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How is Everquest I/II these days? or DAoC?
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I guess I mostly just hate pet classes in general. I feel like the goddamn pet gets to do all the fun while I watch. The bonedancer is kind of cool though.
SS13 Rules Post
If you want to get a substancial boost without too much Teh Pretty loss, turn off shadows and reduce flora density to half. That alone doubled my framerate in some areas, allowing me to max out models, textures and other things that are more obvious in the long run than "hey, is that tower casting a shadow?".
But hey, if you can stomach the Trial of the Isle framerate you're good to go, it'll practically never drop below that in the actual game.
ugh... fucking harbor.
Are you sure? I just installed, updated, etc and I can see all the servers.
Well, pick a server and a realm and then I'll meet you in there?
Sure. Lets just go with the Classic Server Gareth.
Aw. Fine, I made a Norsemen. Mistieotaku the Rogue.
So does anyone still play and do you think another [Game On] thread would renew any interest in, especially in the light of a new WoW expansion?
Much.
And you get 90 days /played added for each expansion, which results in veteran rewards out the ass.
http://www.ebgames.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=646818
If you do decide to play, play on a classic server.
I am on midgard Lamorak myself. I rolled up a stealther this time around. I don't have much time for group rvr and with no bots on the server the stealth rvr should be pretty good.
Needless to say, I loved this game, even when I stopped having the time to play it. This thread makes me want to start again...man, I loved playing a Thane.
Wii U - 'Nocero'
XBox ID - therealmasume
PS4 ID - realmasume
Basically, it winds down to the following: Most of the people still playing on the non-classic servers are those who already put in their time commitments, and understandably unwilling to leave that behind. The classic servers have no artifacts or master levels, which allows you to be competitive in RvR much sooner.
I also have a blog!
If I hop back in, i'll post and see if we can get PA interest going...
They both have their bonuses, let me break it down as I see it.
Pros for WoW:
Solo Friendly Game
Probably the Best PVP game
Battlefields are great if you like the PVP.
Simple graphics that will run WELL on lesser computers and laptops
Stylized graphics that won't look bad on a good computer, just not much better than the lesser computer.
I like the crafting, but it is not that involved
Cons for WoW:
I found grouping to be too much like soloing near others.
Quest log way way too small
Other than battlefields, the same content for 2 years, really only enough to pve two characters to 60 (horde and alliance)
Travel time is annoyingly slow. Even on the griffons/bats. You go afk while traveling on these things! And 'running' speed is about as fast as EQ2 sneaking. Running across a zone takes way too long for my impatient self. At least before the fast mounts.
Pros for EQ2:
Great group dynamic, IMO the best fantasy MMO for the 3-6 man group
INSANE amount of content. 3 full expansions, 3 adventure packs (after playing two characters to 70 there are zones still that I have hardly ever been in and countless quests undone, I level faster than I can consume content)
Travel is FAR FAR FAR kinder in EQ2. Movement is much quicker, and there are ports/boats all over. All zones are 1-2 zones away from each other.
Huge quest journal. 4x as large as wow, and that does not even count the collection quests.
TECHNICALLY superior graphics, but it needs a computer to run it. Probably around 3ghz, 1.5 meg ram, geforce 7800 or equivalent mins to look nice and not chug. The more you throw at it, the better it looks. It is quite stunning on a core duo with 2 gigs and a geforce 8800. Also looks FAR better in motion imo than on screenshots. Screenshots look sterile, but in motion the specular lighting is actually quite nice.
Cons:
Looks like utter shit on a slower system. We call it 'gumby mode' when we have to run it on our internet system.
Not solo friendly for all classes.
Not a PVP oriented game.
Due to lack of pvp, the rift between good and evil has pretty much closed, you can even send mails and be in mixed guilds now. This could be a pro or a con.
Ties:
Combat. The combat is about the same between the two. They both have autoattack with buttons you can press to change the outcome in your favor. They both use some rudimentary skill, but advancement is more timebased than skillbased. A poor player in either game can wipe a group where a good group can do more than a crappy group. I find this even moreso in EQ2 since I find the inter-relation between the archetypes to be stronger.
Quests. Both games have very capable quest engines. On technicalities I think that there is more functionality in the EQ2 quest engine, like they can have characters and items that appear only to people who have a quest active. In WoW I THINK the items are always visible to all and just selectable or not depending on quest status. A nearly insignificant difference. Both have about the same quality of writing in the quest dialogs. EQ2 is FAR more verbose if you like reading backstory. I tend to just click past most of it, but there is a LOT of text, and my wife laughs a lot at the humor in many quests (like silly gnomes and goblins and such).
They are both good games. I actually have both active right now. I play wow solo when my wife is crafting in EQ2. I ignore everyone because I have yet to bump into a single person who can spell 'please' on wow. EQ2 is where I group, but I don't pickup at all. I log in when my wife and her best friend are on for some great 3 person coop. Often others in our tiny guild will join for 4-6 players, but we don't often do the multi group zones.
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
MMOG Comic, Quests, and News. www.thebrasse.com
Wii U - 'Nocero'
XBox ID - therealmasume
PS4 ID - realmasume
Everything is still like that in DAoC. Same great PvP, same level cap (excluding the master levels of ToA which are not on the classic servers, unfortunately the PvE is still miserable but it's over five times faster -- thank God. My answer still stands though to the OP, if you liked WoW and EQ I wouldn't recommend DAoC.
SS13 Rules Post
Great list, thank you. One thing I would like to ask though... you said:
I was wondering if you could specify which classes aren't very good at soloing?
I'm downloading the Fae Trial thing now.... only 10 hours to go
I started playing as soon as it came out all the way through Shrouded Isles,Trials of Atlantis, and frontiers and i quit right before the next expansions(catacombs maybe? or the Darkness Falls expac,, not sure)
Back then getting to lvl 50 was no easy task, grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding and grinding but I stuck with it and managed to get my first lvl 50 Svoen, Thane and my next 50 Agreand, Paladin. This game has mass amounts of content between the 3 realms and all of the different continents, I played for a year and a half or maybe 2 years and I still hadnt discovered 3/4 of the content of albions first continent, 1/2 of midguards, and 1/4 of hibernias.
What really kept me playing was the RvR, the keep sieges and defense, ganking parties and just all out massacres in front of your own keep, and especially the dark and rarely ever seen assassin/archer wars that would keep me wandering around a battleground for hours on end searching for revenge on some damn Infiltrator or Shadowblade.
I imagine if I would have became immersed into the frontier RvR that I might be still playing this wonderful game.
If anyone is in nagafen my tags are
Mauth - 36 conjy
Sarkar - 12 fury
Shorinji - 12 monk
Halthek - 12 zerker
I hadnt picked up any of the expansions packs last time I played but with new race and new lands having mid level content, I figured what the hey, so I picked up the 40 dollar box that has EQ2 + all expansions.
So full of truth. This is why I'm actually excited for Warhammer Online. Mythic knows their shit.
I played DAoC from release until just after New Frontiers hit. I only quit because I moved to the south and was stuck on dial up. Then when I got back to civilization WoW was out.
I do miss some DAoC from time to time. I just got an email telling me I can play for free for a bit and get Catacombs free too. Maybe I will.
3DS: 1650-8480-6786
Switch: SW-0653-8208-4705
And now I'm here, because it's an extended maintenance. Well. The new race of Faeries are really well modelled, designed. The part about the new EQ2 xpack, is that the new race is Good-side only. Which means more people are flocking to one allegience over another, and it really has screwed the balance of the game.
EverQuest is AWESOME right now. Its not for everyone though. The every-six-months expansion cycle makes the game sort of episodic. Some people complain that it feels like you are "playing through" an expansion rather than "being a part" of it like old EQ was, but I love it. As far as sheer volume of content goes, I think EQ is the king. The 13th expansion (The Buried Sea) was just released last week and there are 60 new group instances to do, along with lots of very well designed uninstanced zones. And this is their short expansion cycle (they do small expansions at the start of the year and big ones at the end). Some people don't like the fact that gear they got 18 months ago is crap nowadays, I don't really mind it, it means that there is always something to do.
But I do want to stress the "its not for everybody" point. If your goal is to raid the latest high-end content and you're starting from scratch, you're probably looking at 70-80 days /played worth before you can get to that point. But that is completely ignoring what is so great about EQ, which is the volume of content. If you go straight to the end-game, you are skipping a LOT of really fun stuff. If you don't mind starting around GoD content you can probably level up a character to 70ish + 100 AAs (which is what most GoD level guilds are looking for nowadays) in a few months (playing maybe 30 hours per week) if you pick a good soloing class. A bit more if you want to play a melee class (because they are universally bad at soloing).
EQ I believe has around 200k subscriptions right now. I would bet that there are less than 120k actual players though. EQ is a botter's paradise. Botting is what keeps me in EQ outside of raids. With a Berserker as my main, my role in groups is usually pretty simple. Stay behind the mob, hit Frenzy and Volley over and over, tank if the tank goes down, and sometimes I have to snare runners and stun casters. This can get pretty dull at times... So the solution? Play more than one character. This is a very slippery slope (in that its so easy to add more bots), but its a LOT of fun. Having to fulfill every role in the group at once and succeeding is a great feeling. Yesterday I went 3-boxing in Frostcrypt (the hardest single-group zone in the game last expansion) using a Paladin, Shaman, and Berserker. There was never a dull moment; every pull had me on the edge of my seat. It was exhilirating, and before I knew it I had spent 6 hours in the zone and decided that it was time to take a break. Was it very good XP? Not really, I died a LOT, and I could have gotten much better XP duoing the shammy with my berserker in Direwind. However, what it was was tons of fun. For the most part in MMOs, you can play any class decently with your brain half way shut off. But when its your duty to tank, debuff, heal, pull, crowd-control, and DPS, there is no respite. Every action is pressed for time, and there is always another character you need to switch to to press some life-or-death deciding hotkey.
I'll use my day in Frostcrypt yesterday as an example. I was trying to camp the 30 AC 30 HP aug from Rallosian Acolyte Aemon, and the room he spawns in is 3 mobs. Besides the "corner" trick in FC that I haven't mastered yet, the only way a paladin can "split" the camp is by rooting the two adds and bringing one out. Well root isn't reliable in the slightest for crowd-control, but its all I had. So I root the closest one, run out of the room, root the next one, and then stun the one that isn't rooted. I immediately switch to my shaman to hit slow, then back to pally to cast Call of Challenge (builds aggro and blocks some incoming damage). I throw off another stun to get better aggro, and by then I can cast a heal-over-time on the shaman. I start casting that and run the Berserker over and turn on a disc because I want to burn this giant down as fast as possible because I know that root can break at any second. The DPS of these giants is too great to keep the paladin healed for the first 10 seconds of a given fight so I switch back to the pally and have him throw a spot heal on himself. Just then, root breaks on one of the giants so I switch to the shammy and tab over to the giant running to pwn my pally, and cast Virulent Paralysis (an AA root that also knocks the mob backward). I'm safe for now but have to throw a heal on the shammy. I need to continue to switch back to the pally so I can keep aggro off of the Berserker who is making a ton of aggro with his discs...
And all of the above is in the first 25ish seconds of the fight, and thats with only 3 characters. I only have one computer and it can't handle 4 characters at once in the new zones, so I have to make do with 3. But my friend plays 5 at once and is planning on adding a sixth next month. I don't know how he does it.
I haven't tried boxing in any other MMO, so I can't say much about that. One of the great things about it though is that its fun at ANY level. Unless you get off to seeing big numbers or something, boxing a shadow knight and a shaman will be a lot of fun at level 20 just as it is at level 75.