After I was frankly nearly blowing my top in fury at my disappointment at the latest LotRO patch, I got to talking with some of you about Everquest 2 and the lovely housing system there among other things. I've completed the demo over a few hours now and was pleasantly surprised. It isn't *gorgeous*, but it's far from as bad as I'd thought. Even after 3 years on the market, it is still better-looking than most MMO's on the market now. The combat seems pretty clunky, but little worse than what we're used to in LotRO.
On the plus side though...:
We get a game that's been in development for YEARS, not unlike CoX, which has frankly been a great surprise in quality so far. The game has several expansions, and more races and classes than I have EVER seen in an MMO. The design isn't GREAT, but it's far from shabby. Even in my short time there and on my lousy computer I've "oooh"'d and "aaah"'d several times. Good animations, solid modelling, if a bit bland. Also, as I traversed the demo-zone I was pleasantly surprised by the talk going on in the general channel. No l33tspeak, people sounded mature and nice.
I can't rightly comment on anything else at this point as the demo cut me off when I tried to leave the starter island.
However, and this is where I think it gets interesting: In less than 3 weeks, the fourth expansion for the game comes out, called The Ruins of Kunark. With that expansion comes ALL the other expansions AND the game itself, at a cost that shouldn't be much more than that of a regular expansion. This is...good timing, to say the least. I for one am very intrigued about this game and would like to poke it more and will most likely buy this expansion. Anyone else interested?