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EverQuest II: Age of Discovery Review
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In early December, EverQuest II officially went 'free to play' and the "Age of Discovery" expansion was released at the same time. In our latest combo video and text review, we take a look at EQ II: AoD to see how it measures up to the glory days of the franchise. Check it out in your favorite format and then let us know what you think in the comments.
Over the past decade, the Everquest series has come a very, very long way. The folks over at SOE have made sure it continues to make a strong presence within the realm of MMOs, and it is always fun to be able to dip into new additions to the series. With that in mind, I was really excited knowing I was going to be able to step back in Norrath again, this time for the most recent expansion: Age of Discovery.
Read more of Mobin Koohestani's EverQuest II: Age of Discovery Review.
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Comments
Well pretty good article except that the Freeport revamp wasn't part of AoD it was part of the game update. Also if you look at it a different way LOTs of new content was added as long as players Make and other players run player made dungeons.
Age of Decoration is not worth the price. I bought it and thoroughly regret the decision, especially since they had a triple station cash weekend (where you could basically buy it for $10) not even a month in. No new content (freeport was a GU, not part of the expansion), lots of bugs from months, if not years ago still not fixed. I really like the everquest franchise, I love the lore, and the general feel of the universe, but SOE are doing their best to turn me off of it. Come on ANet release GW2 already, please!
still eq2 has 100x more depth than swtor IMO. [Mod Edit]
You won’t need to be muting any chat channels anytime soon, because there’s not much action going on.
You obviously have not been playing on the freeport server which was formerly the extended server. It has the highest population, and is probably the best one for a starting player. Chat channels are jammed with guild recruiting requests, and the general nonsense that goes on in general chat.
i recentely subbed to eq2 for the first time and i have to say it has way more depth of gameplay than wow.lotro or most other mmo's i have come across.the crafting alone is in itself a game within a game.thoroughly enjoying myself.
And yet at least in SWTOR I have epic storylines to reward me for my time spent there as opposed to EQ2 where I really feel like a fly on the wall and not important at all to the world of Norrath. I'll take SWTOR any day over EQ2. Only thing EQ2 does right anyway, is the guild system. Guild leveling and guild housing is great. The rest, not so much.
I like EQ2 for the playtime it gave me after I grew bored of WoW but now that something better has come along, it just makes EQ2's wrinkles really stand out.
Completely agree! I bought swtor to play during my work shutdown and the only thing I've been playing is EQ2.. Swtor was the biggest let down ever!
Great review btw)
My server, Guk, which isn't even the busiest, and a couple of others that I have dipped into to have a look also have thriving friendly non moronic chat.
He should have said that the situation with this is dependent on where you choose to play really.
This is what you get with the free to play idea. An incomplete disappointing game because money has become more important than delivering something worthwhile to the creators. It is while i thoroughly hate free to play. And frankly, all of the options for paying for EQ2 are a joke.
Can also say the same. The chats are active all the time with auctions, chatter, trolls, etc. He needs to check if the channels he wants are active otherwise he needs to turn on 1-9. Pretty much everyone hangs out in 1-9.
BOOYAKA!
Worst scoring system ever!
7.6
Average
LOL no 5 is average, 7.6 should be a good game considering it's 0.4 points off 8 out of fucking 10.
In highschool 76% is a B at best. More likely it's a C. So yes, average.
MMO are not about "epic storylines" i recommend going for single player games otherwise you'll be dissapointed by how every mmo doesn't have an 'epic storyline"
Eq 2 is ok but SWTOR is story bliss, I have found my mmo and there is no turning back
They are now. Story has entered the playfield and it is dominating. It's also coming in GW2, TSW and who know what else. Keep living in the past if you like, the rest of us are going to enjoy some prime entertainment.
I definitely wonder if the reviewer is playing the same game I did when EQ2 actually went F2P. I liked it, but not this much. Character creation is fine, as was the community - which made a pleasant change from the idiots who play WoW (the Horde on my server were great, the Alliance were idiots, and cross server grouping was always randomly awful). Dungeon running is a great experience in EQ2 - with real challenges, and groups that actually are in it to have fun rather than DPS meter. But... even at the relaunch there was a limited community on the servers, and being forced to quest grind in EQ2 is like pulling teeth - there's way too much kill x hundred of this, and then kill x hundred of that (disguised in you need 10 drops of y before you can move on) and it's really tedious. Way worse than WoW (where quest grinding is also no fun). A lot of the content is also pretty much inaccessible to solo grinders - which is bonkers on low pop servers, I'm always happy to group but when there are only 8 toons on server at any one time spread over dozens of levels - finding a group can be impossible.
The payment options are all terrible, and whilst I did level a couple of toons into the mid-60s without paying for anything (and better, without getting static from other players in groups for not paying) - eventually you'll need to pony up quite a lot of cash to get the best out of the game.
This expansion is also a bit of non-feature with very little additional content to get you salivating.
EQ2 is a good game, spoiled by a dreadful F2P model.
A lot of the 'content' attributed to this expansion in this review was just part of the Game Update.
What you get in the expansion is:
Dungeon Decorator.
Beastlords.
Reforging.
20 AA that are useless to 95% of players.
The expansion itself introduced 'decorate your own dungeon' which you couldnt even use your own character in. Instead you had to use an avatar with 4 abilities and a tiny mana pool - so you ended up autoattacking through the zone. They are fixing this to allow your own characters to go in there, but only after massive disinterest in the whole thing. Even with your own characters, the dungeon design is still rather uninspiring, they would spent their time better actually designing some decent content themselves. It had been what... 6 months since the last set of dungeons they released? And the raid that noone can enter because of the broken progression content?
Reforging... you can only reforge 1 stat, and you can only change that stat into something that isnt already on the item. Its bad enough that their itemisation is already messed up with spell stats and archtype restrictions, they then cant even put in the right tools for players to fix it themselves.
AA... useless for most players as the tree caps werent raised.
Which leaves you with Beastlords, the new overpowered class. The only reason anyone bothered to buy the crapfest of an expansion.
The real rating should be about... 3. And that is only because of Beastlords. Its the worst 'expansion' and value for money I have seen yet in a MMO.
They definitely do have the worst F2P model ever seen. Then they wonder why they arent having the same success as LOTRO or AoC.
Too much greed at SoE.
AoC has a terrble F2P model as well imo but thanks for the heads up, I won't be downloading now, I'll keep looking. Cheers!
Epic story telling has been a major part of the genre since before WoW (even UO had some good stuff but was mostly limited to crazy rare GM events. MUDS, if we want to include those, had some good stuff too at times). The difference today is the story components are being made available for nearly everyone rather than a select few heavily deticated individuals.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
And they are working very hard to remove every last bit of depth.
Forever looking for employment. Life is rather dull without it.
This isn't a grade system, this is out of 10 and 5 is average.
Yet another higher than they deserve score for a game that advertises on this site.
I must agree 5 to 6 is average. But then gaming scores are not the only grading system to suffer from grade inflation. A ‘C’ should be an average score in a ‘A’ to ‘E’ grade system but that is no longer true in education. You need a 8 or ‘B+’ these days to be above average, quite ridiculous.
It is a bit of a shame that this rather expensive xpac boils down to just one new class, a dungeon maker that seems limited, mercenaries, and a few doodads for crafters. If they were offering it for 20€ I would get it.
Playing MUDs and MMOs since 1994.