I've been searching for a MMORPG with a great community because I really enjoy playing with others. Sure, I do like things like PvE, PvP, becoming a strong player and the like but mostly it all comes down to meeting others and having a good time. So I'm giving Everquest ll a try! I've never played it before although I've heard a lot about it and I have some questions. - What is the community like? How easy is it to find someone to quest/grind with? - Will I be fine being a free player? I'm thinking of upgrading to silver if I really enjoy the game, how much better is that? - Which healer class has the best buffing ability? I'm crazy about buffs! - Any tips/advice you think a new player should know?
First off, welcome to the game =) I hope you'll stay. - Over all it's a pretty good community, better than most of the others attitude-wise I've played with. You won't find huge numbers of people crawling all over each other though, there is too much game, too many different areas for that. At lower levels you will have a harder time finding full groups, but the good news is at lower levels a duo or trio will be capable of doing most things and you will have fun doing it. -I personally can't recommend playing bronze at all. You are so limited with chat, if you are a very social person you are basically shooting yourself in the foot. If you get into an active guild right off the bat it wouldn't be too bad, but I personally like being able to chatter back in forth in the various chat channels available. Because of that I highly recommend the one time $5 fee for silver. Well worth the money imo. Of course I also pay for a gold sub so could be I'm biased there Well, they all have a variety of buffs. I'm partial to mystics though. There's a huge thread with a variety of information in it here. Some things I suggest: Eq2maps UI mod -- eq2 interface The default maps are decent, but these are much better. EQ2Wikia and Eq2 Zam are great sources if you get stuck on a quest or don't know where you want to go next. Eq2 Trader's Corner is THE place to go for crafting information Slash commands there's a huge number of them that you might want to use as you play or make macros with them Eq2Wire is a great news source & their EQ2U is wonderful for keeping up with your characters if you end up like me with multiples. Random info: You can get a mount for finishing your newbie questline in your home city, so do it =). Spells/combat arts upgrade differently here than they do in any other game I've played. They raise in both level and quality. The levels are of course when you get them & new ones you get as you level up are denoted with Roman numerals (II, IV, etc) . You can increase the quality of those as well. You get apprentice spells automatically as you level up. You can get upgrades to that though. Journeyman is made by crafters from common materials. Adepts are dropped from mobs Experts are made by crafters with rare materials Masters are dropped from mobs in rare (exquisite) chests often referred to in game as master chests There are also Grandmaster spells. Those you can only get every 10 levels starting at level 14 from making a choice between four different pre-selected ones in your Character Developement window (think default is L to open it).
At lower levels finding partners or groups might not come as easily as you'd like, however they are there. Try a more populated server like antonia bayle and announce in channels that you are looking for such things, it's pretty likely that someone will bite. No question about it, the one time fee for silver is barely optional imo, not much point playing on bronze - however going silver will satisfy you way up until level 90 or so, by which point you will know if its worth the money. As for healer utility.. They all offer something. Defiler: mostly defensive, have good debuffs Mystic: more offensive, arguably the most 'active' utility (as oppose to passive stuff), also decent debuffs Warden: good balance, buffing melee dps and also some defensive things, pretty much entirely passive Fury: some active dps buffs for mage dps, one powerful single target buff for another healer in raid Templar: almost entirely defensive, decent mix of passive and active Inquisitor: mostly offensive, some emphasis on melee dps over mage but offers something for both. Largely, perhaps entirely passive.
Thanks both of you for the information! I'm actually really liking the game except I've come to find that my computer is being a little grouchy when it comes to playing the game which causes a mild annoyance. I'm surprised my computer is having trouble with this game as it can run WoW at around 40-50 FPS, but I'm getting mid 20s here. I'm going to persist and see if things get better after some defrags and error checking. Crossing my fingers.
EQ2 puts a lot of stress on CPUs, especially with the default CPU Shadows turned on. You can switch to GPU shadows in Options -> Display -> Shadows. They should really make GPU shadows the default, even though the CPU shadow volumes are more realistic.
My CPU isn't well suited for Everquest 2, according to the requirements (although it does pass the minimum). I just checked out a guide on graphics settings for the game so after I finish defragging my computer I'm going to play around with them.
