It's a completely valid mini-review of the Extended experience, and more or less completely in line with what I felt playing.
The game is still in beta - what is the purpose of a beta? To find and remove bugs before launch. SOE has forgotten this, and your unable to bug report when you find huge, glaring bugs.
For me, the graphics weren't a huge issue until I started playing with them. Comparing the average settings to the maximum graphics settings, the change is absolutely tiny, and yet maximum stresses my graphic card well beyond what a game like age of conan does.
While I enjoyed a lot of the 'EQ2' experience, the 'extended' part was not at all enjoyable. The fact that my spells will only be half the power of anyone else (from what I've seen) is just a further slap in the face.
If I was going to try EQ2, the free trial provides much more options, and the ability to actually try the game without wandering about like a one legged blind man.
The difference between Extreme Quality and Balanced is like Usain Bolt and a snail competing in the 100 mtrs, I suggest you go back and try again.
That is not a bug you ran into. You have an item left in one of your overflow spots that your need to delete in you character window. So, ITT: Noob who doesn't attempt to solve his problem except petitioning a GM and logging out. Not a fanboi started playing EQ2 yesterday had that problem found out what it was and deleted that item. Good game they need to work on some restrictions, but not many.
I played EQ2 the first year it came out and when i finally had time for an MMO again I had moved on to newer games. Extended gave me a chance to try it out again and hang out with some old friends. It has been fun and I even have a new person playing so I have sort of learned through them a couple of issues.
The overflow bag slow is not mentioned to a new player, that i could tell or them. So when it happened to them; they didn't know what to do either. Something you can easily overlook or be confused about because I am not sure I have seen that manner of dealing with full inventory very often in my other games.
The 2 bags and 2 bank slots are an issue that I really wish they gave you an option to buy additional slots, which gives me the only issue i have so far. The jump from silver to gold is too great and there is not enough available in between. The two items i may have considered buying, bank space and a class, are basically unavailable.
I get that they are trying to carrot you into a subscription. I also get that a subscription on EQ2X really is not as good as one on EQ2live (imo). However, I don't get how they think they can activeily compete this way with a game that is 6 years old. We are playing it between games cause our last possible choices all ended up being poor games.
To me the pop ups to upgrade, the statin cash setup, and tier system that says hey buy $10 of stuff get silver, after that subscribe for anything else you really want is more of what our group has stated as a SHAREWARE model not a F2P model.
But hey, while it's free i can suck it up and enjoy it with some friends.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
thank you for the honest review OP. I already made the choice YEAAAARS ago to give the finger to SOE and all their shamgames. This is just another example of how SOE does not give a shit about the users, just the money in their users pockets. They absolutely ruined my beloved POXNORA a bit ago im so glad I sold my runes on ebay for some goooood cash. Spent over 900 on that game when Octopi ran it and sold my stuff and got back 600... thats better than nothing and I am so happy I did that because SOE literally just shits all over all their games.
Ive started today and stopped playing at lvl 4 myself, one thing that i liked alot was the fact that while downloading the gameclient and installing i could actually play the game lol first time i saw something like that at made a nice first impression on me.
But than when i saw the class/race restrictions it started a bit anoying me the graphics sucks ass but the gamplay /combat was looking very nice .
Over all a nice game but this is 2010 where so many mmos comming out that this one gonna get burried beneath them.
Btw SOE sucks ive never played a game from SOE just hurt from other people stories and this is what gives also a negative thinking when seeing a game made/published by SOE .
I am the punishment of God... If you had not committed great sins, God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you Genghis Khan
Well it is obvious by the op that he was only looking for afree game until RIFT,so in reality he shouldn't have any complaints.There is NO such thing as a free game,developers are not in the business of handing out free rides.
This doesn't mean the OP can't have an opinion ,but complaints nope.
As far as the restrictions go,yes they are really bad,because they will NOT allow a new player to understand the true experience of the game.I would go on a limb and say that 99% of paid EQ2 players would have long quit the game if they played under these restrictions,so they do not give the new player a proper feel for the game.
storage space is a HUGE pet peeve of anyone's in ANY game and by allowing only 2 spots both bank and player will elminate much chance of having a fun crafting experience.Also it does not allow much adventuring storage,you will need to sell stuff often.
Without looking at any of it from my perspective,i try to look at it from an SOE persepctive,what exactly are they running this server for?There is already a free trial,so no need for a feeling out type server,that part makes no sense.If SOE's purpose is to allow players to explore the mainland world with hopes of enticing them to eventually upgrade,it is not going about it in a manner that would have players stick around that long.
There is still one huge mistake that both EQ2 and Blizzard have with their games and that is the constant boring linear path of running from NPC>NPC quests.It becmomes boring by the first hour,you don't feel like you are in any world but instead are running from quest to quest to gather gear,there is no realistic RPG world happening here.What is happening is that even the WOW players are getting bored wit hthis design,i know i am completely turned off by it.
If SOE wanted to do something right,this was their chance to try something different,like add some voice overs,make some grouped content to encourage people to meet others,otherwise they will solo until bored then quit.SOE should have spent the last couple years taking this game and developing a few new ideas to test out fuure projects,this is doing nothing to encourage and people to dive into SOE's version of WOW.Use this server to have only a few zones and add in some nice animated sequences add in some npc action,some city seiges,mobs attacking villages,idk maybe a giant or two roaming the regions as a threat that takes 40-50 or so players to bring it down for some massive rewards.
Basically what i am saying is try something "different" don't try to make money rehashing an old game that is struggling and make it 50% worse and expect it to be successful,it's not going to happen, i ould expect SOE to have some common sense in that department.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
The two aspects of SOE's version of f2p that I find ridiculous are the armor and spell restrictions.
I get the other stuff. They are trying to make money after all so I can understand the bag space, races, etc.
But the spells/skills and armor restrictions? Give me a break. Just shooting themselves in the foot with that if you ask me.
Considering those restrictions you're better off with the two week free trial they have for the game. Because that's all this essentially is - is an extended free trial.
...and a rather shitty one at that compared to the other 2 week one that has no restrictions on it whatsoever besides the obvious.
EDIT: Lol...apparently you can't even use the broker unless you have a gold membership. I could see restricting it for free players far as limiting how many items they can have for sale but nothing? This is a really weak f2p concept imo,
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
The level design for EQ2 is one of it's biggest flaws. The zones are small, mostly liner, and any environmental details like mountains and cliffs are there to just make your back and forth, to and fro fetch questing take up more time than it really needs. The first 20 levels are the only tolerable for anyone not into masochism.
Around level 50 with some of the newer content this is alleviated. But it's a long and stupidly needless trudge through levels 21 to 49. Even with the newer content post 50 the inspired areas are far apart.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Some things are just dumb, like no broker access at all for free. So no point in gathering or crafting. You would think they would want folks to try crafting. Can't use the AA slider, arbitrary 50-50.
I am sure they will tweak what is and is not for sale at a later date though.
My brother experienced the same "Inventory is Full" bug as you and had to delete his character and start over as we could not find anyway to fix the bug. Now we are scared sh!tless and check our bags like crazy to avoid filling them up and reproducing this gamebreaking problem.
Anyhow ya Im pretty bummed with SOE's f2p model but it's not like I really want to play EQ2 its just a filler game till GW2/Rifts comes out and who knows maybe World of Starwars... I mean SWTOR might be decent as well.
I want to know what happened to the voice overs? What happened to the sound design? Playing the new areas it all sounds so crap, like real dead, no ambience and no voice overs. Also the character models put me off playing more than 5 mins.
Over the year I have installed and payed EQ2 a couple times so I was familiar with the game.
Since it was free, I thought I would give it a shot.
I played one evening, and a few hours the next day. I likely won't be back.
They gimped some key areas on the free accounts, (OOC and Bags for example) which isn't enticing me to spend money. Instead, it p*sses me off so that I become LESS likely to sub again.
Really though, the fact is I was bored out of my mind. The game is TOO FREAKING EASY. I am sure it gets harder past level 18... but since my hand was held all the way to 18, just like every MMO these days. It is just a waste of time. You don't even have OOC to amuse yourself.
I was hoping we could read about how lame EQ2 is. Instead, I read about some guy who is bitter the game is not totally free. That is your only knock on the game?
Honestly I'm not sure why this is a shocker. SOE has some of the most notorious business models in the industry. They blatantly do whatever they can to milk their fanbase, and it shows. It seems they still don't get it, as with this latest release of EQ2 extended, they still think that the way to get people to buy your products is by intimidating them into doing so. As such, players are leaving, as with most of their previous business decisions. This is one of the reasons I left EQ2 to begin with. I was tired of SOE coming up w/ excuses / forcing me to spend more money for a game w/ a subscription fee.
I'm sure there will be players that are okay with playing this game, but if planning to play it for a little while, I don't know if you can expect it to really be the cheapest MMO to play. And wit dated graphics / dumbed down content, it may not be the most enjoyable either. I liked EQ2 in it's day, but currently there are much better options on the table. Hell, LotRO is one of them.
as usual complainers always post reviews and the people who love it rarely do. Someone must be liking it because there was login queue yesterday just to get logged in (they have since upped the cap on how many people can be logged in at one time) the starter area around halas has had 14 copies for days now with 50+ people in each instance. Level 20 templar so far and having tons of fun, it's almost like back at eq2 launch running around not tempted to take a capped toon out and mentor and power level thru everything. See lots of people with different races bought with race packs etc. I'd say it is a win for soe and the extra cash for them can never hurt.
man if i didnt have chat restrictions and class restrictions id play this game again.but theres no chance id sub or buy from shop if I dont play the game long enough.All my fav classes are gone and only the boring ones are free.chat is dead cause of the restrictions too.So I'm to play a boring class with no one talking in an mmo?No thanks I'll play LotRO or WoW.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
as usual complainers always post reviews and the people who love it rarely do. Someone must be liking it because there was login queue yesterday just to get logged in (they have since upped the cap on how many people can be logged in at one time) the starter area around halas has had 14 copies for days now with 50+ people in each instance. Level 20 templar so far and having tons of fun, it's almost like back at eq2 launch running around not tempted to take a capped toon out and mentor and power level thru everything. See lots of people with different races bought with race packs etc. I'd say it is a win for soe and the extra cash for them can never hurt.
Most of the bashers are probably WoW players looking for a free distraction till cata releases .EQ and EQ2 not for WoW fans
Comments
The difference between Extreme Quality and Balanced is like Usain Bolt and a snail competing in the 100 mtrs, I suggest you go back and try again.
That is not a bug you ran into. You have an item left in one of your overflow spots that your need to delete in you character window. So, ITT: Noob who doesn't attempt to solve his problem except petitioning a GM and logging out. Not a fanboi started playing EQ2 yesterday had that problem found out what it was and deleted that item. Good game they need to work on some restrictions, but not many.
I played EQ2 the first year it came out and when i finally had time for an MMO again I had moved on to newer games. Extended gave me a chance to try it out again and hang out with some old friends. It has been fun and I even have a new person playing so I have sort of learned through them a couple of issues.
The overflow bag slow is not mentioned to a new player, that i could tell or them. So when it happened to them; they didn't know what to do either. Something you can easily overlook or be confused about because I am not sure I have seen that manner of dealing with full inventory very often in my other games.
The 2 bags and 2 bank slots are an issue that I really wish they gave you an option to buy additional slots, which gives me the only issue i have so far. The jump from silver to gold is too great and there is not enough available in between. The two items i may have considered buying, bank space and a class, are basically unavailable.
I get that they are trying to carrot you into a subscription. I also get that a subscription on EQ2X really is not as good as one on EQ2live (imo). However, I don't get how they think they can activeily compete this way with a game that is 6 years old. We are playing it between games cause our last possible choices all ended up being poor games.
To me the pop ups to upgrade, the statin cash setup, and tier system that says hey buy $10 of stuff get silver, after that subscribe for anything else you really want is more of what our group has stated as a SHAREWARE model not a F2P model.
But hey, while it's free i can suck it up and enjoy it with some friends.
"Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better." parrotpholk
thank you for the honest review OP. I already made the choice YEAAAARS ago to give the finger to SOE and all their shamgames. This is just another example of how SOE does not give a shit about the users, just the money in their users pockets. They absolutely ruined my beloved POXNORA a bit ago im so glad I sold my runes on ebay for some goooood cash. Spent over 900 on that game when Octopi ran it and sold my stuff and got back 600... thats better than nothing and I am so happy I did that because SOE literally just shits all over all their games.
First thing I did upon logging into the EQ2X server was to /claim all the visible goodies I could taunt the free to play crowd with.
Got me a pet bear, some fairy and drake flying about, and a better looking cape than their green one.
Named the pets "Youdonthaveme" and "Ormeeither"
Welcome to EQ2X.
Ive started today and stopped playing at lvl 4 myself, one thing that i liked alot was the fact that while downloading the gameclient and installing i could actually play the game lol first time i saw something like that at made a nice first impression on me.
But than when i saw the class/race restrictions it started a bit anoying me the graphics sucks ass but the gamplay /combat was looking very nice .
Over all a nice game but this is 2010 where so many mmos comming out that this one gonna get burried beneath them.
Btw SOE sucks ive never played a game from SOE just hurt from other people stories and this is what gives also a negative thinking when seeing a game made/published by SOE .
I am the punishment of God...
If you had not committed great sins,
God would not have sent a punishment like me upon you
Genghis Khan
I think you people are being silly complaining about a free game.
Well it is obvious by the op that he was only looking for afree game until RIFT,so in reality he shouldn't have any complaints.There is NO such thing as a free game,developers are not in the business of handing out free rides.
This doesn't mean the OP can't have an opinion ,but complaints nope.
As far as the restrictions go,yes they are really bad,because they will NOT allow a new player to understand the true experience of the game.I would go on a limb and say that 99% of paid EQ2 players would have long quit the game if they played under these restrictions,so they do not give the new player a proper feel for the game.
storage space is a HUGE pet peeve of anyone's in ANY game and by allowing only 2 spots both bank and player will elminate much chance of having a fun crafting experience.Also it does not allow much adventuring storage,you will need to sell stuff often.
Without looking at any of it from my perspective,i try to look at it from an SOE persepctive,what exactly are they running this server for?There is already a free trial,so no need for a feeling out type server,that part makes no sense.If SOE's purpose is to allow players to explore the mainland world with hopes of enticing them to eventually upgrade,it is not going about it in a manner that would have players stick around that long.
There is still one huge mistake that both EQ2 and Blizzard have with their games and that is the constant boring linear path of running from NPC>NPC quests.It becmomes boring by the first hour,you don't feel like you are in any world but instead are running from quest to quest to gather gear,there is no realistic RPG world happening here.What is happening is that even the WOW players are getting bored wit hthis design,i know i am completely turned off by it.
If SOE wanted to do something right,this was their chance to try something different,like add some voice overs,make some grouped content to encourage people to meet others,otherwise they will solo until bored then quit.SOE should have spent the last couple years taking this game and developing a few new ideas to test out fuure projects,this is doing nothing to encourage and people to dive into SOE's version of WOW.Use this server to have only a few zones and add in some nice animated sequences add in some npc action,some city seiges,mobs attacking villages,idk maybe a giant or two roaming the regions as a threat that takes 40-50 or so players to bring it down for some massive rewards.
Basically what i am saying is try something "different" don't try to make money rehashing an old game that is struggling and make it 50% worse and expect it to be successful,it's not going to happen, i ould expect SOE to have some common sense in that department.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Turbine did it first,
Turbine did it better.
After Guild Wars, Turbine's F2P model is most acceptable on the MMO market.
The two aspects of SOE's version of f2p that I find ridiculous are the armor and spell restrictions.
I get the other stuff. They are trying to make money after all so I can understand the bag space, races, etc.
But the spells/skills and armor restrictions? Give me a break. Just shooting themselves in the foot with that if you ask me.
Considering those restrictions you're better off with the two week free trial they have for the game. Because that's all this essentially is - is an extended free trial.
...and a rather shitty one at that compared to the other 2 week one that has no restrictions on it whatsoever besides the obvious.
EDIT: Lol...apparently you can't even use the broker unless you have a gold membership. I could see restricting it for free players far as limiting how many items they can have for sale but nothing? This is a really weak f2p concept imo,
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Sounds about right.
The level design for EQ2 is one of it's biggest flaws. The zones are small, mostly liner, and any environmental details like mountains and cliffs are there to just make your back and forth, to and fro fetch questing take up more time than it really needs. The first 20 levels are the only tolerable for anyone not into masochism.
Around level 50 with some of the newer content this is alleviated. But it's a long and stupidly needless trudge through levels 21 to 49. Even with the newer content post 50 the inspired areas are far apart.
I kill other players because they're smarter than AI, sometimes.
Some things are just dumb, like no broker access at all for free. So no point in gathering or crafting. You would think they would want folks to try crafting. Can't use the AA slider, arbitrary 50-50.
I am sure they will tweak what is and is not for sale at a later date though.
My brother experienced the same "Inventory is Full" bug as you and had to delete his character and start over as we could not find anyway to fix the bug. Now we are scared sh!tless and check our bags like crazy to avoid filling them up and reproducing this gamebreaking problem.
Anyhow ya Im pretty bummed with SOE's f2p model but it's not like I really want to play EQ2 its just a filler game till GW2/Rifts comes out and who knows maybe World of Starwars... I mean SWTOR might be decent as well.
I want to know what happened to the voice overs? What happened to the sound design? Playing the new areas it all sounds so crap, like real dead, no ambience and no voice overs. Also the character models put me off playing more than 5 mins.
Over the year I have installed and payed EQ2 a couple times so I was familiar with the game.
Since it was free, I thought I would give it a shot.
I played one evening, and a few hours the next day. I likely won't be back.
They gimped some key areas on the free accounts, (OOC and Bags for example) which isn't enticing me to spend money. Instead, it p*sses me off so that I become LESS likely to sub again.
Really though, the fact is I was bored out of my mind. The game is TOO FREAKING EASY. I am sure it gets harder past level 18... but since my hand was held all the way to 18, just like every MMO these days. It is just a waste of time. You don't even have OOC to amuse yourself.
Fail.
I was hoping we could read about how lame EQ2 is. Instead, I read about some guy who is bitter the game is not totally free. That is your only knock on the game?
Silver account 8 euros
A bag of 44 slots 8 euros
16 euros for 80 levels of EQ2, zero problem with my computer, and I play on IMaC with Bootcamp. The less expensive MMO and tons of content.
Give a F2P to people and they bash a game
Sell 50 euros + sub a wow clone and they buy the game
I'll be on Lotro too.
Honestly I'm not sure why this is a shocker. SOE has some of the most notorious business models in the industry. They blatantly do whatever they can to milk their fanbase, and it shows. It seems they still don't get it, as with this latest release of EQ2 extended, they still think that the way to get people to buy your products is by intimidating them into doing so. As such, players are leaving, as with most of their previous business decisions. This is one of the reasons I left EQ2 to begin with. I was tired of SOE coming up w/ excuses / forcing me to spend more money for a game w/ a subscription fee.
I'm sure there will be players that are okay with playing this game, but if planning to play it for a little while, I don't know if you can expect it to really be the cheapest MMO to play. And wit dated graphics / dumbed down content, it may not be the most enjoyable either. I liked EQ2 in it's day, but currently there are much better options on the table. Hell, LotRO is one of them.
Honestly I could not even get the launcher working properly, as I got a runtime error every time I hit the play button.
I said screw it if I want to play EQ2 I'll resub.......
Sad....
as usual complainers always post reviews and the people who love it rarely do. Someone must be liking it because there was login queue yesterday just to get logged in (they have since upped the cap on how many people can be logged in at one time) the starter area around halas has had 14 copies for days now with 50+ people in each instance. Level 20 templar so far and having tons of fun, it's almost like back at eq2 launch running around not tempted to take a capped toon out and mentor and power level thru everything. See lots of people with different races bought with race packs etc. I'd say it is a win for soe and the extra cash for them can never hurt.
man if i didnt have chat restrictions and class restrictions id play this game again.but theres no chance id sub or buy from shop if I dont play the game long enough.All my fav classes are gone and only the boring ones are free.chat is dead cause of the restrictions too.So I'm to play a boring class with no one talking in an mmo?No thanks I'll play LotRO or WoW.
I just wanted to say that I am enjoying the game very much. I am now a gold member.
Remember Old School Ultima Online
Eth, you probably should have checked the FAQ first. Everything you had issue with was readily available info prior to you signing up.
http://everquest2.com/_themes/default/images/extended/membershipMatrix.jpg
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Most of the bashers are probably WoW players looking for a free distraction till cata releases .EQ and EQ2 not for WoW fans
try allods looks like the russian WoW