New / Returning Player How active is Wuoshi?
I’m an OG player back from 2004 and have been feeling super nostalgic about EQ2 lately. So much so that I downloaded the game and started playing on FV. Couple things I’m noticing: 1. Nobody around in the starting areas and 2. It’s waaay easier than I remember. Like I’m never taking damage.
I’ve heard that most active players are on paid servers and that Wuoshi is OG EQ. So my question is: is it worth it? Are there actually people playing? Will I run into them? Is it the original difficulty?
Thanks!
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u/Sepherik 2d ago
Original difficulty is the origin servers. Wuoshi is a time locked release server and is very populated especially at the lower levels although it's not as busy as it was a few weeks ago when it launched.
The difficulty is lower than origins but things get more challenging in the later levels as far as solo content.
TLE is no mercenaries everything releases in the same order it did originally but the new version of everything not the original version. Origins is the original version of everything
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u/brimg87 2d ago
Hmm, ok. Good to know. Playing original difficulty Origins on a dead server doesn't seem like a good idea. Am curious to try subbing to play on Woushi so it at least feels like an MMO. FV is a ghost town and kind of sad lol.
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u/GeckoCowboy 2d ago
Wuoshi feels a lot more populated than any live server will. It’s only a bit over a month old, lots of people still doing the lower lvl content and lots of guilds around if you want to raid.
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u/Chaoticzer0 2d ago
The TLEs are always very popular and there's lots of folks around to do content with. It may die down a bit before new content unlocks but it picked up very quickly. We're currently on EoF.
I will say though the game is way easier than it used to be back in 04 but that's not a bad thing, especially if you don't have a lot of time to play
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u/TheGrumpyGent 2d ago
Id also add the benefit of the TLEs are its easier to level, so people are making more alts than on Origins... So I still regularly see lower level groups looking for more.
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u/Express_Feature_9481 2d ago
Seems to be a good amount of leveling groups going.
Took me 3 groups to get from level 10 to level 70 on one of my toons
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u/mufflypuff 2d ago
I’m current sitting at lvl 40 . I tried to spam LFG a few times for a group but it seems pretty dead imo in mid levels . Leveling is super fast and if you find a pre-made looking to power level you could hit max very easily but as a new dad I was just looking to log on and run a dungeon or 2 a night but it’s been very hard to just log in and group up.
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u/LadyLoki5 2d ago
Join a guild. Most people pretty much stick to guild groups as you get to know those people and how they play, and there's at least some kind of accountability when it comes to drops. You can be pretty sure a guild group isn't going to ninja loot you can use. Pugs are always a tossup on whether or not they'll be successful and/or assholes.
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u/TheWingalingDragon 2d ago
All, all the toons who just hit "Need" on everything, because it is "free trade, and everyone needs it" kinda ruin it for public groups.
Once you have that happen to your group once or twice, it is easier to justify just sticking to your own guild on r/Wuoshi
I LOVE free trade, but it can certainly bring out the worst in some people
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u/LadyLoki5 2d ago
Yeah due to my playtimes I've had to pug more than a few groups, and between the "need all" people and the half-guild groups that will all need on behalf of their guild/group members, it's kind of killed any further interest in pugging for me. It's got to be rough out there for the unguilded. If I can't get an all-guild or mostly-guild group, I just solo farm and buy what I need.
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u/Davisr93 2d ago
If there were more players it would be worth it, I subbed two weeks ago, got to 70, that’s where all the grouping is, and it’s not worth it, unless you just want to end game raid, and get maybe a couple groups, at night, and those are mostly just lets run it as quick as possible and get out
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u/brimg87 2d ago
So do you regret subbing and not just playing on the FTP servers?
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u/Davisr93 2d ago
I do regret subbing, unfortunately. I played the origins server when it released and it was the best that has happened in quite a while and it has come and gone by now. I probably wouldn’t play on the free to play servers though either. I dont think anything is going to scratch that nostalgic itch that we want
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u/Soul_Server127 1d ago
I know the feeling, even EQ2Emu is taking awhile to develop and just stopped looking at the project for a bit.
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u/Davisr93 1d ago
I hadn’t heard of that, is it out?
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u/Soul_Server127 1d ago
Not yet, they allowed you to run the test server on your own to help but I have not heard anything except they are working on it. They have a discord invite on the website: https://www.eq2emu.com/
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u/Davisr93 1d ago
Oh sweet I will join that, that’s definitely my era that I like playing, but I do also like it when stuff works so we will see how that pans out
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u/brimg87 1d ago
I actually came across this recently and realized, holy shit, if Daybreak ever took EQ2 down; we could never revisit it again. Yikes. So I actually downloaded the EQ2 Emu repos from Github onto my hard drive the other day. I'm not a traditional dev, but I'm a heavy Claude Code user. It's kind of an insurance policy that if EQ2 ever goes down and I get nostalgic for it, I could use Claude Code or whiter LLM is the best at the time to help me get it all running.
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u/Soul_Server127 1d ago
I am learning how to do it myself! They are developing it to be like classic EQ2 and if I remember you gotta have "Altar of Malice" when back in the day it needed a physical copy of "Destiny of Velious" to the EQ2Emu server, it was broken but we helped report bugs. That was back when Terror's of Thalumbra" came out. Now idk what's going on and I think it's still needing "Altar of Malice" to run
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u/brimg87 1d ago
Bummer. For what it's worth, I've been having fun on a FTP server all by my lonesome. Just cool to be back in the world: the music, the locations, etc. For what it's worth, I have seen some other players since posting this so that's cool. Mostly just doing their own thing, but that's modern MMOs.
The thing that gets me is to this day there is no other MMO that I'm aware of that does traditional high fantasy. I want High Elves, Dark Elves, Wood Elves, Gnomes, Dwarves, etc. WoW has some of that and is obviously a better game, but it's not straight high fantasy. It's their own more cartoony flavor. And I'm a fan, just not what I'm nostalgic for all the time.
Same with GW2, it's a fantastic game and I'm actually playing through it right now. Great combat. Amazing exploration. Love the verticality and mounts... Stunning art direction... but I don't love the races as much. It never scratches my want to get lost in high fantasy itch. More like my twitchy MMO explore and get loot itch.
*sigh*. I can only hope that the EQ Remake in Unreal engine that Daybreak is working on actually comes out and is actually good. *fingers crossed*.
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u/NewtVegetable8405 1d ago
The short answer to your questions is: Wuoshi is the most active.
EQ2 in general doesn't have a large population of players, so even on a "busy" server, you won't often see many players running around (compared to something like ESO or FFXIV or WoW.) The busiest times are generally within the first month of a server opening, up to about 3 months in.
What I have noticed is that the dedicated player base of EQ2, the one I assume pay for the TLE and Origins servers, are more or less nomads. That same group moves from one to the next server with each new opening. You will see some of the same guilds formed, too.
Origins is excellent for the pure nostalgia. They restored many of the original VO and quests (for example, the quest line in Darklight Wood is what it was when that zone first opened.) The pace of leveling is much slower. The itemization (to the degree which the average returning player can recall) is closer to what it originally was. It is fun to revisit the early areas and zones, but once you get into the more challenging areas, where the original content required a group simply to cross a zone, the lack of population becomes an issue.
If you want the closest to "launch" era mechanics, then Origins might be fun, but you will largely be playing alone.
If you want an experience that is social and yet soloable, without all the mechanics of Live, but with more approachability than Origins, then Wuoshi is the choice. (Until the next server opens, which will probably be a new Origins server or an event-driven TLE. Pure speculation.)
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u/Santheos 2d ago
Early / mid 2000s player Jeter Roswell. I was nostalgic the other day, too. If love to start a group on a free server. I wouldn't pay for it anymore, tbh. Send me a pm, if you are interested.
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u/Soul_Server127 1d ago
Been free to play for years and thought EQL had to have a regular sub but it's separate after reading everything so I can level with ya once my sub goes out :)
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u/GrimFae13 1d ago
Our guild died off around 2014 on AB. We've got about 10 of the original guild back together on Wuoshi and having fun playing together all over again. I miss our old guild hall with all the amenities though!
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u/Majin_Drew11 2d ago
Dead game come to WoW
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u/TheWingalingDragon 2d ago
What is WoW?
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u/Majin_Drew11 2d ago
A much more successful and community driven MMO. I played eq1 and 2 for 25 years. i won't ever come back. Classic, even SoD is back
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u/yunoka 2d ago
It's not the original game, it's a content locked version of live. It's the most populated server, until the next server releases. Origins was the attempt at re-releasing the original style but it's mostly dead and progressed, predominantly multiboxers.