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Trueheart's Pictorial Tour of Ye Olde World EQ2 (pic heavy)
Arremus
Member Posts: 656
Well, after the other thread talking about the look of EQ2, I thought I'd go for a wander around Norrath and snap some pics.
These are all compressed down to 800x600 and 75% quality jpegs, so loss of quality is to be expected.
Let's get into it!
Well I woke up bright and early in Baubleshire, to home of Gnomes and Halfings. Well, actually I was just there when the idea came to me. And it was night time, so it was dark. And it was taking forever to get light, so I just snapped a pic and moved on...
I stopped through in Oakmyst Forest to fill my water bags for the long journey ahead.
I met some frog fella who spoke like William Shakespeare, which totally freaked me out, so I quickly moved on.
After jumping on a boat at the docks, I found myself in The Caves. It was... well.. dark...
So I left.
After a short walk from the docks, I was up on a hill in Antonica. That there is the castle in Qeynos in the background.
Apparently my mother used to 'serve the men of the castle' a lot, or so my uncle once said. Which seemed strange cos my mother never had any formal catering experience.
I jumped on a griffon's back and headed for the Stormhold.
This dark, drab place kept me occupied for weeks on end. Well.. truth be told it kept me occupied for weeks on end just trying to find my way out of the place. 'Where are we?' or more personally 'Where the f**k am I??' echo off these walls daily.
Die you level 15 skeleton scum. Oh the sweet revenge.
Yes, hours upon hours of traversing these corridors, becoming the Ranger I am today, a Wood Elf of much guise and cunning wit that would make my mother prou-... wait... where the f**k am I??
So I had to sleep the night in a cold dungeon, we Rangers are used to such discomfort.. And yeah, so I had to be lead to the entrance by a level 21 Paladin.. So he needed to experience.
And thus I found myself on the hallowed soil of the Thundering Steppes.
As you can see, it's an endless flow of high octane adrenaline pumping action in TS.
Umm.. yeah.
The docks of the Thundering Steppes. The portal to many a strange land after battling your way through a long, epic quest just to be allowed to attempt to make the journey abroad on a boat!
Well.. that was until just about anyone could jump on a boat and go anywhere. But still... this was where it all happened.
A friend of my father's once told me my mother use to 'escort' men to that cabin on the right.
I always found that strange as she had the worst sense of direction I've ever come across.
So I jump aboard a ship to Lavastorm.
It's so dark and hot here that I suddenly realise I needed to be somewhere else.
Like the Feerrott. Feeerrooott. Ferret. Stomach grumbling... Lunch time.
And who better to stop by and see for a yarn and a spot of lunch than Albert.
Just in view on the right is one of another strange specimen common to these parts of Feerrott.
The Bot Farmer.
Traveling in packs of six, they seem to outnumber even the wildlife here at times, and are more cunning, ruthless and unfriendly than any Lizardman I've met. Especially Albert. He's nice.
"No way, really? Wow that's pretty harsh... Ouch, fungal rash? Yeah- hey what? What's any of this have to do with my mother?"
After seeming to not be involved in the joke that everyone was laughing over, I left.
And went to watch a sexy Conjurer kill Huptiks or what-the-hell-ever they call themselves.
Oooh the pretty colours.
Errr... an angry woman in her underwear, standing on the beach.
She didn't like me taking the photo apparently. Or standing there looking at her for fifteen minutes afterward.
I made a joke about her weird skinny legs, and she kicked me in the balls. And then insulted my mother... How does a half naked woman on the beach of Feerrott have any idea who my mother is??
Well even the Huptiks or what-the-hell-ever they call themselves found her comment funny, so... I left.
And ended up in Everfrost.
It's wet. It's cold. It's unforgiving. It's.. snowy.
But is actually a really pretty place. Just sucks that every single bloody thing in the region seems to be aggro. And enjoys Wood Elf blood. Repeatedly.
Did I mention this place is unforgiving?
And so I trek through this snowy, wet wasteland to the scene of many, many a death-by-ganking of poor innocent harvests like myself, at the hands of that damned Sheriff of the Stags! Or is it Sheave? Sharron?
Oh look at that! The sun's going down, I better get home before mother worries where I am.
... Not that she's ever there when the sun goes down.
I just don't understand why a bank needs employees at night when it's not even open!
But here I return, to Willow Wood. Home sweet home. Its heard many a tale of brave adventures like the one I just relayed to you.
But that's not all! There are many more places in the Olde Worlde I could take you to. But... I...
Wow, look at the time! You'd best be going. Ok, seey-
Huh? Why would you like to meet my mother?
Ok.. hmm, well try the bank, not that they'll ever let you in...
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
Comments
Thanks for sharing Arremus, very nice caps of the game. I love the story along with it, very nicely done.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
/clap
/cheer
Very well done Arremus, and you did a really good job with the picture size and quality by the way. Hope you grace us with some more in the future, perhaps think about posting in the pub also.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
Very nice pics, they look great!
Well done, you've really got me missing EQ2.
me too, i miss EQ2 hehe. But i doubt i can ever go back to it
Great job, very amusing.
It's nice to see a bit of the land and not have to go adventuring to see it (though thats my fav. thing to do)
Krinn~
SHOW ME THE FACTS!
Good pics, tho you forgot to mention that for anyone to able to play with those settings at a good constant frame rate they would have to spend thousands of dolars in computer hardware eh. Even then, with the constant memory leaks, it would not be garanteed to run too well.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
As for the not playing like this, that aint true. I ran through all these zones, with the settings on max, at a good 20+fps I imagine (ie it was pretty much smooth).
With a decent setup, you can easily run around with the game looking like this. I know this as I did it when doing this story.
Combat, however, is a whole other... metaphor. As soon as I entered combat, especially in the god awfully laggy DoF zones, I pretty much had to go to extreme performance to get a decent FPS. Keeping in mind I said I can travel the old world on ExQual and that backs up why I have said before that DoF's gfx coding or wtfe is a steaming pile of... another metaphor.
This pic is one I took in a raid on extreme quality:
Not a very great pic, but the only one I could find to show ExQual combat.
Needless to say, when I changed to EQ during the raid, I was completely combat ineffective. I dropped to about 0.01FPS and lagged about the place til I was finally able to snap a pic.
Luckily that was with my Warlock character, so no one missed him not doing anything (*rolls around laughing his ass off*).
Thanks for the comments anyways all. Was fun making it and writing up a story to go with it.
As for doing another, maybe some other time when I get back into playing the game again.
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
I've noticed that I'm able to run around on "extreme quality" setting as well, but fighting is completely out of the question.
One interesting observation that I made is that some details vanish when the game is set to so-called "extreme quality". One example are the tattoos on an Erudite. Here's a post that I made after I made the observation and it includes a couple of pics for example: http://mysk.wordpress.com/2005/12/10/eq2-extreme-quality-and-high-quality-screenshot-comparison/
Open both of the images there and flip between them. In some ways I get more details on High Quality setting, but you can see where the "extreme quality" setting has higher detail textures and better shadows.
I chalk it up to limited video memory. You probably need a 3D card with 512 MBs of on board ram (or more) to show it all.
Thought you folks may find this interesting since the convo had turned to "you can't run that graphics setting". Maybe you get more visual appeal out of the game if you don't, anyway!
I couldn't care less. IF the stick by what they say, and IF the game plays like it sounds like it's going to, they could have atari 2600 graphics and I wouldn't care.
Every time I go to the Vanguard forums I get more excited about the game, and it has nothing to do with gameplay or design. It has to do with how it's being run. THe people running that game are awesome. IF they really do what they say, and continue to run things the way they are now, they'll have a fan for life in me.
Why are you talking about Vanguard?
pics are awsome,
I dont have a story but here are some i took
Im not evil but i snuck into freeport and got this pic
And i nice Iksar i met up with in the Ruins of varsoon...A very spooky place that is.
And one last nice shot of Maj'dul from the dessert.
Smaller than i thougth it would be
I got like over 1000 Screens if you guys want me to post more
The new EQ2, better than ever befor !
don't click this link...
I dont think an engine is trully tested unless your running on max settings on a crowed zone, the pics look great, but for the most part, your alone and static, put 3 other players running around and it starts lagging noticibly, but 10 or 20 and the game becomes a nightmare, as anyone who has raided in Eq2 knows, the only decent way to do it is to turn the settings almost all the way down if you dont have an extremly kitted out system.
Without going too far, vanguard beta 2 is looking great, notmuch gfx customization options like sliders and such, but it looks amazing, especialy the way the grass is rendered and the ingame elf music.... at least that what i "heard"
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Ok alot of people have said this, My machine is almost 2 years old and wasnt top of the line when i bought it, for most people you cant spend 5000 dollars on a pc every year.
What i have found that wors for most people is to go into options and bring the Complex Shader Distance to -1.
This eliminatse all lag, i can turn almost everything to max and not have any lag.
The picture of the desert is taken in that setting. But of course i turn the complex shader up to take a shot. And it makse a difference but not that much, the graphics are still fantastic.
The new EQ2, better than ever befor !
don't click this link...
I want more people to see this so im posting so it will go to the top of the boards
The new EQ2, better than ever befor !
don't click this link...
Very nice, i especially liked the story that went along with it. Quite humurous. May i ask what system you took these pictures on mate? Im getting a beefy rig in a day or two and i cant wait to try EQ2 with it. I just hope i wont be dissapointed by my rig's performance.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Nothing too special at all really, by 'today's' standards anyways.
AMD 3400+
X800 XT Plat
1.5gig RAM
Have been looking at doing a complete system upgrade myself, though am thinking I'll give it a few more months.
As stated, those pics are at extreme setting, but I can play the game on Balanced - High settings usually. A major factor for lag seems to be the server you're on too.
My characters on AB server struggle on high, whereas I can easily use high on LDL server (and it's so much nicer there too). Just my opinion though of course.
What system did you get? And can you let me know how well it runs on what settings please? Am interested to see how much of an upgrade I can do concerning performance upgrade.
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
I wouldnt upgrade my entire system if i were you mate. At most, a new graphics card would give you the performance boost youre looking for, upgrading the whole system though wont make much of a difference.
Instead i think you should overclock your current processor then wait a couple of months for the M2 socket boards and processor series from AMD that are due for release in Q2 2006, and in the meantime if you sorely need a notable performance boost, only invest in a new graphics card.
The rig i ordered is a x2 +4400, geforce 7800gt and 1 gig of ram. x2 being dual core and better suited for multitasking then gaming but when you clock this baby up itll be for gaming too.
If you are familliar with overclocking i suggest you look far and wide for an Opteron 144/146 if you want single core or an opteron 165 if you want dual core, then simply clock it yourself. If you have never done it before those two processors are an excellent place to start as they are cheap and overclock extremely well.
You could basically buy an opteron 146 for like 200$ then clock it up to FX-55 FX-57(a 1000$ processor) speeds.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Yeah, that about sums it up, the waiting for new tech part.
As for overclocking, never done it, and don't really feel like buying a new processor to do it with to be honest.
Can I overclock an AMD xp3400+ 64bit very well? Feel like mailing me a link or two or some advice please? *grins*
As for the gfx card, yeah that's what I was considering. The x1800 (?) or something maybe, but I am not even sure if that level of card is available in Australia for less than the price of a small car yet. Will look into it.
Thanks for the advice, is always appreciated.
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." - George W Bush.
Oh. My. God.
I run at those settings, no problem.
P IV 3 GHz, 2GB RAM, ATI X800 Video Card.
Cheers!
Ch3cksix
Right now i wouldnt go for any high end ATI card as they all pale in comparison to the 7800GT series. If your budget is strained then i would go for a 7800GT 256mb, if not then the 7800GTX 512mb is the obvious choice. Mind you, do NOT buy the 7800GTX 256mb card as it will only give you something like 6% perfomance boost from the 7800GT 256mb for almost 50% more money.
On overclocking the only tips i can give you is this. If you even have a smidgeon of doubt do not attempt to OC it yourself, let someone you know do it. Just giving an advice or two wont help, you would have to read thorougly on the matter or you risk burning your CPU. As for links, im sorry mate but the only OC site i use is in swedish, but i regularily visit this forum too http://www.ocforums.com
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.