Comments on: EQ2 vs WoW Feature Comparison

by: biggles

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 15:43:52 +1000

I bought WoW today and found out you HAD to pay upfront to play. Which means you have either had to enter your credit card details FIRST before receiving your Guest pass or wait for another week to play via Subs card system. What a real pisser to wait so long for a game and betold you get a free months play if you pay upfront. Okay I know they won’t charge your credit until AFTER a months play but where or who is holding your credit card details for a month.

After the forums the WoW servers are so laggy and the waiting times could be up to 1 hrs in time.

by: Raki

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 16:43:32 +1000

max number of characters for WoW is 50 as far as i knew 10 per server to a max of 50 is what i read from some blue text on WoW forums a while ago.

by: biggles

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 18:38:31 +1000

Sounds like Blizzard is more interested in making money on the server side. If 50 characters is the limit with 10 per server I just hope blizzard is ready for the flak from both players and the legal side of the argument.

I think I might return WoW and get my money back if blizzard intends dishing out this crap on its community.

by: jason

Wed, 24 Nov 2004 23:41:50 +1000

lol, you plan to have more than 50 characters? Yeah you probably should return it..

by: stonewalker

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 02:12:57 +1000

Some corrects for WoW:
Can Non-US players play on a US server at release? - YES.
Rare quests on monsters etc? - YES.
Death Penalty - 10% item damage, no other penalty if you find your corpse or get a rez, 25% penalty for spirit healer rez.
Can players �bind� to a location? - YES (Can bind to inns).
Share Bank Slot - NO (but you can email items to your own characters if they of the same faction - horde/alliance).
Linked Mobs - YES (rare).

by: biggles

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 07:25:54 +1000

Do you have to download a 20 mb patch to setup a character ? yes

Blizzard have failed miserably in keeping upto it’s standards and supporting the community ? Shame Blizzard , Shame Blizzard

What about FALSE ADVERTISING ” FREE MONTHS PLAY ” ? yep, thats correct pay b4 you play . $79 for the game plus extra for online time , but no free time .

by: Unifex

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 07:51:04 +1000

Biggles, I’m not sure what you are saying in your first post.. that being able to make 50 chars (10 max per server) is Blizzard trying to gouge us somehow?

Yes, you have to download a patch at launch. I guess you don’t have to for EQ2? (very very strange).. but nearly every other MMO I’ve played, I’ve had to download a patch before playing for the first time. Try starting EQ1 now =)

You have to enter a credit card number or gamecard number to create an account, it’s the only way Blizzard has of verifying your location. You are not charged anything at account creation time, you get the first month free.. (notice the button that is at the bottom of the page where you enter your cc/gc details “You will not be charged at this time”)

by: Unifex

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 07:57:14 +1000

Some more WoW corrections:
Do the NPC�s talk to you with text or real voice. YES, though not the full quest text, NPC’s do speak to you in audio.

On average do players find solo or group XP a better way to get XP? Up to level ~20, solo.. after that, the xp is very good in groups in instances and solo.

From what I am hearing, both games are a lot of fun.. I’m playing WoW at the moment, because I like the universe (and I already played EQ1 for 3 years.. need something different for a while).

by: monty

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:29:41 +1000

While that’s a nice if slightly out of date list of features (great effort btw), it really tells you nothing about what it’s like to play each game. I challenge anyone to play both games and come away with the opinion that EQ2 is a better experience or more fun. You may like the EQ2 fantasy approach (I would tend to prefer that style of high fantasy setting myself), but there are so many things wrong with the game, as Daakist pointed out previously. A comparison of the two Griffon rides puts it in context - WoW’s is sublime, EQ2’s is so bad it’s embarrassing. It’s a matter of taste in the end of course, but after playing both, I can’t see it any other way.

I’m going to give EQ2 a year or so and revisit it to see if they’ve managed to polish it. I fear there are some fundamental things they got wrong however, which will not really be fixable.

On the subject of requiring credit card details to register and play WoW, what MMORPG doesn’t? They *all* offer a free month (including EQ2), and the *all* require a credit card and registration before you can play at all (including EQ2). It’s not a new situation, it’s consistent across the genre, and has been this way since UO and Meridian 59.

The only reason that I can see that this has become an issue is because so many new people are interested in playing WoW ie. those who have never tried the genre before. That’s a good thing, but a little bit of research goes a long way. You don’t have to look very far on online forums, or go very far in a conversation with someone who plays already to discover that access to a credit card is almost a prerequisite.

I guess one thing this has pointed out to the marketing people is they could be clearer about the credit card issue on the boxes.

by: biggles

Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:49:31 +1000

Correct monty , but as a person who has never played a game like WoW ,not unless you count Diablo2LOD as one. But it seems that by entering your details guarantees that they have access to charge you whether you agree or not. As the sub cards are not available yet why can blizzard allow one months play on the cd rego details and then start after that month. But at the end of the day it sounds like deceptive advertising.

[ I DON’T TRUST SERVERS WHICH HOLD CREDIT CARD DETAILS]

On the server issue you have thought that blizzard would have been well prepared after a beta testing period that it was so popular that at least their would have enough space 20 fold for the amount of players registering and logging in on day one. The one thing that annoys me is that this morning I tried to download the via dialup through the WOW updater first it updated itself then proceeded with the download . Okay after 30 minutes all I managed to grab 1.25 mb normally I would have downloaded about 5-6meg in that time . Apart from that blizzard have made sure this the ONLY way you can download the patch meaning no external sites have access to the patch.

Now accuse me of going over the top ,I don’t think so.That even EB stores have been getting a lot of complaints about the FREE month .

{afterthought}

That if this was the only way to setup the game by registering the game and (simulating)paying for a months play,why did not Blizzard include a 1 month Sub card in the box to make this process easier?

by: Unifex

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 07:43:19 +1000

You’re partially right Biggles, in that MMO’s that require a cc/gamecard to create the account should probably include a gamecard in the box for 1 month playtime (your free month).

The other side of the story is that this is the way every MMO I’ve ever played works, including patches (you can’t download the patches anywhere except from official patch servers).

I hate to say it, but dial-up (while playable) is really not the best medium to be experiencing full online play via an overseas server. I know some people don’t have a choice in the matter, but at the same time, if you’re running a game on min-specs, you can’t expect it to perform at peak performance.

WoW is not the only MMO that works this way, but perhaps if you are dissappointed in the game, you could try EQ2 and see if the grass is greener…

All I know is, WoW sold 250k copies day1, with 100k concurrent players playing it.. those kind of figures are close to some established MMO’s, so it seems some people really like WoW =)

by: bruce

Fri, 26 Nov 2004 08:52:14 +1000

Thanks for the corrections stonewalker and Unifex, I’ve updated the table above.