Starting fresh EQ2 or Wow

[Rhuobhe]

I want to play something long term...

I recently started playing an mmo (wow) after 6 months of inactivity.

Although I am enjoying my protection paladin, I am starting to dread lvl 70. I like tanking in PVE however I know for a fact that i will not be running raids. I am casual and rarely go on for more than 2-3 hours at a time. I know I will be fucking bored after being 70 because I pretty much won't be able to do anything except instances. My other option to get purple gear is PVP. Things have changed a lot, i keep seeing +300 resilience requirements and have come to the realization that all arena paladins have the same goddamn spec (41/20/0) . I hate that. I don't imagine that BGs have changed much since I left.

I have also been contemplating downloading the EQ2 trial. It looks interesting. I keep hearing that guilds are more social and it is easier to group since the game is pve focused etc. what is starting to irk me about wow is that gear and specs mean everything.

I'd like to play a game where I can reach the level cap and still have fun shit to do or look forward to. not just to log on and run BGs or farm shit until i eventually stop doing it altogether.

Does anyone have a good opinion on EQ2? Is it fun as a long term game? should I stick with wow and save me the time and money it will take to figure out EQ2 sucks? Please advice

[Tullaeniel]

Shut the fuck up and heal.

[Abysmal]

wow is probably friendlier to 2-3 hour sessions. i never got far with eq2, but i'd imagine leveling would take longer and it probably demands longer play sessions to see a significant difference.

i play a paladin myself and ive tried every spec many times. ret is decent for solo play, but they are pretty much a last resort spot in a group and until they get a dps boost they only shine in pvp when you out-gear your opponents. protection is great pve, but pretty useless pvp unless a melee is dumb enough to try and go toe-to-toe with you. holy is the only reasonable choice for both pvp and pve in my opinion. it can get wearisome doing bgs as a healer though, because if your offense sucks you suck. you wont really be killing anyone until you get at around half of your battleground gear either.

if you have any friends playing either of these games i would ignore everything else and play with them whichever game that happens to be.

[Dendory]

Tradeskill, group epics only bring you to a point. After that if you want to keep progressing you have to go the raid or pvp route. If you don't want to raid, then you should look at pvp, and it's not with a tank that you will get there. As a casual, you will have a very long road ahead of you, but that's sorta what your content is.

Otherwise, after you get the best out of the rep grinds, and badge loot, then you'll have to settle for not doing much until the expansion comes.

[Tananthalas]

I personally prefer EQ2 over WoW. The community is generally friendlier and more mature. You have fucktards everywhere but it's not as bad as WoW. I also prefer EQ2's graphics over WoW but that's obviously just opinion based. 2-3 hours of time will net you a decent amount of accomplishment but you have to manage your time well. What I mean by that is if you're wanting to work on any of the more massive quests it would be smart of you to have something arranged beforehand. Don't expect to log in for 2 hours and wrap up some of the more hardcore stuff like heritage quests and such.

Basically it boils down to how much you want your hand held. EQ2 does a fair bit of it unfortuneately but it's not unbearable, where as WoW is as linear as you can be.

[kuldiin]

Everquest 1, Ultima Online, Meridian 59 or the Realm are all top notch games.

[Blumpster]

If you are really good, and find really good teammates, a Retribution Paladin can be decent in arenas. You probably won't be top dogs, but I've seen a few 2k+ teams with Ret Paladins paired with another melee DPS. 3v3, that is.

[Vatoreus]

I prefer EQ2 to WoW b/c of the way PvP is handled.

[Aamen]

Originally Posted by Rhuobhe

I'd like to play a game where I can reach the level cap and still have fun shit to do or look forward to. not just to log on and run BGs or farm shit until i eventually stop doing it altogether.

Then may I suggest bowling, line dancing, basketball, or some other group activity?

Every MMO will feel like 'grinding' if all you do is login and do dailies and battlegrounds and such. Try joining a (decent) raid guild and making some friends along the way.

[Miele]

If you can find a decent guild, EQ2 can keep your interest high for quite a long time and imo it's a lot easier to find decent and mature players there.
You gotta like soloing tho and some classes are just not that good at it or you have to expect some time spent LFG.

I like both games, but RoK was not my cup of tea, so I moved back to WoW to play TBC that for me is brand new. I'm a grouper, rarely solo and never raid. I'll likely go back to EQ2 at some point or play both games.
Soloing in EQ2 is a bit more boring imo, but with certain classes it can be very fun if you start killing heroic greenies and blues.

The thing that literally kills my full enjoyment of WoW is the total and utter retardation of the playerbase. In EQ2 you can almost be sure that every person you meet is going to have a brain, in WoW you can almost be sure that after every person you meet, your most burning desire will be to sponsor a birth control policy.

Levelling is really fast in both games nowadays, in fact I think it's faster in EQ2 than in WoW if only for the fact that you can travel a lot easier thanks to mounts at level 1, SoW, Pathfinding, Selo and stuff.
If you want to play EQ2, for your own sanity, unless you love to tank as a paladin, get a class that can solo well (and better if it can travel fast), such as fury, conj/necro, etc.

If there is one thing you can be certain is that in EQ2 there is a truckload of stuff to do. Raising the level cap in the last xpac was imo a mistake (one of the RoK mistakes), they should have capitalized on having 2 xpacs for level 70s already.

[Draegan]

Another one of these dumb threads?

[Kaxmax]

Originally Posted by Blumpster

If you are really good, and find really good teammates, a Retribution Paladin can be decent in arenas. You probably won't be top dogs, but I've seen a few 2k+ teams with Ret Paladins paired with another melee DPS. 3v3, that is.

War/RetPal/Resto Shaman is turning into a very strong 3's team. Offensive & defensive dispels, snare protection with BoF, and ungodly burst damage.

Honestly, Ret pals are very good in the arenas if they're on a team that can cover their weak points (no ms debuff, mostly). I play a SHS rogue/ret pal team with a buddy (both characters are alts), and it's a strong combo. We're undergeared, but you can definitely see the potential, especially against druid teams (which are all too common in 2s). Probably not a 2200+ team, but I could see breaking 2k with good gear.

The biggest thing holding them back, ironically, is the lolret mentality that most people still have.

[Javvo]

Here's a paladin friend of mine who's in the best 5v5 in his battle group. He's always been holy but switched to ret this season.

The World of Warcraft Armory

edit: meh, they were #1 last week. It changed up a bit.

[Nakilos]

EQ2 is worth a run through to max level, which depending on your playtime your mileage may vary as to how long that takes. However, its just boring in my opinion when you get there. I really wanted to like it, but I tried playing the game 2 times now, got a Paladin to 70 the first time and a Guardian the second time, and it was just boring at max level each time. I know the cap is 80 now, I just quit before it was raised due to the sheer boredom factor.

[Braen]

One of the problems I had with the EQ2 "end game" (and to be fair my experience with EQ2 end game are the end instances of KoS and most of the low-mid instances of EoF) was that most of the instances looked exactly the same. Same textures, same models.

Some instances looked just like regular open non-instanced dungeon especially Sanctum of Scaleborn. Most of the end-game KoS dungeons looks just like that zone. It just looked like the art and design team gave up. It's one of the big reasons EQ2 Mistwalkers fell apart. People working to get to 70, then being hit in the face with a lackluster zone design and encounters.