"Not enough players" is a self fulfilling prophecy when no one will play since no one will play. It's sad because if mmo gamers would just play a game rather than being overly concerned about population, more games would thrive.
Game has so much going for it. Even the crafting is better than most other games. I keep going back to it. Watching this is making me start it up again. It scratches an itch no other game can.
Also, why WoW was so much more popular vs eq2 was the required hardware needed to play the games. You could basically play WoW with your calculator but you needed a relatively high end computer to run eq2 smoothly at that time and it really drove many players away from eq2.
EQ2 was 100% harder to run by a large margin, but WoW was still fairly comprehensive for the time. I remember in mid 2005 it ran pretty crappy on my modest PC.
I agree.. even on a good computer EQ2 didn't run great. From my memory, the engine used to create EQ2 was based on the premise that PC performance would evolve in the form of a single processor doing most of the work... instead graphics cards got better and we got multi-core processors, and EQ2 was never able to really utilize the power of the computers because of that.
EQ 2 at release could not be run effectly by any level of pc on the market, the top of the line pc's still had to run it at mid-level and it still had issues running it, that what hurt it so much otherwise WOW/EQ 2 would have been right on pace with each other.
I can't remember my specs, but I had a high end Alienware and was able to run EQ2 at the highest settings without issue. IMO EQ2 was a lot more fun than WoW, but my 20+ Navy shipmates and friends ALL played WoW. :(
I love love love that the fighting skill animations in these oldschool games are *not* flashy fireworks. EQ2, LOTRO, Runes of Magic, R.O.H.A.N.: Blood Feud, Loong Dragonblood... ah, they are/were so chill and immersive.
RoM was kinda flashy I feel like I remember.. then again I haven't played that in like.. 12 years or whenever it was popular, haha I really liked Warhammer Online in terms of simplicity (but effectivity) in it's look and art style, I haven't seen a game that nice in terms of setting and worldbuilding in a long time (although I like LOTRO in that aspect).
The main problem EQ2 had up on release, was that the computer you needed to be able to play it was not created yet. So you could say they were about 2-3 year ahead of time regarding computer specs.
Ya they were. Even back then my great computer for eq1 staggered on eq2. Also the pvp was a joke. I cant remember the zone name but it was an ice cave with a bridge right when you zone in. My party finished up a quest, we were max leveled. Getting ready to leave we ran into alvl 12 gnome necro that feared is off the bridge and got our money. The level gap resist should of been better
I played EQ2 fairly religiously from launch to 2009. The slower leveling during its earliest years was amazing. It gave you time to truly appreciate your current level's content, rather than just seeing it as a means to an end. It also built greater anticipation for the content you would be able to tackle later, and made early level gearing feel valuable, because those items would stick with you for potentially weeks, rather than mere hours.
On the Isle of Refuge I remember receiving a coin that when you clicked it Lucan D'lere would talk to you. I know this item was unobtainable after a certain point. But it was like 10 minutes straight of Christopher Lee voice acting, I would listen to it over and over. This was 2004, so Lord of the Rings was at its peak, and I was always fascinated with his deep voice as Saruman.
you missed out on the level 20 armor questline by doing the agnostic dungeon :0 the questline is very cool, always made getting out of the starting zone and into your first major city exciting
I played around 2006/2007 and I am pretty sure it took about a year of play to get up to level 50. Leveling was meant to be slow and it was common for players to level lock a character to complete more quests and gain AA points. Leveling too fast was seen as a bad thing. Mercenaries did not exist and soloing a dungeon was not usually possible. So you had to either join a guild or risk making a party with strangers. Apparently, mercenaries were added in 2011 when EQ2 became free to play. And yes we had guides in the form of the EQ2 forums. Talking about older mmo skills, some skill were meant to replace older skill, but beyond that most players used the in game macros.
Funny that you said "back then, MMOs were more about the journey" because that immediately made me think of Guild Wars which was the complete opposite. Your char is maxed out in the first few hours of playing and then the actual game starts. It took a little bit longer in the first game but the expansions all were designed like that.
this is a freaking awesome video. I remember playing this game hardcore for two weeks back in 2004 which is a shame considering EQ was what got me into MMOs in the first place.
IMO the success of WoW was more about effective marketing than superior gameplay. WoW was the first MMO to advertise on mainstream media, with celebrity spokesmen and commercials on prime time TV. Millions of people were exposed to the genre, and it wasn't just a niche genre for "those computer geeks" anymore. They sold it as an "everyman's game", and suddenly even grandma knew about it, so it became a Christmas present, etc. I'm pretty sure that a large number of it's initial players didn't even know other MMO's even existed. The timing didn't hurt, either, as the internet was exploding at the time, reaching critical mass, and many people were excited to explore all it's possibilities. If Sony had done the same marketing campaign instead of Blizzard, EQ2 would have been the king of MMO's rather than WoW.
El problema que hizo perder a EQ 2, fue que WoW salió en mas idiomas. Yo jugué a EQ y deseaba seguir (y lo hice mucho tiempo) en EQ2. Pero el idioma consiguió que muchos de mis compañeros de aventuras se pasaran a WoW. Nunca entendí por que EQ no pensó en traducir el que creo que es el mejor MMORPG que existió. Incluso, si lo hiciera ahora, creo que volverían muchos antiguos jugadores. Daybreak, por favor, traduce este juego, y de seguro recuperarías mucha gente. Saludos desde España
Many of your gripes with the leveling experience are just modern MMO design. They want you to get to the endgame quickly so you can play with the rest of the player base. World of Warcraft created the endgame rush mentality, every other game just tries to do the same. Really the only way to avoid this is to play one of the many horizontal progression MMOs
You have a great channel man. As someone who has always had an interested in MMOs but never really played any until recently, you do a great job of explaining things and giving critique! I dig EQ2 for what I call the "ps2" graphics it has
Eq2 is such a huge game that it takes months to get ready for endgame content, even for a returning veteran it would take at the very least 1 month. There's the need to keep tons of niche potions and *rarely used but necessary* usable buff and debuff items in your massive inventory, even multiple levels of invisibility and ultrasonic and infrared vision that have been in the game since launch in 2005; And there are must have *low level* items like the manastone. There's just an unbelievable amount of content akin to retail WOW, again though it is a heroic effort to play the late game content involving making your own custom triggers in ACT and potentially the need for other mods to have any insight as to what's working against the game's complex encounters.
I’ve actually tried out EQ2 for the first time ever and it’s bonkers how I missed this game…wow took all the spotlight for me growing up. Good review and thanks again for sharing it!
yeah, i remember that game did have combos, but i think the UI actually would nudge you to use certain rotations.. maybe they changed that. Mercenaries are pretty cool, i didn't know EQ2 had that feature. I saw it in other games, like SWTOR let you have companions, and team up with AI to do whatever star wars equivalent of dungeons. It actually worked really well.
I heard the devs optimized the game around single core CPUs not realizing multi core CPUs were the future. I remember high end computers struggling to play this game at launch. 13:45
Yep that was it. A lot of games did that. Intel had a roadmap back in the day that predicted 8 ghz+ single core CPUs so, that’s what devs optimized for
10:41 Holy shit, I remember this field, not from playing it but from seeing my brother play it. But I had always thought, for some reason, that it was from Neverwinter Nights 2, which I know he's also played so I got into that years back thinking it was the same game and being let down to learn it wasn't (but still liking the game anyway) and now I'm FINALLY seeing the game it's actually from.
This game was my whole life when i was a kid (7+). My grandad, my cousin, and I would do nothing but play it all day. We loved it and were addicted. (click something when it comes off cooldown is basically the game even at max level btw)
I was playing EQ2 from launch for about 3 years non stop and it was a blast. I loved the group content (6 player groups btw) so much I had plenty of twinks to play in any level range and since leveling was so slow it even made sense to craft them gear. Came back for 2 TLE servers now (for the first few expansions) and it was very enjoyable since so many players were also there to experience the old content again! Unfortunately the normal servers are completely P2W and the numbers are so bloated it's hard to realize what item is better even..
The levelling in EQ2 isn't so bad when you get a feeling for what to do to expedite the process. Once pushed an assassin from level 1 to 73 in a single day without a merc. I sure wish it was consistently slower though. Maybe if it was, I'd be able to find groups more consistently
My favourite gaming experience ever was EQ2 from launch until EOF. Especially when they launched the RP-PVP server. Venekor was the best server/community ever.
24:00 Did they change it where you can't fight on a mount anymore? Back when I played, I never dismounted when fighting. That was an option you had to enable and I never did. It looked really janky playing a melee character on a mount but they let you do it (at least back when I played).
EQ2 was and always has been extremely CPU intensive. A lot of the graphics require a CPU that isn't under complete task, so if you're running EQ2 and other programs behind it like a recording software, Google Chrome, Discord, steam, etc. It's going to bog down... Especially if you're running an older Gen i7 or lower
Hail and well met! I greatly appreciate your perspective and shedding some light on EQ2. It is definitely a special game. Of course there are some things that are outdated but I feel that those player who give the game a decent try, much like yourself can tap into what keeps “veteran” players like myself. Are you still playing to this day? Take care and happy hunting!
It's not that you're trash at all. Assassin just happens to be maybe the most dependent on ability rotation out of all the classes. It's one of the most challenging classes to master.
Started the f2p journey yesterday after hearing about the Origins game mode (which I quickly found out is locked to members only). I'm having a lot of fun being an evil elf necromancer. BTW Origins is probably the time locked progression you were looking for!
9:30 BUT they did nerf the zones. Probably before your time since you mentioned the level cap was level 60 when you played. The original level cap for EQ2 was actually level 50. When EQ2 launched in 2004, even your starter zones like Oakmist Forest had Elite encounters. In fact, it was mostly Heroic encounters. You'd find some solo encounters by the docks in each zone so solo players had a few mobs to kill, but wander a hundred of so yards away and everything for the rest of the zone would be Heroic encounters. Nektulos Forest was one of those zones that was absolutely terrifying before the nerf. In fact, it's what set EQ2 apart from WoW. The world really felt dangerous. I was glad I was an Assassin, because being caught in the middle of the Enchanted Lands without a group was such an eerie feeling. It was clear the original developers wanted that group experience. But, with WoW and its explosive reception toward its more casual design, around the time the first expansion (Desert of Flames) released, all the zones were nerfed, and they filled the zones with quests. Before this, there were actually very few quests in EQ2. You'd have some heritage quests, your class quest, but for the most part there were no quest chains that took you zone to zone. Once they redesigned the zones the game was almost turned into WoW in EverQuest, and it's the point where I lost all attachment to the game. There's even VERY little footage of the game in this state. I've tried looking, but 90% of the content is post-nerf era.
just a heads up, which you probably already know, but it defaulted you to low settings. The game looks significantly better visually than what the defaults showed
I've been playing since the start. Something about graphics: If you have a decent computer and great connection, set your graphics to extreme and you'll be immersed into a lush visual experience. It's so lush that you'll miss collectibles and harvests on the ground because of the vegetation. Leveling up to 100 can be done by grinding mobs, as well as by completing quests. After level 100 you MUST complete quests to gain higher levels. There are over 6000 quests. You can rarely run out of things to do unless you create new characters and use the same zones. The temptation to do agnostic dungeons to get to high levels is strong, but you miss so much of the storyline. Most players are at the higher level zones, and doing raids. So out of the hundreds online every hour of the day, it's not too difficult to find a group to help you, or join. It's worth the $16-ish a month, consider it a magazine subscription.
I loved EQ2 when it came out because I played EQ when it released! I had tons of fun in these games! I still play WoW every now & then! FFXIV is my main MMORPG of all time! I may try to get back into EQ2! This brought back may pleasant memories with my friends!
8:45 This was my #1 grievance with the game and why, despite how much I liked so many things about it, I couldn't get myself to keep playing it. The combat was beyond tedious and boring and when I asked the playerbase about strategy and things like that, it seemed like the consensus was "Don't bother with the combo system, just press abilities as they come off cooldown." So riveting.
The graphics are better than your video...turn them up and you actually have grass! Honestly i think the graphics are just fine, even in todays terms. The big gripe i had recently returning to the game is how fast you level. I can out level newbie island half way thru it! That is a big problem imo. But this game has so much going for it, it really is a shame it doesnt get more attention.
Everytime our guild would zone in to do a raid in EQ2 you have to go to your graphic settings and drop them all down. Also, a lot of healing was done while facing a wall so that the graphics wouldnt hit your PC so hard. LOL. I played EQ2 from release day until the Desert of Flames expansion. Tried DoF for 2 weeks, and was done. There was this whole "combat update" that SOE was doing which tasted too much like the old revamps of SWG. Our guild broke up, and 90% of us went to go play WoW in Oct 2005. I remember consolidating everything I owned, and selling every single thing. I then spotted a new player, chatted with them, and gave them 14 platinum. I wished them well, and was gone for good from EQ2. Ahh the memories. EQ2's music still gets me to this day. Played on Permafrost server.
I don't know what combat update you are talking about. The base combat system was the exact same, the level cap increased and they added skills, but also added pvp. If you are talking the whole grouped mobs being locked while in combat, that should be a minor issue. Kill stealing was not rampant in EQ2 at all, not like EQ1. Sounds to me like EQ2 just wasn't for you in the end.
As you progress, you get improved versions of your old skills .... usually with the same icon, but much more effective. You are supposed to remove the older ones from your hotbar, replacing them with the newest version.
you missed out one thing I found missing in the modern mmo too, and hope you will like it. With modern pc you can easily run eq2 with 3 characters at the same time in window mode. Each can have a mercenary too. So easy a 6 character group. Since you are running window mode you can click all spells/abilities with no issue for all characters....... took some time to get the routine but basically later in the game I just feel Like I needed 3-5 spells to keep track on for each player which is pretty easy and the merc they handles them selfes. So you can probably run heroic dungeons with some hassle but you will make it, with the help of the 3 merc. Have fun.
@@RGBReact Man I loved Battlegrounds. Spent a lot of time building up level 80 toons just for BGs, because the level scaling favored 80s, and they had a lot of good gear content to chose from. All the cool kids BGed in the 80s bracket, and you'd see some exquisitely built toons, with old avatar loot and everything. Good times.
I tried Everquest 2 about 5 years ago. There was literally no one there. I got to level 20-something before I ever saw another player - And he ran away without talking as soon as he noticed me....
Here because I'm doing my yearly logins to our 15 accounts on both EQ and EQ2. Didn't start playing EQ2 until 2014 when there was content lull in ESO, and it kept me very busy for a good year and a half. Made one of each class and did all their crafting epics. Bought way too many houses and drowned myself in decorating. Did all the events (which I still love and still log in for Oct and Dec -- the others when I remember I will log in and buy all the crafting books I'm missing.) Love the game and the housing, but there just aren't enough hours in the day, and the few friends I managed to make all either left the server or the game so yeah, still fun for single player though. Just a word about your stealth in combat comment, that is actually (or was?) an integral part of rogue gameplay in EQ. Being able to drop agro and backstab etc. In case you were still wondering about the why >^^
You didn't fully use the potential of the tutorial on the Queen's Colony island, I boarded the ship to Qeynos when I was level 11 and had quite nice equipment, not to mention the great tasks that you probably missed. Everquest 2 is like a paper RPG session, there is no need to rush, and the game does not forgive mindless clicking and skipping the information we obtain. The plot of the assigned tasks and the development of threads are really well done, and the endings are often brilliant and surprising. I first played WoW for many years, but comparing both games, WoW is a primitive and simple game where from the very beginning you are created as the savior of the world, in EQ2 the player is just another adventurer, a "dust in the wind" who is often asked to help, but he can simply refuse and go to a tavern to get drunk. 🤔😉😏👋
I played this game for like 9 years back when it was big. Big part of the game is the population and community it had. Thats what you are missing out on. Some of the dungeons that would take dozens of players. Lorbros here, Hello Nagafen.
That max level player standing in the major city with no active players around to admire her amazing progress expect a once in a blue moon youtube reviewer is the reason Im super picky choosey what games I invest into
brings back memories..i ended up going over to WOW because my friends played there. but i was a die hard EQ guy. it got overwhelming though...and WOW is starting to be the same way. so much stuff to do that you get paralysis
I enjoy my time whenever I decide to log in EQ2 for a while. Its not my mmo of choice for sure but the game has been enjoyable enough. I usually only hear about how bad it is from WoW or post WoW players and vice versa from the older mmo crowd. I personally like both systems but I do find that the rush to endgame classification tends to make me not as interested in the game long term wheras the journey usually keeps me coming back even if i dont pump 100s of hours into the game in one go. Eh, I’ll most likely be back soon even if my next foray will probably be to adventure in Vana’diel with EverQuest 1….I mean Final Fantasy XI!
I always thought EverQuest 2 was the second most underrated game of all time, second only to Asheron's Call. As for the graphics, I always found the game more enjoyable when I select the alternate character model compared to the default "modern" character models, because the alternate character models have charm to them.
I wasted so much of my youth on EQ2. It's a bittersweet feeling now that I'm older and no longer addicted to games. It spoke to the imagination like little else but damn did it take a lot to get rid of the addiction to gaming... It cost a lot of my youth
Ohh hade so mutch fun, just by playing the learning island. You could level up to level 10 and get all the tradeskill and collecting stuff to max level before you leaved the island! I was a guild leader of a clan called " Vikings Af Valhalla". We played on Antontia Bale server! Was very fun, chatting and talking to other players. Doing quests and dungeons together! The sad thing was do that I spend so many years that it feelt like a work! Up in the morning from 8 playing to 10 in the evning. Doing guild stuff. Harvesting and making stuff over and over again! So that was one of the main thing I left! But I miss the conversations and doing stuff together!
At one time, I had 9 characters - one for each of the crafting skills - and my Main was also my adventurer / gatherer. Then they changed the crafting system so that the various specialists were not needed. Press button, receive item. That disheartened me, and I quit. Tried to come back years later, and the monetization was terrible. Shame what they did to that game.
Alright I first want to say that this was a great video and well put together, and I enjoyed it a lot. That said, it cracked me up when your criticisms of their monetization pop up method was interrupted by a UA-cam commercial. While I agree with you completely that it’s not a good method, the irony was just too funny not to share. Keep making great content and I will continue to close your pop ups too my internet friend! 👍🏼
I probably come back to EQ2 once a year because I get bored of other games and EQ2 is always there to just have fun with and fill a void. If the population was still booming it would be an awesome game to stick with for quite some time. And thank you for the agnostic dungeon thing so had no idea about that it’s taken me years to get to 60 for on and off playing
So as someone who decided to play this at launch instead of WoW. I will say that the mount thing was cool but even cooler when they allowed us to mine/gather mounted. And second, it was ALWAYS a ghost town. At least in Freeport.
With the combat... I don't intend to be "that guy" however, from what I recall the assassin is particularly dependent on positionals and/or being in stealth. from what I recall, cheap shot is the main stun that you can use and then you can go into stealth or run behind or whatever you need to do to meet the positional requirements to do good damage with that class. I remember it as being a little on the weak side when it comes to soloing. Oh man, that dungeon... cavern of the afflicted, that came out when I was actively playing the game... it was a really good dungeon. EQ2 had a lot of potential, but I think the spammy nature of the combat and the poor optimization meant it was never really going to be able to compete with WoW. The spammy nature wasn't inherently bad, but the servers couldn't consistently handle the data... there would be massive fluctutions in my dps on raid night based on the server lag the day, time, dungeon etc. I was playing.
Awesome video i actually never played everquest 2! Definitely has that nostalgia vibes. Wish prog servers had a trial period. Don't feel like paying membership to give it a shot. Also I would love to see you try Warhammer Age of Reckoning (technically Return of Reckoning now)
you can try eq2 you dont have to pay sub. for running heroics in high end level you should have membership but till then u know if u like it or now it is a very deep game and you need to have fun seeing you toon growing up becoming more powerful etc
I played warhammer online when it hit. That game had a lot of good ideas with the public events etc. It really could have been better, but there were just so many options at the time. I played with a friend and we had a blast while we played. Unfortunately suffered from lack of population even shortly after launch. I liked it, though.
I love the journey and games having loads of content. I am not one to power level through games. I played EQ2 for many years with a handful of friends. The main reasons we all quit playing was the slimy cash grab constantly thrown in your face, the ridiculous amount of abilities taking up half the screen and even with a lot of content when you make another character it becomes tedious repetitions and boring as all hell. I love the housing system, character creation options, mount mechanics and the mercenary system. I have never played WOW as the amount of money needed to actually play the game is disgusting. I quit LOTRO for that reason as well. I believe games should either charge you up front OR a subscription but not both. Having extra items and fancier outfits is fine but being locked out of content and/or mechanics due to a pay system is an extremely slime ball option by greedy devs that I refuse to participate in.
There are extremely popular private servers for most games, that are fan run, completely free, and normally have some interesting spins/additions to the retail experience. You should check some of them out. 🎉
I agree with what you say about the graphics. The only thing that really bothers me are the missing shadows. They don't have to be high quality, a dark blob underneath the character would suffice for me, but even that is missing. That alone is very off-putting to me :( EDIT It seems in later areas shadows are actually present. Or maybe Waydot just had them deactivated at first and activated them later. It's interesting what an impact in immersion shadows have, at least for me :D
Those popups are even presistent on everquest 1, i tried today spend like 2h barely understood wtf i was doing with such mess of UI, and every x minutes it would pop up something close to that about membership etc, also the popup icon stand above hp bar so i have guess how much hp i had.
Great video. The crafting and housing in EQ 2 is pretty much unmatched. You could just focus on that and spend hours. Regarding the visuals. EQ 2 is in fact stylized. Just not nearly as cartoony exaggerated as WoW. It helps to know the visual heritage of each game that launched within weeks. The original EQ was meant to take D&D High Fantasy (Think Baldur's Gate, Lord of the Rings, etc) into really the first big 3D MMORPG ever. So EQ is what 1999 (and subsequent release years of each content) could do to achieve D&D style high fantasy. EQ was mean to replicate a D&D style gameplay in a persistent work. EQ 2 was a stylized and up-res'd version of EQ. It in fact is quite a bit stylized away from EQ when you compare the two while keeping some of that original inspiration. Lot's of EQ players weren't a fan of EQ 2 and how stylized it was. Those same players absolutely hated WoW for context. I was among those but EQ 2's style grew on me and has surprisingly good visuals in certain areas that I think is a pretty charming mix of styles. WoW was the Warcraft game heritage style translated to 3D MMO. So think Warcraft 1 and 2 with it's old pixelated sprites, bright colors etc. You then saw the jump to Warcraft 3 where they tried to do that same style in a 3D RTS format. WoW then took that into the MMO space. So it's intentionally meant to be cartoony and be a throwback to it's original inspiration of old school Warcraft games. Personally I absolutely HATED the WoW style at launch. I hate it less now, but honestly not by much. I personally think even Everquest looked FAR better than WoW and EQ 2 I think looks even that much better. Nowadays I feel that way even more. That's because I prefer High Fantasy to cartoony fantasy. I personally don't think WoW aged better than even Everquest. I am actually still playing original EQ (played it all the way back in beta test and launch in 1999) and I've tried to play WoW a few times and I 100% think original EQ (for context I play on Project Quarm too which is a private EQ server that is very much like the original) has aged so much better than WoW. WoW looks even more blurry and too cartoony to me now than then. So despite many people holding the view that WoW's blurry graphics aged better, not everyone agrees. It's not an absolute truth. The absolute truth is that WoW's purposely crappy graphics PERFORMED better than either EQ or EQ 2. Which correlated to their far easier and friendlier gameplay appealing to a much broader audience. In this way I think EQ 2 was actually not worse than WoW. It was developed to it's target quite well.. WoW just targeted a whole new demographic expansion. Many people like me hated the things about WoW that the mass audiences loved... Quest grinding vs kill grinding. Constant rewards... Easier and more forgiving etc. All these was massive pluses to a whole big group and HUGE negatives to an existing MMO player base. It's interesting that game difficulty and challenge has come full circle in a lot of ways. Thinks like Souls games being so popular for being so brutal. Then what's one of the most popular modern WoW phenomenon's? WoW Hardcore, basically making WoW more challenging than it was even at launch. Ironically in a lot of ways that screams how good and correct the original EQ's model was and kind of wins the philosophical argument in the long run. EQ with it's corpse runs and EXP lost honestly is probably a much more balanced hardcore mechanic version than permadeath and would be immensely popular now in other MMO games. While criticized at the time for being too hardcore for new WoW era MMO players. The gaming playerbase has essentially evolved into the same sort of desires and challenges that EQ era MMO players were at in 1999.
The WoW graphics were no doubt the most ugly contribution to 2000s visual game design. I was 18 years old when WoW launched and I despised its art direction. I coined a word for that visual direction back than for use in my conversations with other teenagers, that would translate into English as "warcraftiness". That bs became very popular back than after the beautiful fantasy art of the 90s.
"Not enough players" is a self fulfilling prophecy when no one will play since no one will play. It's sad because if mmo gamers would just play a game rather than being overly concerned about population, more games would thrive.
You’re actually so right
Problems with mmo is devs lazy, too much p2w, no new events or story.
@@VITAS874 what an insightful comment
@@chase5298 thank you
It's also a valid complaint
Game has so much going for it. Even the crafting is better than most other games. I keep going back to it. Watching this is making me start it up again. It scratches an itch no other game can.
The newbie boat ride and newbie island will always be a fond memory for me.
Also, why WoW was so much more popular vs eq2 was the required hardware needed to play the games. You could basically play WoW with your calculator but you needed a relatively high end computer to run eq2 smoothly at that time and it really drove many players away from eq2.
EQ2 was 100% harder to run by a large margin, but WoW was still fairly comprehensive for the time. I remember in mid 2005 it ran pretty crappy on my modest PC.
I agree.. even on a good computer EQ2 didn't run great. From my memory, the engine used to create EQ2 was based on the premise that PC performance would evolve in the form of a single processor doing most of the work... instead graphics cards got better and we got multi-core processors, and EQ2 was never able to really utilize the power of the computers because of that.
I played eq2, tried wow when it came out and soloed to 50. Was not for me. To easy.stayed with eq2 for a decade.
EQ 2 at release could not be run effectly by any level of pc on the market, the top of the line pc's still had to run it at mid-level and it still had issues running it, that what hurt it so much otherwise WOW/EQ 2 would have been right on pace with each other.
I can't remember my specs, but I had a high end Alienware and was able to run EQ2 at the highest settings without issue. IMO EQ2 was a lot more fun than WoW, but my 20+ Navy shipmates and friends ALL played WoW. :(
I go back into this game every so often. And still to this day, my character, and house from 2005 is still waiting for me. The charm is still strong.
I love love love that the fighting skill animations in these oldschool games are *not* flashy fireworks.
EQ2, LOTRO, Runes of Magic, R.O.H.A.N.: Blood Feud, Loong Dragonblood... ah, they are/were so chill and immersive.
RoM was kinda flashy I feel like I remember.. then again I haven't played that in like.. 12 years or whenever it was popular, haha
I really liked Warhammer Online in terms of simplicity (but effectivity) in it's look and art style, I haven't seen a game that nice in terms of setting and worldbuilding in a long time (although I like LOTRO in that aspect).
ROHAN was so good
Agreed. The flashiness of modern MMOs and anime-ness of them all really turns me off.
For real, wow is flashy enough… but the anime fight style games with all the extra bs when swinging annoys me.
The main problem EQ2 had up on release, was that the computer you needed to be able to play it was not created yet. So you could say they were about 2-3 year ahead of time regarding computer specs.
Ya they were. Even back then my great computer for eq1 staggered on eq2. Also the pvp was a joke. I cant remember the zone name but it was an ice cave with a bridge right when you zone in. My party finished up a quest, we were max leveled. Getting ready to leave we ran into alvl 12 gnome necro that feared is off the bridge and got our money. The level gap resist should of been better
True, I even remember this being a selling point. Not that the computer didn’t exist but that the graphics wouldn’t be outdated right away.
@@billyharris3214 has a lot to do with gear and stats.
fun fact Qeynos is just Sony Eq backwards but good video my dad also got me into MMOrpgs from everquest so its cool to see someone else as well.
You are pronouncing it wrong. Its gayness
Absolutely agree w/ you about the grafics. The style somehow feels gorgeous to me nowadays.
It’s got its own charm, that’s for sure.
I played EQ2 fairly religiously from launch to 2009. The slower leveling during its earliest years was amazing. It gave you time to truly appreciate your current level's content, rather than just seeing it as a means to an end. It also built greater anticipation for the content you would be able to tackle later, and made early level gearing feel valuable, because those items would stick with you for potentially weeks, rather than mere hours.
On the Isle of Refuge I remember receiving a coin that when you clicked it Lucan D'lere would talk to you. I know this item was unobtainable after a certain point. But it was like 10 minutes straight of Christopher Lee voice acting, I would listen to it over and over. This was 2004, so Lord of the Rings was at its peak, and I was always fascinated with his deep voice as Saruman.
My family and I have started back up in EQ2 with new characters and so far through level 20 it's been a blast. =)
you missed out on the level 20 armor questline by doing the agnostic dungeon :0 the questline is very cool, always made getting out of the starting zone and into your first major city exciting
I played around 2006/2007 and I am pretty sure it took about a year of play to get up to level 50. Leveling was meant to be slow and it was common for players to level lock a character to complete more quests and gain AA points. Leveling too fast was seen as a bad thing. Mercenaries did not exist and soloing a dungeon was not usually possible. So you had to either join a guild or risk making a party with strangers. Apparently, mercenaries were added in 2011 when EQ2 became free to play. And yes we had guides in the form of the EQ2 forums. Talking about older mmo skills, some skill were meant to replace older skill, but beyond that most players used the in game macros.
I agree that some old "realistic" games look almost stylized as time goes on.
The game was great, the issue with not taking off like WoW was more about accessibility. The system requirements at the time were insane.
Funny that you said "back then, MMOs were more about the journey" because that immediately made me think of Guild Wars which was the complete opposite. Your char is maxed out in the first few hours of playing and then the actual game starts. It took a little bit longer in the first game but the expansions all were designed like that.
Those skelly sounds bring me back. They're the same sounds the skellies had in EQ1. My Necromancer main got very used to those cackles.
this is a freaking awesome video. I remember playing this game hardcore for two weeks back in 2004 which is a shame considering EQ was what got me into MMOs in the first place.
The sound track for EQ2 was amazing!
IMO the success of WoW was more about effective marketing than superior gameplay. WoW was the first MMO to advertise on mainstream media, with celebrity spokesmen and commercials on prime time TV. Millions of people were exposed to the genre, and it wasn't just a niche genre for "those computer geeks" anymore. They sold it as an "everyman's game", and suddenly even grandma knew about it, so it became a Christmas present, etc. I'm pretty sure that a large number of it's initial players didn't even know other MMO's even existed. The timing didn't hurt, either, as the internet was exploding at the time, reaching critical mass, and many people were excited to explore all it's possibilities. If Sony had done the same marketing campaign instead of Blizzard, EQ2 would have been the king of MMO's rather than WoW.
El problema que hizo perder a EQ 2, fue que WoW salió en mas idiomas. Yo jugué a EQ y deseaba seguir (y lo hice mucho tiempo) en EQ2. Pero el idioma consiguió que muchos de mis compañeros de aventuras se pasaran a WoW. Nunca entendí por que EQ no pensó en traducir el que creo que es el mejor MMORPG que existió. Incluso, si lo hiciera ahora, creo que volverían muchos antiguos jugadores. Daybreak, por favor, traduce este juego, y de seguro recuperarías mucha gente. Saludos desde España
Many of your gripes with the leveling experience are just modern MMO design. They want you to get to the endgame quickly so you can play with the rest of the player base. World of Warcraft created the endgame rush mentality, every other game just tries to do the same. Really the only way to avoid this is to play one of the many horizontal progression MMOs
You have a great channel man. As someone who has always had an interested in MMOs but never really played any until recently, you do a great job of explaining things and giving critique! I dig EQ2 for what I call the "ps2" graphics it has
Thanks for the kind words man :)
Eq2 is such a huge game that it takes months to get ready for endgame content, even for a returning veteran it would take at the very least 1 month. There's the need to keep tons of niche potions and *rarely used but necessary* usable buff and debuff items in your massive inventory, even multiple levels of invisibility and ultrasonic and infrared vision that have been in the game since launch in 2005; And there are must have *low level* items like the manastone. There's just an unbelievable amount of content akin to retail WOW, again though it is a heroic effort to play the late game content involving making your own custom triggers in ACT and potentially the need for other mods to have any insight as to what's working against the game's complex encounters.
I’ve actually tried out EQ2 for the first time ever and it’s bonkers how I missed this game…wow took all the spotlight for me growing up.
Good review and thanks again for sharing it!
I played it from day 1 and totally loved the game.❤ Everquest 1 also. The guilds and group playing was the best. Good times.🎉😊
yeah, i remember that game did have combos, but i think the UI actually would nudge you to use certain rotations.. maybe they changed that. Mercenaries are pretty cool, i didn't know EQ2 had that feature. I saw it in other games, like SWTOR let you have companions, and team up with AI to do whatever star wars equivalent of dungeons. It actually worked really well.
Man, that OST on the island of refuge .... just hits different. Pure nostalgia!
I heard the devs optimized the game around single core CPUs not realizing multi core CPUs were the future. I remember high end computers struggling to play this game at launch. 13:45
that's my understanding as well
Yep that was it. A lot of games did that. Intel had a roadmap back in the day that predicted 8 ghz+ single core CPUs so, that’s what devs optimized for
10:41
Holy shit, I remember this field, not from playing it but from seeing my brother play it. But I had always thought, for some reason, that it was from Neverwinter Nights 2, which I know he's also played so I got into that years back thinking it was the same game and being let down to learn it wasn't (but still liking the game anyway) and now I'm FINALLY seeing the game it's actually from.
This game was my whole life when i was a kid (7+). My grandad, my cousin, and I would do nothing but play it all day. We loved it and were addicted. (click something when it comes off cooldown is basically the game even at max level btw)
I used to play eq2 so much back in the day. Such great memories of that game and its world. I agree with your love for Antonia.
FYI in the launcher incase you didn’t know give an option to download the full game and much quicker
I was playing EQ2 from launch for about 3 years non stop and it was a blast. I loved the group content (6 player groups btw) so much I had plenty of twinks to play in any level range and since leveling was so slow it even made sense to craft them gear. Came back for 2 TLE servers now (for the first few expansions) and it was very enjoyable since so many players were also there to experience the old content again! Unfortunately the normal servers are completely P2W and the numbers are so bloated it's hard to realize what item is better even..
You can come back for ballads of zimara ! you will love it its for me the best expac since years really.
@@elbuenomalo Playing the origins beta now and it's awesome
The levelling in EQ2 isn't so bad when you get a feeling for what to do to expedite the process. Once pushed an assassin from level 1 to 73 in a single day without a merc. I sure wish it was consistently slower though. Maybe if it was, I'd be able to find groups more consistently
Eq2 is so nerfed its pointless to play
That’s lame as fuck. That’s not EQ.
My favourite gaming experience ever was EQ2 from launch until EOF. Especially when they launched the RP-PVP server. Venekor was the best server/community ever.
My man, Wish I had the opportunity to experience that sounds awesome.
For sure, remember the old days when Apollo where top pvp Guild and darklight Wood where full pvp 😍
@@SonnaxGG571 Ahem. Pandemonium was the top PVP guild on Venekor.
Yea the pvp in DLW was crazy. So much fun. Alos the tower fightas in Ant/CL was good fun. Tons of people swinging, casting, roaring and smashing 😂
I just wish the game had a half-orc race, there are just far too many human-esque races and the ones that aren't are too extreme for me.
24:00 Did they change it where you can't fight on a mount anymore? Back when I played, I never dismounted when fighting. That was an option you had to enable and I never did. It looked really janky playing a melee character on a mount but they let you do it (at least back when I played).
I remember this. I believe this was the time when there were advanced classes
I haven't played since 2012, but if I remember correctly, there's a setting. You can hide mount altogether, hide in combat, or never hide.
EQ2 was and always has been extremely CPU intensive. A lot of the graphics require a CPU that isn't under complete task, so if you're running EQ2 and other programs behind it like a recording software, Google Chrome, Discord, steam, etc. It's going to bog down... Especially if you're running an older Gen i7 or lower
Hail and well met! I greatly appreciate your perspective and shedding some light on EQ2. It is definitely a special game. Of course there are some things that are outdated but I feel that those player who give the game a decent try, much like yourself can tap into what keeps “veteran” players like myself. Are you still playing to this day? Take care and happy hunting!
Awesome and still relevant in 2025. I was a big time player during it's hey day. I plan on going back to relive some of the nostalgia. Thanks!
Im gonna hop back on and play soon, nothing hits my nostalgia quite like EQ2. Honestly might just kill 5000 goblins on the tutorial island
In Guild Wars 1 you could have bot allies in your group to do missions or for exploring.
It's not that you're trash at all. Assassin just happens to be maybe the most dependent on ability rotation out of all the classes. It's one of the most challenging classes to master.
There's a point you did not talk about : the music.
EQ2 musics are awesome
loved this game back in the day. Had a great guild. LOVE the score. Musical atmosphere. Nostalgia.
I want to add, Shift + Number combos definitely do work. I've got all my character with them
Started the f2p journey yesterday after hearing about the Origins game mode (which I quickly found out is locked to members only).
I'm having a lot of fun being an evil elf necromancer.
BTW Origins is probably the time locked progression you were looking for!
My man Waydot be swooshing through these MMO's bringing back all the hot takes
Playing games with your dad would have been a hell of an experience.
Congrats ❤
9:30 BUT they did nerf the zones. Probably before your time since you mentioned the level cap was level 60 when you played. The original level cap for EQ2 was actually level 50. When EQ2 launched in 2004, even your starter zones like Oakmist Forest had Elite encounters. In fact, it was mostly Heroic encounters. You'd find some solo encounters by the docks in each zone so solo players had a few mobs to kill, but wander a hundred of so yards away and everything for the rest of the zone would be Heroic encounters.
Nektulos Forest was one of those zones that was absolutely terrifying before the nerf.
In fact, it's what set EQ2 apart from WoW. The world really felt dangerous. I was glad I was an Assassin, because being caught in the middle of the Enchanted Lands without a group was such an eerie feeling. It was clear the original developers wanted that group experience.
But, with WoW and its explosive reception toward its more casual design, around the time the first expansion (Desert of Flames) released, all the zones were nerfed, and they filled the zones with quests. Before this, there were actually very few quests in EQ2. You'd have some heritage quests, your class quest, but for the most part there were no quest chains that took you zone to zone.
Once they redesigned the zones the game was almost turned into WoW in EverQuest, and it's the point where I lost all attachment to the game. There's even VERY little footage of the game in this state. I've tried looking, but 90% of the content is post-nerf era.
just a heads up, which you probably already know, but it defaulted you to low settings. The game looks significantly better visually than what the defaults showed
I've been playing since the start. Something about graphics: If you have a decent computer and great connection, set your graphics to extreme and you'll be immersed into a lush visual experience. It's so lush that you'll miss collectibles and harvests on the ground because of the vegetation. Leveling up to 100 can be done by grinding mobs, as well as by completing quests. After level 100 you MUST complete quests to gain higher levels. There are over 6000 quests. You can rarely run out of things to do unless you create new characters and use the same zones. The temptation to do agnostic dungeons to get to high levels is strong, but you miss so much of the storyline. Most players are at the higher level zones, and doing raids. So out of the hundreds online every hour of the day, it's not too difficult to find a group to help you, or join. It's worth the $16-ish a month, consider it a magazine subscription.
I loved EQ2 when it came out because I played EQ when it released! I had tons of fun in these games! I still play WoW every now & then! FFXIV is my main MMORPG of all time! I may try to get back into EQ2! This brought back may pleasant memories with my friends!
8:45 This was my #1 grievance with the game and why, despite how much I liked so many things about it, I couldn't get myself to keep playing it. The combat was beyond tedious and boring and when I asked the playerbase about strategy and things like that, it seemed like the consensus was "Don't bother with the combo system, just press abilities as they come off cooldown." So riveting.
EQ2 was te best game to date that i have ever played. I wish they would make a third game.
they are rework everquest 1 with new grafik and so on
The graphics are better than your video...turn them up and you actually have grass! Honestly i think the graphics are just fine, even in todays terms. The big gripe i had recently returning to the game is how fast you level. I can out level newbie island half way thru it! That is a big problem imo. But this game has so much going for it, it really is a shame it doesnt get more attention.
The game absolutely needs a stat and level squish.
I played this game a ton for about 5 years. Nice trip down memory lane.
Everytime our guild would zone in to do a raid in EQ2 you have to go to your graphic settings and drop them all down. Also, a lot of healing was done while facing a wall so that the graphics wouldnt hit your PC so hard. LOL. I played EQ2 from release day until the Desert of Flames expansion. Tried DoF for 2 weeks, and was done. There was this whole "combat update" that SOE was doing which tasted too much like the old revamps of SWG. Our guild broke up, and 90% of us went to go play WoW in Oct 2005. I remember consolidating everything I owned, and selling every single thing. I then spotted a new player, chatted with them, and gave them 14 platinum. I wished them well, and was gone for good from EQ2. Ahh the memories. EQ2's music still gets me to this day. Played on Permafrost server.
I don't know what combat update you are talking about. The base combat system was the exact same, the level cap increased and they added skills, but also added pvp. If you are talking the whole grouped mobs being locked while in combat, that should be a minor issue. Kill stealing was not rampant in EQ2 at all, not like EQ1. Sounds to me like EQ2 just wasn't for you in the end.
What guild on perma
4:12 "vag" memories
Transcript moment haha
There's something I love about EQII graphics. I love playing occasionally. The skill bloat is what really annoys me though
As you progress, you get improved versions of your old skills .... usually with the same icon, but much more effective. You are supposed to remove the older ones from your hotbar, replacing them with the newest version.
You missed heritage questlines too. The world really is amazing.
you missed out one thing I found missing in the modern mmo too, and hope you will like it. With modern pc you can easily run eq2 with 3 characters at the same time in window mode. Each can have a mercenary too. So easy a 6 character group. Since you are running window mode you can click all spells/abilities with no issue for all characters....... took some time to get the routine but basically later in the game I just feel Like I needed 3-5 spells to keep track on for each player which is pretty easy and the merc they handles them selfes. So you can probably run heroic dungeons with some hassle but you will make it, with the help of the 3 merc. Have fun.
try a real grp
Thanks for the content bub, you did a fantastic job!
nice video. This game brings so good memories back. 1 of the best pvp mmorgs that i have played.
battlegrounds was actually incredible
@@RGBReact Man I loved Battlegrounds. Spent a lot of time building up level 80 toons just for BGs, because the level scaling favored 80s, and they had a lot of good gear content to chose from. All the cool kids BGed in the 80s bracket, and you'd see some exquisitely built toons, with old avatar loot and everything. Good times.
I tried Everquest 2 about 5 years ago. There was literally no one there. I got to level 20-something before I ever saw another player - And he ran away without talking as soon as he noticed me....
Here because I'm doing my yearly logins to our 15 accounts on both EQ and EQ2.
Didn't start playing EQ2 until 2014 when there was content lull in ESO, and it kept me very busy for a good year and a half. Made one of each class and did all their crafting epics. Bought way too many houses and drowned myself in decorating. Did all the events (which I still love and still log in for Oct and Dec -- the others when I remember I will log in and buy all the crafting books I'm missing.)
Love the game and the housing, but there just aren't enough hours in the day, and the few friends I managed to make all either left the server or the game so yeah, still fun for single player though.
Just a word about your stealth in combat comment, that is actually (or was?) an integral part of rogue gameplay in EQ. Being able to drop agro and backstab etc. In case you were still wondering about the why >^^
You didn't fully use the potential of the tutorial on the Queen's Colony island, I boarded the ship to Qeynos when I was level 11 and had quite nice equipment, not to mention the great tasks that you probably missed. Everquest 2 is like a paper RPG session, there is no need to rush, and the game does not forgive mindless clicking and skipping the information we obtain. The plot of the assigned tasks and the development of threads are really well done, and the endings are often brilliant and surprising. I first played WoW for many years, but comparing both games, WoW is a primitive and simple game where from the very beginning you are created as the savior of the world, in EQ2 the player is just another adventurer, a "dust in the wind" who is often asked to help, but he can simply refuse and go to a tavern to get drunk. 🤔😉😏👋
Started recently, honestly a super fun game
I played this game for like 9 years back when it was big. Big part of the game is the population and community it had. Thats what you are missing out on. Some of the dungeons that would take dozens of players.
Lorbros here, Hello Nagafen.
That max level player standing in the major city with no active players around to admire her amazing progress expect a once in a blue moon youtube reviewer is the reason Im super picky choosey what games I invest into
brings back memories..i ended up going over to WOW because my friends played there. but i was a die hard EQ guy. it got overwhelming though...and WOW is starting to be the same way. so much stuff to do that you get paralysis
dude i love your videos like there amazing your a really good creator and i hope we can game one day on any mmo dont matter
dont mind me, just bringing all your videos right now
I enjoy my time whenever I decide to log in EQ2 for a while. Its not my mmo of choice for sure but the game has been enjoyable enough. I usually only hear about how bad it is from WoW or post WoW players and vice versa from the older mmo crowd. I personally like both systems but I do find that the rush to endgame classification tends to make me not as interested in the game long term wheras the journey usually keeps me coming back even if i dont pump 100s of hours into the game in one go. Eh, I’ll most likely be back soon even if my next foray will probably be to adventure in Vana’diel with EverQuest 1….I mean Final Fantasy XI!
I always thought EverQuest 2 was the second most underrated game of all time, second only to Asheron's Call. As for the graphics, I always found the game more enjoyable when I select the alternate character model compared to the default "modern" character models, because the alternate character models have charm to them.
I wasted so much of my youth on EQ2. It's a bittersweet feeling now that I'm older and no longer addicted to games. It spoke to the imagination like little else but damn did it take a lot to get rid of the addiction to gaming... It cost a lot of my youth
After watching this, I'm not sad that I never played Everquest games and played World of Warcraft instead.
EQ3 coming out in a few years from what I hear!
Ohh hade so mutch fun, just by playing the learning island. You could level up to level 10 and get all the tradeskill and collecting stuff to max level before you leaved the island! I was a guild leader of a clan called " Vikings Af Valhalla". We played on Antontia Bale server! Was very fun, chatting and talking to other players. Doing quests and dungeons together! The sad thing was do that I spend so many years that it feelt like a work! Up in the morning from 8 playing to 10 in the evning. Doing guild stuff. Harvesting and making stuff over and over again! So that was one of the main thing I left! But I miss the conversations and doing stuff together!
At one time, I had 9 characters - one for each of the crafting skills - and my Main was also my adventurer / gatherer.
Then they changed the crafting system so that the various specialists were not needed.
Press button, receive item.
That disheartened me, and I quit. Tried to come back years later, and the monetization was terrible. Shame what they did to that game.
I was there on November 8th 2004...
Alright I first want to say that this was a great video and well put together, and I enjoyed it a lot.
That said, it cracked me up when your criticisms of their monetization pop up method was interrupted by a UA-cam commercial.
While I agree with you completely that it’s not a good method, the irony was just too funny not to share.
Keep making great content and I will continue to close your pop ups too my internet friend! 👍🏼
I probably come back to EQ2 once a year because I get bored of other games and EQ2 is always there to just have fun with and fill a void. If the population was still booming it would be an awesome game to stick with for quite some time. And thank you for the agnostic dungeon thing so had no idea about that it’s taken me years to get to 60 for on and off playing
The skeleton laugh is the skeleton laugh from EQ1.
So as someone who decided to play this at launch instead of WoW. I will say that the mount thing was cool but even cooler when they allowed us to mine/gather mounted. And second, it was ALWAYS a ghost town. At least in Freeport.
With the combat... I don't intend to be "that guy" however, from what I recall the assassin is particularly dependent on positionals and/or being in stealth. from what I recall, cheap shot is the main stun that you can use and then you can go into stealth or run behind or whatever you need to do to meet the positional requirements to do good damage with that class. I remember it as being a little on the weak side when it comes to soloing.
Oh man, that dungeon... cavern of the afflicted, that came out when I was actively playing the game... it was a really good dungeon. EQ2 had a lot of potential, but I think the spammy nature of the combat and the poor optimization meant it was never really going to be able to compete with WoW. The spammy nature wasn't inherently bad, but the servers couldn't consistently handle the data... there would be massive fluctutions in my dps on raid night based on the server lag the day, time, dungeon etc. I was playing.
Really like this content. GG
ik this video is almost 2 years old now but i wanted to ask is it worth to stream on?
I spent a good 4 years playing this solidly. Sad to see so few players now. It really was bustling from 2004 to 2008 or so
Rushing this game out to compete with WoW was its biggest mistake.
EQ2 is getting a API update to dx11. Now (dx9)i get no more frames on a 3070ti than my buddy on a 750ti
I never played this. Would this be worth checking out? A couple of years ago i had a blast starting and catching up to Lotro.
Yea try it. I have played it back and forth for 20 years, i always come back to eq2. Come to Varsoon server and I hook you up to a good start.
Great review
Once you reach about level 92 or 93 the dungeons dont grant enough XP and you have to do quests from there
Awesome video i actually never played everquest 2! Definitely has that nostalgia vibes. Wish prog servers had a trial period. Don't feel like paying membership to give it a shot. Also I would love to see you try Warhammer Age of Reckoning (technically Return of Reckoning now)
you can try eq2 you dont have to pay sub. for running heroics in high end level you should have membership but till then u know if u like it or now it is a very deep game and you need to have fun seeing you toon growing up becoming more powerful etc
I played warhammer online when it hit. That game had a lot of good ideas with the public events etc. It really could have been better, but there were just so many options at the time. I played with a friend and we had a blast while we played. Unfortunately suffered from lack of population even shortly after launch. I liked it, though.
I love the journey and games having loads of content. I am not one to power level through games. I played EQ2 for many years with a handful of friends. The main reasons we all quit playing was the slimy cash grab constantly thrown in your face, the ridiculous amount of abilities taking up half the screen and even with a lot of content when you make another character it becomes tedious repetitions and boring as all hell. I love the housing system, character creation options, mount mechanics and the mercenary system. I have never played WOW as the amount of money needed to actually play the game is disgusting. I quit LOTRO for that reason as well. I believe games should either charge you up front OR a subscription but not both. Having extra items and fancier outfits is fine but being locked out of content and/or mechanics due to a pay system is an extremely slime ball option by greedy devs that I refuse to participate in.
There are extremely popular private servers for most games, that are fan run, completely free, and normally have some interesting spins/additions to the retail experience. You should check some of them out. 🎉
I agree with what you say about the graphics. The only thing that really bothers me are the missing shadows. They don't have to be high quality, a dark blob underneath the character would suffice for me, but even that is missing. That alone is very off-putting to me :(
EDIT It seems in later areas shadows are actually present. Or maybe Waydot just had them deactivated at first and activated them later. It's interesting what an impact in immersion shadows have, at least for me :D
Those popups are even presistent on everquest 1, i tried today spend like 2h barely understood wtf i was doing with such mess of UI, and every x minutes it would pop up something close to that about membership etc, also the popup icon stand above hp bar so i have guess how much hp i had.
Great video. The crafting and housing in EQ 2 is pretty much unmatched. You could just focus on that and spend hours.
Regarding the visuals. EQ 2 is in fact stylized. Just not nearly as cartoony exaggerated as WoW.
It helps to know the visual heritage of each game that launched within weeks.
The original EQ was meant to take D&D High Fantasy (Think Baldur's Gate, Lord of the Rings, etc) into really the first big 3D MMORPG ever. So EQ is what 1999 (and subsequent release years of each content) could do to achieve D&D style high fantasy. EQ was mean to replicate a D&D style gameplay in a persistent work.
EQ 2 was a stylized and up-res'd version of EQ. It in fact is quite a bit stylized away from EQ when you compare the two while keeping some of that original inspiration.
Lot's of EQ players weren't a fan of EQ 2 and how stylized it was. Those same players absolutely hated WoW for context. I was among those but EQ 2's style grew on me and has surprisingly good visuals in certain areas that I think is a pretty charming mix of styles.
WoW was the Warcraft game heritage style translated to 3D MMO. So think Warcraft 1 and 2 with it's old pixelated sprites, bright colors etc. You then saw the jump to Warcraft 3 where they tried to do that same style in a 3D RTS format. WoW then took that into the MMO space. So it's intentionally meant to be cartoony and be a throwback to it's original inspiration of old school Warcraft games.
Personally I absolutely HATED the WoW style at launch. I hate it less now, but honestly not by much. I personally think even Everquest looked FAR better than WoW and EQ 2 I think looks even that much better. Nowadays I feel that way even more. That's because I prefer High Fantasy to cartoony fantasy. I personally don't think WoW aged better than even Everquest. I am actually still playing original EQ (played it all the way back in beta test and launch in 1999) and I've tried to play WoW a few times and I 100% think original EQ (for context I play on Project Quarm too which is a private EQ server that is very much like the original) has aged so much better than WoW. WoW looks even more blurry and too cartoony to me now than then. So despite many people holding the view that WoW's blurry graphics aged better, not everyone agrees. It's not an absolute truth.
The absolute truth is that WoW's purposely crappy graphics PERFORMED better than either EQ or EQ 2. Which correlated to their far easier and friendlier gameplay appealing to a much broader audience. In this way I think EQ 2 was actually not worse than WoW. It was developed to it's target quite well.. WoW just targeted a whole new demographic expansion. Many people like me hated the things about WoW that the mass audiences loved... Quest grinding vs kill grinding. Constant rewards... Easier and more forgiving etc. All these was massive pluses to a whole big group and HUGE negatives to an existing MMO player base.
It's interesting that game difficulty and challenge has come full circle in a lot of ways. Thinks like Souls games being so popular for being so brutal. Then what's one of the most popular modern WoW phenomenon's? WoW Hardcore, basically making WoW more challenging than it was even at launch. Ironically in a lot of ways that screams how good and correct the original EQ's model was and kind of wins the philosophical argument in the long run. EQ with it's corpse runs and EXP lost honestly is probably a much more balanced hardcore mechanic version than permadeath and would be immensely popular now in other MMO games. While criticized at the time for being too hardcore for new WoW era MMO players.
The gaming playerbase has essentially evolved into the same sort of desires and challenges that EQ era MMO players were at in 1999.
The WoW graphics were no doubt the most ugly contribution to 2000s visual game design.
I was 18 years old when WoW launched and I despised its art direction.
I coined a word for that visual direction back than for use in my conversations with other teenagers, that would translate into English as "warcraftiness".
That bs became very popular back than after the beautiful fantasy art of the 90s.