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  • fossen
    Bl*bfl*th z*p!
    • Jul 2002
    • 7098

    #61
    Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

    I am slowly being drawn towards WoW ....

    I may break down this weekend.

    Comment

    • TCrouch
      MVP
      • Jul 2002
      • 4819

      #62
      Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

      Wow I had no idea that many people were interested in it. As for comparisons...hmm...the short version:

      Graphics: EQ2 owns everything, but the WoW graphics are a lot like playing a Saturday morning cartoon. My kids enjoy watching WoW a heck of a lot more than EQ2 or CoH. Not to mention WoW runs flawlessly on my wife's rig (an Athlon 1000 with a GeForce3 Ti500). EQ2 chugs a bit on my setup, which is an old Athlon 2100 with a Radeon 9800 Pro (both machines have a gig of ram). My wife prefers the look of Warcraft, but the bump mapping and all the shaders in EQ2 really make it look stellar to me. City of Heroes had some nice graphics, but for whatever reason, I was never overly impressed with a truckload of buildings (just a bunch of boxes with textures to make them look building-ish). The overall effect was fine...a city is a city. But I prefer the open landscapes and outdoor arenas of the medieval MMO's.

      Winner: Everquest 2.

      Sound: Tough call. Everquest 2 absolutely floors you with so many NPC voices. After a bit though, you'll notice it grates a bit on the nerves. A lot of NPC's say the same thing in different cities. The combat sounds of clashing steel definitely kick ***, though. Spell effects and general ambience rules. In World of Warcraft, you'll spend a lot of time running from place to place on the early quests (more on questing later). All the sound effects on the games do the job...they're not over the top (other than some of the voices in EQ2), but they're good. I prefer the sound in EQ2 to CoH or WoW as well. EQ2 has the presentation nailed.

      Winner: Everquest 2.

      Gameplay: As with any genre out there, it all comes down to the gameplay...I have to break this down in separate sections.

      Combat: the core of any MMO, how's the combat? In CoH, it's fast, furious, and fun. If you're solo, it tends to drag on some. You're just killing for xp...no real loot drops, no items to get...just grinding for that next level. Take a mission or two, run into a cloned mission that you've done a bunch of times before, and repeat. Up to level 20 or so, I had absolutely nothing to be excited about in CoH aside from grouping and the furious pacing of combat. You guys know how CoH is, so I'll spare the in depth crap. My opinion is that it's fun, but in short doses. I can't play it all night doing the same exact thing from beginning to end. It felt stale very quickly for me.

      In EQ2, the combat is pretty damn sweet. Heroic opportunites have a starter, an advancement, and a finishing move. This means that anybody in the group could start a heroic opportunity, and somebody else could advance, while 3 people have to finish it off with their move. The result is usually a group buff of some kind, heavy damage, or some other bonus. Forced teamwork is hardcoded into the core of EQ2, and it works on some levels and fails on others. For instance...a bad group in CoH might get you killed and placed in debt. A bad group in EQ2 could get you killed inside an instanced zone, losing your soul shard. You can't get back into that instance to retrieve it, so your stats are decreased for 72 hours real time. That's right, you're gimped for 4 days. If you have some knob that doesn't recognize a flashing button on his skill bar (telling him that's the next move in the chain), then it just sits there for 30 seconds. No more heroic opportunities while everybody just waits for that one to cycle. Trying to explain it in mid-combat is a pain in the ***, so you generally die. However, when used properly, it creates a whole new level of combat above and beyond the fury of CoH. It's intricate, it's involved, and it's immersive.

      In World of Warcraft, it's much more straightforward. You line up a mob and right click it to attack. You can mix in special moves like any other MMO...but you can't queue them. If I have one complaint about WoW, it's that you hit a move 1/2 a second early and it just says "It's still recharging"..it doesn't let you run the move as soon as it's recharged...it just says you can't do it. That's no good in my opinion. Let me queue a move in advance, for cryin' out loud. However, there are a lot of critical hits and dodges that make combat on a pace somewhere between EQ2 and CoH (EQ2 being the slower end). It's a nice mix of go-go-go and thinking. One thing you'll notice is that you rarely rest for anything sub-level 20 in WoW. You are all killing, all the time if you want to be. One thing that it does infinitely better than other MMO's is the pace. You might start out in the newbie zone, but by level 5 they're forcing you out on quests. It keeps the pace fresh and you are constantly finding new areas to fight in, by a nicely-guided sequence of quests that keep your level progression and exploration clipping along. Overall, I like WoW's combat better than any of the other ones. It's one of those "more of the same" combat systems...an auto attack with interspersed special moves, but the timing on the moves is excellent, the animations are sweet, and it's just a highly polished package overall. The lack of downtime kicks ***, too.

      Winner (Combat): World of Warcraft.

      Crafting and loot: CoH is easy: there is none. You might find a random enhancement, but it's a huge void in the initial version.

      In EQ2, crafting is just as fun as combat (as strange as that sounds). You have a default "craftsmanship" rating that lets you craft anything at or below that level. You can craft armor or a sword, it's up to you, up until level 10 I think. The cool thing about crafting in EQ2 is that they made it like combat. You have random "mishaps" occur during crafting, but you have the skill abilities to combat those. It might say you had a misaligned piece while woodworking, but you hit your alignment ability and it counteracts the flaw. What it turns into is trying to grow the "quality" bar while not losing too much "durability"...a juggling act if ever there was one. When you finally start crafting pristine items at near-max durability, it is rewarding. Not to mention hitting special moves in crafting to counteract problems makes it better than the nonstop click-grind of other games.

      In Warcraft, crafting has multiple levels, and it's closer to systems in other games. The cool part is that you can take 2 primary professions and a ton of lesser professions. As a hunter, I take skinning and leatherworking as my primaries. This means I can kill a sabercat, skin it, then fashion the skin into leather armor for myself. I can alsto make armor upgrade kits to improve the armor I make permanently. Alchemists can make potions to heal, improve stamina, etc. There are a ton of combinations to it, and it's the traditional system of making subcomponents, then combining the subcomponents into a more complicated piece. However, the sheer number of professions makese it amazing. Fishing, cooking, herbalism, Alchemy, Skinning, leatherworking, tailor, etc. They all work together in a way that it makes you want to have a profession (as well as an archtype) as you grow your character.

      Winner (Crafting): Everquest 2 on execution, with WoW's overall system.

      Quests and grinding: CoH had missions here or there, and a lot of them felt stale. CoH became a grind very early on for me, and for many friends I know that played it as well.

      Everquest 2 seems to have a pretty steep ramp for the grind early on. You actually do quite a bit of grinding on the newbie island. They might tell you to go loot 4 harnesses from battle wolves, but they don't all drop them. So what you have is a grind that turns into you killing 15 wolves for 4 harnesses. You don't level very fast, even at the start, which is a shock. The recommendation is to level up to 6 and 200% to next level (you can't hit 7 until you're a citizen of your city...Freeport for evil and Qeynos for good characters). What that means is that you'll hit level 8 as soon as you gain citizenship (through another grind quest). The weird part is that you only have to grind 2 levels before choosing a class, but it seems to drag. That part already concerns me. From 8 to 10 seems to take longer than I prefer...I like the pace to move along at the early stages at least. If it drags a tad at the beginning, then Lord knows what's going to happen at level 30 or 40. Also, quests are plentiful early...but suddenly, you attain citizenship and you're just dropped. No quests, no clue where to get more...just "you're on your own, kid". That part didn't sit well with my wife at all.

      In World of Warcraft, you have the same "kill 7 nightsabers and 4 thistle boar" type things, but anybody who can give you a quest has a flashing yellow exclamation point above their head. Ones to finish quests you have completed are flashing yellow question marks. I can't tell you how quickly it makes your time go by. You see an exclamation point, talk to him. It will tell you the quest, as well as the reward, and you can determine whether or not you want to do it. You can stack up 20 different quests (I think), and just run around completing different goals. I went from level 1 to level 20 in beta without ever lacking a quest or something to do. Quests range from killing things to picking flowers (seriously) to delivery missions, etc.

      When it comes down to it (and I have to end this abruptly since I've taken far more time than I planned on, and I have to leave work now), I'll put it this way:

      City of Heroes was a flash in the pan for me due to great combat, but nothing else.

      Everquest 2 seems like it's entirely built for the long haul...not particularly exciting, but damn it's pretty.

      World of Warcraft blows every MMO "rule" out of the water. Downtime? Who needs it. Absurd rules that take fun out of the equation? Nope. It's a mixture of Diablo 2 and a MMO. You're questing, killing, and grouping nonstop, and having a blast doing it. It's the only game in recent memory where I actually felt the need to develop one character, instead of a million alts.

      So if you pick up World of Warcraft, head to the Windrunner server and look up Predator (my hunter) or Mooniris (my wife's Druid). We'll have some fun

      Comment

      • TCrouch
        MVP
        • Jul 2002
        • 4819

        #63
        Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

        Wow I had no idea that many people were interested in it. As for comparisons...hmm...the short version:

        Graphics: EQ2 owns everything, but the WoW graphics are a lot like playing a Saturday morning cartoon. My kids enjoy watching WoW a heck of a lot more than EQ2 or CoH. Not to mention WoW runs flawlessly on my wife's rig (an Athlon 1000 with a GeForce3 Ti500). EQ2 chugs a bit on my setup, which is an old Athlon 2100 with a Radeon 9800 Pro (both machines have a gig of ram). My wife prefers the look of Warcraft, but the bump mapping and all the shaders in EQ2 really make it look stellar to me. City of Heroes had some nice graphics, but for whatever reason, I was never overly impressed with a truckload of buildings (just a bunch of boxes with textures to make them look building-ish). The overall effect was fine...a city is a city. But I prefer the open landscapes and outdoor arenas of the medieval MMO's.

        Winner: Everquest 2.

        Sound: Tough call. Everquest 2 absolutely floors you with so many NPC voices. After a bit though, you'll notice it grates a bit on the nerves. A lot of NPC's say the same thing in different cities. The combat sounds of clashing steel definitely kick ***, though. Spell effects and general ambience rules. In World of Warcraft, you'll spend a lot of time running from place to place on the early quests (more on questing later). All the sound effects on the games do the job...they're not over the top (other than some of the voices in EQ2), but they're good. I prefer the sound in EQ2 to CoH or WoW as well. EQ2 has the presentation nailed.

        Winner: Everquest 2.

        Gameplay: As with any genre out there, it all comes down to the gameplay...I have to break this down in separate sections.

        Combat: the core of any MMO, how's the combat? In CoH, it's fast, furious, and fun. If you're solo, it tends to drag on some. You're just killing for xp...no real loot drops, no items to get...just grinding for that next level. Take a mission or two, run into a cloned mission that you've done a bunch of times before, and repeat. Up to level 20 or so, I had absolutely nothing to be excited about in CoH aside from grouping and the furious pacing of combat. You guys know how CoH is, so I'll spare the in depth crap. My opinion is that it's fun, but in short doses. I can't play it all night doing the same exact thing from beginning to end. It felt stale very quickly for me.

        In EQ2, the combat is pretty damn sweet. Heroic opportunites have a starter, an advancement, and a finishing move. This means that anybody in the group could start a heroic opportunity, and somebody else could advance, while 3 people have to finish it off with their move. The result is usually a group buff of some kind, heavy damage, or some other bonus. Forced teamwork is hardcoded into the core of EQ2, and it works on some levels and fails on others. For instance...a bad group in CoH might get you killed and placed in debt. A bad group in EQ2 could get you killed inside an instanced zone, losing your soul shard. You can't get back into that instance to retrieve it, so your stats are decreased for 72 hours real time. That's right, you're gimped for 4 days. If you have some knob that doesn't recognize a flashing button on his skill bar (telling him that's the next move in the chain), then it just sits there for 30 seconds. No more heroic opportunities while everybody just waits for that one to cycle. Trying to explain it in mid-combat is a pain in the ***, so you generally die. However, when used properly, it creates a whole new level of combat above and beyond the fury of CoH. It's intricate, it's involved, and it's immersive.

        In World of Warcraft, it's much more straightforward. You line up a mob and right click it to attack. You can mix in special moves like any other MMO...but you can't queue them. If I have one complaint about WoW, it's that you hit a move 1/2 a second early and it just says "It's still recharging"..it doesn't let you run the move as soon as it's recharged...it just says you can't do it. That's no good in my opinion. Let me queue a move in advance, for cryin' out loud. However, there are a lot of critical hits and dodges that make combat on a pace somewhere between EQ2 and CoH (EQ2 being the slower end). It's a nice mix of go-go-go and thinking. One thing you'll notice is that you rarely rest for anything sub-level 20 in WoW. You are all killing, all the time if you want to be. One thing that it does infinitely better than other MMO's is the pace. You might start out in the newbie zone, but by level 5 they're forcing you out on quests. It keeps the pace fresh and you are constantly finding new areas to fight in, by a nicely-guided sequence of quests that keep your level progression and exploration clipping along. Overall, I like WoW's combat better than any of the other ones. It's one of those "more of the same" combat systems...an auto attack with interspersed special moves, but the timing on the moves is excellent, the animations are sweet, and it's just a highly polished package overall. The lack of downtime kicks ***, too.

        Winner (Combat): World of Warcraft.

        Crafting and loot: CoH is easy: there is none. You might find a random enhancement, but it's a huge void in the initial version.

        In EQ2, crafting is just as fun as combat (as strange as that sounds). You have a default "craftsmanship" rating that lets you craft anything at or below that level. You can craft armor or a sword, it's up to you, up until level 10 I think. The cool thing about crafting in EQ2 is that they made it like combat. You have random "mishaps" occur during crafting, but you have the skill abilities to combat those. It might say you had a misaligned piece while woodworking, but you hit your alignment ability and it counteracts the flaw. What it turns into is trying to grow the "quality" bar while not losing too much "durability"...a juggling act if ever there was one. When you finally start crafting pristine items at near-max durability, it is rewarding. Not to mention hitting special moves in crafting to counteract problems makes it better than the nonstop click-grind of other games.

        In Warcraft, crafting has multiple levels, and it's closer to systems in other games. The cool part is that you can take 2 primary professions and a ton of lesser professions. As a hunter, I take skinning and leatherworking as my primaries. This means I can kill a sabercat, skin it, then fashion the skin into leather armor for myself. I can alsto make armor upgrade kits to improve the armor I make permanently. Alchemists can make potions to heal, improve stamina, etc. There are a ton of combinations to it, and it's the traditional system of making subcomponents, then combining the subcomponents into a more complicated piece. However, the sheer number of professions makese it amazing. Fishing, cooking, herbalism, Alchemy, Skinning, leatherworking, tailor, etc. They all work together in a way that it makes you want to have a profession (as well as an archtype) as you grow your character.

        Winner (Crafting): Everquest 2 on execution, with WoW's overall system.

        Quests and grinding: CoH had missions here or there, and a lot of them felt stale. CoH became a grind very early on for me, and for many friends I know that played it as well.

        Everquest 2 seems to have a pretty steep ramp for the grind early on. You actually do quite a bit of grinding on the newbie island. They might tell you to go loot 4 harnesses from battle wolves, but they don't all drop them. So what you have is a grind that turns into you killing 15 wolves for 4 harnesses. You don't level very fast, even at the start, which is a shock. The recommendation is to level up to 6 and 200% to next level (you can't hit 7 until you're a citizen of your city...Freeport for evil and Qeynos for good characters). What that means is that you'll hit level 8 as soon as you gain citizenship (through another grind quest). The weird part is that you only have to grind 2 levels before choosing a class, but it seems to drag. That part already concerns me. From 8 to 10 seems to take longer than I prefer...I like the pace to move along at the early stages at least. If it drags a tad at the beginning, then Lord knows what's going to happen at level 30 or 40. Also, quests are plentiful early...but suddenly, you attain citizenship and you're just dropped. No quests, no clue where to get more...just "you're on your own, kid". That part didn't sit well with my wife at all.

        In World of Warcraft, you have the same "kill 7 nightsabers and 4 thistle boar" type things, but anybody who can give you a quest has a flashing yellow exclamation point above their head. Ones to finish quests you have completed are flashing yellow question marks. I can't tell you how quickly it makes your time go by. You see an exclamation point, talk to him. It will tell you the quest, as well as the reward, and you can determine whether or not you want to do it. You can stack up 20 different quests (I think), and just run around completing different goals. I went from level 1 to level 20 in beta without ever lacking a quest or something to do. Quests range from killing things to picking flowers (seriously) to delivery missions, etc.

        When it comes down to it (and I have to end this abruptly since I've taken far more time than I planned on, and I have to leave work now), I'll put it this way:

        City of Heroes was a flash in the pan for me due to great combat, but nothing else.

        Everquest 2 seems like it's entirely built for the long haul...not particularly exciting, but damn it's pretty.

        World of Warcraft blows every MMO "rule" out of the water. Downtime? Who needs it. Absurd rules that take fun out of the equation? Nope. It's a mixture of Diablo 2 and a MMO. You're questing, killing, and grouping nonstop, and having a blast doing it. It's the only game in recent memory where I actually felt the need to develop one character, instead of a million alts.

        So if you pick up World of Warcraft, head to the Windrunner server and look up Predator (my hunter) or Mooniris (my wife's Druid). We'll have some fun

        Comment

        • mgoblue
          Go Wings!
          • Jul 2002
          • 25477

          #64
          Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

          great analysis though, I really appreciate it, being a relative newbie in the MMORPG realm

          edit - I picked it up, weather here is really crappy, so kinda bunkering in for the 4 day weekend, it sucks driving the first snow, people forget what driving on snow is like and get into way too many accidents

          I'm installing it now, I'll look for you and your better half once I'm up and running
          Last edited by mgoblue; 11-24-2004, 08:49 PM.
          Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-7009-7102-8818

          Comment

          • mgoblue
            Go Wings!
            • Jul 2002
            • 25477

            #65
            Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

            great analysis though, I really appreciate it, being a relative newbie in the MMORPG realm

            edit - I picked it up, weather here is really crappy, so kinda bunkering in for the 4 day weekend, it sucks driving the first snow, people forget what driving on snow is like and get into way too many accidents

            I'm installing it now, I'll look for you and your better half once I'm up and running
            Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-7009-7102-8818

            Comment

            • TCrouch
              MVP
              • Jul 2002
              • 4819

              #66
              Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

              Sweet! Servers are off and on at the moment, but I'll be on most of the night.

              Comment

              • TCrouch
                MVP
                • Jul 2002
                • 4819

                #67
                Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                Sweet! Servers are off and on at the moment, but I'll be on most of the night.

                Comment

                • mgoblue
                  Go Wings!
                  • Jul 2002
                  • 25477

                  #68
                  Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                  Originally posted by TCrouch
                  Sweet! Servers are off and on at the moment, but I'll be on most of the night.
                  getting the patch now...I'm thinking of doing either a Hunter or a Druid to start...i'll have to learn more about each class, not quite as clear cut as CoH makes it...Druid seems to have some healing/buffs, as well as the animals, and hunters get pets plus are ranged. I'll be able to reroll if I don't like it, but should be fun. I'll get my months worth out of it, probably more than I've played other games in the past for 50 bucks, and we'll see after that.
                  Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-7009-7102-8818

                  Comment

                  • mgoblue
                    Go Wings!
                    • Jul 2002
                    • 25477

                    #69
                    Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                    Originally posted by TCrouch
                    Sweet! Servers are off and on at the moment, but I'll be on most of the night.
                    getting the patch now...I'm thinking of doing either a Hunter or a Druid to start...i'll have to learn more about each class, not quite as clear cut as CoH makes it...Druid seems to have some healing/buffs, as well as the animals, and hunters get pets plus are ranged. I'll be able to reroll if I don't like it, but should be fun. I'll get my months worth out of it, probably more than I've played other games in the past for 50 bucks, and we'll see after that.
                    Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-7009-7102-8818

                    Comment

                    • fossen
                      Bl*bfl*th z*p!
                      • Jul 2002
                      • 7098

                      #70
                      Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                      I'll pick it up Friday.

                      See you over the weekend, assuming I can get access to my gaming computer. Sunday night at the latest.

                      Comment

                      • fossen
                        Bl*bfl*th z*p!
                        • Jul 2002
                        • 7098

                        #71
                        Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                        I'll pick it up Friday.

                        See you over the weekend, assuming I can get access to my gaming computer. Sunday night at the latest.

                        Comment

                        • fossen
                          Bl*bfl*th z*p!
                          • Jul 2002
                          • 7098

                          #72
                          Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                          Originally posted by TCrouch
                          So if you pick up World of Warcraft, head to the Windrunner server and look up Predator (my hunter) or Mooniris (my wife's Druid). We'll have some fun
                          Which faction?

                          Comment

                          • fossen
                            Bl*bfl*th z*p!
                            • Jul 2002
                            • 7098

                            #73
                            Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                            Originally posted by TCrouch
                            So if you pick up World of Warcraft, head to the Windrunner server and look up Predator (my hunter) or Mooniris (my wife's Druid). We'll have some fun
                            Which faction?

                            Comment

                            • mgoblue
                              Go Wings!
                              • Jul 2002
                              • 25477

                              #74
                              Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                              made a night elf hunter named Javelin on that server, gonna play around a while but will look for ya
                              Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-7009-7102-8818

                              Comment

                              • mgoblue
                                Go Wings!
                                • Jul 2002
                                • 25477

                                #75
                                Re: any World of Warcraft nerds out there?

                                made a night elf hunter named Javelin on that server, gonna play around a while but will look for ya
                                Nintendo Switch Friend Code: SW-7009-7102-8818

                                Comment

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