Ok, now I know it's only a stress test......

But I have to be honest, I haven't had fun like that in a LONG time. Talk about an easy game to pick up and move with!!!

All I will say is this, if you're looking for fun, something to lose yourself in, then WoW is gonna be it. Not saying it's gonna kill EQ or anything, but when they set out to make a game that you couldn't put down (like EQ), they were successful with WoW.

If you get the chance to spend some time with this game, give it at least an hour to really soak in teh flavor. You won't be disappointed.

Honestly it's like every other game Blizzard has made. It's a lot of fun, but after 3-4 months, it can get old.

I don't know. My friend has a beta account, which he allowed me to play a bit. I really had a lot of fun playing, and it was really easy to pick up and very well made. Probably the most finished MMORPG I've played in the last 3 years.



The thing is... I made it to level 12, playing solo, just running around doing quests and stuff... but even when I have a chance to, I don't really have an extremely strong desire to play. This worries me. Some of it may have to do with the fact that I was playing alone... games are always funner when played with friends. But I think I've just played too many MMORPGs in general. Although everything in the game is done very well, not a lot of it is really "new." I will still get it when it comes out, but I'm starting to fear for its holding value... much like the last, what, 4? MMORPG's I've played since EQ.



I don't think there will ever be another EQ for me. Nothing that holds me for 4 straight years like that.

Personally I'm antsy for EQ2. I have been hearing some very good things about it. And so far I like what I see. I just wish I was in the beta damnit =(

I heard good things about WoW too, but I'm a social person not a soloer =)

Yeah heh, thats exactly what I mean Akom. I've played the beta enough to rack up something like 30-40 days played on one character, and it lowers down exponentially on other characters. What sells a mmorpg to me, is replayability. Instancing is nice, but it's the coward's way out. I dig competition, it's why these boards were worth anything a long time ago. EQ2 has a NDA, thats my only comment on that more or less, but honestly, I would buy EQ2 before WoW. I'm a tad bit (a lot) interested in Vanguard.

Anyway, blizzard handled the stress test nicely. Hardly any lag issues.

The reason you guys way so heavely on new Mmorgpg's is because when we all first started playing MMorpg's all there was... was pretty much Everquest if you wanted a top quality game.. COnsidering how long it took for the MMORPG craze to boost into the spotlight we have all been content on playing Everquest and making relationships.. now that all these games are coming out.. people are finally seeing that there are better things then eq out in the MMORPG world... only negative thing is your trying to cut ties u have had for 3 plus years.. so when you go to a new game and play you tend to isolate yourself or dont know how to go about making new friends in a NEW GAME.. (call it social anxiety if ya want).. face it your all scared of a change in pace.. sadly I am the victim of this to.. I've tried to start new games everything from SWG to Lineage2 and yet the Familiarity and people I know on AYONAE keep bringing me back to this game.. I hope EQ2 is able to finally get me out of this loop but unless I can convince all my ayonae friends to come with me I dont see any new place for a new game

You have just raised your skill POINTLESS RANTING (200)

Shamzy has a point. What made EQ great was always the people you knew, never the game in itself, and you're gonna think every MMORPG out there sucks... until you run into people to put on the friends list.

I tried SWG, and it sucked cojones. Because the game didn't force me to group, and make friends.

eq2 has very little solo'ing aspect to it what so ever


but if you are into the grouping thing, then eve is a great game for you, and it works now! but i have zero interest in a game like that, co-worker plays it, loves it, shows me all the cool videos about it and tries to get me to play it so we can talk about other stuff when we work

apperently they havent put the name nerfs on pets and my RL friend named his pet DirtyNigger and got banned from stress test sonme how for 3 days LOL

it's a shame but nothing will be like EQ again. When I started I had no expectations and everything was exciting and new and the concept of other people in the game was amazing and you just goofed off and had fun. Over time it became about: leveling, getting to level suchnsuch before that other guy, getting your guild to soandsozone before somecrazylatinnameguildcompetitor, doing the same raid over and over and over to get gear for the entire guild, hating that person who enters the zone because you know he's after your mob that you've been camping for hours, getting better loot rather than having fun, etc. No longer is it interesting to think there's another person behind that character before you, he's now an annoyance: oh he's low level--he's here to beg for buffs, gear, plats. You get a random tell from some random person "wtf does this chump want." You check the guild under their name and create expectations out of what you see.
Everything degrades to negativity.
And since becoming such a gamer rather than someone having fun, the next game is going to be about who can be the best first. Everyone will be old hats at the multiplayer game and no one will have that fresh new attitude that made us all friends to begin with.
I'll still try it out though. I'm more interested in EQ2 and my boyfriend is interested in WoW so maybe we'll see both and decide who's got the better game going on at their desk.

That is how YOU let the game get. The only thing that is sad is after your guild gets to a certain level, there are just player made contraints on the game which keep you from making great friends with new people.

Some of the best friends I made in the game, and continue to make are when a friend from my original guild says, hey lets hango out, lets say they are level 52, I then pick up a random level 50 Knight and other assorted random and just have at it. Go to Pon and live it up, click off all my buffs.. pull 3 goblins, and just live it up.. you can have fun any way you want.. but when you are relying on a 52 paladin to peel aggro while you kite 3 goblins and the wizard has over aggroed and is kiting one and you hope the ch lands on the knight cause you are lom, then that's fun.

Of course it has it's limits too..

When an expansion comes out, I get the map for it asap.. but you don't have to, you can just explore. It's fun when you don't know the loot table and you kill at a camp and wind up with a neat surprise..

anyways my point is, no other game lets you have funt he way EQ does. It's all about how you choose to do it. Me I'm enjoying doing what I do at level 65 400AA can't get enough. But I'm hoping I get at last a little sick of this so I can go back and pl my alt some more and do naffgen (never done him) or to make my necro and try some of those zones I've never been to. (Crushbone, runyeye, butcherblock I've never left teh wayfayers camp,... here is a small list!
Gorge of King Xorbb,Najena,Nektulos Fores,Runnyeye Citadel,Splitpaw,Odus
Faydwer, Kerra Island,Stonebrunt Mountains,Toxxulia Forest,The Warrens,Crushbone,Dagnor's Cauldron,Estate of Unrest,Steamfont Mountains,Chardok,Dalnir, Howling Stones, Kaesora, Kurn's Tower
Lake of Ill Omen, Mines of Nurga, Icewell Keep... countless other zones for me to visit and experience new things and adventures in...

turn off the map feature and I'd have to do it all using /loc.. it's all about you..

I had a ton of fun with it. I was about 20 kills from level 29 on my Tauren hunter, when the servers went down. If I hadn't started 5 days late, or not piddled around with a bunch of non-xp/quest stuff; I'd totally have been in the top three horde hunters on my server for the contest. How annoying is that, in retrospect.

To me, it seems like they give you a lot more latitude to pull off big wins than in other games, as long as you play smart and execute well. The storyline, immersion, etc seemed very thorough and polished. Especially for a beta product.

I had no plans whatsoever to play it, until after the stress test. Now, I might.

Sadly the stress test is over. But I have to say, I'll be waiting like a ravenous dog for the open beta (or closed beta if I get an invite /prays).

It's a great game, at least it was for me. Had no problems, in fact it ran better than EQ for me ROFL. Met some really nice people, had fun both soloing and grouping. CR's were actually fun (being chased by that wraith while going for my body, doing the gnome dance and smacking some night elves ass and she couldn't even see me as a ghost), I was dinging without even knowing it, the quests were not impossible, and there was always something to do. It's not just hack and slash. If you want to solo you have to use your class effectively. I found nothing impossible with this game.

To the nay sayers that haven't played it yet, I tell ye get in on the open beta when it happens. Some will like, some will not. Fair enough, there's enough MMO's out there to suit everyones tastes. But like it or lump it, it is a well put together game.

Honestly, if you've got the cash to spare, play WoW for when you only have an hour or two since you can make meaningful progress, but on weekends when you have 8 hour blocks to fill, go find a group in EQ2.

Both are beautiful games. It'll be fun to see if Vanguard can pick and choose the good features to incorporate into it's own game or if they'll go in a completely different direction.

brad to me is the kind of developer to do whats best right now and do whats morally right later


i have high hopes for vanguard, and personally i think its coming out at a perfect time, by the time it should be released or when everyone is hoping it will be released both eq2 and wow should be into at least 2 expantions and have a burn out crowed, then start shaving into that crowed and build up a big player base off the bat, having both MMO's (wow and eq2) already getting their saturation from the market

and i'm not ready to say for sure that WoW is not going to be on my played list, i said that about AO and felt like a big hypocrit when i later then played it and had a blast

I see everyone's primed for Vanguard, but is there even any info out on it yet?

there is little information about actual gameplay, just the development is far from hidden, the devs are very open on their message boards


its better to be primed about a game before it comes out then already mark it as a bad game

Well ya its hard to say, lots of hype for vanguard but there is no real info on gameplay atm so wait and see.

Brad is also the guy that released the shithole known as luclin and all the shortsighted view on EQ coding which create problem these days and that the current devs have to fix. Some were due to network problems at the time and some just due to him not thinking eq would be going so long.

Everyone is praising the old eq team but they tend to forget that it was just as buggy as expansion are these days. Ntov didn't even have any correct loot for months, dozekar was buggy etc.

Anyway its clear he is an amazing dev but he isn't all the hype people want him to be. Old EQ was just as bugged as new one is but there was much less publicity and people at the high end to bitch about it.


Now WoW and EQ2 both look good. Won't have time to play both sadly. They are very different kind of games.

Also the "good old days" were rampant with "The Vision". Also remember that POS of a community manager named Abashi.

I guess I would like to say that I want to give both EQ2 and WoW a try, but then again, I may go with choice "C."

None of the Above.

What a new game has to have for me in order for it to be enjoyable is:

1) Intelligent Quests. Perhaps randomly generated so that they are always a fresh puzzle or riddle (spoilerproof), instead of just a campothon. Also, it would be nice if it wasn't just the Eternal Wrath caliber people who actually get to decipher the riddles while the rest of the player base gets what is pretty much a Standard Operating Proceedure to follow, usually posted at The Shithouse. The end result is the quests have zero intrigue and may even end up yielding some item that guilds require for application. Where is the fun in that?

2) More diverse quests for smaller groups. Pretty much self explainitory. In EQ there was no good high lvl quests that did not either require alot of mindless time expended ( lets do combines over and over and over and OVER or camp some rare drop off a rare spawn that usually is in a place below our level) or a full blown raid of 40 plus people. If you can instance a dungeon or a raid script, you can instance a quest, and even make it be able to be put down and picked up again all within the framework of a 6 person group. Also, I like the Morrowind tiering of quests where you have to attain a certain level within an organization before hand.

3) Make PvP (changed from PK) active on ALL servers ALL of the time. As much as some people may hate this idea, having the option to kill players in such a manner that they lose exp and even gear AKA Lineage 2 might promote civility in ways never before seen in EQ unless you were on a PvP server. No more /guildwar or /duel or arenas as it would now be a free for all where you can attack players as easily as monsters and if you die, you lost. No GM to mitigate. Just a shitty reputation, built in game penalties and Karma to keep you in check. Raiding would take on a whole new dimension where you not only have to have the tactics to beat the computer, but your competing guild as well. You could in fact perhaps have a competing guild slaughter you during or after a raid and take all your loot! Of course there should be penalities for killing your fellow player which hopefully will keep the honest folks honest. In L2, if you have a "red name", your life is commonly forfeit if other players can catch you and drop you, in addition to NPCs (such as merchants, instructors, quest givers and guards) not wanting anything to do with you. Could you imagine not being able to buy food if you were barred from trading with ANYONE other than another PKer? Also, would you want to piss off someone who could kill you, take alot of exp points, and take your best piece of gear? Tends to keep things a bit more civil. There will always be assholes of course, but if the game relies on social relationships for advancement, perhaps the assholes won't linger.

4) Dynamicly Generated Loot Tables. Again, this is an attempt to end boring, mindless farming raids of the same mob over and over. It well within the technology of today to have loot with random stats, attributes and graphics within a set of level parameters. For example, if you have 10 encounters, they would all be capable of generating a certain number of dynamic items at a common level, each with individual unique stats and effects. No two people would have an item exactly alike and no specific item would come from a specific encounter. Thus, there would be less "ownership of spawns" to cause intentional cockblocking or timezone exploitation of particular items (Such as warrior taunt blades akin to the Blade of War or entire zones like PoFire). It would perhaps also end the ever pervasive EQ ghost town zones in which for whatever reason the loot tables ended up being mostly crap while other zones enjoy a rich host of predictable treasure they can research on Illia's Bestiary.

5) More depth in factors that effect combat and raiding. If you are going to have climates, have the weather actually influence what goes on. If its cold or hot or snowing or blowing...make it actually effect what is going on with players. If its a snowy, windy day, perhaps that should effect what players wear and if arrows will strike their targets. Perhaps have such factors as snow or mud impead running or have certain things have seasonal constaints. The same will also effect where and how NPCs will be located and react. It wasn't the Russian army that defeated the Nazis as much as it was the Russian winter. It just seems a big thing to ignore. Also, factions should be more dynamic as political climates are always changing with alliances being forged and broken. Another item is to have the AI of mosters, be they boss lvl or lower, determine fight or flight if they are outgunned by either numbers or levels, and perhaps go to a refuge or more defensable position with reinforcements some distance away or another zone. You now have to go find where its hiding! :D

Pretty much my point is that computers are fast enough to do some calculations OTHER than generating some pretty eye candy. There is the potential to create depth never before seen in a game, and yet many games are the equal of a ravishingly beautiful woman who flunked out of 6th grade.

LOL Lumm, you just stated everything I found great about WoW. :)

Really? Well shit. Blizzard needs to thank me then, because my gripes might have just sold a bunch of copies of their game! Lummus as a Night Elf though? Dunno about that.

Lummus, 1-4 is already in WoW to a lesser or greater extent :)

1, 3 are not.

I beg to differ Fazin, compared to EQ's quests WoW's are genius!

Also the PvP aspect is great in that even on a blue server, PvP is TEF based.

1. As in randomly generated quests? No. But there's no "campothon" going on, neither do you need to be of epic caliber to do quests that make you feel like the world revolves around you. For many quests you need to think intellegently. Naturally, there's spoilers for anything.

3. IS in. If a member of the horde, for instance, attacks an NPC flagged alliance, he will become PK flagged allowing any alliance members to initiate combat with him. On the PVP servers, naturally, PVP is on *all* the time. Regardless, if you want pvp action you wont have to walk far to get it. You also have the coming pvp rewards/penalties and reputation system that will fuck gankers over.

I thought WoW was a very well done game, not the best game I've ever played, but close.

Once release rolls around, or even open beta, when they have most of the game implemented, it will own.

What I mean by implemented, is talents for some classes, revamp of tradeskills to professions, some races didnt have their innate bonus'.. etc.

It managed to keep my attention for the week, and I still want to play so thats a bonus.:D

1) Intelligent Quests. Perhaps randomly generated so that they are always a fresh puzzle or riddle (spoilerproof), instead of just a campothon. Also, it would be nice if it wasn't just the Eternal Wrath caliber people who actually get to decipher the riddles while the rest of the player base gets what is pretty much a Standard Operating Proceedure to follow, usually posted at The Shithouse. The end result is the quests have zero intrigue and may even end up yielding some item that guilds require for application. Where is the fun in that?

3) Make PvP (changed from PK) active on ALL servers ALL of the time. As much as some people may hate this idea, having the option to kill players in such a manner that they lose exp and even gear AKA Lineage 2 might promote civility in ways never before seen in EQ unless you were on a PvP server. No more /guildwar or /duel or arenas as it would now be a free for all where you can attack players as easily as monsters and if you die, you lost. No GM to mitigate. Just a shitty reputation, built in game penalties and Karma to keep you in check. Raiding would take on a whole new dimension where you not only have to have the tactics to beat the computer, but your competing guild as well. You could in fact perhaps have a competing guild slaughter you during or after a raid and take all your loot! Of course there should be penalities for killing your fellow player which hopefully will keep the honest folks honest. In L2, if you have a "red name", your life is commonly forfeit if other players can catch you and drop you, in addition to NPCs (such as merchants, instructors, quest givers and guards) not wanting anything to do with you. Could you imagine not being able to buy food if you were barred from trading with ANYONE other than another PKer? Also, would you want to piss off someone who could kill you, take alot of exp points, and take your best piece of gear? Tends to keep things a bit more civil. There will always be assholes of course, but if the game relies on social relationships for advancement, perhaps the assholes won't linger.
Campathons still happen when you have named spawns for certain quests. Example would be the Ungoro crater escort (15 min recycle). When I said #1 was not in, I was speaking on the intelligent quests portion. But seriously, there are still campathons here and there.

PVP is not enabled all the time, that was the point of #3. You have to play on a PVP server to get #3. Sure pvp is handled well on the blue servers, but it is nowhere near #3.

I never said anything about the quests being unfun. They are just not intelligent, in regards to randomness, as was the point that Lummus made, and you claimed he was wrong.

Don't get me wrong, I like WoW. It'll be another distraction akin to Diablo 2, a lot of intense fun thats over really quickly. In the end though, it'll create a new generation of MMORPG players who are lazy/spoiled and can't deal with actually finding quests, they'll need a neon sign pointing them directly to where they need to go, or a map showing them where their friends are.

Never had to stay in the same place more than 5 minutes up until level 27. I had to do zero camping to progress.

I beg to differ on the fun being over immediately. I found I couldn't get enough of the game to be honest. I mean, the alternative? Grinding to 70 now instead of 65, having to get a raid force to do any flags/quests/keys that are worth a damn. Heck, even to tradeskill in EQ you have to go fight the uber mobs. Granted EQ is a Gen 1 MMO, and it did set the bar. There is still something about the game that keeps people wanting more (/raises hand), but I experienced something with WoW that I found hard to ignore.

Will EQ2 match it? I dunno, I mean Sony's track record hasn't been the greatest (to base it on past performance). EQ has had issues with bugs and game imbalance for 5+ years now. SWG launched bad, got somewhat fixed, then got screwed horribly. And now Sony wants to launch EQ2 out the door the same day as WoW. Has EQ2 even begun it's closed beta? Blizzard has had the WoW closed beta going now for a few months and will continue to beta right up until November. I can only hope the EQ2 devs have their shit wired tight, cause if they release a bogus game, I think it might hurt them beyond repair. There's a part of me that truly does want EQ2 to succeed, but my realistic side tells me that it's most likely a pipe dream.

Campathons still happen when you are doing the damn Helcular quest in Hillsbrad (which I never fucking finished) that requires you to get a random drop from the Yetis in the cave, the drop which does not exist.

The quests aren't very intelligent, they are really easily decipherable, not to mention Thottbot explains everything if you can't figure it out.

1-27 levels go by so quickly that you don't even really notice. See, WoW is basically an upgrade from D2 where instead of a single player game, you have a 5-player game. Essentially if you get a group of friends who play the right classes, you can do anything in the game. It can get boring fast, but it is fun nonetheless. No offense intended, but 1-27 isn't much in regards to the game. However, you should think about how fast you're progressing to the max level. I believe hitting the ceiling in regards to levels will empower you with the good ol feeling you got in EQ... time to do tradeskills.

Ahem, this coming from someone playing a game where someone goes from lvl 65 to 70 in 24 hours.....:p

I think it'd be fairer to say WoW is a hybrid between D2 and EQ rather than saying it's a D2 upgrade.

Also, you complain of boredom by overpowering the game. That I find funny, 'cause the beta boards are screaming about how hard the highend content is since they revamped the items. Also, not even half of the highend content will even *be* in the beta (reserved for release) and none of the raid content will be tested AFAIK.

Not that I disagree with you. 1-27 was pretty fast. Took me 2 weeks. But I was an, at the time overpowered, mage. Blizzard has stated that people *are* levling faster than intended, but that they don't plan to change it. That's like "wtf" to me. I totally agree with you that the last thing I want is the EQ feeling of "so... what now? right, raid time at 6pm. I have time to hit the gym".
I hope the Hero Classes quest will be so fucking epic you'll be entrenched in it for months before you crack it.

Chuga,Chuga,Chuga.... Whoooo...Whoooo!!!!!!! ;)