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Pride swallowed. Might be time to jump in again
webBear1000
Member Posts: 301
in Everquest II
I've been pretty scathing about EQ2 but I'm seriously thinking about giving it another go.
I'm pretty impressed with all the updates they've been doing. If nothing else it shows commitment to the game by SOE.
I'd be interested to hear the experiences of anyone else who's returned to the game after initial dissapointment.
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Don't jump off the roof Dad
You'll make a hole in the yard
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Comments
You can always try the Trial of the Isle, but from what it sounds like you've already played the game.
I'll say this: the stupid invisible mob bug is still in. Very annoying, but not enough to make me throw up my hands and turn back to WoW.
Why is everyone so hell-bent over zoning? WoW was the first popular MMORPG I played that DIDN'T have zoning. EVE Online has zoning. FFXI has zoning. Anarchy Online has zoning. Ragnarok Online has zoning. So why is it that when EQ2 has zoning, everyone's in an uproar about it?
Besides, some of the zones are HUGE (Antonica) and if you have enough RAM on your computer, it takes about 10 seconds or so versus the 30 seconds to several minutes if you don't have enough. Zoning is the way they can throw in all those pretty graphics without bogging down your computer.
In case you haven't heard, 350,000 players isn't just hoping for a click, it's a popular game and people like it.
Yeah EQ2 is nowhere near in trouble.
There are a few minor issues here and there, but overall I find the combat compelling, the progression enough to keep me going, and the community is good. I solo a lot and haven't seen this "invisible mob" bug mentioned here. In a recent patch in fact, they fixed pathing so I could more easily solo in dungeons without losing my pet into walls anymore. I wrote up a description of it, posted on teh boards, and got many responses. The next patch it was fixed. Maybe they already knew about it, but it was an effective fix and it made my life a whole lot easier as a Necro.
In any case, if 7 seconds of zoning every once in a while is a dealbreaker for you, then so be it. I usually zone 3 or 4 times when I first log in, but after that I'm questing usually in one or two zones out in the world for the rest of my play time. I know it can be tough as a new player, with all of teh zone to zone delivery quests and whatnot, but it does get better after about level 10 if you have any amount of patience whatsoever.
Habit is not to be flung out the window by any man, but coaxed down the stairs one step at a time. - Mark Twain
Give it up admirker
Since, from what I've seen in, ahem, other forums, you've seen the light, you might as well just give up and join all us mental defectives back in EQ2. At least there's never-ending things to do and always will be ... right? What would life be if there was nothing to complain about anyway. In particular, what would YOU do if you had nothing to post complaints about.
I'm sorry there's only 350k of us so far, but then there's a lot less BMWs than Chevys too.
As far as zoning, personally I prefer it. It you don't, you simply have to learn to use it creatively ... take a leak, get pretzels, read spoilers on your other puter, talk to your wife and kids, scratch something, etc.
Cheers
I agree with those who think the zoning in this game is a bit much. It's not only that there is zoning, but that lots of the smaller quests require passing through multiple laggy city zones to the point of defining the overall gameplay experience.
"Gather around people, gather around," says the wimpy bard NPC as he slaps a player character on the rump who is passing through yet a third zone for a simple 17 cp quest.
Maybe the problem isn't zoning, but just too many frivolous quests which folks feel compelled to run through with each new character. Perhaps too many quests can become chore-like after awhile.
HOPES it will become a major hit? Why don't you get some concept of reality admirker.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
Firstly, set yoru graphics according to your hardware and you won't zone so slow, if you want it pretty your gonna have to wait, its a game, treat it as such.
Secondly, lacking details, now I KNOW you never bothered to really evaluate it. It is full of small details, personal touches and very diverse zones.
Lastly, can you make a post without mentioning SWG? And, they said they have 350,000 active accounts that are logging in weekly, as compared to SWG's TOTAL accounts. Pull up a zone list sometime, the population differences are rather apparent. Your SWG comparison holds no ground what so ever.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
I don't feel the zoning is ideal either, but for the payoff I get out of the game it doesn't grate me so much, I zone fairly fast anyways, always under 10 seconds. I had hoped it would be like DAoC and only cities would be their own zones, but apparently they tried that in many cases and couldn't get it to work when the zones filled up.
The hugest issue with it is something admirker did touch on that I agree with, and thats if you log in and your in another instance of say thundering steppes then your friends, you gotta run to a zone and rezone to get into the same zone as them.
- Scaris
"What happened to you, Star Wars Galaxies? You used to look like Leia. Not quite gold bikini Leia (more like bad-British-accent-and-cinnamon-bun-hair Leia), but still Leia nonetheless. Now you look like Chewbacca." - Computer Gaming World
was up bieches!!!
i heard y'all wondering about who's playing what and how many and so on and so forth.
http://www.mmogchart.com
This guys does market research for investors.
The Subscribers: 120,000+ shows that WoW hit way over 1 mil about 2 weeks ago. and EQ2 still sitting around 350k.
Another interesting chart is the Market Share by MMOG.
Shows that Lineage and Lineage 2 together has over HALF of the mmorpg market.
I gave up on EQ2 about 2 weeks ago. Been playin Asheron's Call 2. You gotta be a man to play that game.
How come this thread become offtopic about number of subscribers?
So, to the original topic... EQ2 recieved quite a lot of content and their first expansion pack will be out in a few weeks. But i doubt the original poster was disappointed about amount of content. Sadly not much chnged in other areas. Zoning isn't a minor issue and it really destroys immersion when you zone several times in a city. Game is still hardly soloable, the last additions didn't change much. However with the rate of updates coming it isn't a bad idea to give it a second try.
[for clarity, responding to loeslein ... didn't expect someone to slip one in while I was typing]
Ah the perils of responding without reading the thread ... I believe any number of people have already stated that EQ2 has 350k subscribers, but thanks for confirming from one of the same sources everyone else uses.
Personally, I always make my choices based on popularity with the general public ... hence I never miss a Brittney Spears CD.
/shoots himself in the head ... twice ... yes I am THAT fast on the trigger.
I sorry.
I thought somebody said they doubted WoW had over 1 mil.
Sorry
First, I gotta say, zoning? Meh. Big deal. I thought it would annoy me. It really hasn't. Oh no! I can't do anything for 10 seconds! Not a big problem to me.
Second, who cares if the game only had 35,000 instead of the 350,000? Does it really affect US, the players? Not really. On that same note, though, at 350k paying subscribers ate $15 a month, that works out to $5million...A MONTH. You really think this is a problem for SOE? I'm sure they're QUITE happy with their returns. It could stay at this level for the next 5 years and they'd be turning a HEFTY profit even considering costs to run. EQ2 isn't going anywhere.
Last, just wanted to throw this out there, loving the diversity of character races and classes. Feel so much more individual than in other games.
WoW might have a million subscribers worldwide but a quick perusal on their forums shows that many people have complaints as to the way Blizzard is doing things, ranging from not enough upper-level content to the frequent delays that Blizzard always claims 'coming soon' and the server lag and instabilities.
As for the zoning thing, it's never really bothered me before because almost all the MMORPGs I've played involved zoning. Take a look at such beautiful places like Oakmyst Forest and you can see why they needed to make zones. You enter into a thicket of trees swaying in the wind, casting shadows on the ground. Rocks lay here and there in seemingly random positions. You walk to the waterfall and marvel at the beautiful water as it runs down and fills a pond. Tree leaves fall down and birds chirp in the sky. Squirrels and deers wander around, waiting for you to knock them upside the head. It's a beautiful scene that was breathtaking when I first saw it. I mean, Teldrassil was nice-looking but Oakmyst Forest just blows it out of the water.
2. The board members must release a quarterly review with expected profits to its shareholders. This projection determines a companies success. If a company fails to meet those expectations, it is perceived their are troubles with the company and people start to sell their stocks. This cause further decay in value of a company's worth. Companies have lost billions in value in 20 minutes thanks to failed projections.
3. Prior to a quarterly report, a company's bean counters will assess whether the expectations will be met or not. If sony sees possible failure coming they'll do whatever it takes in the short-term (for example a lot of recent fixes and advertising for eq2). It may cost a few million but that pales in comparison to the billions they could lose if consumer confidence falters.
4. Once the quarterly report is released and its found that sony did not meet expectations, company value tanks. So ultimately, while to the ignorant masses may think "wow 350k players and 5 million gross (not net) its chump change. Sony obviously expected and reported much higher potential incomes for eq2 and its not delivering.
Want more proof ? Take a look at the advertising they spent. A full page ad in a high profile game mag like Game Informer will run 125k per print at a minimum..more for strategic placement. They spent large amounts on advertising expecting a higher return. Not to mention the development costs of 20 million dollars. So yes EQ2 is a huge failure in stockholders eyes since it failed to hit the mark.
This is why the general masses think a game like EQ2 is a success because all they see is 350k players which isnt bad at all. However if sony's board told stockholders in its quarterly report they expect the next quater's profits to increas by 5% and it only does by 3% heads will roll.
Another example...Walmart made 20 billion in gross sales last holiday quarter. The expected growth for this quarter was 5% meaning Walmart assumed gross sales would increase to 21 billion. Now this yr was slow for walmart, they only grossed (this is al true exept numbers are est) 3% = 20.6 billion gross sales. So yes walmart still made more money but it didnt meet the expectations to stockholders and therefore is deemed a failure. Stocks drop, corporate large shareholders may lose billions overnight because of that.
So in the end EQ2 is a failure. Yes it will make profits and have a semi-large player base. However it didnt meet sony's expectations. And dont tell me sony didnt have much larger expectations for this game. Not with the money they spent and ad revenue as well. Thats why I made the comparison to SWG...both have similiar player bases but a lot less money was spent on SWG. Therefore technically SWG is a hit compared to EQ2 dolloar/ratio wise. Im quite sure sony's expectations were what WoW has done...probably hoped for 500-750k player base at least (remember eq1 had 500k players until only recently). So 350k is a miserable failure.
Lesson over
Good lord Admirker. Sorry, I didnt read your lesson in stocks and profits. You actually think Eq2 is really failing? If one thing is true with the Everquest franchise it's that it has incredible staying power. This means that maybe a year or so from now, Eq2 will have roughly the same amount of subsribers, if not more. And guess what? They won't be spending any more money on advertisements.
Add to that the expansions, those that buy the "adventure packs", etc., and SOE ends up with a pretty healthy profit in the long run. Did you somehow forget that this game is going to be around for awhile? They don't make all their money on launch day. It spreads out over years.
Maybe I'm reading the charts wrong, but I didn't see EQ1 ever going over 300k at ANY point in time. Considering Blizzard, a company that releases NOTHING but blockbusters didn't even expect to sell their 500k copies as fast as they did (estimates I heard were 250k in the first week?) I can't see how SOE would be dumb enough to think they would have numbers over 300k. If so, they deserve any financial hardships they get, but I just dont see how they could possibly be that short sighted.
Based on what sony spent on development costs and advertising its quite clear they expected a lot more than 350k players.
Like I said before, a comparison to SWG is the perfect example.
Board member - how much will eq2 make and how much should it cost ?
bean counter - well as you can see from this chart, swg costs 10 million and has 295k players steady. therefore if we spend 20 million on development for EQ2 our goal is obviously 600k players to meet the minimum standard swg set.
So you see, business is all about standards and beating them. At the very least I would estimate 600k players was hoped for. The advertising backs this up as well.
On EQ1, I May be wrong on their numbers being 500k. Although I seem to recall reading that at one point thats how many they had playing back in the day.
Regardless, sony wouldnt use them for their main projections anyway. They would use their immediate predecessor being SWG. EQ1 wouldnt really be ideal figuring costs are from a different era
Okay I just thought of an analogy to make my point more clear..
Movies...
Matrix Revolutions - big hollywood production. Budget was 150 million dollars. Sales at box office totaled 80 million us and 95 million world-wide. Projections for dvd sales will boost toals... grossed 250 million yet major failure
My Big Fat Greek Wedding - production costs was only 5 million. Grossed more than 250 million in us theatres. Not even thinking about dvd sales...HUGE hit.
Same results but one will be viewed as a success and one a miserable failure.