Initial Observations On EQ2

Fenna · Post by **Fenna** » August 28, 2006, 12:23 pm

I and some friends from EQ / WoW have started playing EQ2. I've put in a good amount of time, mostly soloing, and hit level 22 on my dwarf ranger this weekend. We went into the game blind, and we've been having a lot of fun. I have a few observations / questions so far.

1. We're on Blackburrow, and while I do see a fair amount of folks around, it's not too populated. Surely nothing like WoW. I've only seen the Qeynos areas and Antonica, but I haven't seen many obviously high-level, powerful characters. I kind of like that.

2. I am enjoying harvesting and crafting. I have no idea what it was like before, but by the sounds of it it was pretty terrible. It makes me wonder what the game was like, in general, in the past compared to what we're seeing now.

3. There appears to be a serious lack of good spoiler sites, message boards and other info on EQ2 in general. The game is easy enough where we've been able to figure everything out, but it would be nice to have a go-to site for quick info sometimes. I imagine it's due to less interest in EQ2 in general, due to WoW, and so there are less fan sites.

Overall I'd say I am enjoying EQ2 much more than the year I spent in WoW. I don't know that I would say EQ2 is a better game, but my experience so far has been better. I'm very curious to see how the game plays at higher levels.

miir · Post by **miir** » August 28, 2006, 1:29 pm

1. We're on Blackburrow, and while I do see a fair amount of folks around, it's not too populated. Surely nothing like WoW. I've only seen the Qeynos areas and Antonica, but I haven't seen many obviously high-level, powerful characters. I kind of like that.

Most of the population is crammed in the tier 7 (60-70) zones. Recently I've seen 3 instances of Sanctum of Scaleborn up at once.

The tier 1-3 zones, including Antonica, Commonlands, Nek Forest and Thundering Steppes are large zones and even with the usual 20-50 players in them, they seem a bit... empty. People also tend to fly through those levels pretty quickly.

Once you start getting up into the high 20s and 30s, you should start seeing more players. The zones tend to be smaller and the population more centralised. Dungeons like Varsoon, Runnyeye and Cazic are usually pretty busy.

am enjoying harvesting and crafting. I have no idea what it was like before, but by the sounds of it it was pretty terrible. It makes me wonder what the game was like, in general, in the past compared to what we're seeing now.

Crafting was essentially the same but with subcombines. The mechanics haven't changed.. they just got rid of some of the tedium.
In the past 20 months, they have streamlined the game a lot.

There appears to be a serious lack of good spoiler sites, message boards and other info on EQ2 in general.

http://eq2.ogaming.com

Midgen · Post by **Midgen** » August 28, 2006, 7:45 pm

http://eq2.ogaming.com (quest and items databases, some guides and such)
http://eq2.gamepressure.com (maps, quests, beastiary, etc...)
http://eq2vault.ign.com/ (not as complete as some of the others, but same general idea)
http://eq2.eqtraders.com/ (still recovering from the massive tradeskill changes)
http://www.eq2interface.com/

I'm sure there are others as well.

At the very minimum get EQ2MAPS. It is an abolute must have.

I have also been using the ExtremeUI v.2 from over at eq2interface and rather like it. (EQ2MAPS is included with ExtremeUI download).

Fenna · Post by **Fenna** » August 29, 2006, 10:43 am

Hey, thanks for the great information. I'm very interested in finding out where these "solo instances" are. I have checked some sites, and talked to some folks in game, but I'm not having much luck.

From what I've heard, most folks learn of the solo instances by accident. They try to zone in with a group and find only one person can get in. Are these linked to quests? I've purchased all the xpansions and adventure packs too.

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » August 29, 2006, 11:50 am

IF you are still early 20s there is a quest at the enterance to TS to deliver a message to a Halfling on the docks, when you get there he wants you to look for his Grampa, that leads you back to the shore near the entrance, there are a bunch of Gnolls around but also a small instance zone where you will find him. It's great for leveling around 19-22 (although at 22 it would be getting very easy).

Be SURE to get EQMaps as listed above, it's a life saver... I think O'Gaming is probably the best EQ2 site I've found but I also read the boards sometimes as EQ2news (a SOE site).

I started playing about a year ago from WoW / EQ / DoAC / AO etc... and love it, still playing a year later and not bored. Actually just started crafting stuff and having fun with that too. I've found it's easy enough for my 3 year old to play using hotkeys but engaging enough for me that I don't get board at all, of course I also have a great guild of perverted old EQ and RL friends which always keeps things interesting

Marb

Marbus · Post by **Marbus** » September 7, 2006, 6:26 pm

Yea RE last weekend was like Lower Guk pre-Kunark on Veeshan!