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The game world
pirrg
Member Posts: 1,443
in Everquest II
How is it? Is it zoned or seamless? Is it manually crafted inch by inch like wow, or randomly generated with points of interest and cities dropped randomly here and there like swg?
Im asking this because the game world is very important to me. In world of warcraft, it seems the artists started with one square inch of landmass and worked their way up from there. How does the game world of EQ2 compare to this?
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Comments
1. Zoned
2. Handcrafted - theme park feel
To me the zones in Eq2 feels larger then those in WoW. And more "real" Neither is huge enough tough.
The world is zoned and varies in visual quality from the fab to the drab. There are only two cities and due to the option to betray your starting city, there is now little to differentiate them other than architectural style. There are no racial capitals and very few other settlements of note. That said, the cities are very well realised and really very impressive. Beyond the cities, things are a little less lovely.
Many of the outdoor zones are impressive in size, but they make too little use of elevation to give them much interest. Don't expect dazzling vistas. And despite the size of some of the zones, the mariner's bells and gates that divide zones prevent any sense of distance and continuity. Travelling from the Thundering Steppes to Nektulos forest is the same as walking through your inn room door - you are presented with the same loading screen. The geography does not blend between different climatic zones - you go from dense forest to barren desert in an instant. In short, it is in many ways the opposite feeling to WoW - the lavish details are on the character models but the landscapes seem to have been painted with a much broader brush. What's more there's a fair bit of nannying wrt zones access which can be frustrating for explorer types. It's maybe unfair to come up with a direct comparison but Nektulos is similar to Darkshore and I would say that the latter is a lot more atmospheric and engaging. Then again, Qeynos beats Stormwind hands down. You should certainly give EQ2 a try. It scores over WoW in many ways. Just don't expect to gasp in awe at the scenery too often, as maybe you did the first time you approached the gates of Ironforge on a griffon or gazed over the blue expanse of Loch Modan glittering in the sun.
"In world of warcraft, it seems the artists started with one square inch of landmass and worked their way up from there."
Everquest 2 is very much this way. The artists took this perverbial clay and shaped every nook and cranny, the world is amazingly beatuiful, immersive, and wonderful. Every portion I see I love. This game is beauty at it's finest, and and wow beat by miles.
It is zoned, but the zones are huge. The Thundering Steppes is probably and big as the barrens + mulgore and twice as pretty.
Thank you for the honest post mate. So it is as i have feared. One of the few reasons that i played wow (besides my mates) was because i love exploring. I seldom looked at the map when i travelled. There was so much to be explored i often spent more time combing every inch of an area then on actual quests. Well, ill probably give it a try anyway, if only for the new expansion. I absolutely love desert landscapes and the whole "arabic" theme. Has anyone had the chance to explore desert of flames? Is it anything resembling the original game world?
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
[quote]Originally posted by pirrg
Thank you for the honest post mate. So it is as i have feared. One of the few reasons that i played wow (besides my mates) was because i love exploring. I seldom looked at the map when i travelled. There was so much to be explored i often spent more time combing every inch of an area then on actual quests. Well, ill probably give it a try anyway, if only for the new expansion. I absolutely love desert landscapes and the whole "arabic" theme. Has anyone had the chance to explore desert of flames? Is it anything resembling the original game world?[/b][/quote]
That was also only one opinion. I could explore antonica/thundering steppes for hours. You should reall give it a try. And there is giant differences between freeport and qeynos..
My guess is that he wont listen anyway. My guess is that he isnt here to ask a question, but to get a point of view across. Anyway, get a gfx-card that can run maximum resolution textures (it says 512 mb req, I run it fine on a 256mb 800xt), okay its lagging in QH, but everywhere else its smooth. There is so much detail to look at. I find myself constantly zooming into first mode to get a really close look on stuff.
-Verenath-
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
It says req 512 VRAM for maximum texture settings. But as I said, it runs fine with 256. In fact, sometimes between before patch and this morning the QH dock lag where "disabled"
Happy!
The way the world is designed in EQ2 is completly diferent from WoW, it does have a feel of generated terrain, there is little sense of the landscape beeing "natural", there is no flora distribution, there is no progression between zones, so you can go from a dense jungle to a barren desert, without seeing any kind of transition vegetation or terrain.
The problem with eq2´s terrain is that each zone is seperate from the other, you have doors separatiing each zone, giving the game a feel much like guild wars in terms of zones, with no geographic conection between 2 adjoining zones.
So if you are expecting zones like WoW, then you will be sorely dissapointed, there is no smooth transition between areas, there is no geographic sense in the zones themselfs and there is no sense of a "world" in the game, the devs went like this:
"oh, i think it would be cool to have a desert area" so they put a desert area in the game, without any thought of how it would fit into the ecology of the world, how the other zones near it would progress to desert terrain.
The same aplies for every other zone in the game, be it artic, jungle, forest... etc...
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Yeah thats pretty much what i thought it was. Just needed it confirmed.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
To me, a game world can be too large. EQ2's zone are a bit bigger than i prefer in an MMO for one simple reason. It spreads people too far apart. This takes away from the community a bit...thank god for /ooc. Games that corral their player base into smaller areas usually have a better community IMO.
Yes exploring is cool and great fun, but when you go over an hour without seeing another PC, the area is just too big.
Games that had "zones" that were a good size that i've played:
FFXI, DAoC.
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
You're hilarious pirrg. You take the only 2 negative posts and say "yeah that's what I thought." LOL I see right through you and don't think I'm the only one.
EQ2 rocks, have fun not playing it as I know you never intended to to begin with.
Stop trolling my thread. Their post had the most credability and they managed to convey their opinions in a detailed and polite manner.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
Stop trolling my thread. Their post had the most credability and they managed to convey their opinions in a detailed and polite manner.
LOL they didn't like it and that was what your thread sought to say, anyone with any objectivity will know this. There were plenty of posts that said the EQ2 world was beautifully handcrafted and rendered and in a very polite and detailed manner, but you didn't want that.
Don't tinkle on my leg and tell me it's raining. You got called on it, live with it.
I have to say, the zones are pretty bland. There's not a lot of trees in most of them and generally all you'll see is endless land with the same texture slapped on it. A great example would be near Oracle Tower. Go on top of the griffon tower and look down at the ground. You can actually see how often the textures are repeated and how little variation there is. The flora doesn't help either because not only does it lag your framerate a lot, it also looks detached from the ground somehow, like it doesn't really belong there and is just sitting on top of the ground instead of being attached to it. Then add on random harvesting nodes in random places, it just adds to the disparity. It would be nice if they placed roots near trees, ore near mountains, and dens near animals but the current way it looks, it's just popping out of the landscape like a sore thumb.
sounds like it has the "swg" syndrome. What about desert of flames? Is it any better then the original landscape?
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
DoF is beautiful so far from what i have seen. The landscapes are awesome to look at, and they do have much more elavation than the other zones (especially with the whole climbing walls thing which is really cool IMO). the city itself as well as the world seems much more alive than the rest of the game, mostly due to the fact that just about everything has a faction. Pull a cyclops near a giant and theyll start attacking each other. not a member of the court of blades? i dont suggest going near that area of the city and expect to live.
also, the people in the world just seem more alive. theyre DOING things. theres people in the streets doing the fire sptting thing like some magicians do. theres people walking around telling stories. it just feels much more immersive IMO.
here's some screens ive taken of the expansion:
on magic carpet flying towards Maj'Dul:
in the city of Maj'Dul:
sneaking into the giant's camp at night on side of a mountain:
flying back to Qeynos Harbor from the Sinking Sands to check on my house:
fighting giants in the giant camp:
climbing up one of the 3 mountainous islands out in the ocean bordering the Sinking Sands:
killing undead (yay for new paladin uberness against undead mobs!) in the Living Tombs:
Schutzbar - Human Warrior - Windrunner Alliance - World of Warcraft
Nihilanth - Kerra Paladin - Blackburrow - EverQuest II
XBL Gamertag - Eagle15GT
i have to admit, those pictures look pretty good, could use some colour though. Are there any purely desert areas? Kind of like tatooine in swg, where barren but colorful desert is all you see.
_____________________
I am the flipside of the coin on which the troll and the fanboy are but one side.
actually, high preformance with bloom, better water, and more high detailed models. thats not even close to as good as it gets
Schutzbar - Human Warrior - Windrunner Alliance - World of Warcraft
Nihilanth - Kerra Paladin - Blackburrow - EverQuest II
XBL Gamertag - Eagle15GT
Several shots are nighttime and dusk shots, so color is not going to be as vibrant. The gold tinted one looks like sonic vision, which is a Ratongan and Kerran racial trait. Much like Ultravision you get a monochrome color spectrum but you can see at night. As for visual effects that is pretty realistic to me.
Look first you need a much more impressive rig to get the visuals on EQ2 but when you have one they definately are amazing. To compare it to WoW's graphics it difficult because WoW has a different style of graphics. There is no denying that WoW is perfect graphics for the Warcraft universe and I liked WoWs graphics. But I have played EQ2 on several different machines. I can tell you this, it can look very different depending on your hardware. If having great scenery is the major draw for you EQ2 has some spectacular scenery, but the difference between seeing it with an NVIDIA FX 5200 with 512 RAM or and 800XT with 2GB of RAM is night and day.
As for the zoning which some people complain about, EQ2 has it. If you don't like the zoning then that will be a drawback too. Still to say that the geography doesn't make sense or is just slapped together is BS. First the map is split up over various Islands/Continents that were created from a great cataclysm that occured in EQ lore. The zones reflect the geography of EQ2's predecessor and I think they do it justice. I will concede that travelling from the commonlands to Nektulous forest can be a night and day switch, unlike the switch from say mulgore to the barrens. But at the same time the switch between the thundering steppes and nektulos is just the same while if I travelled from UC to Org I would have to wait for a Zepllin and then board it and ride. Until a cutscene appeared and zoned me just the same. But by using a bell and zoning, I don't have to worry about, getting stuck in the zep, or having a glitch when I load and running back to wait for a zepplin again.
Before either game came out, I was for WoW because, quite frankly I didn't trust SOE after SWG. I left WoW for its gameplay inadequacies not graphical ones. Both games are visually great, but they are DIFFERENT games in many aspects, and graphics is one. Download the trial and see if you like it, if not you got a free look and can walk away clean. You can also see how your system handles it and if you like what you see, move on from there.
Finally Pirrg, Anarchy isn't trolling, he's flaming theres a subtle difference. He is just hammering at you because he suspects your motivations for your post. Unfortunately from your previous posts, you appear to be the Troll, looking for answers that will help you to trash EQ2 and ignoring all feedback. Whether Anarchy is correct or not, we will never know. Try EQ2 or don't but I think you will find that trashing it in these forums aren't going to get you very far, most of those here like EQ2 and will not change our minds based on your or anyones soppositions. If that is what you are trying to do, put that wasted time towards trying EQ2 or playing the game you like. Otherwise it is useless, except to maybe boost your post count.
If you want to get a good look at what DoF can look like on a well-specced machine, then there are some videos you can download from the media section. It's impossible not to be impressed:
http://everquest2.station.sony.com/en/expansions/desertofflames/
WRT zoning, it is not necessarily a bad thing in itself. EQ1 had zoning, but it also had a degree of transitional geography and that prevented that feeling that the world was a series of compartmentalized play boxes. For me, the way that zoning is handled (presenting the player with the same loading screen showing design sketches) is more of an irritation than the fact that the zones are there. They could improve things by changing the loading screens depending on the context e.g. a Resident EVil style opening door when zoning in an inn, a map and Indian-Jones style voyage tracking thingummy when travelling between landmasses etc etc. Mind you, most players don't really give a damn and I guess the developers have more important things to spend their time on.
As far as trolls and flamers and the rest are concerned, will you all just please give it a rest? A game is like any other product you pay for. Do you care if someone criticises your choice of toothpaste ? It's just a computer program, not a member of your family.
Colgate ownz, btw.
Several shots are nighttime and dusk shots, so color is not going to be as vibrant. The gold tinted one looks like sonic vision, which is a Ratongan and Kerran racial trait. Much like Ultravision you get a monochrome color spectrum but you can see at night. As for visual effects that is pretty realistic to me.
Look first you need a much more impressive rig to get the visuals on EQ2 but when you have one they definately are amazing. To compare it to WoW's graphics it difficult because WoW has a different style of graphics. There is no denying that WoW is perfect graphics for the Warcraft universe and I liked WoWs graphics. But I have played EQ2 on several different machines. I can tell you this, it can look very different depending on your hardware. If having great scenery is the major draw for you EQ2 has some spectacular scenery, but the difference between seeing it with an NVIDIA FX 5200 with 512 RAM or and 800XT with 2GB of RAM is night and day.
As for the zoning which some people complain about, EQ2 has it. If you don't like the zoning then that will be a drawback too. Still to say that the geography doesn't make sense or is just slapped together is BS. First the map is split up over various Islands/Continents that were created from a great cataclysm that occured in EQ lore. The zones reflect the geography of EQ2's predecessor and I think they do it justice. I will concede that travelling from the commonlands to Nektulous forest can be a night and day switch, unlike the switch from say mulgore to the barrens. But at the same time the switch between the thundering steppes and nektulos is just the same while if I travelled from UC to Org I would have to wait for a Zepllin and then board it and ride. Until a cutscene appeared and zoned me just the same. But by using a bell and zoning, I don't have to worry about, getting stuck in the zep, or having a glitch when I load and running back to wait for a zepplin again.
Before either game came out, I was for WoW because, quite frankly I didn't trust SOE after SWG. I left WoW for its gameplay inadequacies not graphical ones. Both games are visually great, but they are DIFFERENT games in many aspects, and graphics is one. Download the trial and see if you like it, if not you got a free look and can walk away clean. You can also see how your system handles it and if you like what you see, move on from there.
Finally Pirrg, Anarchy isn't trolling, he's flaming theres a subtle difference. He is just hammering at you because he suspects your motivations for your post. Unfortunately from your previous posts, you appear to be the Troll, looking for answers that will help you to trash EQ2 and ignoring all feedback. Whether Anarchy is correct or not, we will never know. Try EQ2 or don't but I think you will find that trashing it in these forums aren't going to get you very far, most of those here like EQ2 and will not change our minds based on your or anyones soppositions. If that is what you are trying to do, put that wasted time towards trying EQ2 or playing the game you like. Otherwise it is useless, except to maybe boost your post count.
You have a very miss informed view of how the WoW game world works, the only zeplin or boat loading screens you will see if when you travel from one continent to another, not from zone to zone, in fact, indise those same continents the world is completly without loads, you can run from one end to another and never encounter a loading screen. Everquest 2 takes that away from you by providing the zones with bells, as such, you will travel instantaniously from zone to zone without any need to run or walk or ride, tkaing away from the feeling of a true meaningfull game world.
Plus i fail to understand how having a big wooden door seperating antonica from the stepes is a good immersion factor? and passing from a lush zone to a complete waste land without any kind of transition, is this a good game mechanic?
Another thing that bothers me is the fact that qeynos and freeport are a pain to navigate, with constant zoaning just to get your quests done, i seriously dont know why such is an issue and why did SOE used this system?
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.