I play WoW and I want to play EQ2 [Archive] - EQ2 Forum Archive @ EQ2Wire

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Negator

04-06-2007, 01:09 AM

Alright, I've got a little bit of a story behind this brief but eye-catching subject. Currently I have a lvl 70 Druid in wow. I jus reached the cap the other night. As I reached the cap I started reminiscing about hitting lvl 60 in EQ1 when that was the cap. It was great to have that feeling, and at that point I realized there is a critical aspect of wow that I cannot stand. That was so easy. I love being an alchemist, its great, I'll never lose my mats trying to get a skillup. No profession loses their mats. Kinda childish.. The soloability is great. I leveled to 70 in a decent amount of time, with the help of .. noone. As a casual player and no longer hardcore, I cannot sit around for an hour and a half lfg at a decent camp like eq1. I also cannot wait for 18hr spawn timers for my epic. The maturity level of the wow players bothers me. All of them are, well, 11 year olds, or atlease act so.I need some honest input. I don't need wow bashing, or immaturity, or you can be no better than they.I have some questions I would like answered, as well as your honest comparisons. I know you will like EQ2 more, as I am on your forum, I just want to know the variability of gameplay. Heres a few questions:I love tradeskills. Can you have more than two professions? Can you play much of the non-endgame solo? Is there anything specific that resembles from EQ1 to EQ2? For instance, camping a FBSS for 36 hours, Epic quests, groups structured in 'camps' and pulling from someones camps are forbidden. wow is reckless in that sense. Do you lose EXP when you die? (I kinda like that part of wow). Are there instances? In tradeskills, is there a definitive way to seperate yourself from the others in your profession? In wow I hate how every alchemist can do all the same stuff. No possible way for it to actually be 'valuable'. I remember in EQ1 finding a maxed out tailor was very very very rare. Gear. Can you create gear comparable to the best drop gear? Lastly, how does loot work? Is there a rarity system like wow? Where do you find the better loot? Is there 'random world drops'?Im not expecting answers to everything in one post. I really would just like some direction to make sure that this is what I actually want to do. I know EQ2 isn't perfect, I'm sure I'm comparing apples to oranges. However, I'd like to be serious about ONE game, and would appreciate any and all feedback. Anyone who goes through this, thanks for your time, please offer me some guidance. Thanks!--Negatorx

Negator

04-06-2007, 01:17 AM

I just read the post below me... and it was silly of me not to read through that.However, I wish I would get a more in-depth response, both in general and to my questions.Sorry for those who are sick of seeing these posts, I apologize, but thank you for your patience

Looker1010

04-06-2007, 01:23 AM

<cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote>*snip* I love tradeskills. Can you have more than two professions? Can you play much of the non-endgame solo? Is there anything specific that resembles from EQ1 to EQ2? For instance, camping a FBSS for 36 hours, Epic quests, groups structured in 'camps' and pulling from someones camps are forbidden. wow is reckless in that sense. Do you lose EXP when you die? (I kinda like that part of wow). Are there instances? In tradeskills, is there a definitive way to seperate yourself from the others in your profession? In wow I hate how every alchemist can do all the same stuff. No possible way for it to actually be 'valuable'. I remember in EQ1 finding a maxed out tailor was very very very rare. Gear. Can you create gear comparable to the best drop gear? Lastly, how does loot work? Is there a rarity system like wow? Where do you find the better loot? Is there 'random world drops'?No, per character you can have one main and one secondary (tinkering or transmuting) tradeskill.I solo 95% of the time. Have 1 70/warden and just got my ranger to 60 last night. I spend more time on crafting than I do adventuring since crafting is my main interest. Soloing is very possible!Never played EQ1.When you die you pick up XP debt which slows XP until it's worked off but no, there is no XP loss. Also XP debt has a cap of, I believe and if I"m wrong someone will correct me, 10% and is easy and quick to clear, even playing solo.I have no idea what constitutes separation in tradeskilling for you. An alchemist is an alchemist. A tailor is a tailor. What is it you seek that would make your crafters "unique"?At present, the best player made gear is not as good as the best dropped gear. We're hoping to see that change.Sorry, also don't understand your loot question.I was in the WOW beta briefly and found it not a game for me. I'm an adult and prefer to play with other adults. Kids are fine, as long as I'm not grouped with em. Generally I find the EQII playerbase more mature and a better fit for my personality.Whatever you choose to do I wish you good hunting!!</blockquote>

Negator

04-06-2007, 01:37 AM

In wow there is common/rare/epic/legendaryI was just wondering if EQ2 has that type of structure or not.By tradeskill seperation, I mean that not every tailor in the game can do the same thing. Is there a way for someone of a profession to have different recipies than the other. Can you put time and effort into your profession and be valuable. I guess I would need someone from EQ1 to tell me if it is comparable. currently in wow, materials are more expensive than the products, which is also annoying, but a tangent none the less. thanks again.

Looker1010

04-06-2007, 01:56 AM

<cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote>In wow there is common/rare/epic/legendarySame thing in EQII. Loot comes in different "strengths" <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />I was just wondering if EQ2 has that type of structure or not.By tradeskill seperation, I mean that not every tailor in the game can do the same thing. Is there a way for someone of a profession to have different recipies than the other. Can you put time and effort into your profession and be valuable. I guess I would need someone from EQ1 to tell me if it is comparable.The same recipes are available for all the members of any given profession so no, there is no way that I know of to make any of my crafters unique from the rest of their peers. currently in wow, materials are more expensive than the products, which is also annoying, but a tangent none the less.I harvest everything I can. My purchases are limited to what is not harvestable - fuel, water and dough, the last 2 being provisioner items. My material expenditures are, therefore, as low as possible. thanks again.</blockquote>

tass

04-06-2007, 02:29 AM

didnt read all of ur post as it was rather long. So to start off the system goes crap gear then handcrafted/treasured (sometimes 1 is better than the other) then legendary/mastercrafted (again sometimes 1 is better than the other) Then fabled then mythical which you will almost hardly ever ever ever get unless ur a high lv decked out hardcore raider with a hardcore raid guild that will spend ALOT of time trying to raid through the new content to get to the last mob and actually kill it after some trys and then u have to be luckier than hell to win that lotto and be the right class to even have a chance of getting it and maybe have enough raid status earned up like in some guilds to be elegible to even lotto it. As I said u'll probably never get 1 lol. Ok now that thats done. As for leveling here its probably not as easy as wow but its not as hard as eq1 either. I think at 1 time it may have been but its marginally easier now until u get to about 50. The population is mostly adults or people in other countries wiping out zones for cash to sell. No u cannot have 2 trade skill professions on 1 char. You can solo most of everything in this game. Though alot of endgame is made up of raid zones single grp and multiple grp. As for camping things out ya theres some of that here. Not as much but some. Alot of stuff is in instanced zones but alot of mobs and stuff are in public zones which means you do have to worry about some [Removed for Content] stealing ur mob or named. No u dont lose xp when u die any more. There really isnt anything that makes u specialer than another alchy or sage in this game as level defines what u can make or cant make. No u cant make gear that would drop off of really good mobs because then thered be no sense to raid it. And loot is just chance. Sometimes names drop good loot sometimes they drop crap. Sometimes very rarely a reg crap mob drops a great loot thats fabled. Its all chance unless its a name or raid mob that has a list of stuff that it only drops. Basically eq2 isnt really like eq1 in alot of ways. It took its name and features from it and some other stuff but thats it. The battle system, the regen everything is different. If you wanted an mmo that resembled it alot id go for vangaurd as it was set up by most of the people who made eq1 and is designed to be alot like it if not more a pain in the [Removed for Content] lol. Still I like this game for its enjoyability to just turn on and play sometimes.

Firam

04-06-2007, 02:33 AM

<cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote>I love tradeskills. Can you have more than two professions? </blockquote>You can have one Primary profession (armorer/tailorer/alchemist/etc/etc... the "traditional" tradeskill stuff), and with the next expansion they added Secondary professions. Tinkering or Transmuting, can only be one, but you can switch to the other at any time. You lose all skill in the other when doing that though. You cannot change your Primary tradeskill once selected. A lot of people use alts for extra tradeskilling classes. <blockquote>Can you play much of the non-endgame solo? </blockquote> Depending on class, you can solo an incredible amount of content. That's assuming good gear and upgraded spells though. Anything with solid crowd control (enchanters/sorcerers) does well with the root+nukes. Certain melee classes can solo very well too... rogues for one, and brawlers also do well in this, but not as well as the classes that can sit back and keep the mobs at a distance. Any class can solo to 70 though, if that's what you're asking. I was referring to the Heroic mobs (intended for groups) that can be solo'd by many classes. Honestly, virtually any class with top of the line gear and a solid knowledge of their class tactics can at least solo green conning heroic mobs. <blockquote>Is there anything specific that resembles from EQ1 to EQ2? For instance, camping a FBSS for 36 hours, Epic quests, groups structured in 'camps' and pulling from someones camps are forbidden. wow is reckless in that sense. </blockquote> There are very few 36-hour camps; the devs removed most of that due to player complaints from EQ1. I'm glad they did... at first I liked that idea, but it grew old VERY fast. Epic quests: yes. Each expansion has had one epic quest series, appx 25-30 quests in the series. They start off soloable through the first 5-10 steps, then groupable through the next 10 quests, then the last 5 or so usually require a raid. Rewards for each step are usually very decent. relative to the risk. There is no more camping in EQ2. Although, as a monk in EQ1, I kind of enjoyed that aspect of the game, I agree with the changes. It really didn't encourage players to crawl through a dungeon, which was, is, and always will be more fun to me than sitting in one spot for 3 hours straight. Most of the desired Heroic content is instanced, and mobs don't respawn in most instances. There are also open Heroic dungeons with mob respawn and content similar to what you're thinking of back in EQ1, but I can count on one hand (with two fingers stuck up my nose) the number of times that I've seen player conflicts with anything resembling "camping" issues. The population in the open dungeons is usually very low (0-3 groups) at a time due to the fact that instances generally take priority. There's plenty of mobs to go around. <blockquote>Do you lose EXP when you die? (I kinda like that part of wow). </blockquote> Unfortunately, no. This is one of the things that I wish they hadn't changed, as it takes away much of the tangible penalty for stupidity (and, by association, grouping with stupid people). They have exp debt now, 0.5% per death, that you burn through as you get more exp. Appx half your exp gained goes toward debt and the other half goes towards normal exp. So it just slows you down, you can't lose levels. Once you're at the level cap, you can be as reckless as you want as long as you have the money to pay for repair costs on armor over and over again. I'd prefer actual exp loss, but good luck on that. The EQ2 devs made the game to compete directly with WoW in many aspects, so don't expect an EQ1 like experience here. The curse of the "easymode" WoW game texture spills over to EQ2. =) <blockquote>Are there instances? </blockquote> As mentioned before, yep. All raid content is instanced with the exception of a few "contested" epic mobs in normal/open zones that have long respawn times. Lockout timers on raid zones are usually 4-7 days. About 60-70% of the group content is instanced, with lockout timers around 12-36 hours generally. Unless you play upwards of 15 hours a day, you can just hop from instance to instance and not worry too much about lockouts. <blockquote>In tradeskills, is there a definitive way to seperate yourself from the others in your profession? In wow I hate how every alchemist can do all the same stuff. No possible way for it to actually be 'valuable'. I remember in EQ1 finding a maxed out tailor was very very very rare. </blockquote> No, unfortunately every L70 alchemist in EQ2 is the same as every other one. They recently added the ability to craft fabled (epic) level items using raid drops, but that's about it. You can still make money off most of the professions though, especially the ones that generate consumable items (food/potions/totems/etc). The spell making professions (scholars) always have work waiting for them too. I don't know how the server populations cap in WoW, but the sheer number of players in EQ2 (about 150k vs 7 million in WoW) means that you probably aren't going to see as much crowding in each profession at L70. <blockquote>Gear. Can you create gear comparable to the best drop gear? </blockquote> As of about a month ago, yes. Prior to that, the Mastercrafted player crafted gear was comparable to mid-range Legendary gear. The breakdown is as follows (color coded as in game, not sure how WoW does this, I think purple is your epic stuff?): Uncommon: Lowest tier, no one actually wears this. Body drops off easy mobs or vendor bought stuff. Player crafted: Slightly worse than most Treasured gear, baseline for poor people or new players. Treasured: Baseline level of gear for most players. Most non-epic quest rewards are Treasured quality. Also drops in chests from easy mobs, or comes in chests as the common loot from Heroic mobs. Mastercrafted: Player crafted (requires rare harvested mats). Similar in quality to mid-range Legendary gear. Easy to obtain, as the rare mats are available in abundance on the brokers (albeit expensive in some cases). Baseline for most twinks. Legendary: Rare chest drops from named Heroic mobs, or rewards from higher end Heroic quests. Baseline for most semi-hardcore players who can't or won't raid. Fabled: Raid obtained gear. The best of the best. Varies in quality depending on the strength of the epic mobs required to kill it, but almost always desirable over any lesser quality gear in that slot. Recently added the ability for crafters to make Fabled gear using uncommon drops found on raids... the recipes have a set number of charges though, unlike normal crafted items where you scribe the book once and can make the stuff as much as you want. Mythical: Artifacts. One per server (first come first serve). Generally about 1 per expansion, off the alpha-mob in that expansion. I think there's about half a dozen different ones total. Generally have an incredibly powerful effect coupled with great stats for the slot. <blockquote>Lastly, how does loot work? Is there a rarity system like wow? Where do you find the better loot? Is there 'random world drops'?</blockquote> See above, heh. I don't know what your playstyle dynamic is, but as a semi-hardcore player (3-4 hours a night, most nights a week, no raiding) you can expect to be wearing a full set of Mastercrafted/Legendary items, with maybe 1 or 2 Fabled ones thrown in that you found cheap on the broker or got through quests. I hope this answers most of your questions. I know it can be a difficult decision to switch games, and this writeup only scratched the surface of the game dynamics, but if you're interested I'd recommend picking up a copy of the game and trying it out for a month or so. I think if you buy the Kingdom of Sky expansion it comes with the original game and the first expansion included at no extra cost.. would only need the Echoes of Faydwer expansion then to have everything if you decided you liked the game. Let us know how it goes. =)

Lasai

04-06-2007, 05:18 AM

Just a few observations. The crafting system here is basically a more involved Plug and create system, producing identical products. Main difference here is there is a chance to create lesser quality goods if you fail to counter tradeskill "events". Generally, the resource situation here is far better, nodes are not static and camped, and it is a better harvesting system. The WOW phenomenon of "value of goods to level outwieghing value of product" did hit with a vengeance during the addition of the adornments system, but hasn't affected all areas of tradeskilling. One HUGE perk to Tradeskilling here, it is not tied to adventure level. Concievably, you can have a level 2-3 char at level 70 in thier Tradeskill. No fighting your way into bad places to find an idiot trainer who likes living in a tomb full of angry darkirons and monsters lol. Looting here is a bit different. Body drops are generally fluff and/or coin, and are always there even on grey mobs. However, unlike WOW, decent loot is Chest drops, and you will not get those if the mob is grey to you. (no running through the defias mines to pick up blues to disenchant here). One good thing, there is far less BOP loot in this game, so it is far easier to sell items you can't use. BOP starts to factor in some of the higher end content, mainly raid stuff. Chance of random world drop, yes, and no. Fabled class items, Spell books, do have a minute chance of dropping in the world off normal mobs. However, you won't find equipment beyond treasured unless it is a Named Mob generally. I assume you are talking about the random chance of a normal mob dropping Purple gear in the world? Not here. This game is as hard as you make it, or as easy. I actually turn combat exp off in order to hit all the content I can before it greys out. You can solo if you choose, but there is content for all types of gameplay. I did not find the "Hard Cap" here like I did in WOW, where I soloed easily to 60 and hit a wall of 0 content except for raider guilds. Guild system is FAR more involved here, as is faction. If I recall, the only way in WOW to earn allied faction was to earn tokens in the various faction aligned BGs, ie WSG for Sentinal Faction (alliance). In EQ there are a myriad of city factions you can align yourself with that offer titles, vendors and other perks, and even one for Tradeskillers. Guilds have more perks here, as the higher a guild goes, the more items and benefits they can attain. There is faction out in the world too, you can build or lose faction with many NPC groups throughout the world according to your actions. I recall one friend of mine who was KOS to Centaurs, Settlers, and Gnolls in Thundering Steppes, and always wondered just how he managed to make EVERYONE mad at him. PUGS are less scary here, but, there are days <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />. Generally the community is a bit better, but, there are exceptions. You will still see idiotic names and childish bahaviour, but far less. Ironforge killed brain cells for me. Im not a WOW basher.. it was fun, then, it was boring. This game has legs, I'm finding tons of things to do, and content I missed. Replaying alts here is a lot more fun than WOW was, less of the OMG been there done that thing. I'm still finding things on new chars I somehow missed on my main 4-5. Hmm. Thats about it. Oh.. one more thing. NOBODY does the "Macerena" here.

Eldcen

04-06-2007, 10:23 AM

<cite>Lasai wrote:</cite><blockquote>Just a few observations. I assume you are talking about the random chance of a normal mob dropping Purple gear in the world? Not here. </blockquote>Any random mob that's not gray to you does have a minute chance to drop a "master" chest - or chest with a Master I level spell or piece of Fabled gear. Fabled stuff here is like purple stuff in WoW, sort of. However that chance is VERY low from your average solo mobs. I have a 66 wizard, 46 paladin, 33 warlock, and numerous 20+ alts, and in all that time, I've gotten exactly 2 master chests to drop off random solo mobs (one was a Master I spell, and one was a piece of Fabled gear). With that said, there's Fabled gear, and then there's Fabled gear. The stuff you'll see from random solo mobs is kind of low-end Fabled, like low end random mob-drop purples in WoW. No solo mobs will ever drop raid quality Fabled stuff - similar to WoW in that respect. Lasai pretty much was saying the same thing, I think - I was just expanding on that a little.

Josgar

04-06-2007, 10:25 AM

Eldcen

04-06-2007, 10:30 AM

<cite>Josgar wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote> Can you play much of the non-endgame solo? Im super extra casual and cannot get on alot, so I solo alot... I am soloing through the 50 range right now Is there anything specific that resembles from EQ1 to EQ2? For instance, camping a FBSS for 36 hours, Epic quests, groups structured in 'camps' and pulling from someones camps are forbidden. wow is reckless in that sense. Do you lose EXP when you die? (I kinda like that part of wow). We have exp debt, where you get this tiny red bar on your exp bar that slows down your exp until it dissappears... usually only takes like 2 kills for the exp debt to go away... its not that bad. </blockquote></blockquote>Yeah, for xp debt here, imagine dying in EQ1 and getting and getting a 90% or 96% rez. If you do get such a rez, you can recover from the loss of xp in just a few kills. That's about how long it takes to remove your xp debt here from any death - but no rez necessary here.

Ziviz

04-06-2007, 11:05 AM

My biggest problem starting up EQ2 after playing WoW for 2 1/2 years:It's a Quest (J)ournal, not a Quest (L)og.I'm actually thinking about just switching the key mappings... I just can't seem to get used to it.My biggest gripe about EQ2 so far:I can't seem to figure out how to view maps from other zones... or if it's even possible.

liveja

04-06-2007, 11:13 AM

<cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote>Currently I have a lvl 70 Druid in wow. </blockquote>Imagine being able to shapeshift to beast form, getting buffs for the shapeshift, & still having access to all of your spells.Imagine not having to re-spec for soloing when you need to go farm to prep for tomorrow night's raid, because you've actually got respectable DPS.Imagine actually being able to play something resembling a DRUID.

Limoj

04-06-2007, 11:33 AM

The loot here drops off of the same strength mob. mastercrafted is pretty much the way to go until you hit 50 ishthen legendary drops from instances take over.

TheSource123

04-06-2007, 11:34 AM

Here goes:I love tradeskills. Can you have more than two professions? - You can have one tradeskill and one secondary profession, but the TS's level up by XP, unlike in WoW. Can you play much of the non-endgame solo? - If you mean, "Can you level 1-70 solo?" Then yes, although you will not see the bigger meat of the game, like the fun quest lines and dungeons, which is the real meat of EQ2. And raids in EQ2 are much more fun than WoW, less repititive. And theres a LOT more of them. Is there anything specific that resembles from EQ1 to EQ2? For instance, camping a FBSS for 36 hours, Epic quests, groups structured in 'camps' and pulling from someones camps are forbidden. WoW is reckless in that sense. - Absolutely not, the spawns times for things are very very reasonable, and extreme precision pulling is rarely necessary. Do you lose EXP when you die? (I kinda like that part of wow). - You lose .5% XP when you die, that's right LESS THAN ONE PERCENT. The loss is so small you really will never notice it, and your equipment also goes down 10% like in WoW. (Also note that repair costs are far more forgiving here, though.) Are there instances? - Yes, they are MUCH different than regular dungeons, which are fun in their own right. The instances usually have scripted events and are harder to complete, yet faster to complete than clearing out an entire dungeon. (EQ2's dungeons are about 5-6 times bigger than WoW's) In tradeskills, is there a definitive way to seperate yourself from the others in your profession? In wow I hate how every alchemist can do all the same stuff. No possible way for it to actually be 'valuable'. I remember in EQ1 finding a maxed out tailor was very very very rare. - Although you will all make most of the same stuff, getting to level 70 crafting is a big achievement, and when you find rare blueprints etc. etc. You can make rare items, and each item has different quality levels, depending on how you made it. Gear. Can you create gear comparable to the best drop gear? - "Mastercrafted Gear", which I talked about above, is roughly equivalent to the mid line-best gear you can find in small one-group dungeons. Although raid Legendary/Fabled gear is better, a character in Mastercrafted armor is generally quite effective. Lastly, how does loot work? Is there a rarity system like wow? Where do you find the better loot? Is there 'random world drops'? - Loot in EQ2 is, similiar to WoW. You will, during your life time, probably get a rare chest drop from a normal mob, but it probably won't be very good. The ways to get good gear are just sticking in dungeon groups, the named mob (Mobs with names like "The Uber Killer&quot<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> droprate for rare chests is extremely high. And unlike WoW you don't fight your way to the last room for that ONE mob that drops something, ALL the named mobs drop good stuff. When on a good raid you can usually expect 1/2 of the raid to get some useable items, it's very nice.Hope I helped.

Myedved

04-06-2007, 11:37 AM

<cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote>Alright, I've got a little bit of a story behind this brief but eye-catching subject. Currently I have a lvl 70 Druid in wow. I jus reached the cap the other night. As I reached the cap I started reminiscing about hitting lvl 60 in EQ1 when that was the cap. It was great to have that feeling, and at that point I realized there is a critical aspect of wow that I cannot stand. That was so easy. I love being an alchemist, its great, I'll never lose my mats trying to get a skillup. No profession loses their mats. Kinda childish.. The soloability is great. I leveled to 70 in a decent amount of time, with the help of .. noone. As a casual player and no longer hardcore, I cannot sit around for an hour and a half lfg at a decent camp like eq1. I also cannot wait for 18hr spawn timers for my epic. The maturity level of the wow players bothers me. All of them are, well, 11 year olds, or atlease act so.I need some honest input. I don't need wow bashing, or immaturity, or you can be no better than they.I have some questions I would like answered, as well as your honest comparisons. I know you will like EQ2 more, as I am on your forum, I just want to know the variability of gameplay. Heres a few questions:I love tradeskills. Can you have more than two professions? Can you play much of the non-endgame solo? Is there anything specific that resembles from EQ1 to EQ2? For instance, camping a FBSS for 36 hours, Epic quests, groups structured in 'camps' and pulling from someones camps are forbidden. wow is reckless in that sense. Do you lose EXP when you die? (I kinda like that part of wow). Are there instances? In tradeskills, is there a definitive way to seperate yourself from the others in your profession? In wow I hate how every alchemist can do all the same stuff. No possible way for it to actually be 'valuable'. I remember in EQ1 finding a maxed out tailor was very very very rare. Gear. Can you create gear comparable to the best drop gear? Lastly, how does loot work? Is there a rarity system like wow? Where do you find the better loot? Is there 'random world drops'?Im not expecting answers to everything in one post. I really would just like some direction to make sure that this is what I actually want to do. I know EQ2 isn't perfect, I'm sure I'm comparing apples to oranges. However, I'd like to be serious about ONE game, and would appreciate any and all feedback. Anyone who goes through this, thanks for your time, please offer me some guidance. Thanks!--Negatorx</blockquote>I played WoW for a year, and left with 6 60's. I hit one year playing EQ2 this month, and I'm not remotely bored like I was in WoW.1. In WoW you could train two tradeskills, but gathering was included in those skills. EQ2 gives you all gathering skills free. Then you pick a base tradeskill (tailor,ect) and a secondary skill (transmuting, tinkering). 2. You can solo all the way to 70 if you desire. You will be bypassing a lot of rewarding and interesting group and raid content though. EQ2 has a mentoring system that allows you to play with lowbies at their power level though, so you can actually go back, get into a group and play in the old instances and do the old quests. Like WoW, if you want a shot at the best gear, you'll be raiding. 3. I avoided EQ1 due to it's reputation for extensive camping and downtime.4. You get XP dept when you die; it involves a small amount of killing/questing to get back to where you were. You do not 'delevel' though. It's debt against the future, not removed from your current total.5. Instances exist. Solo, group and raid. You can examine a 'solo instance timeline' on EQ2i.com for a list of instances for 1-70. There are raid and group timelines available as well.6. Tradeskillers are pretty much carbon copy. There is the recent raid related stuff others in this thread have mentioned but I have no experience with that yet. I have 7 crafters and they compete in the marketplace with similarly equiped competitors. In WoW you could get recipes uploaded particular to faction , ect. There is none of that here as far as I know.7. You cannot create gear equal to the best dropped gear, although the new raid stuff looks very nice. It is not , however, useless. Another poster gave a color coded hierarchy on equipment that was very useful and accurate. Compared to WoW though, EQ2 crafting is much better. In WoW almost everything you made was a means to skill up, almost all of it was useless. Here you can be effective in a mastercrafted suit.8. The loot is my only gripe. It sucks. In WoW you could still get purples to drop occasionally through brute forcing normal mobs. In EQ2 99.99% of loot is garbage to vendor. Pro campers hellicamp named mobs to get the good drops to sell at the auction house (broker). If you examine the forums you will see a parade of posts about "trying to get super staff of gack , mob is farmed 24/7 and they keep training me" , ect ect.

TheSource123

04-06-2007, 12:28 PM

<blockquote>8. The loot is my only gripe. It sucks. In WoW you could still get purples to drop occasionally through brute forcing normal mobs. In EQ2 99.99% of loot is garbage to vendor. Pro campers hellicamp named mobs to get the good drops to sell at the auction house (broker). If you examine the forums you will see a parade of posts about "trying to get super staff of gack , mob is farmed 24/7 and they keep training me" , ect ect. </blockquote> This I have to disagree with, the problem is that people are only shooting for this one peice of equipment, when the main advantage EQ2 has over WoW is that there are far more than 1-2 useful peices of equipment for any class, at any level. It must be the server, since I never see people camp names, I've seen people run around dungeons and solo names, but not camp them. In fact the loot drops are much better in EQ2, since the name density is much higher and their droprate is higher, although unlike in WoW you cannot kill normal mobs to do it.But, why would you want to kill 1000000 normal mobs anyways when you can just have fun with a group of people for an hour or two? EQ2's biggest advantage is that nothing feels like a "grind", why make it that way?

Veet

04-06-2007, 12:47 PM

One thing I haven't seen mentioned is the actual quests themselves, and their insane variety. The are collection quests: You'll find random little piece of a shattered moon or beetles or worms or butterflies or bones all over the place. Each of these items will be part of a collection quest and will give XP and a some rewards. There's even a super-collection quest which gives you goggles to find ever more collectibles. Language quests: when you start, you don't know orc. Kill enough orcs, you'll find "smugglers requisitition forms" that are written half in orc have in common. Find enough of those and you learn orcish. When you don't know what they say you get gibberish. Once you know the language - you know what they're saying to you. Usually stuff like "you can't defeat me" or "I should have trained harder". But the faires: Ouch, my wing! Lore and Legend Quests: also knowns as the "monster part" quests. There are 34 of these for a number of base monster types: orc, goblins, treants, skellies, etc. Each has a book. Find the book, read it, get a quest to "learn more about the monster". Kill the monster examine his parts (eye, brain, foot, spirit, etc), and you'll get XP and an ability allowing you to xtra damage to that kind of monster. You also get a trophy. To stick in your house. Did anyone mention the houses yet? You get one and you can put alllll kinds of stuff in it. There are even tradeskill quests! And there are 3 kinds of XP: Adventure XP - kill stuff complete quests. Tradeskill XP - make stuff (your tradeskill level is TOTALLY independent of adv. level) Alternate Achievement XP: find rare items, kill named monsters, complete level appropriate quests. Provides you with points for filling a new talent tree somewhat similar to WoW talent tree. there's probably more, but I gotta go back to work.

Negator

04-06-2007, 01:21 PM

Your responses have been perfect. I just pulled out my old cd's, I did play the game the first 2 or 3 days it came out. Im missing the 1st of the 10 CD's. Ive just begun the download, and heading out to work.If i have the key for the first set of eq2 when it came out... can I still buy the expansions seperate? or do i have to buy the combo and waste a CD key, that could have been used for a second account? I would be registering 2 core cd key's to one account at that point.Thanks again guys, I'm very interested.*crosses fingers* I hope my PC is ok with playing this or off to dell.com for me.

Fing

04-06-2007, 01:27 PM

<cite>Negator wrote:</cite><blockquote>Anyone who goes through this, thanks for your time, please offer me some guidance. Thanks! </blockquote>Take provisioner for crafting choice cause the game is horrible without good food. There aren't going to be many low levels like you so be prepared to solo. Get the EQmaps mod.EQ2 is a good game, I don't know why more don't play.

kellan123

04-06-2007, 01:39 PM

I was going to add my 2 cents, having played EQ1 for 6 years, WoW for about 3 months, then EQ2 since launch...but you guys have all covered it up nicely... So I'll just say this: One thing that EQ2 has over any other MMO that I've seen is a great community. I'm not kidding, the previous posters should be paid a royalty from the marketing dept. as your posts and lengthy explanations to help prospective converts are what keep this game #1. Good job, guys. Another good tip before you choose your class is to read the Class Discussion forums for your chosen class. Either play a bunch of alts to level 20 or just read those and make your selection. One of the main reasons people express discontent over their chosen class is because they put time and effort into a class that they shouldn't have chosen to begin with. (e.g. I am a templar, but I am jealous of a wizard's DPS, so therefore my class needs more tuning towards being a wizard)

Randell44

04-06-2007, 05:29 PM

I like the fact that every class can solo, though some classes need to be fairly well geared and avoid ^^^ mobs until they are green (my guardian for example). Still my AA are helping those that normally solo a bit less well.

Geothe

04-06-2007, 05:50 PM

" If i have the key for the first set of eq2 when it came out... can I still buy the expansions seperate? or do i have to buy the combo and waste a CD key, that could have been used for a second account? I would be registering 2 core cd key's to one account at that point". Just do this, if you want to play:Get a retail/box version of the most recent expansion Echos of Fawyder.The retail/box version contains its own key and includes the base game, the EoF expansion, as well as the previous two expansions (DoF and KoS). The best value you'll find. heheThen, if you are interested in starting a second account, you can use the key from your original boxed version later.

Illmarr

04-07-2007, 10:43 AM

Ziviz wrote: <blockquote>My biggest gripe about EQ2 so far:I can't seem to figure out how to view maps from other zones... or if it's even possible.</blockquote> Not possible that I know of, at least not while using default UI.