[Kraks]

I played WoW for the last week to see what EQ2 is missing that WoW has.

First, let me say what EQ has that WoW doesn't. The combat system is much more involving and immersive. Every ability is useful in its own way, and nothing really should find itself sitting away in your spell book never to be used.

Second, EQ2 has a very easy to use Auctioning System, whereas WoW's is much less informative and gives very few methods to search with.



That is really it. Now, what I found about WoW:

EVERYONE has the same gear in EQ2. And even if you don't, you can get max stats in Treasured, Legendary and Fabled quality quite easily. Its sad that EQ2 has turned into a communist country all of its own, making sure everyone can get equally geared out no matter the effort. Sure, there a few items that are really great and irreplaceable, but 90% of those are questable and everyone has them, too. Only drops from Turtle, 3 Princes and Matron can really stand out and say "Hey, I took some effort to aquire".

It really disgusts me how shallow the loot variety is in EQ2. It ticks me off to see them take the best concept for an MMORPG and mess it up through the fringe benefits. Good graphics for high end gear is a must, and a wide variety is also a must. Having unique effects is a must. Not 50 items for 1 slot that all have FT3 on them. Making sure that the most used armor, in this case chain, is the most readily available instead of the LEAST. That's right, Scouts and Shaman get shaft.

EQ2's UI is dated and static. I love the dynamic abilities in WoW's UI and that is honestly the biggest hook for me right now. I love the data, pouring over numbers and the such. I don't like having to read it line by line outside of game in some arcaic format. EQ2 just kills the immersive nature of MMO's in this way.

Another way it does this same thing is being overly graphically intensive. I can think of no better way to ruin a raid's enjoyment than by having to turn off every nice graphical effect in the game just to run smoothly on a GeForce 7800 GTX on a 2GB Memory P4 3.2GHz machine. That's just ridiculous and speaks volumes of the graphics engine, or lack thereof in this case.


I love EQ2, I just hope they can fix some of these things. The great thing is, they don't have to make the game like WoW at all. Heck, if anything, go away from the WoW'ized crap and bring back some real challenge to leveling, questing and raiding.