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EQ Overview
Please this is my attempt at giving an overview and may be inaccurate
in places. Also I am not a communications major (hell I almost failed
English). I work with computers that could care less how I spell
or phrase things so you will have to forgive my run on sentences.
Ok with out further ado enjoy.
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| Character Creation |
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Race
EQ - The beginning of a complex system know has Faction starts
with what race you are. From the evil races like Trolls and Dark
Elves to the Noble races of the Humans and High Elves EQ has 11
races - well 12 with the release of the expansion. Each race
has a different faction rating with the other race which when encountering
NPC's in the game can cause you to get your self killed if not careful.
Also Race has a determining factor on your starting stats. Examples
Barbarian are really strong and Halflings are extremely nimble.
This has a huge effect when it comes to picking your class.
Note: Faction applies to NPCs also and if to NPCs of opposing
factions cross they will fight.
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Class
EQ - Can you say D&D, you want classes, you better be able to handle
it because EQ has got classes. EQ has all your classes you could
think off and has done a great job to ensure they are balanced.
Has time progress no one class can do it all (The Necromancer
is a very powerful class it is also the hardest to play). The
class system is designed to make you dependent on one another
to accomplish tasks. I would check out www.gameznet.com - then
EQLizer site for a great description of the classes.
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| Class example - WARRIOR |
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EQ - You pick the class Warrior and your skills are pre set with
some being based on your race.
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| In EQ a warrior has one hell of a job and skills to back it up.
Taunt - Make the nasty attack you instead of the healer or wizard
types Bash - Make him eat your sheild Slam - Hey you are a
troll/orgre/barbarian - use that size Dodge - Get outa the way
Kick - The good Lord gave you a foot, use it Duel Wield lvl
13 - ditch that shield and use 2 weapons baby Double Attack lvl
15 - hone your skills and sometime get in 2 hits before he gets
one Parry - Use weapon to block Riptose - Use weapon to block
and counter hit Disarm - Take away opponents weapon |
| Talk about a warrior doesn't just swing he has plenty to do and
it is way more exiting. Personally this makes people who like
to play a warrior character type very attracted to EQ. (PS DRUSS
there are some HUDGE AXES in EQ - oh pss - they are also 2handed
and 1handed weapons) |
| Only weakness - A warrior in EQ never will cast a single spell of
any type. |
| There are what we call Hybrid classes Warrior-Druid = Ranger and
Warrior-Cleric = Paladin Warroir-Necromancer = Shadow Knight (They
are cool). These classes will give you scaled down fighting abilities
with some of the magic abilities from the second class. |
| Advancement |
| EQ - Each class has a set of skills that advance as you use them
to a certain point for each lvl. So no lvl 1's skills will never
be high then a lvl 2 if both have maxed their skills out. (Note
this doesn't apply to trade skills - there are no lvl caps on
them). Example is this at lvl 4 your sword skill cap would be
5 + (lvl * 5) for a warrior. So the highest it could be is 25
if you used it enough to get it that high. Has you increase in
lvl you increase in power has your skill caps increase, you also
gain new skills has you lvl. A warrior will learn how to Dodge at
lvl 5, and the all-important Duel Wield and Double attack in their
teens. You can never spend points on these skills they only go
up threw use in combat. |
| Also in AC you can kill anything and get xps - In EQ once something
is considered to easy for you it will no longer give you xps or
advance your skills. You must fight challenging monsters. Also
many creatures in EQ start to leave you alone once they realazie
that messing with you is instant death. Unlike AC when at lvl
28 I still had dumb lvl 2 drudges attacking me. Ahhhh - I hated
that. |
| Magic |
| This is an area I can only talk about from the Cleric point of view
has I really never master the art of Wizard/Shaman/Druid/Mage/Necromancer
or Enchanter. The magic system in EQ for certain class
requires you to research your spells by collecting rare items
from around EQ and sometimes performing certain quests for them.
The names of the spells are nice and the spell effects are spectacular.
I do not think there are the number of different spells in EQ
that AC has (I mean AC has million of them). |
| You have mana and it gets depleted, at a certain lvl you are allowed
to specialize in a certain type of magic (with in each class their
a different types of spells that use a different magic skill).
This will lower your fizzle rate and mana cost for those types
of spells. Also you have a meditation skill that will allow you
to increase mana faster when sitting down. Also there is a spell
that Enchanters cast that can increase how fast mana recovers.
All nice, but nothing compares to Stamina to Mana of AC and once
again down time of a soloing Wizard is much longer in EQ then
it is in AC. |
| One nice thing in EQ is there are certain classes that you summon
pets. Necromancer and Mage being the 2 most powerful of the pet
summoning types. There are also spells that will change your character
form to wolf along with being able to change what race you are.
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| Magic in both is done very well it would be a flavor thing. |
| Once again if you want some real good descriptions check out www.gamesznet.com . |
| GAME PLAY |
| Ok lets talk about what truly makes the difference. |
| Zones - EQ controls various issues with zones. Now on my PC Zoning
is nothing, takes less then a few seconds on average to zone.
It prevents allot of bugs that AC has to contend with and so it
seems logical to me. Any way you have to portal into dungeons
in AC and I get stuck in portals all the time it seems - oh and
note the dungeon is AC are a 1/4 the size of an EQ dungeon and
some of the EQ dungeons are monsterous and well thought out. |
| World Size - After the expansion I think EQ will be allot bigger
then AC, can not say. But in over a year there are several places
I have not been in EQ yet so I do not think world size is an important
issue. |
| Monster AI - Once again no comparison, in general the AI in AC is
a complete joke. You will be hard press to get away with cheap
tactics against the AI in EQ, yes there are a few ways but in
general the AI never walks into a wall aimlessly - it will call
for help if it needs, if it has friends in the area they will
join in. It will attempt to locate those characters that it feels
are the greatest threat or that are causing them problems (IE
healers) or if someone is close to death they will lock in on
them. |
| In General - I feel the gaming experience is more enjoyable in EQ.
You have a bank to store stuff, you have a trade system in place
for dealing with players. Communication with in the Guild is allot
easier, making it easier to know what your other friends are up
to. There are player harassment rules in place to prevent lvl
50 players from coming along and kill stealing something you are
working on while you are lvl 10. I know everyone talks about camping
is this big evil and yes I will state that I have wasted a good
many hours in one place because I needed an item. HOWEVER - no
one else came along and stole my monster and it was a whole lot
more fun then sitting around some uber chest hoping that a chest thief doesn't come along and get it open before I do. |
| Quests |
| Both games have ok Quests, AC involves big changes and a huge plot controlled by monthly patches. EQ has some serious quest built
in it that can be extremely rewarding and hard as hell to complete
even if someone else has documented it out step by step for you.
An AC quest I saw was get 16 motes (what a lame anoying quest
- it basicaly amounted to killing all the Golems you could), turn
then into a ignot and then forge them into a weapon. The quest
generated a nice weapon but had no true plot to it. EQ example
for a weapon for a paladin is way more complicated (IMHO). First
you have to talk to people all over the world and complete small
quests for them. You must also ensure that you faction is high
enough from them to give you the quest (They have to really trust
you) which leads to you doing a bunch of little quests in order
to get you faction up with them. You will need the help of your friends all along the way has you will not be able to complete to
many of the tasks alone. Toward the end you must kill a very very
high lvl NPC (lvl 50) that will take about 20 well organized people
to take him down. All this will get you one piece of the quest
that needs to all be put together by another npc that will require
you to form yet another party to get to him so that he can make
you your weapon. 3 months later you have a soulfire if you are
lucky. I think the quest portion of EQ is well thought out and
they add new ones all the time. |
| COMBAT |
| Group adventures in EQ, lets put it this way - you better be a team
player as very few people make it far if they are individuals.
If you are a loner do not leave AC or you better be a Necromancer
and enjoy pain and suffering because they game is design different.
In general as you lvl the Mobs (Mob Objects = monsters,npcs)
get exponentially harder. At lvl 1 you can kill other lvl 1 and
even lvl 2 monsters. Upto lvl 20 you may be able to stay on par
and kill things alone that are you lvl. After that it starts to
get ugly. Only certain classes can solo and make it worth their
while has they get higher and higher. And the really good Items
and Monsters are desisgned that it takes a group of them to bring
them down. If you are fighting another lvl 30 monster that means
it usualy takes a well balanced group of 3 other lvl 30's when
you hit lvl 40 it will take a group of 6 to control a lvl 40 spawn
point. Buy lvl 50 there are monsters and zones that take 5 to 6 groups (1 group = a party of 6 ). |
| > Combat is a huge deal and can last minutes for one battle with
the Tanks - Nukers - Healers - Utility types constantly helping
one another out with healing the tank that is low - the Nuker
throwing a blast to draw a monster of a healer - the Enchanter
having to Calm or Charm and monster or speeding up the warriors
attack - the healer buffing his warriors and healing them - rooting
monsters and even doing some area effect spells to yank a few
monsters on him so his warrior can get in a few shots. If you want strategy when you fight EQ is for you. If you just want to hack/Slash/Nuke then I would stick with AC. It is funny but AC feels
more like quake then EQ does. Most the time in AC if you weren't
an Item/Archer or a Nuker Mage you were standing around watching
carnage fall. The AI in EQ will destroy you if you try that with
more then one Mob in the area. |
| Death is a part of combat - In eq you loose Experience and all you
equipment remains on your dead body. It is not a pleasant feeling
to travel naked and to see your last 2 hrs work erased has your
xps are whipped out. It becomes important at higher lvls to make
friends with a high lvl cleric who can cast a resurrection spell
to return you to your body and return up to 75% of you lost xps.
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| THE DRAGON |
| I would like to share with you a nicety about EQ. I know AC has
the othi but they sounded kinda weak and that people could kill
them at low lvls or take advantage of their poor AI. Well let
me tell you about the Dragons of EQ. |
| Currently there are 2 Dragons and the expansion is bringing more.
You do not screw with these. The Lord Nagafen is guarded by Fire
Giants and when I say Giants I mean you barely make it to their
Ankle Bones when standing next to them. They are ruthless hand
to hand fighters with some of them having magic abilities and
it takes a good 24 people to bring them down in a 2 hour period
if all goes well. After you fight your way through the Fire Giants
you get ready to take on the Dragon. Oh My, call in the re-enforcement's
because you are going to need atleast 36 talented well balanced
groups that are rdy for one hell of a battle. I do not know what lvl the dragon is but I have heard 65 ish and this RED Beast is
most impressive. Its breath destroys people - his roar sends people
running in fear, his tail slashes warriors and his claws mutilate
them. A battle that can last 5 minutes and result is about ½ the
people dei, if not all and if you did it right the dragon will
fall. And all this is done and your names are posted across the
server noting the accomplishments of your guild. No individual
feet here - it takes a group effort. The battle will be a spectacular
light show and will provide a rush that will make you want to
do it again. |
| THE PLANES |
| Other worlds that yield spectacular Equipment that can only be entered
by lvl 46+ people. PS bring about 24 of your friends or do not
even bother trying these zones. |
| EQUIPMENT |
| There is a vast amount of Equipment in EQ just like AC. The difference
the really great Equipment is No Drop No Trade, only way you get
it is to be their when the beast falls or to complete the quest
your self. It leads to respect, if you see a paladin with the
Soulfire no one did that quest for him. Every piece is No Drop
No Trade and no one else could boost his faction standing with
the Priests and other Paladins in the land. He/She did it themselves.
You have tons of Armor and Weapons that are class / race specific
which is really nice. |
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| WOW - I have shared allot and it is only the tip of the differences.
In reality you will have to spend the cash and take the time to
try it out. My goal was to share with you some of the differences
to help you decide if you should check out the EQ thing and see
what it is like. I really had no ground to stand on with saying
EQ was better then AC till I tried it and even now I really think
that most of it is just personal way I like to play, I like the
EQ way more then the AC way and it may just be that simple. I
did not even go into the PvP servers and the Race War Servers
( I really like the race war servers too, lots of fun) |
| Hope to see you all around somewhere in Cyber Space |
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if you ever head to Cazic-Thule look me up Kaldean Kuhn : Officer
of the Hawk Lords The Prime Healer's Faithful Servant Lvl
50 Cleric (Cazic-Thule)
Jerod Sinj
Lvl 27 Paladin (Cazic-Thule)
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