Lycanthrope
New member
I played it ages ago for a few days, but never gave it a chance. It felt too "quiet" which is a death sentence for any MMO. However, the impression it left on me lasted until last week when a friend and I played the trial on a whim and I fell in love. I picked up my copy, bought a $14 subscription and have never been so enthralled with any MMO before.
So, I thought I'd post a few screenshots and my thoughts in the hopes of con-- er, I mean, persuading some of you to give it try. The only thing I think it "needs" is new players since most are high-levels.
The scenery, I think, is absolutely beautiful. It has depth, it has an excellent physics system, the textures flow smoothly and there's so much to explore. You can take a dive in a local pond and find a huge snake-like creature to battle it out with, get some achievement, hopefully some nice loot and, well, it's just an awesome experience to be underwater and see this huge thing writhing around beneath the surface. It really has that "omf" sensation to it xP
This is my Kerra Necromancer in the starting area. There are 19 races and 24 classes to choose from, each with their own quirks, pros and cons. I'm personally quite fond of the Kerra.
I wish I had a better picture of crafting to show what it entails, but I think it's something you either love or hate. You buy and harvest ingredients and resources along with recipes. To scribe spell enhancements you go over to an Engraved Desk where you select the appropriate recipe and then select to create it. A (what I think is) really kewl window appears where you have to counter the effects during the process by selecting the matching icon. There are six icons in total, but only three that are used in the process of countering. The first three increase durability at the cost of progress, the final three increase progress at the cost of durability. I find it very interactive, very entertaining and a lot of fun, albeit frustrating to fail the creation process. But, fail or succeed, your skills improve the more you do it.
Under the Persona tab you can customise your character's voice along with the usual details such as whether to show your helm or hood, cape, whether to show guild insignia on the cape, etc. Small things that add character and individuality to your avatar.
There's also an in-game card game called Legands of Norath. You get a free deck with the game and a couple of booster packs. It probably sounds silly, but it's horribly addictive. You can trade cards with other players, issue challenges in-game, win cards by playing the scenarios. It's a lot of fun if you're into that kind of thing. You also have the option to buy other ready-made and tested decks for $10, if you get that engrossed.
The player housing is simply unique. If you've ever played Entropia, the mechanics are very similar, but put together so much better. If you want to cram a thousand things in one spot, you can. Unlike certain other games with player housing where things just "slot" into a limited number of places. You can craft beds, tables, chairs, paintings, carpets, bookshelves, desks, chandeliers, candles, strongboxes to use as storage in your house vault, etc. You can rotate, change the pitch and size of any item. Certain quests also give you items you can put in your house. I'm quite keen on my Book of the Dead :3
The in-game house pets are incredibly cute as well. You can command them to play dead, in which case they pull off a dramatic and exaggerated death scene, or you can feed, play, pet and whatever else them. They also like to move around your house and occasionally attack each other, punish them! xD
Questing is simply fascinating. They feel like minor story arcs; as though there is "more" about to happen, as though you're about to discover some exquisite plot. I find the quests interesting and well-thought out. Most quests have voice-overs, but not all. And speaking of voice-overs, I never knew that Christopher Lee voiced the Overlord! That's so kewl xD
There's also the option of PvP. There's also an arena to hold fights in, but EverQuest II is by no means anything more than a pure, thoroughbred PvE game.
The mobs in this game are simply beautiful as well. The spectres have depth, the huge rock giants move like lightning, deconstruct and reconstruct themselves at will and give you that awkward sense of being intimidated by pixels. Skeletons and rock giants specifically fall apart beautifully once destroyed. EQII makes exquisite use of physics on cloth, hair, mobs and whatever else I've forgotten.
I know it's silly of me to say this, but I've never felt so "involved" with an MMO before. I think so many people shrug this game off as "old" and "outdated" but it's not. Not by any means. It does everything in a way I've never seen an MMO do it before. It's like the MMO every other PvE-based MMO tries to be. You interact with it more than you "follow" it.
And the biggest mistake I made was thinking that this MMO is based on the principle of, enter, grab quest, do it, grab the quest after that, repeat until you reach end-game. It's open-ended. If an NPC says, "HELP!" You can say, "Eh, no, no, I don't think so, I'll get back to you on that" and move off to another area or grab other quests that conflict with that one. Just because someone has a quill over their head (to show they have a quest for you) doesn't mean you have to do it for the XP.
I really just love this game. It's the first time I've played a subscription MMO where I can see myself paying for more than one month.
Really, try this game. Give it a chance, get into it, experience as much of it as you can and see. It's beautiful, it has depth... It doesn't have "potential" because, for me, at least, it's everything I ever wanted in an MMO and so much more.
And I'm done being a fanboi now... :x
If any of you would like to give it a try, I'm on the UK server, Splitpaw as Wulfenkai. You can select which server region you'd like in the language selection English (US) is obviously the American servers, and English (UK) is obvious. I get pretty good latency - 300-350ms, which is very playable.
And for those of you who actually read through this fanboi rant, thank you. *bows*
Oh, and a few other pics are in my album, including a pic of the race selection.
So, I thought I'd post a few screenshots and my thoughts in the hopes of con-- er, I mean, persuading some of you to give it try. The only thing I think it "needs" is new players since most are high-levels.
The scenery, I think, is absolutely beautiful. It has depth, it has an excellent physics system, the textures flow smoothly and there's so much to explore. You can take a dive in a local pond and find a huge snake-like creature to battle it out with, get some achievement, hopefully some nice loot and, well, it's just an awesome experience to be underwater and see this huge thing writhing around beneath the surface. It really has that "omf" sensation to it xP
This is my Kerra Necromancer in the starting area. There are 19 races and 24 classes to choose from, each with their own quirks, pros and cons. I'm personally quite fond of the Kerra.
I wish I had a better picture of crafting to show what it entails, but I think it's something you either love or hate. You buy and harvest ingredients and resources along with recipes. To scribe spell enhancements you go over to an Engraved Desk where you select the appropriate recipe and then select to create it. A (what I think is) really kewl window appears where you have to counter the effects during the process by selecting the matching icon. There are six icons in total, but only three that are used in the process of countering. The first three increase durability at the cost of progress, the final three increase progress at the cost of durability. I find it very interactive, very entertaining and a lot of fun, albeit frustrating to fail the creation process. But, fail or succeed, your skills improve the more you do it.
Under the Persona tab you can customise your character's voice along with the usual details such as whether to show your helm or hood, cape, whether to show guild insignia on the cape, etc. Small things that add character and individuality to your avatar.
There's also an in-game card game called Legands of Norath. You get a free deck with the game and a couple of booster packs. It probably sounds silly, but it's horribly addictive. You can trade cards with other players, issue challenges in-game, win cards by playing the scenarios. It's a lot of fun if you're into that kind of thing. You also have the option to buy other ready-made and tested decks for $10, if you get that engrossed.
The player housing is simply unique. If you've ever played Entropia, the mechanics are very similar, but put together so much better. If you want to cram a thousand things in one spot, you can. Unlike certain other games with player housing where things just "slot" into a limited number of places. You can craft beds, tables, chairs, paintings, carpets, bookshelves, desks, chandeliers, candles, strongboxes to use as storage in your house vault, etc. You can rotate, change the pitch and size of any item. Certain quests also give you items you can put in your house. I'm quite keen on my Book of the Dead :3
The in-game house pets are incredibly cute as well. You can command them to play dead, in which case they pull off a dramatic and exaggerated death scene, or you can feed, play, pet and whatever else them. They also like to move around your house and occasionally attack each other, punish them! xD
Questing is simply fascinating. They feel like minor story arcs; as though there is "more" about to happen, as though you're about to discover some exquisite plot. I find the quests interesting and well-thought out. Most quests have voice-overs, but not all. And speaking of voice-overs, I never knew that Christopher Lee voiced the Overlord! That's so kewl xD
There's also the option of PvP. There's also an arena to hold fights in, but EverQuest II is by no means anything more than a pure, thoroughbred PvE game.
The mobs in this game are simply beautiful as well. The spectres have depth, the huge rock giants move like lightning, deconstruct and reconstruct themselves at will and give you that awkward sense of being intimidated by pixels. Skeletons and rock giants specifically fall apart beautifully once destroyed. EQII makes exquisite use of physics on cloth, hair, mobs and whatever else I've forgotten.
I know it's silly of me to say this, but I've never felt so "involved" with an MMO before. I think so many people shrug this game off as "old" and "outdated" but it's not. Not by any means. It does everything in a way I've never seen an MMO do it before. It's like the MMO every other PvE-based MMO tries to be. You interact with it more than you "follow" it.
And the biggest mistake I made was thinking that this MMO is based on the principle of, enter, grab quest, do it, grab the quest after that, repeat until you reach end-game. It's open-ended. If an NPC says, "HELP!" You can say, "Eh, no, no, I don't think so, I'll get back to you on that" and move off to another area or grab other quests that conflict with that one. Just because someone has a quill over their head (to show they have a quest for you) doesn't mean you have to do it for the XP.
I really just love this game. It's the first time I've played a subscription MMO where I can see myself paying for more than one month.
Really, try this game. Give it a chance, get into it, experience as much of it as you can and see. It's beautiful, it has depth... It doesn't have "potential" because, for me, at least, it's everything I ever wanted in an MMO and so much more.
And I'm done being a fanboi now... :x
If any of you would like to give it a try, I'm on the UK server, Splitpaw as Wulfenkai. You can select which server region you'd like in the language selection English (US) is obviously the American servers, and English (UK) is obvious. I get pretty good latency - 300-350ms, which is very playable.
And for those of you who actually read through this fanboi rant, thank you. *bows*
Oh, and a few other pics are in my album, including a pic of the race selection.
lol
, it felt like the father of wow easily...
!
