To me, WoW is the "5-button" game. I don't know any casting class in EQ that doesn't wish for more than 12 spell gems and then there's all the AA buttons, clickies, etc.
well from what I can tell you are capped on ability points, cannot create guilds, your spell ranks are limited, limited chat functions, limited access to the bazaar. but maybe those things do not affect game play /shrug I just don't like the direction most of the MMOs are going with the real money markets, not just EQ... and I'm fine with the complicated UI, my only point was to say it's not easy to learn as a newcomer. holy crap, 9 years of your life has been on EQ?!! I guess I'm just a bit more casual lol but hey, to each his own
WoW a 5 button game? maybe if you only DPS in a raid, personally I preferred PvP and I never had enough slots of all my abilities, but thats what addons are for lol
Spell ranks aren't that different from rank 1 to rank 2 to rank 3 (raid only). The ranks were instituted starting at level 71 so before that it was just one spell for all (except for a few expansions where they had a raid version called Ancients - GoD/OOW expansions specifically). I've never been a fan of how they do ability points. It SHOULD be limited for someone who isn't funding the game (anyone who thinks the entire game should be accessible for free players needs a small reality check-note, this is a general comment and NOT to Kikya directly) ... but the fact that your overall cap (including earned) doesn't go up and only the cap itself goes up is a flaw I feel. I do also feel we should have 1,500 or 2,000 AA's allowed for free at this point in time. Someone remind me if a silver player can have a trader in bazaar or is that just gold? (Silver being a $5 purchase is a small amount). For many years we didn't actually have a bazaar so /auction and /ooc were used to sell or buy items, plus /tells.
Once you get to 70+, the game starts pushing you, at first gently and later more directly, to upgrade to Gold. If you know the game real well, you can squeeze quite a bit of game play out of it while remaining Silver, but if you are a dedicated player who spends a lot of time at 80+ and especially 90+, you really want to go Gold. And if you think about it, the Gold status in EQ means paying the same $14.99 that you pay for WOW -- the only difference is that WOW gives you the first 20 levels for free and EQ gives you the first 70+ levels for free. Is that a great deal or what? To be honest, the UI wasn't that great when the game was released in 1999 -- but hey, it was the first game of its type -- and although subsequent upgrades have made it somewhat more modern, they have also added a lot of layers that don't gel together very well. So yes, the learning curve is steeper than in WOW and many other online games. "9 years entitled" means that the account has been "active" for 9 years. It doesn't mean that the account owner spent 9 years playing it non-stop Also, some characters have very high "play times" because they are/were Bazaar mules, which, in the not so distant past, had to be logged on in order to sell items. It's one of the oldest jokes in EQ that you must be pretty bad at EQ if, after over 1,000 days "/played", your character is still level 1
Well, if you prefer PvP, then I am afraid you may be disappointed in what EQ has to offer. It's never been the game's strong suit and you may want to read up on the current state of the one surviving PvP server before you create a character there. PvE servers have "Arenas" where characters are automatically flagged PvP and you can also "duel" just like you would duel in WOW, but it's not popular.
I did say I preferred PvP to raiding in WoW, nobody comes to EQ if PvP is their interest, far better games for that, even over WoW, with PvP really only being faction v faction in most places. If I wanted PvP, I'd play a shoot'em up game... but as I said, I am here to experience EQ for what it is, not to make it into another game, but it's nice to know there are people that are willing to spend a moment or two helping a new player get her bearings...
Heh, I started playing in December 2001, and I have (haven't checked in a while) over 365 days played on my main, and very little, if any of that is in the bazaar, and I've taken several very long breaks (one time, over a year) from the game. So, yep, that's an entire year of my life spent playing EQ. That's kinda sad if I think about it too long.....
hehe! Actually I am one of the more casual of EQ players you will find. The important part of my sig is time playing Walter since 1999 is ~11 days, that is an average of less then 20 hours a year with a few caveats. Walter isn't my main, so yes I do average more then 20 hours a year playing EQ. Short story, been playing RPGs for decades and one of the characters I started using in the 80s was Walter Wego. It is something of an inside joke among family and friends so I create a Walter in any CRPG I play. Walter isn't even my oldest character in EQ. What happened was I bought early and a group of us that had formed a guild in 'that other MMOG' came in mass so the first characters I created on EQ used the same names they had in that guild. As the unique name restrictions became obvious I made Walter to reserve the name just in case. Ran him up to level 20 so he could get a last name. My kids never really got into EQ so there isn't much call for him. He is my most ooc toon so reacts to questions like 'Hey Dad, can you babysit for me Sat?" and will group with a Dark Elf youngest son w/o giving him a bunch of grief about not liking Inkies. They played a lot of WoW and although I played some, I didn't find it as compelling as most people seem to do. Oddly enough, he is one of my few old characters w/o a couple of xx's after his name. I should take him out for a spin.
If anyone can tell me how to mix items in a mixing bowl... oh my goodness, have been trying to do this cooking quest for 30 minutes and cannot figure out how to put hot water and oatmeal in a bowl. I have bowl, I have oatmeal and water... I tried combining in the oven, until I read a guide that said "you open your mixing bowl up" well I right clicked, and right clicked and held, ctl right clicked, same with the left click, tried to put the bowl on a table. I know I am missing an essential piece, but my goodness... sigh, sometimes I despair of this game lol
Buy a mixing bowl. Put it in a top-level inventory slot (the ones your backpacks normally sit in). Right click the mixing bowl. Click "Experiment." Ctrl Click your Oatmeal to select just one of it and move the Oatmeal into the bowl. Ctrl Click your Water to select just one of it and move it into the bowl. Click Combine. Once you succeed at performing the combine at least once, you can close and re-open the tradeskill container and just search for the product item by name (Ordin's Oatmeal I am guessing) and the game can then find the required components automatically without you needing to manually click them around among your containers.
oh man, thats nice, id been manually entering each item lol, I knew there had to be an easier way but I didn't know what it was
Never would have figured this out. Thank you so much for taking the time to write it down! Oxvoidgreat
A little warning: Almarsguides recommends thirdparty tools that might get you in trouble with the GMs. I would advice against using that site for advice regarding the subject of thirdparty tools. The rest of his guide is useful information though.
Just shy of 9 years, but at least the person they quoted posted for the last time a year ago versus many of the other posters being gone for 5+. It sounds like they got something useful out of it, so there is a silver lining.
