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Everquest 2 looked so much better back in 2003.
Venekor
Member Posts: 62
I used to love that EQ2, the art style was perfect and the graphics just seem more raw and real. What's weird is there in that version which never made it into the release, but it actually looked better. The Humans looked a lot nicer, they made the character models so ugly in the release version, acne wrinkle skin of Barbs and dead drugged up eyes of Human females. Even in 2004 the game was a lot harsher where most mobs were grouped and you could die so easily and go backwards in a night rather than forwards. You'd constantly get into groups and everyone had to be on their game or you'd get so much debt. Even newb zones were hard and you'd need to group up from the get go on the IoR. Things like that intro boat trip, the game being fully voiced and the epic cities just showed of the production values.
Now the art style looks all horrible and cartoony and lots of zones just haven't had the effort put in. Everything feels rushed and like the production values have gone down so much and everything is far too easy. Most of the worlds content is inconsistent and broken as old meets new and most of it is dead as the developers have broken the world by adding all this new content and ignore the old. Things like the music now doesn't have the impact of the original games and lots of it is reused.
It's a weird feeling with SOE games because they all have that feeling of the original content had so much care put into it. Then after release they just try to rush everything out and throw expansion after expansion at you and the quality goes down.
I just wish at the very least that I could play EQ2 back from beta 2004 and not the one now, it's too easy now and I hate the art style of everything. It's a bit like SWG though because when you go back and play the emu, the game doesn't have that same magical feeling of old because you know nothing new will be added.
Comments
Just been playing and all the voice overs have gone, even in the older world and I've downloaded them extra voice over packs. All the difficulty has gone too like Nek has hardly any mobs now and it is so easy that I can solo my way through everything. All the quests seemed to have gone and now theres quest markers over everything so you have no need to explore. I hate how you don't have to work out quests too, before you had to read them and work out where you wanted to go, now it's all marked out : The new starter areas suck, they're so easy and look like they were rushed, such poor design. The older starting areas and the being introduced to the cities was so much better...
Eurgh another game I'm asking for classic servers for.
I noticed this too. Playing the f2p version of the game I kept thinking how much better the game looked and played 5 years ago.
Make games you want to play.
http://www.youtube.com/user/RavikAztar
Everything you've complained about can be SET in options. I don't have any quest signs over anything, they're turned off. And as far as the "cartoony" look....that's SOGA (I think that's what they call it) and you just have to turn on traditional character models. SOGA is the default because of some people who insist on trying to play the game on very low level computers. Not that it takes much to run the game on very high....my PC is 4 years old and I have most everything cranked up, so....you know.
Anyway....I understand your frustration over SOME things, like the game isn't as hard as it used to be. Guess they figured people were gonna have a tougher time getting groups since the game is top heavy after all these years, so they made it a bit less challenging. I miss the old EQ2 as well....well...some of it. But I don't let it keep me away from the game. There is still a healthy population in a few places and still plenty to do.
But....to each their own. If you hate it....just don't play it. Not like we're gonna get SoE to change it, ya know?
By the way.....EQ2 was released in 2004 just a few weeks before WoW, not in 2003.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
All games looked and played better 5 years ago.....even WoW. Games age. They lose their luster and sheen. This is a sad fact of life. And the gameplay usually gets nerfed by the developers, making it easier for people that are late to start playing.....just like WoW did.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
nov 2004 if i recall
Not sure why though, perhap the games default video settings are low or something.
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Yeah I know but the game looked so much better at E3 2003 than it did in 2004 where they musta downgraded to run on peoples machines. Nov 12th for Europe and I played from beta and after release and I remember beta had one server where they cloned the zones over and over. The game released with like 20 odd servers and the population declined so fast after WoW. I don't understand why they didn't stick with one server and just clone the zones over and over so the population could stay together.
I'm not talking about the Asian models either to the cartoony look. The original game had a realistic lovely high fantasy look to it and all the new zones all look more and more like WoW with lots of horrible WoW like mounts and armour too. I just hate the whole direction the game went and all the new content feels so rushed and poor. They've put so little effort into the game that instead of recording new voice overs they just decided to remove the old ones as they didn't match the newer content.
SOE always go the wrong direction with their games, I don't understand why they've split up all the new F2P community onto their own server too. Surely merged all the servers into one PVP and one PVE and allow everyone to play together.
As far as difficulty goes, it's not gone from the game it's just moved.
At launch there were countless people running through low level zones and dungeons, so it was plausible to get groups, etc. in order to kill hundreds of creatures designed for groups.
Nowadays, the game is 7 years old and the majority of players (except on eq2x servers) are of higher levels. So the lower level zones have all been revamped and streamlines to allow quick and easy SOLO progression, since really, there are no groups for this stuff.
Difficult content has moved to instances and many of the instances currently in-game - both gorup and raid - are the most difficult that the game has ever seen. So if you want challenge, there is plenty of it for it to find - it just won't ambush you as you're soloing a lowbie toon anymore. For better or worse, the game is now designed to help people catch up to the rest of the population with relative ease rather than to challenge you at every level.
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Well i dont know if its your settings or what not but we must not be playing the same game.
Might want to make sure the anti aliasing multi sampling option under perfomance is enabled to 8 .
Heres a few pics not even maxed with shadows off , these settings are nowhere near maxed and are not bumped up just for the screen shots these are playable settings at 46-52 fps on a old 9800 gt 1 gb card.
There is a sticky under general forums on this site for eq2 that shows you how to achieve this and still have the game run smooth.
There ya go doesnt look cartoony to me eaither its probably the soga models like they were saying and you can change those by clicking alternate models,
Anyway im enjoying it just thought id post a few pics .
Shadows are off as well and flora at half way in most of those.
A few pics are from some guildies and they do have shadows on .
I found myself back playing EQ2 for its advances in graphical appearence. I hated this game at launch compared to WoW & FF11. Its graphics made all your characters look like barbie dolls with landscapes that looked barely above those of EQ1. EQ2 always had a plethora of content and I really wished I was gave it a chance at launch, I held onto EQ1 for several more years and played a few F2P games before getting sucked into WoW which with its primary Devs gone is nothing but a recycle machine now.
Although I hate the instant transportation added to the game it makes all the zone loading more bearable as I move about and enjoy the content. The mentor system rocks and more higher level players should take advantage of it especially to farm AA points. This game innovated almost everything other games use to keep players entertained. Collections, Alternate Advancement, Appearence tab, titles, "epic" weapons, and the list goes on. I love the revamp they have done for the EQ2X starter gear quests and am really impressed with what will be coming with the new expansion. This game still has a ton of life, especially on the F2P server.
I am enjoying my stay in this game more than WoW, AoC, Aion, Warhammer & FF14. The only game that has more allure in the current market is Eve Online, but playing that game requires so much time and investment to really get the full experience of it, even though I miss it I cannot afford that amount of time. EQ2X is where it is, with a steady inflow of new players and a huge amount of innovative content and class/race smorgusboard you cant find a better MMO.
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Yes and the character models you see in that movie link are the exact same ones they use today unless you use soga models so i dont understand how they seemed more real back then there the exact same thing and all the lower end zones are exatly the same as well lol , only thing they revamped was the items and nodes , and some qsts...
Ya game looks the same, whats missing is players, that might be it. Keep up the good work SOE, pretty soon you wont have any players.
Man, EQ2 is booming everywhere I've been. You have no idea what you're talking about. Yet another hater added to my ignore list.
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