EQ2: <"insert glowing review here>
So the game has been out for a week now and what with Half Life 2, Halo 2 and everyone waiting for WoW I've yet to see anyone chime in on Everquest 2.
Myself, I've played it. It definately is all that, and a bag of chips. I have two characters, level 11 and 9. I like combat. I don't like sharing in my groups exp loss when the group wipes thus I pretty much refuse to group. The graphics are awesome. During the morning periods I can turn my graphics up and only lag a little bit, during the evening I turn it to Max Performance and still run around staring at the sky just to maintain 5 fps. I think it's great that you can get quests 24/7 and there is a lot of direction as to where you need to go and what you need to do. It's boring doing Fedex quests, and killing lots and lots of badgers.
Maybe I've outgrown MMORPG's but at this point I don't think I'll renew. There's nothing to see/do in EQ2 that I couldn't do in EQ. Maybe I'll change my mind if/when I find a guild to join and worry less about the whole grouping thing.
If we allow these people to marry, they'll be dancing in the streets, making everyone gay and poking pee-pees together. Do you really want that!? We need to stop this gay madness before it destroys us all! - baggachipz
This is the game that gives you a quest to go kill 100 or 500 of something, right? That''s just bad design in my opinion.
I can''t tell if you really liked it or not Gotham
Personally I''ll have to wait to try EQ2 until my computer is upgraded enough to play it at a decent speed. Until then, WoW is a complete blast to play so I''ll be there.
It''s not so much a glowing review as it is a flickering one.
If we allow these people to marry, they'll be dancing in the streets, making everyone gay and poking pee-pees together. Do you really want that!? We need to stop this gay madness before it destroys us all! - baggachipz
I haven''t seen one of these yet. And even if there is one I think it probably fits into the story somehow. If you don''t like the quest, delete it, you don''t have to do it.
I think I''m just tired of seeing people bash both WoW and EQ2. I can''t even read about someone enjoying either game without someone coming and posting something negative in the thread. Please stop.
Spiderman wouldn't sneak, Spiderman would go. -Elysium
XBL: TheZedian
Well, if it helps, WoW gave me a whiter smile and a pleasing scent that drives women wild.
Well if it helps those women are 35 year old men living in their parent''s basement.
Spiderman wouldn't sneak, Spiderman would go. -Elysium
XBL: TheZedian
Hey, I moved out of my parents'' basement a year ago.
You can't make somebody love you, but you can buy a bigger television.
I hate to have to be a EQ2 fanboi here, but please don''t post of which ye know nothing about!
The quest you speak of where you have to kill 500 of one type is meant to be a epic quest. There are 2 main cities in EQ2, one is Freeport (for evils) and one is Qeynos (for good types). You start off in one or the other city depending on your faction, evil or good. Should you decide to change factions, it is MEANT to be very difficult, because you are essentially changing your entire game (doing a 180 if you will) and aligning with the other faction.
I''ve played this game since release and have way too many hours into it.. I have a level 20, and a level 8, and I am active in crafting. This game is a blast, but not for everyone. I run on a P4 3.2 with a 9600XT graphics card, and have had lag exactly one time for 5 minutes in a city on what is arguably the most populated server online (Mistmoore). I''m having a blast and just dropped 400 bucks for a new video card to run it. So yea, call me a fanboi but at least quit throwing around the 100 and 500 kill stuff, because it''s just not true!
Sigfry/Sigfri.
I''m really liking it. Groups are pretty easy to find and the grp xp loss for most part contributes to grps being a bit more cautious. Folks realize when the healer gets in trouble or when a Aoe pulls adds. Makes the enchanter class much more valuable in the early game.
Quests are there a plenty and there seems to be quite a bit to explore.
I guess my only gripe, and it''s more something to overcome, is the skill advancement system. Relying on drops to advance skills past apprentice 2 is a bit of pain. After serveral hrs of raids (enjoyable in themselves) I''ve yet to see a book for my class (predator) drop. Plus I''ve only seen them auctioned a couple of times. It hasn''t really affected my ability to solo or team yet, but forsee that it may be a prob in the future.
Overall though the game has really pulled me in. Love the Heroic Oppurunities, love the Poison, love the specail bow attacks, love the stealth attacks, lotta fun.
Killing 500 of the same thing is not challenging, it is tedious. If you want to make it challenging, make them kill 10-15 upper level monsters, like wipe out a difficult tribe or something. Telling a player to kill 500 is just uncreative, you would NEVER see that in a Blizzard or Bioware game for example.
WoW also cures cancer.
It could be the ""Death to 500"" quest isn''t an exact number, it''s just a faction thing... you know, swing yourself from ""hated enemy"" to ""beloved friend"", just like EQ1 was fond of making you do. That''d actually make some sense and mitigate the issue with heading out to kill 500 of the same mob... you''d just need to kill some large number of mobs on that faction.
Wrong there is a quest in Desolace(WoW Zone) where you have to get centaur faction. I would say i may have killed about 500 to get the faction. Not to mention the higher lev crafting type quests that require rare items to complete where you have to sit there and constantly grind the same mobs to get the rare drops for hours/days at a time.
I thought you would NEVER see somehting like that in a Blizzard game! The horror!!
lol just being an azz, don''t mind me.
EQ = WoW = EQ. I''m sure both games have quests that are like that.
There''s a similar quest in Felwood that reqiures you to slaughter some.. um.. deadpaw.. badgeroids ( i can''t remember what they''re called) in order to raise faction with the timbermaw group. This allows you to get to Winterspring without having to fight everything in the cave on the way there.
I was trying to do that in the open beta.. after killing 300 badgeroids, I gave up. I noticed a post in the forums indicating it was something that would be patched or had been... but it wasn''t when I tried.
Tyrial: lvl 70 undead mage - Baelgun
Kyrator: lvl 63 night elf rogue - Blackhand
Thadryn: lvl 65 draenei mage - Blackhand
Actually, 500 would be a welcome change. Good god do you know how much killing/bone chip hand in quests you have to do in EQ? And people did. Numerous people were trying to gain faction with the Iksar city when the Kunark expansion was released. It took like 3000-5000 bone chip quests. Dark Elves and Trolls would have to kill countless orcs to bank in Freeport. (or deathfist belts)
And remember, battles last an inordinate amount of time in EQ. WoW and EQ2 battles last ~30seconds. EQ battles last 2-5 minutes.
I really dont bat any eyelashes at killing 500 monsters to perform the betrayal quest. Its there for the nut bags that have to try it because its there. It is in no way required in any fashion in EQ2, nor does it give any advantage to complete it.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
How is that different from doing the faction modifying quests in EQ1? That wasn''t required, and surely both open up the ability to be able to do previously unavailable quests, right?
"And my son, too, thinks everything is a launchpad, every bug a meal, and every sunny day a reason to take all your clothes off and roll around in the grass." - rabbit
Im under the impression its an either or. In EQ you could gain faction with the enemy while retaining your own faction. In EQ2 its a betrayal quest so you gain one side and lose the other.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Nope, EQ1 worked the same way, sounds like. Most mobs gave you a small increase to a faction while taking a big hit to another... typically the other faction was something like ""Father Rapers"" so it wasn''t really a big deal. Unless you went so low, you actually rolled the faction over, thanks to a truly amazing bug in EQ1.
Anyone catch the Arlo Guthrie reference? Or hell, even know who he was?
I''m not trying to be a pain in the ass, but there''s a lot going on here still where people are fitting the EverQuest mold to EverQuest 2.
1. AoE''s don''t pull adds (or break mezzes) unless it specifically says the AoE effects mobs outside of an encounter. Once the encounter is engaged (ie. your target is locked to just you and your group) your AoE''s will only effect those mobs. Also, if you have a chanter, your AoEs will not hit the mezzed mobs.
For the betrayal quest, consider this: you have to kill 500, fine no big deal. Keep in mind that the gnolls that you fight come in groups of four and five with camps of two, three, and four of these groups. You can go through about 40 gnolls in about 20 minutes with a full group of six. All of a sudden the 500 gnoll quest looks appropriately challenging. Especially since while you are working on those 500 gnolls there are several other gear and experience providing quests you can be executing at the same time.
You ain''t kidding. WoW and EQ2 are pretty freakin'' similar games. There are some differences--but really not that many. The WoW vs. EQ2 argument is getting kind of old and it (strange as it sounds) is predominantly fueled by the people that believe Blizzard can do no wrong, people that believe SoE can do no wrong, and people that believe SoE can do no right.
EQ2 ain''t a bad game, neither is WoW. Joy! There are two good games available, now we can pick our favorite flavor and eat it too.
Hi, I'm the new guy.
GO BENGALS.
Nice summary Tel.
EQ2 and WoW are a lot a like with small differences. They are both decent games so pick the one you like best and go with it. I for one am glad there may be more than 1 good game out there since maybe just maybe it will push the companies to keep customers happy.
I agree with the ""more than one good game"" sentiment. If nothing else, DAoC seemed to be a large kick in SOE''s ass and got them to make a bunch of improvements to the original EQ that had been suggested years before... of course, there was lots of self-congratulatory back patting going on after that.
Competition is good for the gamers, no question. I happen to prefer WoW, but am glad there''s a population to support both games.
Whoa. I have no idea what you just said.
Xbox Live: hubbinsd
There are 2 types of grouped monsters. Monsters that are ""linked"" to each other. These monsters will say grouped in their target info and when you select one, it will highlight the other monsters linked to it.
There is also social aggro. This means that the monster will say Solo in its target information but if another of a similar type of monster is close by it will attack you also. Also, the social aggro can happen when you are fighting one monster and another walks by close enough to aggro you. This is what people refer to as an Add (former) or a Random Add in the case of the latter.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
I just got my review copy from the Fedex guy and the collectors edidtion is hevy. My friend threw it on top of me while I was sleeping and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Now I need to figure out if when to play.
These books are crafted. Go to your broker and do a search, I bet your App 3 books will be around 10 silver and your Adept I books about two to three times that.
Well, a mezzed mob is one that has been taken out of combat via an enchanter''s spell. It is stunned for a certain duration of time (usually around 30 seconds, depending on the level of the spell) in which it cannot move or act. If it gets attacked or damaged however, the spell is broken.
A mob involved in an encounter in EQ2 is one that the group has overtly engaged. This means that someone in the group has had the mob targeted and attacked it (whether by accident or not). If the mob is said to be ""in the encounter"" then no one else in the game world can attack it without the players ""in the encounter"" first yelling for help. Sometimes mobs will be ""linked"" as Fang has already said in which if you attack one, you get the entire group. You can tell if this is the case when if you select one mob, there are several others also selected.
FYI for everyone, I''ve a level 16 gnome crusader on mistmoore, since GWJ got scattered a bit and nothing really was created guild wise, I''ve joined my friend''s guild (Poison Arrow, you can look us up at EQ2Players if you like...). If anyone wants to shoot me a PM or send me a tell in game (my characters name is Telsten, I''m on Mistmoore, it is possible to send cross server tells AND to join cross server chat rooms) I''d be happy to help anyone out.
Honestly--and I''m certainly sounding like the lamest of all fanbois here--I''ve not actually seen anyone with a real problem with EQ2 yet, by in large people are complaining about things that they couldn''t figure out the answer to in first glance. You find this a lot in game. I''ve been in one single group (having grouped most of the way to 16) that was actually able to go through an HO chain constantly.
It''s a fun game, I don''t know everything about it--but I know a few things. Feel free to ask.
Hi, I'm the new guy.
GO BENGALS.
Now that Im 10 am I going to have to group grind through gnolls to get to 15/16? I have a couple of the gnoll quests. Do most people group around Blackburrow? Is it easier to get groups there?
Solo xp has completely plummeted with all my characters post level 10. Give me a sign that I am just missing something obvious...
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
Group - the way to go.
The excitement - way down in BB - when we pull large groups or a named gnoll we know is going to be hard to beat.
I joined the unoffical GWJ guild ""the Brotherhood"" on Oasis - give me a tell (Tadorian - 14 Druid)
-Xino
Grouping is definately the way to go, it''s more fun and more rewarding. However, as of level 15 I''ve only gained 3/4 of level while grouping (1 short session). The rest has been solo. Some of the best solo xp (in my opinion) is to tackle green or light blue group mobs. If you can take them, you''ll make loads of xp. At level 11 you can do the moat rat groups outside of qeynos. Excellent xp, and excellent loot.
I''m a summoner though, so I''m sort of a mini-group already . . .
Graktar, Orc Hunter
I have a 10.4 Summoner, a 10.25 Bard and a 9.3 to be ""Druid"".
Thanks for the tips guys!
Looking at the spell lists available I kind wish I would have picked a Sorceror (nukes galore) or a Enchanter (mmm DoTs). Im not impressed with the pets survivability.
One more edit: For those that are interested I highly recommend staying on Isle of refuge until level 6 to 6.5
Fight shorecrabs till you get the dropped quest (before you do anything after killing an invader)
Do your quests given to you by your class quest giver up till the Orc Cave.
Do the quest from the Gnome on the beach by the Inn with the city ambassador. Swim S or SE of the lady on the beach for the first piece. Sprint behind the treehouse for the second. Jump onto the other side of the second bridge that overlooks the waterfall for the third piece. Good xp and armor piece.
Swim in the lake by the inn and find the mermaid sculpture to read inscription and get the razortooth shark quest.
Try and get a group for the Orc Cave boss.
The bone chips for the priestess quest is not worth it. Minimal xp and ~70 copper.
After all those quests, you should be 6 to 6.5 and once you do all your room at the inn quests, you should be close to level 7.
Being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.