EQ2 P2W horrible return

bezado

So I have not been around mmo's recently in the last 3 years. Decided to try EQ2 again after I played it the first 2 years of release and loved the game back then for its raiding and at least its competition it had. Now honestly starting backup I noticed how much of a pay to win it has become and how easy the game really is now. It sucks EQ2 is not like it used to be, at least the time and effort you put into the game equaled how well your character was geared. Daybreak and Sony seem to have ruined this.  What I am talking about is the Heroic characters they give you to entice you to purchase the game or P2W marketplace. It's so easy for anyone to just be advanced, no time really needed to level or gear. I hate the I want it now mentality players have.

If EQ2 had no marketplace it would for at least me make it more appealing knowing everyone starting fresh has to go through the process to level and group and find players to play with to get content done. Vets love to make new toons when bored of mains.

Luiden

You just described most games these days, anything with a Marketplace is trash and isn't worth playing.  Players haven't realized yet that those Marketplaces represent resources and development that could have been put into the actual game to make a better game.. not rebuilding Amazon.

ste2000

Played EQ2 4 years, it went downhill since EoF.
I still check it out from time to time but I usually don't last more than a couple of weeks.

CrazKanuk

Luiden said:

You just described most games these days, anything with a Marketplace is trash and isn't worth playing.  Players haven't realized yet that those Marketplaces represent resources and development that could have been put into the actual game to make a better game.. not rebuilding Amazon.

You do realize that the resources dedicated to building these marketplaces is what's actually paying for the development of the rest of the "actual" game, right? That's a genuine question, because you seem to think that it's just frills or something. 

laxie

They did well with the Destiny of Velious expansion, in 2011. The servers were relatively full of new and returning players. The expansion added a lot of new zones and content, so much that the subsequent expansions were still using the DoV zones.

It went downhill since then. I left around 2013, when the playerbase was likely in the realm of thousands. This is all pre-Daybreak. It has to be significantly worse now.

In my opinion, the game has a content/feature issue. It always had a lot of features, more so than its competitors. That said, all of the systems are scattered and lack a thread that would bind it all together. The focus on endgame does not serve it well, as all of the zones and features are wasted. This is less of an issue for WoW, which has consistently been about dungeons/gear. EQ2 is multifaceted, so end-game dungeon focused expansions add more cracks to the foundation.

fodell54

I understand where you coming from. However, without significant upgrades to the entire game there is really no reason to play it with what else is currently on the market. I mean you still have spend "x" amount of time downloading and setting up a decent UI because they couldn't be bothered to ever create one. No one wants to put up with that anymore and that's just one minor issue. If they were to removed the market place they would probably lose the majority of the games income.

You need to realize that EQ2 has had a small population for a really long time now. If they didn't offer these incentives or have a market place there is a good chance it could have been sunset just like Vanguard. 

I'm not saying I like the current system but that is the reality of it. 

Luiden

CrazKanuk said:

Luiden said:

You just described most games these days, anything with a Marketplace is trash and isn't worth playing.  Players haven't realized yet that those Marketplaces represent resources and development that could have been put into the actual game to make a better game.. not rebuilding Amazon.

You do realize that the resources dedicated to building these marketplaces is what's actually paying for the development of the rest of the "actual" game, right? That's a genuine question, because you seem to think that it's just frills or something. 

That is the way it is today, but that wasn't the situation before they put the marketplace in.  The subscription model paid for the development of the game.. very similar to every other subscription based model that is out there.  And just like every other game that went P2W, Cash shop etc the new features and content that subscribers came to love declined.

EQ2 took this to a new level that we hadn't at the time seen before.  They maintained that you had to pay 40 dollars to get the game, 15 dollar subscription, very complex F2P model (more resources to develop), cash shop/market place... basically the developers of EQ2 did anything and everything they could to get money from people and they still failed.  

Why did they fail?  Because the focused on the all the things that subscriber gamers hate about MMORPGs.. when they started to focus on the 'alternative business models' the game started to decline almost immediately.  Not only in the content that was being released but also by the number of players playing the game.  People left in massive numbers, guilds destroyed etc.  I managed a very successful guild of over 120 active accounts only to see it get decimated in the short months after their strategy shift.

Simply put, they screwed up really bad and most of them have lost their jobs for it.  Only a skeleton crew remain and even if they wanted to return to the most successful business model every created for MMORPGs they can't because they don't have the player base anymore.