Observations of an EQ2 Player after 1 Week of WoW

[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.

[Kevincheese]

As someone who played WoW before EQ2, and is currently playing EQ2, I think your point about the combat system is way off... EQ2 has WAY too many abilities. It's like they're trying to compensate for EQ. I'm a brigand, mind. I have like... 5 attacks I can use from the front, and about 4 from the back/side, and I'm only 32. And a few real special ones too. Just... too many!

As for the auction systems, they seem pretty much equal imo =/ easier interface in WoW, maybe.

[AsFastAsICan]

Originally Posted by 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...

I'm sure you were going to say a few nice things about WoW, but I stopped reading there.

[Kraks]

Originally Posted by Kevincheese

As someone who played WoW before EQ2, and is currently playing EQ2, I think your point about the combat system is way off... EQ2 has WAY too many abilities. It's like they're trying to compensate for EQ. I'm a brigand, mind. I have like... 5 attacks I can use from the front, and about 4 from the back/side, and I'm only 32. And a few real special ones too. Just... too many!

As for the auction systems, they seem pretty much equal imo =/ easier interface in WoW, maybe.

Until you've played EQ2 to the very end, you really can't say what is too much or too little, same with WoW. I've played a bit of both at the end and the beginning and I can safely say that almost every ability I have on my 70 Zerker, Fury and Troubador are useful for raids and get used. In the first 5 - 10 levels in WoW, you're already finding stuff that is just pointless to have next to good old autoattack.

[Digits]

I'll give you that too many of WoW abilities are pointless, or too narrowly useful. I'll also give you that EQ2 abilities are alot more useful, at least seemingly. I won't give you that EQ2 has better gameplay than WoW, or that it has a deeper combat system. WoW's simplicity keeps it from getting old, and it's staggering the amount of depth it has for its simple mechanics. Convoluted abliities doesn't equate to depth.

[Kodylan]

I didn't really like having to have 4 hotbars all with keybindings set up on my Inquisitor expecting to have to use every single one of them each encounter. That was way too much. There has to be a middle ground that both WoW and EQ2 are failing to reach in terms of ability usefulness per encounter.

[Kraks]

I'll give you that EQ2 is getting out of hand. I wish that instead of more abilities with the AA system, we'd just get improved versions of what we have, ala WoW's talent system.

[Hateyou]

Wow, you gave WoW a whole week and you know it inside and out enough to make comparisons like this? Come on, you can't compare initial impressions of a game to deep, in-depth mechanics.

I'm not a WoW fanboi, so don't get me wrong. In fact I despise the game. I'm just saying, your points are pretty invalid, until you've played both for a long time.

[Kodylan]

In his defense he actually gave WoW a lot of credit, and on two of its strong points. There is lots of item diversity(except in the raid game, it starts to shallow out there quite a bit) and the UI is great.

[Kraks]

Originally Posted by Hateyou

Wow, you gave WoW a whole week and you know it inside and out enough to make comparisons like this? Come on, you can't compare initial impressions of a game to deep, in-depth mechanics.

I'm not a WoW fanboi, so don't get me wrong. In fact I despise the game. I'm just saying, your points are pretty invalid, until you've played both for a long time.

My ex-roommate, (just moved out last month), has been raiding in WoW for the entire last year I lived with him. So, I got a lot of opportunities to watch it with him at the helm also.

By no means am I an expert in WoW. I'm just pointing out some obvious strong points it has over some glaring weaknesses that EQ2 needs to get corrected.

[QueefMaker]

You are a year late on your post.

[Wilf McQuade]

Originally Posted by Hateyou

Wow, you gave WoW a whole week and you know it inside and out enough to make comparisons like this? Come on, you can't compare initial impressions of a game to deep, in-depth mechanics.

I'm not a WoW fanboi, so don't get me wrong. In fact I despise the game. I'm just saying, your points are pretty invalid, until you've played both for a long time.

Actually he commented/compared on the things he has observed and experienced which is reasonable and not very much. I would hardly call that an indepth analysis by any stretch of the imagination.

His points although few seemed valid given their lack of depth and breadth. So what was the purpose of your post..really, bored like me I guess.

[Hateyou]

Originally Posted by Wilf McQuade

Actually he commented/compared on the things he has observed and experienced which is reasonable and not very much. I would hardly call that an indepth analysis by any stretch of the imagination.

His points although few seemed valid given their lack of depth and breadth. So what was the purpose of your post..really, bored like me I guess.

Well, posting on message boards is the result of boredom on my part, no matter what it's about.

What I meant was he was comparing WoW, which he's played for a week, to EQ2, which he has played for years. You just can't do that. I wasn't trying to be offensive really, it just seemed very pointless. It reminded me of Furors' bullshit "How it is" post on FFXI after he played it to level 7.

[xilsharn]

lol, why did this get rickshawed?

[Hateyou]

Originally Posted by xilsharn

lol, why did this get rickshawed?

Because it's some random person giving his one week impression of a game that's been out for two years.