The game that was better than WoW (and probably still is)

davewhite04

davewhite04

davewhite04

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I remember Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft being reviewed in the same issue of PC Zone, about 6years ago.

They both scored 95%.

Everquest 2 was a more deeper and serious mmorpg with a proven pedigree. I also found out it had a fantastic mature community (never met a complete ass once).

I went for that as the demo was great.

It was my first mmorpg if I remember correctly and I was amazed by it, apart from the fact that even a super computer at the time couldn't run it on full settings it was mint.

The crafting was a joy to behold, the combat required lots of skill, which I loved. Little things like buying your first house and furnishing it with your own built furniture using the materials you gathered yourself was a great diversion.

I was a dark elf monk, who left freeport and settled in the high elf city(the good guys) after completing the betrayal quest. This made my character stand out a bit, and since a dark elf can't become a monk in freeport because he is of evil alignment I got a lot of tells laughing about my character selection.

I joined a guild in freeport, which I really liked to join a guild with the good guys, a tough decision but it had to be done. Many other great adventures folled including massive raids with involved tons of players from various guilds.

One day I tried WoW as a hunter and trained a wolf, I was a dwarf. I really liked this idea. But after trying the crafting, combat and having a few chats I give up and concluded it was massively overrated. No skill in combat req. Ditto with crafting and a, lets say a community that resembled a nursery. I didn't like the graphics either, or the lack of variety in the character creation.

I went back to EQ2 quickly. Eventually because of other commitments I left EQ2 and sold my character on fleebay (I still regret it).

Couple of years later I had time again, went back to EQ2 and just didn't have the energy to level up again, it is much harder or takes longer to level than WoW does. I went to WoW. got into and spent some time playing it, and eventually, even though it was different I really enjoyed it. Crafting, Character creation, lack of skill for combat and a sort of snobbish attitude to raid requirements at the end of game was a joke though. "at least 5800 GS, less and you will get booted" what a shocking attitude.

I've give up both.

The point of this post is this. Everquest 2 in a somewhat restricted form(like LoTRO) is available as free to play. The graphical problems have been sorted, and it runs in flash (as far as I can tell) which is an amazing achievement. No massive disk space loss.

I highly recommend it. In my opinion PC Zone was the best and most trustworthy PC magazine that ever existed, and it didn't give out a score of 95% for nothing.

If you've got the time I recommend you give it a blast:

Everquest 2 - Free to Play
 
i played wow hardcore for 6 years! quit about a year ago, might give this a try to just fill the nights when im bored at home!

any classes u recommend or tips?
 
Westie said:
i played wow hardcore for 6 years! quit about a year ago, might give this a try to just fill the nights when im bored at home!

any classes u recommend or tips?
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Well I enjoyed the original starting zone for the good guys, can't remember the name. But it is a small island. You start on a boat and eventually get washed ashore and start learning everything from there until you leave for the big city (inc crafting quests, which can be more fun than combat!).

As for class, this is purely personal preference like Wow I suppose. My first char was a fighter. After level 10 you can specialize more and are given 3 more branches of fighter related classes. At level 20 you are given a further 3 classes to specialize in, so you make it up as you go. Fighters or either tanks or DPS.

I chose Paladin, difficult to solo due to lack of DPS, as they are primarily tanks.

Must admit, I MUCH preferred the Monk, if I remember correctly you select fighter at level 1 for them too. They become a monk at level 20 I *think*.

Great DPS and cool weapons, dual wield etc..

As for crafting specialization, I would create armour that you would use. Unlike WoW the player created armour and weapons are actually fantastic.

Just a few ideas.

Some things might of changed, and I might of got mixed up with the branching of classes, it would be worth looking up a on-line manual to see the branching of the classes.

Good luck, if you play it. I might join you now and then in between my single player gaming!
 
I like the idea of having an actual house. WoW fails on the RP massively for me. EVen the RP servers have people called Leerooy, BEpala and Leeegolas.
 
eq2 didnt age anywhere near aswell as wow did, i thought eq2 was a much better mmoback when they were both fairly new though
 
Nothing can beat WoW, it's lasted so long at the highest level that it's near impossible to knock it off it's pedestal without Blizzard pulling the plug.
 
If I remember rightly they were both reviewed in the same issue of PC Gamer. WoW scored very highly whereas they said Everquest It was a victim of overproduction and received a very mediocre score.
 
is EQ 2 free to play and is it look down or 3rd person?

I may try EQ2 as heard good things about it and quite bored of being shouted at in WoW because I don't take raids serious enough and dont have top end gear as i have a life
 
wordy said:
If I remember rightly they were both reviewed in the same issue of PC Gamer. WoW scored very highly whereas they said Everquest It was a victim of overproduction and received a very mediocre score.
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which is a joke because eq2 pushed more boundaries where wow played it safe..

EQ2 is probably still the only mmo with characters that speak every line of text they say...

the game world was huge aswell and dungeons were scattered all over without beeing instanced to each party (though multiple instances opened when it was busy you could still chose to go in the first instance and fight for pulls)

EQ2's only downfall was it wasnt solo friendly when it was launched and thats probably one of the reasons a lot of reviewers didnt score it so highly.

to real MMO players at the time EQ2 would have been much better than the derped out WOW

wow was all about solo play and ease of access so it had much more apeal to people who had never played an mmo before
 
It sure has! You are talking about the Isle of Refugee and class system. None of that exists anymore. The game has four starter areas: New Halas, Timorous Deep and two older ones I wouldn’t bother with.

If you try the F2P version the free races are: Human, Half Elf, Barbarian and Edurite. Unless you going to be a scout (aka rogue) I would pick Half Elf since they get a tracking ability. Each race does have racials that fit a class, ie Edurite and casters, but they not game making/breaking.

Your free class are two of each basic type, ie fighters (your tanks), scouts (or rogues), mages and healers. There are loads of other races and class to unlock but I wouldn’t do that until you know what you are getting.

I rate the F2P mages vastly inferior to WoW and the none F2P ones. To a point I don’t like playing them, love my mage in WoW. They rely on the root then nuke mechanic. But EQ2 spell have a long cast time, high cool down and spell miss. Makes it too unreliable for me. Like I said the none F2P mage classes are much better.

I wouldn’t not agree combat more complex then WoW’s. The said longer CD often means selecting a skill comes down to what’s off CD, with sometimes only one spell available! Not much thought there what to use.

Healing a lot simpler then WoW. It has the same “triage, not everyone needs to be at 100% health” as Cataclysm but you only have a few spells to use and again often only one off CD.

Oh and crafting the most boring grind since WoW’s fishing and Archaeology. Much prefer WoW version but in EQ2 you do make things people want and wear.

Having bashed it I point out I still play EQ2 on the F2P servers. Got a 77 inquisitor (melee healer) and an 81 conjuror (mage pet class). Its much more like how WoW used to be. With a world to explore and some create dungeons (getting groups hard though).

I like EQ2’s AA system (aka talent points). You don’t get one per level but it’s an exp bar that fills up as you completes quests, kill mobs (especially bosses) or just explore the world. Once filled you get a point to spend. You can have 100s of points and 3 threes to spend in.

That plus the games excellent mentoring system does give people motivation to do old raid content, unlike WoW. You see random groups to kill a world boss for the AAs.

The holiday events are great. You just missed Frostfell (ie xmas and new year). It had dungeons and quests that gave great gear and house items. You can use the later to decorate your house. Some people go made for that but for me it more like a trophy room. The game often gives you house items as rewards. So you can go in there and remises about how you got them!

geon106 said:
is EQ 2 free to play and is it look down or 3rd person?
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Yes and no.

arknor said:
EQ2 is probably still the only mmo with characters that speak every line of text they say
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Er no. The voice acting gave up after the first 20 levels and they don’t bother with it now.

arknor said:
EQ2's only downfall was it wasnt solo friendly when it was launched and thats probably one of the reasons a lot of reviewers didnt score it so highly.
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Yeah it bleed customers to WoW because of that. I was one!! But it just as solo friendly as any other MMO now.
 
I never quite got past the graphical style of the characters in EQ2. It was like they initially wanted to be ultra realistic, but halfway through decided they needed to cute it up a bit. And they never got the hands quite right, your character always looked like he was wearing wolly mittens.

That minor gripe aside though, it's a fantastic game. I've never seen zone design that rewards exploration so much - so many hidden or out of the way places, and they really pioneered the whole click-an-item-to-start-a-quest thing, it was always great to find something lying around that started an unusual quest.
 
EQ2 was good, but the original EQ was better. I played the original on and off for 4-5 years. Went to EQ2 when it came out and remember being underwhelmed by it.

I have fond memories of EQ, especially the early days, but then it was my first MMORPG so I might be biased. I tried several others and they all paled into significance in comparison.

The community was generally quite mature which made for a great gaming experience and as MMORPG's were in their infancy at the time, people were more interested in working together, exploring and having fun rather than racing through the levels. Once the game started to change and attitudes changed, I left.
 
My PC couldn't handle EQ2 well and I got stuck as I couldn't find people to quest with despite getting it from launch. Maybe worth a revisit.
 
So what's the F2P implementation like? Is it actually possible to play it free with a bit of work, or is it just a glorified trial?
 
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