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Everquest 2 vs. World of Warcraft Comparison
GinoMGG writes "My Guy Games has an interesting EverQuest II vs. World of Warcraft series that includes an interview with a level 50 EQII player and a level 60 WoW character. The series also has a side by side shootout between the two biggest MMORPG releases in November."
Since I've got a Mac, It'll definitely be WoW. Everquest 2 isn't available, and Everquest support for the Mac version was very poor.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
Here's Google's text only cache of the downed site.
And I find that both can have a place on a gamers shelf. One can't really be compared to the other, as they are both MASSIVELY different in scope and design.
WoW: Great game, fast paced, very simple to understand and navigate. My only grief with the game is that the character development can be quite cookie cutter. The talents are pretty liner, and there seems to be preferred path for PVP performance. WoW does at least have a plan for PVP. Though, it's not all implemented, it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun.
EQ2: MASSIVE world. Your put right in the middle of an epic-sized story that makes me feel as if I am a key part of the shaping of the world. The character development is quite profound, almost to the degree of Marrowind type games (though, not quite so flexible). I love this and it makes me feel that I am in control of my character and I can make something unique and interesting as I like him. The world is beautiful and I find it a pleasure to walk around and explore. I find that the death penalty is a bit rougher than WoW, and solo play is getting harder and harder at 13-14+. EQ2 has a really neat web-based character report. You can see almost all aspects of your character from the web site.
Here is mine:
http://eq2players.station.sony.com/en/ppla
All in all, I find them both a pleasure to play. I have spent the last few years playing another not-so-unpopular game with a very Realm-versus-Realm oriented aspect of endgame. I have found both of these games a huge upgrade over what I hvae been playing, and my wife might even play WoW with me which would be great. The barrier to entry to play previous MOG's where too great for her to feel like she was having fun.
I don't believe that casual or hardcore gamer types will be disappointed with either. Both of which would definitely give you the $50 retail value if only played for the 30 free days.
I will likely have accounts open on both of the games and try to divide my free time between them. I will let the game that has the best customer support, interesting game play and a company that cares about the long term playability of their game and not looking to make a short dollar today.
World of Warcraft /moderate the damn raid chat channel!
* Like: Graphics, they are bubbly and cartoony and match all the predecessors perfectly.
* Like: Gameplay, as always, Blizzard has reduced the normal 'level-grinding' down to almost nothing.
* Like: Mobs are rated accurately. Finally a game where if the mob is rated as "even" to me, it doesn't actually kick my butt.
* Like: Raiding! PvP and raiding with a group of people who actually listen and pay attention can be extremely fun!
* Like: Guilds, they're easy to create and control.
* Like: Instancing.
* Dislike: Method of selling crafts. Currently, as far as I know, there's only 1 auction house on each continent, and no method for players to 'display' their wares.
* Dislike: The auction house. While it is pretty and easy to use, it's barely adequate for doing any real amounts of selling. Auction times are not displayed, no history of items, or how much they sold for, etc etc, all make it hard to determine what the 'going rate' is.
* Dislike: Lack of control over raid groups. At least give the ability for the raid leader to mute
Everquest II
* Like: Graphics, very sharp looking game, especially when you turn up the juice in the settings.
* Like: Crafting, crafting, crafting. I love the crafting in this game. You actually have to pay attention and it is worthwhile to do it!
* Like: Class subsets. I really enjoyed knowing that I could reach major leveling milestones and still have choices about the development of my character beyond the original class choice.
* Like: Boat travel, I loved being able to go to a lot of different places via boat, instanteously.
* Dislike: Flying travel. The griffons, when they were working, looked terrible, had terrible clipping, and seemed slow.
* Dislike: Inventory control. I know you need to get bags for inventory space, but sheesh.
* Dislike: NPC hunting. WoW has this too, but somehow it wasn't so bad in WoW for me. In EQII, it really annoyed me.
There's a few a put together. Ultimately, being a long time Blizzardite, I'll play WoW. I'm a big time crafter, so the decision was actually hard, but ultimately I have more fun playing WoW, and I've been waiting a long time to play it. Plus the extras in the collector's edition are going to be a real treat!
- Ghent