First of all, SOE Couldn't afford to buy WoW if they sold everything that had. Blizzard knows they have one of the biggest cash cows in MMO history with WoW and no way no how would they get rid of that, if they did, it would sing handedly be the dumbest move done by anyone in gaming history and yes that includes AC2 .
But anyways... the grass is always greener as they say. Patchs with bugs get pushed into live in EQ2 all the time, there's almost zero end game for EQ2, many (counts as over 5) classes have been broken since release, we get CHARGED for some content (read as any content they put time and or thought into), there are some 100+ basic bugs and issues still lying aroung seemingly ignored by soe that have been in game since beta phase 2 (read as: griffon black out, phase resilence, many class bugs) and really the list goes on and on.
I personally feel that overall WoW is the better game, i've just gotten stuck in EQ2 due to the much better community. Se be thankful for what you have AND what you DONT have. (<<-- read as you DONT have to deal with SOE, I admire you for that)
Originally posted by Jpedro I regret that people keep using "you are a liar" to justify their points of view, as i have no means of showing you that i beta tested eq2, i guess you all had the choice to call me a liar or to accept it, anyways, it was the choice you made.
I never used "you are a liar" to justify anything. Just informing you that no one believes you, so whether it's true or not, I'd stop claiming it. Yes you can prove it. What was your character's name in beta? What was your screen name that you used on the forums? While you're at it what's your character's name and server when you played it live? I'm sure you must have played it live. If you are making statements like "raids are broken" you must have done a raid live right?
Now regarding SWG, do you by chance know that the original developers of SWG have all left the current dev team for the game? did you play SWG at launch?
Yes I did play at launch, but you see I don't believe most of the problem with SWG has anything to do with SOE, I believe Lucas Arts is the problem. Case in point: On this site there is an interview with an SWG developer. Guess what company gives him his paycheck? Lucas Arts. Guess what his job title is? LEAD TESTER. And If you know anything about Game desigers, I don't know a single one that has worked on the same game for over 3 years.
Personaly i was somewhat excited that i ordered SWG a couple of weeks ago, i was playing EQ2 then and wanted to add a new game to my station access, if you bother to check the SWG boards here, you will find my original post somewhere buried there, after receiving the game last monday and playing it for a while on bria, i got the point on why the game sucks so much: first of all, i had a problem with the game working trough my rooter, after contacting custommer support i waited till now, no response, after asking someone with the helper tab ingame, they told me to #$%& off, finally someone told me that i had to change the duplex setting on my rooter, the game became much less jerky and didnt crash anymore, CS... yeah right.
This would hold so much more weight if you weren't trying to defend WoW at the same time. Right now the only people that are worse than SOE at customer service is WoW. Both are imporving
Talking of patch notes, go take a look at the SWG forums and see how they like their crafters or entertainers in the game? the devs idea of buffing the entertainer profession, that most consider broken, is to had a few more flavor dances, some classes have been broken since launch it seems, and still have not been looked at, seems only bounty hunters and jedi get updates.
Again I said compare the EQ2 patch notes not WoW. SWG has the pleasure of dealing with the idiots at Lucas Arts. But even this statement is false: DE's now have level 30 pets, Weaponsmiths and Armorsmiths have new items to craft, architects had the number of lots large houses and guild halls use reduced. I think you need to look again at the patch notes, even though I wasn't talking about SWG.
EQ2 content? look at what i said on my other posts, Endgame raiding is broken, no loot of note in the raids, character models that cant sit down on chairs or lie down in beds, one of the MAJOR conplaints since beta, from all of us Roleplayers, no bard instruments since beta, another major conplaint, healing classes completly unbalanced, talking bout mystics, fury, only templer or warden seems to be working as intended.
Riiight. Again would hold so much more weight if you weren't trying to defend WoW. How did you decorate your house in WoW? When was the last time you saw, let alone lay down on a bed in WoW? What kind of insturments do the bards use in WoW? Yet EQ2 doesn't have content? I think you're confused. WoW has no end game content except the broken garbage they threw in. EQ2 has it, had it from the begining and it works and the loot is awesome (which really hurts your claim about being in beta) so I ask you again, what was your character's name and what server were you on in the live game?
Servers crash, or offline and messed up more than is acceptable, with DAILY maintence during playing hours for europeans playing on U.S servers, remmenber that eq2 had no european servers at launch, only much later they were implemented, so most of us that had high level toons were screwed, including us on the only RP servers... wich are U.S, no european RP servers? its a joke.
HAHAHAHAHAHA. This has to be a joke. You CAN'T honestly be slaming EQ2's servers while defending WoW. There isn't a person on this forum that can honestly say WoW has had less downtime the EQ2, no matter how they feel about EQ2. You can transfer your account to any server you want. MUCH later? The game hasn't been out a year yet. Accept the fact that the majority of the market is in the US, so people in the US will be carted to. The fact that the down time is only an hour means you don't lose that much time.
Take every SOE mmorpg, including the recently bought matrix online, sum up all their active subscribers and compare it to wow, they will not even come close to half the population... 20-25000 for MXO, 200-300k for eq2, a few thousands for planet side, less than 200k for eqlive, add it up and see why SOE sucks and their games are falling behind the competition.
Britney Spears has had 3 number one songs, Led Zepplin hasn't had any. That must mean Britney Spears is a better musican right?
Hmm, we can play this game of twisting each others words all day long, the point is, can you honestly say that SOE has provided duringt all these years a good and reliable service to their customers? take into account here all the problems, SWG, EQlive, EQ2, Planetside have had.
When you stop all this hate toards wow and blizzard, you come to realize that:
a) their product is good, no matter how you try to spin it, more than 2m ppl play it, including many who have played eqlive, wich much ppl seem to consider the tru "harcore players" mmorpg, dunno if you fit intop that category or not.
b) blizzard has a track record of launching stable and finished products, review each and every blizzard game and you will end up not beeing able to deny that, unlike SOE, wich seems to mess up every gmae they get their greedy hands on. Why is it that none of the orignal dev teams have stayed with the SOE mmorpg´s except for everquest 2´s dev team?
The eqlive original team left the game while sony brought in new members to further develop the expansions, SWG has lost its original dev team, wich SOe replaced with dev´s from outside, these are supposed to be 2 of SOE´s flagship titles, why do the dev teams suddenly seem to leave the projects? I reserve my judgement on eq2, i will wait and see how they handle that one.
further more, i have only one word for you when you say compare patch notes from wow to other SOE games.... the combat upgrade to SWG, after coming from EQ2 to SWG, i just see it as a very dumbed down version of the EQ2 combat system.
Finaly wich server i played in eq2? i played in AB server, wich is RP prefered, my characters names were Grove, Gawl and Rissen, among others, and if you at any time raided in eq2, wich im not sure you did, because your funny statement on the endgame loot, you will notice that the endgame loot for raids is shit, no way around that fact mate, its utter crap, but then again, i wont make any assumptions concerning you.
P.S, these are just my very personal views of the games in question, im not out to hate/grief/agravate or call anyone names, i understand how ppl can have very different views on the same subject, but thats the beauty of online forums, we be here to discuss things, lets not get into any flame wars here.
[quote]Originally posted by difancer [b]seeing your online time playing wow your a fanboy [b][/quote] Yeah... that many hours since March. I must be a huuuuge fanboy
i play on australian servers because racism is acceptable there
Originally posted by Jpedro Hmm, we can play this game of twisting each others words all day long, the point is, can you honestly say that SOE has provided duringt all these years a good and reliable service to their customers? take into account here all the problems, SWG, EQlive, EQ2, Planetside have had. I'm not twisting words. Everything you wrote is right there. Sure SOE has had their problems, but don't bash SOE while praising Blizzard, because in the MMO market, Blizard has sucked 100% of the time, while SOE has the most successful longest lasting MMO's under their belt. When you stop all this hate toards wow and blizzard, you come to realize that: If you actually took the time to read my inital post instead of jumping all over me because I said SOE, you would have seen me write that blizzard makes a better game. It's not me doing the hating mate. a) their product is good, no matter how you try to spin it, more than 2m ppl play it, including many who have played eqlive, wich much ppl seem to consider the tru "harcore players" mmorpg, dunno if you fit intop that category or not. Again I said it was good, their service, and how they are MANAGING it sucks. As far as the 2mil people, I again submit my Britney Spears example. EQLive has been out for 6 years now. When WoW has that many people for that long, I'll conceed. b) blizzard has a track record of launching stable and finished products, review each and every blizzard game and you will end up not beeing able to deny that, unlike SOE, wich seems to mess up every gmae they get their greedy hands on. Why is it that none of the orignal dev teams have stayed with the SOE mmorpg´s except for everquest 2´s dev team? Another example of you not reading: I said Blizzard makes a good game. No developer that I know of has stayed on a project more than 3 years. Besides EQ2, SOE's newest game is SWG which has been LIVE for 2 years, and spent over a year in development. That's why people move on. Did you known that most of the developers that made Diablo didn't make Diablo II? What does that prove? Absolutely nothing. The eqlive original team left the game while sony brought in new members to further develop the expansions, SWG has lost its original dev team, wich SOe replaced with dev´s from outside, these are supposed to be 2 of SOE´s flagship titles, why do the dev teams suddenly seem to leave the projects? I reserve my judgement on eq2, i will wait and see how they handle that one. See above. further more, i have only one word for you when you say compare patch notes from wow to other SOE games.... the combat upgrade to SWG, after coming from EQ2 to SWG, i just see it as a very dumbed down version of the EQ2 combat system. And I see a vast imporvement over what SWG used to have. All point of view. Finaly wich server i played in eq2? i played in AB server, wich is RP prefered, my characters names were Grove, Gawl and Rissen, among others, and if you at any time raided in eq2, wich im not sure you did, because your funny statement on the endgame loot, you will notice that the endgame loot for raids is shit, no way around that fact mate, its utter crap, but then again, i wont make any assumptions concerning you. Endgame loot is crap??? Wow guess I should give back all the fabled weapons I got then huh? Oh and I looked up your characters, highest one was level 21 (Grove and Gawl didn't even exsist on AB). Kind of hard to be so knowledgeable about raids and endgame when you're only level 21. P.S, these are just my very personal views of the games in question, im not out to hate/grief/agravate or call anyone names, i understand how ppl can have very different views on the same subject, but thats the beauty of online forums, we be here to discuss things, lets not get into any flame wars here.
Then please read what I write. Don't try to anticipate what I'm going to say and skip most of my post.
It seems that the more important fact here that you have not responded to, is do you think SOE has provided a better service than blizzard?
If someone were to do a poll on this subject and rate both companies, we would prolly have SOE winning the prize of worst custommer support. SWG cs? its a joke,ll Eqlive Cs has been going down hill for some time now, eq2 cs? i have had repeated trouble in the game, including not being able to use gryphins on some of the towers, characters being stuck, instances crashing, loot bugs, just to name a few, not one of my tickets was answered. Maybe its just me, and im generalising, but i have had no luck with them.
On the matter of dev teams moving on, we are not speaking of a single player game, i understand why the team that did kotor 1 didnt do kotor 2, we be speaking of mmorpg´s where the original dev team´s vision and development document are the basis of the continuing development of the game, content and gameplay wise, how do you expect a new team to pick up a game like SWG already deep into launch and them not making mistakes? every decision made has turned the game away from the gamestyle that first apealed to the original player base, they have changed much, and in most cases, to the worst, but then again, regarding SWG im just putting into words some of the conversations i have had with other players, i have little play time with the game, so maybe im not the best person to judge.
Regarding the fact of my current active character in eq2 is level 21, that means nothing, i have been on and off from the game since launch, coming over from eqlive, i have closed and opened new account, seeing as i bought 3 accounts when the game launched, as i played a 3 character hydra in eqlive, so i did the same with eq2, currently i closed my other accounts and deleted and transfered the funds from my other toons to my current one, as you can see, this is a very commen thing to do in eq.
Ragarding the endgame RAID loot, you seem to be the ONLY player that is satisfied with it, everyone else i know that has raided thinks its worthless for the time effort expended. MAybe its changed since i last was into raiding, maybe new loot tables were added, i dunno, just speaking from my experience and that of a few close friends of mine.
Personaly i dont think Blizzard´s cs sucks, at least on the deathwing server (europe) there i have had all my issues resolved within 24 hours, with the exception of weekends, when it might take a little time longer, but the point here is, i have had my issues resolved, CS never failed to answer a request or ignore me, unlike what has hapenned to me in SWG, Eqlive and EQ2.
I guess the other problem with SOE having control would be that instead of getting patches all the time they would be called add-on's and we would be paying $20-$30 for them. I really don't want that. Seemed like in EQ that had new add-on's every 3-6 months and they weren't cheap.
Britney Spears has had 3 number one songs, Led Zepplin hasn't had any. That must mean Britney Spears is a better musican right?
I always get a chuckle when people bust out with this "logic". The insinuation is that despite having a lot of subscribers, WoW is a crap game.
The bottom line is that people pay to play games that are fun. This simple concept has eluded SoE time and time again. EQ had 4+ years on the market at a time when there was almost zero competition. What a kick in the nuts it must be to Smedley to think that for all the time EQ had in the marketplace, the best EQ2 can do is barely half the subscribers of EQ - including foreign releases.
If past success alone can draw in that many people to WoW, then I guess it stands to reason that past infamy can have an equal effect on a product like EQ2. Little tip to Smed: tell your devs to remove terms like "grinding" and "risk vs. reward" from their vocabulary. Apply simple tests to your game such as "is this actually FUN, or does this feel like work".
Originally posted by Aildrik Originally posted by Jodokai Britney Spears has had 3 number one songs, Led Zepplin hasn't had any. That must mean Britney Spears is a better musican right? I always get a chuckle when people bust out with this "logic". The insinuation is that despite having a lot of subscribers, WoW is a crap game. The bottom line is that people pay to play games that are fun. This simple concept has eluded SoE time and time again. EQ had 4+ years on the market at a time when there was almost zero competition. What a kick in the nuts it must be to Smedley to think that for all the time EQ had in the marketplace, the best EQ2 can do is barely half the subscribers of EQ - including foreign releases. If past success alone can draw in that many people to WoW, then I guess it stands to reason that past infamy can have an equal effect on a product like EQ2. Little tip to Smed: tell your devs to remove terms like "grinding" and "risk vs. reward" from their vocabulary. Apply simple tests to your game such as "is this actually FUN, or does this feel like work".
I use that logic, when people try reverse of it "more people are playing it, it must be a better game". But to undersatand your logic: People like to play fun games, but they like to listen to crappy music? And that's how you explain why Britney Spears and WoW are popular and Led Zeplin and EQ2 are less so? If you really are as logical as you seem, I don't think I have to go any further in to that for you to see how flawed that is.
So while your model of "fun" (I call it instant gratifcation, or the "why read the book when I can watch the movie" model) may draw inital numbers, ask City of Heroes how well it's doing for them long term. Take a look around this forum. Go back a few pages to see how the attitude about WoW has changed. People are getting sick of it. Even Firemagic, who was so fanatical in his fanboi-ism that he would troll the EQ2 forms looking for ways to slam EQ2 and tout how great WoW was, has come out of his delirum and seen, it's not all it's cracked up to be.
Now to answer the question of how I think SOE has handled their games better than Blizzard: Are you kidding me? Lets take a look at WoW's down time. 42 hours down at release, and that was login server. Wait queues, server crashes. Some of this is better, but the stability is just not there. That's horrible handling of it.
Now look at patch notes: EQ2 is loaded with content updates and fixes galore. They have totally changed the game around in the few months it's been out. WoW, some content updates, a few class fixes, but no where near as large or as often as the patches in EQ2 and SWG. I have also stated that I feel the main reason SWG is/was in such a state is Lucas Arts. I mean compare the two game they are night and day.
I would say if what you say about WoW CS is true, then you are probably one of 10,000 that has had that happen to. I would also say you are about 1 of 5000 that has had that many bad experiences in EQ2, who even cynics are saying SOE has come a long way with their CS.
Originally posted by gargantroo Um, in case you didnt notice... World of Warcraft adds new dungeons, monsters, weapons and more every few weeks. It sounds like you actually want to PAY for an xpac like EQ2. We are practically getting an xpac added constantly with all of the incoming content. Also, Blizzard's team is highly experienced since I can't recall a game of theirs selling less than 5 million copies since Starcraft was released (with the exception of WoW, which only sold 2 million copies to date which can be mostly explained by it's monthly fee) The rest I don't know about since I dont use SOE's services. I've played Ultima Online, FFXI and WoW, so I don't really know anything else about SOE.
Fact of the matter is that blizzard is NOT adding content into the game, per se. Most of this is content that was "incomplete" at launch, and it took them about 8 months to get it done.
If it is regular updates of free content you are interested in, migt I suggest you Try out City of Heroes and/or City of Villians?
Fact of the matter is that WoW's and SOE's GM support is pretty horrible in both sides.
BOTH companies have responsded to bugs with "we are aware of this issue". Blizzard told me to check the forums (which I had already done).
IMHO, the only good customer support is from City of Heroes and EVE online. In both games, I had helpful GMs respond to my problems within a few minutes of mine asking. EVE online even sent me a greeter within a few days after I started the game to check up on me and see if I needed help with anything.
regarding raids and raid loot, anyone from the eq boards that has seen any of my semi-recent posts knows that i love raiding in the game. my guild uses a DKP (dragon kill point) system that basically works like this. every time you go on a raid you get a certain amount of points. most common raids are worth 2 points. longer several hour raid instances are worth more, and important named mobs for quests like prismatics are worth 10 (ie darathar). twice a week every week we bid on things with points. here's just a few of the items we have up for bid this round:
(keep in mind that all items are red to the person insepcting them since our guild mule is only level 6, so you arent seeing the full stats - including the procs)
Schutzbar - Human Warrior - Windrunner Alliance - World of Warcraft Nihilanth - Kerra Paladin - Blackburrow - EverQuest II XBL Gamertag - Eagle15GT
Jodokai, did you not mentioned how having problems at release as bad cs? I would like to remind you that no other mmorpg in history had the launch that wow hadin terms of initial population, blizzard didnt know that that many ppl would rush out to buy the game, this ws their first mmorpg and they didnt expect such a large influx on their servers... can you imagine SOE taking eq2 of the shelves, stopping production for several weeks and holding all sales of the game because their servers were packed? i dont think so, but blizzard did just that so they could better provide CS to their initial player base.
Where you around the launch of UO or EQ1? they launched extremly buggy games, ridden with game braking desing issues and with nowhere and i mean not even close to the ammount of content that wow was launched it.
So, for everyone that has been flaming blizzard or SOE, remmenber one thing, wow has not been out for a year yet, they have an extremly large player base and an absurd number of servers working, but they are working on their problems and do provide decent cs considering the circumstances, Blizzard is still new at this so give them their due credit for an overrall decent initial launch of their game. SOE does have its problems, but like it or not, they do work on resolving their bugs on a weekly basis, with constant content updates. Altough they are not known to cater to their player base, as can be seen in SWG, they are not afraid to implement design decisions that change their games in an effort to better them, thats something i applaud in them, they have the balls to do what is needed.
Also would like to mention that both companies have much to offer to the mmorpg scene, both eq1 and wow have done much to introduce mmorpg´s to large audiences and are the basis for wich the future is beeing built on, especialy new games like D&DO and Vanguard, both of wich borrow heavily from eq and wow in terms of game mechanics and quest driven content, would like to point that im not counting eq2 in this, althoug i had a try at the trial of the isle demo, it just felt like eq but without the magic that was present in the old game, it just seems bland and seems to lack imagination, maybe im wrong, and a demo is nothing to base my opinions on, but coming from a long time playing eq i just feel that its not the game for me. Currently im waiting for D&DO this year and Vanguard late next year.
Those are some nice items, tho nowhere near the fluf that used to drop from eq1 raids, i did notice that those items seem to have pretty generic setup to them, are the weapon/armor models for them anything to take notice of? i remmenber from eq1 that everyone looked unique and it was possible to get some pretty interesting items, visualy at least.
I played several SOE games, and Blizzard as well. Blizzard murders their games with patches and poor servers, SOE murders theirs through poor maintenence and customer support. SWG, Planetside? It took SWG over 3 months for some classes to even work, which I can't say Blizzard ever had a problem with (likely due to the mass beta testing). On the other hand, EQ2 for example, didn't crash for a week at release.
To be fair though, I don't think either company handles their MMO's very well. They still allow items in game to be sold for money out of game, which is against every game's TOS ever made, save for EQ2, which encourages it it seems with the whole Station Exchange. I'd like to see a company enforce their own TOS before we start judging who's good and who's bad at what they do, because right now, in my eyes, they all fail.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Originally posted by Kem0sabe Jodokai, did you not mentioned how having problems at release as bad cs? I would like to remind you that no other mmorpg in history had the launch that wow hadin terms of initial population, blizzard didnt know that that many ppl would rush out to buy the game, this ws their first mmorpg and they didnt expect such a large influx on their servers... can you imagine SOE taking eq2 of the shelves, stopping production for several weeks and holding all sales of the game because their servers were packed? i dont think so, but blizzard did just that so they could better provide CS to their initial player base.I LOVE when people use this excuse: So what you're telling me is that the Devs at Blizzard aren't incompetent they're just stupid. Either way it's a poor handling.. And for the record, both SWG and EQ1 have had more people per server than Blizzard (if you take the number of people playing divided by the number of players, the number of people per server isn't lower for blizzard). SOE would never HAVE to do that. They KNOW how to run an MMO. They KNOW how to do market reseasrch and keep their servers up.Where you around the launch of UO or EQ1? they launched extremly buggy games, ridden with game braking desing issues and with nowhere and i mean not even close to the ammount of content that wow was launched it. Right and Blizzard should have learned from them being 6 YEARS later. When UO and EQ1 launched they were breaking new ground. They coudln't look at anyone else and say this is what worked this is what didn't. So you do think the people at Blizzard are stupid then? Not being able to fix the mistakes that were around 6 years ago.So, for everyone that has been flaming blizzard or SOE, remmenber one thing, wow has not been out for a year yet, they have an extremly large player base and an absurd number of servers working, but they are working on their problems and do provide decent cs considering the circumstances, Blizzard is still new at this so give them their due credit for an overrall decent initial launch of their game. SOE does have its problems, but like it or not, they do work on resolving their bugs on a weekly basis, with constant content updates. Altough they are not known to cater to their player base, as can be seen in SWG, they are not afraid to implement design decisions that change their games in an effort to better them, thats something i applaud in them, they have the balls to do what is needed.You have an odd definition of "decent launch" my friend. And you're also using another classic example and proving you think Blizzard is stupid. "This is their first MMO" Sure it's the first MMO with the Blizzard name on it, but I'm sure the actual people that coded this game HAVE worked on MMO's before. If they programmers that have never worked on an MMO they truely are as dumb as you're making them out to be. Also would like to mention that both companies have much to offer to the mmorpg scene, both eq1 and wow have done much to introduce mmorpg´s to large audiences and are the basis for wich the future is beeing built on, especialy new games like D&DO and Vanguard, both of wich borrow heavily from eq and wow in terms of game mechanics and quest driven content, would like to point that im not counting eq2 in this, althoug i had a try at the trial of the isle demo, it just felt like eq but without the magic that was present in the old game, it just seems bland and seems to lack imagination, maybe im wrong, and a demo is nothing to base my opinions on, but coming from a long time playing eq i just feel that its not the game for me. Currently im waiting for D&DO this year and Vanguard late next year.
Oh I praise God everyday for Blizzard making WoW. It's made EQ2 the best game on the market, and breathed new life into SWG.
You seem to have a large amount of contempt for Blizzard it seems, not that i don't understand it, you don't like wow period and there are many like you and thats a good thing for there are many choices for our daily mmorpg fix.
But what bothers me is the fact that you speak of wow as a failure in terms of gamedesign and more importantly cs, i find this hard coming from you, a strong supporter of eq2, if we compare the 2 games, their fundamentals, game design, content, can you seriously say that they are not 2 saides of the same coin? both rely on large numbers of quests to disguised the grind, both have many of the same game systems, like brokers, mail, eq style combat, talent and spell/ability based character advancement systems, and i can keep going. The only difference i can see between the 2 games is their gfx and communities, eq2 seems to have a more mature and respectful player base, but then again, im generalizing, ppl say that the wow community sucks, i can agree with that to a certain point, but while i played wow i met many good ppl, you were out to have fun and socialize with their fellow players, the same can be said for eq2, no? i bet you have found some ppl there that you didn't like.
What everyone seems to be missing here, including the 2 most vocal defenders of wow and eq2, jpedro and jodokai, is that they are fundamentally the same, there are no ground breaking designs in each of them that differentiate one from the other, we can talk all we want about which has a better cs, but we all know that SOE has made massive blunders in SWG as well as eq1, and please don't point out again that it was lucasarts fault, SOE is the developer, they published, they have bought the license and they have complete control of the game, noone is blaming bioware for kotor are they? the game was great and lucasarts involment was only in the sound department, even now can we say that lucasarts is teh devil? they have provided us with some of the best games in pc history, who doesn't remember sam and max hit the road, full throttle, day of the tentacle, the indiana jones adventure games and so on, they have good quality assurance, why would they set out to ruin SWG in particular? i think you are just having wishfully thoughts jodokai, give credit where its due, mainly SOE.
Now im not defending blizzard has better tactics, they are slow to respond to their server issues, they have launched little to no content since launch, we still have zero information about the expansion, battlegrounds were a complete joke, they have been nerfing some classes and boosting others with no apparent reason, and they have the most snobbish attitude i can think of, they don't give a %&$# about the player base or their issues.
Originally posted by Kem0sabe Jodokai, did you not mentioned how having problems at release as bad cs? I would like to remind you that no other mmorpg in history had the launch that wow hadin terms of initial population, blizzard didnt know that that many ppl would rush out to buy the game, this ws their first mmorpg and they didnt expect such a large influx on their servers... can you imagine SOE taking eq2 of the shelves, stopping production for several weeks and holding all sales of the game because their servers were packed? i dont think so, but blizzard did just that so they could better provide CS to their initial player base.
I LOVE when people use this excuse: So what you're telling me is that the Devs at Blizzard aren't incompetent they're just stupid. Either way it's a poor handling.. And for the record, both SWG and EQ1 have had more people per server than Blizzard (if you take the number of people playing divided by the number of players, the number of people per server isn't lower for blizzard). SOE would never HAVE to do that. They KNOW how to run an MMO. They KNOW how to do market reseasrch and keep their servers up. Where you around the launch of UO or EQ1? they launched extremly buggy games, ridden with game braking desing issues and with nowhere and i mean not even close to the ammount of content that wow was launched it. Right and Blizzard should have learned from them being 6 YEARS later. When UO and EQ1 launched they were breaking new ground. They coudln't look at anyone else and say this is what worked this is what didn't. So you do think the people at Blizzard are stupid then? Not being able to fix the mistakes that were around 6 years ago. So, for everyone that has been flaming blizzard or SOE, remmenber one thing, wow has not been out for a year yet, they have an extremly large player base and an absurd number of servers working, but they are working on their problems and do provide decent cs considering the circumstances, Blizzard is still new at this so give them their due credit for an overrall decent initial launch of their game. SOE does have its problems, but like it or not, they do work on resolving their bugs on a weekly basis, with constant content updates. Altough they are not known to cater to their player base, as can be seen in SWG, they are not afraid to implement design decisions that change their games in an effort to better them, thats something i applaud in them, they have the balls to do what is needed. You have an odd definition of "decent launch" my friend. And you're also using another classic example and proving you think Blizzard is stupid. "This is their first MMO" Sure it's the first MMO with the Blizzard name on it, but I'm sure the actual people that coded this game HAVE worked on MMO's before. If they programmers that have never worked on an MMO they truely are as dumb as you're making them out to be.
Also would like to mention that both companies have much to offer to the mmorpg scene, both eq1 and wow have done much to introduce mmorpg´s to large audiences and are the basis for wich the future is beeing built on, especialy new games like D&DO and Vanguard, both of wich borrow heavily from eq and wow in terms of game mechanics and quest driven content, would like to point that im not counting eq2 in this, althoug i had a try at the trial of the isle demo, it just felt like eq but without the magic that was present in the old game, it just seems bland and seems to lack imagination, maybe im wrong, and a demo is nothing to base my opinions on, but coming from a long time playing eq i just feel that its not the game for me. Currently im waiting for D&DO this year and Vanguard late next year.
Oh I praise God everyday for Blizzard making WoW. It's made EQ2 the best game on the market, and breathed new life into SWG.
You can like what ever game you want. Hell....I wont even tell you wow is better. But you must be smoking some serious crack if you think SWG has gotten any life breathed back into it. Saying some stupid sh%t like that just retracts anything intelligent you could ever say on these forums.
Originally posted by Kem0sabe You seem to have a large amount of contempt for Blizzard it seems, not that i don't understand it, you don't like wow period and there are many like you and thats a good thing for there are many choices for our daily mmorpg fix. I don't have any contempt for Blizzard. You're the one that thinks a game company would repeatedly make stupid mistakes. But what bothers me is the fact that you speak of wow as a failure in terms of gamedesign and more importantly cs, i find this hard coming from you, a strong supporter of eq2, if we compare the 2 games, their fundamentals, game design, content, can you seriously say that they are not 2 saides of the same coin? both rely on large numbers of quests to disguised the grind, both have many of the same game systems, like brokers, mail, eq style combat, talent and spell/ability based character advancement systems, and i can keep going. The only difference i can see between the 2 games is their gfx and communities, eq2 seems to have a more mature and respectful player base, but then again, im generalizing, ppl say that the wow community sucks, i can agree with that to a certain point, but while i played wow i met many good ppl, you were out to have fun and socialize with their fellow players, the same can be said for eq2, no? i bet you have found some ppl there that you didn't like. WoW's CS is an incredible failure. The Dev communication when servers are down is horrible. In the begining Devs would deny anything was wrong at all, even though NO ONE could log in. This has become better, but still no where near the level of EQ2. SOE has made leaps and bounds in the CS department, and while it's no where near the level of City of Heroes (a game I can't stand, but am able to point out the good points of it), it is better than WoW. No I save my contempt for people that because they like one game, they refuse to see that another game does something better, and that the game they like couldn't possible have flaws (I am NOT refering to you Kem0Sabe). I agree the games are remarkably similar. The reasons I don't play WoW: Server outages, horrible community, server outages, I like EQ2's graphics more, server outages, I don't like guns and steam punk in my fantasy, and server outages. As far as the community: Yes in EQ2 there have been people I don't like, but I have to look for them. In WoW I have to look for people I do like. What everyone seems to be missing here, including the 2 most vocal defenders of wow and eq2, jpedro and jodokai, is that they are fundamentally the same, there are no ground breaking designs in each of them that differentiate one from the other, we can talk all we want about which has a better cs, but we all know that SOE has made massive blunders in SWG as well as eq1, and please don't point out again that it was lucasarts fault, SOE is the developer, they published, they have bought the license and they have complete control of the game, noone is blaming bioware for kotor are they? the game was great and lucasarts involment was only in the sound department, even now can we say that lucasarts is teh devil? they have provided us with some of the best games in pc history, who doesn't remember sam and max hit the road, full throttle, day of the tentacle, the indiana jones adventure games and so on, they have good quality assurance, why would they set out to ruin SWG in particular? i think you are just having wishfully thoughts jodokai, give credit where its due, mainly SOE. First you are VERY wrong in your assumptions about the Lucas Arts/SOE relationship. SOE didn't buy the license. Take a look at the Home page of the site we're posting on right now. There is an interview with one of the developers for SWG. Guess who he works for? Lucas Arts. Guess what his job is? Quality Assurance. Everytime something comes out with bugs it's because he let it. SOE cannot implement anything without LA's final approval. Lucas Arts is not "just involed with the sound". they are the Produces, the Lead Testers, the marketing and sales etc. You REALLY need to check your facts before making claims like this (Fadeus if you're reading this, he's new that's why I'm going easy on him for now ) You are also VERY mistaken about the quality of games LA has produced. Of the two, SOE has been MUCH more successful. Most of their games fall between the average to down right crappy. I not just "having wishfully thoughts" and if you actually knew what you were talking about you'd see that too. Now im not defending blizzard has better tactics, they are slow to respond to their server issues, they have launched little to no content since launch, we still have zero information about the expansion, battlegrounds were a complete joke, they have been nerfing some classes and boosting others with no apparent reason, and they have the most snobbish attitude i can think of, they don't give a %&$# about the player base or their issues. Just my 2 cents. AHHH now you finally see where I'm coming from. This is EXACTLY what I've been saying from the begining. Now that WoW has already been made, handing it to SOE, who can manage to do all the things you were complaining about would be a good idea. Look, I'm not one of these sheep that has to go with the crowed and can't admit that a game I like is flawed. When a Dev screws up, I'll be the first to point it out.
I think you made some very valid points and i respect them. After i had a better look i admit i was wrong about the SOE/lucasarts relationship for SWG, it seems lucas has a more hands on aproach than i thought, tho i do have one single issue with you... Lucasarts games in the past, not talking the ones in the near past, were some of the most amazing games ever made, im talking about Tie fighter, X-wing, X wing vs. Tie fighter, all those adventure games i mentioned before, tho i must admit im not sure if sam and max and day of the tentacle were from lucasarts, but im sure indiana jones and the search for atlantis, the dig, full throtle were. Dunno if you played any of those games, but i strongly recomend them
Originally posted by Kem0sabe I think you made some very valid points and i respect them. After i had a better look i admit i was wrong about the SOE/lucasarts relationship for SWG, it seems lucas has a more hands on aproach than i thought, tho i do have one single issue with you... Lucasarts games in the past, not talking the ones in the near past, were some of the most amazing games ever made, im talking about Tie fighter, X-wing, X wing vs. Tie fighter, all those adventure games i mentioned before, tho i must admit im not sure if sam and max and day of the tentacle were from lucasarts, but im sure indiana jones and the search for atlantis, the dig, full throtle were. Dunno if you played any of those games, but i strongly recomend them
Tie-Fighter and the rest were good in their day. They weren't the best games on the market (Wing Commander anyone?), but they were good. Indiana Jones was okay, it had some targeting/camera issues, but again, it's not going to win any awards (and didn't). Full throtle same story. All the games that weren't downright awful, were just "all right".
SOE, if nothing else has EQ which, besides breaking new ground and really being the Mother of MMO's, won Online Game of the Year, and Game of the Year from several orginizations. But the biggest thing that convinces me it has to do with LA is EQ2. Look at how EQ2 has been handled compared to SWG. SOE is the same the only difference is LA.
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First of all, SOE Couldn't afford to buy WoW if they sold everything that had. Blizzard knows they have one of the biggest cash cows in MMO history with WoW and no way no how would they get rid of that, if they did, it would sing handedly be the dumbest move done by anyone in gaming history and yes that includes AC2
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But anyways... the grass is always greener as they say. Patchs with bugs get pushed into live in EQ2 all the time, there's almost zero end game for EQ2, many (counts as over 5) classes have been broken since release, we get CHARGED for some content (read as any content they put time and or thought into), there are some 100+ basic bugs and issues still lying aroung seemingly ignored by soe that have been in game since beta phase 2 (read as: griffon black out, phase resilence, many class bugs) and really the list goes on and on.
I personally feel that overall WoW is the better game, i've just gotten stuck in EQ2 due to the much better community. Se be thankful for what you have AND what you DONT have. (<<-- read as you DONT have to deal with SOE, I admire you for that)
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Hmm, we can play this game of twisting each others words all day long, the point is, can you honestly say that SOE has provided duringt all these years a good and reliable service to their customers? take into account here all the problems, SWG, EQlive, EQ2, Planetside have had.
When you stop all this hate toards wow and blizzard, you come to realize that:
a) their product is good, no matter how you try to spin it, more than 2m ppl play it, including many who have played eqlive, wich much ppl seem to consider the tru "harcore players" mmorpg, dunno if you fit intop that category or not.
b) blizzard has a track record of launching stable and finished products, review each and every blizzard game and you will end up not beeing able to deny that, unlike SOE, wich seems to mess up every gmae they get their greedy hands on. Why is it that none of the orignal dev teams have stayed with the SOE mmorpg´s except for everquest 2´s dev team?
The eqlive original team left the game while sony brought in new members to further develop the expansions, SWG has lost its original dev team, wich SOe replaced with dev´s from outside, these are supposed to be 2 of SOE´s flagship titles, why do the dev teams suddenly seem to leave the projects? I reserve my judgement on eq2, i will wait and see how they handle that one.
further more, i have only one word for you when you say compare patch notes from wow to other SOE games.... the combat upgrade to SWG, after coming from EQ2 to SWG, i just see it as a very dumbed down version of the EQ2 combat system.
Finaly wich server i played in eq2? i played in AB server, wich is RP prefered, my characters names were Grove, Gawl and Rissen, among others, and if you at any time raided in eq2, wich im not sure you did, because your funny statement on the endgame loot, you will notice that the endgame loot for raids is shit, no way around that fact mate, its utter crap, but then again, i wont make any assumptions concerning you.
P.S, these are just my very personal views of the games in question, im not out to hate/grief/agravate or call anyone names, i understand how ppl can have very different views on the same subject, but thats the beauty of online forums, we be here to discuss things, lets not get into any flame wars here.
[quote]Originally posted by difancer
[b][/quote]
[b]seeing your online time playing wow your a fanboy
Yeah... that many hours since March. I must be a huuuuge fanboy
Weuw if gargantroo already is a fanboi... thent what the hell am I?!
Anyway, I would like:
Wishful thinking?... Yes
Flych - 70 Blood Elf Retribution Paladin - Tarren Mill (EU)
Mediocre - 70 Undead Discipline Priest - Tarren Mill (EU)
It seems that the more important fact here that you have not responded to, is do you think SOE has provided a better service than blizzard?
If someone were to do a poll on this subject and rate both companies, we would prolly have SOE winning the prize of worst custommer support. SWG cs? its a joke,ll Eqlive Cs has been going down hill for some time now, eq2 cs? i have had repeated trouble in the game, including not being able to use gryphins on some of the towers, characters being stuck, instances crashing, loot bugs, just to name a few, not one of my tickets was answered. Maybe its just me, and im generalising, but i have had no luck with them.
On the matter of dev teams moving on, we are not speaking of a single player game, i understand why the team that did kotor 1 didnt do kotor 2, we be speaking of mmorpg´s where the original dev team´s vision and development document are the basis of the continuing development of the game, content and gameplay wise, how do you expect a new team to pick up a game like SWG already deep into launch and them not making mistakes? every decision made has turned the game away from the gamestyle that first apealed to the original player base, they have changed much, and in most cases, to the worst, but then again, regarding SWG im just putting into words some of the conversations i have had with other players, i have little play time with the game, so maybe im not the best person to judge.
Regarding the fact of my current active character in eq2 is level 21, that means nothing, i have been on and off from the game since launch, coming over from eqlive, i have closed and opened new account, seeing as i bought 3 accounts when the game launched, as i played a 3 character hydra in eqlive, so i did the same with eq2, currently i closed my other accounts and deleted and transfered the funds from my other toons to my current one, as you can see, this is a very commen thing to do in eq.
Ragarding the endgame RAID loot, you seem to be the ONLY player that is satisfied with it, everyone else i know that has raided thinks its worthless for the time effort expended. MAybe its changed since i last was into raiding, maybe new loot tables were added, i dunno, just speaking from my experience and that of a few close friends of mine.
Personaly i dont think Blizzard´s cs sucks, at least on the deathwing server (europe) there i have had all my issues resolved within 24 hours, with the exception of weekends, when it might take a little time longer, but the point here is, i have had my issues resolved, CS never failed to answer a request or ignore me, unlike what has hapenned to me in SWG, Eqlive and EQ2.
I guess the other problem with SOE having control would be that instead of getting patches all the time they would be called add-on's and we would be paying $20-$30 for them. I really don't want that. Seemed like in EQ that had new add-on's every 3-6 months and they weren't cheap.
Necrotank
I always get a chuckle when people bust out with this "logic". The insinuation is that despite having a lot of subscribers, WoW is a crap game.
The bottom line is that people pay to play games that are fun. This simple concept has eluded SoE time and time again. EQ had 4+ years on the market at a time when there was almost zero competition. What a kick in the nuts it must be to Smedley to think that for all the time EQ had in the marketplace, the best EQ2 can do is barely half the subscribers of EQ - including foreign releases.
If past success alone can draw in that many people to WoW, then I guess it stands to reason that past infamy can have an equal effect on a product like EQ2. Little tip to Smed: tell your devs to remove terms like "grinding" and "risk vs. reward" from their vocabulary. Apply simple tests to your game such as "is this actually FUN, or does this feel like work".
So while your model of "fun" (I call it instant gratifcation, or the "why read the book when I can watch the movie" model) may draw inital numbers, ask City of Heroes how well it's doing for them long term. Take a look around this forum. Go back a few pages to see how the attitude about WoW has changed. People are getting sick of it. Even Firemagic, who was so fanatical in his fanboi-ism that he would troll the EQ2 forms looking for ways to slam EQ2 and tout how great WoW was, has come out of his delirum and seen, it's not all it's cracked up to be.
Now to answer the question of how I think SOE has handled their games better than Blizzard: Are you kidding me? Lets take a look at WoW's down time. 42 hours down at release, and that was login server. Wait queues, server crashes. Some of this is better, but the stability is just not there. That's horrible handling of it.
Now look at patch notes: EQ2 is loaded with content updates and fixes galore. They have totally changed the game around in the few months it's been out. WoW, some content updates, a few class fixes, but no where near as large or as often as the patches in EQ2 and SWG. I have also stated that I feel the main reason SWG is/was in such a state is Lucas Arts. I mean compare the two game they are night and day.
I would say if what you say about WoW CS is true, then you are probably one of 10,000 that has had that happen to. I would also say you are about 1 of 5000 that has had that many bad experiences in EQ2, who even cynics are saying SOE has come a long way with their CS.
Fact of the matter is that blizzard is NOT adding content into the game, per se. Most of this is content that was "incomplete" at launch, and it took them about 8 months to get it done.
If it is regular updates of free content you are interested in, migt I suggest you Try out City of Heroes and/or City of Villians?
Fact of the matter is that WoW's and SOE's GM support is pretty horrible in both sides.
BOTH companies have responsded to bugs with "we are aware of this issue". Blizzard told me to check the forums (which I had already done).
IMHO, the only good customer support is from City of Heroes and EVE online. In both games, I had helpful GMs respond to my problems within a few minutes of mine asking. EVE online even sent me a greeter within a few days after I started the game to check up on me and see if I needed help with anything.
I've never played Eve, but I totally agree that CoH has their stuff together when it comes to CS.
regarding raids and raid loot, anyone from the eq boards that has seen any of my semi-recent posts knows that i love raiding in the game. my guild uses a DKP (dragon kill point) system that basically works like this. every time you go on a raid you get a certain amount of points. most common raids are worth 2 points. longer several hour raid instances are worth more, and important named mobs for quests like prismatics are worth 10 (ie darathar). twice a week every week we bid on things with points. here's just a few of the items we have up for bid this round:
(keep in mind that all items are red to the person insepcting them since our guild mule is only level 6, so you arent seeing the full stats - including the procs)
Schutzbar - Human Warrior - Windrunner Alliance - World of Warcraft
Nihilanth - Kerra Paladin - Blackburrow - EverQuest II
XBL Gamertag - Eagle15GT
Jodokai, did you not mentioned how having problems at release as bad cs? I would like to remind you that no other mmorpg in history had the launch that wow hadin terms of initial population, blizzard didnt know that that many ppl would rush out to buy the game, this ws their first mmorpg and they didnt expect such a large influx on their servers... can you imagine SOE taking eq2 of the shelves, stopping production for several weeks and holding all sales of the game because their servers were packed? i dont think so, but blizzard did just that so they could better provide CS to their initial player base.
Where you around the launch of UO or EQ1? they launched extremly buggy games, ridden with game braking desing issues and with nowhere and i mean not even close to the ammount of content that wow was launched it.
So, for everyone that has been flaming blizzard or SOE, remmenber one thing, wow has not been out for a year yet, they have an extremly large player base and an absurd number of servers working, but they are working on their problems and do provide decent cs considering the circumstances, Blizzard is still new at this so give them their due credit for an overrall decent initial launch of their game. SOE does have its problems, but like it or not, they do work on resolving their bugs on a weekly basis, with constant content updates. Altough they are not known to cater to their player base, as can be seen in SWG, they are not afraid to implement design decisions that change their games in an effort to better them, thats something i applaud in them, they have the balls to do what is needed.
Also would like to mention that both companies have much to offer to the mmorpg scene, both eq1 and wow have done much to introduce mmorpg´s to large audiences and are the basis for wich the future is beeing built on, especialy new games like D&DO and Vanguard, both of wich borrow heavily from eq and wow in terms of game mechanics and quest driven content, would like to point that im not counting eq2 in this, althoug i had a try at the trial of the isle demo, it just felt like eq but without the magic that was present in the old game, it just seems bland and seems to lack imagination, maybe im wrong, and a demo is nothing to base my opinions on, but coming from a long time playing eq i just feel that its not the game for me. Currently im waiting for D&DO this year and Vanguard late next year.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Those are some nice items, tho nowhere near the fluf that used to drop from eq1 raids, i did notice that those items seem to have pretty generic setup to them, are the weapon/armor models for them anything to take notice of? i remmenber from eq1 that everyone looked unique and it was possible to get some pretty interesting items, visualy at least.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
I played several SOE games, and Blizzard as well. Blizzard murders their games with patches and poor servers, SOE murders theirs through poor maintenence and customer support. SWG, Planetside? It took SWG over 3 months for some classes to even work, which I can't say Blizzard ever had a problem with (likely due to the mass beta testing). On the other hand, EQ2 for example, didn't crash for a week at release.
To be fair though, I don't think either company handles their MMO's very well. They still allow items in game to be sold for money out of game, which is against every game's TOS ever made, save for EQ2, which encourages it it seems with the whole Station Exchange. I'd like to see a company enforce their own TOS before we start judging who's good and who's bad at what they do, because right now, in my eyes, they all fail.
Waiting for something fresh to arrive on the MMO scene...
Oh I praise God everyday for Blizzard making WoW. It's made EQ2 the best game on the market, and breathed new life into SWG.
You seem to have a large amount of contempt for Blizzard it seems, not that i don't understand it, you don't like wow period and there are many like you and thats a good thing for there are many choices for our daily mmorpg fix.
But what bothers me is the fact that you speak of wow as a failure in terms of gamedesign and more importantly cs, i find this hard coming from you, a strong supporter of eq2, if we compare the 2 games, their fundamentals, game design, content, can you seriously say that they are not 2 saides of the same coin? both rely on large numbers of quests to disguised the grind, both have many of the same game systems, like brokers, mail, eq style combat, talent and spell/ability based character advancement systems, and i can keep going. The only difference i can see between the 2 games is their gfx and communities, eq2 seems to have a more mature and respectful player base, but then again, im generalizing, ppl say that the wow community sucks, i can agree with that to a certain point, but while i played wow i met many good ppl, you were out to have fun and socialize with their fellow players, the same can be said for eq2, no? i bet you have found some ppl there that you didn't like.
What everyone seems to be missing here, including the 2 most vocal defenders of wow and eq2, jpedro and jodokai, is that they are fundamentally the same, there are no ground breaking designs in each of them that differentiate one from the other, we can talk all we want about which has a better cs, but we all know that SOE has made massive blunders in SWG as well as eq1, and please don't point out again that it was lucasarts fault, SOE is the developer, they published, they have bought the license and they have complete control of the game, noone is blaming bioware for kotor are they? the game was great and lucasarts involment was only in the sound department, even now can we say that lucasarts is teh devil? they have provided us with some of the best games in pc history, who doesn't remember sam and max hit the road, full throttle, day of the tentacle, the indiana jones adventure games and so on, they have good quality assurance, why would they set out to ruin SWG in particular? i think you are just having wishfully thoughts jodokai, give credit where its due, mainly SOE.
Now im not defending blizzard has better tactics, they are slow to respond to their server issues, they have launched little to no content since launch, we still have zero information about the expansion, battlegrounds were a complete joke, they have been nerfing some classes and boosting others with no apparent reason, and they have the most snobbish attitude i can think of, they don't give a %&$# about the player base or their issues.
Just my 2 cents.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Oh I praise God everyday for Blizzard making WoW. It's made EQ2 the best game on the market, and breathed new life into SWG.
You can like what ever game you want. Hell....I wont even tell you wow is better. But you must be smoking some serious crack if you think SWG has gotten any life breathed back into it. Saying some stupid sh%t like that just retracts anything intelligent you could ever say on these forums.
All ur Mountain Dew is belong to me.
Aye, totally agree. I am a die hard SOE fan. I love EVERY game they have come out with. EQ, SWG, EQ2, Planetside. Yes, I even have station pass.
I wish SOE bought WoW. BUt, that will never happen
Tie-Fighter and the rest were good in their day. They weren't the best games on the market (Wing Commander anyone?), but they were good. Indiana Jones was okay, it had some targeting/camera issues, but again, it's not going to win any awards (and didn't). Full throtle same story. All the games that weren't downright awful, were just "all right".
SOE, if nothing else has EQ which, besides breaking new ground and really being the Mother of MMO's, won Online Game of the Year, and Game of the Year from several orginizations. But the biggest thing that convinces me it has to do with LA is EQ2. Look at how EQ2 has been handled compared to SWG. SOE is the same the only difference is LA.