I’m enjoying EQ2 a lot more than I expected, being a longtime EQ1 hater. I just had a 5-day streak of powergaming (so to speak) exploring the game. I am even crafting, which I could never force myself to do in previous MMO’s!
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Visual effects, models and general level of complexity is fantastic. Learning the systems and details is great, going through the initial quests is neat and the introduction to the game is quite good.
However, not all is good. My main problems with it (and the stuff that I expect will make me quit the game well before 50):
Wasted time, instancing, travels, etc.
– Hey wanna join us? We’re in X come meet at the door
* Omw should be just 10 minutes
Run… walk, zone, walk, zone …
* Oh damn which inst?
– X 3
* k
Zone Run Walk Fly, Run Walk
10-15 minutes later the person has joined his friends. When I think about the amount of game time I have spent NOT PLAYING it but just walking here or there, I’m amazed. Will be interesting to see how it goes from here, but I can only expect it to get worse, as in getting to 30 minutes between deciding to do something and actually being able to begin.
– Variety
First time I came out of South Qeynos I saw snakes, rats and walking cats. Lots of freaking cats. They changed colors as I leveled, but the same old cats. At 18 now I took a peek into TS and saw what looked like higher numbered cats.
Same thing with scenery… I’m already tired of seeing this damned city and the same rolling hills, but my peek into TS only hinted me at a slight change of hue.
– Visuals
I can’t stand to see the beautiful models and textures in this game butchered by the absolutely ridiculous animations for example when mobs run (or shall I say "vibrate"?). Night time is too dark. Scenery is very samey. Can’t zoom out a bit more to enjoy a wide view of the battle (thank god I’m a caster). Lack of collisions means the battles are an untidy mess with wonderful spell effects on top of it.
– Crafting
So much interdependency with a very inconvenient market system will probably mean higher tiers of crafting require true dedication to crafting. Even if I’m crafting at the moment, I don’t see me doing for long except the self-sustainable, affordable and bugged cooking.
– Bugs
Seen more than I expected. No game breakers, but many annoyances in many spots.
– Combat
I sure hope those HO things become more interesting and accessible, because (a) soloing they drive combat into repetition, and (b) so far in groups it’s been impossible to use. Interrupts, fizzles and random procs are all over the place, more distracting than interesting, and actually remove excitement from the battles.
– Drops / loot
This is the worst. At 18 I think I have seen about 10 different pieces of dropped equipment TOTAL; I mean, the exact same piece of equipment dropped many times. Skills book drops are very fixed too, so you see 23 Adepts of certain spells, and 0 of others. It’s just not interesting at all.
– Quests
Finding needles in a haystack is not my cup of tea. Either a quest states clearly what has to be done or I’ll be looking it up on the web; or worse, it will sit in my questlog until a few levels later when I happen to run by the place I was supposed to visit, and then give me a laughable reward. The use of quests to introduce the player to the game and equip is great, but at around level 15 I was already bored of a filled up and annoying to browse quest journal and plain insufficient information. Since all quests are variants of 3 dynamics (fedex, kill X, kill Y for N drops), I doubt I’ll be doing many more besides the "required" ones.
– Grouping
People in general are educated BUT with a certain greediness to them. I just joined a guild so I’m expecting less pick-up groups and more consistent grouping, at the expense of meeting way less people.
– Hassle
Everything in the game is a bit of a chore, nothing is straightforward which means as you are learning things feel quite deep, but get tedious afterwards.
I know I’m low level, but these are the traits I expect to see in a game when you’re in your mid-high 40s. Seeing that happen at the low levels already is not making me very anxious to see what lies ahead.
Well, actually yes. I’m still looking forward to World of Warcraft to be released in Europe. The choice between the two is still easy: WoW all the way, even if it might have less longevity. I’d rather be entertained for 9 months than amazed for a month and bored for 2 years.
"Quit the game well before 50" turned out to be level 19. Was bored to tears with the game, the fighting, the grouping, the soloing, the crafting, the selling, the running, the bugs and many other things. Just not my cup of coffee. WoW here I come!