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EQ2 Population for Newbies?
DrWalnut
Member CommonPosts: 133
in Everquest II
I'm thinking of trying EQ2 again. Are most servers still hard to handle for newbies with the lack of low level players since this has been out for so long that people are too high of a level. Any server recommendations? Are all newbies starting in Faydwer? I heard about a new starting place, Neriak, coming out with evil Fae. When is this due? Do you think it will be easier for newbies when it comes out? Any opinions from testers about Neriak?
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There are a lot of alts being started by the older players, so the newbie areas are quite busy, in my experience. (altoholic myself)
Newbies can choose starting place themselves, Qyenos, Freeport of Faydwer, and soon Neriak.
When you reach about 50 and going up to 70, its sometimes hard to quickly find a group, as the levels don't come as fast so a lot of people drop or mothball their alts at that point. Having said that - there are a lot of guild groups at those levels, which is also why PUGs are a less available. If you join a guild and make friends leveling up to that point (should still take you a while unless you powergrind) you should still be able to find people to group with. Its not like the game is deserted, but EQ2 is very group oriented, that can't be denied.
Another point for those 50+ levels is that they added a lot of zones to EoF, plus alternate achievement points which gives you points for questing, killing nameds and exploring, so older players often mentor and go to lower lvl dungeons there as they weren't available when they leveled up. Plus, in EoF there are some zones which are almost like solo-dungeons for leveling up with lots and lots of quests. (Lesser Faydark for 50+, Loping plains for 60+)
Neriak should be out anyday now, they said in May
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They will also give people an extra character slot when that comes out, so in that sense I would think it would be more newbie friendly as some people might add another alt to their account.
And in general in EQ2, don't forget that questing is a very good way to get XP, and a lot of those are soloable so you aren't dependent on a group constantly.
I will say this though - because a lot of lowbies are twinks (meaning they have a maxed out char buying things or harvesting/crafting for them) the economy is a little bit intimidating for a fresh player on a server. Try not to worry about that, you don't need the very best equipment to level up, and once you get a little bit higher up in level (30-40ish), you will make plenty of money same as everyone else. We all started somewhere. Make friends, join a guild, and people will make your stuff so you don't have to pay crazy broker prices.
I can't recommend a server as such, I play on Splitpaw but that's a European server, I don't know where you are from. Community there anyway is very friendly and helpful, and newbie friendly as well.
Anyway, this is just my experience, and of course may vary depending on server and the guild you hang out with.
P.S. No, I'm not employed by SOE, I just used to be a guild leader as everyone knows that's just game speak for Tourist Guide
Sorry to sound so cheerful, that's really not my nature.
I haven't played WoW so I can't really say. I hear its easy to get into and start playing at least.I like that there are so many different things to do - 24 classes, 17 (soon 18) races, more quests and dungeons than you can do or visit with one character, and the graphics (unless on low settings) are awesome. And they add things as well, they do fix issues but also add dungeons, recently redid a tired old raid zone people only went to because they had to for specific quests, etc etc. Everytime I think its time for me to take a break, they add something, damn them.
That's the good thing about MMORPGs, there never ending in the sense that they can be improved with new features such as races, or new geograpical landscapes. I might give EQ a try
Short version:
You will be sorely disappointed with WoW. It's "user-friendly," yes, but there's nothing to do in that game but nonstop raiding, grinding PvP titles, and solo grinding/questing. You'll be bored within two to three months, I promise. EQII, on the other hand, is rich in content and quests. It's group-based, which means leveling isn't so boring; in fact, it requires teamwork and coordination, whereas WoW's "grouping" is more of a "who can kill these mobs fastest and bitch at the healer when they die due to taking aggro."
Long version:
I'll point out each of my grievances regarding WoW and will tell you why/if EQII is better in those areas:
- Community:
- WoW is dominated by kids. This means that the game is plagued by immaturity, Chuck Norris "jokes," and general quarreling and annoyance. If you /wave at somebody, chances are they will either ignore you, they'll call you a name, they'll retort with a /spit, or, very rarely, they will actually /wave back at you - this is very seldom, though.
- EQII's community is far more mature and pleasing to deal with. In my time of playing, I have met my fair share of rude/immature/annoying players in EQII, sure, but it certainly was not a daily occurrence like it is in WoW. In fact, I can confidently say that the negative portion of EQII's community is a mere minority. Mostly everybody I have met in EQII has been very friendly, helpful, and fun to talk to. In fact, I have a good number of friends that I still talk to occasionally outside of the game from Unrest. WoW's community never has and never will have this kind of staying power.
- Leveling:
- In WoW, you go out by yourself and quest and/or grind for long periods of time. And I mean long periods. Leveling in WoW takes quite a long time; from levels 40-45 it took me some 6 hours of continuous questing/grinding to level (and this is all done by myself). It's excruciatingly boring. If you want to group up with somebody and run an instance (dungeon), you will have to greatly sacrifice experience. WoW punishes you for grouping by offering no exp bonus to parties and dividing all experience evenly amongst team members. Due to this, it will take you about twice as long to level. Furthermore, the need before greed system is a failure in the hands of WoW's rancid community; people tend to need on items that they don't need at all simply for the sake of making money. Groups are also highly uncoordinated and wipes are frequent. Why? Because WoW designed almost every class to be capable of multiple roles. I would argue that every class in that game is a hybrid class; therefore, you often have to argue with the healers in the group over who is going to heal and who is going to DPS; same problem with the tanks. Due to this, you will find yourself avoiding grouping regularly, which means that you will be a lone wolf questing, and questing, and questing...
- In EQII you can solo, but you will miss out on a lot of content and you will level slower. Grouping is much faster exp in EQII, and it's much more fun. Classes are intended for specific purposes, which is nice. You're never going to see a healer that can tank in EQII like you will in WoW, for example. This keeps things organized and coordinated. The combat system in groups is much more fun as well and far less monotonous. I very much enjoyed grouping/leveling in EQII because of this, even if it was a chain-pull grinding spot like BG. You'll also find that people like to talk to each other while grouping. You'll meet a lot of awesome people whilst grouping in EQII.
- Easy-Mode:
- WoW was a game on easy mode. Tradeskills were easy to level up, fighting took little skill, and there was no punishment for death assuming you revived at your corpse. The game was probably a little bit too easy, which I feel is a reason why it got so freaking boring.
- EQII balances easy and extreme. You don't suffer severe punishments for death, but at the same time you aren't going to be able to solo a group of ^^^ mobs. I really enjoyed this balance. It kept the game somewhat challenging, but not frustrating or boring.
- So I'm 70. Now what?
- WoW: uh... hm. Well after 10 months at level 70 I've raided everything, I've maxed out my PvP rank, so there's not really anyth... I KNOW! Let's go gank people 50 levels below us so that they can't quest/level! Yes! One-hitter quitters, so much fun...
- Having never been 70 myself in EQII, I can't really speak conclusively on this, but I do know people that have been 70 for a long time. They generally raid, help friends out (yes, people do that in EQII), work on gear and tradeskills, etc. Another nice thing about EQII is that you can "mentor" people; meaning if you're 70, you can mentor somebody at level, say, 20, which brings your effective level down to 20. This allows you to group with them and help them level, keeping the mobs you fight a challenge. Now I know this doesn't sound particularly exciting either, but I will say that all of my level 70 friends have consistently played their level 70 mains. I've never known them to feel the need to reroll out of boredom; as one of my friends says, "End game? What end game?" You should ask the people in this forum what specifically there is to do at 70; I had always been out of the loop in this sense because I was always the one trying to catch up. =P
- Class Balance:
- WoW has serious class balance issues, and instead of addressing the issue, the devs for WoW simply nerf every other class in an attempt to make them all even. Well, this cripples everybody's PvE ability. Then when one class community complains, they over-buff them. Do they bring everybody else up to their level? Nope. Instead, they re-nerf that class. Pretty much every update in this game involves nerfing somebody. It's ridiculous, and it makes the game that much less fun to play.
- I can't speak for the last year or so in EQII on this as I haven't had an active subscription, but my experience is that EQII does its fair share of nerfing/buffing, but they actually keep balance in mind. When I quit the game, for example, there was no such thing as a superior tanking or healing class. They were even, plain and simple. It was very nice. Hopefully EQII kept this tradition up.
In general, EQII has much, much, much more content and things to do to keep you occupied. WoW will have you addicted for a couple or three months, but you will out of the blue feel bored with it. I'm not the only one that this has happened to; just read the WoW forums at this site. Pretty much everybody that plays WoW quits for very similar reasons to this. It's quite disappointing. Don't waste your money on WoW before you give EQII a try! I'm sure you'll enjoy your time in EQII far more than you will in WoW.Cheers
Hey, Thanks for the advice Axlin. One of the reasons why I want to play WoW is because it supposedly has upto 8 million users world-wide according to news reports! This makes it the most popular game at the moment. How many users does EQII have?
Also it's got phenomenal graphics you've got to admit! Also I'm thinking of doing a thesis on MMORPGs for my university studies so I figured that if WoW has 8 million users then more people will fill in my questionnaire! It makes sense right?
But if what your saying is true about WoW being dominated by kids then that would be bad for my questionnaire data because you have to be 18 or over in order to take part!
I'm in a bit of a dilemma, WoW or EQII which on shall I play? What are the graphics like in EQII? I need a MMORPG that is user-friendly, that makes it easy to join a guild, that has friendly gamers who are not rude, gamers who are willing to help newbies, gamers who like to socialise rather than raid all the time or engage in PvP combat, and gamers who will fill in my questionnaire to help me with my thesis!
I need the advice of all gamers who use this forum. Especially you Axlin! Please help
WoW is dominated by people under 18, but there are plenty of people over 40 that play. In one guild I was in, the Priest Class leader was over 60. Most of the people in my raiding guild were over 25.
The graphics in EQ2 are better than WoW, but I guess that is a matter of taste. WoW has cartoony graphics and EQ2 is more "lifelike".
WoW is user friendly, but most of the gamers are rude, and aren't willing to help newbies, don't like to socialize, would rather raid, would rather gank lowbies.
I think you will get enough people to fill out your questionnaire if you played WoW. From your questions, you already have your mind made up to play WoW. So play WoW.
Thanks for the feedback Ruthgar,
I have a very important question! Does EQ2 have a European server? I live in the UK so it will be difficult for me to play on a non-European server.
I know Wow has a European server. Ruthgar, have you played both WoW and EQ2 before? Do you know what Spec my PC has to be in order to play MMORPGs? Where's the cheapest place to get hold of either EQ2 or WoW with the expansion packs? Answer this last question only if you live in the UK.
I heared that the EoF retail is rare in the UK. You migth have to buy it form a online seller. I think the US version is the best with all thrre expansions included at 40 U$.
EQ2 runs well on a variety of PCs. 3500+ AMD, 1 gb memory and a medium range video card are sufficient. I do have 2 gb memory and a x1900gt with decent graphics.
Do you know the name of the website were I can buy the EQ2 with all 3 expansion packs?
If you cant find any on ebay or somewhere else is suggest you look here
EQ2 + Faywer is content up to level 70. Once you are 50 you can decide if you want to buy Desert of Flames and Kingdom of Sky. Both are 29.95 $ as download from Sony and much cheaper to get at ebay. Saw a DoF expansion for 2 pounds there. The adventure packs are much cheaper as download. Splitpaw is nice for level 20 soloers and Fallen Dynasty is nice for level 50 to 70 and crafters/homeowners
in europe its a bit harder to get, but some local stores still have it, or you can buy cdkeys for it online from www.onlinecdkey.com or www.dlgamer.com .
EQ2 has two UK / Euro PVE Servers. It did have a UK only PvP server until recently. But the population never really took off, so they merged us with one of the US PvP servers, and also brought over the EU populations. This created a very active PvP server, with the same friendly atmosphere of the old one. (Its called Venekor if your looking for it).
What is there to do from 70+?
Well, I have 2 level 70's (as with so many classes each one is a different gaming experience) and I also have a level 70 in WoW.
In WoW, when you hit max, you can raid, or PvP. Thats it. And with a limited number of raid dungeons (that you have do over and over and over again in order to progress to the next one) it very quickly bored the hell out of me.
In EQ2 however, when you hit 70 the game seems to open up. There are dungeons, zones, maps, quests, items etc that are all geared towards those of level 70. My quest log (which holds 50 quests) has been constantly full since I got here, with solo, group and raid level quests (mostly group though), and of course you also have the larger raid zones, although you dont HAVE to do them over and over in order to get the only item set in the game for your class (which is what WoW does). Instead you have many different types of armour and weapons to get for your classes, and these can found from many many different raid zones.
And unlike WoW, EQ2 adds content constantly. For instance, next week they are adding a whole new race, new starter zones, new dungeons and new mounts. For Free. Last month we got a new mount, the month before a completely new level 70 instance. EQ2 also creates expansion packs much faster than WoW, and does them very well. Eq2 came out around the same time as WoW, and in that time WoW has had ONE expansion, Eq2 has had 3 expansions, and the 4th has just been annouced (with yet another new race, and another continent). They also release "Adventure Packs" which are like mini dungeons.
For me, its a no brainer. If you want content, great graphics, expansions, great community, mature, interesting and exciting then go for EQ2.
If you want a cartoon world (although admitedly a very nicely created cartoon world) that you will be bored with in about 6 months time, then choose WoW.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
Hey, thanks for all the feedback on both EQ2 and WoW. It's been great reading all your comments. You guys and girls (I'm assuming some of you might be female) are really friendly people. I am tempted to get EQ2! I'll just have to shop around and see if HMV or Virgin megastore have all 3 expansion packs for EQ2.
If anyone else has any comments in regards to EQ2 or WoW then please feel free to express them. Thank you very much to all those who have commented.
Is there a free trial where I can start in Neriak? What are the starting stats of the Arasai?
you will still find a lot of low lvls. Mosto of the people has low level XP locked toons for PVP, so there are still a huge community in the 10-30 range.
Its more difficult to find groups in the 40-55 range, but u will have again a bunch of people @ ; level 70