Now you can play EQ2 for free, if you are a Fileplanet subscriber otherwise it might cost ya some but at least you can try it out w/o spending $50.

http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/eq2_trial/

You'll be able to create up to four characters, play the tutorial and explore the Island of Refuge.
What am I waiting for...

That marketing strategy worked out real well for Anarchy Online :>

It's not a bad idea actually. There are quests galore on the island alone, and ample resources to explore the tradeskilling that some folks seem to love so much.

Fandros

This is just one of thousands of posts I snagged from the SoE boards. I plead ignorance if I'm not allowed to do it.


danzig10 wrote:
Ill chip in my 2 cents and agree. I promised myself after SWG and frustrations of 4 years of playing EQ that I wouldnt touch EQ 2 and decided to play WoW. Dont get me wrong I love WoW, its a fun game and I still have my account and play but it lacks a sense of achievement other then MC and Onyxia so anyway decided to try EQ 2 trial last week just to SEE and was suprised how much I liked it. So all while grumbling about giving the 'evil' Sony Empire money bought my copy and been playing like mad. The trial was a great idea (and bold given how new EQ 2 still is) though I hate you SOE for making me go back on my vow http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/i/smilies/16x16_smiley-happy.gif


Welcome. I'm glad you are enjoying yourself. Be sure to try out both cities, as even today I am still amazed at how different they feel from each other.


Steve Pierce
Associate Designer - Everquest II

I tried it out, since everyone said you had to see it in game to appreciate it. I still really didn't like it (to put it mildly).

I'd suggest not wasting the time downloading 1.7gb if you suspect you won't like it, because you won't.

/shrug we all have opinions, oddly enough I came to the same conclusion about WoW. I liked it the first week and then it just went down hill. In the end it is up to the player's personal playstyle.

I did have to laugh at this though, I found it on the SoE's news page. I'd say they are trying very hard to knock WoW in nearly anyway they can.


EverQuest II – 350,000 Players Strong, No Waiting
EverQuest II continues to grow at an amazing rate, not just in the number of players that have fallen in love with the game's rich, entertaining content, but also in the physical size of the world. We've got over 350,000 people logging in to our servers every week, with no delays or wait times and the game they are playing is only getting better.

Not much of a knock to brag about having less EQ2 subscriptions (probably counting the All access subscriptions) than EQ1 subscriptions. Not to mention less EQ1 + EQ2 combined, than WoW. But hey, that's just me.

I agree neither is for everyone. Just thought I'd save anyone else like myself from the download.

lol ok.
This was the "knock" I was referring to

.....logging in to our servers every week, with no delays or wait times.....

Coming soon to a WoW server near you...

Inlight of how tough it is to level in our competitor's games we shall adopt a honor policy.

Tell us what level you think you should be and presto you're that level!! Now we realize that actually typing out the request may require more time than the old WoW exping system. But hey, we're trying. We've also asked that our Disney cartoonists continue their work on our animation and in an unheard of colaboration you can now play Mickey Mouse the dread Horde hunter!!!

Fandros Finglaflin
Still refusing to play the crapfest mutation of the real WC.

This was the "knock" I was referring to
Oh, that.

I've yet to ever see a queue on Alleria, and wowcensus.com lists it as being about the 19th most populated (out of 88). I'm pretty sure the only servers that get very backed up are the few where multiple PvP guilds pre-planned to all cluster up in the same place. Even then, Blizzard upgraded the hardware and infrastructure of those servers to handle most of the desired load. The top three have 30k active characters seen on each one.

Sorry to interject actual facts in this post, instead of silly rumors like the SoE marketroid droning. :)

Oh well, gee, since Sanchek isnt having any problems, ERGO NONE MUST EXIST.
If you believe shithead, all the server problems are OUR fault. If only we had started on the le grand utopia of Alleria then all of our problems would have magically disappeared! SEE ITS NOT BLIZZARDS FAULT, ITS OURS!

WoW is having some major hardcore issues at the moment. Its really the "dark days" of playing the game.

WoW has so much going for it. If WoW is a house, the foundation is definitly sound, and there is much to build on... however.

Servers are fucked up all over the place, massive lag (especially after this last patch), queues on a sizable number of servers, random bootings, prolonged downtime, piss poor communication from Blizz to customers. Also, a massive population imbalance, to the point that if you want quality items to need to make a couple alliance alts for the Tanaris black market because the quality, availabilty and price of rare items is VASTLY superior at IF.
Not to mention the end game is in a pretty sorry state, First there are only 2 real end game zones and both of those are buggy to shit.
Next Blizz is deadly slow behind releasing content.
The releases should have been planned out a couple years ago to reflect the leveling pace. Not having anything ready and most of the high end guilds sitting around with their thumbs up their asses is inexcusable.

This game will be better than anything out there in 6 months to a year. But until then, Blizzard is exhibiting massive incompetence and I can only hope these are growing pains rather than a sign of things to come.

Lleauric
60 Mage (frost)
Elune
Turkeys

EQ2 is more designed towards the "Here have a pellet, good gerbil" crowd and I got sick of that type of gameplay mid-velious. I hope it does really well though, because WoW could use some competition.

Vhex...I don't understand your analogy can you explain?

I think the point is, if you're a blowhard windbag full of hot air like L2, Blizzard will make your server suck. They probably saw you posting in all caps. Don't you know that's against the rules, sparky?

Maybe you should point them to one of the old threads about how we should all think you're cool because you played football in high school. Then, remind them how Varsity Blues ended and send them pictures of Ali Larter wearing the whip cream bikini for a convincer.

I just hope the /pizza command works in the trial!

Shouldnt you been sending that post to sandbox assface?

Oh ya. Exhibit A. as to why you suck. Only attacks on YOU get sent away.

Come up for air fuckface, you're drowning in your own hypocrisy.

Were you just complaining that I didn't split your own first post? Do you make sense even to yourself?

Sanchek, come on euro PvP servers, at pike times... And praise whoever you believe in that you don't get boot or lose connection after waiting for 30 minutes to log in. (hopefully their "2 days estimated time" waiting is flawed)
As for PvE servers, as nobody plays there (at least here), well they don't have problem.

So far it's a gold bar packed into a paper bag, at the first rain the bag gets loose.

To get back to the subject (huhu) and my comment, I meant it like "as a seasoned MMO player, why should I bother about a free solo 1-10levels game?".

Fil: Essentially, people who are only interested in playing a game if they can get some kind of 'fix' every so often, whether it be in the form of a tradeskill point, AA or piece of equipment that increases thier effectiveness by .13%

I like the finality of WoW. I'm 60, I'm done being forced to spend 12 hours a night in some meaningless XP camp eating cheeto's and watching the entire first season of Scrubs for the 113th time. My tradeskills are capped (save fishing, seriously, fuck that skill) so no more spending an entire weekend killing mobs for TSkill items only to get 3 increases.

I can now do what I'm paying to do. Hang out with friends for 15 bucks a month. We kill shit, explore new and re-expereince old content, go and PvP in Hillsbrad for the 300th time (charmed Brollachan last night and killed him on his teams own gryphon rider. And I thought throwing people into lava gave me wood...oooooo). I'm no longer obligated to log on because I'm afraid I'll fall behind. Catching up takes a week rather then months.

Would you like some cheese with that salty blizzard cock Sanchek?

Thanks for the explanation Vhex.
Call me crazy I like being punished :D

All the more power to you man. Here's hoping EQ2 continues to kick ass so that Blizzard is forced to go, 'oh snap! The jig is up Henry!' and start's showing us why we put so much faith in them to begin with.

As all focus shifts to Vanguard...

WoW has some major issues, we'll see how it pans out when some content is patched in. If they basically said that no new content was coming out, I still wouldn't play EQ2 instead, but thats just me.

Would you like some cheese with that salty blizzard cock Sanchek?
I'm just not a raving lunatic that expects a video game to define "fun" for me. Even with the few issues that WoW has, there is more than enough working content to entertain me and my guild at level 60. Do I wish there was more? Sure. Do I wish some things worked differently? Yeah. Is it as bad as the average message board would have you believe? Haha, not even remotely close.

I often "defend" Blizzard, just because I've been involved with large scale development projects before myself. I understand that all the wanting to in the world doesn't change things overnight. I see tangible proof that they're working in the direction that we've asked for and that's good enough for me right now. Hell, they just fixed the bug that's been annoying me more than any other.

They aren't doing a bad job at all. They're just overwhelmed by volume and having a hard time living up to the hype that some people put on them; expecting some kind of religious experience out of a video game.

As all focus shifts to Vanguard...
You guys should learn a lesson from WoW, and not overhype expectations of Vanguard into something that it can't possibly live up to.

I didn't overhype WoW, if you remember, I was pro-EQ2 for awhile. After playing it a bit, and realizing that WoW's twitch-reflex pvp fighting was a lot more entertaining than the entirety of EQ2, I decided upon WoW.

And.. don't confuse hype with plain curiosity on my part. I'd be interested to see how they handled the first few months, if they had just 25% of the player base that WOW did.

I'm not really talking about you on Vanguard or WoW hype, Fazin (probably shouldn't have quoted you). Just the general posts I see about how Vanguard will be the bestest thing ever. I want Brad to autograph my e-peen. Etc.

I really think there's a large group of jaded MMO veterans that are searching so desperately for that first fix of EQ again, that they're ruining all the new games for themselves with unrealistic expectations.

Fil, thanks for the heads up. Downloaded the trial, loved it, gonna get it sometime this week.

Its not as good as WoW's gameplay, but there's some obvious improvements -- namely the fact that they actually update the game excites me. I don't like being level 55+ in World of Warcraft knowing the game will suddenly end for me until they patch battlegrounds (2 patches away, which will be like 6 months)

Well good luck and yes tons of new content, SoE keeps swearing by their dev team of 100 people allowing them to fix current issues and develop new content.....of course though I wish they'd put the god damn nerf bat away already and fix some real issues.

I tried eq 2 didnt like it at all. The combat just seemed so clunky and I hated the interface and just didnt like the game .


I love WoW. It looks great quests are good. I actually love it more than I ever loved eq over the years. I am only in my mid 50's but I am in a high end raid guild and I hear their woes every night when they try to raid.


Bottom line is that when the high end game is polished nothing will even come close to touching WoW.


Xregg Shadownkight

Kromdar Warrior
http://www.bothguild.com/

I don't think thats a "when" so much as an "if" anymore Xregg. I was disappointed when I was level 60 in Beta with no battlegrounds, now 5 months later and still no new content added (other than Mauradon, whoo ...) its getting really stale :( So I get EQ2, play it until Battlegrounds is released.

This thread is a good read.

As for me, I've tried EQ2 (to level 20 or so) and observed WoW (nice concept and style of a game), but I am in that situation that Sanchek describes where a person goes looking for that ultimate first-time fix like logging on EQ Live for the first time around year 2000.

I do not think I'll be happy until there's like.. virtual first-person, nerve-induction games. =)