I am not a veteran gamer or a hardcore gamer by any criteria. My first video game experience EVER was a stint in WOW, & that was only because the SO and their other best friend started playing during a boring ‘07 winter. I saw my quality relationship hours dwindling, so I joined in. Have to admit, I found out I liked online gaming. My SO & I spent all kinds of time playing together. Cataclysm came to WOW & I just quit altogether. I tried some other games, but they didn’t have the “home” factor. LOTRO had a good story & beautiful scenery, but I couldn’t get past the horrible character models & constant zoning. Guild Wars was fun, pretty, & engaging, but I didn’t want to leave pre-searing. Guild Wars 2 & Rift both had very strong points. But, there was something about both of them… I can’t put my finger on it exactly, but I simply never felt immersed. I read an article on massively a week or so ago titled something like “Games you should like but don’t/can’t”. That is exactly where GW2 & Rift landed for me . On to EQ2... it grabbed me. I don’t know why exactly, but the more I played, the more I felt drawn to play. There were some things that put me off a little; no long hair on female characters (Night Elf comes to mind here), my female Sarnak was just too big even at the smallest size, the Kerra needs something added to the head. I made both male & female characters, deleted & recreated until I was pretty happy with my arsenal of toons. (Except for the back of the Kerra’s head that is. The Charr in GW2 is, in my opinion a good mix of human/feline. There is something not quite right about the look of a female Kerra.) Now, the horse & its posterior thing. No matter what games I have played, horses, from the back don’t look good. They kind of appear as a weird upside down lumpy pear shape that does not move correctly. Since I spend a lot of in-game view time behind my horses, that is important, lol. The ONLY game in which I have felt good about the backside of my horse was Rift. The first mounts you can buy include 3 versions of a Fresian/Warlander/Medieval Destrier type horse that looks good any way you look at it, EVEN from the back. So…why is it so hard to make a game horse look good from behind? I am genuinely curious about this. I figure alot of you have been playing EQ2 for years now, & that shiny new feeling has maybe gotten tarnished. For me, being new anyway, it has that magic I missed. Everything from the easter eggs, meatbeasts, holiday festivals, Moonlight Enchantment, quests that take me from here to there & back again, HOUSES!!! (and all the things you get from everywhere to put inside & outside them) to the good, out-of-their-way-helpful, friendly community make this game a true purple “Shiney” for me! So…what games have any of you tried & couldn’t like? And…has the view of the back of your in-game horse ever bothered you?
