Have you made up your mind regarding which one of the games you think is going to hold your ""money"" the longest. In other words - which one do you think have the long-term appeal?

-xino

Xino, as for long term appeal, I think that both games will have it. As stated above, EQ2 does not hold your hand as much as WoW does. (This coming from an EQ player of just over 4 years)

One of the problems that I''ve found so far (and granted this will not be a problem once spoiler sites are everywhere) is that some NPCs when you talk to them will give you random lines as they are just chit-chatting. These NPCs later in the game, once you reach a higher level, might possibly give you quests. That means that after a few levels you have to go around once again to every NPC and find out if they will now talk to you. Now, the NICE thing about the quests is that if you can talk to an NPC, the dialogue comes in boxes that you can choose on what to say. This way, you are led through the quest and not having to worry about saying ""uber"" to get the quest to start like in EQ1.

As for the quests and what you have to do, they seem to vary quite a bit. They give a reason behind the quest, if you care to read the text. Mostly it''s KILL 5 of these, collect 10 of those .... on the Isle of Refuge, if you choose the scout class, one of your quests is to use sneak to get into the middle of a village of MOBs to get a head count of how many there actually are. If you start a priest, you are going to talk to a different NPC on the isle and you will have a totally different set of quests than a scout. That''s nice also.

You have a journal which keeps track of all your quests. The journal is about the same thing in WoW. It also utilizes the con system to tell you how much difficulty you will have completing the quest (Green, Blue, White, Yellow, Orange, Red being the hardest). The quest text sometimes gives you an idea of where you need to go or what you need to do. If nothing else, it''s a nice description of the quest and a nice log of what you''ve accomplished rather than having to figure out which quests you''ve actually started or not

The game itself is beautiful. Even on my GeForce4 4200 I was able to run at medium settings and be in awe at freeport, Qeynos, and everywhere else I was able to visit. I realize that everyone wants to visit the old zones again, but let me tell you, Nektolus forest is no longer a newbie zone =) Lots of baddies in there, might be for the twenty somethings ... I did manage to find a castle that looked really cool but was unable to enter as you have to do an access quest to get into the zone.

As for the death penalty, when you die, you start back with everything, but you''ve left a soul shard. You can have, I believe, up to 5 per character. The shard looks like your corpse but in a ghost type form, it will be at the spot that you died. If you choose to get the shard, you gain some exp back from debt and you regain stats. If you choose not to get the shard, after 3 days time you will regain the stats back that were lost from death.

One other thing about death, it will degrade your weapons and armor. I''m not quite sure how much, but it''s not detrimental, at least not in the early game. It was fairly cheap to repair the newb armor that I''ve been able to amass so far. If an armor quality reaches 0 then you will automatically unequip that piece of armor and need to have it repaired before you can use it again.

When you die you lose 10% duarabilty to your gear. When it reaches 0% you can no longer use the gear until you get it repaired.

Costs of repair are not prohibitive but do serve to siphon some coins out of the economy.

You can only have up to 5 soul shards in the world at one time. If you die a 6th time with 5 sould shards out you will not lose any more stats but you can not get xp back by recovering your shard either.

As for which game I am going to play at release I am going to play EQ2.

The reason being is I like to adventure and explore and in WoW I felt like I was being lead to each spot instead of discovering something on my own.

I do like some PvP but I also have 0 faith that many games in this genre will ever get it right so I will rely on Planetside and other games like that for PvP.

Which leads me to the second choice of playing EQ2 I personally like Planetside and like the fact I can play EQ, EQ2, and Planetside for $20 a month.

Here is an example of how much depth there seems to be in this game world too.

There is a starter dungeon in Qeynos area called Down Below that is basically the sewers. Off of there you can find entrance to another dungeon called Vermin Snye, there is a second entrance in another zone but that is not important.

In Vermin Snye I have found about a 12 quest from inspecting painting hanging on walls, notes dropped by creatures, and even defeating a named guy lead to a quest. At the same time I got some quests from npcs for down there. In addition I found a book that describes the architecture down there that is readable and gives me a series of quests. I have found no less than 4 named creatures down here and I found the entrance to yet another dungeon off of here called the Crypt of Betrayal.

I not explored the crypt much because stuff is higher level than I can handle with my usual group at level 18 but I already have a quest for in there.

You could if you wanted adventure soley down in these areas for some time but you do not have to.

Freeport has something similar but they have a quest that leads you to a small instanced area that is kind of cool too.

Oh a note about crafting.

I not had a lot of experience but here is how it works.

Crafting works some what similiar to WoW in that you gather components from spawns in the wild like roots and ore.

You have to go to a crafting spot to be next to a forge or what not but you have a set of recipies and if you have the components you can start crafting.

As you craft there is a progress bar and a durability bar. There are also 4 levels of success. As the durability bar goes down you may find yourself unable to achieve higher levels of success. Also as you work things will happen say an icon will flash up saying you measured ingredients wrong. At that point you have skills that you can use to counter the event.

So this may not be for everybody but it seems like a decent solution to crafting that keeps it more interactive for the crafter.

Locked combat is really like the FFXI locked system. The first party/person to hit a creature has locked the combat. Once locked only the people in the encounter can hurt/harm the creature and nobody outside can heal/help those inside. Also once the combat is locked movement buffs and regen rates are altered. Movement buffs are disabled and regen rates are slowed a lot.

At anytime the player/group in a locked encounter may yell for help. This breaks the combat and anybody can help kill the creature and heal others. Doing this though will deny any loot or xp to anybody.

So far it has seemed to work well in practice but I can certainly see less than helpful people just hanging out and not helping if they think they can kill the creature so as to get the loot/xp.

Housing is a combination FFXI and UO.

You get a room in an inn for starters. It will cost 5sp a week for upkeep. You can decorate the room how you want and set it so other people can enter your house. You can also use your house to sell stuff out of but currently to do this you will have to be online and in the house to do so.

I not gone into anybody else house yet so not sure how the mechanic works since many inns have 1 dore that all people use. I am guessing a menu to select comes up but not sure.

There are bigger houses players can buy and even guild houses.

I did starta guild but the mechanics for how guild start is not in yet. Once it is in to make a guild you get 6 people in a group all run to the register pay a fee and pick a name.

Once in a guild you can get quests that earn status points. Status points let you buy guild perks but since my guild is only 2 people not gotten far in this area.

If any beta players on Server2 that want to join my guild so we can try out some of the other stuff with guilds send me a tell, Klul, and I will invite you in.

Yes and no. Early in the game when everybody was low level PvP was a blast. Later though as the levels spread out it really stunk to be minding your own business in the frontier hunting for xp, since there where not really many good safe spots to do so inside your realm around level 30 and then to have some level 50 archer kill you and maybe your entire party from range with basically no recourse since archers ran faster, could sneak, and shoot from a hidden position and often rehide before the arrow landed.

This lead to the mentality that now we all have to get to level 50 for the game to really start. That to me is a faulty set up. RPG are about the journey as much if not more so than the destination.

Eventually with series of balance passes and the creation of battle grounds some of this was hammered out but this lead to battleground twinks. Basically characters built in a rather unrealistic fashion to be the most effective at PvP at a given level without regards to how a real player working through the levels would be built. When doing this it would give an extra edge that the normal player could not hope to compete with. Toss in buff bots this made the most hardcore of fans able to make the combat not really enjoyable for people.

So as time went on basically this leads to the realization that again you can not really compete with these people so you need to get to high level as fast as possible oh and better have a buff bot otherwise you are behind the curve.

Toss in the fact that keep taking became rather pointless as off hours/different time zone crews would take keeps away while undefended made for less than idea PvP.

So I think they did a lot of things good there but at the same time the end result was a bit flawed.

All this questing sounds all well and good, but I don''t really play these games to go run around by myself; I''ve heard that the experience in WoW is very oriented toward solo questing, with grouping being something that you do to win a particular encounter for a quest. Is EQ2 any different in this regard?

I am planning to get WoW, but EQ2 also intrigues me. I have never played a MMORPG game before. How much impact does the level of service really have on the experience? I have read the horror stories of SOE service, is that enough of a reason to go one way or the other?

I had a chance to play some EQ 2 and WoW. If I get either game it will be WoW, at least right now it will be. I love the open feel the maps how the quest system works. The art direction and the game play. Everyone has read or heard about WoW so I won''t go over it all again. There is a large amount of info out there for anyone interested that will explain things better than I can. I will say the game is beautiful, streamlined and feels wide open!

I have played EQ 2 very little compared to WoW but I have spent a few days on it.

First of all, if you don''t have a high end system the game is ugly! You need all the bells and whistles to make this game look good.

No maps and as far as I can tell you can''t even buy them. There is nothing more frustrating to be given a quest and told to go somehwere and not know where the hell that is or even where to start looking. You than rely on the friends or strangers to provide you with the answers or wander around till you find what you are looking for.

The User Interface is huge and very customizable, and clunky.

There are a huge amount of quests in EQ 2 so much so that it is easy to end up with a massive list of quests to do in less than an hour, thankfully you have a quest journal that breaks down each quest into areas they are from or if it is a special quest. Even so I found it really difficult to remember where and who gave me the quests and I had to search through all my quests to find out which ones were complete and which weren''t because at first glance you won''t know. You could of course always keep your quest log less filled and than end up going back and forth to the same place over and over again as you get quests for the same area all the time. One of the good things I liked about questing is when you killed a mob you needed a drop from you will more than likely not have to loot it. You will just get it and you will know you got it because it will come up in Blue letters on the screen with a sound effect. Unfortunately like WoW you won''t get what you need everytime you kill a mob, but the ratio seems to be much better in EQ 2.

Zones, zones, zones, and more ZONES! When you finally get to Qeynos and I assume Freeport. The area you start in is pretty small. Qeynos has a slew of different areas that surround what is considered Qeynos Proper which in and of itself is split into 3 zones. North, South and Qeynos Harbor. All the surrounding zones are where you start until you can prove yourself as a citizen of Qeynos and enter the City proper. Each of these areas you can travel a complete circle in less literally 1 minute if you don''t stop and in every area you will find exits to another zone which is just as small. The quests you get will often ask you to go to a different zone to find someone about something which means to complete a quest you can zone up 2-4 times, once or twice to get to where you need to be and once or twice back. It is really, really, really frustrating and makes the game feel so compact! Thankfully however once you can get into Qeynos proper, which can be accomplished fairly quickly, the zones open up a bit as the Qenos proper areas are a bit larger and off of Qeynos Proper you can get into much, much larger zones. The only problem I find is that things get really tough outside the city so unless you have a death wish or a really large group you will want to stay within the city and level up as much as you can before you adventure forth. Not to mention the fact that around lvl 8 you end up with a quest that will help you specialize what type of character you want to be.

When you start as a character you can be almost anything you want. With the help of NPC''s you are lead to who you need to talk to in order to specialize. So you can be a warrior or priest etc, etc. When you get to level 8 and are in the city you will again be given a chance to specially further. So if you chose priest you can than become a Cleric, Shaman, or Druid (this is base on a elf character in qeynos by the way). After you choose that you than again be given a chance to specialize even further later on. You do this by completing quests for a trainer or sorts. Any spells you special moves you can gain at a certain level you get automatically however they are a lvl 1 version of the spell and you can get better versions at a scribe or trainer depending if it was a spell or skill. I also found a better version of a spell which I could scribe which was dropped off a mob and wasn''t even available for purchase at the scribe.

Well this is already a long post and what I came away with after playing EQ 2 for a few days was that it although WoW and EQ 2 have some minor similarities, it is a very different game and well it should be. I just didn''t really like all the differences. I am sure there will be those out there that will.

Like all MMORPGS I have beta tested, this is true for all the Betas I have been in. I think Service, and community will really tell the tale when it comes to choosing which MMORPG to go with. I think WoW will have the upperhand in this, the game is set up to allow for people to help those in trouble without needing to be asked for help. Not only that but it doesn''t penalize you for getting that help. I could be wrong but, all I can remember is my experience with EQ when it went from Beta to Retail and it was not fun, not fun at all. As far as Service is concerned I like my odds with Blizzard thank you very much.

Forgot to mention the tradeskill system is much more involved than previously in EQ1. It''s a little like whack-a-mole. If you have a ""noisy distraction"" you pound the correct button to ignore it and so on. I have only died ONCE so far in EQ2 and it was from screwing around in the chemistry lab -- goblins eat your heart out. TradesKILL for sure.

Lots of good info here - thanks guys! There''s a fairly detailed (and not entirely positive) writeup on the EQ2 Beta at Jaded-Gamer.com (link from EvilAvatar.com).

From what I''m hearing, it sounds as if EQ2 is just as group-oriented as EQ1 is (i.e. you pretty much HAVE to group after a certain level to get decent items/exp), which leaves me out in the cold as a mainly solo player. Too bad - it sounds as if Sony rectified most of the other problems with the game.

Thanks for the info, maladen! Sounds like EQ2 is a lot like EQ (duh), while WoW sounds more like DAoC with that special Blizzard touch. To each his own, but I know which one will be getting my monies.

I don''t know what the official response is to this, but I am going to take a stab and say they had to make zones because the graphics engine is such a pig. It really is a resource hog.

I believe the reason why EQ 2 looks so ugly for me is becuase I am using a Ti 4200 which doesn''t support the new pixel shading technology like the cards above mine do.

Myself and couple of other people were talking about the differences between the game engines in WoW and EQ 2 and what someone came up with was that WoW is about style and efficiency where as EQ 2 was about brute force and technical advancement.

For example WoW''s interface is really slick and streamlined compared to EQ 2, but it doesn''t have the flexibility that EQ 2 has. However WoW took the time to streamline the system so so that it felt good the way it was, so it really didn''t need all the flexibility.

EQ 2 may have a more advanced graphics engine (technically speaking) but it feels like they just threw enhancements at the engine to make it a more technically advanced engine until it was on the verge of breaking and didn''t care how it turned it. This means you have to have a pretty hefty system and Video card to get the game to look good and play smooth. WoW has a simpler engine but it is absolutely gorgeous and even on a lower end system still looks fantastic!

I am not saying one is better than the other hands down. It is however obvious by my post which one I prefer. There are too many small things about EQ 2 that just turn me off right now. I didn''t even try getting into the Crafting system, after doing an initial crafting quest, because it really looked complicated.

edit: ugh my grammar!