Why EQ2 over WoW

Because EQ2 quality control is so much better than WoW's! Oh, wait a minute.

Masakari@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Im sorry, but it would seem that you are much more suited for wow. unless im not reading what you are saying correctly. Every RPG I have ever played has been a grind fest. Wow likes to hand you things for little effort, but once you get to end game its lets you down with the massive grindfest and no progress. It takes about a month and half of doing arenas to get one armor piece.

I personally love harvesting, I even make lowbie alts to harvest noob areas for rares, and feed them higher level mats to get their tradeskills up so they can make stuff for me.

as far as maturity goes, It would be imposissible to say that there is no-one imature that plays this game. but from my impression as a whole the community is of a higher standard than that of warcraft. Alot more helpful players, alot less your mom jokes and insults to someone asking a simple question. Apparently my experience has differed from yours.

Phaedrella wrote:

of course there is no quality control, they want your money regardless of who is paying them. In my experience, which means this is just my opinion. I have ran into very small amount of d-bags in eq, and extremely large amount in wow. Im not saying im right, this is what I have experienced.

Lunareklipse wrote:

I honestly think that EQ2 exceeds WoW by leaps and bounds in terms of content. This is a lush, gorgeous, differentiated game with many interlocking levels of risk and reward (although the former has taken a plunge in the past few years). What irks me to no end about this game, however, is the persistence of minor bugs (see my griping about Runneye quests in the relevant forum) and glaring problems in class design and/or balance. These things go on seemingly for an eternity; players do a lot of moaning, obviously, but the oodles and oodles of constructive criticism that crop up in the official forums by the truckload fail to find any corresponding degree of initiative on the side of developers. I think this partly goes back to the fact that EQ2 is severely understaffed. I mean, one person in charge of classes? Give me a break. I also don't want to suggest that there isn't a lot of wrangling over game design and disparities in the WoW forums. Having played that game for a fair while, though, I can attest that neither minor bugs nor growingly obvious issues in large-scale game mechanics go unaddressed for very long. Sometimes filling out a bug report in EQ2 or making a critical post in the forums feels like screaming into the wind, with nary but a schoolmarmish community manager to enter the fray and tell everybody to be nice.

Phaedrella wrote:

In terms of this I highly agree. playing wow for acouple years, and just recently returning to this game i cant say much for any problems that I have ran into here.

but things do get fixed, changed, handled, and address in wow rather quickly. but the problem is most of the fixes and nerfs are based around pvp since they are trying to turn the arena into a E-sport, which is like who can click buttons the best? I dunno.

I havent had any run-ins with bugs or glaring class issues yet since my return. when I played in 2006 I didnt really have many glaring issues either, but I dont doubt they exsist and I dont doubt the game staff is minimal in comparison since they have only a handful of server Plus I only ever see one in the red. They obviously have a much smaller player base here.

Like most in this thread, I played WoW for a long time. Three years to be exact. I came from EQ1/EQ2. While I loved the original Everquest, I just didn't have the time to devote to leveling a character. So I switched to EQ2 right after it first came out. Unfortunately it was a disappointment to me. When a friend of mine told me about WoW, I decided to check it out.

I started with a warlock, got her to 40, got bored, started a paladin. Got the paladin to 60 and when they released the first expansion, I started a blood elf mage. That was my only level 70 character.

Those that are saying leveling in WoW is very easy are right. I am the type to create tons of alts because I tend to get bored quickly with a character. Even with as many alts as I could have, all over level 30, plus two 40+ and the one 60, I also had time to level the mage to 70.

The quests in WoW got boring to me, and while I enjoyed PVP from time to time (especially world PVP, which unfortunately died a lot after Blizzard made stupid changes), I didn't enjoy being nerfed every other day. Like another poster mentioned, it's not fun logging on and finding out that your best abilities have been majorly changed.

EQ2 is far superior to WoW in basically every way. The graphics are much better, the classes are more appealing, the content is fresh and the tradeskills are very fun. The only negative is the fact that sometimes I think there are too many class choices.

Anyway, I would suggest EQ2 to anyone that's getting tired of WoW and the latent immaturity of the playerbase.

Lunareklipse wrote:

WoW's a great game, but I've gotten bored with it. That doesn't mean that I didn't enjoy it while I played; it was a lot of fun. Blizzard is just slow when it comes to putting out expansions. And yes, the whole "E-sport" thing was a bad idea (at least in my opinion).
There's a segment of the EQ2 community that just comes across as elitist. Take your own posts in this thread, for instance. In describing EQ2 you use words like "intelligent" and "mature"--with the implication that anyone who likes WoW isn't either one. Which isn't to say you're elitist, only that you tend to come across that way.
Then there's another segment of EQ2 players that complains that WoW (and in some cases recent EQ2 changes) somehow caters to "People who want everything handed to them." But then if you look a little closer, you notice that it's these same people that suggest using EQ2i and other spoiler sites to find out answers to questions and finish quests. Which puts them firmly in the "Wants things handed to them" category.
I'm also curious to know what it is you guys think WoW "hands you". I played for 2 years, and no one handed me nothin'.

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Masakari@Antonia Bayle wrote:

In terms of real world statistics, I think it's been shown that the average age of EQ2 players is a bit higher than that for WOW. So in a real sense, the overall community is more "mature". This doesn't mean that you can't find immature people playing EQ2. Every village has its idiot. But, in general, my observation has been that the worst of the "Chuck Norris Joke" crowd plays a bit but never makes it out of the 1-9 channel, and gradually they get bored or frustrated and go elsewhere.

As for the use of EQ2i and spoilers... how people use them vary. Since there is not a good "EQ2 Manual", having the wiki opens up a lot of general information - like the Soloing Timeline, which gives you an indication of what zones are appropriate for what levels. Drill down, and you can see where the questgivers are for a given zone. You have to drill down AGAIN to get to the step-by-step spoiler. There are also many informational pages there that cover more general information, such as how to use the Norrathian mail.

I dunno how WOW plays - my neices play it, and I didn't care for the graphics myself so I never tried. Not every game is for everyone. But we do hear from a lot of WOW refugees who like EQ2 better, and the reason THEY give is often "more mature environment". Go back to the top of this thread, I am pretty sure an ex-WOW player started it.

Phaedrella wrote:

I also play WOW occasionally and I have never seen a game with so many occurances of "stuck" mobs and mobs that can somehow melee you from 30 yards away, while stuck underground.
Overall I would say that for the amount of money pouring into Blizzards coffers, they do a pretty poor job of fixing the tons of "micro-glitches".
For lack of bugs, I would rate EQ2 as one of the best around. Every game has some, you can never test for every single possibility. I recall in EQ1 there was a stat or buff bug that was not discovered for 4 years, yet nobody noticed it until a new dev was going over the old code.

Masakari@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Im certainly not trying to sound elitist. and I wasnt attempting to come off saying anyone that plays wow is not intelligent or mature. I still jump on to chat with some very good friends I have made, and play some lowbie battlegrounds on my twinks. The game attracts all ages I knew ppl in my guild that where in their 50s.

Just in my experiences playing on the duskwood alliance side, I couldnt log-in without the trade chat being bombarded with linking of legendary weapons, the change a movie title to have murloc in it, ect ect. with all this going on, you would see someone ask a question, and someone respond with a "noob" or just dont even help them at all.

So just from my personal experience in both games. I feel people in eq are more helpful and act more mature. Maturity has nothing to do with someones age btw. These are simply my opinions and im not making comments directed towards everyone that plays either game.

Besides, I just recently came back to eq, and found it to be so much more involved, Im not trying to act as a fan boy towards either game. The classes seem alot cooler, although some are sort-of similar its still more fun playing a ranger here than a hunter in wow

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

I'd agree that EQ2 probably doesn't have as much appeal to younger players as WoW. But I also think you find the highest % of chat morons in the 18-30 age group. Kids just aren't that spiteful and bitter (usually).
That solo timeline is pretty useful, thanks. It would have saved me a lot of blundering around (though blundering can be fun, it can get frustrating).
I like a lot of things in EQ2 more than WoW myself. One small thing is the NPC voices--that adds a lot of color to the game. I just think you have to take statements such as "I played WoW for "X" years and it sucked!" with a grain of salt.

Lunareklipse wrote:

I played on Duskwood when it first opened. Back when I started playing, Blizzard would open a new server every month or two and I could never resist re-rolling and doing the 1-60 race all over again. That probably extended the life of WoW (for me at least) by a good 6-8 months.
EQ2 is an engaging game. I'm glad I gave it a try (and thanks to Sony of the Legacy promo).

You can add three more accounts to the EQII subscriber numbers as my family has moved to this game from WOW. We all play on the Antonia Bayle server. I had orginally played EQII for several months before leaving for WOW and now I wish I had not done so. EQII has improved dramatically from my 3 year old recollection of the game. It still does take a fairly powerful PC but 3 years has had a way of bumping up the power of the family PC's.
WOW has grown very stale with a lack of content. Also frustrating is the continued readjustment of class balance to a more PVP game. PVP is not my familys' cup of tea so to speak and the adjustments severly hurt PVE gameplay. WOW is really three games now: the easy a very quick level to 70 game, the PVP grind gear game, and the raiding end game. There is a massive difference is difficulty between the first part of the game and the end game for which the first part of the game does nothing to prepare you. WOW raiding is more like part/full time job and there is constant tension about who gets to go and who does not. Too many of end game raids in WOW are contests of who can dance around the mob and dodge things the best.
The EQII game world feels much larger and realistic looking than WOW. Also, EQII has so many more quests than WOW there is no comparison. Character advancement is also much better with many more options for customization. I dont really know how the EQII raiding end game compares to WOW but at least it will be fun reaching level 80.

Drakosani wrote:

You don't have to wait until level 80. There are raid targets from T2 up. Some are contested x2 or x3 raid mobs in open zones - it's fairly easy on Lucan D'Lere to call for folks to form a pick-up raid for these, and I bet AB is even easier with its greater population.

But you can organize raid groups for the raid instances as well. My guild does hit lower-level raid zones as guild folk want to go to them. Right now we're doing a lot of T7 raiding since we have a lot of folks in that level who want better gear to let us do some T8 raiding soon. The true joy of EQ2 is in the journey, not just the destination!

Sigrdrifa@Lucan DLere wrote:

Just be aware that pick-up raids are usually a slaughter, and not in the good way. While I appreciate the difficulty of this game compared to WoW—these things are pretty relative—it can be too much for a lot of EQ2 players. The reflexes, attention to detail, and methodicalness (as well as upgraded gear) that raids require are rarer than you might think, and I'm fairly certain that the reason groups can be hard to come by is the fact that people tend to pair up with previous acquaintances who have already shown themselves to be capable. The only thing that could ever make me join a raiding guild, actually, would be the promise of able groupmates during downtime, not fabled loot.

I'm a long time WoW player who's just started playing EQ2 again. I actually have a computer now that can run it!

Why EQ2? Because I realized how screwed up the PvP in WoW is. I only really cared about 2 things; leveling up and PvP. Now that PvP is borked, EQ2 and its whole "its the journey, not the goal" feeling seems very attractive. Get ready for some rambling:

I've read this entire thread and to be honest, there are A LOT of misconceptions about WoW and a lot of things that people here don't like about it that I find funny. The most commong thing is the "cartoony graphics". The only MMO I ever played before WoW was the original everquest. Even with the Luclan model upgrades, they were closer to WoW than EQ2 is. I do find it funny that EQ2 has alternate models that again, IMO, are more "cartoony" and seem to be trying to appeal to the WoW crowd. I'm probably wrong about that, just seems that way to me. There are areas of WoW that look truly beautiful and there are actually console commands you can use to enable graphical features that Blizzard has chosen to make hidden. EQ2 has very good graphics, but the animations are a little wonky. Everything seems to be sped up. In WoW an alligator chasing you may move fast, but has a reasonable animation speed. In EQ2, someone has sped up the film, he looks like he's in an old Keystone Kops film!! I've shown EQ2 to a friend who played WoW and the original EQ and he was turned off because of the animation and the "plastic" look of the characters! This just goes to show that its all a matter of opinion. I actually like the old plastic models, they have more character! The animation doesn't bother me, I like how the mobs look!

WoW does a lot of things right. Many may feel that its "dumbed down", but I think they took out a lot of the tedium. I think that EQ2 in its present form is about right in that regard too, actually. Saying EQ2 in its present form and WoW are dumbed down is like saying a car with a automatic transmission is dumbed down from a standard! Its a little silly...

As for the bad community, well, I've already had to leave the 1-9 channel. Already asked for help, was called a noob, made fun of because I complained about the lack of info about EQ2 (seriously, EQ2i is nice, but remember WoW has Thottbot, Wowhead, Goblin Workshop, WoW jutsu, Allakhazam, etc. Each has a TON of comments from players, making things very easy. More people playing, more sites, more info. Making the transition has been difficult in that regared). I'm playing on AB and so far, I haven't seen any indication of a smarter, savvier community : /

Having to buy skills from the broker and/or making your own would normally bother me, but I'm making an exception and going to give EQ2 a chance. I don't believe in making the player work for something as basic as very tools he/she needs to gain levels. Gear? Yes! Tradeskills? Yup! Special items/titles/perks? You bet! Combat abilities and spells are where I draw the line since without those you can't progress. Without skills, you can't kill mobs. Without mobs you get no money. Without money you get no skills! Anyway, I'm giving EQ2 a chance because its been very fun so far and I basically got all the xpacs and adventure packs handed to me for free with this latest promo.

EQ2 has the edge in lots of areas it seems. The game has more depth. Leveling up is actually meaningful. The UI is second to none, IMO. In WoW you basically HAVE to download 3rd party mods. Blizzard has actually had to incorporate some of these in the default UI to keep it usable. The graphics ARE very good. It was ahead of its time in this regard.

I'm the type who likes to solo/duo with my wife and keep to myself. It looks like EQ2 is a bit harder for a player like me than WoW, but it has more depth to make up for it. And with the borked PVP in WoW....that matters A LOT to me right now.

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/.../2/feature/2097
another fight over WoW vs. Eq2 in the comments over a article posted by a writer new to the game.

WoW vs EQ2...
1. WoW has more players.
2. Why? WoW is more fun.
3. EQ2 players will point out that EQ2 is "harder", but that's actually not true. EQ2 is harder if you play it like WoW. Example:
A white EQ2 mob is closer to an orange or red mob in WoW. A white quest in WoW is like a blue quest in EQ2. A blue quest in EQ2 is like a gree quest in WoW. And so on.
In fact, EQ2 is easier, because you keep getting XP 10 levels above the creatures/quests.
4. EQ2 crafting is better.
5. EQ2 crafting is better for about level 1-30. Then it's just a mind-numbing, "please kill me now" painful excercise in stupidity.
6. Graphics. EQ2 does look better. The animations are better.
7. Gameplay. WoW plays better. EQ2 is still stuck in EQ1 days of having you do 6 hours of mind-numbing crap before you can play for 1 hour. You think farming in WoW is bad? You're delusional.
8. PvP. Hello? "E-sport" might be a dumb idea but EQ2 PvP is even worse.

Phaedrella wrote:

I must of course disagree, since my guild runs two open raids pretty much every week and we're pretty successful at these. We typically have been raiding T6 and T7.

Not to mention that I've seen literally dozens of pickup raids called for a lone contested raid mob that killed it handily. People kill Anguis, the Scarecrow King, and the Windstalker Rumbler regularly as I am passing through Antonica - you hear the whoops in /shout, even if you didn't come over to watch it happen.

Yes, EOF and T8 raiding is a lot more challenging, and does take more than tank-and-spank -- those raids you do want a group that has worked together mostly. But I have seen a couple of pickup Shard of Hate raids get in, kill a couple of names, and wrest fabled loot from the trash mobs.

And if you think that uber raid guilds don't do sometimes a dozen pulls as they are learning an encounter, wiping everytime something goes wrong, well you're not paying attention. The uberness and dedication of a raid guild means they die A LOT while they tackle new stuff.