Druids Talent Primal Fury (Rank 2) will now be properly unlearned when it is untalented. World of Warcraft will have a flexible chat channel system most likely familiar to battle.net players. Players can create custom chat channels in which to chat with friends. Players have the ability to set a password, create announcements, invite other players, ban/squelch players, and set moderators for the channel。 Guild communication and management can be done through the guild commands. Players can get basic information about the guild, send guild chat messages, invite others to the guild, promote/demote them, remove them, set a message of the day, change the guild leader and even quit the guild.

To play World of Warcraft takes skill and patience. But as you go up the level ladder, you will find that it also sometimes takes more people than just you or your one or two friends to complete a quest. This is where the World of Warcraft clans come into play. World of Warcraft clans, or guilds as they are also known, are groups of people who get together for some argue or other, generally because you do have certain advantages in having a large number of people by your side if ever you need them. To get part of any of the World of Warcraft clans you have two options available to you. You can either, form a guild of your own, or you can ask to join an already existing guild.

Like a lot of people, I didn't spend much time with EverQuest 2 when it launched in 2004. There were several reasons for this, but the two that sealed the deal were: no PvP and World of Warcraft. Of course, all MMORPGs evolve over time, and EQ2 is clearly not standing still. In fact, the game has seen 2 adventure packs and 2 expansions in a year and half. What's more, PvP servers have been added, the class system has been revamped, and the early levels have been completely reworked. While it may seem like EQ2 has been marginalized by World of Warcraft, it is still a very successful game. One definite upside to playing a game that doesn't have millions of subscribers is you rarely encounter server problems or queues. Every MMORPG has technical issues from time to time, but EQ2 is exceptionally reliable in this regard.

If you played EQ2 prior to the Kingdom of Sky expansion, you'll recall the Isle of Refuge and a short boat sequence which introduced you to the game's controls. They've ditched the Isle and the boat ride in favor of 2 newbie islands: The Outpost of the Overlord for the dark denizens of Freeport and the Queen's Colony for the righteous residents of Qeynos. They are reminiscient of the Isle of Refuge in that they are there to teach you the basics, but it unfolds very briskly now and the rewards have been improved. On PvP servers, you are aligned with the starting city you choose. Another big change is that you pick your profession (class) during character creation now. You used to start with an archetype, then you got to pick a class, then, at around level 20, a subclass. While it was an interesting system in some ways, you had to plan ahead.

Like a lot of fantasy MMORPGs, EQ2 creates a largely familiar-looking world, despite the fact that there are frog warlocks and such running around. The graphics engine is quite remarkable. Metal textures have a perfect shine, the water is unsurpassed for a MMORPG, the lighting is top notch, and character models have an abundance of polygons. The hitch is that it takes an extremely good PC to run EQ2 on the highest settings, but to its credit, it looks terrific even on medium settings. It would all be that much more immersive if the world didn't have so many seams in it. The major cities are broken up into zones in such a way that you can't run across town without seeing several loading screens.

Many would argue that the original EverQuest set the standard for combat in games of this kind, and EQ2 maintains this high standard. You start with more skills as a result of adjustments to the class system, which adds some fun to the early levels. RPG lovers will find themselves in familiar territory, selecting targets and unleashing the special attacks on their shortcut bar. One unique feature that EQ2 has added to combat are Heroic Opportunities. These are special group abilities that trigger combat bonuses if the group members successfully execute individual moves at the right time. It's still another layer on the game's intricate group dynamics and it's nicely implemented.

While the GUI and game controls are highly customizable, there is no mini-map, which is a peculiar omission in this day and age. The game has met with some stiff criticism of its artistic direction, and it plainly isn't as cohesive or as immediately recognizable as some of its competition. If you prefer a world with a relatively realistic appearance, however, EQ2 does a decent job of achieving this. PvP combat has its own mechanics which can be adjusted without impacting the PvE side of the game. Some spells and abilities behave differently when used against another player rather than a typical monster. The system will inevitably be refined in future updates to the game. While there is something to be said for restricting PvP to certain level ranges, it also diminishes the pool of players you can call on when defence is needed.

At release EQ2 had no PvP, but several servers with PvP rulesets were made available when the Kingdom of Sky expansion launched, and by all indications they have been a hit with players. SOE has always said that they didn't want to add PvP to the game until they felt they had it right. You fight for your home city, either Qeynos or Freeport, and chat functions, among other things, are limited to your own faction. Certain zones inside the city are quite safe unless you decide to initiate an attack, but beyond that anyone of the opposite faction within 8 levels of your level is fair game. The level range broadens in higher level zones, and the Kingdom of Sky has particularly harsh areas with no level limits.

Crafting in EQ2 is a cut above what you will find in most MMORPGs. Rather that merely clicking "create" once you have the necessary ingredients, you are actively involved in the process of making an item. Accidents are corrected on the fly with your input, and you have some control over the quality of the item produced, which will be rated as crude, shaped, good, or pristine. Naturally, the quality of the materials used also affects the quality of final product. Collecting materials turned out to be quite a bit harder than doing the actual crafting. Resource nodes are in somewhat short supply for the number of players seeking them, and some nodes yeild a variety of different materials, so you don't always find what you're looking for. Coupled with limited inventory space, it takes some determination to advance as a crafter in the game.

As is often the case with MMORPGs, EQ2 is getting better with age, and other games are clearly influencing the direction this title is heading. By any measure EQ2 is one of the best games in its class, and it has carried on the EverQuest tradition of releasing new content at an impressive pace. For a war between good and evil, the PvP servers are about as brutal as they come. While EQ2 and World of Warcraft are growing increasingly similar, EQ2 is a slower, harder, and slightly more complex game, which, from what I hear, is exactly what a lot of gamers are looking for. One thing I really like is the ability to pick from several spawn points when you die. You are not required to recover your corpse, so this allows you to slip away from trouble fairly easily after dying should you so choose.