Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Is it too late to start this game?
Dolmong
Member Posts: 515
in Everquest II
I got this game at launch, only one month then never come back.
Now I'm about to unsubscribe RIFT and DC universe, I want to find another MMO that means more RPG to me!
I want:
1.) Housing
2.) Great Crafting
3.) Great Vendor system that almost you can setup your own shop to sell
4.) Great community
5.) Decent population, at least is not a desert
Also, is EQ2 leveling faster than before? Before it was just too damn slow, and it drives me off.
Thanks any info will be good, and any invitation about going to the game sounds good to me !! 
Is no hurt to play with great groups
Comments
I started this game like 4 months ago and the community was great and pretty large. I'd say give it a shot.
And to answer your question yes the leveling was streamlined.
The sleeper awakes...and rides his dirtbike to the mall.
You should probably join the Extended server (MUCH smaller / streaming client download, amongst other things) to try it out for yourself. EQ2 has everything that you mentioned there and more, and is probably what you're looking for. On the Live servers you wont find many players in the lower / mid levels, and on Extended there seems to be a pretty good spread across the board.
Burnthebad, which server are you in?
Also, if I level my character in Extended server, will I still be able to carry my character to live server and continue to level?
I do planning to buy their newest expansion that includes everything, but of course I will try the free trial first.
It is never too late to start... The game has good crafting and housing system so I think you will like it.
You can't move a char from Extended to the live servers. Although the live servers are pretty much dead at the moment compared to Extended.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Then, what is the different btw Extended server and Live server?
When I had the same questions I came across this.
"There are some major differences. One of the biggest for me anyways is that a Gold subscription does not compare with a Live subscription even though both cost the same every month. Extended finds ways to restrict the player so that he/she is forced to have to spend real money in the Marketplace. For example, if you upgrade to Gold and wanted to create a guild it would cost you $10.00. A Live membership has no such restrictions on your play.
People will argue that the draw of Extended is the ability to switch from a Gold subscription back to a free subscription and keep playing. What you have to understand is that anything that was unavailable to you as a Bronze sub would be unplayable. For example, if you upgraded to Gold for one month and created a Dark Elf Assassin and leveled him but then after a month you let your subscription lapse back to Bronze, that character would be unplayable.
Everything that you gained with that Dark Elf Assassin would be inaccessible to you and you would be forced back to the overly restricted Bronze membership and the free characters (that is if you did not delete them to create races/classes that became available when you upgraded to Gold because if you did then none of your characters would be accessible).
People will argue here that one difference is that Live is dead, but that is untrue. It is true that there are servers that are experiencing population issues but there are also servers, such as Antonia Bayle and the PvP server Nagafen, that have plenty of people playing it. It's important to also understand that Live has many more servers compared to just one server for Extended. Extended is overpopulated so you will find many people playing it right now but if they were to put just as many servers here like there is in Live, it would have the same population issues.
Take a look at how many people are visiting the forum for Extended compared to Live (you can find this by scrolling all the way to the bottom of the main forum page for each). This is a good indicator of the level of interest of each of the games. Live also has an unofficial forum called eq2flames that many people go to talk about the game. You will find much better advice on all the different classes there.
The Bronze membership of Extended should be played as a trial run to see whether it is worth upgrading to Live not Gold. I just recently returned to the game after a break and was about to resubscribe to Live but saw that they made this Extended version of EQ2. You can only play on Live now (since they took away the 14-day trial) on a free trial if someone gives you a Refer-A-Friend invite. My advice would be to go to the Live forums and see if anyone can send you one.
The best way to make a decision is to try out both versions. I will be playing on Extended as a Bronze member only and also resubscribe to my Live account."
In answer to your other question. You CAN transfer from Live to Xtended, However you CANNOT Transfer from Xtended to Live.
I went with Live, but in the long run gave up on Sony after the terribad support, and the inconvenience of the big SOE crash. EQ2 has a TON of great features, but there is also a TON of little things that seem to be brushed under the rug, and instead SOE force feeds new content, and tired old events rather than fix extremely small problems with their game.. like revisiting the chat system, or fixing the UI.
I also found that although the game itself was beautiful, I just could not wrap my head around the overly clunky combat. (Maybe thats just me).
The 3 guilds I had characters parked in, on 3 different servers (Live). Completely fell apart after the SOE downtime. I would say that the player base on all 3 servers has all but completely vanished. And I mean.. I researched guilds with huge amounts of players... as I was learning, and trying to leech information of everyone I came accross. :P
Anyways, please take everything I put in this post with a grain of salt, and respect the fact that these are just MY opinions, I DO NOT in anyway claim to speak for the rest of the EQ2 community.
Good luck in your adventures. :P
Just found this as well. hehe
"Deceptive Rip-Off
EQ2X offers four subscription tiers, Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum, each one costing more and granting access to more features. This is all fine in principle and I don’t have an issue with the Bronze (free) or Silver (one off $10 fee) plans as they allow people to play the game for a very low price. My issues start though with the fact that both Bronze and Silver come with huge restrictions on them that would make it impossible for anyone to play competitively and the necessary upgrades cannot be purchases individually. Even though additional races, classes and level caps are purchasable separately (again, fine with that), core and essentially pieces of functionality (like being able to use the broker – Auction House – or equip legendary – above uncommon – items) are only available once you subscribe to the Gold subscription at $14.99 a month. Yep, the exact same price as the current monthly subscription for Live players.
The real kicker though is that even once you’ve subscribed to this $14.99 a month plan, you still don’t have access to all of the content, level caps or races meaning that a player is going to have to pay more than a normal subscriber on EQ2 Live in order to access the very same amount of functionality. Utterly ludicrous.
Then there’s the Platinum membership, swooping in at a tremendous $200 per year and granting full access to, well, almost everything. Even with this mega plan you’re still restricted to a measly four races (out of a total of 19) and have to purchase each one separately, only God and Smed knowing how much that will set folks back. SOE also fail to point that a new player could pick up a copy of Sentinel’s Fate (which includes all previous expansions and comes with one month free play) on Amazon for $20 and subscribe to the normal Live version at the annual rate of $140, a full $60 less than the EQ2X Platinum plan. A far better deal plus you’re able to play for 13 months, not just 12, and have unrestricted access to everything in game.
My biggest issue of all is that EQ2X players are segregated onto their own servers and forums and can never transfer off onto the Live service. This means that once you’ve been lured into the game by the free version you have no choice but to pay for either the rip-off Gold or Platinum plans if you want to access the full game. SOE are effectively deceiving new players into paying more than a standard Live subscriber by hooking them into their characters first and then preventing them from moving away (players are forced to create a brand new account and start all over again if they want to continue as a traditional subscriber).
EQ2 Dead
The impact on the current Live servers is also going to be noticeable as not only will the free version of EQ2X attract people a lot more than the prospect of buying the game and subscribing monthly but SOE are also shutting down the normal 14 day free trial. It seems like they have every intention of migrating the player base onto their new high cost service and letting the existing one fade away and die as very few people will be joining the old servers.
Of course, even though EQ2X players can’t move to the Live servers, existing players are being allowed to move to the Extended servers at a generous $35 per character. Hmm… so I could pay $35 to copy one of my characters to a new server and then have access to even less content? Fan-flippin-tastic.
This whole turn of events is an unfortunate shame for the EQ2 community and I’m very disappointed that SOE couldn’t have just mimicked Turbine’s sensible F2P model for LotRO. What’s wrong with allowing players the options to play a cut down version for free, pay for only for the content they want or choose the normal, fair monthly subscription rate like before? It’s a win-win situation that far outstrips the greedy and narrow approach that SOE have taken. I can only hope they make some changes to their payment plans before launch.
-Gordon -Weflyspitfies.com"
Wow thx for all the info!!! It was a good read!
My problem is I fear the live server is desert because no one will play.
Also can I build my own city?
No you can't build your own city.
As for the live servers.. This was the #1 thing I worried about when I first started, and the truth is .. BEFORE the SOE fail the live servers where just as busy as can be, Sans gold spammers, and complete idiots. However the Xtended servers are jam packed full of everything. It's like being in permanant /2 in wow (If you catch my drift) ..
My personal opinion, is if you are serious about playing.. check out Xtended to see if you like the game. and then buy a sub on the live servers. However keep in mind that after the SOE fail things have become just short of deserted.
In my honest opinion, Go pick up the Witcher2, or Get the Nehrim Mod for Oblivion, and hold for something new. The Secret World, and ArcheAge look hella interesting.
And if that dosn't work for ya, go find a mud and blow your mind. www.Mozartmud.com.
Good luck.
the guy who wrote that -- wrote it ONE MONTH before the server even existed
heres his original article, dated July 28
http://blog.weflyspitfires.com/2010/07/28/everquest-2-extended-a-deceptive-rip-off/
the EQ2X server didnt launch til late August
there are no "level caps" for Bronze/Silver members like that guy claims
everyone has access to the same ADVENTURE content
the writer never played EQ2X
-- the whole article is his criticism of the membership matrix and his wild assumptions
------------------------------------------------------------------
the main difference between LIVE and being a Gold EQ2X player is you dont get access to all races
-- otherwise there really is no difference
I used to play on the Live servers
but I switched to playing on EQ2X since launch -- and I like playing there
the newbie zones are always busy with players
good luck w your decision
EQ2 fan sites
I've played on both Live and Extended and I prefer the Live.
I play over on Antonia Bayle (RP-PVE) which is the most populated of all the servers. Been here since as far back as I can remember and it is by far the best community I've seen in a game in ages. Everyone is real nice and helpful (for the most part).
I didn't like the extended servers, but mainly because I'm not one of those f2p people. I don't like the ability to buy power, I'd rather earn it. Obviously if you've never played the game the extended would be easier for you to try out, but it is highly limited if you don't pay anything.
If you're looking for a trial over on the Live servers, let me know and I'll shoot ya a refer-a-friend invite and get you all set up over there.
It's a great game and it is never too late to start. A lot of people worry that they're starting too late because a lot of the players are maxxed level, but the good thing about this game is the awesome mentor system that allows anyone of any level to mentor down and play the lower levels. It's also no where near deserted (even after SOE's recent mishaps). Yesterday I spent quite a few hours in Antonica and saw a ton of people off doing their own thing.
Anyhow, the offer stands if you wish to check out the live servers. Just let me know!
That review is like an advertisement for the live servers.
There are only 2 differences between live and gold (what the review conveniently fails to mention) - creating a new guild ($10) and access to all races. I don't think anyone really cares about the guild thing. I mean how often do you create a guild? Have you ever created a guild in an MMO? I know I haven't
As for the races, this can be a real deal-breaker for some people. However, you can unlock your favourite race for $7.50 (actually you get 3 races for 7.50 cause they are all in packs of 3). These are the only restrictions for gold members. If you are like me who only plays human races then this would not matter one bit.
AB is the only populated server. It still can't compare to Extended. The population on Extended is massive. This is why a lot of players prefer Extended. Because they don't want to play a single player game. A lot of players don't care about this as they only care about raiding. I think if you want raiding you might be better off on live. But for socialising and leveling up etc (everything but raiding) you might be better off on Extended.
If you search this forum or the EQ2 forums you will find plenty of info on both servers.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
EQ2 leveling is really fast now. I would suggest not playing LIVE server unless you plan to level mostly by yourself and then want to get bored and eventually quit. Live servers are mostly bare off hours and even during peak times it's nothing but hardcore EQ2 players who stuck to Live and are raiders. Live is for raiders and people interested in that only, being part of Live as a new or older player is like coming to a server and having nothing to do.
Play EQ2X Extended server, the free EQ2. This server has thousands of players on anytime of the day and you can never have shortage of things to do. Guilds are easy to get into and the best thing about it is if you want to open a subscription it's the same as Live but you get the option to quit take a break and come back to the game without having to open a new subscription just to see how the game is.
I wouldn't waste my time. Check out DDO and/or LOTRO instead. I bought this game at launch and I thought it was pretty good, at first, but I ended up having to upgrade my video card to play it. Then the WoW beta came out and that hooked me and I didn't return to EQ2 until they added PVP. Even with PVP added, it still felt like a grind and I got bored and quit. I recently re-subbed to Live and found it to be dead. Then I subbed Gold to Extended and found out it has no PVP, except Battlegrounds.
So, I cancelled both subs and will maybe play rarely, unless they add a PVP server to extended. There is just something repetitively boring about the game. I'm referering to the combat and boring quests. That used to be alright, but it's a dated combat system today. I like the environment and graphics, but it's really boring. PVP would make it more enjoyable. This is coming from someone that has played most major MMORPGS since 1997. EQ1 was better...
I think Live is eventually going to die. I wish they would just merge both into Extended and have a couple PVP servers. I would probably spend some time playing again on Live if there was an active population across all levels on a PVP server, but there isn't. Oh yeah, even if you go Gold on Extended, you will probably have/want to buy someting. Gold won't even get you access to all races.
So, I personally recommend you don't waste your time, but if you are willing to try it, go with the free Extended version and see if you like it.
You owe it to yourself to try EQ2. Do not bother with live unless you want to be alone until level 90, though. Even at 90 there is never anyone in the LFG/LFM section. There are people around 24/7 on the EQ2X server. The game is very playable with the $10, one time silver subscription. The restrictions on the bronze account are a bit much. But given your game requirements I think you will end up with a gold (or maybe plat!) subscription after a month or two. = )
There are plenty of non-raiding folks like myself who also enjoy EQ2 on live servers. I recently returned and the amount of things to do can be overwhelming. There never seems to be enough time to do all that I'd like to. Antonia Bayle server in particular has a large population of non-raiders.
But if you just want to try things out, then the free servers are definitely a good way to do that. EQ2 is definitely worth trying and I'd stick with it for a bit to really get the best feel for the game.
Hi there,
I'm a 7+ year EQ2 veteran and subscriber. Based on what you want, I don't think EQ2 is the best choice for you. I would recommend LoTRO instead. Really good community, housing and a much better story.
EQ2 is great for endgame raiding and grouping. The combat is fun and accessible. It's not really a game to play for anything else. Obviously people DO play for other things, but that's not where the strengths of EQ2 are.
When I want some immersion and RPG experience, the first thing i do is log out of EQ2.
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
Everquest 2 is a great game however the real issue with this game has multiple issues.
First off I have played the game since its start and loved the initial roll out. With any MMO they will always most certainly change, so I was and continue to be open about game play and re-balancing. That said lets look at the Pros
Pro's
Graphics is unbelievable and the cartoonish look of WOW or Rift is not an issue here. Better have good memeory and top line graphics card to actually play the game at the levels of graphics the game is capable of.
Player Housing is pretty good, however not the best I have seen from sony. the best housing to date I have played is in SWG but we all know what they did to this game...lol
PvE Content for Solo, Group, and Raid continues to be the biggest and most diverse in any game I have played to date.
Con's (What brought me here)
Customer Service: Errogant, Uncarring, Unequipped for problem resolution, non-existant can take days to get reasponse then some come in hours. Form letter galore. this player has used the customer service a total of 10 times since launch so I am not high maintenance.
Muti-Raid live events were a great addition to the game, however Sony doesnt understand this game mechanic as the Lag from a high end system cant hit one spell in 10 seconds is terrible. The lag is with all grapics turned to the lowest settings and thus the great graphics are now flushed and your still having issues even fighting a multi-raid battle. They tend to roll something out and suffer, suffer for months, this still is an issue. WOW and Rift both have the mechanics down in this enviroment. Sony needs to learn more on this mechanic.
Players with Tons of plat and the continued Asian Farmers make the economy not capable of supporting starting players.
Leek of my personal data was the biggest issue with this game. The constant changes to terms of use and aggreemnts you would think they had the back door covered. My thoughts are they laid off hundreds of developers and they are the ones who knew the back doors and they stole the info to get even with sony, but this is just my opinion. The sear fact they laid off hunderds of developers tells the truth about the fate of these games at Sony. Prior to this breach they just completed a major server merge and this too is an indication of the health of this game.
While most games have 20-30 servers Sony keeps reducing everquest serversand they are below 10 now i think.
So in summation this game is great, but is serviced by those who dont care, this segment of sony's buisness doesn't really contribut to the bottom line enough to care for their customers. I have now canceled all 4 of our families accounts as we can no longer either trust sony or be willing to assist them in anyway as they not willing to help their player base. The fact of the personal data being out there will be long lasting. we simply dont know the full impact of this transgretion, nor do we really know if it is safe. Rift at least locks the account when it notices a new IP or MAC Address logging in and wont allow any selling or giving away of plat. Sony could learn of this as well as they have and continue to have accounts hacked and accounts raided.
Just to reiterate what's been said, it is not too late to start playing EQ2. I am not currently playing, but I did play earlier this year and there were plenty of people still playing. My characters where on Antonia Bayle, I think it' was the most populous server. At some levels, witout a guild it can be a little tough to find groups, but I imagine with a guild you would be fine.
Leveling is pretty fast, if you want it to be. When I was leveling my last characters, it was going pretty slow, mainly because I was enjoying the content and getting as much AA as I could. I really do like the AA system they have there.
Since there is an F2A extended trial (EQ2X), this game is easy to try out and see for yourself. And depending on what you think of it, if you only want to dabble a bit, the EQ2X server is a great option. If you want to commit and play heavily though, the Live servers are better. EQ2X, to turn on most of the features, costs about $15/month, whereas EQ2 Live costs $13/month at the highest rates. It also depends on what kind of gamestyle you want: do you want to be able to enhance your play experience through a cash shop? If so, then EQ2X is the way to go. The Live servers only offer mounts, appearance items, and some potions really.
I restarted on the EQ2X server after a long break. I ended up moving to the Live servers where I've been for several months. I don't regret my decision at all. I have characters that would have been expensive to make on the Extended server.
One thing though, EQ2 Live is not empty by any means. The population did take a bit of a dip after the hacking incident, but, it seems like people are coming back, just slowly. It could be related to hacking, or it could also be related to the fact that it's almost summer and populations in these games tend to dip a little anyway around this time of year.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.
EQ2 is better than ever from where I see it. Had a lot of the options and content it has now been available from the start, and the graphics requirements would have been just a little less steep, this game would've been a real competitor and WoW would not be what it is today. But as it stands, there are a ton of things to do in EQ2 and its doubtful youll ever accomplish everything that you want, theres just too much to do.
I started playing again about 2 months ago on xtended servers and have spent a lot of that time level locked, getting AA, and doing a lot of the content most people ignore. Im lvl 45 now and finished about 800 quests and have about 190 AA, all of which I did solo. I joined a guild of cool people to chat to and I was off. Also during this time (since I went ahead and bought a platinum membership and can sell on the broker) Ive made almost 400 plat. A big advantage there over the live servers, is anyone on live going to buy the stuff you're selling for level 30-50 range? Not likely at all, so you can be economically viable from the get go on xtended (Ive managed to buy all my master spells and craft and do whatever I wanted and still have plenty of cash to save for end game). If you like to group that wont be a problem either. I always see groups forming for a ton of instances that again would likely be completely void of players and ignored on a live server. I can understand live supporters trying to beef up the population of their servers, but I played on AB in about 2007 and honestly, the community there was terrible, even back then. Its chock full of elitist and arogant pricks, now that they've had time to become jaded out vets as well, I dont see how this situation couldve improved any. The people on xtended tend to be way more laid back and more open to a variety of playstyles. If you're a newbie just starting out on AB, good luck to ya, I dont see why you'd wanna punish yourself like that but whatever. I dont see a real reason not to go for xtended. Other than the guild starter thing, if you really that badly want to start a guild, what is 10 bucks? You're going to committ a lot more than that into it (time is money) just to make the guild viable anyways.
A lot of people look down on xtended just because it is a "free server" or because they think being on live entitles them to something more. Its the exact same game, everything, but I think youll find the transition as a new player much smoother on xtended.
The live servers are almost entirely dead, deserted, barren, empty, depressing - useless.
If you want to play EQ2, play on the extended server.