Boulder Dude

Looking back through history (i.e. the manuals of UO and EQII) I will have to make a correction, UO didn’t have a double XP system and it also didn’t have debt. But, it did have a couple of things that were far worse.

-If you died, your body sat there and was picked clean as you tried to run in spirit form from were you regen’d to where your body was. It paid to be with your guildmates so that they could pick up all your stuff before it was stolen. Also in UO your stats dived about 20% to 25% if you died, so no need for debt since it would take you weeks to regain those stat levels.

-I have been told that spirit racing to the dead body before it was picked clean was fairly standard for EQI as well, and it was that way in EQII shortly before I started to play it. But, with the advent of CoH and debt, Sony decided to switch EQII to a debt system and an Equipment Damage system which everyone seems to be happier about it.

One thing that EQII does that is nice with debt is that it goes away at 1% per hour of not playing that character. Something that would have been nice for Puck in the Mid-thirties when a Toon that shall remain nameless showed me that there was in fact a debt cap in CoH…all in one mission.

Now I do not know how Guild Wars or WoW does it, other than Doyce saying that there is no debt (as has been mentioned by WoWies** that come over to EQII).

Now as to Double XP

In CoX, Double XP is big Gift. Not that it is good or bad the way it is set up, it just is. Granted, it may feel like you are missing out on something if you are not playing a Toon the ENTIRE weekend, but wouldn’t you feel that way if you missed out on any gift or free stuff?

UO never gave away anything like that the year I played (Hell, even getting true black Cloaks was a huge deal that UO didn’t want to do until someone hacked the code and figured out how to do it. UO never wanted to give anything away)

EQII in a way is built for people that have Altitus. If you log out in your house, your toon gains 2% per hour of “vitality” (i.e. Double XP) with a MAX cap that looks to be 200% of where you are currently sitting XP/Level wise (say you are at Level 34.66% the double bonus max would be 36.66%). You also gain 1% per hour if you camp anywhere, and .5% while just playing per hour. So, say you craft for an hour, you gain .5% vitality in the Adventure XP column while doing so. Vitality also crosses over to Crafting as well.

Now one of the ways to look at this is that it gives you a chance to play other toons while they rest and since it really make no difference to PL’rs if they are getting Double XP or not.

Sidekicking and Mentoring

Sidekicking is the one thing that CoX has that kicks butt over EQII. Sidekicking is such a wonderful idea that allows friends and guild/SG/VG’s to all help each other out and bond really. It allows folks to hang out meet new folks and characters and so on while on teams. It is simply just a great idea.

Both have a level gap of PL’ness. In CoX it is 5 levels, and in EQII it seems to be 9. The reason for the big difference being that there is no SK’ing in EQII.

Mentoring

UO did not have this, they had some sort of thing but it was guild based and annoying, like so many things in UO.

On the other hand EQII has a very nice mentoring system.

First off, depending on your level proximity, the mentor gets a deduction to XP to a minimum of 5%. So, if say 3 levels different, the mentor would get 70% of their normal XP, and if 50 levels difference the mentor would get 5% of their normal XP.

The Mentoree gets a 5% pop from every person mentoring them. So you do not need an anchor for every person helping out, it could be just you needing help with a quest and a bunch of higher level guild mates help you and you are the sole anchor.

The really nice thing is that the Mentors skills do not grey out and go away like in CoX, but are scaled down to the level that you are now functioning at, just like Health and End are in CoX. So no mucking about with your attack chain, or having things like travel powers go away.

Getting around

Apples and Oranges really.

In CoX you have Travel powers, in EQII several of the AT’s have travel powers and then there are horses.

By far, the travel power I miss the most in EQII is Teleport/Recall Friend. Best ability ever for many reasons. Someone dies in a place you can’t get to and you want to rez them somewhere safe. A new member of the group is on the way and instead of waiting for them, or there is a lot of dangerous territory between the main group and them…Recall Friend.

In EQII, as I said, some of the AT’s have travel abilities.

Druids and Summoner types gained Druid rings and Spires travel abilities for inter-zone travel last revision.

Druids have a spell that they can cast to increase their speed.

Rogue types have abilities to move faster.

Totems can be made or bought to increase speed, as certain animal types blood as drops.

Everyone can buy Horses or Flying Carpets (or do the quest for the Carpet) with money and status.

Builds

One thing that CoX does really well is the ability to build a Toon like you want. The power selection and slotting is simply a great idea.

Guild Wars you can repec your toon whenever you want to, to have the abilities you think you will need for that day/quest.

EQII is pretty much set in stone power wise, and you only really have the ability to upgrade how strong your spells are by either finding or buying upgrades. They also, every so often, have Race/Class power selections where you can pick a power to help you out and give you a sense of ownership over the build.

Now, one thing that they tried was Achievement Points and an ability tree to allow you to customize your toon. Not well laid out for many AT’s.

Last revision they added a second Tree with some better thought out powers and kept the first tree as well. Now between the two trees there are some Power bumps to make your toon the way you want to.

Things!

CoX and the bases are a really good start. I think that there is a lot of good there and that there is a lot more that they could do to make them better (One idea would be to allow members to buy a “room” of their own using Influence/status for trophies and such).

EQII you can buy a house, and put stuff in it. Woot! Trophies, special doodads, pets, whatever. A great idea.

From the folks that played Guild Wars, I really didn’t hear much good about the building and buying of Guild Halls.

AT’s

Both EQII and CoX have a good mix of AT’s, though EQII has a lot more of “specialized” powers that you really miss when playing a different types of AT or even different class within the same AT.

EQII has healers that can actually fight and solo…a big bonus there.

And that is one thing that I noticed was that EQII is moving toward making it so AT’s do not need to group to be playable.

PvE/PvP

I have hated PvP and PvE since UO. There is nothing like not being able to leave the city before being descended upon by hoards of PK’rs to really make a game not fun.

CoX has the PvP/PvE zones for them that want.

EQII has Servers for PvP and a duel system for those that want.

Again, I HATE PvP and PvE so I do not have much to say on this subject.

Quests/Missions

CoX has Door missions and Hunts.

I hate hunts and love door missions in CoX.

In EQII the quests are a bit different. There are puzzle quests, and hunts. No door quests really at all.

In CoX you can only have 3 Quests at a time.

EQII somewhere well over a hundred quests. It is this way because if you Mentor someone you can do quests that you did not get to at that level and still get full credit for them.

Monsters/Enemies

CoX does the enemies better in the regards of awareness. You can get close to then if you come up on them from behind. You can snipe them if you take out one that no one is watching. I like this system very much.

EQII a mob is social no matter what. You attack one you attack all of them, even if there are ones you do not see. With singles, you can get one if you do a low level attack or is the one single sees you….If you use a powerful attack it will be the same as pulling a huge mob.

The difficulty of the two systems is slightly different as well. CoX has the difficulty slider (a good but not well explained idea), and EQII has different mob settings.

The slider in CoX adds LT’s and bosses to mobs as well as making them bigger as you move up the slider and/or increase the Group size. A good mechanic because of the Door Mission concept….it is simple and it works.

In EQII, because it is all non-door missions, the mobs randomly spawn (except in areas where they are all going to be heroic) at different settings, and based on your level they will show up differently. From normal to ^^^4x Epic (which you kind of need a raid for)

Group size

CoX it is set to 8, no matter what.

EQII it is 6, but you can have 4, 6 person groups in a raid. It would be fun to have something like this for the Shard TF’s in CoX, or for TF’s in general. Or even better yet, for SG/VG TF’s.

**WoWies = “User” in IT Terms.

Someone all about the GimmeGimmeGimme and WhyIsn'tThisGameLikeWoW?