Anyone else trying EQ2?

Okay, I'm sick of WoW's problems. It's more than 3 months in; I at this point expect a minimum level of service of being able to log in a play a relatively lag free game on any given night. That is not happening.

So I am likely going to try the EQ2 trial. I'm afraid; I understand EQ2 makes weaker machines like mine pump out foul black smoke, that it is less solo friendly, that it requires more grinding, etc. I'm particularly afraid that I will like the early stages of it, get hooked, and then realize after I've sunk a lot of time that the higher end requires 10 hours a session to play, raid groups just to gain any levels, etc.

But at least I'll be able to log in and make that determination myself. Right now I'm having a hard time discovering what the high end content of WoW is, because the state of the game is pissing me off. Further, my Diablo fears have been confirmed to some extent: Blizzard is simply horrible at giving good communication and information on when patches and enhancements are coming, and even more horrible at getting them done and implementing them in any sort of timely or efficient manner.

That being said, I give you the following beautiful press release from Sony. This really hit home with me. This thing is a savage and wonderful punch at Blizzard's complacency, and a first rate description of why competition is very important.

EverQuest II - 325,000 Players Strong, No Waiting

EverQuest II continues to grow at an amazing rate, not just in the number of players that have fallen in love with the game's rich, entertaining content, but also in the physical size of the world. We've got over 325,000 people logging in to our servers every week, with no delays or wait times and the game they are playing is only getting better.

Below are a few reasons why we believe that if you aren?t currently playing EverQuest II, you should be. We are committed to our player base and are very passionate about making EverQuest II the best MMO game.

Open Communication

Sony Online has an amazing community relations team that listens to players? feedback, and let them know what is going on with EverQuest II. Our development team and even our president, John Smedley, often respond personally to players, so players can rest assured that SOE is listening (and reading) and we do care what our subscribers think. Many of the changes that have already been made to EverQuest II (i.e. more solo content, new interfaces, and even quest content) have been a direct result of community feedback.

325,000 Players, No Waiting -- SOE Subscribers Can Play the Game They?re Paying to Play, When They Want To

We believe strongly in ensuring that the players can get into EverQuest II whenever they want. Understandably, all MMO games have downtime for maintenance and patching, but we don?t believe in making our players wait in line to play our games. They?re paying a monthly subscription to play a game and our job is to work hard to let you play it as much as, and when, they choose.

Tons of Content Added Since Launch

Since launch, an enormous amount of free content has been added to EverQuest II. In addition to changes that made the game more fun for soloists and group players alike, more than 1100 quests have been added to the game since launch on November 8th. We've added more than 1200 new items to the game, including more craftable items for tradeskillers, and more loot around the world. Almost 400 new spells have been added and we've worked diligently to make sure our spell effects are as eye-catching as they are powerful. Recently, we added 8 new areas to the world, so there are now well over 100 zones in the world of EverQuest II to explore.

That's not all. We have a very long list of new features, additions, and gameplay enhancements that make EverQuest II even more fun to play, including:
[list]- Greatly increased solo and small group experience rewards
- Mentoring allows higher-level players to "group down" with lower-level players
- Lots of new armor looks
- Two new dungeons available for level 25 to 30 groups
- A dozen new level 50 epic raid zones have been added, including the Draconic quests
- Eight new instanced dungeons for both soloers and groups
- More encounters added for soloers and small groups, including advanced solo encounters
- Tons of new quests, many for solo players
- Sabotage quests that allow you to strike at your rival city
- Training spells added as yet another way to personalize your character
- New examine information added to explain the benefits of spells, arts, food, drink, poisons, and potions
- Brawlers get built-in shields
- Guild followers can now spend the status they earn at city merchants
- Easier to equip rings, wrist items, and weapons
- Maps now show your current heading
- Lots of UI tweaks and enhancements
- Revamped Heroic Opportunities, making them more fun and visually dynamic
- Vitality indicator added to your XP bar
- Tabbed chat windows have been added to organize your conversations
- See what your target is attacking with the new Implied Target window
- More precise, informative AC values
- New heritage quests, including Golden Efreeti Boots and the Crown of King Tranix
- A new con system that allows you to see important information on enemies before you attack
- Longer durations for short-term group buffs and single-target buffs
- Less fizzles on spells meaning more damage more often
- Shorter timers and fewer restrictions on instanced zones
- House pet naming
- All tradeskill classes can now refine their own materials and components
- Wizards and Warlocks go nuke happy with more damage
- Tanks now tank better with increased mitigation
- Easier search abilities so you can find potions, poisons, activated items, and food
- Even more voiceover available for optional download[/list:u:40465406e9]

All of this new content has given players a reason to come back to our world again and again, and we're continuing to make gameplay improvements every month.

Today, Sony Online Entertainment would like to invite players from any game that may be experiencing lines to log in to their servers, a lack of customer service attention, or a lack of new, free game content, to play the EverQuest II Trial of the Isle demo -- We think you'll agree that EverQuest II is a fun, engaging experience that you have to see to believe.
We hope to see you in the world of EverQuest II soon.

We believe strongly in ensuring that the players can get into EverQuest II whenever they want. Understandably, all MMO games have downtime for maintenance and patching, but we don''t believe in making our players wait in line to play our games. They''re paying a monthly subscription to play a game and our job is to work hard to let you play it as much as, and when, they choose.

Haha, they obviously still feel threatened by WoW''s success (for good reason) and decided to make a stab at Blizzard. This is fun to read.

I would be willing to give it a shot if we can pick a night/server to play on.

Grass is always greener on the other side.

I would guess that your frustration is nothing to do with WoW.. but probably more along the lines of what a MMORPG is all about.

I seriously doubt at this stage in the game that either game is that much different from eachother that your going to magically have more ""fun"" playing one or the other.

Bottom line if your getting this frustrated with ANY MMORPG.. then your probably not meant to play MMORPG''s.

Which is fine.

MMORPG''s are a time sink.. bottom line.

We believe strongly in ensuring that the players can get into EverQuest II whenever they want. Understandably, all MMO games have downtime for maintenance and patching, but we don''t believe in making our players wait in line to play our games. They''re paying a monthly subscription to play a game and our job is to work hard to let you play it as much as, and when, they choose.

Granted this is EQ2 and not EQ, but in EQ every time there was a patch, the servers were basically unstable for atl east a week after the patch went in.

"Garrad" wrote:
We believe strongly in ensuring that the players can get into EverQuest II whenever they want. Understandably, all MMO games have downtime for maintenance and patching, but we don''t believe in making our players wait in line to play our games. They''re paying a monthly subscription to play a game and our job is to work hard to let you play it as much as, and when, they choose.

Granted this is EQ2 and not EQ, but in EQ every time there was a patch, the servers were basically unstable for atl east a week after the patch went in.

hey man! its SOE they''re practicing revisionist history here!

Its hilarious.. but as a long time EQ player I''ll never forget!!

I mean you can dress up a duck and call it a swan but its still going to quack like a duck.

Haha, funny that you posted this. I was thinking the same thing and mention it in Cope''s farewell post. I didn''t see this one because I went to that thread from the front page. Funny.

I''m still not decided, but I''ve been contemplating it.

As a long time EQ player and current WOW player nothing makes me happier than the current competitive market which makes both 800 lbs. gorillas kowtow to the customer. Play one or, better yet, play both so you can hop from one to the other wherever the support winds blow favourably.

"TheGameguru" wrote:

Grass is always greener on the other side.

I would guess that your frustration is nothing to do with WoW.. but probably more along the lines of what a MMORPG is all about.

I seriously doubt at this stage in the game that either game is that much different from eachother that your going to magically have more ""fun"" playing one or the other.

Bottom line if your getting this frustrated with ANY MMORPG.. then your probably not meant to play MMORPG''s.

Which is fine.

MMORPG''s are a time sink.. bottom line.

I understand that; my issues are more that I would still enjoy playing WoW if I could actually get online to play it without difficulty on any given night.

However, I''ve always thought that I would like the theme and greater graphical realism (whatever that is; I''ve never been totally sold on WoW''s cartoon world) of EQ2 more. I have never tried EQ2 (and chose WoW instead) because of: (i) the horror stories of EQ1; (ii) my understanding that EQ2 will make my 2.6 P4 with a Ti4400 card scream in pain; (iii) my understanding that EQ2 requires people to donate 10 hours at a time of their life at the higher levels or not bother playing; (iv) my understanding that it is more difficult to play EQ2 in smaller chunks of time in general and to solo when you can''t get a good group going.

I really like the gameplay itself, and don''t mind the long hours, I just don''t want to be forced to spend the long hours if I don''t want to. Perhaps that doesn''t make sense; the point I''m getting at is I don''t mind if the game is a timesink, so long as I can choose how much of the timesink to engage at any one time. I''m perfectly fine with falling behind others in level if I don''t want to put the time in, but I don''t want it to be a case of all or nothing (you play 10 hours a day or you don''t progress at all).

In the end, despite all of my misgivings about EQ2, WoW''s repeated server failures and irritating laggy performance have given me the perfect excuse to see first hand if EQ2 is better.

In the end, despite all of my misgivings about EQ2, WoW''s repeated server failures and irritating laggy performance have given me the perfect excuse to see first hand if EQ2 is better.

Sounds like you have a plan.. I say go for it! I cant imagine ever paying a single cent on a product I dont enjoy. That makes zero sense to me.

Cant get me back to play that DRAG.
the time i have sat at the pc only to be buffed ( 2 hr ) and to get all the people there if you are lucky ( 1 hr ) killed me .
i rather play for 2 hr in wow get 3/4 of a lev and still have time to eat, watch tv,take the dog out, hit the RR. Oh ya and get some SLEEP. I saw what it looked like the new eq2 but nope nope cant get me back there .
and dont get me started on the guild i was in OMG they just gave up when eq2 came out .

Avoiding the whole, which game is better (I think there both great, and as I have said If I wasn''t playing EQ2 would be playing WoW) EQ2 really has been stable, other than the one hardware failure (back in Dec?) the only downtime has been the scheduled patches or a hot fix, which they will give an ingame message or warning and are which usually last less than an hour (Have only seen 2 of these). Zones will occasionally crash (happens to me, maybe once every 3 weeks) but I have always been able to log back in within 5 minutes. And after one recent patch, a few zones were laggy for a day or two, but thats the only time I have experienced persistent lag.

My machine is limping along down the last few months of its life before I jump back to the top of the curve. Currently I am basically running the min system requirements: Athlon 1.33 512 ram geforce ti4200, and it is quite playable with the graphics tweaked between the bottom 2 graphics settings (overall closer to the bottom setting). I will get occasional stutter with it sometimes being severe, but almost never while in an adventure zone, or effecting combat. I am a Tank, and am able to keep my group alive with no problems on my machine.

Now there are negatives to the game, on the more mature servers, the vast majority of players are guilded, and of higher levels, so it might be tough for pickups in the starting ares, especially in Freeport (evil races).
Also SOE has added a ton of content, which goes to a test server first, but even after test, a fair amount of the new content has had issues or been bugged initially. Now somethings wont show up till a larger player base gets its hands on it, but some stuff has just felt rushed. BUT to SOE''s credit they are very active on the their boards, they due own up to mistakes, try to give estimates on fixes, and have acknowledge the few stealth nerfs that have made their way in (admittedly after the fact) and have given their case as to why the fixes were needed.

I played eq off and on from beta 2 to Lucan, and SOE is acting like a different company now. I am not saying they have become a non-profit organization, but they are doing a pleasing job of separating me from my money.

*edit* Linky to great guide to tweaking graphics in EQ2

Well unless you have a gig or more of ram you will be back in a flash. Certain parts of most of the city zones are exactly like Ironforge. Except the thing is, in Ironforge, if you wait the performance will get better. This is not the case in EQ2.

The thing I dont like about the newbie island in EQ2 is its false advertising. That island is fun. The rest of the game is nothing like that unless that is what the dungeons ended up like being. No, your next 4-6 levels are relative hell in comparison but they go by quick enough.

Then you get to what seems the rest of the game. It becomes a massive open bowl of rolling hills filled with aggressive monsters. If you''ve played EQ1 think west Karana with triple the monster population. The death penalty becomes readily apparent at this juncture.

I enjoy both and if you can find a regular partner to play with - my sona nd I play a lot together then you dont have any worries, Soloing is not too hard either, but it is not as solo friendly as WoW.

I downloaded the demo, and gave it a brief whirl this weekend.

I think I like the crafting concept, although it''s pretty hard to tell on just the newbie island. I don''t at all like the combat...targeting seems to be problematic, interface is pretty cludgy. (Again, I say this having only gone through the tutorial and a few minutes of the island.) The second or third quest you get on the noob island requires a group...which tells me that EQ2, like EQ isn''t really a solo-ers game.

Now granted, I love a good group, but there''s a fair amount of time when I''d rather just be wandering around, grumbling to myself about the inherent unfairness of a world where I am not the acknowledged and worshiped ruler. Franky, I''m a bit of a moody Female Doggo, and there are times when soloing is what keeps my friends...well, friendly.

The graphics are lovely. The water is astounding. The NPC voice overs annoy me, but many people really dig them. I just read significantly faster than most people talk...so I have to expend energy to ignore the slow voice.

I''m not huge on the player interface. It''s like watching a movie with the black bars above and below the picture...so I always kinda feel like I''m missing something. The buttons would take some getting used to...but the pop up menus are brilliant. I love that.

All in all, after playing the demo, I don''t think I''ve forgiven Verant for EQ yet. But, if WoW doesn''t stabilize soon, I''m going back to non-subscription god games...I love them, they make me happy, and I never have to wait in line to play with my pirates.

SOE is thanking Blizard for expanding the customer base. Blizzard shouldn''t get cought off guard because they got 8 times more customers than eq2. In MMORPG you want to keep the customers happy they can tolerate things for so long and then there is an exodus of players

check http://www.mmogchart.com/ it show really nice data about mmorpg population you''ll notice a huge jump in total population of around 800,000 players in the past quater which is growth of around 30% over the past 3 month. and SOE is not going to give up on that new chunk of potential 12+ milion $ a month revenue . it pushed SOE to give a better deal and better game and agressivly market their product.

so far i''m playing splitpaw which is a european english server. I like the fact we all play on the same time zone and yesterday my group decided to go eat dinner after about an hour of playing. EQ2 is a good game and like all MMORPG it can be very adictive. other than that everyone gets a teleport back to town spell which makes it a little easier to log out without depending on others to bring you back home. death penalty isn''t bad either so you may chose not to bother shard recovery and the debt may just go away with time. you can solo solo encounters group encounters may require a balanced group.

the only problem i had so far is some wierd bug that kicks me out when i zone I''m not sure why it happens but i can log back on after about a minute which gives me time to catch up on the latest forum gossip.

"fangblackbone" wrote:

Well unless you have a gig or more of ram you will be back in a flash. Certain parts of most of the city zones are exactly like Ironforge. Except the thing is, in Ironforge, if you wait the performance will get better. This is not the case in EQ2.

The thing I dont like about the newbie island in EQ2 is its false advertising. That island is fun. The rest of the game is nothing like that unless that is what the dungeons ended up like being. No, your next 4-6 levels are relative hell in comparison but they go by quick enough.

Then you get to what seems the rest of the game. It becomes a massive open bowl of rolling hills filled with aggressive monsters. If you''ve played EQ1 think west Karana with triple the monster population. The death penalty becomes readily apparent at this juncture.

WoW, I just have never experienced the game as you are describing. Yes some of the city zones can be stutteriffic, but you quickly learn which are the worst, and can largely ingore them, almost all city zones are reachable by navigational bells, and really past level 16-17 you almost only go to your home burb, unless a quest directs you to a city zone.

Yes exploring can be challenging at lower levels due to aggro mobs, and WoW is not? In fact I would say exploring is almost to easy in EQ2, the con system tells you which mobs will aggro, and it is not that difficult to make your way around. The death penalty is a joke, you accrue debt with deaths and take hits to your equipement, which can be repaired an unlimited number of times. Experience debt disipates with time logged out of the game at about a rate of 1/2% an hour, so say you have a bad night death wise, log out go to sleep, work log back in and your probably debt free (BTW, never turn in quest if you have debt, simply wait till the next time you log in). If that wasnt enough the devs just stated that in the next patch exp debt is being halved.

Yes the Newbie isle is simplifed, it gives a taste of the game mechanincs and quest system, it is in effect a really nice tutorial. Antonica the starting area for the good characters is rather bland, but you can be in one of the dungeons by your early to mid teens. I actually like the commonlands (evil starting adventure zone) and enjoy my time there with my alt.

I am sorry you had bad time Fang, but your description does not match my experience. Of course any of these games are more enjoyable with a good group of friends, but even if I only soloed I would still be having a blast in EQ2.

Just my 2 coppers.

(ii) my understanding that EQ2 will make my 2.6 P4 with a Ti4400 card scream in pain;

I tried EQ2 and was not impressed by the graphics because I had to wratchet down all my settings just to get it to run without stuttering. I have a 2.8 P4, 9800 Pro, 1 Gig RAM and thought WoW''s graphics looked much better than EQ2s given what is playable in both games.

Another thing I hated about EQ2 is the zone concept. In WoW it feels like a big world. In EQ2 it feels like a bunch of restrictive levels pasted together.

Give it a shot. You''ve got nothing really to lose but I personally would go back to WoW before giving EQ2 my hard earned cash.

"DuckiDeva" wrote:

I downloaded the demo, and gave it a brief whirl this weekend.

I think I like the crafting concept, although it''s pretty hard to tell on just the newbie island. I don''t at all like the combat...targeting seems to be problematic, interface is pretty cludgy. (Again, I say this having only gone through the tutorial and a few minutes of the island.) The second or third quest you get on the noob island requires a group...which tells me that EQ2, like EQ isn''t really a solo-ers game.

I''m not huge on the player interface. It''s like watching a movie with the black bars above and below the picture...so I always kinda feel like I''m missing something. The buttons would take some getting used to...but the pop up menus are brilliant. I love that.

Heh, SOE should appoint me Guardian of the Realm and my Liutenants Aide de Camp:

Couple of points Ducki, the Orc Chief does require a group, as do a few other quest on the island, but they are in no way required, in fact if you own the game you can leave the island almost instantly, and would not have to group at all. Furthermore almost all the island gear will be replaced within a level or two of leaving the island, so you are not being penalized if you dont finish the group quest.

As far as the interface, almost all aspects of it are customizable, including some of the targeting aspects. Customizing can be rather arcane, but you can end up with pretty much anything. No one in EQ2 runs any of these UI mods, all of those abilites are in game, you just have to muck around with them. If you have a beefy machine, there is no need to run the game in letterbox (the black bars), just uncheck that option in the graphics menu.

Badferret basically summoned up the game and my expereinces in the game.

SOE is doing a stand up job with this product. They may have had problems in the past but SOE got it right this time.

Servers are back up in scheduled time or faster in most cases. Not had a patch yet bring my game play to a halt.

Game is not bad solo although not as friendly as WoW.

There are some quests that will need a group to do. Basically think of them as Elite WoW quests and you know what I mean.

You can adjust the UI to your hearts content for the most part and never download a mod to do it. Personally I like the black bars as that is where I place stuff that I do not want to cluter my game window but you may be able to turn them off.

My PC is a AMD2800 6800GT and 2gig Ram I play on balanced settings and things go well.

I have a Freeport/evil guy on Nanjena server that is level 18 and a good/Qeynos guy on Oasis that is level 35.

Crafting is a game you could play without adventuring. Player housing is sort of fun in that decorating your house is strangely addictive.

I would say that a good guild really can help you out a lot in EQ2. If you are serious about the game you may want to get into a guild that is large and active if possible.

Zoning does stink I agree but the plus side is that almost every zone creates multiples of itself if the population gets too high. So for example if Antonica gets 100 people in it there will now be an Antonica 1 (the original) and an Antonica 2 (a new one that people can go to).

EQ2 all access is a good deal if you like FPS because Planet Side is a great game also.

So it is free give it a shot and what is worse that can happen?

I''m making the leap too. I''m still playing WOW from time to time, but I have no confidence they will create new content. Unless technology changes or 340 people stop playing on Blackhand, there will be a 15 minute wait. How is that good for a casual gamer if you have to wait?

This is what I did and I know I''m crazy:

Everquest 2: $24.00
Planetside Aftershock : $18.00
Everquest Platinum: $8.00 (Target Clearance)
Star Wars Galaxies: $18.00
Star Wars Journey to Light Speed: $9.00

For 77 bucks I bought the whole kit and kaboodle. I shopped around for the best deals. I don''t know if these deals are still available. Sure I won''t have enough time to play all the games, just a few hours a week. But as I get bored with one I move on to the other. For 22 bucks a month how can you go wrong.

The only problem is I have guild wars preordered. There is no way I can fit that in. I don''t know what I''ll do. Oh well, that is a problem for the month of April.

Well Lawyeron come join us on Najena or let us know where you have a character. I have a couple on Najena - none higher then 12. I also am looking forward to Guild Wars but see that as more of a quick action fix rather than an MMORPG a la EQ2.

I have a level 3 character on Lavastorm. I just picked one randomly. I will set up one on Najena. My character''s name will be Lizhard.

Quick update. Tried the Trial of the Isle last night. Got to Level 4. Right now my impressions are not incredibly favorable, but it is difficult to tell if that is because I am so used to (and prejudiced by) the WoW system and graphics. I theoretically like the more ""realistic"" graphics of EQII, but was underwhelmed with the animation (everything seemed quite jerky compared to WoW). However, in the last part of the hour I spent, I felt as though I might be getting used to it. I do like the fact that not everything looks cartoony, but the water graphics are pretty ugly, and the characters seem to move a bit like the first Mortal Kombat game.

On the other hand, I think I would like the crafting system far more; it looks more vibrant and interesting based on what little bit I''ve seen it.

The mobs feel less organic; I do hope that the game does not consist, as the demo seems to, of a ton of mobs just randomly milling about in strange areas (e.g. about 30 goblins all standing around a group of refugees, whom the goblins were for some reason not attacking or really even threatening).

"SlyFrog" wrote:

The mobs feel less organic; I do hope that the game does not consist, as the demo seems to, of a ton of mobs just randomly milling about in strange areas (e.g. about 30 goblins all standing around a group of refugees, whom the goblins were for some reason not attacking or really even threatening).

Heh, that is part of a quest, for one of the class quest (can''t remember which). The refugees are actually prisoners, and the Gobs are guarding them, for the quest you are sent to dispatch the guards.

As for the jerky animation and water, might try tweaking your settings, I have actually always liked both, and thought the animations in particular were more fluid than WoWs. Monks and dual wielders are particulary impressive. Course thats just me.

"Badferret" wrote:

As for the jerky animation and water, might try tweaking your settings, I have actually always likeh both, and thought the animations in particular were more fluid than WoWs. Monks and dual wielders are particulary impressive. Course thats just me.

I tried that a bit last night, and it seemed to help the graphics, but not the animation. I''ll keep tweaking, but as previously stated, I fear that my P4 2.6 Ti4400 isn''t going to be able to do much more than the midlevel settings at best when things get hectic in game.

You can turn of the black bars I made sure to.

EQ2 really shines when you are in a group. With the heroic opportunities you really begin to feel like you can beat the crap out of anything.

"SlyFrog" wrote:
"Badferret" wrote:

As for the jerky animation and water, might try tweaking your settings, I have actually always likeh both, and thought the animations in particular were more fluid than WoWs. Monks and dual wielders are particulary impressive. Course thats just me.

I tried that a bit last night, and it seemed to help the graphics, but not the animation. I''ll keep tweaking, but as previously stated, I fear that my P4 2.6 Ti4400 isn''t going to be able to do much more than the midlevel settings at best when things get hectic in game.

I fear you are going to need to bump your settings down from the middle if you want smooth play.

I have a AMD 2800 6800GT and 2 gigs of RAM and I play on the ""balanced"" settings.

Not sure if that is what you meant but you might want to select ""perforamce"" or even ""high performance"" and see if it runs smooth under one of those.

The problem of course is that it will not look as good but maybe once you find a setting that runs smooth you can start turning up things individually to get a better look.

The water in EQ2 is amazing I have always thought but that might be a matter of graphic settings or taste.

"maladen" wrote:
"SlyFrog" wrote:
"Badferret" wrote:

As for the jerky animation and water, might try tweaking your settings, I have actually always likeh both, and thought the animations in particular were more fluid than WoWs. Monks and dual wielders are particulary impressive. Course thats just me.

I tried that a bit last night, and it seemed to help the graphics, but not the animation. I''ll keep tweaking, but as previously stated, I fear that my P4 2.6 Ti4400 isn''t going to be able to do much more than the midlevel settings at best when things get hectic in game.

I fear you are going to need to bump your settings down from the middle if you want smooth play.

I have a AMD 2800 6800GT and 2 gigs of RAM and I play on the ""balanced"" settings.

Not sure if that is what you meant but you might want to select ""perforamce"" or even ""high performance"" and see if it runs smooth under one of those.

The problem of course is that it will not look as good but maybe once you find a setting that runs smooth you can start turning up things individually to get a better look.

The water in EQ2 is amazing I have always thought but that might be a matter of graphic settings or taste.

I''m not sure I''m explaining what''s going on properly. I started with the settings at one level below balanced (performance, IIRC). At that setting, things didn''t seem to skip, I didn''t get any odd stuttering, it''s just that the animation itself seems very odd. Not like it is dropping in frame rate, but that actual steps are missing from the animation.

If it makes sense, it doesn''t look like it does when you play a FPS that is too much for your machine (choppy and jerky), but rather as if the animations themselves are innately choppy and jerky.

As I mentioned, that may simply be because I am so used to WoW that anything that is different looks bad. I''ll have to play around with it more.

On a side note, my wife (who enjoys watching WoW) is disappointed. She remembers the battlenet and other issues around Diablo II and says that Blizzard should not be allowed to make games, because they are wonderful games that draw you in, but always have irriating flaws and connectivity problems that they don''t timely fix.

Having just switched to WoW from EQ2 I must say EQ2 is much more stable than WoW. Having played EQ2 since launch until about a week ago I had a minimal amount of technical issues. In fact I would say I have encountered more issues with WoW in my three days of playing than I ever did with EQ2. That said I am giving EQ2 a break for a few months so they can solidify the gameplay a bit. The combat system seems way too chaotic to me and they seem to be making far too many game changing tweaks for a finished product. I think i''ll play wow for a few months then when i''m bored i''ll go back to EQ2 as I think they really need to figure some things out gameplay wise.

"SlyFrog" wrote:
"maladen" wrote:
"SlyFrog" wrote:
"Badferret" wrote:

As for the jerky animation and water, might try tweaking your settings, I have actually always likeh both, and thought the animations in particular were more fluid than WoWs. Monks and dual wielders are particulary impressive. Course thats just me.

I tried that a bit last night, and it seemed to help the graphics, but not the animation. I''ll keep tweaking, but as previously stated, I fear that my P4 2.6 Ti4400 isn''t going to be able to do much more than the midlevel settings at best when things get hectic in game.

I fear you are going to need to bump your settings down from the middle if you want smooth play.

I have a AMD 2800 6800GT and 2 gigs of RAM and I play on the ""balanced"" settings.

Not sure if that is what you meant but you might want to select ""perforamce"" or even ""high performance"" and see if it runs smooth under one of those.

The problem of course is that it will not look as good but maybe once you find a setting that runs smooth you can start turning up things individually to get a better look.

The water in EQ2 is amazing I have always thought but that might be a matter of graphic settings or taste.

I''m not sure I''m explaining what''s going on properly. I started with the settings at one level below balanced (performance, IIRC). At that setting, things didn''t seem to skip, I didn''t get any odd stuttering, it''s just that the animation itself seems very odd. Not like it is dropping in frame rate, but that actual steps are missing from the animation.

If it makes sense, it doesn''t look like it does when you play a FPS that is too much for your machine (choppy and jerky), but rather as if the animations themselves are innately choppy and jerky.

As I mentioned, that may simply be because I am so used to WoW that anything that is different looks bad. I''ll have to play around with it more.

On a side note, my wife (who enjoys watching WoW) is disappointed. She remembers the battlenet and other issues around Diablo II and says that Blizzard should not be allowed to make games, because they are wonderful games that draw you in, but always have irriating flaws and connectivity problems that they don''t timely fix. :D

OK sounds like that maybe it is a matter of taste then for animations. If you can though make a new guy and on the tutorial boat set your graphics to like balanced and check out the waves. I thought they looked nice and the next graphic setting up that game is was stunning. Grass sways as you run through it and so on.

I just need a beefier chip to enjoy that setting I think.

--edit--

Oh and wanted to add your wife is right about the bnet issues and how long it took Blizz to fix them but in that case bnet was free and I would hope Blizz would be more responsive this time arround. Time will see though.