Lack of availability and profile. I doubt anyone but fans even knows there's a new expansion. Just like last time. And if you are aware of it, how to get hold of a copy, in the EU anyway, is far from obvious.
i play EQII with a number of my friends across canada, and i don't know who i would lay THIS particular blame on, but one of our friends who did not preorder the game can't get it anywhere in a city of 200000+ people, no stores brought it in unless it was preordered, and noone will special order it for him. the ONLY way he can get it is the digital downloader from the Sony Store.
not impressed.
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
Two bigs reasons, time and requirements. When the game came out, it launched right about when WoW did, and the requirements were a beast and still are to a point. At this point, the game is considered "old" and the lower level areas feel empty without a low level population, so while the mentor system and such helps, not many are going to want to spend so much time leveling through a barren world to play with everyone else left at the top end. This is a problem that many MMOs face in their later years and short of being a sandbox MMO ala UO without levels, I don't see how you can really escape the divide.
Actually, if devs put new "Starter towns" around the high level areas with each expansion that the high levels can use to restock and do their thing and the newbies can use to level around. Then they might have at least a chance at pulling people in given that while they might not be out with the rest of the population, at least there would be people around to make it feel less empty.
Ye bought the game, as it came out between 2-3 mths before warcraft did. 2 main issue's with the game were - Crash's and lock-ups due to (what they said) their game was superior to the then graphics cards and that those couldnt handle it, even the brand new 6800 cards that had just come out 1 month after EQ2 was released had the same problem. Everyone knew it was the game, all they had to do was fix it, but they lowered it considerably which lost alot of the games uniquness.
Then there was the you had to group up with someone to kill mobs, upto ^ and below. you had to group up with 2 to kill some (but not all) ^^ mobs and lower, but you would soon discover that once you moved on 98-99% of the mobs were ^^^ and you would have to spend 99.9% of your time hunting for parties before you could play the game (4-6 player groups).
All they had to do was fix game issue's and lower the difficulty of the mobs and it would have done. But no, as companies do, they completly go too far (trying to attract players from other games, especially warcraft which had it right) but they started a year too late. Now last time i checked they game was made too easy, lost alot of what it had going for it, and the better quests were now pointless (i liked the boat quests were you had to do a questline and then complete the combat on board a the ship when traveling to a new territority, failure ment you couldnt go to the new land), although these quests have been left in the very last parts were bugged so you couldnt hand in the last step, even though you didnt need to them now. Other quests also had the same outcome, and some were bugged for months before they were finally fixed.
All in all the game was made way too easy, the better quests were killed off and the game lost its uniqueness (for me anyways), all this also came about over a year too late anyways (they took way too long to start fixing it) and went way too far in doing so.
for me atleast ...i have no idea why i couldn't get into the game. has everything i want in a game but i just got bored really fast. and my best mmo experience was in EQOA so i am familuar with the EQ world but i just don't know..lol
altho what i do know is there should be alot less classes wich is odd for me to say cause of my alt addiction. too many of the classes are basicly the same with very minor differences.
While all of the above are correct - the one thing I believe was the main reason they lost their playerbase from start was the outright lack of Marketing. Europe alone saw 2 servers, and no games for sale in any stores. If you wanted EQ2 it had to be digitally bought. Meaning not even in a regular store selling games could a MMO player see EQ2 on the shelves.
I havent read all the post.. But I can say this is a absolute lie, at least in my case..
I live in that small country Denmark ( that small country above Germany and under Sweden/Norway)
I bought it... They even had a pre-order box which I also bought..
I dunno why it doesnt attract more people.. I, my self, am absolutely amazed everytime I log in!! I love the classes, the races and everything else about the game.. sadly I dont have the money to subscribe.. so its rare I log in (usually every 2-3 months, when I actually got the money..)
I love this game almost as much as I love SWG pre-Cu/NGE.
its all a matter of taste I supposse.. but I can agree with some of the poster saying grouping aint much different with solo and raiding.. all it is, is more people together at once, hoping to take down that one mob, which is harder then a solo mob.
Overall its a great game IMO.. but yes It got SOE which a lot of people hate! and I can understand that..
But even though, they should forget their hate for a sec and try a game for what it really is..
I did and it worked out for me.. Im not saying people should forget about the "SOE Disaster" but SOE wasnt the only ones in the game, Lucas Arts was as well..
I play SOE games with its "Disaster" in the back of my mind always, but it doesnt ruin my game if its a good game, despise who controls/runs it..
Give it a try.. If you like it! AWESOME! if you dont, then meh.. move on to the next one..
Only you can tell what you like.. no matter what the others say..
And actually that goes out to all players!!
Dont get biased about what someone else tell you about a game..
try it, then make your own decisions, and then decide if its good or bad, if you like it or not..
I have to same some of what your saying is true and some not.
Advertising, i didnt see any for the game, but i have to also say back then, there wasnt as much advertising like we have now (TV, Radio and the usuall magazines) EQ2 hit some certain magazines and the net and thats about it.
Store's - Well the game didnt go into any gamestores that i know of, but i could freely order it from any online place like amazon (which is were i got mine from for £22 and it came with a baby dragon in game pet) i believe it took a few months before me or my mates ever saw a copy hit a retail store (only got it because i was roped in by 2 friends who had got it).
Servers - There was 5 EU servers at 1 point and over 30 US servers, Warcraft and lack of GM/Dev info and fix's saw to the game crashing for teh 1st time not long after warcraft came out EU i think lost 1 server, US lost 11 (6mths after warcraft) EU halved theirs to 2 servers and the US went down to 6 (6-8 mths later) but last time i was in the EU servers had stayed the same and the US servers had climbed back up to 12(ish). Theres also something like 6 expansions out (oh i just realized that any content had to be bought online online only, warcraft introduced theirs free) meaning not only di EQ2 players have to find teh right players but had to get the players who had purchased that content package as well.
The good thing about servers is you can play on any server anyhow, whether their US or EU servers. Yes their is a limit on the number of characters you can have, but the limit is not included by adding EU/US together,
Example - 8 max characters per account means you can have 8 on the US and 8 on the EU making 16 toons in total.
I did try the game a year ago or so, and found the servers to be somewhat empty and devoid of life, maybe this would change at higher levels, but for me it made the game unwelcomming, i even joined i think between 6 and 9 guilds and was told in each and every one that the players were taking a timeout and would hopefully be back soon) 2 mths later i didnt renew and only 1 person helped me once in all that time. It felt like a solo game.
Comments
Lack of availability and profile. I doubt anyone but fans even knows there's a new expansion. Just like last time. And if you are aware of it, how to get hold of a copy, in the EU anyway, is far from obvious.
i play EQII with a number of my friends across canada, and i don't know who i would lay THIS particular blame on, but one of our friends who did not preorder the game can't get it anywhere in a city of 200000+ people, no stores brought it in unless it was preordered, and noone will special order it for him. the ONLY way he can get it is the digital downloader from the Sony Store.
not impressed.
"We aren't going to ... Period. End of statement."
ya. ok. whatever.
but what do i know, i'm only a vanbois i'm told.
Ye bought the game, as it came out between 2-3 mths before warcraft did. 2 main issue's with the game were - Crash's and lock-ups due to (what they said) their game was superior to the then graphics cards and that those couldnt handle it, even the brand new 6800 cards that had just come out 1 month after EQ2 was released had the same problem. Everyone knew it was the game, all they had to do was fix it, but they lowered it considerably which lost alot of the games uniquness.
Then there was the you had to group up with someone to kill mobs, upto ^ and below. you had to group up with 2 to kill some (but not all) ^^ mobs and lower, but you would soon discover that once you moved on 98-99% of the mobs were ^^^ and you would have to spend 99.9% of your time hunting for parties before you could play the game (4-6 player groups).
All they had to do was fix game issue's and lower the difficulty of the mobs and it would have done. But no, as companies do, they completly go too far (trying to attract players from other games, especially warcraft which had it right) but they started a year too late. Now last time i checked they game was made too easy, lost alot of what it had going for it, and the better quests were now pointless (i liked the boat quests were you had to do a questline and then complete the combat on board a the ship when traveling to a new territority, failure ment you couldnt go to the new land), although these quests have been left in the very last parts were bugged so you couldnt hand in the last step, even though you didnt need to them now. Other quests also had the same outcome, and some were bugged for months before they were finally fixed.
All in all the game was made way too easy, the better quests were killed off and the game lost its uniqueness (for me anyways), all this also came about over a year too late anyways (they took way too long to start fixing it) and went way too far in doing so.
for me atleast ...i have no idea why i couldn't get into the game. has everything i want in a game but i just got bored really fast. and my best mmo experience was in EQOA so i am familuar with the EQ world but i just don't know..lol
altho what i do know is there should be alot less classes wich is odd for me to say cause of my alt addiction. too many of the classes are basicly the same with very minor differences.
I havent read all the post.. But I can say this is a absolute lie, at least in my case..
I live in that small country Denmark ( that small country above Germany and under Sweden/Norway)
I bought it... They even had a pre-order box which I also bought..
I dunno why it doesnt attract more people.. I, my self, am absolutely amazed everytime I log in!! I love the classes, the races and everything else about the game.. sadly I dont have the money to subscribe.. so its rare I log in (usually every 2-3 months, when I actually got the money..)
I love this game almost as much as I love SWG pre-Cu/NGE.
its all a matter of taste I supposse.. but I can agree with some of the poster saying grouping aint much different with solo and raiding.. all it is, is more people together at once, hoping to take down that one mob, which is harder then a solo mob.
Overall its a great game IMO.. but yes It got SOE which a lot of people hate! and I can understand that..
But even though, they should forget their hate for a sec and try a game for what it really is..
I did and it worked out for me.. Im not saying people should forget about the "SOE Disaster" but SOE wasnt the only ones in the game, Lucas Arts was as well..
I play SOE games with its "Disaster" in the back of my mind always, but it doesnt ruin my game if its a good game, despise who controls/runs it..
Give it a try.. If you like it! AWESOME! if you dont, then meh.. move on to the next one..
Only you can tell what you like.. no matter what the others say..
And actually that goes out to all players!!
Dont get biased about what someone else tell you about a game..
try it, then make your own decisions, and then decide if its good or bad, if you like it or not..
I have to same some of what your saying is true and some not.
Advertising, i didnt see any for the game, but i have to also say back then, there wasnt as much advertising like we have now (TV, Radio and the usuall magazines) EQ2 hit some certain magazines and the net and thats about it.
Store's - Well the game didnt go into any gamestores that i know of, but i could freely order it from any online place like amazon (which is were i got mine from for £22 and it came with a baby dragon in game pet) i believe it took a few months before me or my mates ever saw a copy hit a retail store (only got it because i was roped in by 2 friends who had got it).
Servers - There was 5 EU servers at 1 point and over 30 US servers, Warcraft and lack of GM/Dev info and fix's saw to the game crashing for teh 1st time not long after warcraft came out EU i think lost 1 server, US lost 11 (6mths after warcraft) EU halved theirs to 2 servers and the US went down to 6 (6-8 mths later) but last time i was in the EU servers had stayed the same and the US servers had climbed back up to 12(ish). Theres also something like 6 expansions out (oh i just realized that any content had to be bought online online only, warcraft introduced theirs free) meaning not only di EQ2 players have to find teh right players but had to get the players who had purchased that content package as well.
The good thing about servers is you can play on any server anyhow, whether their US or EU servers. Yes their is a limit on the number of characters you can have, but the limit is not included by adding EU/US together,
Example - 8 max characters per account means you can have 8 on the US and 8 on the EU making 16 toons in total.
I did try the game a year ago or so, and found the servers to be somewhat empty and devoid of life, maybe this would change at higher levels, but for me it made the game unwelcomming, i even joined i think between 6 and 9 guilds and was told in each and every one that the players were taking a timeout and would hopefully be back soon) 2 mths later i didnt renew and only 1 person helped me once in all that time. It felt like a solo game.