Why EQ2 over WoW

Dulwin wrote:

Quality > Quantity everytime, it's just a shame the original EQ2 development plan didn't have this in mind.
24 classes is far far too many in a MMOG, do not get me wrong diversity is good but did we really need
2 Bards, 2 Shamans, 2 Chanters, balancing must be an absolute nightmare and it has been. However over the years they have done a fantastic job. From EoF onwards this has been the EQ2 I have wanted to play. The only problem for me now is comming in at low levels and finding no-one to group with. Joining a guild is not really an option as although some do play their alts you cannot expect to stop having fun at their level just to satisfy my needs.
My only real problem with EQ2 is the combat. It feels far to quick and the lack of crowd control, admitted my highest chr is only lvl 33 so have yet to see all the game but in dungeons it all feels a bit rushed. Everything else I really really like.
Probably about time I looked for a good guild. Runnyeye.
I still play WoW and the original game is very good. Blizzards main fault was allowing PVE gear into BG's, should have had your PVE gear and a separate armour set for BG's, only allowed in BG's. (Look at the "u" in armour).

I hate posts like these that degrade other games.
This post was a complete waste of time, that would be like making a post on the WoW forums saying "Why WoW over EQ2?"
99% of your responses will be biased.
I played WoW since release, recently I decided to give EQ2 a try.

On EQ2, I have...
33 Assassin
29 Necromancer
12 Brigand
And at least a level 20 of every other class, literally. (I only named those 3 because they are my favorite)

On WoW, I have...
70 Warlock
70 Mage
70 Rogue
70 Warrior
70 Druid
70 Paladin

Now that you know all that let me give my opinions on this debate.. incoming wall of text x2.

Player versus Player. A majority of the complaints I see here is "PvP this, PvP that". Newflash Sherlock! World of WARCRAFT was designed to make PvP a TOP priority. Anyone who has played ANY game made by Blizzard knows this. Diablo, Diablo2, Starcraft, Warcraft 1,2,3. Do NOT try to base WoW by saying they are "ruining" PvE because of the PvP that is what the game was DESIGNED for. And by the way, the current best PvP weapons on WoW are PvE drops.
Graphics. Another complaint I see, graphics. Saying World of Warcrafts graphics are "cartoony" is like trying to turn a Soap Opera on TV into a cartoon show. It doesn't work. Play ANY game made by Blizzard and they ALL have the same graphic design and modeling. Do not try to justify your opinions by how "bad" the graphics are. That is like trying to compare Anime to Cartoon. They are DESIGNED to be that way.
Game maturity. This is a fun topic. I have seen so many people try to say "EQ2 is more mature than WoW". And from what I can tell this is not true. World of Warcraft makes chuck norris jokes. EQ2 gets into politics. Both games have more than enough immature people in it and for those who try to defend EQ2 I can log in and take multiple screenshots of the chats and their "mature discussions" and point this out to you. World of Warcraft is a COMPETITIVE game. If you can't take the heat stay out of the fire. I, personally, believe that the people who complain about the immaturity of WoW are really just crybabies. I even tried playing on an EQ2 PvP server, the maturity was bad if not just as bad as on WoW.
Simplicity. From what I have seen in both games is that EQ2 makes the game seem complicated from the fancy text dialogues, and the highly detailed graphics, but in the end it is just as simple as WoW. You quest, you grind, you group in both games in the SAME exact way. Both games need a tank, healer, and a dps. I am going out on a limb here but, I have a 90% feeling that EQ2 and WoW are the same exact way in raiding. Both games have healer rotations. Both games have decurse \ magic removal from teammates (assuming EQ2 requires that). Both games need a tank who can take X amount of hits or needs to have X percent mitigation. Both games require X amount of DPS in a certain time limit. Only reason I say the DPS part is because in WoW you have X amount of minutes to kill a boss before it "enrages" wiping your entire raid. So please, do not try to say one game is more complicated than the other. And I am pretty sure that in EQ2 raiding you also have certain "events" come up where you have to become mobile or do something in order to survive. Example: On World of Warcraft, one of the bosses debuffs ALL your melee dps (excluding tank) and brings them to 1 health, you have 10 seconds to back off and run to a person who is marked as the "safe zone" before the boss unleashes an AoE that deals 3k damage or so.
Tradeskill simplicity. I just wanted to make a new paragraph for this. Are EXACTLY the same. On EQ2, I'm sorry but it doesn't require skill to press a button that has the same picture as the "Flaw" in the crafting. I personally believe EQ2 has easier crafting than WoW simply because in WoW you can only harvest 1 type of goods. In EQ2, who cares, harvest them all! Which ultimately puts the WoW market for tradeskill higher than the EQ2. Example: If your a Miner \ Blacksmith in WoW you can only Mine, you cannot skin, and you cannot pick herbs. But guess what? Blacksmithing requires items that only come from.. skinning!
Game Content. You guys like to say how WoW only releases content once a year. False. World of Warcraft constantly releases content that does not required to be paid for, unlike EQ2. On WoW they release new dungeons and even add new zones to the game through patches rather than making an expansion which requires you to pay. They only release expansions on, pay attention please, GAMEBREAKING material. Burning Crusade: Had flying mounts. Wrath of the Lich King (soon to be released) will have destructible buildings in which you can use siege weapons to destroy and of course, the first Hero class, the Death Knight. Those are GAMEBREAKING additions that the previous expansions will not have. For example, you cannot u.se a flying mount in the original World of Warcraft only in the Burning Crusade area.
Customer \ Technical Support. This is easy, they suck in both games. I'll give you my first "customer service" experience on EQ2. I was on my Necromancer and a guild member (level 75 Necromancer) just helped me complete some legendary light globe from a wisp necklace quest. (which was extremely fun quest to do) After turning in the quest to recieve the final item I went afk because like everyone else, I have things to do IRL (Yes, I hate the sunlight too) I had to run my girlfriend to work, and do various things around the house. I came back and had a letter saying "You have mail!". Upon reading it I discovered that my account had be "warned" for "afk botting". I sent a petition out and talk to them in the end they broke it down saying, "Deal with it.". Apparently my pet was killing some type of quest mob or another while I was afk BLATANTLY trying to exploit the game system. Don't get me wrong, I can name tons of people who have had worse done to them on WoW due to "poor" customer service.
My overall opinion. World of Warcraft is one of the most competitive MMO games ever released. My guess is that EQ2 and EQ1 players are not use to such an extreme competitiveness therefore they do not enjoy the game. Yes, trashtalking does happen more in WoW than in EQ2 more than likely but also you have to understand that trashtalk is a biproduct of competitive gaming. Everquest 2 has one of the largest content ever made for an MMO ( Maybe even more than EQ1 ). Though I really do hate the system requirements of EQ2, especially from viewing the chat I see the complaints about how EQ2 only allows 2gigs of memory so if you had more it wouldn't matter which is why so many people get "out of memory" errors. Also about processors not using dual-core or quad-core. I don't want to get started on this because I don't know enough.
In the end. In the end, we will all favor one game over another but that DOES NOT give you the right to bash one game because of your "horrible" experience preventing other people from trying it themselves. Like I read earlier, both games have free trial versions. So before you guys attempt to post one of these topics trying to backstab WoW in order to pull in players because their playerbase is larger just think of who is sinking lower in order to get something out of it.
P.S. You think you complain about WoW, go visit the WoW forums and see how much they complain about WoW and want to leave for WAR (Warhammer Online).

Conscript...I like your post. Intelligent conversation is always fun, but there's some things I want to debate in it Granted, I didn't read this whole thread, just the last page. I have raided plenty in WoW, in fact I even used to say I would raid in WoW, then play EQ2 for fun. I'm not degrading WoW here, just pointing out the differences and where you are wrong.

First, WoW is not a PvP game. When it launched it was no better than EQ in terms of PvP. Battlegrounds and Arenas were an afterthought, and by many accounts have ruined the game. Battlegrounds in SWG were much better thought out.

The only thing that makes WoW competitive is the sheer amount of "My arena rating is higher I PwnZ Y00" idiots. And your example of WoW's Chuck Norris jokes vs. EQ2's political talk meaning there is no difference in maturity, well...uhh yes political conversation is in fact more mature than Chuck jokes. Log into WoW for an hour and be in trade chat, and count the number of times you hear either A) Chuck or murloc jokes, and B) people talking about how much better they are than everyone else due to gear/arenas/HKs. Then log into any EQ2 server except Bazaar and keep 1-9 chat open for an hour. At least in EQ2 you get real people talking about real life. I do call that more mature.

WoW has some cool graphics, you are right. However IMO they are way over the top sometimes. I don't need blood boiling in my shoulderpads. Of course EQ2's graphics are pretty much all the same, with only hats being much different from class to class. I will give WoW credit in the sense that in the noob levels you do look like a noob, then you start to look more and more powerful as you get more and more gear. EQ2 used to have something similar before all these uber quest rewards came out, as you used to get rusty crap looking gear at early levels then polished shiny armor at the end. Now you can look the same from 1-80 if you want to. But that kinda works out since you can actually customize your character the way you want without regard to stat loss. Some like playing in a realistic looking world, where lions look like lions, and some like pretending they are Smurfs.

Sure grouping may be similar in both games. But it's time for complete honesty hour...go run Crushbone, or Runnyeye, or Nektropos Castle, or Deathfist Citadel to name a few...then go run any instance including all top raid zones in WoW and find one that even compares to those relatively low level dungeons I mentioned. If there's anything EQ2 has that stands out light years above the rest of the playing field, it's dungeon design. It's bad when a level 25ish dungeon is far superior in quality to the second highest raid instance in WoW.

Questing in EQ2 is far more involved. This is assuming you don't "cheat" and look up the quests. In WoW you grab the quests and open up your log and it tells you exactly where to go and what to kill. EQ2 you open up your log and you can be like uhh where do I go? Some things are mentioned in the conversation and you have to look back in your log. However while doing this you catch some outstanding lore and dialog.

EQ2 did PvP servers right. When you die you drop loot. What better risk vs. reward could there be?

WoW's content release sucks. The only thing they really patch in is stuff that wasn't finished in time for the expansion, or stuff they purposefully held out so people wouldn't beat it too quickly. That's weak...they KNOW their game is so easy people would blow through it, and the only way to stop it is to hold back content, then pretend they're giving us stuff for free. Hooray! They kept Black Temple out for a while, then when they felt enough people were hungry for it they released it. They did the exact same with Sunwell. Hey they even did the same thing pre-TBC. It won't stop, and it is silly.

Tradeskills are nowhere near alike. In WoW you hit a button to craft 30 things and you go afk. EQ2's crafting isn't supposed to be extraordinarily difficult, just a little more involved. It doesn't matter if you can gather everything or just one thing, especially considering most tradeskills require 2 or more types of materials. In EQ2 it takes far more than 375-400 crafts to reach max level and make cool stuff. Is it better for everyone? No, some people don't want to mess with crafting in EQ2, which is why it still has a market. In WoW, pretty much everyone has 1-2 maxed tradeskills.

Nothing makes WoW more competitive than EQ2, or EQ1, or UO, or SWG, or Sims online for that matter. I can promise you, and even put money on the fact that it's not competitiveness that keeps EQers out of WoW. I personally think EQ2 pvp is more competitive. At least there's purpose in it, and if you die you set out to get your stuff back

WoW is kinda fun. EQ2 is very fun. This is all IMO obviously. My number 1 complaint with WoW is the big bold blatant lie on the front of the box. "Over 10 million subscribers!" It's simply a lie. Sure it's decent marketing, and it may not mean much that it's wrong, but they are willing to blatantly lie to me before I even think about trying the game? WoW appeals to everyone. EQ2 does not. WoW bans millions of accounts each year and many people quit yet they don't take them off the total. EQ may do this, but they also don't put a huge sticker on the front of the box.

Customer service...ok log both games in at once. Write a petition in WoW. Give it a 30 minute head start, then write one up in EQ2. Keep both windows open! For each hour after you get a response from SoE and before you get one from Blizzard, put a dollar in an envelope. Then send that envelope to me, cuz I'll be able to get a pack or 2 of smokes with that money. Oh and if SoE actually helps you and Blizzard tells you "everything is working as intended. Is there anything else I can help you with today?" add another $5. Then I can get some beer to go with the smokes.

So in the end: I like both games. I think one is far superior in quality, and one in quantity. WoW is the welfare MMO. There's tons of people there, and they don't have to work for anything. That's its appeal. EQ2 is the pristine gated community in Beverly Hills, they don't have to advertise and spend lots of money to get their loyal community, the people that want to experience "the great life" find their own way there.

And for the real kicker...Lucan can kick Thrall's @!# !




Edited to add: WoW adds content through patches because the HAVE to or people will leave. EQ2 adds content because they want to expand their world and lore, not to keep people from leaving, but to make the ones that stayed have more fun where they're at.

Opti,

I hate posting on forums in general so I'm not going to debate back and forth.

You have your opinions, I have mine. In the end we each play the game that we enjoy more irregardless of how good or bad the other thinks it is. I just wanted to point out in my post that I don't want people bashing others games SIMPLY because they don't like it trying to make others become discourage from trying it out themselves and forming their own views on it. (Free trials example, I've never done it because I think its a waste of time and I'd rather just buy the game and pay the 15$ for 1 month of trying a game out instead of trying some isolated thing or whatever they do on trials.)

Just so you guys don't flame me out of ignorance. I love EQ1 AND EQ2, I was a diehard EQ1 player. I think they are all amazing games with their pros and cons. I played EQ1 since forever and I played EQ2 on release and like the rest, hated it, and came back later.

Maybe the reason I find that I dislike EQ2 more than WoW is simply because I am such an EQ1 fan that I really was hoping EQ2 would be the same playstyle and classes with just better graphics and other things and I was disappointed with how they made it. So therefore, it has been hard for me to enjoy SoE's EQ2, but I try. My account is 900+ days old, so believe me plenty of playtime.

The only thing I argue is, I find it very true WoW has over 9 million subscribers. I mean think about it, over 6 billion people in the world, I wouldn't doubt it for a second. And even if they lied to me, it still has a vast population and wouldn't upset me.

I'm not saying you're wrong in your opinions, and not saying EQ2 is the greatest game ever. I also wish it was more like EQ1 in a sense. I don't think anything will ever compare to EQ1 though, not even itself.

The wow subscriber thing is proven though. Sure it's still no slouch in the numbers department, but you still have trouble getting PuGs. The mentality I found at 70 in WoW was "If there's nothing in it for me, I'm not going to that dungeon," even with all those people. They are both games, both meant to be fun. But this is the EQ2 forums, and not many here are gonne be like "Ooh no don't play our game go try the competition!"

And not many are gonna come in here looking to see if WoW is any good Although you would prolly get a more positive response here than in WoW's own troll infested forums.

Opti wrote:

I have found that mentality in alot of MMO's including EQ2. A good example of a bad example your down in a dungeon trying to get updates for everyone in your group for your fabled item.. Ok after you get the update for person #2 he suddenly says "Well I need to go now cause of <insert excuse>" which now can throw the whole group back to square one depending on the role that person was.

Anyways every MMO has it's pro's and con's. The real thing I can say thou, is try them out and see if you like them. If you like it play it, if you don't then don't. Games are ment to be fun, when they aren't then obviously it's time to move on. Although I would say only playing to level 20 isn't a good measure of any MMO IMO.

Opti wrote:

This comment I totally disagree with I'm afraid. To try and slate Blizzard for releasing free additions to their game while praising SOE for "Expanding their world" is totally biased. SOE have a record of releasing half baked expansions every 6 months, EQ1. They also released instances at a cost, expansion packs, although I did like them . Both release content to keep the money rolling in and that is all. Now it may appear I am critizing EQ2 but I am not, it was just that comment, . Sorry Opti
As for the difficulty of either game, none are difficult, most MMOGS have the same formula.
Bring enough dps to kill a mob and enough healing to keep the tank alive.
Scripting throws a few spanners in the works but once the pushing edge guilds have worked it out everyone else follows suit.
The difficulty that most people appear to be talking about is probably the speed at levelling, unfortunately all us MOG veterans know how these games work now and can get experience quickly. Long gone are the days of grinding mobs for that slither of blue, unless it was a hell level, then that slither was probably jsut a mark on the screen, .

However one of the previous posters has hit the nail on the head.

Play what you enjoy, luckily I enjoy them both, just don't seem to have the time these days.

WoW blows cause it has children
children = abominations
abominations = bad
bad = WoW
'nuff said
EQ2 Rulez!!
LOL

Jalamu wrote:

Not quite so true anymore, since they dropped the expansion and content price. That's something I was going to comment on in Opti's post but arrived a bit too late.

I know they dropped the expansion packs, that is why i typed released, with a d
Anyhow to answer the original post question, which I ahven't in any of my posts is simple.

Depth

You have at least a level 20 of every other class? How many accounts do you have?


Anyways I have read this entire thread. I like both games. I like everything about eq2 better though. Well everything except its craptastic armor and weapon graphics.


conscript wrote: