So, like everyone else, I'm giving the EQ2 trial a go. I got my little Barbarian up to level 4 in a few minutes, so I can't really say much about the game per se, other than it hasn't differed much from most recent MMOs I've tried.

One things I did notice, even though I'm not an artist, is that there is something odd about the graphics. I thought maybe, like WoW before, it had just picked lower settings than it thought my rig could handle. So I ramped up the textures a bit - but there's still something I can't put my finger on. A feeling as if the engine was designed for another purpose...

This is pretty much how I feel. A lot of the modern games are largely static fun fairs with “you must be this level to go on this quest” posted on the rides. It'd be interesting to see what the consensus is on the question that follows this over at Terra Nova.

“For me, the holy grail question about MMOG design centers on the vesting of persistence in the world itself rather than in the characters. Almost everything I find unsatisfying, both as player and as scholar of MMOGs, has to do with the almost complete lack of dynamism in synthetic worlds themselves, that the only thing which changes, grows, reflects persistence, is the character.”

Terra Nova: World Persistence: One In A Series of Queries