Why or why not play EQ2?

Lord.Bachus · April 2016

I am doing some research about a few games..

why are you playing EQ2, or why did you quit?

what are your 3 favorite things of this game
what are your 3 negative things in this game
please list both possitives and negatives, as well as answer my question..

cheyane · April 2016

I quit because the time locked servers were taking away too much of my time daily. I stopped exercising and doing other things. I got obsessive and I was not happy about gaining weight and feeling lethargic from spending too much time gaming. So I quit cold turkey.

The things I love are the wonderful classes, the housing with its multitudes of furniture options and the people I played with.

There is nothing that I really dislike about the game sorry off hand I cannot think of anything I would class as negative.

ArChWind · April 2016

I have played since release.

three good things for me.

The story and lore up to SF (Sundered Frontiers) is great.

So much to do you can't do it all. Always something to do besides endgame grind.

Mentoring. (Makes it so nothing grays out)

three bad things for me.

After you get past SF the game changes to more of a lobby based instance grinder.

Continual changes to the classes. (they keep changing the class functionality years later)

Scripted dungeons. (just hate them and won't run them)

Lord.Bachus · April 2016

This is one of my all time favorite games

Sadly my current PC keeps crashing windows and freesing my PC... i tried several driver updates and even the update to windows 10 did not fix the crashing, even a fresh reinstall.... worst of all its the only game that runs unstable on my PC (alienware)

But here are my favorite things about this game

- More character depth and advancement then in any other MMO
- Huge amount of everything, content, classes,races, skills, dungeons, raids, quests, zones
- Great Housing system

And my downers

- The game crashes my PC
- Graphics are getting dated
- annimations have allways be a bit cluncky

dezso · April 2016

Good Things

The music in the game, particularly in the original game is fantastic

The game is massive

Always love a Master Chest!

Bad things

Graphics are horrendous, they maybe 12 years old but actually look far older. Due to the graphic engine there is no hope of improvements

Game is dead, feels like no community, cities are dead

EQ will die a slow death with no EQ3 in sight... The end is near I fear, cannot be many people still playing this game nowadays.

ste2000 · April 2016

I quit when they turned the game into a WoW clone (well they tried......)
I tried to play again but I could not stand its Cash Shop.

Good Things:
1) It is still one of those games that has some challenge
2) Raids, still the best experience of any game if you like them.
3) Trinity, there is still a good degree of class interdependency.

Bad Things:
1) Cash Shop
2) Questing is one of the worst, WoW copy/paste but with less charm.
3) Not enough in-game Armor Variety (see Cash Shop), they never updated the Armor designed since 2006 (Just re-skinned old design)
4) Leveling is just too quick

ste2000 · April 2016

TheAmir said:

^ EQ2 came out before WoW, so technically WoW is the copy-and-paste (though I think it's a matter of both companies trying to out-do one another since they released so closely together. EQ2 lost, unfortunately).

Please don't patronise me, I know whart I am talking about.
I played EQ from 2000 to 2004, then EQ2 from 2004 to 2007, WoW for 5 years.
I don't need to know where WoW got its inspiration.

In 2004, when it launched, EQ2 was a different game than it is now.
There was more player interdependency, the game was more challenging, it was more group focused, bretter crafting system, and leveling was slower, also it didn't have the awful quest hub system WoW introduced.
It all changed in 2006 when they tried to copy/paste WoW getting rid of all the things that made EQ2 so different from WoW and a good alternative to it.
It got so bad that instead of playing the bad copy of WoW I ended up playing the original.
Poor SoE policy that eventually brought them down.

Loke666 · April 2016

I quit because the quality got worse and the final nail in the coffin was the F2P launch.

I played it for 5 years and a bit more, was a pretty good game at a time but after EoF things started to go downwards.

My 3 favorite things: I did love the AA system, later games have all treated achivements worse. I did like the massive dungeons and the Heritage quests as well.

3 things I can't stand: The quality of the rat killing quests are the worst I ever seen and that say a lot. Kill 10 x 5 animals and gut them to find pages of a book you put at home afterwards, yuck. EQ2 have some of the best and many of the worsts quests I seen in MMOs. The graphics engine who is terrible and the cashshop that sucked already when the game was P2P.

The engine is so bad that neither a state of the art computer at launch ran it well or a top computer today. I think it is the main reason why Wow got so many players and EQ2 so few.

ste2000 · April 2016

TheAmir said:

I played at launch. It was somewhat different, but it was STILL a themepark quest grinder. That has -not- changed. And yes, it most certainly DID have quest hubs. I was there on day one. Don't patronize me (using your own words there, bro). I know what I'm talking about.

The Isle of Refuge was a linear quest progression to get you off the island and to your chosen faction city.

The isle of Refuge was a Tutorial, it didn't rappresent the rest of the game.

Crafting was interdependant, meaning you had to buy items from other crafters in order to craft anything, they changed that.

The quests didn't force you to go from one hub to another, you could choose to do them or not, they weren't necessary at all.
In fact I hardly did quests in the first few years because it was more convenient (and fun) to level by just doing group content (Grind or Dungeons), they changed that by adding thousands of pointless quests and raised the XP they rewarded, so the gameplay shifted from Group to Solo content.
The quests were also more meaningful and there was more variety , you just had to pick and choose what you liked.

Dungeons became a DPS fest with little strategy involved and even Raids got much more easy (though they are still the best feature of this game).

SoE changed radically the game, they clearly went after the casual crowd who was playing WoW turning this game from a Group focused game into a Solo focused game.
Whoever played the game consistently for the first 3 years could see that shift.

No, the game wan't the same, if you insist claiming it was, you clearly didn't play it long enough, or maybe you just played the game in Solo mode since the beginning (Necromancer?) and didn't noticed the shift too much.

[Deleted User] · April 2016

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Deltois · April 2016

It s a great game. Can t think of 3 things I don t like.

Luiden · December 2016

Quit when they went cash shop.

Things I liked: I says things because there were many, EQ2 was the best MMORPG out there for a long time. Massive content, very dynamic play, it truly was unique and exciting game to play.

Things that killed it:

1. Cash shop/market place - by far the most ignorant, selfish decision a developer could make. On top of that they actually charged a monthly feed while also running a cash shop. Massive scam.

2. Game value drastically declined once P2W model (cash shop/marketplace) was introduced. Expansions that were released weren't expansions, just small updates that they charged 40 bucks for. Really felt like the developers were more interested in growing their stock portfolio rather than being part of developing a quality game.

3. Lack of innovation - this could be a result of so many resources put on cash shop market place functions.. they certainly have a high quality shopping experience. But they stopped invoating games, new expansions weren't really new, they followed a pattern. X amount of dungeon, X amount of raid zones, X amount quests.. call it a list of goals to complete and release it as an expansion. Towards the end the formula was so obvious it was kind of disgusting. They basically just stopped trying.

laxie · December 2016

EQ2 is possibly my all time favourite, along with SWG and GW2.

Things I loved:

The amount of features - When I brought my friends from WoW, they were surprised by the amount of gameplay variety. Housing, crafting, festivals, guilds, dungeons, quests, alternate progression (AA, status, factions), lore. All of these are fully fledged stand-alone systems.
The world - For some reason, the story and the setting immediately gripped me. Combined with the music, it is easily the game that appealed to me the most in terms of the lore. While I did not read all of the lore books, I felt genuinely invested in the future of the world.
Community focus - I worked as a "guide" for 2 years. This was an informal position at SOE, responsible for running live events and helping players in real time. I could see the SOE employees (at least the community team I was in contact with) genuinely cared for their community and were keen on empowering the playerbase as a whole.
Guilds - It likely had one of the most fleshed out Guild systems I've seen. There was guild specific content and progression. I lead two guilds over the years, all of which were new player focused. The guild features offered enough content alone. The guild was tight knit with regular events, without the need to do any "adventure content" (e.g. dungeons, raids) at all.

Deal breakers for me:

Poor outlook - EQ2 was always fighting a losing battle. I could see the game really struggled post Velious (2012+), with the following expansions getting worse each time. It's as if all of their efforts went into the 2011 expansion, slowly falling back into a deadly status quo afterwards. All of the recent expansions are nowhere near as ambitious as Velious was, which in my opinion is not enough to keep the game going.
Daybreak Games - I had my disagreements with SOE, as any SWG/EQ2 player would. Still, I was cautiously hopeful that the games could at least keep running. After the Daybreak acquisition, I can no longer see even a constantly declining future (something that I could work with in the past). All I see is a sad downward spiral, exponentially spinning into the abyss.
Low playerbase - I left in 2013, when it became really difficult to keep my guild running. We had around 200 members in 2011, with around 20-40 active nightly. With efforts, I could recruit new players to compensate for the leaving ones. By 2013, virtually all of the new player influx stopped. I used to join weekly pick-up-groups in 2011, with no effort to find any at all. The dungeon community was alive enough that I could find people to teach me my class, join several groups a night and even enjoy non-endgame content. All of this stopped by 2013 - the majority of the community fell apart as I could tell, with little to no chance of forming any PUG at all.
Lack of focus - EQ2 was always an innovator. The fact that it still kept running was due to the sheer amount of bold features they implemented. WoW arguably did the dungeoning better (definitely a lot more polished), but EQ2 had lots of completely unique features. This is what made me and a good number of my friends play EQ2 over anything else. The development seems to have reoriented mainly on dungeons and end-game gear grind, which is something it can't compete on.

In the end, I simply logged in one day and realised the game I loved is no longer there anymore. I could not see the game sustaining itself - not even in a way that would let me play the current content enjoyably. Even the Guide programme (facilitated directly by SOE) was slowly dying out, that was the nail in the coffin.

I left pre-Daybreak. Back in 2013 when I left, you could in theory put on rose tinted glasses. You could argue the game would be at least maintained in a reasonable fashion. Today, seeing nothing but an end around the corner has to be delusional.

Chieftan · December 2016

Good Things:

Depth-tons of character skill customization
Graphics-still decent for its age, some epic zone geography
Classes-the class list is significantly bigger than most MMOs
Atmosphere-there's something about audiovisual about this game that is very immersive. I want VR!

Bad things
Animations/spell fx-the character movements tend to look a bit animatronic and there's a bit much flash bang going on with spells
P2W intrusions-practically everything you can do in the game can either be completed instantly or much faster if you pay

epoq · December 2016

It was a great game, if you would have gotten in a few years ago or played the time locked servers when the first came out, the game was a blast. It's a pretty dead game now and Daybreak isn't going to be able to do anything to revive it. Shame that EQNext got canned, it's Pantheon or bust now for the old heads.

Archlyte · December 2016

3 Favorite Things:
-Nostalgia at visiting the areas
-Lore and Look
-Skeletons hanging around under sea wrecks

3 Crap things:
-Horrible Quest Hub Gameplay
-Combat that feels so disconnected it's like you are watching someone else play.
-Housing that is instanced and therefore of no consequence even though there are a lot of decorating options.

fodell54 · December 2016

Solid necro but it had only been 8 months since the last post. You should have waited a bit longer to post. You know.... For max effect.

Good job guys!

rojoArcueid · December 2016

TheAmir said:

^ EQ2 came out before WoW, so technically WoW is the copy-and-paste (though I think it's a matter of both companies trying to out-do one another since they released so closely together. EQ2 lost, unfortunately).

terrible engine in EQ2, and Blizz has the tendency of doing other peoples ideas better than themselves. EQ2 could never compete with WoW on any front. If EQ2 had the quality of WoW then it would have had a chance, but that EQ engine is flat out terrible. Not a chance.

Grimula · December 2016

How is a cash shop a Bad thing ? it has Nothing of importance in it ....and you get 500 cash per month ...so after a few months you will be able to buy all the fluff you want.

Easily the best PVE mmo on the market

there is no game that has a better Gnome race then the Everquest franchise

I play Everquest for the Gnomes

Aelious · December 2016

I play here and there (I want the Qeynos Claymore for my Paladin) and have been since '05. I end up stopping after a bit because those I play with don't play it and gameplay seems redundant after a while. To be honest though I could hunt down L&L quests, Heritage quests, crafting/gathering, collections, etc. This heads up my good list:

Good

Lots of different things, and amount of those things, to do (see above). Dungeon list a mile long.
Interesting crafting.
Great housing.

Bad

Bloated skillsets that have you looking at your hotbars more than the fight itself.
Bad/choppy animations (Troubs/Dirges know what I mean )
Dated graphics (Old zones. New zones look great)

I really wish they would combine all servers (One TL and one standard).

Moirae · December 2016

Lord.Bachus said:

I am doing some research about a few games..

why are you playing EQ2, or why did you quit?

what are your 3 favorite things of this game
what are your 3 negative things in this game
please list both possitives and negatives, as well as answer my question..

I quit and came back years later. I play for the housing, and because it feels like home to me. This is the only MMO that has ever felt that way for me. I still feel a thrill at the music, especially Frostfell.

Theocritus · December 2016

Ive quit and restarted EQ2 a few times....Its just too quest focused for me....Also it seems to be void of players

centkin · December 2016

I quit and came back a few times. Mostly it was to see new content, new levels, etc. I tended to quit at max level because there wasn't enough to do.

I stayed away for good over a draining of my e-wallet with them on a game I thought was cancelled that I originally only looked at for a couple of days, that they kept going for 9 months without notifying me that they were taking money out or etc. (really you should get an email every month regardless if you have funds going out) until it ran out of funds. THEN they decided to let me know. So I had a game I hadn't logged into for 9 months that they just took the money for and they wouldn't help me either. I had saved up enough for an expansion and more of Everquest 2, and yes I was planning on coming back that one more time, but that soured me on the whole thing.

waynejr2 · December 2016

do or do not, there is no why.

syriinx · December 2016

Good:
1. Best instanced housing on the market by an enormous margin if you like to build/decorate things.
2. Best MMORPG IP. Sure, it owes everything to LOTR and D&D, and you could say that LOTR (or Star Wars) is the best MMO IP, but those games are limited by their IP. EQ is not. Bst collection of races in an MMORPG for sure
3. Heritage quests. Long quests that take you all over the world and into dungeons, often with heavy lore

I could list about 20 other things here, EQ2 probably has more positives to me than any other game on the market

Bad:
1. Ability bloat
2. Its managed to get stale. A lot of this has to do wth it being a 12 year old game, but they havent really tried much new in a while
3. Expansions have gotten smaller and smaller over the years

Lunshea · March 2017

If you like the feel of classic mmorpg's and just want to play very casually, level some, try out lots of different classes and maybe some housing - EQ2 is still one of the best games out there. 100% action combat free, yeah

So if this doesn't scare you away:

1) True endgame only available to a small percentage of the player base (the absolutely most hardcore players). An HUUGE catchup wall made up by (in my opinion) very bad game design choices (tithe and ascencion classes) will make you dead meat and unwanted in most grouping content for at least this (and maybe the next) expansion. Items that dropped in summer events are still BiS, no longer obtainable but yet needed to be competetive for many classes. Gear upgrades for non-raiders mostly available through a handful of repeatable quests with bad RNG.
2) End game grouping (dungeons) mostly dead due to 1) and a horrible itemization design choices.
3) End game alt playing - which used to be the true strength of EQ2 - mostly dead due to 1)
4) Talents and abilities are a complete bloat mess and are very outdated - 300+ talents where most of them haven't been revised and balanced out to be worthy for years. Stats inflation has gone stampede and Daybreak Games seems to have lost all control of balance and class mechanics.
5) Skeleton dev crew releases smaller and smaller expansion at full price (or more).

...you should really give it a shot

Still my favorite mmorpg ever, but it's sad to see it dying and almost completely ruined

Pantheon, please come save us!

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