Everquest 2 Question

[Eagle458]

I'm thinking about picking this up. I played EQ years ago but never got into it.
But now I've got the urge just to wonder and level up.

Problem is my pc is a P4 1.8 with a Radeon 9600, 512ram and no dvd drive.
Ya think it will handle it ok? I'd ask and look on the EQ sites but
I trust you guys better. :)

Oh and I just want to solo too.

Thanks!

[The_herd]

Samdari is a beta tester, he should be able to answer. I don't think he had good things to say about the game's content though.

[CHEMICAL SOLDIER]

Just wait until The Dungeons & Dragons Online game. Though I would have preffered a Forgotten Realms based MMORPG.

[Peregrine]

From what I've heard, a 2 gig processor is going to be heavily recommended, I'm trying to decide when I want to upgrade my own machine (which is worse than yours) to get the game. The rest of your stuff should be fine.

[Buccaneer]

My longtime gaming friend and co-worker is trying to get me into EQ2. He never played EQ but is a veteran AC/CoH/etc gamer. He tried out the 4 races in beta over the past month and then showed me because he and I always talked about getting into an online world from the beginning. I liked what I saw because it is not one of those obtuse ridiculous stat-based RPG but instead, it appears to focus on the quests not the mechanics. I'm still undecided, esp. since I don't devote much time to gaming anymore and besides, Pirates is almost here, I think.

[Bad-example]

I will wait for a Fry's loss leader to purchase this one, but I am looking forward to trying it out.

[CraigSca]

My wife and I were addicted to EQ for the past 4 years and have pre-ordered this one. We weren't part of the beta (have been playing CoH, which just seemed less-than-deep when it came to gameplay). We should have this puppy by tomorrow and I'm not looking forward to the inevitable patch-fest in the next couple weeks. However, the graphics look amazing, and it looks like they learned some lessons from the previous iteration.

[Ryche]

I have my new computer (well, the final parts to put it together) and EQ2 arriving tomorrow, should be a fun day. I think the rig listed above is going to struggle a bit running the game, it's at the very low end of the requirements, but a beta tester would probably have a better answer.

If not, you can always try World of Warcraft which goes into open beta tomorrow as well. The system requirements for that will be much lower.

[Peregrine]

Well I went ahead and bought the game and tried it out some today. Great game so far, no technical issues, the launch was very smooth. I'm still trying to assimilate all the stuff you can do, I've been very impressed so far.

[CraigSca]

So far, this has absolutely rocked - what Peregrine said - no issues thus far!

[Glengoyne]

My wife and I played EQ for almost five years. We made a great bunch of online friends. We have even stayed in touch with some. I'm not sure what we are going to do about EQ 2. It sounds like I'd need to upgrade both of our systems, if the rig above is at the low end of specs. I have a similar setup, and my video card probably dreams of being a Radeon 9600.

[Peregrine]

Glengoyne, the system specs are pretty punishing, but once you see the amazing quality of the graphics you'll understand. I have an AMD 1.8 Ghz CPU, 1 gig RAM, and a Radeon 9600 and things work pretty good. From what I've heard having a lot of RAM is the key, even if your CPU or graphics card are less good.

[Samdari]

I played EQ for two years before getting bored with the levelling treadmill, feeling that I was simply doing repetitive tasks (killing monsters for exp) over and over again. When killing MOBS was no longer an accomplishment or reward in and of itself, and the rewards for levelling (essentially, getting to move onto more difficult monsters to kill) were not feeling particularly rewarding, I stopped. It is important to know that when hearing my opinion of EQ2 in the Beta. Another huge factor in my quitting was the huge time overhead of EQ - once a certain level was achieved, you needed to group to advance. It probably averaged two hours from log on until one was actually playing, thus slowing progress to a crawl for adults with full time jobs who have a tough time finding more than two consecutive hours for gaming.

One area in which EQ2 has made tremendous strides is in how it presents to new players. I actually tried to take EQ back to the store I bought it, it was so hard to know what was going on at first. In EQ2, the basic mechanics are much better explained, as well as the interface, etc. in a live tutorial. You are shown how to play, use all the menus, etc. Some details were left out, but I imagine that was cleaned up for live launch.

What I was disappointed in was that despite the easier learning curve, and the much improved graphics, was that the game felt the same. I was killing monsters to gain experience to gain levels to fight tougher monsters (thus earning experience towards higher levels, ad infinitum). After three or four days, I felt like I was exactly where I had left off when I quit the original EQ.

I cannot really comment on the content in EQ2, since I saw little of it. It seems (from reading) that they have done a good job of making it sufficiently different from EQ in content. I have played a number of other MMOG's (hoping to recapture the lost magic from EQ, but never getting there) and always felt EQ had the most diverse content, so I am sure they did a decent job with that in EQ2. It was the base game mechanic of EQ that had bored me, and that I did not find sufficiently different in EQ2 to get me excited. I could see someone liking EQ2 had they not become bored with the mechanic, had tried EQ but gotten frustrated with the steep learning curve and left. If you tried EQ, understood it but found it pointless from the beginning, I am not sure you'll find anything here to change that opinion.

Still, I remain an addict wannabe. I would probably buy the game and try it for a month if I was not having trouble finding even half an hour a day for gaming these days.

[CraigSca]

I would probably feel the same way as I lot of you guys were it not for my wife. My wife was the one who actually got me playing - and it's very convenient to have a permanent online friend to group with whenever I play. If I started solo and not knowing anyone, I would probably feel frustrated with any of these games.

[Thomkal]

My copy of the game just reached the Memphis Fed Ex facility due here tomorrow sometime. Love being able to track my orders over the internet. :)

[RGunner]

I got the game yesterday and have enjoyed playing it, although I've only played for a couple hours, but it seems really in depth, I played EQ 1 for about 2 years and got tired of it, but my brother and his wife play it and wanted me to get it so I did and I can't complain at all

[GrantDawg]

I would probably feel the same way as I lot of you guys were it not for my wife. My wife was the one who actually got me playing - and it's very convenient to have a permanent online friend to group with whenever I play. If I started solo and not knowing anyone, I would probably feel frustrated with any of these games.

I would love to get my wife to play a game like this with me. Then again, my children probably appreciate having two parents that pay attention to them. :)

[Buccaneer]

My friend got the DVD version yesterday and had no problems installing and running for 4 straight hours. There are quite a few graphics/performance settings depending on your PC.

[Anthony]

i don't believe Bucc. he's lying.

the part about him having a friend.

[Peregrine]

There have been some server crash issues the last couple nights, that's the only problem I've seen so far, and luckily I haven't been playing at those times. I think they underestimated the demand and they keep adding new servers to handle the load. It's still a blast though.

The quest system continues to amaze me, today I was working on this simple quest where this woman needed a new broom to do her job, so you do the simple little run and get her a broom quest, and her reward is this odd blue stone. Well you examine the blue stone and its kind of mysterious, in fact it spawns its own quest when you look at it to find out what it is! So far I've had to hunt down a mineral expert to identify it, but he wants me to gather rock samples for him in a dangerous zone that I'm not high enough level for it. Can't wait to see where it's going!