adamblast

Anyone actually play both, and have any contrasts they want to offer?

http://internetgames.about.com/od/mmorpgs/a/eq2_wow.htm
http://www.ferrago.com/story/4681

I know which is the general favorite, of course, which has more buzz and more glowing reviews...

But I'm wondering if someone like myself who doesn't like to team much--or really even like fighting much--might prefer EQ2 since it has a lot more complex crafting and no PvP yet...

I'd love to hear from anyone who plays/played both in deciding which one to ruin all my spare time with...

Groucho

I haven't played both games, but from talking to those who have, WoW is much more friendly to the solo gamer, whereas EQ2 forces you to group from early on. There are, of course, non-PvP servers for WoW as well.

I'm primarily a solo gamer myself, and so far I'm very satisfied with WoW. I also enjoy the crafting system, it's not terribly complex but it's fun for me...which is all that really matters. In fact, I had no intention of playing the game until I had the chance to try it during Open Beta. My experience during that time was enough to sell me the game.

SiberianLlama

I agree with Groucho completely.

I played FFXI for about 4 months but quit because I spent more time waiting for a good group to form (you HAD to have a white mage or you were dead) than actually playing.

I tried the WoW open beta and was really surprised and happy that you could solo so well even at higher levels. And not just the "warrior" classes either. I have friends that are both mages and priests who say they have no problems soloing in WoW.

As a human Rogue, I can solo pretty well myself. It's challenging because my armor sucks and I can't go toe-to-toe with enemies, but that's the whole point of being a Rogue. Ninja Stealth Attacks!

Groucho

This is why I eventually quit the original EQ. Too much time spent in-game but not actually playing. Even if you could find a group, you still had to find a camping spot that wasn't taken already. It would take 30 minutes to an hour before I'd be killing anything. I love WoW as a casual gamer, since I can log in, play a quick session, and logout.

SiberianLlama

Exactly!

I also love the fact that WoW is quest centered for experience points instead of just mindlessly pulling one monster after another. Yeah sure, you can just go out and kill random monsters to get XP and level up, but it's easier, and faster to actually do the quests to get XP, than it is to sit there, have someone pull a monster, kill it, wait until everyone heals, pull another monster, kill it, etc...

Also, as another plus for WoW, doing quests and killing things not only gives you XP, but also enough money and good equipment to support your character.

Besides the long waits to form a party in FFXI, one of the other things I hated most was that if you were getting XP, mindlessly killing one thinig after another, you barely got any money forcing you to "farm" monsters separately in order to get funds to buy new spells, items, weapons and armor etc...

In WoW, doing quests, solo or in groups, not only gets you XP, but you can finish up some quests and have enough money to buy new gear. Hunting for money and hunting for XP were totally separate in FFXI and you couldn't do both at the same time.

Darkfriend

I've played the week long "stress test" for WOW a while back and had a lot of fun. I basically solo'ed my Tauren warrior to 22 without downtime! Well some downtime, not "EQ" downtime (sitting in Oasis resting for 15 minutes while I vaccuum my rug... Ah, those were the days). I also did quite a bit of dancing; Taurens are great dancers

I also played an undead rogue (It's NOT ROUGE!! ) and warlock, and had fun with my dwarf pally (love the snow!). I only played one week but I just loved the experience. The quests were fun, rewarding and had me discovering the land gradually. I also liked the mailboxes; i sent a player some money with a thank you note when he saved my butt in a fight and I could not thank him fast enough. I got a tell 2 days later and he thanked me which was cool.

Now EQ2's graphics are amazing but WOW's graphics also pull it off. You feel like you are in a Warcraft universe; it just feels... right.

I've played EQlive for 2 1/2 years and I've played EQ2 for 3 weeks (and quit within my free month). My highest level character was 15 (also had a level 12 priest and a 14 sorcerer when I quit so here are my opinions based on my play time).

The good about EQ2:

-Voice overs on NPC's really add to the immersion.
-HUGE world to explore!
-Graphics are just gorgeous.
-Tradeskills are actually fun!
-Quests are cool and rewarding.
-When you fight a mob it is "locked". No one can help you, kill steal or buff you unless you "yell for help".
-Cool UI and easy to get into (good tutorial and you spend your early days on "newbie island" to get a feel for the basics).
-Quest journal can hold up to 50 quests.
-If you're a group whore, this game is for you!
-Free Griffon rides for long distance travel.

Now the bad:

-THE GRIND... Some people might disagree with me but when my level 15 Crusader was soloing yellow mobs I was getting 1% EXP per mob; which is expected but an old dog like me just doesn't have the patience anymore. I do not have 8 hours to grind solo while looking for a group... A game should be fun not feel like work.

-BE CAREFUL WHO YOU GROUP WITH. When you're in a group and someone in your party dies ALL members share the death penalty. This has gotten to a point where some members in my group would disband when some group member's health would get too low... This is ridiculous and some people just won't group because of that...

Those are my 2 major gripes with EQ2. But it was enough to make me quit.


I guess if I had a choice I would go for WOW (but I did not try any tradeskills) but hey, to each his own

adamblast

That may be enough to push me toward WOW right there. One of the main reasons I tend to play solo is because I'm usually a lamer compared to the others, and don't like getting hassled about it. I'm not anti-social, but even as a mid-level character in Asheron's Call I felt under too much team pressure whenever I was grouping... I got bumped out of my first and only guild pretty quick for not playing often enough or well enough...

The lack of grind-feel due to the abundants quests in WOW also sounds promising.

Darkfriend

Guilds like that can kiss my ass

My first guild in EQlive were mostly unemployed maniacs who had 2 accounts for 2-boxing and gave you shit for calling a bathroom break while grouping... Needless to say I did not stay with that guild very long. If I have to walk my dog or take a leak well sorry, the game will have to wait. There was one guy in that guild that supposedly had a mini fridge next to his computer and would actually pee in some container while sitting at the computer...

My second guild was more to my fitting; mostly adults with jobs, a family oriented guild with a relaxed attitude.

And adamblast, the shared EXP penalty in EQ 2 was a huge issue when I left. Why should I pay for someone else's mistake? Or seeing the sorcerer in your group "evac" when he senses things may go wrong... That just pissed me off. Some people on the EQ 2 boards are complaining of having too much debt; well if you're dumb enough to stay in a group that uses bad strategy and gets raped repeatedly it's your problem. I once died in a good group 3 times in 3 hours but I never noticed the debt because we got back on track well.

belboz

A lamer is some egomaniacal twit who starts a guild/clan so he can run it as his personal fiefdom.

A lamer is not someone who has his priorities straight and doesn't devote his life to a game.

As for the guy that Darkfriend mentions, a mini-fridge I can understand. Until I can train my dog or my girlfriend to bring me soda/beer on command, it seems like the next best thing. But peeing in a bottle!? That just clearly shows he's lost all touch with reality.

stingo

I'd say just about any MMORPG would be fun with the right people... Having played EQ for about 5 or so years now I've finally gotten to the point of having a regular group, in fact we use voice chat now while we play. It's a good time for all. I probably would still be EQ only but for the fact the endgame is built for guilds like Darkfriend mentioned.

Having played both EQ2 and WoW, I'm surprised by how similar they look and feel (like console games a la FFXI). Compared to the original EQ, they seem rather more forgiving of mistakes, even with the group experience debt. It's just that the shared debt brings out the jerk in more players. In WoW, the only penalty for dying is the time it takes to run to get your corpse (or the money to repair your gear if you use a spirit healer)... Ninja looting/hunting is a factor in both games I'm sure but I kind of like the lockdown approach they both have. At the end of the day, I don't regret spending my time in either of them.

Capo2002

I haven't played EQ2 but I am addicted to WoW, it might be the best game I've ever played. I really don't see how EQ2 can be better than this.

V-ism

I've played FFXI for a long time now. I tried out WoW during the beta, and I just couldn't get into it. I didn't like the graphics, the whole blocky warcraft 3 look. And I got many Everquest 1 and Dark Age of Camelot flashbacks playing it. I'm sure I didn't give WoW enough playtime to really get into the meat of it. But for now I won't be playing it nor EQ2.

Feneant

I played Wow in beta and got bored extremely fast. The crafting was so easy that you could master your trade in a day or two. People also start setting up bots just to fish automatically and make money. The game seemed to be fairly direct, do all your newbie quests, moves to larger area, do quests there, then move to another area, rinse and repeat. I also hated the people, there was no RP, it was all d00ds yelling about how they shouldn't have to pay to play. I got up to level 13 and quit.

I play EQ2 now and am having a better time. Of course I spend more time crafting so I'm amusing myself with that. It's extremely hard to craft in terms of finding the goods and the time it takes. It took me perhaps 100 hours to reach 100 skills points in my main crafting skill while in WoW it took me maybe 2 hours. Not many people will have the dedication to become masters so there might be a lot less than WoW. (Although they are caving in to the whiners and making it easier so you might end up with 100 masters of each type which is counterproductive if you ask me).

In terms of groups, I don't recommend joining a random group in EQ2, Darkfriend has it right. You might get a newbie who will get you all killed or join with a fool who will leave at the first sign of trouble (even if he caused it) because he does not want to shared the experience debt. If you play EQ2, join a guild of likeminded people (in terms of playtime and quality) so that you can group with them. I group with the guild only or I craft if I'm alone. I might on rare occasions join groups that form up for a quest only- but I tell them exactly that. Some people join you and when you kill the 10 mobs they need for a quest, they leave immediatly. We had 5 of the guild deep in a cave and some schlub asked to join at the end because he wanted to complete a quest and get some loot.

Out of guild groups = bad
guild groups = good!

Still, even with all that, I prefer Everquest 2 as the level of maturity is bette than what I found in WoW and the general quality is also better.

Oh, and if you like questing, EQ2 has perhaps 10 times the amount of quests that WoW has. I though WoW had a lot of quests when I played, but in EQ2 just by talking to NPC's, I had up to 40 at a time. Bear in mind most are tasks, but its' the same in both games.

flashburn

Yeah, but the only way that could be possible is if you have an unlimited (or very large) amount of money so that you can buy all of the ingredients needed from players, for a given tradeskill, instead of harvesting them yourself. Most people increase their tradeskill while they level, until waiting until they are level 60 or whatever to start one.

It is impossible that you could gather all of the resources needed to max any tradeskill in a day or two, even if you spent all 48 hours farming.

For instance, to finally reach Master Blacksmith (Weaponsmith or Armorsmith) it would take around 4000-6000 of various different ore from low level, to extremely high level zones. That is not counted the additional ingredients you might need.

darqleo

One of my Evercrack friends was telling me that one of the groups he was with was ticking him off (he didn't do anything to provoke whatever they were doing to him) so he jumped his character out a window to kill himself and give them XP penalities.

Reminds me of another co-worker, in a military MMORPG, who tried to join a team who were taking off in a chopper and they were being d*cks to him and wouldn't let him on so he lobbed a grenade into the chopper and they all went bye-bye.

Groucho

Exactly...I was going to call shenanigans for the reasons you gave, but you beat me too it. Also, to fully max out a given tradeskill you have to seek out the Artisan for that skill, who is usually hard to find in a high-level area.

As for "d00ds" and lack of roleplay, it's unfair to compare a free beta to a released product. There are several RP servers on WoW...indeed demand was so high they had to open more after the first couple days. I play on one, and it's a very different environment than beta. So are the Normal and PvP servers for that matter.

stingo

People roleplay in these games? That's the first I heard of it - I was going to do rp when I started MMORPG'ing, but found I was practically the only one. ymmv as always.

General Zod

I've now played both games...

Everquest Good: Very nice graphics, the depth and the textures used are amazingly. Also each character has a voice and a personality (they act like they are cold, or bored, or whatever). The quest journal and the way the game keeps track of quested objects for you is very well done. The tradeskills are superb and require thought and planning to make items. This keeps the items that are producable by players maintain a value. There is a very fast selection of races/classes to play and you can make your character look almost any way you like. Sub-Classes make the game more fun as well.

Everquest Bad: Lag. It's still there. I tend to be fine in wide open spaces or in zones with few people in it, once I zone into a dungeon or crowded zone the game crawls. I like to solo or play with just 1 other person and the game doesn't really appear to be tuned for that. If we get a quest our level and head into a dungeon we get trained or killed quite quickly. That's no fun. The XP penalty makes dying aggrivating - i'm not paying $14.95 a month to be aggrivated. You can only have 4 characters per account total - that's bad.

WoW Good : While the graphics aren't as crisp or detailed as everquest, there is much more animation and much more graphics in general. The cities are amazingly, incredibly, and in some ways un-necessarily huge - but it makes for a great visual. The quests are more fun and there tends be a sense of humor behind some of the quests. Leveling seems to come secondary to finishing quests, by the time you've run around and done a bunch of quests in a new town you've leveled up. That works great. No lag for me in this game, and the interface is great (especially with COSMOSUI). You can have 10 characters per server! W00t! No XP penalty for dying!

WoW Bad: You are quite limited to the races/classes available. So far, I haven't found a combination yet that I really like. The classes appear to be missing depth in that classes are locked in to their specific functions and there is very little crossover. The mapping system is not as refined as EQ. I find myself getting lost much easier - especially in the huge cities. Tradeskills are no-fail which causes the items created by players to not have as much value as they might otherwise. Quest journal does not keep completed quests in it so you can reference them.

stingo

One of the things I like about WoW though is the mail system - makes transferring items from player to player painless... (though you can't send something from an Alliance char to a Horde char and vice versa) Also putting together groups is much easier too, with not having to be in the same location to group up...