I was an original EQ player, and a long-time WoW player, and I will say this for EQ. I’ve never felt as in awe in an MMO as I felt that first time seeing all these players in Kelethin. I also will never forget the trains of Dark Elves in Mistmoore and Crushbone. While too much of that can lead to a bit of frustration, I have to admit that fear and excitement of the NPC’s you’re killing is lacking in most WoW kills.

WoW’s current philosophy is that only the current end-game content should be hard, and everything else should be made trivial.

In some zones they might be hidden in objects too, here they reward the observant I think.

2) That’s a fundamental design difference with WoW, /following someone through a dungeon to level and get powerful items is something WoW players I guess like, in my time in the game I found it very boring and non-immersive.
For me as a EQ2 player I want a challenge, as the content in EQ2 is designed not to be trivialised as you level past it (unlike WoW) then mentoring is great. I can have a challenging instance with low levels, that’s something WoW totally lacks.

4) Game play and voice overs are a different thing in my book, role playing and immersion are something though that I think EQ2 has an advantage over WoW in (again that’s related to 2 - not trivialising the world). Actually on voice overs I’d not put it as an exclusive to EQ2 since WoW has a few and are normally well done, but I guess EQ2 uses them more hence its sort of valid.

5) They might not have invented them, but the question was “Name five things better then WoW”, so I think Gordon is valid here in that its something they do better then WoW. Rares though are a different thing in EQ2, you get them from gathering and they add a lot of depth to trade skilling, something that is much better in EQ2 too

But they made most non-instanced mobs non-elite a few patches ago which is a real shame as its something that I used to enjoy and supports group play.

In EQ2 I’ve had some great times in an open instance, you could be two levels down in the depths of Stormhold but wander into a party of adventurers going the other way. I’ve even been in a small group that teamed up mid dungeon this way, yes its possible to camp a boss like this (although wandering patrols would be a hassle in many areas), but waiting a long time for something isn’t a good use of your time when there is so much else to do.

Hence its never done for anything short of a outdoors raid boss that might appear on a special occassion, most raid bosses like this take a long time to respawn (WoW has a few like the world dragons).