By Kieron Gillen on June 13th, 2008 at 8:50 pm.
Ah, I’m late on this. I meant to post it a couple of weeks back, but got distracted by laserbeams firing from the heavens. But it’s still relevant, so it’s getting a quick nod here, in time for the weekend. After all – you weren’t planning on going outside or something crazy? In short: Sony announced that anyone with an inactive account for either Everquest or Everquest 2 could play until July 31st absolutely free. Details of it here. I haven’t played either since their respective early days. Does anyone think it’s worth returning?
Philip K. Dick reference?
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Eve Online reference?
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V.A.L.I.S. is trying to contact you!
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I’m not a big fan of any of the current generation of MMOs, but what I’ve heard pretty much points EQ2 as a crappy version of WoW. With all the “pretty good” MMOs out there, I can’t imagine how cheap you’d have to be to not pony up the $14-16/month for one of those instead.
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Sometimes even “crappy” games can have emotional significance, or the regular kind also. It’s nice to return to them for a couple hours, for free, enjoy the small taste of the lost, and then move on. Again.
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I played EQ2 over the christmas period for a few weeks, and I really enjoyed it, mainly because it was so unlike WoW in a few significant aspects. I prefer the aesthetics, even if they haven’t aged quite as well as WoW, and I have to say playing as a frog monk and doing some crazy stick kung fu doolally was incredibly satisfying. I’m not really sure what it was that I prefered exactly, but I definitely did.
However, there is the fact that I was burned out on WoW by this point, so maybe I was looking back with the turned up nose of someone who has seen the faults in something. *shrugs*
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I took sony’s offer and tried both eq 1 and 2. I had not played eq1 for 7 years and regret trying it again. But my reasons are probably different… for one, I gave all my gear away when I quit the game, and second, I de-leveled him 12 levels. So after figuring out the ass backwards UI, I realized I couldn’t summon anything cause I had no reagents or wasn’t high enough level to cast the spell. Also, after missing out on, oh, 9 expansions I had no idea where to even start, so I just logged out.
EQ 2 was more fun, and a more modern experience, but I got burned out after getting to level 11.
I would reccomend trying eq2… waiting for all those patches for eq1 and being dissappointed was a waste. it was better left as a memory.
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So… what happens to those players who already paid for their game up till July 31st? Are they not going to be a bit unhappy they wasted their money for what they could have got for free?
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Does this mean that eq2 doesn’t have very many current active users and are trying to get players to come back?
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Probably. You never ever hear of it these days.
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EQ was easily the worst MMO experience I’ve ever had outside of those lame micropayment MMOs that proliferate over the webs. And I have played a *lot* of MMOs.
EQ2 (despite sitting on my shelf waiting for a go) is not one of them, though. I hear that it has fixed a fair amount of what sucked about EQ, probably due to the departure of some of the more violently anti-fun folks from the company (they went on to make Vanguard, for that core audience of masochists). But I also hear that it’s a lot like WoW without that Blizzard touch. So I dunno. One of these days.
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I played eq2 up until about a month ago. I didn’t play right when it came out, but when I started only one expansion had been released. Basically, since that time, it has quietly been fixing and improving every aspect of the game, and it is now really quite a good MMO. OK, it’s ugly as sin, but it plays well!
But then I got bored and gave AoC a try, which led me to suspend my EQ2 account.
But if you tried it early on, and haven’t played since, I would definitely recommend trying it out again. You may not recognize it, but you might enjoy it.
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I downloaded the EQ1 installer tonight, and ran it this morning. That worked fine, and I launched Everquest. It immediately started updating assets — estimated time, over 6 hours. Then I had a brief power outage — the laptop kept running, but when the Internet connection died, the EQ updater crashed like a Polish helicopter. Oh, Sony. I remember what I didn’t miss about this game.
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EQ is pretty much into it’s niche now. It would be like jumping into UO or something right now, as a total newb. I wouldn’t dream of returning to EQ (the expandaloth got a hold of it, and made it mor ubar or something), and will leave that one as a memory, but EQII right now holds the ‘most game’ award on my shelf.
IMO, AoC has the better combat system, WoW has the better accessibility, tons of free MMOs have better graphics, but EQII just gives you a better ‘virtual world’ experience, especially the new Kunark stuff. And this coming from someone who *hated* EQII at lauch. It was, frankly, an un-fun POS at launch, and I really really tried to like it.
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