Originally Posted by Astaelan

First I just want to say, I found this forum and signed up exclusively to respond to this thread. I read all 10 pages, and have both comments and questions. But I wanted to mention that everything in this original post is almost verbatim to my situation.

I have played a variety of MMO's in the past, including the dreaded heroin of the genre, WoW, since way back in closed beta, and I have more fond memories of my EQ1 days. While I certainly do not consider myself an expert of the genre, I have played and in EQ was even a GM for a short period (playing was more fun).

Now, I have a few things to say to the naysayers of WoW. It fits a niche, and while the MMORPG community was growing steadily on it's own, WoW can certainly be attributed to a massive influx in the overall MMORPG subscriber base available to attract interest of investors to create these fantastic games. I'm by far not a WoW fanboy, I did play for a long time and at every turn was gritting my teeth about the changes made away from what I enjoyed most in classic WoW before either of the expansions. And before a bunch of people jump on me saying that the entire new population brought is a bunch of kids, I have to say that in all my time playing WoW, I did have to filter a number of immature attitudes. And while the greater majority of BAD raiding players in general were in the age group of 10-16, I found that I had to remove more players due to conflicting attitudes with those who were well above that age bracket.
Bottom line here, community is developed, and if you expose your own corner of the game world with these negative influences you're doomed to have a bad experience no matter what the game. Unfortunately, that has been the focus of the threads regarding why to leave WoW, or why to join EQ2.

This is what leads me to a number of questions that within 10 pages, remained hardly touched upon. I respect that for most of the people returning, or coming to EQ2, it's nostalgia of EQ1 that brings them back and for me that's a great plus, as the youtube videos of EQ2 gameplay lead me to believe that the less desirable elements of EQ1 have all but disappeared, but nobody has really addressed these things.

Some say WoW is a watered down EQ2, okay, I can see that. But what makes EQ2 better? What depth does EQ2 provide that the very deep lore of WoW doesn't provide? If you take the time to stop and read every book in WoW, you certainly wouldn't have reached end game without feeling like you're on a cliffhanger waiting for the story to finish unfolding. Granted, I have fond memories of running across the Karanas of EQ, or delving into Blackfoot Burrow and having my heart race, and frantically looking around when someone yelled "Train to zone!". Are these the elements people speak of when they refer to the "nostalgia" of EQ? Or is it little more than a few zones and monsters named the same? While I am also in favor of more interactive combat (who enjoyed autoattacking and pressing kick every couple minutes, really? it was the community of EQ1!), I have also heard now that achieving level 70 is hardly a challenge, has EQ2 turned into WoW style progression?
Elements that made EQ enjoyable were the same elements that WoW completely abandoned. That is, progression took time, coordination, skill, patience, and above all, a sense of comrodery among your fellow players. Because unlike WoW, you aren't fed 30 new pieces of loot over 2 hours of gameplay, with EQ you had raids that, often times, lead to only 1 person getting a real sense of progression, while everyone else was left to feed off the sense of helping a friend. Again, community driven. Does EQ2 still present this?

Before I sound too negative about EQ2, I want to say I left WoW, for many reasons, one of the big reasons already mentioned here was the addition of achievements, which completely altered what little enjoyment was left in raiding, towards a very aesthetic game. Along with all the normalization of everything, they've gone ahead and somehow fed into the minds of the masses that it's actually FUN to wipe on something that, once you succeed at it, holds no real sense of accomplishment other than, usually, a title next to your name that tells everyone you wasted your guilds time. Perhaps this is what defines hardcore versus casual? Those who are willing to spent time on what I see to be nothing, if that's hardcore, count me casual.

All that said, and thank you for reading my wall of text if you got this far, what I really want to know, from a perspective such as mine, is whether or not EQ2 will hold a long term value as a semi casual player with more than average number of hours to invest? While I learned my lesson in WoW that the end game is not nearly as enjoyable as the journey there, does EQ2 present a more enjoyable end game experience once you do reach max level (80 I think?).

I am currently downloading the trial on my incredibly slow internet connection, I hope the trial will be worth it, if so, I have an old account that I aparantly signed up to EQ2 beta on or something, and am entitled to all sorts of living legacy benefits and other crap. If the trial is enjoyable, I'd like to come to EQ2, however, if nothing else, this post shows that I recognize it's all about the community, and to that end, I hope to perhaps also find a recommended server to start a brand new character from scratch on, with no friends coming yet, no dual boxing... Anyone feel like taking someone under their wing?

Originally Posted by Aeren

Antonica Bayle is one of the more populated servers so I'd suggest starting one there.

As for the trial, just keep in mind it is hardly a true representation of the game. I found eq2 only really started getting interesting around level 50 onwards with DoF, where classes become more defined.

Originally Posted by Astaelan

<...>Does regeneration in EQ2 compare to EQ, or more to modern mainstream like WoW, where you have downtime, but even solo you have afforadable means to keep downtime limited so you can enjoy the game?<...>

Originally Posted by Astaelan

Some say WoW is a watered down EQ2, okay, I can see that. But what makes EQ2 better? What depth does EQ2 provide that the very deep lore of WoW doesn't provide?

Originally Posted by firamas

EQ2 lore is original (at least as an extension of EQ1, which was original).

WoW "lore" is derived from what Blizzard stole straight from Games Workshop (creators of the Warhammer games). This was the original Warcraft btw.. which teetered on not being released because Blizzard couldn't get the rights to use the IP, and Games Workshop was attempting to sue them for copyright infringement, but the lawsuit never panned out and Blizzard just said fuck it and did it anyway. You could argue that WoW is almost unrelated to the original Warcraft, and you may be right, but it does help to understand the origins of the species. ;)

Originally Posted by tang

I think EQ2 is the best game i have ever play.