After three weeks of playing I have found several items that have struck me as much better than my previous impressions led me to believe.<\/p>\n
Though before I start that list I wanted to re-iterate the three items I feel EQ2 is most ‘hurt’ by.\u00a0 These items are subjective, of course but I wanted to get them out there.<\/p>\n
Art Style and Direction<\/strong> Accessibility<\/strong> UI<\/strong> Now the EQ2 does allow UI skins and installing them is fairly simple. Kudos to them, and yes that fact does mitigate part of my UI issue since you can correct things.\u00a0 Though I believe Users should have to do minimal work to get an organized functional UI.\u00a0\u00a0 (yes I know UI layout is subjective, and many people might be happy with the default layout)<\/p>\n Now on to the fun stuff… Again things I have discovered in my current EQ2 venture that are better than I recalled or expected.<\/p>\n Variety of classes.<\/strong> Variety and Number of Quests Available<\/strong> Variety of Character growth options<\/strong> I am also very fond of how abilities have varying levels within each tier.\u00a0 The game simply gives players the apprentice level ability in each tier; such as, Death Swarm 1.\u00a0 No need to run back to town and find a trainer.\u00a0 Also you can acquire upgrades to those abilities journeyman (crafted), Adept(dropped), Expert(crafted with rares), before the next tier version (ex. Death Swarm 2).<\/p>\n This provides adventures a market for drops,\u00a0 harvesters a market for goods, as well as giving tradesmen have a fantastic and outlet.\u00a0 All without, forcing adventures back to town when they level.<\/p>\n Do I want to focus on leveling up, or do I need more AA points?\u00a0 Do I want to spend the evening knocking out old quests for AA, or simply push for the next adventure level.\u00a0\u00a0 Oh, and yes you can respec.<\/p>\n Sub point: Mentoring<\/em> Variety in Social Advancement<\/strong> (aka Personal and Guild Housing) The game plays completely different for me once I joined the Halasian Empire.\u00a0 I had guild mates to get get info from, and I gained access to the amazing tools in our hall, such as: banker, broker, crafting stations, NPC gathers, crafting merchants, and teleporters to various locations.\u00a0 These change the way I play the game.<\/p>\n Personal housing, while not as big a selling point to all players,\u00a0 offers alternate activities for players to pursue.\u00a0 It\u00a0 gives players a place to display some status and decorative items they have acquired and some players work relentlessly to make their homes look fantastic.<\/p>\n Variety of Environments I have not purposefully traveled to many other locations outside of the starting areas, but I have seen screenshots, and had a few “accidental” trips to some higher level zones.\u00a0 Those places instantly impressed me with how they were “different” from places I had seen previously.<\/p>\n I believe my initial “downer” on the game’s environmental variety stemmed from spending all of my time at launch on the the starter isle, then Qeyons, and Antonica all of which share a similar “feel” on purpose.<\/p>\n Being the MMO vagabond that I am, I can not predict how long this venture into EQ2 will last.\u00a0 But I can say that this has been one of my most entertaining ventures into the game, almost as exciting as at launch.\u00a0\u00a0 There are so many places in the game world I have never seen, and I have a strong desire to venture out to them;\u00a0 of course that does mean I will have to stop playing alts and get myself out of the crafting hall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" After three weeks of playing I have found several items that have struck me as much better than my previous impressions led me to believe. Though before I start that list I wanted to re-iterate the three items I feel EQ2 is most ‘hurt’ by.\u00a0 These items are subjective, of course but I wanted to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61,9],"tags":[62,111,113],"class_list":["post-830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-everquest2","category-games","tag-eq2","tag-games","tag-mmo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/830\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xenopulse.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nI believe the game’s art is not inviting, or presents much in the way of “pop” and “zing”.\u00a0 When people see me playing they never walk up and go “wow that is awesome looking. What are you playing?”\u00a0\u00a0 That, to me, is a problem. These days, you want people to be wowed by the look of your game.<\/p>\n
\nEQ2 has a lot of depth and variety, and with almost six expansions out now (as of this writing) there is a lot for a new player to take in.\u00a0 Yes there are help tips, and I suspect buried in the game is some documentation, but none of it is presented well to a new user.<\/p>\n
\nThe problem I have with the game is that the default UI when you first launch the game is a mess.\u00a0 I think they need to two things: 1. Have an artist take a pass at all the windows, looking at some of the more popular skins and see where the default can be improved.\u00a0 2. Build a more cohesive initial layout of the windows, so things are nicer for new players.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n“The Good”<\/span><\/h3>\n
\nI love all the different classes. Yes, I know many are similar, but the options are fantastic.\u00a0 My only complaint, which I did not mention them specifically above, is the accessibility of all those classes and that is something I believe could be solved with simply some updates to character creation screens.<\/p>\n
\nThis really should be a standard feature for MMOs, but I wanted to mention it here because back at launch I my character’s seem to run out of quests they could do.\u00a0\u00a0 Part of that problem was many of the quests back then were built for groups only.\u00a0 Sony has since adjust the game to make more quests soloable, and I suspect they adjusted the leveling curve.\u00a0\u00a0 All I know is thus far in this visit to the game I have been happily surprised by the number of quests my characters have had access to.<\/p>\n
\nI suspect that once you are at max level, and max AA, much like wow you are then limited to improving your character through gear.\u00a0 But what I like about EQ2 is that they offer adventures two connected growth options for characters to advance down,and I enjoy options.<\/p>\n
\nThis has become more common, but I that makes it no less a good idea.\u00a0 Being about to drop your effective level down to match a group member so you can play with them with out re-rolling or totally dominating content.<\/p>\n
\nThese are two amazing features that provide additional goals for players.\u00a0 I would even say the guild leveling and guild hall systems are in the top 5 things I love about EQ2.\u00a0 These give guilds in game benefits and goals to players other than a chat channel and shared storage.\u00a0 Every member can help contribute to the guild, and the guild can in return provide amenities back to the members.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>This should be a given in any fantasy MMO, but I mention it here because it is something I am discovering EQ2 does better than I previously thought it did.\u00a0 The Qeyons, Kelethin, Freeport, Neriak, and Gorowyn starting areas all look and feel starkly different to me.\u00a0 Even though each starting area needs to fulfill some basic game functions of leading, training the characters in the ways of the game, they do so each with their own “way” as they also work to teach the ways of the culture they are in.<\/p>\nSummary<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n