I think it was probably the area you were in . Please guys try not to be so mean to the OP okay. Some people do not want to check the internet or do a small thesis search to do quests. Admittedly the game has gotten easier by a lot but may be for someone unfamiliar to the style of other games will be stumped.
I think it was probably the area you were in . Please guys try not to be so mean to the OP okay. Some people do not want to check the internet or do a small thesis search to do quests. Admittedly the game has gotten easier by a lot but may be for someone unfamiliar to the style of other games will be stumped.
I played eq2 a while back for an extended period - up to lvl 55 twice and into the 40's several times. I never had to do research and write a paper to do quests. Never found any quests that were not simple enough to understand the first time reading them. My problem is that once I got a toon to around lvl 45 I became increasingly more bored with the game.
It is not a bad game, it just wasn't enough, for me.
If someone buys a full game including all the expansions because of a desire to play a particular character but then dismisses it after what sounds like little more than a single short session then that doesn't fill me with great confidence as to the validity of his opinion on the game.
As to the detailed comments, the UI is both pretty intuitive to any MMO player as well as being fully customisable. The graphics are quite superb on full settings but I'm guessing that the OP has a low-end rig. I'm also guessing that's he's pretty young and has only played WoW before. That isn't a criticism, but it puts his opinion in perspective.
I'd be a lot more impressed if someone played the game longer and then gave more detailed comments on it.
Well I think the real probelm is the quests, they often give you quests that make no sense of what you have to do, no indication of where to go. I feel stupid now not to use Extended instead. =(
Stick with it and stick with the live servers. It's well worth it. A few suggestions that will help you.
Also, bookmark all the url's I give you below. They will help a lot.
First go to http://www.eq2interface.com/ and get EQ2 Maps and make sure you get the auto updating version.Once that is installed you can easily check your map and find updates, need mobs and all sort of other info that will help you get around. Ther are also custom UI's and addon's you can find there to get the UI to be more to your liking. personally I've loved the EQ2 UI since the beginning.
Second- if you ever get stuck you can open your in game browser and go to this site http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page or this site http://eq2.zam.com/ and get any neded quest info. They alos have pretty much any info on the game at all you might need.
If you are into tradeskilling then go to http://eq2.eqtraders.com/ which is the definitive place to learn about tradeskills and harvesting. I also enjoy Mum's previews of the coming updates to the game, live events, etc.
And, yes, EQ2 does require a more robust computer to fully make use of it's graphics engine but IMHO, even at balanced setting or the one just below it it still looks better than WoW. Get a more robust computer and up the graphics and no other game looks better IMHO.
There isn't a game out there that offers as much as EQ2 does between their option in housing and guilds and as much content as you could ever want to access. It's a hell of a deep game and is well worth your time to tick it out.
I think you are a bit harsh, OP. Keep in mind this is 6 year old game, or so, + some years for development, so the concept is VERY old. Taken that into account I think EQ2 aged quite well. I used to play the game for about 5 years with great fun, but I can see it does get old now. Compared to the fast combat, the vast open world and the nifty and fun things other MMOs do with innovations (even if not all succeed), EQ2 indeed looks old and feels slow.
People today are used to radars and arrows pointing you exactly to the quest goal. EQ2 has this in some of the newest areas, but in most you still have to search the area by yourself. Tbh. I found this extremely annoying even back then many years ago. I never understood why EQ2 wasn't reworked to have a proper radar and quest aim. It is just the standart today. Call ppl lazy, but that is how it is. I think most people can hardly believe that EQ2, when it was new, didn't even have symbols over the quest givers heads! They added it because WOW had it. In the "good old days" you had to talk to them ALL, write down hints whom to ask on PAPER or swap to the internet. I said it SO MANY TIMES back then, that a MMO should never ever need out-of-game ressources whatsoever to play the game, and time has proven this to be true. But SOE sort of overslept the changes.
But like with elderly people, I think we should have some respect for the old lady. We all the old sooner or later.
And sorry to say, but it's kinda your own fault when EQ2X allowes anyone to try out the game for free. I still think you did something wrong. Maybe ask some EQ2 vets ingame, some areas have better quests and maybe you went mostly into older zones.
It's a little bit a pity to see the decline of EQ2. *sigh* I had many good years, but indeed it starts to feel old fashioned. There is nothing more depressing that travelling through Antonica or Thundering Steppes these days which are all empty, and remembering the great adventurers I had there when the place was full and alive. Heck, even Qeynos itself is a ghost town now. Makes me sad to see. But such are things.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I think you are a bit harsh, OP. Keep in mind this is 6 year old game, or so, + some years for development, so the concept is VERY old. Taken that into account I think EQ2 aged quite well. I used to play the game for about 5 years with great fun, but I can see it does get old now. Compared to the fast combat, the vast open world and the nifty and fun things other MMOs do with innovations (even if not all succeed), EQ2 indeed looks old and feels slow.
People today are used to radars and arrows pointing you exactly to the quest goal. EQ2 has this in some of the newest areas, but in most you still have to search the area by yourself. Tbh. I found this extremely annoying even back then many years ago. I never understood why EQ2 wasn't reworked to have a proper radar and quest aim. It is just the standart today. Call ppl lazy, but that is how it is. I think most people can hardly believe that EQ2, when it was new, didn't even have symbols over the quest givers heads! They added it because WOW had it. In the "good old days" you had to talk to them ALL, write down hints whom to ask on PAPER or swap to the internet. I said it SO MANY TIMES back then, that a MMO should never ever need out-of-game ressources whatsoever to play the game, and time has proven this to be true. But SOE sort of overslept the changes.
But like with elderly people, I think we should have some respect for the old lady. We all the old sooner or later.
And sorry to say, but it's kinda your own fault when EQ2X allowes anyone to try out the game for free. I still think you did something wrong. Maybe ask some EQ2 vets ingame, some areas have better quests and maybe you went mostly into older zones.
It's a little bit a pity to see the decline of EQ2. *sigh* I had many good years, but indeed it starts to feel old fashioned. There is nothing more depressing that travelling through Antonica or Thundering Steppes these days which are all empty, and remembering the great adventurers I had there when the place was full and alive. Heck, even Qeynos itself is a ghost town now. Makes me sad to see. But such are things.
A BIG part of not seeing people around anymore is Guild Halls. You can call directly to your Guild Hall and with all of the amenities they have there really isn't much reason to go in the cities. Only two of my characters are guilded but even those I often go into the cities rather than my guild hall as I liek the feel of the cities in the game.
Hi, today is the first time I ever really played Everquest 2, I played the full retail version with every expansion because I want to play an female Iksar and so here is my verdict on this game.
Where do I begin, well first of all lets talk about the graphics, it seems like the graphics are really screwed up here, had no choice but to set it on Balanced settings. But the main problem I have are the quests, the quests all make no sense, the only quests I completed are killing Parrot men and relics on the floor. The interface looks confusing as well, it's simply not simplified like how it is in World of Warcraft or most other MMO's of today. I don't know what possessed me to play this game, well I've tried it now and I'm not planning to come back to it.
Sorry SOE, your game is just not good enough for me.
Where do you begin? It seems like you started and ended before you knew it. I personally never liked EQ2 either, much preferring it's older brother.
Hi, today is the first time I ever really played Everquest 2, I played the full retail version with every expansion because I want to play an female Iksar and so here is my verdict on this game.
Where do I begin, well first of all lets talk about the graphics, it seems like the graphics are really screwed up here, had no choice but to set it on Balanced settings. But the main problem I have are the quests, the quests all make no sense, the only quests I completed are killing Parrot men and relics on the floor. The interface looks confusing as well, it's simply not simplified like how it is in World of Warcraft or most other MMO's of today. I don't know what possessed me to play this game, well I've tried it now and I'm not planning to come back to it.
Sorry SOE, your game is just not good enough for me.
It’s alright if you don’t like a game, we all have loaded up a game and played for a few hours just to get that “it’s not for me” vibe and log out but if your going to go on a forum and bash a game at least you should play it for more than a few hours before you do so.
The games graphics engine has some issues I will agree chief among them being that’s it CPU bound and doesn’t multithread very well. SOE made a bet that processor speeds would continue to go up and they could get away with that design and they lost. Chip designers went multicore instead of faster and the game engine doesn’t scale up well. I don’t know what you run on but I can easily run on the higher setting with my dual core (3.1Ghz I think) system with no lag. I dual box on balanced with no issues. I like the graphics style of EQ2 overall and don’t feel I am missing a whole lot not being able to run at max settings. Are you one of those people who if you can’t run a game at max settings it’s junk?
The quests are for the most part standard go here kill x of y return to quest giver types especially at lower levels so I have no idea what you are talking about. The quests text should give you good clues where to go as will the NPC if you read what he is saying. Are you looking for a breadcrumb trail to the mobs you need to kill?
I really don’t understand your comments on Interface. EQ2’s interface is miles above what 99% of the other “AAA” games out there give it’s not even funny. I don’t mean the look and feel either I am talking about the customization. Not only can you move all the UI elements around you can resize most of them and change how transparent they are and even set them to click though so they can overlay the world window without getting in the way. You can also change the font scale of text and scale up or down most of the icons and lock all the windows once you have it setup. There is even commands to save and load different setups if you want to go that far. And every UI element can be replaced with a custom UI if you really don’t like the look of them. I know WoW has a lot of the same customization but other than those two there just isn’t any other modern MMO I know of that has that level of customization and it drives me crazy. More developers could learn a few things from EQ2's level of UI customization.
As for it’s not “simplified” like WoW that also confuses me. At the levels you were playing at you had one maybe two hotbars of skills, a targeting window with mob health and power, a quest window, chat window, map, and status bar plus some skill status bars. Pretty standard MMO setup really.
Wish they would import SWG macros, cause I made some wicked macros for about everything. Also the SWG crafting system is by far the best ever, a crafting system with random spawn quality of resources, like pelts are really good this month would create more complexity to the economy, and the benefit of factories for production runs is what EQ2 crafting is missing.
let's talk about your review for a HUGE MMO that you made in only 2 paragraphs....1) i am not a grammar nazi but is english, and punctuation, your 6th language? and 2) you made a 2 paragraph review on an MMO.......my lawn still needs to be mowed, see you in the morning!
Hi, today is the first time I ever really played Everquest 2, I played the full retail version with every expansion because I want to play an female Iksar and so here is my verdict on this game.
Where do I begin, well first of all lets talk about the graphics, it seems like the graphics are really screwed up here, had no choice but to set it on Balanced settings. But the main problem I have are the quests, the quests all make no sense, the only quests I completed are killing Parrot men and relics on the floor. The interface looks confusing as well, it's simply not simplified like how it is in World of Warcraft or most other MMO's of today. I don't know what possessed me to play this game, well I've tried it now and I'm not planning to come back to it.
Sorry SOE, your game is just not good enough for me.
Not much to discuss but what minimal bull was mentioned is worth commenting on.
First of all,not many serious Wow players use standard UI,they are all using add ons for just about everything the game can do,so i guess not much argument there,maybe use a better game than Wow as a comparison since Wow is an exact copy of EQ,more so EQ2.Besides the UI is pretty much 99% the same as WOW ,i have gone from both those games back n forth and never missed a beat.
Of course the graphics need to be set lower they are using DX9c,Wow uses ancient DX6 maybe?Blizzard has sold people an ancient game engine,ancient graphics and ancient game play and try to pull it off as being newish,well it is not.Again a better game to compare to Wow would be maybe FFXi if talking graphic settings,since EQ2 is superior to Wow.
The killing of parrot men sounds like you started in the logical noob town/area of Gorowyn.What is funny is that again you used Wow as a comparison and Gorowyn is as easy mode as Wow and pretty much the EXACT same thing as playing Wow,run around easy quests get good rewards and easy xp,easy mode to level 20 with little skill needed,can't get much more Wow than that.If you want a better challenge try starting in an old zone.
I have no idea what you mean by RELICS,i havn't played that starting area in quite some time so i can't quite grasp what you are talking about.
What i would like to know or fail to see is the comparison to WOW?Are we trying to say Wow has elaborate quests?>>roflmao,or are we trying to say Wow has more starting choices?again lol,umm what exactly are we saying here,when using the Wow comparison?Wow's whole creation is a result of Blizzard devs playing EQ and designing their entire game after EQ.
What is even more comical is that you can actually play the Extended free version and get EVERYTHING Wow offers only for free!.
All this review or post does is reconfirm how shallow the Wow players are,they have no ability to think beyond the game of Wow,they would be extremley lost if they wait too long before getting away from simpleton known as Wow.What bothers me is that EQ2 is not a game you need to think,ANY WOW player should be able to walk right into EQ2 with no hesitation or thought and feel like they are playing the exact same game,so no idea what this poster is on about,smells liek a fishy bs post to me.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Hi, today is the first time I ever really played Everquest 2, I played the full retail version with every expansion because I want to play an female Iksar and so here is my verdict on this game.
Where do I begin, well first of all lets talk about the graphics, it seems like the graphics are really screwed up here, had no choice but to set it on Balanced settings. But the main problem I have are the quests, the quests all make no sense, the only quests I completed are killing Parrot men and relics on the floor. The interface looks confusing as well, it's simply not simplified like how it is in World of Warcraft or most other MMO's of today. I don't know what possessed me to play this game, well I've tried it now and I'm not planning to come back to it.
Sorry SOE, your game is just not good enough for me.
Not much to discuss but what minimal bull was mentioned is worth commenting on.
First of all,not many serious Wow players use standard UI,they are all using add ons for just about everything the game can do,so i guess not much argument there,maybe use a better game than Wow as a comparison since Wow is an exact copy of EQ,more so EQ2.Besides the UI is pretty much 99% the same as WOW ,i have gone from both those games back n forth and never missed a beat.
Of course the graphics need to be set lower they are using DX9c,Wow uses ancient DX6 maybe?Blizzard has sold people an ancient game engine,ancient graphics and ancient game play and try to pull it off as being newish,well it is not.Again a better game to compare to Wow would be maybe FFXi if talking graphic settings,since EQ2 is superior to Wow.
The killing of parrot men sounds like you started in the logical noob town/area of Gorowyn.What is funny is that again you used Wow as a comparison and Gorowyn is as easy mode as Wow and pretty much the EXACT same thing as playing Wow,run around easy quests get good rewards and easy xp,easy mode to level 20 with little skill needed,can't get much more Wow than that.If you want a better challenge try starting in an old zone.
I have no idea what you mean by RELICS,i havn't played that starting area in quite some time so i can't quite grasp what you are talking about.
What i would like to know or fail to see is the comparison to WOW?Are we trying to say Wow has elaborate quests?>>roflmao,or are we trying to say Wow has more starting choices?again lol,umm what exactly are we saying here,when using the Wow comparison?Wow's whole creation is a result of Blizzard devs playing EQ and designing their entire game after EQ.
What is even more comical is that you can actually play the Extended free version and get EVERYTHING Wow offers only for free!.
All this review or post does is reconfirm how shallow the Wow players are,they have no ability to think beyond the game of Wow,they would be extremley lost if they wait too long before getting away from simpleton known as Wow.What bothers me is that EQ2 is not a game you need to think,ANY WOW player should be able to walk right into EQ2 with no hesitation or thought and feel like they are playing the exact same game,so no idea what this poster is on about,smells liek a fishy bs post to me.
Yes, I'm sorry I did not but more effoct in playing the game, sorry for that. What I'll do is I'll give the game a bigger chance next time I play it.
i like everquest 2 but i have to sort of agree on the graphics thing being screwed up. It ends up being more cpu intensive than gpu intensive and it doesnt use cores well. I have crossfired 2 5870s and i cant run it at max.Yeah but you cant compare any game to wow , its millions of dollars budget isnt up to par with what other mmos have at their disposal.
Hi, today is the first time I ever really played Everquest 2, I played the full retail version with every expansion because I want to play an female Iksar and so here is my verdict on this game.
Where do I begin, well first of all lets talk about the graphics, it seems like the graphics are really screwed up here, had no choice but to set it on Balanced settings. But the main problem I have are the quests, the quests all make no sense, the only quests I completed are killing Parrot men and relics on the floor. The interface looks confusing as well, it's simply not simplified like how it is in World of Warcraft or most other MMO's of today. I don't know what possessed me to play this game, well I've tried it now and I'm not planning to come back to it.
Sorry SOE, your game is just not good enough for me.
Not much to discuss but what minimal bull was mentioned is worth commenting on.
First of all,not many serious Wow players use standard UI,they are all using add ons for just about everything the game can do,so i guess not much argument there,maybe use a better game than Wow as a comparison since Wow is an exact copy of EQ,more so EQ2.Besides the UI is pretty much 99% the same as WOW ,i have gone from both those games back n forth and never missed a beat.
Of course the graphics need to be set lower they are using DX9c,Wow uses ancient DX6 maybe?Blizzard has sold people an ancient game engine,ancient graphics and ancient game play and try to pull it off as being newish,well it is not.Again a better game to compare to Wow would be maybe FFXi if talking graphic settings,since EQ2 is superior to Wow.
The killing of parrot men sounds like you started in the logical noob town/area of Gorowyn.What is funny is that again you used Wow as a comparison and Gorowyn is as easy mode as Wow and pretty much the EXACT same thing as playing Wow,run around easy quests get good rewards and easy xp,easy mode to level 20 with little skill needed,can't get much more Wow than that.If you want a better challenge try starting in an old zone.
I have no idea what you mean by RELICS,i havn't played that starting area in quite some time so i can't quite grasp what you are talking about.
What i would like to know or fail to see is the comparison to WOW?Are we trying to say Wow has elaborate quests?>>roflmao,or are we trying to say Wow has more starting choices?again lol,umm what exactly are we saying here,when using the Wow comparison?Wow's whole creation is a result of Blizzard devs playing EQ and designing their entire game after EQ.
What is even more comical is that you can actually play the Extended free version and get EVERYTHING Wow offers only for free!.
All this review or post does is reconfirm how shallow the Wow players are,they have no ability to think beyond the game of Wow,they would be extremley lost if they wait too long before getting away from simpleton known as Wow.What bothers me is that EQ2 is not a game you need to think,ANY WOW player should be able to walk right into EQ2 with no hesitation or thought and feel like they are playing the exact same game,so no idea what this poster is on about,smells liek a fishy bs post to me.
I was a serious WoW player, played it since release and I never used addons. I used the basic UI and it's definitely superior to what everquest 2 has. Some things in EQ2 can be quite obscure (UI wise) which is reflected by the fact that a lot of people are actually having trouble finding them and spamming the chat.
Graphics - I play WoW everything maxed out and EQ2 (most of the things maxed out) and EQ2 looks like minesweeper next to Crysis. EQ2 graphics are ugly and the game is very badly optimised. No way you can deny it. Whereas WoW is polished and optimised. EQ2 even at max seetings looks ugly especially for the specs you need to run it.
Dude, you can play EQ2 live servers and definitely not get everything WoW's offering. Not even wanna talk about Extended. EQ2 has a lot of thing which I like and are missing in WoW but the opposite is also true.
Why is everyone jumping on this guy like his experience is some isolated incident? This has pretty much been the general problem of EQ2 going on years and why it can't attract and retain players.
Attacking the OP doesn't change any of that. Calling him a wow noob, blaming him for not "going where the good quests are", exusing soe for the state of the graphics engine or any of the other excuses will not change the common outcome of new players to eq2.
EQ2 does more to get in its own way than it does to present a great intial experience. Starting with the god aweful patcher to the default graphic to the UI to the starting areas even the developers admit are poorly done. This isn't an issue resulting from the age of the game either. It is just getting worse.
The problem with eq2 is that new players have to lower standards to get to the good parts of the game. Avoiding "bad" areas of the game to get to the good ones, insane amounts of loading screens, poor game performance, empty cities, etc. We can blame people who try the game and don't like it for somehow being at fault all we want, but that doesn't change the result one bit.
On the graphics issue, it depends whether you want your graphic style to be based around realism or cartoons. WoW does the latter very well, but EQ2's more realism-based graphics are very good especially in relation to the built-up areas. I defy anyone to say that the architectural graphics in Qeynos are ugly, for example. The real distinction is that anyone can judge WoW's graphics regardless of their rig, but you can't judge EQ2's graphics unless you play on max settings. Of course, it's fair to say therefore that graphically WoW is more accessible to the average player in that respect, but that doesn't make it better, just more accessible.
The two games are very different in many ways, and trying to get the core players of both games to agree on anything is much like watching ATI and Nvidia users battling it out over who produces the better graphics cards. Fact is, both games set out to do certain things and they both do them very well.
As to the UI, WoW's was very primitive and non-customisable for a long while after launch, and 99% of players have always used a custom UI. Blizzard only started to free up the UI after the other major players like SOE set customisable interfaces as standard. I no longer use the custom UI I initially used for WoW because Blizzard have incorporated what I want in the default one, but it wasn't always like that. EQ2's UI, on the other hand, has always been fully customisable and I've never seen a single person ask questions about it or complain about it in the chat channels of either version of the game.
As I said before, both games are very different even tho' they are both heavily derived from the same origin, EQ, and some players like one while other players like the other. A few players like both, as I do, and there's nothing wrong with that!
Why is everyone jumping on this guy like his experience is some isolated incident?
It's actually been a very restrained discussion, but the reason some have been critical of the OP is because on his own admission he has based his "verdict on this game" on the first three levels -- which take what, 15 minutes max if you are new to the game but reasonably experienced in other MMO's with similar game systems? People are entitled to expect a little more hands-on experience before such a verdict is given, otherwise it just comes across as a weak attempt at trolling.
Hi, today is the first time I ever really played Everquest 2, I played the full retail version with every expansion because I want to play an female Iksar and so here is my verdict on this game.
Where do I begin, well first of all lets talk about the graphics, it seems like the graphics are really screwed up here, had no choice but to set it on Balanced settings. But the main problem I have are the quests, the quests all make no sense, the only quests I completed are killing Parrot men and relics on the floor. The interface looks confusing as well, it's simply not simplified like how it is in World of Warcraft or most other MMO's of today. I don't know what possessed me to play this game, well I've tried it now and I'm not planning to come back to it.
Sorry SOE, your game is just not good enough for me.
UPDATE: Ok, ok everyone, I admit I did not put more effort in playing the game so I'll go play the game again. Please, no more bashing comments.
Am not here to bash yas...
I just started playing EQ2 about a month ago and to me.. I am loving it!! Yes, I play WoW (well did for several years, hiatus now on it) I still don't understand why everyone has to compare a game to Wow.
Wow is Wow.. EQ2 is.. EQ2
Every game made has snitched something from another game..
If I compare anything about EQ2, it's EQ... (Played EQ since beta).
Have finally realized that although there is a couple of things similiar to EQ, EQ2 is a different sort of breed.
The only thing that I wish I could do is pop into a city & back.. while I am still in the newbie areas. Just to see the hussle & bussle of it. In the wilds ya get kind of lonely out there.
Course, being so new to EQ2, there may be a way to hit FreePort, but haven't figured out how to do that yet.. Lol! I have ALOT to learn on this game.
I hope you come back & give it a second go round..
The only thing that I wish I could do is pop into a city & back.. while I am still in the newbie areas. Just to see the hussle & bussle of it. In the wilds ya get kind of lonely out there.
Course, being so new to EQ2, there may be a way to hit FreePort, but haven't figured out how to do that yet.. Lol! I have ALOT to learn on this game.
I hope you come back & give it a second go round..
In the good ol' days, you started on the Isle of Refuge. You could quest there for the first 10 levels if you wished... or turn around, run out the gate to the dock and take a ship to The Big City. A one-way trip to be sure, but an option.
Starting in G.Fay, Darklight Woods or Frostfang Sea, you have fairly easy access to a city right from the start. You have to travel a little, but it's not dangerous if you pay even a little attention to things around you. New Halas is particularly easy: just hop on the raft, hang a left and run up the tunnel to the back door. People used to talk up the good gear you get starting with the Sarnak, but I never liked it as much because reaching a city was a longer, harder road.
The only thing that I wish I could do is pop into a city & back.. while I am still in the newbie areas. Just to see the hussle & bussle of it. In the wilds ya get kind of lonely out there.
Course, being so new to EQ2, there may be a way to hit FreePort, but haven't figured out how to do that yet.. Lol! I have ALOT to learn on this game.
I hope you come back & give it a second go round..
In the good ol' days, you started on the Isle of Refuge. You could quest there for the first 10 levels if you wished... or turn around, run out the gate to the dock and take a ship to The Big City. A one-way trip to be sure, but an option.
Starting in G.Fay, Darklight Woods or Frostfang Sea, you have fairly easy access to a city right from the start. You have to travel a little, but it's not dangerous if you pay even a little attention to things around you. New Halas is particularly easy: just hop on the raft, hang a left and run up the tunnel to the back door. People used to talk up the good gear you get starting with the Sarnak, but I never liked it as much because reaching a city was a longer, harder road.
The number 1 issue with this game is the engine, it runs like crap and even with a good computer and graphics card you won't be able to use AA or shadows and expect a framerate over 20, certainly not in a raid or where there are more than 6 people. You would think that with newer computers it would perform better, but this is not the case, unfortunately. You will get better performance out of CoD Black Ops and every other game released this year than the 6 years old EQ2, and that just isn't right...
That said, I had a ton of fun with my Necromancer in this game up until the Ruins of Kunark. The community was great and I was in a laid back, tight knit guild who had planned raids every week. Once the level cap got to 80 it kind of fell apart and the engine is not aging gracefully to say the least... It was fun while it lasted, but there are just so many better options anymore. The standards for performance have increased to the point that this game is now obsolete IMO. Bring on EQNext.
Comments
I think it was probably the area you were in . Please guys try not to be so mean to the OP okay. Some people do not want to check the internet or do a small thesis search to do quests. Admittedly the game has gotten easier by a lot but may be for someone unfamiliar to the style of other games will be stumped.
I played eq2 a while back for an extended period - up to lvl 55 twice and into the 40's several times. I never had to do research and write a paper to do quests. Never found any quests that were not simple enough to understand the first time reading them. My problem is that once I got a toon to around lvl 45 I became increasingly more bored with the game.
It is not a bad game, it just wasn't enough, for me.
Currently bored with MMO's.
Stick with it and stick with the live servers. It's well worth it. A few suggestions that will help you.
Also, bookmark all the url's I give you below. They will help a lot.
First go to http://www.eq2interface.com/ and get EQ2 Maps and make sure you get the auto updating version.Once that is installed you can easily check your map and find updates, need mobs and all sort of other info that will help you get around. Ther are also custom UI's and addon's you can find there to get the UI to be more to your liking. personally I've loved the EQ2 UI since the beginning.
Second- if you ever get stuck you can open your in game browser and go to this site http://eq2.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page or this site http://eq2.zam.com/ and get any neded quest info. They alos have pretty much any info on the game at all you might need.
If you are into tradeskilling then go to http://eq2.eqtraders.com/ which is the definitive place to learn about tradeskills and harvesting. I also enjoy Mum's previews of the coming updates to the game, live events, etc.
And, yes, EQ2 does require a more robust computer to fully make use of it's graphics engine but IMHO, even at balanced setting or the one just below it it still looks better than WoW. Get a more robust computer and up the graphics and no other game looks better IMHO.
There isn't a game out there that offers as much as EQ2 does between their option in housing and guilds and as much content as you could ever want to access. It's a hell of a deep game and is well worth your time to tick it out.
I think you are a bit harsh, OP. Keep in mind this is 6 year old game, or so, + some years for development, so the concept is VERY old. Taken that into account I think EQ2 aged quite well. I used to play the game for about 5 years with great fun, but I can see it does get old now. Compared to the fast combat, the vast open world and the nifty and fun things other MMOs do with innovations (even if not all succeed), EQ2 indeed looks old and feels slow.
People today are used to radars and arrows pointing you exactly to the quest goal. EQ2 has this in some of the newest areas, but in most you still have to search the area by yourself. Tbh. I found this extremely annoying even back then many years ago. I never understood why EQ2 wasn't reworked to have a proper radar and quest aim. It is just the standart today. Call ppl lazy, but that is how it is. I think most people can hardly believe that EQ2, when it was new, didn't even have symbols over the quest givers heads! They added it because WOW had it. In the "good old days" you had to talk to them ALL, write down hints whom to ask on PAPER or swap to the internet. I said it SO MANY TIMES back then, that a MMO should never ever need out-of-game ressources whatsoever to play the game, and time has proven this to be true. But SOE sort of overslept the changes.
But like with elderly people, I think we should have some respect for the old lady. We all the old sooner or later.
And sorry to say, but it's kinda your own fault when EQ2X allowes anyone to try out the game for free. I still think you did something wrong. Maybe ask some EQ2 vets ingame, some areas have better quests and maybe you went mostly into older zones.
It's a little bit a pity to see the decline of EQ2. *sigh* I had many good years, but indeed it starts to feel old fashioned. There is nothing more depressing that travelling through Antonica or Thundering Steppes these days which are all empty, and remembering the great adventurers I had there when the place was full and alive. Heck, even Qeynos itself is a ghost town now. Makes me sad to see. But such are things.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
A BIG part of not seeing people around anymore is Guild Halls. You can call directly to your Guild Hall and with all of the amenities they have there really isn't much reason to go in the cities. Only two of my characters are guilded but even those I often go into the cities rather than my guild hall as I liek the feel of the cities in the game.
Where do you begin? It seems like you started and ended before you knew it. I personally never liked EQ2 either, much preferring it's older brother.
He who keeps his cool best wins.
It’s alright if you don’t like a game, we all have loaded up a game and played for a few hours just to get that “it’s not for me” vibe and log out but if your going to go on a forum and bash a game at least you should play it for more than a few hours before you do so.
The games graphics engine has some issues I will agree chief among them being that’s it CPU bound and doesn’t multithread very well. SOE made a bet that processor speeds would continue to go up and they could get away with that design and they lost. Chip designers went multicore instead of faster and the game engine doesn’t scale up well. I don’t know what you run on but I can easily run on the higher setting with my dual core (3.1Ghz I think) system with no lag. I dual box on balanced with no issues. I like the graphics style of EQ2 overall and don’t feel I am missing a whole lot not being able to run at max settings. Are you one of those people who if you can’t run a game at max settings it’s junk?
The quests are for the most part standard go here kill x of y return to quest giver types especially at lower levels so I have no idea what you are talking about. The quests text should give you good clues where to go as will the NPC if you read what he is saying. Are you looking for a breadcrumb trail to the mobs you need to kill?
I really don’t understand your comments on Interface. EQ2’s interface is miles above what 99% of the other “AAA” games out there give it’s not even funny. I don’t mean the look and feel either I am talking about the customization. Not only can you move all the UI elements around you can resize most of them and change how transparent they are and even set them to click though so they can overlay the world window without getting in the way. You can also change the font scale of text and scale up or down most of the icons and lock all the windows once you have it setup. There is even commands to save and load different setups if you want to go that far. And every UI element can be replaced with a custom UI if you really don’t like the look of them. I know WoW has a lot of the same customization but other than those two there just isn’t any other modern MMO I know of that has that level of customization and it drives me crazy. More developers could learn a few things from EQ2's level of UI customization.
As for it’s not “simplified” like WoW that also confuses me. At the levels you were playing at you had one maybe two hotbars of skills, a targeting window with mob health and power, a quest window, chat window, map, and status bar plus some skill status bars. Pretty standard MMO setup really.
Wish they would import SWG macros, cause I made some wicked macros for about everything. Also the SWG crafting system is by far the best ever, a crafting system with random spawn quality of resources, like pelts are really good this month would create more complexity to the economy, and the benefit of factories for production runs is what EQ2 crafting is missing.
lol right
Whatever dude. Wouldnt want you on my jury(if I ever get caught doing something bad.) Verdict LOL
What i have found in most sandboxes are discarded toys and cat poop.
Not much to discuss but what minimal bull was mentioned is worth commenting on.
First of all,not many serious Wow players use standard UI,they are all using add ons for just about everything the game can do,so i guess not much argument there,maybe use a better game than Wow as a comparison since Wow is an exact copy of EQ,more so EQ2.Besides the UI is pretty much 99% the same as WOW ,i have gone from both those games back n forth and never missed a beat.
Of course the graphics need to be set lower they are using DX9c,Wow uses ancient DX6 maybe?Blizzard has sold people an ancient game engine,ancient graphics and ancient game play and try to pull it off as being newish,well it is not.Again a better game to compare to Wow would be maybe FFXi if talking graphic settings,since EQ2 is superior to Wow.
The killing of parrot men sounds like you started in the logical noob town/area of Gorowyn.What is funny is that again you used Wow as a comparison and Gorowyn is as easy mode as Wow and pretty much the EXACT same thing as playing Wow,run around easy quests get good rewards and easy xp,easy mode to level 20 with little skill needed,can't get much more Wow than that.If you want a better challenge try starting in an old zone.
I have no idea what you mean by RELICS,i havn't played that starting area in quite some time so i can't quite grasp what you are talking about.
What i would like to know or fail to see is the comparison to WOW?Are we trying to say Wow has elaborate quests?>>roflmao,or are we trying to say Wow has more starting choices?again lol,umm what exactly are we saying here,when using the Wow comparison?Wow's whole creation is a result of Blizzard devs playing EQ and designing their entire game after EQ.
What is even more comical is that you can actually play the Extended free version and get EVERYTHING Wow offers only for free!.
All this review or post does is reconfirm how shallow the Wow players are,they have no ability to think beyond the game of Wow,they would be extremley lost if they wait too long before getting away from simpleton known as Wow.What bothers me is that EQ2 is not a game you need to think,ANY WOW player should be able to walk right into EQ2 with no hesitation or thought and feel like they are playing the exact same game,so no idea what this poster is on about,smells liek a fishy bs post to me.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Yes, I'm sorry I did not but more effoct in playing the game, sorry for that. What I'll do is I'll give the game a bigger chance next time I play it.
i like everquest 2 but i have to sort of agree on the graphics thing being screwed up. It ends up being more cpu intensive than gpu intensive and it doesnt use cores well. I have crossfired 2 5870s and i cant run it at max.Yeah but you cant compare any game to wow , its millions of dollars budget isnt up to par with what other mmos have at their disposal.
I was a serious WoW player, played it since release and I never used addons. I used the basic UI and it's definitely superior to what everquest 2 has. Some things in EQ2 can be quite obscure (UI wise) which is reflected by the fact that a lot of people are actually having trouble finding them and spamming the chat.
Graphics - I play WoW everything maxed out and EQ2 (most of the things maxed out) and EQ2 looks like minesweeper next to Crysis. EQ2 graphics are ugly and the game is very badly optimised. No way you can deny it. Whereas WoW is polished and optimised. EQ2 even at max seetings looks ugly especially for the specs you need to run it.
Dude, you can play EQ2 live servers and definitely not get everything WoW's offering. Not even wanna talk about Extended. EQ2 has a lot of thing which I like and are missing in WoW but the opposite is also true.
Why is everyone jumping on this guy like his experience is some isolated incident? This has pretty much been the general problem of EQ2 going on years and why it can't attract and retain players.
Attacking the OP doesn't change any of that. Calling him a wow noob, blaming him for not "going where the good quests are", exusing soe for the state of the graphics engine or any of the other excuses will not change the common outcome of new players to eq2.
EQ2 does more to get in its own way than it does to present a great intial experience. Starting with the god aweful patcher to the default graphic to the UI to the starting areas even the developers admit are poorly done. This isn't an issue resulting from the age of the game either. It is just getting worse.
The problem with eq2 is that new players have to lower standards to get to the good parts of the game. Avoiding "bad" areas of the game to get to the good ones, insane amounts of loading screens, poor game performance, empty cities, etc. We can blame people who try the game and don't like it for somehow being at fault all we want, but that doesn't change the result one bit.
On the graphics issue, it depends whether you want your graphic style to be based around realism or cartoons. WoW does the latter very well, but EQ2's more realism-based graphics are very good especially in relation to the built-up areas. I defy anyone to say that the architectural graphics in Qeynos are ugly, for example. The real distinction is that anyone can judge WoW's graphics regardless of their rig, but you can't judge EQ2's graphics unless you play on max settings. Of course, it's fair to say therefore that graphically WoW is more accessible to the average player in that respect, but that doesn't make it better, just more accessible.
The two games are very different in many ways, and trying to get the core players of both games to agree on anything is much like watching ATI and Nvidia users battling it out over who produces the better graphics cards. Fact is, both games set out to do certain things and they both do them very well.
As to the UI, WoW's was very primitive and non-customisable for a long while after launch, and 99% of players have always used a custom UI. Blizzard only started to free up the UI after the other major players like SOE set customisable interfaces as standard. I no longer use the custom UI I initially used for WoW because Blizzard have incorporated what I want in the default one, but it wasn't always like that. EQ2's UI, on the other hand, has always been fully customisable and I've never seen a single person ask questions about it or complain about it in the chat channels of either version of the game.
As I said before, both games are very different even tho' they are both heavily derived from the same origin, EQ, and some players like one while other players like the other. A few players like both, as I do, and there's nothing wrong with that!
It's actually been a very restrained discussion, but the reason some have been critical of the OP is because on his own admission he has based his "verdict on this game" on the first three levels -- which take what, 15 minutes max if you are new to the game but reasonably experienced in other MMO's with similar game systems? People are entitled to expect a little more hands-on experience before such a verdict is given, otherwise it just comes across as a weak attempt at trolling.
Am not here to bash yas...
I just started playing EQ2 about a month ago and to me.. I am loving it!! Yes, I play WoW (well did for several years, hiatus now on it) I still don't understand why everyone has to compare a game to Wow.
Wow is Wow.. EQ2 is.. EQ2
Every game made has snitched something from another game..
If I compare anything about EQ2, it's EQ... (Played EQ since beta).
Have finally realized that although there is a couple of things similiar to EQ, EQ2 is a different sort of breed.
The only thing that I wish I could do is pop into a city & back.. while I am still in the newbie areas. Just to see the hussle & bussle of it. In the wilds ya get kind of lonely out there.
Course, being so new to EQ2, there may be a way to hit FreePort, but haven't figured out how to do that yet.. Lol! I have ALOT to learn on this game.
I hope you come back & give it a second go round..
"Huntress"
In the good ol' days, you started on the Isle of Refuge. You could quest there for the first 10 levels if you wished... or turn around, run out the gate to the dock and take a ship to The Big City. A one-way trip to be sure, but an option.
Starting in G.Fay, Darklight Woods or Frostfang Sea, you have fairly easy access to a city right from the start. You have to travel a little, but it's not dangerous if you pay even a little attention to things around you. New Halas is particularly easy: just hop on the raft, hang a left and run up the tunnel to the back door. People used to talk up the good gear you get starting with the Sarnak, but I never liked it as much because reaching a city was a longer, harder road.
Thank you for this! I appreciate!
As I said I have alot to learn in this game
"Huntress"
The number 1 issue with this game is the engine, it runs like crap and even with a good computer and graphics card you won't be able to use AA or shadows and expect a framerate over 20, certainly not in a raid or where there are more than 6 people. You would think that with newer computers it would perform better, but this is not the case, unfortunately. You will get better performance out of CoD Black Ops and every other game released this year than the 6 years old EQ2, and that just isn't right...
That said, I had a ton of fun with my Necromancer in this game up until the Ruins of Kunark. The community was great and I was in a laid back, tight knit guild who had planned raids every week. Once the level cap got to 80 it kind of fell apart and the engine is not aging gracefully to say the least... It was fun while it lasted, but there are just so many better options anymore. The standards for performance have increased to the point that this game is now obsolete IMO. Bring on EQNext.