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EQ2

EQ2 has the advantage and bad fortune of being the sequel to the most popular MMORPG ever. Almost 500,000 EQ accounts are currently active (no small amount of them due to the difficulty of canceling one), and EQ fans are as hardcore as MMORPG fans come. No matter what the say, they like the time sinks because those time sinks give items rarity and value.

Any changes to the EQ formula, no matter how small or even perceived after a patch, are met with flames that bring to mind the Derek Smart flame wars on newsgroups. Thus, SOE has its work cut out for it in trying to please everyone.

One of the more interesting ideas they decided upon was to make the EQ2 universe parallel to EQ’s. That means that EQ and EQ2 are not just running at the same time, but players from each game may be able to interact with each other in select zones. This, despite the 500 year time differential, as EQ2 occurs 5 centuries in the future.

The graphics of EQ2 are quite impressive. Characters are very customizable, with 45 adjustable bones in the head. These bones are linked to create chins, brows and cheeks. Multiple textures are available, being of quite high resolution and offering staggering detail. Characters can even have acne! The dragon was just… wow. The detail of the textures on it was quite insane; and those details were helped out by liberal use of pixel shader effects. Due to the use of pixel and vertex shaders, a GF3 card will be the minimum accepted, along with a 1GHz processor and 512MB of RAM. There are plans to upgrade the graphics over a 5 year period, as has occurred with the first EQ.

When questioned about said time sinks, SOE said that they were working out the worst ones but only offered a few examples. Mostly they want to avoid the endless sitting around and waiting that currently plagues EQ; they’d rather have someone spend hours doing a quest by doing things rather than spending hours waiting for that rare spawn. There still will be rare spawns, but the designers suggested that they are planning on ways to make sure everyone gets a fair crack at them by putting limits on how many people can enter some zones. For example, average raids may be limited to 24 people, though special ones may see 50 or 100.

To keep things fresh and interesting at all times, raids will be implemented on the lower levels. Speaking of levels, characters will be able to reach level 100, though Sony was rather cautious about comparing the time investment to reach level 100 compared to reaching level 50 or 60 in EQ.