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How come EQ II doesn't attract more players?

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  • EATtheDEADEATtheDEAD Member Posts: 207

    i think eq2 is decent. its not great but its not awful

    i played for a while i had a few high 50's toons and i just got bored

    crafting is the best out of any game ive played for sure

    the races are awesome looking just like eq1 which is the biggest draw for me

    i just remember getting near 60 and getting bored with the quest grind, its all the same just over and over

    --------------------------------------
    Peace is a lie, there is only passion.
    Through passion, I gain strength.
    Through strength, I gain power.
    Through power, I gain victory.
    Through victory, my chains are broken.
    The force shall free me.
    -the Sith code

  • rendusrendus Member UncommonPosts: 329
    Originally posted by Moirae


    rofl... Rendus... you just resubbed and you think you know everything about the game.
     
    Do you know why there's no one in the Freeport cities? because there doesn't have to be any longer. People can just immediately zone to their guild and out bypassing the cities entirely. Most people don't bother going to the cities anymore.
     
    Don't talk about what you don't understand.



     

    Wow, looks like you missed the point.  Better luck next time! 

    And you need to work on your reading comprehesion skills.....I said the cities were the only places I saw other players.

  • fozzie22fozzie22 Member Posts: 1,003

    I would also add SOE's marketing in the uk at least has been terrible,just terrible

     

    The annual "hunt the box copy" is in full season over here,no shops have it and iirc i've not seen a boxed copy in my local game stores since DOF,that is a shambles you need a retail presence to make people pick up on impulse,then more people surely would come into the game.

  • fozzie22fozzie22 Member Posts: 1,003
    Originally posted by rendus


    I just recently resubbed and I'm shocked how desolate it is.  And I'm on AB, which I heard was one of the more populated servers.  I played for about a year starting on the release day, so I was expecting more players.  How things have changed.  There's a few folks at the high traffic areas in Freeport and Qeynos, but once you get out into the wide world population drops off to nothing. 
    At first I was smitten with nostagia, seeing all the places I remember and doing some of the same quests again.   But it's so easy now.....it took me months to do most of  the quests in the Commonlands the first time around.  Now, it's taken me a couple of weeks to reach 30 and everything is greyed out.  I have zero sense of accomplishment.  And the quest rewards are altogether crappy.  Since XP is so plentiful why waste my time attaining an item when I can buy the same or better at the Broker for a few gold?  I realize everything is funnelled to the high level and new content areas, i was just shocked at how it affected gameplay. 
     

     

    And you do have a point about the insane xp thats in the game atm,its needed to be looked at thats for sure but not to the point its at now where you can go a level up by killing a dozen or so mobs in say crushbone keep.

     

    It smacks of a ploy by SOE to get everyone to 80 asap so they'll buy the expansion,trouble is for me its had the opposite effect and i've cancelled.

  • jnewljnewl Member Posts: 26

    I  haven't read through the entire thread here. I just thought I'd throw in my .02 as one of those players who's played every MMOG under the sun, but has never bothered with E2. Why? Because of the name. If I want to play Everquest, I'll play the original. Maybe if I were such a huge fan of E1 that I wanted MORE MORE MORE, I'd be all over E2, but since there are lots of other games that have surpassed E1 on my Funmeter, the prospect of playing E2 does exactly nothing for me.

    E2's sales are relatively flat (that is not meant as an insult, even if it sounds like one) for the same reason Origin or whoever cancelled Ultima Online 2: sequels--well, remakes, really--have little power to pull in new players. Their audience is going to mostly be limited to existing customers of the original game. (Note that I said "mostly." Sure, there will be new players, but not in the numbers companies are looking for to justify the expense of  a major game release.)

    Some ancient cultures used to worship cats as gods. Cats have never forgotten this.

  • Loke666Loke666 Member EpicPosts: 21,441
    Originally posted by jnewl


    I  haven't read through the entire thread here. I just thought I'd throw in my .02 as one of those players who's played every MMOG under the sun, but has never bothered with E2. Why? Because of the name. If I want to play Everquest, I'll play the original. Maybe if I were such a huge fan of E1 that I wanted MORE MORE MORE, I'd be all over E2, but since there are lots of other games that have surpassed E1 on my Funmeter, the prospect of playing E2 does exactly nothing for me.
    E2's sales are relatively flat (that is not meant as an insult, even if it sounds like one) for the same reason Origin or whoever cancelled Ultima Online 2: sequels--well, remakes, really--have little power to pull in new players. Their audience is going to mostly be limited to existing customers of the original game. (Note that I said "mostly." Sure, there will be new players, but not in the numbers companies are looking for to justify the expense of  a major game release.)

    Eq2 is a very different game from the first one.

    Also, sequels can be huge, look on Diablo 2. So far we havn't seen any huge MMO sequel except Linage 2 but keep your eyes out for Guildwars 2. Wow 2 is a sure bet also, Blizzard loves making sequels.

    EQ2s problem is that it launched buggy with too litle content a month after Wow. Once they sorted that out, most players never bothered about it.

  • VespersVespers Member Posts: 246


    Originally posted by Loke666
    Originally posted by jnewl I  haven't read through the entire thread here. I just thought I'd throw in my .02 as one of those players who's played every MMOG under the sun, but has never bothered with E2. Why? Because of the name. If I want to play Everquest, I'll play the original. Maybe if I were such a huge fan of E1 that I wanted MORE MORE MORE, I'd be all over E2, but since there are lots of other games that have surpassed E1 on my Funmeter, the prospect of playing E2 does exactly nothing for me.
    E2's sales are relatively flat (that is not meant as an insult, even if it sounds like one) for the same reason Origin or whoever cancelled Ultima Online 2: sequels--well, remakes, really--have little power to pull in new players. Their audience is going to mostly be limited to existing customers of the original game. (Note that I said "mostly." Sure, there will be new players, but not in the numbers companies are looking for to justify the expense of  a major game release.)
    Eq2 is a very different game from the first one.
    Also, sequels can be huge, look on Diablo 2. So far we havn't seen any huge MMO sequel except Linage 2 but keep your eyes out for Guildwars 2. Wow 2 is a sure bet also, Blizzard loves making sequels.
    EQ2s problem is that it launched buggy with too litle content a month after Wow. Once they sorted that out, most players never bothered about it.

    Not to be nit picky but EQ2 was launched 2 or 3 weeks before WoW launched.
    SoE knew that WoW had a very big following and that WoW also had a pretty big advertising campaign, so SoE pushed hard to release EQ2 ahead of WoW. However, since SoE tried to push EQ2 out the door way too early, the game that hit the stores was very buggy and also needed a high end machine to even run it at low to medium settings. Many people quit EQ2 shortly after it launched. WoW then launched and that game ran much smoother than EQ2 did even on extremely low settings. Yes, WoW had a lot of bugs too but the game was playable. EQ2 was not.

    4+ years later and gaming companies STILL havent the lesson that SoE did. Dont try to beat another game to market when it isnt ready. Funcom fell into the same Greed Trap that SoE did. Funcom wanted to beat WAR to market when AoC wasnt even near ready to be released and now Funcom is in a financial mess. If Funcom had waited another 4-6 months before they launched, they would have come close to destroying WAR.
    Greed will kill these gaming companies if they dont wise up.

  • fozzie22fozzie22 Member Posts: 1,003

    Good points Vespers..sadly though its all about the bottom line nowadays (for any dev apart from Blizzard i would assume).

     

    Maybe with the genre being so saturated now the likes of SOE,funcom etc will look harder at a title and say "hey its just not good enough to go live" and if needs be push the launch back,becuase as we've seen time and again if a product goes to live to early it'll never recover,no matter how good they polish it up in time.

  • JeroKaneJeroKane Member EpicPosts: 7,098

    Problem now is,

    EverQuest2 has become a really good game. Frankly, it's the best MMORPG out there when it comes to PVE, content and features.

    It's SOE that never bothered to look beyond their US borders and try market their game for example here in Europe.

    They could have had at least double the number of subs they have now. If people here in Europe just knew the game exists.

    Most people here in EU that play EverQuest2 at the moment are mostly ex-EQ1 players and so knew about EverQuest 2 coming.

    EverQuest 2 still has a good number of subs (hovering between 250k and 350k) wich isn't bad.

    But it could be so much more. If SOE just got their Marketing department to actually do their job!

    Cheers

  • MoiraeMoirae Member RarePosts: 3,318
    Originally posted by jnewl


    I  haven't read through the entire thread here. I just thought I'd throw in my .02 as one of those players who's played every MMOG under the sun, but has never bothered with E2. Why? Because of the name. If I want to play Everquest, I'll play the original. Maybe if I were such a huge fan of E1 that I wanted MORE MORE MORE, I'd be all over E2, but since there are lots of other games that have surpassed E1 on my Funmeter, the prospect of playing E2 does exactly nothing for me.
    E2's sales are relatively flat (that is not meant as an insult, even if it sounds like one) for the same reason Origin or whoever cancelled Ultima Online 2: sequels--well, remakes, really--have little power to pull in new players. Their audience is going to mostly be limited to existing customers of the original game. (Note that I said "mostly." Sure, there will be new players, but not in the numbers companies are looking for to justify the expense of  a major game release.)

     

    lol, if thats the only reason you've never bothered to even try the game, then your word means nothing so why are you bothering?

     

    Seriously, thats not meant to be an insult, but wow... I've never heard of anything so ridiculous. You think you have the right to judge when you can't even be bothered to TRY IT. And its not like its a drug or anything, its a game. Wow. Just wow.

  • ScorchienScorchien Member LegendaryPosts: 8,914

          Sadly SOE has dumbed EQ2 down in every facet of its gameplay to a shell of its former self....

     

                The challenge is gone....

  • WSIMikeWSIMike Member Posts: 5,564
    Originally posted by Moirae

    Originally posted by jnewl


    I  haven't read through the entire thread here. I just thought I'd throw in my .02 as one of those players who's played every MMOG under the sun, but has never bothered with E2. Why? Because of the name. If I want to play Everquest, I'll play the original. Maybe if I were such a huge fan of E1 that I wanted MORE MORE MORE, I'd be all over E2, but since there are lots of other games that have surpassed E1 on my Funmeter, the prospect of playing E2 does exactly nothing for me.
    E2's sales are relatively flat (that is not meant as an insult, even if it sounds like one) for the same reason Origin or whoever cancelled Ultima Online 2: sequels--well, remakes, really--have little power to pull in new players. Their audience is going to mostly be limited to existing customers of the original game. (Note that I said "mostly." Sure, there will be new players, but not in the numbers companies are looking for to justify the expense of  a major game release.)

     

    lol, if thats the only reason you've never bothered to even try the game, then your word means nothing so why are you bothering?

     

    Seriously, thats not meant to be an insult, but wow... I've never heard of anything so ridiculous. You think you have the right to judge when you can't even be bothered to TRY IT. And its not like its a drug or anything, its a game. Wow. Just wow.

     

    Well wha'ts the difference?

    If they had played it and shared their negative experiences with CS you'd say it was obviously their fault. If they said they've had issues with the game, you'd call them liars. If they post a negative opinion, you'd tell them they don't know what they're talking about, and are wrong. And on and on. Just like you've done to just about every negative point voiced on this thread.

    I've seen some raving blind fanboi-like behavior in my time, but you definitely rank among the worst.

    As for my own experience (which I'm sure will mean I don't know what I'm talking about or am lying, because it's not all positive):

    I tried the game at launch and then a few times afterwards. I've gotten every expansion, including RoK and a couple of the Adventure Packs.

    I enjoy EQ2 for a time, and then I just sorta fizzle out on it. I've been in some guilds with great people and have done some of the raid-type content as well as many of the gazillion quests the game offers... Something just doesn't keep me wanting to play and, after a month or so, I find myself cancelling the account 'cause I don't even want to log in anymore.

    Doesn't mean there's anythign wrong with it, per se... All that means is, the game just isn't for me.

    Graphically... It's kinda uneven to me.

    There are areas that look fantastic and others that look not-so-good. Some animals animate beautifully and believably, while others are very stiff.



    And there's a lack of polish in the game that I always found irksome...



    At least as of the last time I played, three things that always drove me nuts still happened:



    1. "shooting stars" coming up out of the ground and shooting skyward in Commonlands.



    2. Birds flying in a perfectly straight line, straight into the ground, then flying back out a few moments later.



    3. Fish swimming up and above the surface of the water.

    In all, there's a lot I like about the game... It just seems like they were really keen on making parts of the content really detailed and polished up to a point, and then sorta gave up and did what was necessary to get it out the door.

    Again... My views. But what do I know? I'm sure I'm just a clueless liar and it was all my fault. :-p

     

     

    "If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road,
    and the cash shop selling asphalt..."
    - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops

    image

  • MoiraeMoirae Member RarePosts: 3,318

    The difference is that its shallow and not a real reason to decide you hate something. I've seen people say plenty of reasons for not liking EQ2 but thats the first time I've ever heard something so utterly small.

  • Jeff44Jeff44 Member Posts: 459

    Hi Mike,

    I don't think you are shallow, or a liar. It does seem to me though that you might have some hardware problems while using EQ2.

    Now, I'm no tech, but I have been playing a few years with several different computers and never have I seen what you described. I understand that those problems are not the entire reason you stopped playing, but I suspect that they are fixable (by someone who knows more than I do ), if you ever want to try the game again.

    Good luck!

    user
  • someforumguysomeforumguy Member RarePosts: 4,088

    I prefer Vanguard over EQ2. Main reasons are :

    - The world in Vanguard feels more like a world then in EQ2 (or most other MMO's). My problem in EQ2 are not so much graphics quality/style, but how the world is divided into zones( tiers). It removes my incentive to explore. And it also makes the next zone (tier) feel as repitition.This is also why I dont like the world in WoW and WAR btw. The zoning however makes this worse.

    - Although I dont find graphics a huge issue normally, because I rather play a uglier smooth running game, then a awesome looking slideshow. But EQ2's artstyle , especially for the armour and clothing sets is quite boring. The pastel colours only make it worse. Mintgreen heavy armour, wtf? Now dont get me wrong, I actually prefer armour looking armour, instead of over the top (WoW's or mangastyle) armour looks with christmas trees on shoulderpads etc. But EQ2's armour/clothing just looks boring and then coloured in weird colours. As crafter I do mind this.

    - Friends of mine didnt like the game's looks. To show they are not WoW'fied, they do like : Star Wars Galaxies, Guild Wars and Vanguard to name some examples. SWG also has a bare looking world (which EQ2 also has in many places), but at least has nice characteroutfits (amongst several unique features). Apparently my friends and I find characterlook more important then how the world looks.

    The best feature in EQ2 imo is the mentoring system!! This should be implemented in every lvlbased MMO imo.

     

  • MordriaMordria Member Posts: 556
    Originally posted by Lazzaro


    I was listening to podcast and he brought up a good point; Why doesn't EQ2 have more players? With the tons of content and great community why do you think EQ2 can't retain its player base or add to it. It always seems to hover around the same amount of people. Now, new people join, but they seem to quit a month or so later. To me, it seems like EQ2 just can't really grow like WOW, or WAR.
    What do you think the problem is?
     

    Maybe there is no problem?

    You have to think about the fact that the size of the game, the number of zones being added, will spread the population out more and they've been consistently adding new areas for years now. Not to mention that there are exchange servers, rp servers, international servers, and pve servers. The game is pretty big lol

  • JonMichaelJonMichael Member Posts: 796
    Originally posted by Moirae


    The difference is that its shallow and not a real reason to decide you hate something. I've seen people say plenty of reasons for not liking EQ2 but thats the first time I've ever heard something so utterly small.



     

    Whether it's shallow or whether there's real justification, you still find reasons to attack anyone who doesn't like the game.

     

    _________________________________
    JonMichael

    Currently: AION, an MMO Beta under NDA
    Played: WAR, LOTRO, Hellgate: London, CoX, GW, SotNW, DAOC, EQ2, SWG, WoW, AO, Horizons, Second Life, There, TSO
    Beta'd: There, Second Life, EQ2, DAOC:LotM, LOTRO, Tabula Rasa, Gods and Heroes, Hellgate: London, Requiem:Bloodymare, AoC, WAR, DDO, Fallen Earth

  • RavanosRavanos Member Posts: 897

    it doesn't attract more people because people are lazy ... they would rather play a dumbed down single player game pretending to be a MMO like WoW.

    the name alone scares the crap out of these people ... it gives them visions of the game they couldn't hack it in ... Everquest. When actually EQ2 is a heck of a lot easier than EQ1. they still wont play it though because they might actually have to interact with other players.

    some stupid myths

    high end system requirement - I use to play the game on a 1.6 ghz 2 gig geforce 6200 card and while i didnt get the best quality graphics i was able to play it and be successful in it ... hell i raided with that piece of crap PC.

    as for bland graphics - sorry the game was never design to look like a cartoon, it was supposed to look more like a fantasy novel like Lord of the rings not he-man. its supposed to look dark and dingy ... its a gritty world unlike the happy happy fun time feelilng in WoW.

     

  • eldanlocoeldanloco Member Posts: 210
    Originally posted by Ravanos


    it doesn't attract more people because people are lazy ... they would rather play a dumbed down single player game pretending to be a MMO like WoW.
    the name alone scares the crap out of these people ... it gives them visions of the game they couldn't hack it in ... Everquest. When actually EQ2 is a heck of a lot easier than EQ1. they still wont play it though because they might actually have to interact with other players.
    some stupid mythis
    high end system requirement - I use to play the game on a 1.6 ghz 2 gig geforce 6200 card and while i didnt get the best quality graphics i was able to play it and be successful in it ... hell i raided with that piece of crap PC.
    as for bland graphics - sorry the game was never design to look like a cartoon, it was supposed to look more like a fantasy novel like Lord of the rings not he-man. its supposed to look dark and dingy ... its a gritty world unlike the happy happy fun time feelilng in WoW.
     

     

    EQ was great - EQ2 sucks.  L2troll

    --------------------------------
    Darkfall: December or vaporware!

  • fozzie22fozzie22 Member Posts: 1,003
    Originally posted by Scorchien


          Sadly SOE has dumbed EQ2 down in every facet of its gameplay to a shell of its former self....
     
                The challenge is gone....

     

    You have a point i preffered the game in those few early months..but no bugger played it,lol so they got caught in a catch 22 situation.

     

    Now my pet peeve atm,the xp haded out for middle level toons is frankly insane..it needs to be toned down becuase people (new ones i mean) will hit the cap and wont know how to play the game,meaning when they head into a dungeons and mess up they find it harder next time to get a group,meaning they leave in the end meaning the devs dumb it down more..

  • elockeelocke Member UncommonPosts: 4,335

    I'm not sure what it is about EQ2 that makes me want to play it one second and then the next second I'm like nah, maybe when I have an mmorpg glut I'll pick it up again.

    I don't know if its the annoying character model/movement or how insanely annoying buying ranks of spells is to upgrade their power. Or if it is something else altogether. I always liked the music and environments in EQ2 but for some reason my character always felt like a shadow in the world, not really a full part of it.....if that makes any kind of sense.

    I want to like this game, I really do, but so many things turn me off to it.

  • eccotoneccoton Member UncommonPosts: 1,340
    Originally posted by elocke


    I'm not sure what it is about EQ2 that makes me want to play it one second and then the next second I'm like nah, maybe when I have an mmorpg glut I'll pick it up again.
    I don't know if its the annoying character model/movement or how insanely annoying buying ranks of spells is to upgrade their power. Or if it is something else altogether. I always liked the music and environments in EQ2 but for some reason my character always felt like a shadow in the world, not really a full part of it.....if that makes any kind of sense.
    I want to like this game, I really do, but so many things turn me off to it.



     

    What? It is generally accepted that EQ2 has some of the best character models/animation in any mmo out. That is it's strongest point not it's enviroments. You might take a look at my sticky here on setting up graphics. You do know there is an animation setting and you need to max it? Character movement is fantastic. There is a huge difference in look of EQ2 between the high setting and lower ones. How is this character model annoying? It's movement is fantastic as well. I guess we are seeing different things.

     

  • elockeelocke Member UncommonPosts: 4,335

    I just said I'm not sure if that's what I'm not liking. I know I can't stand the animation movement of my characters. the only ones I really liked were the Fae, and the semi flying aspect. When my characters run it just looks odd. But again, its a matter of opinion. Also, my graphics when I played it were up pretty high. Maybe its the lack of story, and there is a lack, the quest dialogues do not leap out at me, I wonder what I'm doing in each zone and why I'm doing certain quests, etc. I give FFXI and LOTRO as example of what I consider great story aspects to an MMORPG. If that helps.

  • eccotoneccoton Member UncommonPosts: 1,340
    Originally posted by elocke


    I just said I'm not sure if that's what I'm not liking. I know I can't stand the animation movement of my characters. the only ones I really liked were the Fae, and the semi flying aspect. When my characters run it just looks odd. But again, its a matter of opinion. Also, my graphics when I played it were up pretty high. Maybe its the lack of story, and there is a lack, the quest dialogues do not leap out at me, I wonder what I'm doing in each zone and why I'm doing certain quests, etc. I give FFXI and LOTRO as example of what I consider great story aspects to an MMORPG. If that helps.



     

    Again I am not trying to put you down just wondering about some of the things you do not like. Lack of story?  I played LoTRO for over a years and FFXI for almost 2 years. EQ2 has more and deeper lore then both of those games. Many people do not take the time to read and enjoy it. The lore is great! My library of tons of books, collected in game, will keep you busy exploring the lore and story of weeks just reading them. It is up to the player but EQ2 has more lore in game then LoTRO. I have been in EQ2 for 4 years and still am reading and finding out new things. Took me a few month to go through the available lore in LoTRO at that time.

  • MoiraeMoirae Member RarePosts: 3,318
    Originally posted by eccoton

    Originally posted by elocke


    I'm not sure what it is about EQ2 that makes me want to play it one second and then the next second I'm like nah, maybe when I have an mmorpg glut I'll pick it up again.
    I don't know if its the annoying character model/movement or how insanely annoying buying ranks of spells is to upgrade their power. Or if it is something else altogether. I always liked the music and environments in EQ2 but for some reason my character always felt like a shadow in the world, not really a full part of it.....if that makes any kind of sense.
    I want to like this game, I really do, but so many things turn me off to it.



     What? It is generally accepted that EQ2 has some of the best character models/animation in any mmo out. That is it's strongest point not it's enviroments. You might take a look at my sticky here on setting up graphics. You do know there is an animation setting and you need to max it? Character movement is fantastic. There is a huge difference in look of EQ2 between the high setting and lower ones. How is this character model annoying? It's movement is fantastic as well. I guess we are seeing different things.

     

    They're just trying to find things to nitpick over. The haters always do that. The thing I don't understand is why they come to the EQ2 forums if all they're going to do is bash. I don't go to the wow forums just to bash the game. It makes no sense to me.

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