Posted on October 19, 2013, in Episodes and tagged everquest, everquest 2, free-to-play, mmo, mmo grinder, review, soe. Bookmark the permalink. 20 Comments.
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I’ve been playing EQ2 literally since launch, minus a break here and there, on the Antonia Bayle server (And we do have a pretty awesome community, though the best place to find the most helpful people is in custom channels rather than the defaults, for the most part.)
I can say that, as far as I know, basically no one uses the SOEMote system for anything other than hilarity. The community reaction to it when it was announced heavily as a tool to facilitate roleplay was pretty much ‘What, really? Lolno.’
These days, soloing, especially if you use a mercenary, is really quite easy. Any class can solo though some of them are certainly more effective/efficient at it. @romeomoon: If you’re playing LOTRO then EQ2 should seem vastly less grindy. I found lotro to be a long slog of a grindfest, personally, hehe.
One recent change (Literally in the last few days) was made to harvesting – harvesting skill no longer locks you out of harvesting from nodes, so you can take a character who has never harvested anything to a level 95 zone and harvest with no issues, the only thing the skill affects is the rate at which you will find rare harvest items. (If your skill is below the level previously needed to harvest, you simply won’t find any until you get your skill up.)
I’m on Antonia Bayle, too! Right now I have a Ratonga Swashbuckler called Opizi, but I also have a Human Berserker on called Fillis. It seems one of the people I game with is willing to jump on with me, especially since he can make his dragon fursona. Yeah, he’s a furry, but he’s pretty nice. He just talks a lot.
I’ve actually live streamed as the Swashbuckler on Twitch here:
http://www.twitch.tv/romeomoon1/c/3244247
An here for Youtube:
I love EQ2 for the exploration and weird races. I remember having to chase down living rocks Not rock golems, I mean actual boulders rolling around on their own creating havoc ala Labyrinth. There was even a boss rock to fight! There is just a ton of little details that I really like such as the noticeably blurred vision when swimming under water, the collection system, and the crafting mini game. I really want to go back, but the guy I play with thinks the game is too grindy and want tag along. My group of friends is currently busy with LOTRO, but maybe I can talk one or two into jumping back in with me this winter.
Here’s an idea for the upcoming Halloween episode. Look at previously reviewed game’s Halloween events. Champions has a zombies and werewolves, DCUO has that witch kid causing trouble, and Secret World, well, isn’t that game always scary?
This year is already planned an underway, and while that idea has been brought up in the past, it’d be tough to pull off considering it’s more of a news-style Backtrack thing, and by the time I check out the events, and compile a video about them, they’d already be over. Granted, I am pretty much officially out of Horror MMOs now.
I was kind of expecting a collage of Halloween Events from multiple MMOs, but now that I think of it, it would have meant Jon spending forever updating a ton of different games & a lot more work in general.
I’d like to see an opinion video on what you think of sequel MMOs based on what you’ve seen sometime.
If I did an opinion video, I’d have to come up with a new subtitle and logo, and I’m lazy enough as it is. At the most, it’d be another text article.
I also did remark slightly on the concept in the opening of Ragnarok 2.
“Traditional” MMOs are the anathema of my gaming experience, as they’re probably the kind of game I like the least. As a point of fact, I would really like to see less of that in newer MMOs, but we keep getting EQ by means of WoW clones and that’s just… Ugh.
What can I say? I’d rather have simpler, less involving games that I can pick up and drop as needed, rather than these simulated worlds. Wouldn’t hurt to have more MMOs not take place in forests or deserts, too.
But for what it’s worth, I’m sure EQ2 has its fans and its target audience.
EQ2 is such a mixed bag..
The actual release of it was more like “This isn’t EQ…” on so many levels, and the ridiculously poor optimization it suffered from caused many complaints for most people.
When it went F2P to begin with it was dang near unplayable. You where restricted to INSANE lengths if you didn’t want to pay, and where given a choice of “Be a human or barbarian warrior, don’t like it? PAY US!!!” in so many countless ways..
The “joy” of finding out that even if you level up the char you would still be restricted in everything from using high level gear, skills, quests, and features unless you where gold was another “Yeah…no thanks, uninstall……”
When I found out they dropped almost all of that garbage I wanted to jump back in and give it another chance. But this time it was the freaking Heroic characters and the “Screw it, want to solo everything easily and be almost max level? Give us 35 bucks!!” junk that was another “No thanks…”
When people talk about looking forward to EQ Next I really don’t know…
You had me choking with the webcam faces.
No chat unless you pay? Sweet. I’m usually asking how to disable & hide them entirely. All you need to guide you is a wiki & (almost) everything has a wiki.
Maybe it’s because I’ve been playing a lot of N64 & PS1 games, but the graphics just don’t look that dated to me.
“Any game that lets you ride a giant fanged squirrel is okay with me.” XD
I’ll try it & see just how punishing it is to solo. I need something to tide me over until Rift 3.0, & Vindictus left me wanting to play something with more familiar mechanics.
I could have sworn you reviewed EQ1, but couldn’t find it. I can’t find a decent review for it at all…what I can find on youtube are retrospectives & walkthroughs of the beginner areas.
I know what the epilepsy warning is for Jon…the NPC/PC names flash.
I hope I am not sounding rude, but I noticed that you missed the Freeblood race in the cash shop and loyalty tokens in the general game. Not a criticism just something I noticed
Also, since you are a newcomer to the game (again not trying to be rude), there is a feature that you didn’t mention because you probably didn’t know about it: grandfathering. I’m pretty sure you have heard of the term before, but basically what it means in EQ2 is that people who previously subbed to the game are given automatic silver status and Station Cash (I got 950). Additionally, you will get access to veteran rewards (including housing items, bags, consumables, and even free character slots) and other rewards from expansions and giveaways, such as the whirlygig from the Echoes of Faydwer expansion and the Opalescent Prowler from the Facebook Quest thing (which I didn’t log in for but got anyway).
Regarding the SOEmote system, I can say that it really only works for human and human like races. Races with less human faces like the Iksar and Sarnak are absolutely horrible (or hilarious) with it on. Try smiling with one of those races, and prepare to either throw up or double over in laughter.
At least the game doesn’t ask you to pay for disabling your helmet.
I’m all for paying for a game if you enjoy it. Heck I even got the ultimate god pack for smite recently. Also fine with addons/expansions/bonus content. I even got DCUO dlcs back when I played it(I still like it but moved on)
Being locked out of the chat is kind of sad. I can understand it because of goldspammers but couldn’t they make it as to be level like 20 to be able to use the general chat?
That and the slower pace turn me off and I won’t be seeing myself playing it…but at least it’s better than *shudder* Dragon’s Prophet.
I’m glad you did this game. I’m always curious about this game… but not enough to boot it up myself. I was a huge EQ player before WoW, and only briefly played EQ2 before going back to WoW. Now, with WoW no longer even in my rear view mirror, I want to see how EQ2 aged.
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