Frictionless Insight Preview

[Kashaar]

Can be found here (http://www.frictionlessinsight.com/PC_Previews/EverQuest2/EverQuest2.htm).

Digest:

* Extensive character (avatar) customization, particularly facial detail (or fur detail for the rodents).
* NPCs can track player movements with their eyes, can learn your name as quests are performed, and eventually might "gossip about you".
* Free-standing houses will be customizable both on the inside/outside, difficult to obtain, and may require special quests and/or large sums of ca$h.
* Mobs can act in concert with one another like an adversarial "party"; such linked groups will con as a group rather than a single mob, unless the encounter is a planned ambush.
* Once combat has begun, the fight is "locked" and no outsider can affect the encounter -- neither killstealing nor healing the party is possible. A group may "unlock" the battle and permit outside assistance, but doing so will decrease the encounter reward.
* Multiple loot distribution models are available, selectable by the group leader.
* A journal will track quest progress, and multiple quest types will be available beyond the standard kill-quests and delivery-quests.


--Kash--

[Tr0niX]

tite yo, <3 kash

[Vazago]

Why do gamemakers put so much work into the customation of the facial looks? Is that so damn important? huh?
Personally i couldnt care less if looked just like a zillion others in a game.

[Gneiss Guy]

Most players like to be unique ... just like everyone else =-o

You gotta admit, though, it does let you connect more with your avatar, when you're able to give them unique appearances to set them apart from all the rest. One might consider it one of the driving forces of character progression -- I felt great after I was able to get out of the newbie look when I finally owned some pieces of platemail armor. Appearances that set your avatar apart from the biomass, especially the little details like a scar or a slightly crooked nose, can really improve the amount to which a player will be able to bond with their characters (i.e. addiction++).

[Kashaar]

Most players like to be unique ... just like everyone else =-o

LOL! Man, that's so true. Remember when bards would "set themselves apart" with their brilliant blue lambent, until everyone started getting lambent. Then people went to their bread-pants and water-boots, until that became fairly common too. Wizards everywhere would run around in that ghod-awful sky-blue nipple-tassel ORobe, miserable, wishing there were ANYTHING they could wear that might look a little different...

...and don't forget the screaming when dyes went in. "What do you mean someone can DYE their armour to look like my UberBreatplate of Leetness?!!?" It wasn't just about the stats, it was the -look-.

*shrugs* I guess it's the same thing here. You want gear that makes people stop and go, "OMG wow", you want a 'toon that looks different from the rest of the unwashed masses. You'd like to believe that you're somehow different from the other people playing your class, despite the fact that they all want the same stat-increasing gear, the same general abilities, etc. Facial customization can be a facet of that.

Me, personally, I'm with Vazago -- I played an Erudite Michael Jordan lookalike, and looked just like every other Erudite Michael Jordan lookalike. It didn't bother me. It was neat when I got my first "uber" gear which set me apart, but "looking like everyone else" never really bothered me in the first place. When I wanted to look "different", I'd equip a fire beetle eye or something, the graphics error of which would turn your arm into a sack.

Now -that- was different.;)

[Tr0niX]

NOOOOOOOOO, when i played my gnome mage! i was different cuz i had a fuckin shovel! and a broom! YA BITCHES, shovel and a broom were focus items also had a torch and a mug but they sucked! :P

[Tsigo]

http://www.frictionlessinsight.com/PC_Previews/EverQuest2/EQ2b.jpg

I still think that looks like ass.

[RojerLockless]

I remember sitting in skyshrine before the new models came out and camping a full set of Guardian armor because it was bad ass looking on woodelves who could wear platemaile ;)

[Juraveil]

Unfortunatly woodelfs still suck, all they are good for is prancing around

[Nicolai]

Rojer's definitely a prancer, I can't ever remember if he's a fruity ranger or bard.

[Gneiss Guy]

That picture does kind of look shitty... mostly the texturing job.

Wood looks like they stole it from some kid's treehouse, stair-walls look like just sheetrock, rats look like they're half-stone.

Is my hope, though, that those are just placeholder textures and they'll polish stuff like that up before release. Or maybe somehow, miraculously, the entire zone's atmosphere which can't be infered from that screenshot, somehow makes all that crap look like it should be there.. ~.~

[Nicolai]

Unfortunately, I've yet to see very many screenshots do the game actual justice.

Believe it or not, the screenshots (even the good ones) make the game look graphically worse than it is.. especially in the area of textures, lighting, and colors.

Not to mention, the corney poses like the rats flanking the zombie etc.. don't help.

[Tr0niX]

i could give a shit less about graphics, as long as its better then EQ1 graphix im ok wit it =)