Everquest II

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C

Cynical

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BrotherWu said:
As I posted in another thread, I've been looking for an MMO to play casually. I considered EQ but it's just so clunky and not being able to start in Halas just kills the nostalgia hit I was looking for. Probably dead in the old newbie zones anyway. I see that the EQ2 numbers are pretty low. What's it like starting out these days?
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Really depends what kind of server I guess. Honestly for casual fun I'd suggest live, if you want to group all the time, but hardly any content I'd suggest TLE.

IMO EQ2 is perfectly fine to pick up and play once in awhile if you want to casual it, and have no intention of getting "serious". If you want to relax and mess around I'd advise at least paying for Merc access (I think you still have to pay for this?) Merc will basically allow you to do any/most group content at level, if you get up to 100 you can go back and run most of the raids at least up to Velious solo as well. Although I honestly haven't leveled alts without a merc in years, it's probably super easy solo now too.

Another good thing about live, is if you don't have oodles of Vet rewards, you can buy all of them, at least the useful stuff, with Loyalty points, which you get from daily reward for doing basic activities.

Shit is just depressing and a P2W moneypit when you get to whatever the current expansion is.
 
Calbiyum

Calbiyum

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BrotherWu said:
As I posted in another thread, I've been looking for an MMO to play casually. I considered EQ but it's just so clunky and not being able to start in Halas just kills the nostalgia hit I was looking for. Probably dead in the old newbie zones anyway. I see that the EQ2 numbers are pretty low. What's it like starting out these days?
Click to expand...
Eq2 is the complete opposite of eq1 in terms of clunky. I still think its the funnest game to just run and jump around in. Movement feels so free
 
BrotherWu

BrotherWu

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I actually decided to give Albion Online a shot. I like crafting but kind of prefer the ATITD approach where the refining of the materials actually requires skill, like a mini game. Graphics suck balls but I'm going to give it a few hours and see how it goes. I'll probably give EQ2 a look as well. Thanks
 
Calbiyum

Calbiyum

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The more I play WoW Classic the more I remember why I loved EQ2 more. Yes, WoW is the more polished and dynamic game and just overall better. But it's like BfA where things feel linear and stale. Mostly stale because the movement but also casting frostbolt 100x times and farming is just killing normal mobs instead of searching for rare spawns.

But yes WoW is the better game but at the end of the day fuck that I dislike linear and commercial things and just like the sandbox adventure feel. God I miss eq2 in its day :(
pre GU 13 pls
 
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Muligan

Muligan

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As crazy as it sounds, I felt the same way. While I played through a lot of WoW and understand why it is superior, I personally preferred EQ2. I tried Albion with some friends, not bad but it was hard to stay hooked on it and I wish that EQ2 could somehow capture their more popular Hartsman era as it was really a great time. I loved playing on Naggy PvP and loved up through the Kunark expansion. Good times.
 
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RobXIII

RobXIII

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Concur. I spent more time raiding in EQ2 with my guild (like 2.5 TLE servers!), but can't get above my 30s in WoW without being bored to tears. Blech.
 
dizzie

dizzie

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Never forget having to breeze 24 people every time we wiped raiding, but t5-t6 EQ2 raiding was one of the best mmo experiences i've had. In fact the game was generally good until RoK.
 
Flipmode

Flipmode

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dizzie said:
Never forget having to breeze 24 people every time we wiped raiding, but t5-t6 EQ2 raiding was one of the best mmo experiences i've had. In fact the game was generally good until RoK.
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I feel the same. Breeze aggro sucked. Especially on the Darathar fight. But it was RoK that killed it for me also. That’s when they really WoWified the game.
 
Muligan

Muligan

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Somewhere down the line someone though progress / character progression meant go to instance x,y,z and get currency A or B and by stuff. Literally that was EQ2 for years. I got sick of it really fast. EQ2 still has the best AH in my opinion in addition to the best housing. It's still the only MMO I really got into tradeskills though I know a lot of people didn't care for it but I thought it was easy and beneficial. It's a shame a lot of EQ folks missed out on it's best days but I also understand why.
 
Blitz

Blitz

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Was there any point where a new player could come in and play EQ2, do some raiding and not be overwhelmed with 19 action bars? Always thought about potentially hopping back in and playing some.
 
dizzie

dizzie

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Blitz said:
Was there any point where a new player could come in and play EQ2, do some raiding and not be overwhelmed with 19 action bars? Always thought about potentially hopping back in and playing some.
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Eq2 only started to become cluttered with skills around RoK, before that it was generally fine, you mostly hit 3-4 buttons during fights anyway. In rok it was the start of dps rotations, cures, temporary buffs etc. The button mashing only got worse from that point on.

Before rok you could play the game, gear up in a group and be raiding in a week.

If you wanted to raid now you'd need to spend a minimum of 3 months grinding all day and even then you'd probably not be of any use - you just wouldn't die every single time you engaged a raid mob.

You could probably play ok on TLE maybe.
 
Calbiyum

Calbiyum

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Cynical said:
Shit is just depressing and a P2W moneypit when you get to whatever the current expansion is.
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I always forget why I stopped playing whenever I re up EQ2 and then I hit into this and remember exactly why. You need to pay to be relevant.
And the worst part is trying to argue with people that something is pay to win and they defend its not. Which yes I could ignore but its people like that who make it possible that they can just make the entire game p2w and everyone is fine with it
 
Aaron

Aaron

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I played EQ2 before I jumped onto WoW. Some things I loved, others I hated. I always loved the variety of quests, such as the "shiny" collections, then the lore book quests where you had to collect various body parts from mobs (IIRC you got a very small damage bonus to that type when you finished it, or I could be wrong), and lots of other interesting quests that were more than just "fetch 12 bear arses then fuck off".

But yeah, the skill bloat was a bit off putting. Never understood why MMOs need so many damn skills.
 
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Bobbybick

Bobbybick

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The best and worst moment of EQ2 for me was in Altar of Malice when I sat down and just put nearly all of my (Illusionist) combat abilities into a single button and just started mashing it on raids and parsing at or near the top. Time Warp as an ability was real neat but it became real dumb when the cast order was literally a "Always prioritize casting X before Y" so mashing was actually a dps increase because it took the human element out of the equation.

I definitely hold the RoK->TSO era of EQ2 as my favorite raiding of any MMORPG I've played. Unfortunately I wasn't playing during Echoes of Faydwer when it was current and I always burn out of EQ2 TLPs in the first month so I've never gotten to do that content in-era, though touring the zones show me how cool they probably were (Castle Mistmoore was always my favorite place to mentor powerlevel).
 
Tearofsoul

Tearofsoul

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Most ppl burnout on TLPs, thanks to its P2W and lack of itemization. Daybreak has been miking EQ2 TLE since the very first one. That was why I stoped playing on it.
 
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Khalan

Khalan

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DOF->EOF was the best for me. Our guild world firsted Djinn Master in DOF and at the time it was crazy hard, took so many wipes and I still have chills from when it went down. Those fucking instruments. Fighting other guilds for KOS contested, and Avatars in EOF was also awesome. Same with Turtle/Matron fights.

I came back and played SF for a bit and that was super fun but I couldnt ever go back now.
 
slippery

slippery

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Yael was the best kill I ever had. Especially for the fact that we killed that shit like 4 times before anyone else, and most people even after they killed it couldn't do it every week.

Freethinkers Hideout was one of the most enjoyable raid zones ever, Emerald Halls sucked though
 
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Serwol

Serwol

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I tried so hard to really get into it through various phases of the game but it is just a shell of what it really once was. Servers feel absolutely dead and the content just is not all that enticing anymore.
 
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