Worst ever mmo? 62 Everquest 2

Discussion in 'Tips, Tricks, FAQs, and New Player Discussion' started by RangerHoodwink, Mar 31, 2022.

  1. RangerHoodwink New Member

    I personally wasn't happy to see the words "worst ever"and "EQ2" in the same sentence ☹️



    We might need to education Mr Josh Strife Hayes on what a real mmo looks like.

    Hoody
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  2. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    Hail Ranger,

    yeah, I actually saw that video a couple of days ago and wanted to comment on a few things, seeing how the guy isn't exactly completely trashing EQ2, and even praising it at some point, but he does get a few things wrong, some of which were pointed out by a commenter called "Neiloch" further below the video (allegedly a former QA employee that worked for SOE back in the old days). Haven't been able to comment on YT yet, no time thus far.

    If you check out his other videos, you will see that he is asking the same question ("worst mmo ever?") when it comes to many, many other mmos - pretty much everything on the market MINUS / except for *drum roll*: World of Warcraft. In his defence, he is planning on doing a series on "worst mmo ever?" for WoW too one day though, he just hasn't as of this writing, and we don't know if he ever will. In fact, in the very same video that you posted further above, you'll see him say things like:

    "This game is incredibly similar to WoW"

    "EQ2 didn't fail because it was bad, it failed because it released at the exact same time as something remarkably similar to it that was just better (WoW)"

    And then he goes on to post videos like these:



    1. If anything, WoW is similar to Everquest, because both EQ1 and 2 came first.

    2. We all know that Blizzard took the genre by storm, but for many reasons. I do not consider WoW's virtual world being "better" than EQ2 one of the reasons for this. To me, EQ2 has always been "better" than say WoW, as a game / mmo that is, so this is something that is highly subjective and dependant on your point of view and personal taste or preference. Name recognition, strong marketing and strong influence / connections in the PR and media sector gave big blue a huge advantage over the competition too. Among many other things. These are factors that a lot of ppl completely underestimate. Nowadays we are seeing a turn of events and big blues good reputation is crumbling more and more within certain aspects of the community, which is also a strange turn of events (???), if you ask me.

    I understand that everyone has their own opinion and point of view, which is fine, I'm all for freedom of speech / opinion, but I do have to question some of these Youtubers endgame sometimes (not necessarily talking about Josh here), which are pretty much saying stuff like: "everything else on the market right now is worse than the genre king WoW, because..." etc. To me it feels like an indirect or hidden advertisement for WoW.

    A trend that you can also see here, for example:



    Also in Nerds defence, at least he took a shot at Warcraft III Reforged.

    So it's nice to see some ppl address one or two things from time to time:

    [IMG]

    Luckily, we do have a few other Youtubers out there taking a more neutral position when it comes to EQ2, AoC, Star Wars the Old Republic and more:
    • Eldergamergirl
    • Swtorista
    • Doctor Nachoz (a channel that I really enjoy watching, but I don't like all the politcal videos that he has been posting on his gaming focused channel as of lately. Ppl should have a secondary channel for stuff like that)
    • Stonelegion
    • And many more


    There are a bunch of mmos out there that have been shifted into something that Holly calls "maintenance" mode, see video above, where even though a game is still online, active development has come to a complete halt, leaving the game in a frozen state in time or history, but this is not true for the Everquest franchise. Both EQ1 and 2 have had their ups and downs, there is no denying the fact that mistakes have been made, but the fact is that they're still here, are still getting huge content and client upgrades (64-bit, graphics updates such as gpu shadows, godrays etc.), still have an active and loyal following and are still pretty good supported overall. And then we have a promise that there is much more to look forward to in this regard. Sure, our community isn't as big as it used to be during the golden days, but that also goes for the player numbers in World of Warcraft, which have declined over time as well. No mmo out there will give you perfection, and being a live service game also means these worlds are subjective to change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse, but that applies to each and every single mmo or live game out there. All of this being said, I don't consider player numbers to be an indication for the overall quality of a game, but instead or rather an indication for its popularity. Popularity doesn't always equal quality. For example: A lot of ppl love the music coming from Justin Bieber and the likes. I hate it - not gonna lie here. I prefer Mozart, Bach, Hans Zimmer and more.

    I'll just leave it at that. Just my two cents on the subject.
  3. Tanto Done, finished, gone.


    EQ2 "failed" because it dared to do things differently. WoW appealed to the lowest common denominator, the kind of players who buy the new Call of Duty, Fifa or NBA game every year no matter how expensive and no matter how identical it is to last year. EQ2 originally had features which made it hard. Stuff which punished player for mistakes, it was complex and needed to be learned. This doesn't sit brilliantly with the instant gratification crowd and it's partly why EQ and EQ2 had such strong (if not huge) communities. I personally disagree that WoW launching right after EQ2 was a nail in the coffin. I think those players who jumped ship to WoW wouldn't have stuck at EQ2 long term anyway.

    What was left after WoW took the lion's share of the MMO player base, was still a sizeable and solid community of players. In my opinion, it was sustainable with proper and competent management. SoE and Daybreak made catastrophic errors along the way to actively dwindle the player numbers. It's not really been natural emigration, it's people leaving with a dark cloud over them because the game they love is being so poorly run. In better hands, this game would still have a decent future.
    Khavii likes this.
  4. Regn Member

    • Didn't remove auto-attack.
    • Didn't replace encounters with natural aggro that happens as a result of the mobs distance from each other.
    • Too old models/animations/textures.
    • The oldest maps (except Faydark which came later with the fays and Darklight Woods which received an update) are too massive and spacious, feeling void of nature, NPCs, and players. Antonica is the worst. It isn't a desert, but is made like a desert, like Commonlands is. Thundering Steppes is forgettable because it looks like Antonica and Butcherblock Mountains had a baby. Everything from Level 1 to 40 is insanely boring because it all looks identical, almost. The game doesn't truly become interesting until Desert of Ro and the Overlands, perhaps Lavastorm.
    • The default character movement keys for A and D turns the camera instead of strafing, and the correct run animation for running with A+W and D+W will not activate unless you hold down the mouse button, and this has never been changed since the game's inception as if it is still trying to make people play with those default settings.
    • 32-bit software limitations forces everyone to play on the lowest graphical settings in groups/raids.
    • Too many active skills (redundancy), forcing the use of macros or using 6-12 hotbars that covers the entire screen. Why the Brigand has 45 different stabs that does the same exact thing, but with a bit of a cooldown/damage difference, is beyond anyone's comprehension. All of those abilities can be smashed into 1-3 abilities, and then the cooldown can be reduced so that the player can use the ability faster, and doesn't have to rely on auto-attacks to fill the gaps.
    • Threat windows shouldn't be necessary to tank.
    • Encounter windows shouldn't be necessary to tank, or play.
    • The experience window shouldn't be a massive blob that takes up 15% of the vertical space on screen.
    • You can't filter your buffs/wards.
    • You can't filter debuffs on targets.
    • Skills that activate other skills doesn't make a visual trigger.
    • Agnostic Dungeons should never have been implemented. Players should instead have received double XP full time for running through the older zones (not the new ones).
    • Transmute should never have been implemented. It effectively robbed the market of all lower level items for new players to trade.
    • Kronos should never have been implemented. It destroyed the economy, for good.
    • Platinum drops (and only platinum) from raid bosses should've been removed when the players were too high level, including mentoring down. Items can still drop, for appearance, but not platinum for platinum runs.
    • Solo dungeons should never have been implemented.
    • Mercenaries should never have been implemented.
    • Familiars should never have been implemented.
    • Overseer should never have been implemented.
    • Heroic Opportunity should never have been implemented, let alone reawakened.
    • Deitys should never have been reawakened.
    • Mounts with buffs and items should never have been implemented.
    • Receiving the mythical weapon, then the conversion into a buff, should never have been received for free when reaching a certain level.
    • Adorns should never have turned into such a massive ordeal that items now have 3-10 adorn slots with a rainbow color to choose from on all items, having to add and remove adorns every time you change up an item, making the adorns so relevant that you could almost run in the nude with but the adorns on you.
    • Temporary adorns should never have been implemented, because it adds yet another thing you have to remember to a long list of things that you're barely able to remember already.
    • Ethereal trackers should never have been implemented, and if it were, its vendor should've been moved to the most recent expansion so that players could see its relevancy.
    • Panda quests should never have received an adorn collection that lasts through expansions, and if it were, the quests and vendor should've been moved to the most recent expansion where players could pick up on it instead of getting told that they exist somewhere not relevant to the current expansion.
    • Players now have to be in full H2 gear before they can do H1, which doesn't make sense. It tells new players as well as oldtimers returning to the game to piss off until the next expansion arrives.
    • All of the the new quests are restricted by other quests.
    • All the new zones are restricted by a confusing mixture of quests and levels from a confusing mixture of older expansions.
    • Nobody knows what Combat Effectiveness is.
    • Nobody knows what Combat Mitigation is.
    • Nobody knows what Fervor is.
    • Nobody knows what Critical Overcap is.
    • Nobody knows what Weapon Damage Overcap is.
    • Nobody knows what Fervor Overcap is.
    • Nobody knows what causes Legendary, Fabled, Mythical Critical Damage.
    • Nobody knows the difference between Weapon Damage and DPS.
    • Nobody knows why Armor Mitigation, Block Chance, Avoidance, Parry, Riposte isn't relevant compared to Potency, Critical Bonus, Resolve and Fervor.
    • Tanks are Barrage Protection buffers now, that's all.
    • Healers now have to spam heals 24/7 because if they stop for just a moment you die instantly in 2-3 hits.
    • The game is now made to revolve around the Advanced Combat Tracker, a third party program, that occasionally fails when you try to do the Suite of Screams, so that you will have to die until the Advanced Combat Tracker decides to work again.
    • The devs stopped working on the quest indicators that they originally worked on until Tears of Veeshan (blue areas and dots on the map).
    I'm sure there are more, but these were at the top of my head.
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  5. Arclite Well-Known Member



    I watched it yesterday and was wondering if it go down in bad taste if I was to post it on forums but I am glad someone did.

    The vlogger obviously did not appear to have spent a lot of time figuring out things but to be honest he had some really good points and I sincerely hope the DEV team and HR do watch this from an angle on how the game is currently perceived by a new player.

    For example, A tutorial pop-up specific on the key elements of the game really should make an obvious appearance where a new player is given a bit more context on what needs to be done. Final fantasy 14 has a decent system where every new mechanic introduced has a "smack in the middle of the screen" tutorial pop-up for a player to understand the basics of. Can get a bit intrusive but not as intrusive as the jarring "all access/pay us now" pop-up that rears it ugly head often for a f2p player.

    I think there are a few things in the video that can be improved upon to make the game attractive to new players and given that it had over 350k views within 4 days goes on to show that people are interested in watching something like this and this is as free advertisement as eq2 can get.
  6. Pink Poodle Maid of the Evening Storm

    It's the name of his specific series of videos. Look at his channel and you'll see a lot more games with the title.
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  7. Arclite Well-Known Member

    Actually in one of his other videos he stated that in this "worst mmo ever" series on his channel, he plays mmos that are bad so you don't have to.
  8. Tanto Done, finished, gone.

    It's practically impossible for a vlog like that to really explain the problems with EQ2. They'd have to sit down over the course of a couple of days and interview long term players. EQ2 is a bad mmo. Not the worst, but it's certainly bad. Oh all the ingredients of a good game are there, but it's just a horrible mess now after years of not being looked after properly. They lost too many players through poor decisions made by people promoted beyond their competence, poor engagement, poor customer service, cynical monetisation, the list goes on, and now keep it on life support as cheaply as possible whilst trying to bleed the players for as much money as possible until they eventually have to sunset it. My two accounts were cancelled last month as I'd run out of hope that it'd get better, and I just realised that my spare time is valuable. Too valuable to waste it on a game that's not being looked after properly.
  9. Riverbear Active Member

    Auto Attack is a critical foundation to combat. To suggest removing it is to self-illuminate the need to play a different game.

    To indicate Bulwark is the sole function of tanks is to admit you don't run with a tank worth running with. A proper tank is the heart and soul of any group. It is the height of dismissive low information to equate a tank only to bulwark.

    Surprisingly, Regn did manage to state one absolute truth in his post - that being Kronos have forever ruined the game economy. Full marks there.

    Be well.
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  10. Carynn Well-Known Member

    I found the video to be eye-opening for new players that the devs should definitely watch. The title of the video is misleading. I did not recall that new hotbars didn't auto open. The glaring missing connectivity if you choose the Qeynos route as a starting area with tutorial direction is terrible. The vlog gives EQ2 a lot of props for its gameplay and interest, and the negatives are the not-so-smooth solo routes for early levels and the empty worlds since everyone is at endgame. The whole "it died" in the video appears to be based off this lack of people in the new areas and the number of players listed on Steam. But it boils down to having to take the time to retool the starting areas - especially the Q/F connection points to the outer burroughs. The pop up instruction guide at the very beginning that gives you the info on how things work is an auto-closer for new folks. It needs to be integrated more into the game.

    Of course, all this takes staff and time to do, which isn't something in abundance at EQ2. Which is sad for those of us who still love this game, problems and all.
    LisyxDoll, Geroblue and Riverbear like this.
  11. Tanto Done, finished, gone.

    Out of choice. All of it boils down to choice. It absolutely doesn't have to be this way.
  12. Pink Poodle Maid of the Evening Storm

    He also says EQ2 isn't bad it released at a bad time
    Twyla likes this.
  13. Boldac Active Member


    These two really are the essence of what went wrong. And I would even add to the too many skills by saying too many redundant classes. Take the tanks for example. The guardian and zerker could have just been the "warrior" and split later via AAs making them more interesting. Same with monk/bruiser.

    That brings up another point. Class identity is completely wiped out almost across the board now (and has been for a long time).

    It is too late to change the bulk of what is wrong with the game, but on the off chance there is an EQ3 in the works, hopefully they have learned from their mistakes.


    P.S. WoW was popular not only because it catered to the LCD, but because you could run it on your Commodore 64. It was average, at best, imho.
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  14. KwwB New Member

    The funny thing is watching Josh's video reminded my of playing EQ2 back in the day and wanting to play again! Hyped for Varsoon!
    Twyla likes this.
  15. Sturmlocke Linux enthusiast playing EQ2 via Proton.

    [IMG]
    Look meh in mah eyes and tell meh that I'm pretty and that you love meh.
    Geroblue likes this.
  16. InquisitiveRat Shy Artist

    Honestly, I've watched quite a bit of Josh's Worst MMO Ever series, and it's not what the title suggests, a good portion of his videos on this he even says that the MMOs are actually good, just either released at a bad time, or just didn't have something unique enough to pull in a crowd. While I do think he does get some things wrong, he is right that EQ2 did release at a bad time, It released too close to WoW's release and, as a result, WoW overshadowed it because it was an already established franchise with a massive fanbase that's been around longer than Everquest, so, even though EQ1 was a massive success, EQ2 couldn't compete with WoW and unlike EQ2, it didn't run like *** on most systems. (seriously, this is a MSI Alpha 15 laptop and EQ2 runs like *** on it) If WoW had never been a thing, EQ2 would have probably been one of the most popular MMOs out there. It also didn't help that EQN's failure to release probably killed the franchise further.

    I also agree with Josh saying that there's too many redundant skills, and, I also agree with Boldac that there's too many redundant classes as well. Kronos definitely should have never been implemented since it completely ****** up the already jank player economy.

    As much as I love EQ2, it is very, very buggy and flawed and a lot of the choices they made for EQ2 were really rather baffling.
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  17. Sleppen Active Member

    Well, since we're on the subject, I'll toss in my three cents.

    1. The game was built around a Qeynos vs. Freeport dynamic that never really worked. A big part of this is that "good" and "evil" aren't that different in most MMOs. People in Freeport are rude, while people in Qeynos are polite. Lucan has regular executions, while Antonia gives speeches. Okay. Other than superficial stuff like that, there is really no difference. This may seem minor now, but back when the game was released, Sony made a big deal out of the Qeynos vs. Freeport dynamic. It was always lame and largely irrelevant. This isn't a PvP game.

    2. The game was rushed out because Sony wanted to release it before WoW. It really needed work, as shown by the massive changes to the game in the early years (e.g., the complete tradeskill revamp). Ironically, Ultima Online was rushed out to get ahead of EQ1, and it had a lot of problems as a result. Sony seemed to take the wrong lesson from this. It didn't work anyway, because Sony had made such a mess of EQ1 toward the end. The brand loyalty was running pretty low.

    3. The combat dynamics are just weird. I'm a soloist, so I can't speak for those of you who group and raid. However, in the recent expansions, the basic combat dynamic for me is to aggro a bunch of mobs and wipe them all out with an AOE. It's one thing for my wizard character to do this. But it's the same with my warden, my monk, and others. Even when I'm not AOEing, most mobs are one-shot fights. The solo dungeons are more challenging, but really not by much once I've got the top-end solo gear. So I have 4-5 rows of hotkeys for lots of duplicative abilities (I do periodically go through and weed them out), but most of the time I'm just mashing an AOE button.
  18. Geroblue Well-Known Member

    Hmm... I haven't played other MMOs for around 7 years now, but I did play 15 others in the past. I did go back and lay WoW around 3 years ago. Still didn't care for it... trite quests. Waste of time.

    I haven't been able to AOE all mobs... most of the time I can. But there are times it is a close call. Mostly I use Jennis and therefore molo.

    Some mobs that are red to my characters, kill my character, sometimes I pull a rabbit out of a hat, and survive. Some red mobs can be easier to deal with.

    Overall I like EQ 2. but there are an increasing number of things, most already listed, that I don't like. I play this game to while away my idle hours. I enjoy most of the holiday events.

    I doubt I'll leave anytime soon, but some changes do worry me. The decrease in rares is one of them.
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  19. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    Someone needs to learn the difference between a noun and a verb when used in a sentence--especially when you're using "education." I'm reminded of the scene from Con Air where the actor talks about defining "irony." I did have a good laugh when I read this, so much appreciated.
  20. Ramblon Member

    He has a whole series of videos - 63 Worst MMO's Ever. He's not saying EQ2 is literally the worst one.
    Spindle likes this.