Anyone going to Eq2
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Crookshanks
Fledgling Freddie
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- Sep 2, 2004
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I'll attempt to make an (unbiased) post about how EQ2 compares to (euro) DAOC for anyone who was considering making the jump - and like myself was wondering how the two size up to each other.
First of all - I only got my box yesterday, so have had only one (long!) days play so I really don't know yet anything about the higher level zones.
Whats good:
(a) Graphics. Well what did we expect for a game thats been sponsered by nvidia - they are stunning - truly next generation. The amount of detail that is in the characters in particular - I spent an hour just choosing my characters facial expressions! I found it surprising how small details like blinking, or the characters face pointing towards the target irrespective of the bodies direction, really bring the characters to life.
The underwater vision-blurring is unreal - they've captured the real effect almost perfectly. Even when you pan the camera up and see trees and waterwide objects - they are refracted just like the real thing.
The scenary itself isn't so far ahead of daoc - all the zones that I've been in so far has given me the impression the engine can't cope with wide open areas, but this remains to be seen.
(b) Emotes (graphics part 2?). There's an emote for every occasion - and they are acted out brilliantly! /flex has me in hysterics every time I play it - beat a monster and /flex and my little halfling does 20 seconds of Arny impression flexing his muscles to the left, to the right, twisting torso - the game was worth it for this alone! The characters also have a "mind-state", so you can put them into "happy-mode" and they jig about when standing, or "grumpy mode" when you are feeling blue.
(c) The people. I started on the second (newer) roleplay server, "Lucan DLere). The population reminds me of what it used to be on prydwen after the server had opened - very little l33t speak (I've only seen one person using "u" and "thx" so far), and exceptionally friendly. People are happy to form short groups of 5 minutes to complete a quest, then split up without any aggrovation. No one gets upset when people die (mythic developers should take note - when a groups char dies the death penalties are split throughout the group). People treat each other like adults, I've seen absolutely no sign of the griefing or eliteism thats infected the euro servers over the last year.
(d) Instanced dungeons. Masterstroke - Catacombs will really benefit from this.
DAOC: You enter a dark unexplored dungeon, and what do you find in its murky depths? <queue horror music> Half the frickin' realm, which has mostly set up small camp spots at every available locaion.
EQ2: You enter a dark unexplored dungeon. OMG monster! Be careful - he looks nasty - there's no chance of a rez in here.. lets sneak around him and try and get deeper.
(the point being it really feels like dangerous exploration)
(e) Automagic resolution. Play in windowed mode, and you get a default 1024x768 window. Want to expand it a bit to fit you 1280x1024 screen? No problem - just resize the window and after a 1s pause, voila you have your new 1245x966 resolution (or whatever). Its a small thing - but very worthwhile imo.
(f) Multiple quickbars which map to the number keys as in daoc, and also "alt+num" (and presumably "ctrl+num" as you can add more quickbars). Again a small thing - but nice.
(g) Collision detection. Woot! No more walking through monsters!
You can even stand on top of the smaller ones. You can still walk through player characters - but I guess thats needed to stop people blocking doorways, etc.
(h) Locked encounters. If you start a battle, you get a little padlock above your head, and noone else can intervene in the battle (heal, hit the monsters, etc), until you hit the "call for help" key which breaks the padlock. So no more accidentally pulling other peoples mobs.
(i) Outstanding beginning guide to the game. For the first 6 levels, you are hand-help through the game system. Its brilliant - learn how to play and level at the same time Completely the opposite to daoc's "well here you are in camelot land - get on with it" with a few hints when you sit the first 6 times.
Whats bad:
(a) The movement interface. I should have considered it would be different to daoc, having "attempted" to steer a character around SWG on my flatmates box. I really can't get the hang of it. Movement is sort of achieved through the combination of mouse movements while holding the left or right mouse buttons, while simulateously bashing "QWEASD" keys. I admit I'm still a default key user person in daoc (read "arrow keys user" with mouse for pointing and selecting), but thats about all I can cope with.
There doesn't appear to be a "stick" key either (you think thats a good thing? :touch: ). So to get a rear positional shot in, I select the critter, carefully walk around the back, turn, about to unstealth with a sneak attack and oh.. wait.. the monsters walked off - quick chase him! oh I can only walk in stealth as fast as he moves - I won't catch him. Ah thats nice he's stopped - right, facing a new direction - move round the back and.. GAH HE'S WALKED OFF AGAIN!! etc. A stick key would fix this (if anyone else plays and knows that there is one - please let me know - I've searched and failed to find one).
(b) The visual interface. I'm really struggling with the chat menus. Unlike daoc, you can break the main chat window up into a number of windows, and allocate channels to each window. I've tried to copy daoc's system - but I'm repeatedly missing bits of conversation (like ignoring a rather pleasing-on-the-eye wood elf for 5 minutes while she chased me about asking if I wanted to join her in a quest). I think the (non-choosable) text colours don't help - whenever anyone send you a message it appears in a bright pink - which would be fine except you end up with a window full of bright pink and then fail to notice when a new message comes along.
Also - speech bubbles don't do anything for me. I'd prefer just to read it all in the chat window - I find having a big white "blob" flash up as you pan about irritating.
(c) The latency to US servers. People have said it doesn't matter in a game of this ilk - I have to disagree. I've had a couple of occasions where I've gone to hit a monsters, my animation goes off, and monster seems to take the blow then "wump" the monsters run off to a different person who had pulled him with a spell just before you attacked, locking the encounter. A look at your damage log reveals that in fact you didn't hit.
I don't know what my ping times to the server is - I heard this one was located on the west coast of America, which would equate to about 150ms, or 300ms round time trip which imho is noticable. Maybe they will add a euro based server in the future.
(d) SoE running the show. Controversal point this - particularly after the excellent advertising campaign they have run over the last few months.
(i) All the server downtime is done overnight, US time, which equates to lunchtime Euro time. Now I appreciate that the game is new, lots of patches are required - but so far (including UK launch day) the servers have been down > 4 hours a day, which is a pity as the first three days of opening went very smooth according to the forums.
(ii) They refuse to open a euro-based english speaking server. Why? I really don't understand their logic - they have the French and German ones located in Amsterdam, so they have all the infrastructure in place. Initially there wasn't even a euro-preferred server in the states - then there was, it filled up, so did they open a new one? Nope - the comunity manager (who I feel sorry for - talk about mr uber flamed) comes on and says "we're removing the "UK-preferred" tag from the euro server as the euro launch has been far too popular". :eek2:
(iii) Patch hell. Its now I appreciate what a good job GoA does buffering and testing all the patches, and applying them with short server downtimes. We seem to be getting daily patches on EQ2, maybe this will tail off over time (not if SWG is anything to go by).
(e) The whole combat system. I love daoc's - each party member has a clearly defined role to get the job done. In EQ2, the lines seem so much more blurred - I find it very clumsy in comparison. As I've already mentioned I'm only low level - but it seems a bit like "perform the opening attack sequence then sit back into auto-fight-mode". No where near as fun as daoc's teamwork style groups.
So will I carry on with EQ2? Yes I think so at least short term - the community spirit makes the pain of managing the clumsy user interface worth while. I'd love if mythic produced "DAOC 2" however, did a decent marketing campaign, and we ended up with filled english euro servers of non-l33t-kiddies who wern't just out for themselves, and didn't take the mickey out of anyone who attempted a little roleplay in <shock> an mmorpg.
</WAFFLE>
First of all - I only got my box yesterday, so have had only one (long!) days play so I really don't know yet anything about the higher level zones.
Whats good:
(a) Graphics. Well what did we expect for a game thats been sponsered by nvidia - they are stunning - truly next generation. The amount of detail that is in the characters in particular - I spent an hour just choosing my characters facial expressions! I found it surprising how small details like blinking, or the characters face pointing towards the target irrespective of the bodies direction, really bring the characters to life.
The underwater vision-blurring is unreal - they've captured the real effect almost perfectly. Even when you pan the camera up and see trees and waterwide objects - they are refracted just like the real thing.
The scenary itself isn't so far ahead of daoc - all the zones that I've been in so far has given me the impression the engine can't cope with wide open areas, but this remains to be seen.
(b) Emotes (graphics part 2?). There's an emote for every occasion - and they are acted out brilliantly! /flex has me in hysterics every time I play it - beat a monster and /flex and my little halfling does 20 seconds of Arny impression flexing his muscles to the left, to the right, twisting torso - the game was worth it for this alone! The characters also have a "mind-state", so you can put them into "happy-mode" and they jig about when standing, or "grumpy mode" when you are feeling blue.
(c) The people. I started on the second (newer) roleplay server, "Lucan DLere). The population reminds me of what it used to be on prydwen after the server had opened - very little l33t speak (I've only seen one person using "u" and "thx" so far), and exceptionally friendly. People are happy to form short groups of 5 minutes to complete a quest, then split up without any aggrovation. No one gets upset when people die (mythic developers should take note - when a groups char dies the death penalties are split throughout the group). People treat each other like adults, I've seen absolutely no sign of the griefing or eliteism thats infected the euro servers over the last year.
(d) Instanced dungeons. Masterstroke - Catacombs will really benefit from this.
DAOC: You enter a dark unexplored dungeon, and what do you find in its murky depths? <queue horror music> Half the frickin' realm, which has mostly set up small camp spots at every available locaion.
EQ2: You enter a dark unexplored dungeon. OMG monster! Be careful - he looks nasty - there's no chance of a rez in here.. lets sneak around him and try and get deeper.
(the point being it really feels like dangerous exploration)
(e) Automagic resolution. Play in windowed mode, and you get a default 1024x768 window. Want to expand it a bit to fit you 1280x1024 screen? No problem - just resize the window and after a 1s pause, voila you have your new 1245x966 resolution (or whatever). Its a small thing - but very worthwhile imo.
(f) Multiple quickbars which map to the number keys as in daoc, and also "alt+num" (and presumably "ctrl+num" as you can add more quickbars). Again a small thing - but nice.
(g) Collision detection. Woot! No more walking through monsters!
You can even stand on top of the smaller ones. You can still walk through player characters - but I guess thats needed to stop people blocking doorways, etc.(h) Locked encounters. If you start a battle, you get a little padlock above your head, and noone else can intervene in the battle (heal, hit the monsters, etc), until you hit the "call for help" key which breaks the padlock. So no more accidentally pulling other peoples mobs.
(i) Outstanding beginning guide to the game. For the first 6 levels, you are hand-help through the game system. Its brilliant - learn how to play and level at the same time
Completely the opposite to daoc's "well here you are in camelot land - get on with it" with a few hints when you sit the first 6 times.Whats bad:
(a) The movement interface. I should have considered it would be different to daoc, having "attempted" to steer a character around SWG on my flatmates box. I really can't get the hang of it. Movement is sort of achieved through the combination of mouse movements while holding the left or right mouse buttons, while simulateously bashing "QWEASD" keys. I admit I'm still a default key user person in daoc (read "arrow keys user" with mouse for pointing and selecting), but thats about all I can cope with.
There doesn't appear to be a "stick" key either (you think thats a good thing? :touch: ). So to get a rear positional shot in, I select the critter, carefully walk around the back, turn, about to unstealth with a sneak attack and oh.. wait.. the monsters walked off - quick chase him! oh I can only walk in stealth as fast as he moves - I won't catch him. Ah thats nice he's stopped - right, facing a new direction - move round the back and.. GAH HE'S WALKED OFF AGAIN!! etc. A stick key would fix this (if anyone else plays and knows that there is one - please let me know - I've searched and failed to find one).
(b) The visual interface. I'm really struggling with the chat menus. Unlike daoc, you can break the main chat window up into a number of windows, and allocate channels to each window. I've tried to copy daoc's system - but I'm repeatedly missing bits of conversation (like ignoring a rather pleasing-on-the-eye wood elf for 5 minutes while she chased me about asking if I wanted to join her in a quest). I think the (non-choosable) text colours don't help - whenever anyone send you a message it appears in a bright pink - which would be fine except you end up with a window full of bright pink and then fail to notice when a new message comes along.
Also - speech bubbles don't do anything for me. I'd prefer just to read it all in the chat window - I find having a big white "blob" flash up as you pan about irritating.
(c) The latency to US servers. People have said it doesn't matter in a game of this ilk - I have to disagree. I've had a couple of occasions where I've gone to hit a monsters, my animation goes off, and monster seems to take the blow then "wump" the monsters run off to a different person who had pulled him with a spell just before you attacked, locking the encounter. A look at your damage log reveals that in fact you didn't hit.
I don't know what my ping times to the server is - I heard this one was located on the west coast of America, which would equate to about 150ms, or 300ms round time trip which imho is noticable. Maybe they will add a euro based server in the future.
(d) SoE running the show. Controversal point this - particularly after the excellent advertising campaign they have run over the last few months.
(i) All the server downtime is done overnight, US time, which equates to lunchtime Euro time. Now I appreciate that the game is new, lots of patches are required - but so far (including UK launch day) the servers have been down > 4 hours a day, which is a pity as the first three days of opening went very smooth according to the forums.
(ii) They refuse to open a euro-based english speaking server. Why? I really don't understand their logic - they have the French and German ones located in Amsterdam, so they have all the infrastructure in place. Initially there wasn't even a euro-preferred server in the states - then there was, it filled up, so did they open a new one? Nope - the comunity manager (who I feel sorry for - talk about mr uber flamed) comes on and says "we're removing the "UK-preferred" tag from the euro server as the euro launch has been far too popular". :eek2:
(iii) Patch hell. Its now I appreciate what a good job GoA does buffering and testing all the patches, and applying them with short server downtimes. We seem to be getting daily patches on EQ2, maybe this will tail off over time (not if SWG is anything to go by).
(e) The whole combat system. I love daoc's - each party member has a clearly defined role to get the job done. In EQ2, the lines seem so much more blurred - I find it very clumsy in comparison. As I've already mentioned I'm only low level - but it seems a bit like "perform the opening attack sequence then sit back into auto-fight-mode". No where near as fun as daoc's teamwork style groups.
So will I carry on with EQ2? Yes I think so at least short term - the community spirit makes the pain of managing the clumsy user interface worth while. I'd love if mythic produced "DAOC 2" however, did a decent marketing campaign, and we ended up with filled english euro servers of non-l33t-kiddies who wern't just out for themselves, and didn't take the mickey out of anyone who attempted a little roleplay in <shock> an mmorpg.
</WAFFLE>
Regarding (iii) its not GoA you have to appreciate but the US playerbase. In ToA and NF they are the ones who found the bugs, Mythic then fixed them and X months later GoA patched the European servers. Mythic were running more than 1 patch a day post ToA for several weeks.Crookshanks said:
Regarding e) I wonder whether this will change as characters gain levels and become more specialised. Also more acquainted with what they should be doing.
Weylander
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 8, 2004
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"No where near as fun as daoc's teamwork style groups"??? WTF , Having a laff aren't you!!! hahahahahaha
I been playin EQ2 with very little interruption, infact server went down once for about 10 minutes
I love the game, the graphics, the quests, the craft system, pisses all over Daoc imo. In time they will get things like UK servers sorted, PvP servers, diety servers and stuff like that, i have faith in SoE, unlike Mythic/Goa gis ya cash and BBs cash n stfu ratbags.
Hahahaha
I been playin EQ2 with very little interruption, infact server went down once for about 10 minutes
I love the game, the graphics, the quests, the craft system, pisses all over Daoc imo. In time they will get things like UK servers sorted, PvP servers, diety servers and stuff like that, i have faith in SoE, unlike Mythic/Goa gis ya cash and BBs cash n stfu ratbags.
Hahahaha
Flimgoblin
It's my birthday today!
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2003
- Messages
- 8,324
Weylander said:
did you play EQ1?
or ever read anything by Tweety?
Flimgoblin
It's my birthday today!
- Joined
- Dec 24, 2003
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- 8,324
Crookshanks said:
Good analysis, thanks.
couple of responses:
It'll come
worry not.Have to agree it's rather nice
only worry is it might split up the player base so it's more of a single player RPG rahter than a MMORPG but we'll see./jealous
Imagine it makes things a bit slower though (i.e. you need a beefier machine) along with all those really nice graphics you'll have to turn off to play heh
1.72 has a whole load of this for DAOC - you get to choose either SI or cotswold (or the equivalent in Midgard/Hibernia) and there's a load of "starter quests" that teach you how to play. But yeah tis a good thing
Been playing Pendragon a lot recently (see sig for why
) and the latency is definitely noticeable.Doubt I'll bother trying EQ2 for the same reason I've not tried WoW yet - no time....
Javai
Fledgling Freddie
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- Jan 8, 2004
- Messages
- 1,531
Tried EQ2 after never playing EQ. Here's my good and bad points so far:
1. Graphics - this is a tough one to explain but I find EQ2 too 'game-like' compared even with DaoC. The large dialogue boxes and goblins talking in symbols give you very much a sense of playing a game rather than an immersive experience. I could probably change the settings to fix this but as we're talking first impressions here that has less relevance.
2. Ease of play - The first levels (up to around level 7) are nice and easily done and laid out. But after that when you have to start getting citizenship etc I got lost very quickly. The cities are huge (a plus normally) but I found it very hard to navigate around with a cluncky control system that I was unused to.
3. Encounters - the locking idea is great, a really big plus. But we found last night while trying to xp that if people get attacked and don't fight back the encounter doesn't lock - they can then drag a large train of aggro mobs to you and they will attack you. Incredibly annoying for two newbies to have this happen over and over while staying very close to a zone entrance for safety
4. Lots and lots of character choices - 4 character slots across all servers - blergh
5. Fighting system - its usual in rpgs for fighters to be more powerful at low levels but this doesn't seem true in EQ2 where my mage class could handle early encounters far more easily. So far the combat system for fighter classes is just start combat and watch it go. The targetting system is appallingly bad, and the idea of showing grouped mobs all highlighted is just confusing (and often misleading)
The manual doesn't come close to helping on 90% of what you need (could be that this isn't a problem if you've come from EQ but its hugely problematic for a real newcomer).
I'll probably play for my 30 free days then give up - it all seems a bit pointless to me without some kind of end game. Makes me realise just what a great mmrpg DaoC actually is.
1. Graphics - this is a tough one to explain but I find EQ2 too 'game-like' compared even with DaoC. The large dialogue boxes and goblins talking in symbols give you very much a sense of playing a game rather than an immersive experience. I could probably change the settings to fix this but as we're talking first impressions here that has less relevance.
2. Ease of play - The first levels (up to around level 7) are nice and easily done and laid out. But after that when you have to start getting citizenship etc I got lost very quickly. The cities are huge (a plus normally) but I found it very hard to navigate around with a cluncky control system that I was unused to.
3. Encounters - the locking idea is great, a really big plus. But we found last night while trying to xp that if people get attacked and don't fight back the encounter doesn't lock - they can then drag a large train of aggro mobs to you and they will attack you. Incredibly annoying for two newbies to have this happen over and over while staying very close to a zone entrance for safety
4. Lots and lots of character choices - 4 character slots across all servers - blergh
5. Fighting system - its usual in rpgs for fighters to be more powerful at low levels but this doesn't seem true in EQ2 where my mage class could handle early encounters far more easily. So far the combat system for fighter classes is just start combat and watch it go. The targetting system is appallingly bad, and the idea of showing grouped mobs all highlighted is just confusing (and often misleading)
The manual doesn't come close to helping on 90% of what you need (could be that this isn't a problem if you've come from EQ but its hugely problematic for a real newcomer).
I'll probably play for my 30 free days then give up - it all seems a bit pointless to me without some kind of end game. Makes me realise just what a great mmrpg DaoC actually is.
Crookshanks
Fledgling Freddie
- Joined
- Sep 2, 2004
- Messages
- 257
Yes I'm continuing to think along those line myself
The last couple of days have seen me progressing a little furhter through the city and outlands with a priest (which, after analysing the scout:fighter
riest:mage ratios with /who the best I could - seem to be the class in shortest supply). The game has completely changed compared to the first 7 levels. Grouping now appears to be nigh-on-impossible - since everyone seems to be at least 3 levels above me. Also - if you want to do quests (it IS everquest after all) - no one else is interested as no one is on the same set of quests as yourself.I was thinking the zones were quite small in comparison to DAOC's - how wrong i was. Stepped into Antonica to "pop" to a tower to perform a quest step (which yes as you say Javai you have no idea where to go - the quest just says "visit npc xyz in zone uvw"). Spent 10 minutes runing across it, took at a look at a website map for the zone, discovered I was about a third of the way across it! It was H U G E! So, this should be a good thing? Yes? Well maybe - without a zone-wide chat system. Imagine a busy camelot or gothwaite harbour, and the amount of broadcast spam. Now tripple, double, and tripple again. Now we're bombarded by "lfg lvl 19 ..." "Where's xyc?" "Grp looking for 15+ healer".
Then the game started lagging (server side lag) which was an interesting experience. Unlike daoc, where network lag usually results in fellow comrads straffing in straight lines through walls and trees, server lag in EQ2 is far less immediate. I <ahem> "fell" off a cliff I was traversing and didn't die. "Great!" I thought, "the uber-halfling masters falling without a parachute" and set off. Approximate 60s later ( I exaggerate not), in the middle of a field I take 200 points of falling damage and die. This was supposed to be an unloaded server...
Again - I now agree with Javai - I can't put my finger on it - the character models are stunning - I havn't got many graphical options turned up - but... its all got a 'slight' cartoony feel. Not to the extent of WoW - but nevertheless it feels like playing a game.
I really wanted to like EQ2 - and maybe it will grow on me as my 30 day trial continues. I think I had better not eat too many pies there however, else my little inconnu's tin armour might not fit and running about in NF starkas might not be beneficial to my health.