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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."
I'm got in the WoW open beta, only level 15 so far, but it seems WoW is superior to every other MMOG I've played.
To start, it's actually fun. Like levelling up, that tedium in EQ you had to go through to get to where the real content is? Well it's like fun and stuff. Get this, you do quests, and most don't suck. You level up as a side effect of quests. Unlike CoH, you can actually (so far at least) solo all of the quests. There are tons of them, I have not run out (currently have 11 quests active). There are rumors of "elite" quests that require groups, but the one I had I was able to solo. I prefer to level up and quest alone, saving groups/raids for big events or RvR stuff.
Last night someone from the horde tried to attack us little night elves. I think it was a draw, they had levels on their side, but we had numbers. It was fun regardless. We're on a non-PVP server, which means it's totally optional whether to get involved with that or not, which I like. I didn't like the griefing and other crap in DAOC that you get from xp'ing in RvR zones. The PvP servers exist for people who like that, but I suspect that the non-PvP servers will be the more popular choice. If it's done right, the high level quests will lead you to want to kill the opposing faction NPCs, and draw you in to PvP. The bulk of the high level game will probably center around this. That seems like the way to go, and where I'd at least want to group/guild and spend time. It's a guess, but it sounds like it'd be fun.
The graphics are of course great, but so are CoH and EQ2. I think WoW has them beat in mechanics and artistry, but it's a judgement call. I think CoH landscape/pathing may be a bit better, but WoW complexity is much higher. I still play EQ for raids, and I have never been unsatisfied with EQ graphics so...
The tradeskill system seems decent. The system is similar but improved in mechanics from Horizons. You can't exclusively tradeskill, but to my mind that's not a rational plan for a fantasy/adventure game. It is TBD whether it is functional in terms of actually being useful to the game. No game has yet hit the mark on tradeskills except perhaps EVE, but EVE is a different type of game.
Raiding is still TBD. EQ in my mind is wearing the crown, it's unclear if it will be dethroned. If open beta ran longer, I'd probably be high enough to raid by early december (playing 3 hours a day mind you, in EQ it takes a year to do that). I suspect EQ mechanics will be better for a while, I think they'll end up having to tune WoW. It's supposition but I'm guessing that'll happen. Blizzard seems to have an eye on EQ for that judging by the competition going on, we'll see.
Anyway after EQ and the total disaster that was SWG, plus my limited but disgusted experience with EQ2...I'm giving that a miss. At this point I think I will be buying WoW. The most important criteria I have is that it seems well thought out, and the developers want the game to be fun above all. Most MMOGs miss that completely, or have only one or two elements that are fun (like say, raiding or RvR), while the bulk of the game is boring.
$.02
OK, I'll have to give it a shot now.
Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy playing with other players, but I got extremely turned off by EQ 1's group requirement for later levels because I spent literally days (multiple 1 hour periods totalling probably >70-100 hours) "LFG" (announcing and flagged).
I downloaded the beta completely excited about playing and was soon disapointed. Their ex employees over at arena.net are doing a much better job with guildwars than they are with WoW. This was a little side by side I wrote for a message board I post on. Game Client size: WoW over 2 and a half gigs GW 65kb Advantage: GW Client Download times WoW 32 hours GW 15 seconds Advantage: GW Graphics: WoW Decent graphics but nothing to write home about GW I'm amazed every time I look at them, all the way down to the tiniest details Advantage: GW Storyline: WoW so far the only story I've discovered is killing innocent mining kobolds GW not amazing but a pretty detailed story to follow Advantage: a slight nod to GW Sounds: WoW beautiful music, good voice acting GW beautiful music, no voice acting Advantage a slight nod to WoW but only due to voice acting Gameplay: WoW lag out the wazoo. If you looted something, you couldn't attack another mob for about 2 minutes, combat seemed boring, just a point run up to attack and watch the battle unfold GW strategy based skill system, fast paced tough battles Advantage: GW Stability: WoW I've already mentioned the horrible lag problems and as we speak the servers are currently down and have been for about 4 hours now with no eta of when they'll be back up. GW some lag problems and I've seen the servers go down once, but they were back up within minutes. Advantage: No contest, GW kicks ass here. Funness factor: WoW: I was bored and have no plans to even really go back except possibly during the beta hoping it'll get funner. GW: I'm addicted, I can't wait for the next beta weekend Advantage: GW Price: WoW monthly fee GW no monthly fee Advantage: GW As you can see, there's no way I'd ever pay a monthly fee for a game that's probably the best traditional mmorpg out there right now when GW is so much better and cheaper. GW is tons more stable and more fun and they're months from launch. WoW launches in about a week.
Heh, I'm not suggesting it'd be easy. But they could at least write the quests so it doesn't make it sound like you are some critical component to their tasks.
:)
Then they could have some major, significant, unique quests. Have writers busy writing them all the time. Nobody would ever have a walkthrough to follow because the quest would only ever work once. If multiple people are on their way towards completing it, perhaps they could write up custom "secondary" prizes to handle that.
Man, that'd be slick.
I played techie-guru for a LAN party over the weekend, where five or six of the players were playing WoW (as a group, in the same room, which should have been really cool).
On the one hand it looked pretty OK graphically, but then I heard someone explain crafting, and how many X-random-pieces-of-crap he needed to find to make some baseline piece of armor. And the whole group was wandering around killing IIRC rabbits (like rats in every other MMO, I guess. Maybe they were Monty Python Vorpal Bunnies or something but everyone was attacking 'em).
And then... fishing.
At one point all six of these players were standing around a virtual lake throwing in their virtual lines and attempting to fish. And because they were newbies with no fishing skill, none of them could catch anything.
Pretty soon the other folks at the LAN party started calling the game "Bass Avenger", asking why the WoW players didn't just go buy Cabela's Varmint Hunter 4, and whether they'd really play a game that required them to stand around NOT CATCHING FISH. They pretty much had a better time with making fun of WoW and its players than playing CS:Source.
And I thought, "Man, that game looks really, really bad."
I don't play many games in general (I was at the LAN as a tech not a player - didn't even bring a PC of my own), but in talking to the folks who were "playing" I saw just how right City of Heroes seems to have gotten things: the guys who were playing were highly annoyed with the crafting and non-combat skill aspects of WoW, especially with the fact that for whatever reason they had to stand around fishing instead of fighting bad guys. Some people say CoH is shallow since fighting is about all you can do, but everyone I talked to said they'd rather be killing stuff than repairing their weapons or learning to mine.
I don't know what kind of person WANTS to wander all over Dwarf-Land looking for +2 Balls of Twine but from talking to the Diablo and Warcraft fans I met at that LAN party, it doesn't seem like much of Blizzard's fan base is going to appreciate the final WoW product.
-- I wanna decide who lives and who dies - Crow T. Robot, MST3K