AquaExcalibur wrote:
As someone who has played WoW since the beta and as someone who has barely tried EQ2, I would like to stand up and defend WoW. Someone mentioned that they missed the humor from EQ. Rest assured, rolling a Horde character on WoW will deliver more laughs than you can handle for a while.
Spend less than 3 minutes in any zone with an NPC troll/ratonga/gnome/halfling/dorf and you will get humor. The rat 'Chef' chasing the cats/rats/dogs through temple street still makes me smile.
Listening to (the voice-overs in EQ2 are overlooked, but are **amazing** at times, lame at others) the bickering gnome/ratonga merchants in temple street is funnier than all my experiences in WoW.
AquaExcalibur wrote:
Simplicity puts EQ2 to shame. When I started EQ2 I had some initial questions that just did not seem to make sence at the time. When I started WoW, I was guided by the hand -and- enjoyed the challenge at the same time. When it comes to comparing quests, both games have very superior quest engine.
Actually, I felt that the Isle / city citizenship quests covered absolutely everything you needed to learn to play they game. If you paid attention to the prompts / voice-overs and followed along, you got decent gear, and learned about the various types of quests, where to go to fight, tradeskill, and choose your class.
In WoW, it was the same...ish. I played a shaman and wandered out into the Barrens looking for the well (I was having a braindead moment and managed to invert northeast / southeast).
WoW's quests were not as involved as the more interesting EQ2 quests. Though the simplified quest helper showing status of up to 5 quests was nice. Overall, WoW quests > EQ1, not as good as CoH (love story arcs), and not as good as EQ2. The quests in EQ2 were more challenging without being silly gimmes. I got 1000xp (1/10th a level) for walking over and Hailing a guy in the same city in WoW. Thats ridiculous.
AquaExcalibur wrote:
Generally speaking, if there was one major thing that separates the two games it would be complexity and atmosphere. World of Warcraft is by far easier to handle than EverQuest 2. By far! WoW seems to be more silly but I that only adds to the atmosphere. Roll an undead Warlock on WoW and you will see what I mean. I mean, how would -you- like this as a start? You wake up... dead. In the background you have the spooky gospel and sinister death music, you alone are what appears to be a corpse, but hey, you are not alone. Should you die, oooh man, you'll learn to appreciate the death effects.
WoW is a lot easier to handle than EQ2. But even playing a shaman, which I was hoping would be the most complex character to play (balancing totems, mana use for healing/nukes, melee gear/mana gear, etc etc), it was.... boring.
Animations were, overall, trite, character models are stiff and obviously just painted canvases stetched over a fixed frame.
I do like WoW's variety of dance animations, and the /flirt animation / voiceovers are hillarious (esp for tauren). But combat animations were boring boring boring. Might as well just watch the text window. I like CoH's power animations, I like EQ2's variety of combat maneuver animations. As a troubador, my various combat arts trigger different maneuvers. Combine them with the twisting / fluid dual-wield animations and its just fun to watch.
Comaratively... my tauren shaman stands there... feet rooted, swinging from the hips... swing swing backhand swing backhand backhand swing. I watched rogues fighting and even they were stuck in the same 2-3 max animations.
AquaExcalibur wrote:
Regarding the graphics, all I will say is this: I wanted to originally play EQ2 because of superior graphics. In a corse of few months I now ponder why EQ2's graphics are so complex when you can get graphics that run -far- smoother, are far more beautiful (take a flight from Ironforge down to Menethil Harbor during sunrise or from Stormwind City to Ironforge. It consists of simple graphics yet far more beautiful than the hodgepodge of sprites I have so far seen in EQ2.
Heh, well, I at first agreed with people when they said EQ2 has 'bland monochromatic' zones (Freeport was quite dank and dreary for a while). Then i played WoW and went to Duratar. Red... everything was... red... talk about monochromatic.
The griffon flights across the commonlands / antonica are just as striking as the flights in WoW. The world graphics are absolutely stunning. Whats even better is that the character models are equally as stunning... and fluid. WoW characters - you can see the blocks that make up the model... esp the griffon things on the Horde side.
WoW, aside from landscape geography, every surface is flat. Any texture is painted on. In EQ2, the wood has texture, the drapes on the wall, you can practically determine the thread count.
AquaExcalibur wrote:
The biggest aspect that separates the gameplay in EQ2 and WoW would probably be the PvP combat. I personally grew up on EQ1 and could not imagine how people would waste their time fighting each other. It had no meaning. It had no benneficial reason. Well, WoW changed all that. You are encouraged -and- rewarded handsomely for defeating your opposition (Alliance Vs. Horde). Untill level 60 you may find it very irritating and infuriating to die after a higher level or a group of lower levels attack you. Once you reach level 60, you will certianly enjoy doing the same, even if you are a "carebear". By the way, reaching level 60 can take you anywhere from 15 days to a few months, but in my oppinion, level 60 is where the game truly begins, rather than when you have reached your limits.
I could go on for hours praising WoW, but I will leave the rest to you. Simply get a trial version from one of those gaming magazines (I forgot which one, but I think it was either Electronic Gaming or PC Gamer, or something like that).
Thats what I did, and as you can see... I am completely underwhelmed. I jacked the graphics up to the max, and still... unimpressed. They did good to allow more people to play now, but unless they also designed the graphics to be quickly and easily revamped when tech upgrades... in another 6 months people will be whining at how cheap WoW looks.
I am not interested in playing a game that doesnt get started until you reach your max level. I am lvl 34, have a full quest journal (75 vs 20 in WoW), plus the collections I am working on. I have guild writs to do, working on my tradeskills, and exploring zones before they grey out to me.
From what I have seen on the WoW forums... for most people 2 months after level 60 is when the game ends. They played WoW because soloing was easy, they want to solo and progress. They reached 60, soloed what they could, and to progress further, they have to raid. 5 main instances, 10 man raids, 20 man raids, 40 main raids. So they play alts instead. Or they try to PVP and do ok, until they cant compete with the uber raiders who are bored and start PvPing.
There is more to do in EQ2, with out a doubt, hands down, period. Tradeskilling, heritage quests, housing, guild development, and now PvP via dueling or arena combat.
WoW is great for the Diablo players, and there are a lot more of them than there are the old style MMORPGers.