The Daily Grind: How's EQ2 treatin' ya?

I'm a former original EQ subscriber. I decided to take Sony up on their offer to play EQ2 for free until the end of September. I was pleasantly surprised by what I found. I seriously considered subscribing after my free period is up. Unfortunately, WoW won because there just aren't enough hours in my day to play both games. I'm already very ensconced in WoW, and with WotLK coming soon, I definitely won't have enough time to play both games. I really had a lot of fun during the free trial, though! I would consider subscribing someday if WoW stops tickling my fancy.

A friend and I had gone from WoW to EQ2. I loved many of the differences between the games. There were shinies to pick up, actual reasons to poke around in corners and explore, tons and tons of quests so you did not feel like you'd have to be doing the same exact ones on an alt (with so many "random" quests scattered about, it did feel a bit unorganized, though).

All that and my subscription did not survive past the month that came with the box. It had very little to do with the quality of the game (there were quite a few glitches, but most were not huge) and everything to do with the quality of the support.

I still miss some of the features and gameplay of EQ2, but staying there with a subscription would have been like telling SOE that I approve of the way they handle things with customers. I'd rather my money go to LotRO for now.

Someone convince me SOE has changed and I might consider going back at some point to say hello to my Iskar again. The shinies are calling.

I have had an EQ2 account since Day 1. I've come and gone periodically, cancelling and re-upping every few months (more a reflection of Real-life than of desire). In that time, I've had cause to work with SOE by phone and via their live-chat. In all cases, they've been nothing but courteous and have always resolved my problems quickly. No, I don't work for them -- I have had cause to use customer service several times, and the truth is that I simply haven't had any of these "I won't play because of SOE's service" problems. Doesn't mean that they don't exist, just that I've never encountered them. For instance, Blizzard kept double-billing me for nearly three months in a row (early THIS year), before I finally cancelled in disgust and told them why. Does that mean everyone will get the same poor treatment from Blizz? Probably not. But they certainly didn't impress me -- whereas, Sony did, the times I called them/talked to them. Overall, you won't find a more in-depth game, with as much a wide variety of things to do (besides Raid).

I find SOE games extremely difficult to get into mainly because they are always in a state of change. They like to tamper with core mechanics way to much. The populations on almost every SOE game is relatively small. Everything from SWG, EQ 2, PotBS, Matrix...whatever, they all have weak populations.

I don't think they necessarily make bad games, but I think they are managed very poorly.

I've played EQ2 religiously for years on end, only stopping to be disappointed with Vanguard, quickly bored with Lotro and disgusted by WoW (the community, not the game).

In the end though, after 4 years of upgrading and replacing my hardware, the game still won't give me a descent framerate. The engine sucks. Terribly. Shadows are in there, but you can't use 'em. Spell effects are gorgeous but you still have to turn them off when you go raiding. The previous expansion gave us bigger zones, farther drawdistances and... even crappier framerates.

So in the long run I ended up with a quad core CPU, oodles of RAM and two 8800GT's in SLI, only to have the game run the same way it did on release. Poorly.

Still, it's by far the best MMO I've played. For me it's the layers and layers of content, all equally crack-like to me. I'm easily addicted, it seems, yet no other MMO has the lovely shinies, the master chests, the spell upgrading from said chests with the ever so pleasant master drops, the not too easy not too hard crafting, the wonderfull harvesting with the DING every time a rare turns up, the multitude of classes... and the crappy PvP where you can get owned by everybody and their mom if they happen to roll a brigand. Which they all do.

I implore you SOE. It's been 4 years. Time for an engine update! Let me use my shiny videocards. Take the load from off the regular CPU and make this game run like it should. I'm not coming back 'till you do.

(Yeah, I've been in AoC, grown callused by the kiddies and moved to WoW, where everything runs at 60fps. All the time. Full AA, full ansiotropic, even with the super transparancy aa on. Now I know this game isn't half as detailed as EQ2, but come on. Throwing hardware at a game should increase the framerate!)

I used to play eq2 quite a lo and really enjoyed myself, however what really got me was the fairly low pop and crap service on my european server, the fact that the engine is absolute crap, and looks and runs shit compared to other games released around the same time (L2, WoW, Ryzom). Aswell as this theres absolutely no pvp on the non pvp servers, and pvp servers are at best inbalanced, soe's service is also aweful.

If they were to:

Revamp graphics/sort out the existing engine
Revamp pvp

I think i'd definately be tempted, and its got some seriously great things, but its also got some seriously dodgy things which soe just dont show any intertest in fixing

I've been playing EQ2 since Launch in November 2004. I love EQ2. It's been my favorite since I stepped foot upon the Isle of Refuge and was one of the first off the boat into Qeynos on launch day. It was and still is a wonderful game! I love living in Qeynos and never tire of its beauty.

Sure EQ2 is an older game, but wow is it still one of the most shiny beautiful games on the market today!

I have a Core 2 Duo Intel @ 2.66 GHz, NVidia 8800 GT GPU and 2 GB of RAM. I set everything to pretty much max and I get VERY little FPS hits. On average I'm at 54 - 60 FPS. During a raid of course that can drop, but I usually just one click to Balanced Performance, then back to Extreme Quality after. Super easy. Even on Balanced it's still much prettier than the #1 populated MMO on the market today!

I've had a chance to need customer service over those 4 years and have yet to have a single problem with SOE. Including nearly 9 years with EQ1, SWG, VSoH, and MxO.

Does Blizzard have CS problems? YES. Does FunCom have CS problems. YES!!! Does Mythic have CS problems? YES! Does SOE? Sure they do. If you're playing an MMO to have a company kiss your rear, then you're playing an MMO for the WRONG reasons IMHO.

I play an MMO to have fun with my friends and be entertained. ALL of SOEs products that I play do that. Find a game that suits your needs and stick with it is my guess. Or change your attitude in life and about what a MMO is all about. It's just that... a game, simply put; entertainment. The PEOPLE that bring those games to you, probably DO enjoy their jobs and genuinely try to make the game the best for the majority of people. They can't please ALL the people ALL the time. The quicker you realize that the better.

Wow did I get off on a tangent or what!?

I've been playing it a few weeks since the promotion and I'm enjoying it generally. I find the graphics to be good, I've had no problems. I was in the beta and it's generally improved alot since then my only problem is the "WoWification" it's undergone. That is to say the dumbing down, making things too easy.