MMORPG Recommendation Please - Quite Long

[Hambone]

Originally Posted by matthewcraig

Maybe you could answer something for me, Pitt. I would be willing to try EQ II, but it seems like you need to buy a bunch of expansion packs in order to play! What do you recommend to people you are getting into the game? Is there really an expectation that they buy all the expansion sets in order to be successful in the game? Do guilds ask you if you have all the expansions before they will admit you? Seems like a big cost to get started, not to mention the monthly fee. And, EQ seems to always be coming out with yet another expansion every couple months. How do you keep up with the costs?

While I have your attention, could you talk about downtime? One thing that bothered me about WoW was the announced emergency maintenance crashes and the weekly 1/2-3/4th day scheduled outage. I found it very unacceptable. How is EQ II?

Guilds.... it's just like WoW. There are hardcore guilds and super casual guilds. For the first 50 levels you don't even need (and can't use) the expansions anyway.


EQ2 just had it's 3rd expansion pack released. So we are getting one expansion every 3/4 years (something like that).

The last expansion pack for EQ2 was released a month ago for $39.99: Echoes of Faydwer
http://www.gamestop.com/product.asp?product%5Fid=646702

Here's the good news:
As a cool bonus, it's a DVD release that includes the other two full expansion packs and the main game.
So for $39.99 you can buy the original game and the first three expansions all one one DVD set. A very nice deal.


Now, that covers you from level 1 to level 70. That's a freaking lot of game. If you started today you probably wouldn't reach level 70 until the next expansion is out, or most likely the one after.

Here's the release info:
http://eq2vault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=23285

Here's a nice review of the expansion with screenshots:
http://pc.ign.com/articles/746/746931p1.html

Aside from that there are a couple (4 is it?) "content" patches, that are like mini-expansions. You have to pay maybe $5 for those. They are not necessary at all. Most people try one, some pay for all. It's really like buying extra dungeons that you don't need because there's so much other stuff to do.

Downtime: Right now Sony seems to have EQ2 at a near 24/7 uptime rate except for the weekly maintences that take a couple of hours (sat morning is it?). When a full expansion pack comes out, expect the servers to be down for a day. Overall the uptime is far better than WoW's.

[ShinaKitsune]

EQ2 dosn't look pretty.
It has very small textures that repeat over and over again. (Go to antonica)
On a "normal" person's computer it will look and perform worse than DAoC.
EoF does come with "all" of the game and its changed alot since release however.