First, most of these questions have been answered before in other threads, go back a couple pages and look for them to get a better idea. The sticky is also nice.
Anyways, that being said...
Wow, i'd never thought i'd see the day where SR was actually a bit helpful. If you take away his negative spin on things becuase he did just about everything wrong, and you actually get some decent answers.
(Removing the twist and adding more info)
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1. yes, they all can solo. even healers. good thing too, cause thats what you will be doing most of the time. not alot of grouping going on. game is perfect for someone who wants to solo to the top then start the end game raids.
1. Yes, every class can solo just like in WoW, there are some that are more suited to groups then others, but in general most can solo. Contrary to what SR says though, you will NOT be soloing all the time. SR just doesn't know how to LFG right, there are some flaws in the LFG system but keeping an eye on the chat channels and asking in there always gets results. Just SR is too stupid to even get the facts through his head.
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2. no. this is the best site for info with EQ2. dont find it here, probably wont find it anywhere.
2. Ok, that was a flat out lie spoken from someone who DOESN'T EVEN PLAY THE GAME anymore.
eq2.ogaming.com/db
MUCH better site, though mainly only to having a bit more updated information. If you remember the zam.com thingy from awhile back (if you were even here) thats one of the networks that will be merging with alla, so come that time this WILL be the best site. Timeframe, August.
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3. hasnt been a server added in a while.
3. The first wholly truthful answer... which i'm shocked he didn't put a spin on like "which isn't surprising since the game has very few people playing and is loosing them daily" (which of course isn't true). I don't know of any new servers having gone up recently, though they may be putting up some soon. Most servers are always sitting along the line between medium to heavy pop unless the severs have gone down recently.
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4. no one does the grind better than EQ. EQ2 is no exception. after you start the game, just download the KOS expansion and at level 20, you can start grinding AA,s to your hearts content. as far as end game, same as WoW. raid a hand full of instances over and over for the best gear.
4. Again a partially true with a twist. At 20 with the KoS expansion (comes bundled with base game if you go to a game store) you can start gaining the EQ2 version of AA, Achievment points. One of the easiest ways (I wont go into all since there are quite a few) to gain AP is to do quests that con blue and above to you. Once you hit 70 all exp you gain is put into AxP which you can have 50 levels of max right now. The raiding scene is much different in EQ2 then WoW, many more dungeons and not as long There have been some other threads devoted specifically to raiding if you wanted to get a better idea.
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5. well, yes, but in name only. for instance, the j-boots add a little to your run speed, but not enough to outrun any monsters. see, yes and no. the fishbone earing for instance does allow you to breath underwater, but any healer can cast a spell for that, and there are MABE 3 or 4 quests that it would be usefull on, but not necessary. no underwater dungons. the quest for the greater lightstone is not a whole lot better than the torch you get for free when you first make a character. basically, long quests for nostalga purposes. the stats on them are ok for when you get the quest, but usually inferrior to drops by the time you actually complete the quest. and other than the j-boot quest, they usually end up in a group only nasty dungon to complete. started both the fishbone earing and light stone quest, and both were still incomplete on my quest journal when i cancelled my account because i could never find a group that wanted to go there to help me finnish it after many weeks of trying. might have had better luck had i played a healer, or double boxed.
5. I've not played EQ1, so I don't know about the naming thingy so i'll have to take SR's word on that again... however his little rant about them not being good by the time you complete the quest is total and utter BS. Sure some wont, if you wait long enough, but others will be used for quite some time. Just breaking down some of what he said:
J-Boots, these are only a 10% speed bonus, and suspend during combat like most speed bonuses be it buff or mount, so of course you can't outrun the mob there. The nice thing about J-Boots is they STACK with other run-speed BUFFS (not mounts, not sure on sprint, but sprint is usable in-combat and J-Boots don't work in combat) so say you play a class who has a run speed buff, once you get J-Boots you can effectively add 10% to that. Dirges (not sure about Troubadors) get the max run speed buff, same speed as bought mounts. So if you have j-boots, you'll actually run quite a bit faster then even people on the best mounts at cap.
Hadden's Earring, while there aren't that many all underwater quests, there are quite a few quests that involve killing things underwater. Sure there are spells that let you breath underwater, and even let you walk and jump underwater, but you may not always have access to those, so this is quite handy. The stats aren't bad for a scout-type either, 8agi on a ear item is fairly large for when you can get it.
Lightstone, when I finished this quest, I didn't use anything else until 40ish when I got some neck item from a quest in Feerrot. +4 to all stats is nothing to laugh about. I was also able to finish it fairly close to 20, which is what level the quest was marked as. I spent maybe 20min advertising in the level channels and waiting for some guildies to finish up some business who also needed it, and I ended up having 4 full groups of people, most of which needed it. Ran into a small problem of the zone only holding 3 groups though
so had to have some people who didn't need it sit out.
A good guild, and knowledge of how to LFG/LFM helps with completing these quests near the level you get them, its just SR doesn't know how to LFG and probably made such a complete *** of himself that people ignore him.
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6. depends. the machine is certainly good enough, but lag will depend on the video settings you choose. eaisly adjustable to a setting that you find gives you the best quality video vs acceptable lag. this is something they did well. even a low end machine can run it. the graphics are outstanding. far far superrior to WoW. no one does dungons better than EQ, and EQ2 carries on that tradition. you might even get to see them too if you double box or play a healer.
6. Besides the part about maybe seeing them if you play a healer or dual-box, again it is quite truthful actually. The system you have IS decent enough (2gigs ram will help you SOOO much) so depending largely on the settings you choose the game will either lag or be great. There are a couple other threads if you go back far enough that talk a bit more in-depth about system requirements and which settings have the biggest preformance impacts.