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post Hey guess what? EQ2 NDA lifted

October 20th, 2004

Filed under: Uncategorized — Della Bitta @ 9:41 am

I noticed this bit of EQ2 news when I ran the betatest client updater. It was posted last week:

As of now, the NDA for the EverQuest II Beta is officially lifted. We
encourage our beta testers to share the experiences they’ve had in
beta with the rest of the EverQuest II community. Many more people who
enrolled in the EverQuest II beta program can expect beta keys in
their inboxes in the very near future. In addition, in the past few
weeks we’ve let the Legends and Lords of EverQuest players in, and we
would like to thank them for their support. We now have four Beta
servers up and running including one French and one German server and
we’ve let in over 30,000 players since July. In the near future that
number will grow far past that. Keep an eye on your inbox!

Everquest was the grand daddy of mainstream MMORPGs. I wasn’t a huge fan of CRPGs until EQ sucked in my soul and chewed on it for 8 months. Unlike other blockbuster sequels coming out this year, EQ2 will be around in an active form for half a decade. That’s a big thumbprint on gaming - and with the NDA lifted the press should have been all over this one. It concerns me that they’re not.

But since the NDA is gone I’ll try to post ongoing opinions of the game as I progress through it. I assume EQ2 will launch soon so I may not get very far before beta ends. So far I’ve made it through the initial tutorial. Thoughts:

  • The optional first person mode and mouse look are simple to use effectively.

  • The character animations are smooth and realisitc. Movement doesn’t feel flat. Your character sways a little while standing still in First Person mode. Nice touch.

  • The tutorial is voiced with great set of overlay animations. Together they work well to draw your attention to the different UI sections

  • Rats die an overly dramatic death. I enjoy that.

  • It’s very difficult to select and attack a monster whos moving across the screen

  • Combat is brief but still sandwich combat (hands off to a point where you can make yourself a sandwich, come back, and not have missed anything)… I don’t have any abilities yet so this is expected

  • Character customization is face and skin only. There are no height or muscle/girth sliders. There are also no statistics to assign whatsoever. I tend to like character stats so the lack of control here is a big disappointment for me.

    • Again I’ve just made it through just the tutorial. I’ll offer up more once I get into the mix of things… Probably this weekend.

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