You know, I would say that this is the end of this series and yet knowing how things go it may not be. Aw, let’s call it the final installment of the My Take series of articles and celebrate. I have one more game to offer my opinion of. After getting involved in World of Warcraft and all it has to offer I really figured it was the best game overall based on everything it has to offer. I’ve found one more that may be able to compete with that distinction. It has a couple of things WoW doesn’t or it handles them differently at least. A friend convinced me to try EverQuestII.
The disadvantage of EverQuest II (EQ2) is that the website is really awful.
There is not near enough information regarding gameplay and different features of the game and what’s available. If you want information you are encouraged to visit the player forums. Yeah, no. Not without some background as to what they are talking about. So because of the website I was not impressed and told my friend as such. With his encouraging and dangling of bits of stuff about the game I finally decided to give it a try.
Like many of these games there is a quest system. There are adventuring/fighting quests and there are supply quests and there are crafting quests. This is kind of cool so you get a variety. The crafting quests are a little unique in that as you complete them and earn standing with the crafting guild you also earn status for your guild if you are in one.
In EQ2 you have two rankings, you have your adventure rank or level and your crafing rank or level. You have gathering skills because, well you have to gather the materials to make things. The interesting bit about this is that you can gather anything, all materials. At the lower levels of crafting you can make just about anything as well. As you advance you will have to choose an area of expertise and then as you advance farther you have to specialize. So you get to try it all before you buy. That’s kind of nice.
There are a lot of races and classes to choose from. It can make it a challenge when deciding on you character at first. Especially if you’re like me and don’t have an affinity for a certain type of character. There are different versions of the classes depending on which side you are playing on.
The game has a mail system where you can send items messages and cash to other players and probably to your own other characters, I haven’t tried it yet. There are even mailboxes at the flight towers.
There is a banking system. This is a little different. You get slots that you can put stuff in or you can put bags or boxes in them and then put more stuff in those. This helps with the expansion of storage. You also get slots that you can share with all your characters. And those slots take bags or boxes as well as stuff. Most materials will stack in amounts of 200 which can also help with the storage space.
There is a player economy. This is the Broker system. It functions similar to the auction in other games. There are differences though. You only get so many slots and it’s not like you can put your item to sell in the slot. You have to put a bag or a box in the slot and then you are limited to how much you can sell by the number of slots in your bag or box. There are special boxes that if used then your customers don’t get charged the broker fee. And it isn’t a true auction, more like a store. You set the price and they either buy it or they don’t.
The transportation system so far consists of mounts, griffons and boats. It doesn’t appear that there are any level requirements for the mounts. It is more a matter of being able to afford them. That gets into the money. In EQ2 you have copper, silver, gold and platinum. You also have status points and some things require status points to purchase.
There is a player created organizations. In EQ2 as in so many games they are called guilds. I have been fortunate enough to be a part of a guild that has some history. It’s been around a few years. I think this is a good thing. It shows a certain amount of maturity on the part of at least some of the members. You want to earn status points for your guild so they can use those towards purchasing some items for the guild like special crafting stations and the like.
What finally convinced me to try the game was when my friend told me you can own a house in the game. I’m sold. It gives you someplace to put your stuff instead of just in the bank. It is also what finally convinced me to sign up for the regular subscription. You can’t get a home on a trial account. You also can’t use the broker on the trial account. Back to the home. You not only get your home, and these very in size and number of rooms as well as price, you also get some stuff to put in it. It comes with it’s own vault so you can store some stuff in your home vault. One of the things you get is a bulletin board that will let you browse the broker and put stuff for sale as well as pick up you money. I think you have to actually visit a broker to get any goods purchased. When you have enough money and status with the crafting guild you can purchase crafting stations for your home. This excited me about the game. It’s something cool. The other thing that excited me was when I saw some one advertising in game to redecorate someone’s palace. Nice.
Since the players can have a home, they’ve also given guilds the ability to have somewhere to gather. They have guild halls that you can go to and the guild may have a banker there, a broker, a fuel vendor, and maybe even crafting stations as well as a variety of other things.
As for the graphics. They are more realistic then some of the games. Certainly more so than some of the games out of the orient look like. Then again, how realistic is a frog like person going to look.
Getting around is fairly easy. Game play is on the easy to medium side. The crafing is more complicated and you are not guaranteed to make what you set out to make.
I am currently playing this game fairly actively. Then game is pretty good. The only thing I’ve heard it has but I haven’t seen yet. In world events for the players. Something to add a little spice to it and give more to do. I’m still low level so whol knows how I’ll feel about it when I get farther along.
Until then…
See you in the machine.
Originally published at: suguayproductions.com/joomla which has been discontinued.
