Ten reasons you should buy EverQuest 2

Kendricke over at clockworkgamer.com has a write-up on "Ten reasons you should buy EQ2." Now, admittedly, Kendricke is an SOE fanboy of the highest order, so you need to take his words with a grain of salt. Of the ten reasons he listed, there's two I really agree with: "It's never been easier," and "Eight for the price of one."

I enjoyed EQ2 when it launched, but once I hit the mid-30s I really got bogged down in the grind. I didn't get the impression there were a ton of quests and grinding just got old fast. I wanted to get to my mid-40s to enjoy the content in the Desert of Flame expanson but just couldn't get motivated. In Echoes of Faydwer , though, there are a ton of mid-level quests. In two, short evenings of play I got from level 34 to 35 — something I had originally thought would take a week. They've also added in a new starting area for evil folk, Neriak, with a boatload of quests.

His second point that every time SOE releases an EQ2 expansion it's also a rollup is valid. When Rise of Kunark ships next week, it will have all previous EQ2 expansions, adventure packs, and the core game. Three of those (the original game, Echoes of Faydwer, and Rise of Kunark) have starting areas for new characters. Granted, a new player can't get to all of the content, but your catch-up costs are low.

I'd give EQ2 a "Most Improved MMO" award. It committed the cardinal sin of launching in a not-quite-ready state two weeks before the blitzkrieg we now call World of WarCraft. It got creamed. The original class design was a joke — if you wanted to be a Paladin, you'd start as a fighter, then become a crusader (I may be slightly off on what this step was called), then at level 20 you finally become a Paladin. Unfortunately, if you wanted to see what Shadow Knights were all about, you had to "re-do" 20 levels with the exact same skill set as the Paladin since they shared the same roots. SOE realized their mistake and completely reworked the early levels. Such an admittance and correction is an indication of a new SOE. Gone are the days of Abashi saying, "Alchemy is working" and SOE treating The Vision as holy writ. Today's SOE is much more willing to admit missteps and correct them. Sure, if WoW wasn't a huge success we probably wouldn't see such sweeping changes. I'll take an underdog, adapt-with-the-market SOE over the "we're right (even when we're wrong), screw you" SOE anyday.

I'm not saying that everyone that's playing WoW should immediately cancel and re-roll in EQ2. Today's EverQuest 2 is a much improved game, though. What do you think? Is EQ2 better today, and what changes (good and bad) have you seen over the years?