Everquest 2 in 2023 | New Player, First Impressions
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- Опубліковано 10 лис 2023
- Everquest 2, the 20 year old MMORPG that is the sequel to one of the Genre's most influential games of all time, Everquest. Produced by Sony online Entertainment later rebranded to Daykbreak games, what did they do right with Everquest 2, and also what went so wrong? How does the game hold up in 2023?
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![Why The Plane of Knowledge Was Made [EverQuest Lore]](/img/n.gif)
The newbie boat ride and newbie island will always be a fond memory for me.
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.
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
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. :(
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.
The sound track for EQ2 was amazing!
Absolutely agree w/ you about the grafics. The style somehow feels gorgeous to me nowadays.
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 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.
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
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
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.
"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.
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.
Thanks for the content bub, you did a fantastic job!
My man Waydot be swooshing through these MMO's bringing back all the hot takes
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!
I played it from day 1 and totally loved the game.❤ Everquest 1 also. The guilds and group playing was the best. Good times.🎉😊
I want to add, Shift + Number combos definitely do work. I've got all my character with them
the music is top tier. its amazing.
4:12 "vag" memories
Transcript moment haha
Great review
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)
Playing games with your dad would have been a hell of an experience.
Congrats ❤
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
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 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.
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
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!
Any suggestions is wood elf good for invisibility or are the totems of invisibility so good that that spell is pointless?
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
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.
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.
EQ2 was te best game to date that i have ever played. I wish they would make a third game.
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
dont mind me, just bringing all your videos right now
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
Started recently, honestly a super fun game
Really like this content. GG
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.
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.
There's a point you did not talk about : the music.
EQ2 musics are awesome
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 :)
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
I was there on November 8th 2004...
In Guild Wars 1 you could have bot allies in your group to do missions or for exploring.
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.
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 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.
You missed heritage questlines too. The world really is amazing.
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
Loved EQ2. Graphics if you had a good pc unrivaled at the time. Still stands up to newer mmos. Loved the crafting, and they made questioning more linear... Instead of just guessing what you should be doing.
FYI in the launcher incase you didn’t know give an option to download the full game and much quicker
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
Started playing during the tail end of EoF and stayed around until Shadow Odessey, started playing again a year ago and I'm glad that i came back but should have sooner! Adder from Maj'Dul! (=
Ouch, you quit at TSO? Man that was definitely the beginning of EQ2's golden age. TSO, SF, then the peak at Velious, one of the best times in MMO history. During Velious you'd have a dozen instances of the overland zones for the Public Quests... sooooo many people!
I played EQ2 , and wished I could've experienced it as it was meant to be experienced. 🙂
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
For how old this game is, it looks great!
Does anybody know which pve TLE server is most popular right now? And what xpac are they on? Thanks.
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.
This game puts almost no pressure on your GPU, it's almost all on the CPU. Made in the era of single core CPUs it was expecting the GHZ of a single core to get better, and planned for that. But then multicore happened, and GHZ stopped improving, and actually declined. A 3 GHZ dual core will outperform a 6 core running at 2.3 GHZ in EQ2. By a wide margin. They took a shot in the dark, to get the then GREAT grafics, and missed.
Many people still play these games because they dont require new rigs to run. You can put together a top notch EQ2 computer for couch change. The one I used was in fact, free. Somebody else's outdated "junk".
Newb areas will be pretty barren, but once you get to endgame there will be plenty of groups and raid guilds to play with. I gave up on EQ2 only because the direction it was going on class balance. They ruined certain classes because they could do their job too good, even though they couldnt do the job of other classes at all. For example... Berserker was designed around tanking large numbers of weak mobs. In that they were incredible, dare say, overpowered, but a single HARD mob could rek ya. So against that single hard mob, ya'd be better off with a Guardian.
Day Break saw fit to make my beloved Zerk unable to do either well. So back to EQ I went. Much larger player base in the original as well, funnily enough.
The skeleton laugh is the skeleton laugh from EQ1.
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.
Well done
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
The game was great, the issue with not taking off like WoW was more about accessibility. The system requirements at the time were insane.
never played this but EQOA on the ps2 was my childhood lol
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.
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
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
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
they better make everquest III soon... i'm dying to see the third game!
There's something I love about EQII graphics. I love playing occasionally. The skill bloat is what really annoys me though
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.
New TLE server starting soon, good time to try it out.
Loved this game so much.
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 have never had a problem with EQ2 on my 4 year old PC
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 was excited for the birth of my nephew so i could teach him how to heal in eq2 i was going ot make him my little side kick. then right after he was born they came out with companions lol!
I miss EverQuest Online Adventures Frontiers on the PS2 💔
The graphics were actually better on launch as they had cpu based lighting and shadows but it was way too taxing so eventually they moved it to shaders which broke a lot of lighting effects
Gotta do project 99 or project quarm EQ classic!
My experience was that’s it’s fun but when you get to the “endgame” the biggest obstacle is other players
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
Man i miss this era of gaming. Guildwars was fun
Regarding the graphics. It's unusual to see a game that is kinda realistic. That makes it look better than it would otherwise.
The game was made in the dreaded Dx8 era... I think Sony tried to update the extensions to Dx9, but that seemed to introduce more issues. Not for sure what it is now, but the base code is mostly Dx8 and MS re-wrote a lot of Dx functionality when they went to Dx10 and the introduction of independent GPUs (Remember, tt wasn't that long ago that graphics cards did not have independence from CPU rendering). So modern era games run on different extensions and api for graphic interface. Plus Dx8 was before the introdcution of GPUs that offloaded the rendering from the CPU. So EQ2 was (still is?) a CPU hog.
There is a bad function with Dx8 and multi-core processors. Originally when multi-cores came out, you had a natural 'speed hack' going because the game would be split on the cores and only grab the info from the main core. So you where skipping all the processes from the other cores and the speed hack play was on. It was hilarious, you could run the full length of a zone in a couple of seconds.
i like this visiting other mmorpg series
I kind of see DDO and EQ2 in the same light as both have history of changing companies, microx, and just that they are old.
and that both freeze like that due to server sided coding, mainly math being processed in the game based on whats happening on the server you are on.
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 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. 🎉
The super obvious head-tracking that the NPCs did on EQ2 always freaked me out, lol.
'Journey is half the fun' right? Ahhh, the memories, the frustrations. :) ... yes, that phrase is a weak in-joke.
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! 👍🏼
The class synergy and healing mechanics in this game are S tier. I’ve played a LOT of MMOs and nothing comes close to EQ2 in this regard.
they should have made everquest next.
Any plans on covering FF14 in this series? And Lineage2 for the dead mmo series? Or am I just to blind to find them?😅
:o the skeletons have the same laugh as the COD zombies
The EQ skelly laugh is iconic. if COD uses it, it's because the devs played EQ. There are mods to add the laugh to Skyrim skellies too.