[Kergan]

EQ2 was just a different game. It really is an in between point between EQ1 and WoW. You can tell that conceptually the EQ1 dev team had influence, but it is also clear a different team more concerned with how WoW as grabbing up subscribers at a previously unseen pace influenced the game. A lot of the EQ2 style changes actually came to EQ to make the game more casual friendly.

A game like EQ1 will never be seen again. The frustrations (corpse recovery, difficulty, etc) was a unique event born partially of the DND culture and mostly because of the lack of competition. People pushed through the bullshit of EQ1 to understand how it made the game better, people nowadays would die once and quit forever.

EQ2 was sort of a happy medium. If you're a diehard EQ1 fan who can't appreciate the game universe you may not be happy with EQ2. But in the end, I thoroughly enjoyed it and only quit because I had nobody left around me. EQ2 features a more rotationally styled combat system sort of like WoW set in the world of Norrath. I still think they have one of the best class/subclass systems outside of Rift and the mentoring system (where you can "delevel" to actually group up and be challenged by mid level content, simultaneously helping yourself and you low level pals) was top notch. EQ2 got a lot right, but it came at a bad time and changed too quickly for even the diehards. A progression server is exactly what this game needs, and I would encourage people to at least check out the beta.