, it's fun to have to figure things out, as far as quests go considering the depth of other mmo's quests are travel to area, kill X number, return, eq2 has some pretty complex quests thought they do have the kill X number and return quests there are quest lines that take days or weeks to complete. The idea u need everything marked on your map and handed to you is silly, if u actually read all the texts and conversations all the answers are right there, but who wants to read or have to pay attention to story it's easier to just keep clicking and wait for an indicator to appear on your map.
I would love to read, but generally, your average fetch/kill quests aren't too terribly interesting. Until SW:TOR hopefully changes that, forcing a character to read quest text simply to understand what's going on is bad game design. Even if the developers don't want to finish that quest helper (which is actually there at the lower levels), they can at least add more detail to the quest journal instead of it saying such brilliant things as, "Go talk to that gnome." Even if you read the quest text, you're likely to forget half of what you were supposed to do from one play session to the next, and don't even talk about coming back from a long break.
it is true the quest journal is sketchy in eq2 but they have added a map marking system but it still does not show u where "that gnome" is located usually, no game will ever be perfect but it seems they are striving for a quest assistance system with limited hand holding.
What I liked best about eq2 was the GUI. Its probably the best of any mmorpg I've tried so far. The crafting is great too.
Sony shot themselves in the foot imo by future proofing eq2. Its well known the game is cpu intensive instead of graphic card intensive like most games are and that means rigs you would think should handle eq2 maxed with a high frame rate can't due to the game engine.
And don't forget to order your pizza online!
An honest review of SW:TOR 6/10 (Danny Wojcicki)
A very important aspect of learning about the surroundings and the area you are in is dependent on the willingness of people to explore. Unfortunately people want the quests marked clearly to avoid exploring and then they wonder why games are shallow. It is circular thinking I guess. You cannot have interesting and depth in quests if you refuse to commit to them by even bothering to read them and figuring out where to go. Laziness in terms of wanting things handed to you is the downfall of the current quest system.
Problem is the world designers know something you don't, and sometimes figuring out what their thought process was when writing quest details leads you down the wrong track and becomes a problem. I remember a quest in LotRO which the only description of the location was 'past the big tree on top of the hill outside town'.
I'm not exactly sure where town ends, I don't know how far 'past' is, I see hills every direction, and all the trees look big to me. Half an hour of frustration ensued for a simple lowbie quest. It's not bad having to read quests when it works, but it's when a disconnect happens that it becomes a game killing experience when there are other MMO's that won't give you that problem.
The other problem is organizing multiple quests that happen in the same area. I can read through and figure out a few quests at a time without getting frustrated but when I have 20 quests in my log it becomes very tedious because even though all 20 quests happen in only 4 areas I end up running to each area 5 times instead just once.
In game quest helpers move people away from using web resources to supplement the game which detracts from the gaming experience more than the quest helpers do imo.
Just because your quest log has 25 quests it does not mean you have to do all of them at once. Nor is it an exercise in bunching them up in one area and finishing them off chop... chop. That is why you run out of content. When you use an express way to eat up the content you lose vital things. You lose the actual feeling of familiarity that comes from venturing into an area multiple times and realising that there might be another quest that you recall faintly being told to do.
We lost the romance of games and questing.It is all a business venture these days and even when it is your very first toon you do not take the time to smell the roses.
I recall the days of sitting in one place and camping mobs with no quests even to break up the fighting. Even then continuous forays to an area taught us so much about interaction and mob pathways among other things. But all that is gone and even that will be gone too in EQ 2 especially since so much has been done to it to bring it in line to the easier games out there. See crafting.
While DAOC was my 2nd MMORPG, it was where I really learned to love the genre.
After a 3 or 4 yr hiatus I went back only to find out that the game I really loved had 'evolved' incoporating some of the worst of the new casual design ideas of modern MMO's.
Contrasting to when I played, downtimes had been reduced or eliminated, focus on grouping strongly diminished, instanced content added and the leveling curve flattened in order to let player get to max level and the "real" end game much quicker.
Crafted items were no longer king, dropped PVE items ruled, and I found myself in a typical solo experience (with a bit more grinding instead of questing).
I was quickly able to elevate 3 characters to 50 and found the overall experience quite wanting.
This was not the MMO that I had grown up on, and no, it wasn't the rose colored glasses I had back then, the game had physically changed into something that I did not recognize or enjoy.
So good luck, glad to see your return to EQ2 was a positive, I've learned over the years that with few exceptions you can't really go back. After a 4 year leave from WOW I'm back playing Cataclysm, and with 35 days played, starting on a brand new server I've got a level 83 Warrior who has purchased all his flying mounts and is sitting on about 7000 gold.
Sure it was easy, but as satsifying as my first Paladin which took me 3 months to level to 60? Not a chance.
I've actually slowed down my leveling this week, partly because after I hit 85 I'm not sure what I'm really going to do. Raiding is probably out, so unless the PVP retains my interest I may be leaving WOW once again.
When's RIFT releasing?
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Going back to EQ2 every so often (even EQ1 where the King first claimed his throne) is a guilty pleasure of mine.
I played at launch and for some time after, but then they changed my chosen profession (Swashbuckler) into something it wasn't at the beginning. The King knows changes come, but my main was practically ruined to me.
Still I go back and try something new and they've been good at adding something new.
Their last bit of progression trying to move away from trends (instead of playing catching up like they did a few years ago) has made it a game I frequent more often. (Only City of Heroes more so, but their changes are legendary).
I too agree, it's much better than RIFT and while I was playing RIFT I had a notion to return as well.
I recall the days of sitting in one place as well. In fact I was looking for a game to do that in again because it was fun. I don't need quests but if the game expects me to quest to level up they better make it sane.
The reason why you have to do all quests in an area at once is because of travel time, not because of express way to level 60. If I didn't have to spend 10 minutes running from the quest to the hand in then find out I missed a quest and spend 10 minutes running back out and 10 minutes running back in again, it wouldn't be a big deal.
Give me a fast mount, give me quests I can organize geographically, or give me sit down and camp.
I'm sorry you didn't like Rift as I found it hands above EQ2 in terms of persistent world and better class distinction. EQ2 classes can literally be cut in half and you would never really notice the loss of them. Second, the crafting in EQ2 has to be the most boring grind I have ever seen in a game. I liked that they tried to make it similar to the combat leveling aspect of the game but dam, at least combat lets me go see the "limited" world and gives me very limited storylines while doing them.
EQ2 has so much potential but it is completely ruined by instanced zones, horrible graphics engine, exceedingly boring quest grind(very similar to FTPs or games like Lineage 2), horrible run animations, and a few other things that don't "immerse" me into the game.
What EQ2 does right is the AA system, collections and housing. The rest is pathetic and I really wish they would scrap the game, take the 3 things I just mentioned and put them into Vanguard and start making Vanguard the game it should be.
Anyway, as you can see, EQ2 annoys me as it offers tons of content but it's all recycled and dull. I want a game with the depth that EQ2 and its fans claim, but it has to grab me and make me want more and ultimately be fun. It's never done that to or for me.
Wow. Its fasinating to see these Eq2 threads about how great the game is now. All i have to say is that you should of gave it more of a chance years ago because frankly the game SUCKS now!!! Perfect example, start a toon from either Freeport or Antonica ( if you still can), Then start a toon in some of the bogus new areas HALAS or Whatever those areas are. Youll notice that the new areas are so incredable easy youll fell like your in kindergarden... Im all for fast play games but this is rediculous. The Game was great when it was released. From the shard runs , the class sub quest , the locked dungeons to the quest boat rides to enchanted lands and Feerrot. There was always something to do you never even payed attention to the grind. It never mattered.
EQ2 is nothing more then a watered down bowl of diarrea thats been reshat by a WOW dark elf. Because the 2 games are the same now
A few things:
For one, I'm rather glad they got rid of the subclass quests. The're entertaining the first time you do them, but after making a few alts, you realize you're playing the same character for the first ten or twenty levels of the game. What absolutely killed me, however, was the removal of Freeport and Qeynos as starting zones. New Halas (especially), Gorowan, Darklight Wood, and the Laggier Faydark (to a degree) are absolutely abysmal in terms of design and production value compared to Qeynos and Freeport. Sure, the new areas have much more coherent quest chains, but to me, they always represented a very pale representation of what I feel the original EQ2 developers intended for the game to be. It's almost sad when you see the hyper realism presented in vanilla EQ2, Desert of Flames, and Kingdom of Sky shunned for more WoW-inspired stylized realism of every expansion since Echoes of Faydwer.
I liked the access quests to the locked zones as well, but my belief is they were removed because there simply wasn't a plethora of players around that would be interested in running low levels through them. I think they ultimately became a hindrance to a playerbase which arrived far too late to the party.
Alright. This may sound shocking but my first MMORPG was Runescape...... Shocking right? not for me. it was about 7 years ago like you. I made the character and lvled up from there. Became a member and still am now. Even though i dont play it that much anymore. lol Its a game i play when i have no other games to play. Then it went to the WoW free trial and wanting that but didn't get because of the $15 sub. So i found GW. And i guess that was my first experience. I have been playing Gw for 4 years now and just been downloading mmo's like ArchLord and other fun games. Now i am just waiting for GW2!
And hey, if the wild and free trade comes back to RS then i might play that a little bit more. And I DON'T CARE if it has bad garaphics. It was my first MMO and has gotten so many updates that i had to stay with it.
I actually like this game, although I agree about how easy it is for the first 20 levels or so. I went to level 26 without dying a single time. I came close a few times, but never once bit the dust until level 26 when I began exploring other lands. The game seems much more difficult as I increase in level, but still nothing demanding. What I like however are the creative outlets and immersion within the game such as crafting and housing. The housing especially is pretty cool for players who like to be creative within the game and take breaks from quests. I never tried vanilla everquest2, heard the lag was awful and lots of bugs. I would like to see more at stake in each mmorpg I've ever played. Death means nothing, (aside from games like Darkfall which I've heard come close to excluding new players) and the difficult quests are usually just annoying, not mentally complicated. I would definitely enjoy a larger feeling of danger without sacrificing the streamlined content. As far as mmorpgs go, I haven't played any I find difficult or strategy intensive like the Civilization games I'm so fond of.
you serious dude look at wow horrible grachics rift is the same UI like everquest 2 nothing new shiney there........ i played the beta and ,i did not like it i saw nothing new at all same crap like wow and everquest just different classes and, same crap now show me a game when i see something shiney none atm. i dont think none care about grachicsa any more really. wow been using the same grachics and its still on top. so rift is nothing new just massive pvp. oh and quest grinding you do that in every game nothing new ether.
.....
Ive tried very, very hard to like EQ2 on 3 different occasions. I never made it past level 35 with any char (and ive tried a lot of classes) I was always put off by the bland, silly combat animations and auto facing, which is something i hate in combat . EQ2 shipped with a ton of problems, some of then expectable in a new mmorpg, some arising directly from flawed design decisions (classes branchins at higher levels et al...)
It was an enormous world (which i love) with thousand of tons of things to do (ditto) and they soon gave it 2 diferent ways to level your char , with AA (best feature of all imo). As i said i tried very, very hard, but it didnt just happen for me. Last time, about a year ago, the experience was quite sad. The beautiful girl you almost fell in love with had aged quite ungracefully. Entering a gnome town and watching tons of gnomes standing patiently in front of the doors to their houses waiting to be talked to, doing nothing but looking like a parade of mannequins, with my elf char that looked like a giant barbie-doll and moved while fighting like an arthritic 80 year old trying to learn to dance salsa made me realize the time for this game had already passed. Wow is every bit as old and still manages to feel young (i wont be at wow next month btw, ill be at Rift).
Im not trying to be ironic though, i did want to love EQ2
I started EQ2 in beta and played off and on ever since. I had 4 level 80's, 2 of which I raided with. I tried to go back a couple of months ago, but it is definately not the same fun game it was. They dumbed it down and made it half the game it used to be. The last 80 I leveled up was a wizard and I could solo my way to the top. And it only took me 1 month to get her to 80.
I remember my first character, who was a brigand, taking much much longer to get to the top level, and having to group through a lot of that to grind out her levels. It was fun, because you actually spoke to people on your journey to end game. Now it is just like WoW where you can solo quest all the way and not speak to another soul. I really miss the Multi massive multiplayer aspect these days