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Role Playing (Games) PC Games (Games)

Everquest 2 vs. World of Warcraft 110

Posted by Zonk from the xtc-vs.-adam-ant dept.
Gamespy has a piece up today comparing and contrasting the feature sets of Everquest 2 and World of Warcraft. It's a pretty thorough story, covering the newb experience, combat, character customization and more. From the article: "In one corner, you have EverQuest II, the sequel to the undisputed heavyweight MMO champ EverQuest, the game that has probably caused more divorces than any other video game in the world. In the other, you have the challenger, World of Warcraft, the first MMO created by Blizzard Entertainment, the development house best known for StarCraft, Diablo, and the original Warcraft RTS games."
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Everquest 2 vs. World of Warcraft More

Everquest 2 vs. World of Warcraft

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  • Groups vs Solo (Score:3, Interesting)

    by comforteagle ( 728960 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @07:16PM (#11062884) Homepage Journal
    I love playing EQ until I got to the levels where I had to group. I always found that to be a PITA. Must you group to proceed past the newbie levels in WoW?

    • Re:Groups vs Solo (Score:3, Informative)

      by 33degrees ( 683256 )
      I didn't get too far into the beta (level 15), but the feeling I got is that it depends on the class; blizzard seems to have designed the classes so that some work well for soloing (especially the ones with pets) whereas other are better as parts of groups.

    • Re:Groups vs Solo (Score:2, Insightful)

      by -kertrats- ( 718219 )
      I'm confused-if you're not going to play with other people, why are you playing a MMORPG and not just a normal RPG? It sort of nullifies the point.

      • Re:Groups vs Solo (Score:2, Interesting)

        by Mitijea ( 718314 )
        Well... The other chars around you will say more than two sentences before repeating. For myself, I've always enjoyed mmorpg's more for the occasional interaction with more than preprogramed npcs, not to work with them per se, but something to add to the in between times when I'm tired of the mill - socialization if you will. Personally I'd much rather solo when it comes to leveling; I enjoy having others around for variety, but too much is not my style. And grouping is usually too much for me. I just
        • It's the whole 'massive' part that I get tired of, what I'd like is a game that's just kinda big. Bigger world per player.
          UO is the one I have the most experience with (I once lived where I had sub second ping times and better than 28.8) and it was always to crowded. For UO's size more than 50 players is to much.
          As far as requiring grouping, well on one hand the second M is for multi-player, on the other locking the player into a type of play that isn't intuitively need for the genre and natural mec
      • I've had the same issue as the grandparent.

        It's one thing to want to play with other people, it's an entirely different thing if you have to play with other people simply to progress in the game. I've seen many people argue against my thoughts there using that exact same idea -- that I should be playing single player games instead.

        Games should be fun, and should not have excessive requirements. Games should NOT involve standing around shouting "Level N druid/warrior/whatever LFG" for an hour (LFG meaning
        • It sounds as though EQ2 and WoW both have "forced" grouping in later levels. Definitely not the games for me.

          Really, WoW is very solo friendly. Some classes are better at soloing than others, but they can all do it well enough. It's possible to solo up to 60 (max level) - with very little, if any grinding.

          I currently have a level 40 paladin on Frostwolf, and I've soloed a good 60% of that, and duo'd with a friend of mine for another 35%. The duo matchup is by no means required - we just enjoy playing tog
          • Hmm, interesting. I do like the idea of pairing up with people occasionally, just not having to work out a schedule with them as to when I'll be on.

            You can tell what mobs are elites from a distance I assume?

            Btw, are you Moonshadow from EQ Stratics?
      • I'm confused-if you're not going to play with other people, why are you playing a MMORPG and not just a normal RPG? It sort of nullifies the point.

        I am SOOOOOOO tired of that! Why is there always someone who brings that up!!

        People want to play THAT GAME, but they don't want to play multiplayer - they just don't have a choice. I would never join such a game to play with others, i prefer to be on my own - but since i can't (or it takes waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to long, i don't genrally visit. Of course he shoul
      • "if you're not going to play with other people, why are you playing a MMORPG"

        I'm very tired of this narrow-minded view of gaming. Not all forms of interaction is combat; there is trading and chatting, for example. You should spend an hour in the auction house in WoW, and you would see that you don't need to group to enjoy a social experience.

        Furthermore performing rituals combats is not necessarily "social". I've been in groups in that do nothing but repeat the same pattern over and over again. I earn
    • Every class can solo up to the maximum level. Also, you don't get any less experience when soloing instead of grouping - in fact, soloing sometimes gives quicker experience. If you find some friends and you lot learn to effectively play together, then grouping is potentially more efficient, though.

      You only need groups for instances (dungeons) and raids (obviously).

    • Re:Groups vs Solo (Score:3, Insightful)

      by TheBot ( 806046 )
      I love EQ, and EQ2. But, there comes a time when you have to group. Certain things you'd like to accomplish, say, for example, the Centaur Mastery quest. The Mastery quests require you to collect 5 items of the said creature, in order to Master the creature, as well as 3 non-droppables. The only problem is, most centaurs are ^^, meaning they are much more difficult to defeat, and you will not defeat them solo unless they are grey to you in considering, or, you group up. Giants are even worse, because they'r

    • Re:Groups vs Solo (Score:3, Insightful)

      by ShawnDoc ( 572959 )
      I'm in the same boat. Ran into the same thing when I tried City of Heros. I have a busy life, so I'm lucky if I can play more than an hour at a sitting. That just doesn't work with groups as you end up spending 20 mintues getting the group together, another 10 or 15 while various people AFK or run to buy something, and then another 10 getting there. Now you don't have enough time left to do any real fighting.
    • For some things in WoW, grouping is required. For others, you'll have no problem going solo. At any point in the game, you'll probably have both types of quest available to you -- at least up to level 45 or so. Past that, I can't say.
    • WoW does have alot of grouping, but it is more of the goto quest start, wait around for others doing same quest, do quest, group breaks up. Alot of people do skip theses quests since it is easy to max out without having equipment near the max levels. That said you could solo from 1 to 60 totally solo, would probably requiring grinding a few times when solo only quests are non-existance.
      As for future and high level grouping.

      All the PvP and high level content is hugly group based, some raids designed for
    • I don't have the time this morning to dig through the WoW forums, but one of the lead developers mentioned during the Beta that if you find yourself at a point in the game where you can't solo, let Blizzard know. In their opinion, soloing and grouping should yield the same results, and the game is considered broken if you can't solo effectively.
    • Level 30, still no groups. Grouping can be quite disadvantageous on certain quests too...

  • Good? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Lord_Dweomer ( 648696 ) on Saturday December 11, 2004 @07:33PM (#11062981) Homepage
    "the game that has probably caused more divorces than any other video game in the world."

    And this is a good thing? I mean, I know what they meant...but I always thought a game was supposed to be something fun that gave you a break from life, not something that consumed your bank account, hurt your health, and destroyed your marriage.

    • EQ will only consume your bank account if you can't afford an extra ~$20 charge a month. If you can't afford to spend $20 every month on your favorite thing, whether it be Chinese takeout or EQ, then you really should be looking at the problems in your life instead of blaming Everquest.
    • "consumed your bank account"

      That sentiment has always seemed misinformed to me. At max, these games are $15 a month. If you allow yourself to be absorbed at all into the game, you will pass on an at least one activity a month. Instead of going to see a movie or to a bar, you may decide to stay in and play. These games aren't the financial hit people think they are.
      • Well, there have been people who have let EQ get in the way of making a living, so it's not an entirely invalid point. Granted, that's a pretty extreme case, but it has happened.
        • Well, there have been people who have let EQ get in the way of making a living, so it's not an entirely invalid point.

          On the other end, there have been people who have used EQ as a way of making a living. At our EB there used to be a guy who would come in every month, buy a copy of Everquest, make a new character and powerlevel it for a month, and then sell it off. He was only supplimenting his income, but he was making a tidy profit to be sure.

          Never underestimate the power of laziness as a way to make
      • That sentiment has always seemed misinformed to me. At max, these games are $15 a month. If you allow yourself to be absorbed at all into the game, you will pass on an at least one activity a month. Instead of going to see a movie or to a bar, you may decide to stay in and play. These games aren't the financial hit people think they are.

        Indeed, I'd spend 15$ on lunch. For the hours WOW has entained me, the tradeoff is fair. Hell the $100 I spent on war craft 3 and it's expansion was a bargain, I've played

    • Re:Good? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sentry21 ( 8183 ) on Sunday December 12, 2004 @09:01AM (#11065730) Journal
      Don't blame the game, blame the gamer. The fact that people get so involved in EQ is disturbing, yes, but it's a disturbing facet of society, not gaming.

      I used to be an oper on a middling-sized IRC network for a few years, and eventually was 'retired' from the network due to political concerns - which was probably the best thing that had happened to me at that point in my life. IRC had become too much like a job, after I got out of school I went home and served my 8 hours online. I was good, but I was still wasting my life.

      Now that I've been playing FFXI and WoW, it's a very similar situation, but I've managed to avoid the same pitfalls by not putting priority on the game over reality. Still, I can see quite easily how people can get so into these things that they forget about real life.

      It becomes your hobby, then it becomes your passion, then it becomes your job, and then you become its slave. A dangerous situation, but the blame lies entirely on the players, not the game itself.

      • Re:Good? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Austerity Empowers ( 669817 )
        I understand what you're saying but look at it this way.

        To be successful in EQ you had to invest a LOT of time (or a lot of money in eBay). You couldn't play 10 hours a week and hope of ever seeing the fun part of the game in under a year. People do not understand that EQ is not about the journey, it's entirely the destination. The game STARTS at level 65. Not true for WoW, but I digress. You play level based RPGs to progress and succeed, it's escape from life where hard work doesn't always pay off. Ass ki

      • Re:Good? (Score:2, Insightful)

        by slycrel ( 610300 )
        I disagree. Others do as well. The game design for EQ especially was made to addict.

        Check out this link:

        http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/skinner.html
  • It's like gamespy was trying to appease both Sony and Blizzard by not knocking their faults too harshly.

  • Is that in the server pages where they looked at the launch behaviour. They mentioned that the WoW servers were really maxxed out. Granted its true, they had the fastest selling PC game ever. It probably exceeded their expectations by a massive amount. However, after playing Diablo II on launch week/month online, they seem to have done a really good job getting everything stable again. Playing DII online was almost not worth it it was so biggy. Lag, warping, random server disconnects (loosing all character
    • SWG sucked. LucasArts isn't calling the shots on SWG, SOE is. SOE however, puts all of their money into EQ2. EQ2 is a good game that's pretty crowded, my server is almost always on "maximum" load.
    • Ive got to say something about what you said about EQ2. For one, plenty of people were playing on the servers, but some were over-crowded from the get go, thus, leaving some servers pretty barren, that doesn't just automatically mean no one was playing...Two, SOE didn't have enough servers to start with, they had to add multiple servers within the first week of the launch. It was a massive launch, Mistmoore, my server, went down multiple times daily because it was so overcrowded. They've done 2 server split
    • "The launch is important, but not critical, I dont remember LucasArts giving free game extensions to SWG players who got shut out on launch day."

      What are you talking about?? The "free month" period went on for ages because of the problems that occured.

      SoE ran the servers, not lucasarts also.
  • "undisputed heavyweight MMO champ EverQuest" I guess they're ignoring the rest of the world where the number of people playing Lineage far surpasses that of those playing EQ and EQ 2 combined.
    • Lineage doesn't -completely- count; rather than a monthly fee it's billed at a much lower hourly rate and heavily licenced to PC-bang users, who pay and play less.

      That said, FFXI's surpassed EQ in users, with a very strict definition of "player" (account paid in full for the month at time of reporting,) since shortly after the NA release, so even if you don't trust the L/L2 (different billing model) and RO (extremely shaky numbers) figures, there's still a new king of the hill.
    • They probably meant: "in the U.S. and Europe". Or even: "in everywhere but Korea".
    • Seems like more people "work" Lineage, farming areas to sell aden on Ebay. Spoiled the game for me. World of Warcraft is Very fun so far. I will be interested in seeing how it is in the higher levels.
  • I'm so envious of the online gaming crowd sometimes. I mean with every MMORPG that you can choose from, the possibilities of playing a warlord barbarian or a rogue space pirate says good times and a lot of angry girlfriends. Since I'm the only person on slashdot with a dial-up, am I missing anything from the new crop of online games coming out?

  • A comparison that leaves out a LOT... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I've got a few disputes with this review.

    Crafting system, not deep in WoW?

    The things they mention (Having to find new recipes), about EQ2, are present in WoW. I'm thinking they only played WoW until mid-level. While yes, you do have to go collect your materials (or buy them from a player who does), I think THIS adds more depth than could be added by buying all of your raw materials from NPCs, as I can only assume EQ2 (and just about every other MMPORPG but UO) does. There are also rare items required for
    • your post is misinformed in almost every regard. While you sound like you know how wow works, it is painfully obvious you have not played EQ2. I have played both, and for your edification.. 1) eq2 crafting is far far far more involved and engaging. I'm not saying wow's crafting isn't good.. cause I love being a wow alchemist/herbalist.. but there is NO comparison to the depth and complexity of the crafting encounter system designed into eq2. eq2 crafting also requires adventure zone harvesting, and strict
    • Meeting up with other people is not a problem, you just agree that you will be meeting in instance and that is were everyone goes. Same way people do it in CoH. Some places even have bells you just ring them and select the instance you want to go to.
      Instancing of the outdoor areas is really nice, since it keeps population down thier is no problem with people camping one specific site. No problem with meeting up with other people as you can quickly jump to a difference instance if you need.
    • The only gripe I have about PvP is that if it's anywhere near a town or graveyard, it's pretty much "who can kill the other side until their equipment runs out"

      Actually, I'm pretty sure that PvP deaths don't result in equipment deterioration, so PvP battles can go on forever. It's senseless to use a spirit healer if you want to get back into the fight (which is the only way to lose equipment durability to a PvP death), as the 10 minute res sickness will make you an easy target.

  • Having only played WoW (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Dekks ( 808541 )
    I was in the WoW beta and had a blast, I also played SWG for over a year, so assuming SWG is somewhat similar in nature to EQ being by EQ and all, I find that WoW was more lighthearted and fun, whereas SWG was a little deeper (for the first 3-5 months) and serious. Anyone here who plays both able to say if EQ 2 is for the serious players and WoW for the casual?
  • Some of the EQ2 features sound really great, and I may have been tempted by them. (Even though WoW won the review) However I still am burning about the money I spent on SWG and the complete lack of quality that product had. (I would elaborate, but it has all been said before)

    So instead I say: You can kiss my well toned butt SOE

    I can't imagine I am the only one who thought:
    "WoW sounds great, but everquest IS the champion of MMOG..."
    But then thought:
    "Hang on, EQ2=SOE..."

  • Without reading the review I'm going to speculate that it points out many good features of each game and doesn't pronounce a strong winner. That is, there's plenty to recommend either one. Maybe one edges the other out but only by a little.

    Am I right? I don't think gamespy would be the one to come down hard on any MMO game from either of these giants.

  • as though the reviewer would be biased on his opinion because he was so into WoW in the first place. Which is unfourtanet because there then would be no easy review, nor even trial...but...maybe they weren't biased. *yeah right* =P
  • Comparing the two with a cake.
    EQ2 would be the great tasting cake, but the frosting and looks would be so-so with some unevenly applied. however once you get past the looks it taste really good.
    WoW is the cake that looks fantastic, everything is polished and perfect you just want to look at it forever. However once you get past the frosting and take a bite, the cake is rather bland.
  • Since this is not one of Cowboy Neal's questions, I DO get to complain about missing options!

    I would have compared 'in game' events. Although I do not miss Ultima Online, I do miss the in game events. I miss these from the MUD RPG days too. But in Ultima, there were many in game events that just added a little something to the game. Once, many huge daemons invaded a smaller town and people raced to get to the event, mostly to simply die a bunch and tell the tale later! Others were one and two high lev

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