EverQuest II: Beta Ends November 6 @ Noon PST

Comments

• Naos Member Posts: 379

  November 2004

  Anyone around who has actually played it willing to give their thoughts on the game?
• guitboxgeek Member Posts: 2

  November 2004

  Evolutionary, not revolutionary

  I've been in beta for about a month or so now and I'll say that it is ready to ship. It's been quite a lot of fun to beta. There were bugs, but no show stoppers or dreaded CTDs, so I believe they're ready to go live. They have shown that they have around 30 servers for production environment which leads me to believe that they are prepared for an onslaught of players.

  As for the game itself, this is of course my own opinion and I'm sure some others may disagree, but I believe this game carries on the original ideas of EQ to all new heghts. It is truly designed for players of EQ1 that left that game years ago (like me) due to the original's problems.

  It has technology that won't be outdated for a long while, and content galore to keep adventurers happy and crafters busy. Here are my thoughts about EQ2:

  • The gameplay itself is more than just hit attack and get a sandwich (there are new combination attacks that can aid a solo player immensely and groups can triple their damage when working in concert)
  • The voice acting is brilliant.
  • The graphics are incredible, gorgeous and photo-realistic (unlike WoW's hand drawn textures)
  • The sound is in full 5.1 and is rich with ambient and special fx
  • The UI is very flexible and can be customized to suit your tastes fairly easily
  • Solo play is possible, mobs even con if they are solo or group
  • Group play is of course the best play for most of the instances, but there are some neat things you can do in your home
  • Groups are limited in size to 6 players - 4 groups can join to form a raid party - this is a good thing as it improves raids to be strategic and exciting instead of zerg fests
  • Animation is extremely well done - page upon page of emotes and social anims
  • Qeynos is beautiful and pleasent, while Freeport is dingy and dangerous

  Some of the things I don't like so much:

  • Classes have their differences at low levels, but less so at higher levels (this was being addressed with patches for spells, traits, etc)
  • Character cusomization still needs some work (newbies all look exactly alike, that's very eq1 imo)
  • This game will push older machine to their knees, this may scare less technical players away since their machine will require expensive upgrades (gamers that have beefy machines have no worries at all)
  • Hair styles for characters look way outdated and fake compared to other textures in the game (nit picking, but hey, if I can sculp my toon's face, why do I not have any flexibility with it's hairstyle?)
  • umm... not much else I don't like lol

  This is just off the top of my head. It is a must for ex-eq2 players. If you left eq1 because of stupid treadmill leveling, dumb bugs like snakes kicking you, and general boredom with the static world, eq2 may allow you to have fun once again in the rich lore you remember so well. That's why I say this game is evolutionary instead of revolutionary. It is a great step forward for mmorpgs and players alike, but it's not breaking new ground that hasn't been proven to be effective in other mmo's.
• Pasomatt Member Posts: 221

  November 2004

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  This game will push older machine to their knees, this may scare less technical players away since their machine will require expensive upgrades (gamers that have beefy machines have no worries at all)
  

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  What are you running and how was the game for you? (Sluggish, fine, good, etc.)

  And are the system specifications that they have posted on their FAQ just an average or are they being overly generous, and in fact these will be the minimum? Those being:
  -Operating System: Windows 98/2000/ME/XP
  -Processor: 1GHz or greater
  -RAM: 512 MB
  -Video Card: DirectX 9 compatible. Pixel shader and vertex shader compatible hardware with 64 MB of texture memory
  -Sound Card: DirectSound compatible audio hardware

  My system meets those specs, but I don't want to find out they they are in fact being overly generous with their assessment.
• Kurgen Member Posts: 26

  November 2004

  I have tested the beta on 2 machines. One is bare minimun needed to "run", the other is what imo runs the game they way it's desgned to be "played".This is imo, and not based on anything SOE has said or recommended

  Absolute minimum machine:(this setup ran the game acceptable but not great.Most advanced graphic options were scaled back or off)

  P4 2.4ghz or Athlon XP 2500 cpu

  512 megs of ddr ram(duel channel preferably)

  Geforce 5700 Ultra 128 megs or Radeon 9600XT 128 meg(much better with Nvidia based cards in this class)

  80 gig 7200 rpm 8meg cache hd

  on board sound

  EQ2 dream machine:(machine that runs EQ very nicely, with most graphical options on)
  P4 3.4 GHZ

  1 gigabyte of OCZ DDR 500 DUAL CHANNEL RAM

  Geforce 6800 GT 256 megs of memory

  Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card

  2X Western Digital 74 GB Raptors 10k rpm 8meg cache Raid array

  
  It's up to the individual, but imo you need to have a decent machine to play EQ2 in a way that will bring you enjoyment and not frustration. Any machine config that falls near or in between either setup above should be able to play EQ2 without much fuss, however if your machine i below the entry level specs above, you have 2 choices really( Upgrade or forget it). As i stated, this is imo, and is in no way the official minimum specs recommended by SOE.
• Devine Member Posts: 58

  November 2004

  A simple post to support what Guitboxgeek has already said above.

  He has provided a good description of the games  strength and weaknesses.  After being priviledge to enjoy Beta for the last couple weeks I cant agree more.   Solo and small group play took me to level 17 in pretty short order as the quests are outstanding.

  As an Ex EQ player myself I am really looking forward to entering the world of Norrath.

  See you online.

   
• reneco11 Member UncommonPosts: 18

  November 2004

  I was not part of the beta. I hope you are right is saying it was ready. I still can't beleive the nightmare of SWG. I was afraid that EQ2 would be the same. I find it hard to trust SOE and their incomplete games.

  In SWG I made it to Master Droid Engineer and the problem was that all the droids did the same thing. And to the best of my knowlege, it is still the same. Are there similar problems with EQ2?

  Rene Cournoyer

  Shendoah