----> Connecting from Germany is Lag-o-Rama. Where other publishers offer fast backbone solutions even for players from the end of the world; I'm sitting in 340 people/sqm central europe and have a constant 450 ms ping???
Meridion
Uhm.. why don't you play on the European servers then, like Runnyeye?
----> Connecting from Germany is Lag-o-Rama. Where other publishers offer fast backbone solutions even for players from the end of the world; I'm sitting in 340 people/sqm central europe and have a constant 450 ms ping???
Meridion
Uhm.. why don't you play on the European servers then, like Runnyeye?
Becuase they end up merging them into US servers due to low population of the euro servers.
----> Connecting from Germany is Lag-o-Rama. Where other publishers offer fast backbone solutions even for players from the end of the world; I'm sitting in 340 people/sqm central europe and have a constant 450 ms ping???
Meridion
Uhm.. why don't you play on the European servers then, like Runnyeye?
Becuase they end up merging them into US servers due to low population of the euro servers.
ide suggest you go read up on the merger of the Asian servers into US servers, or perhaps the pvp servers ............. it does happen ............. and it has
of course whats even worse is when US servers merge into other US servers from US population dwindling .................. but that probally never happened either lol.
HHmm i was reading all the post in here and the itle doesn't justify, Eq2 is a total successful game the only difference why the subs are lower it's easy, Its called a mature (you have to earn it game) Most kid players do not want to earn there way. Wow offers the paved way by buying and not earning on the ah. Also the game (WOW) is centered around children (aka why the community is terrbile)! Eq2 is more mature and adult themed and there are (last time i checked) more kid players than adult!
HHmm i was reading all the post in here and the itle doesn't justify, Eq2 is a total successful game the only difference why the subs are lower it's easy, Its called a mature (you have to earn it game) Most kid players do not want to earn there way. Wow offers the paved way by buying and not earning on the ah. Also the game (WOW) is centered around children (aka why the community is terrbile)! Eq2 is more mature and adult themed and there are (last time i checked) more kid players than adult! Praises to SOE EQ2 is perfect!
Ok this is just pure "OPINION" and "CONJECTURE". Guk server had plenty of immature people that made it abundantly clear they were "Kids" and more of them were on during the off school hours and weekends. The community is about the same on both games, there are just more people in general on WoW at any given time (at least on Guk in EQ II and Korialstrasz in WoW the amount of immature people was the same). I have had to deal with immature people on both games and do so in the same ways. First I private message them and explain what they did wrong, then if they don't see the error of their ways, I ignore them, and then I look at EQ2players.com and the Warcraft armory and find out who their guild leaders are, send them messages about the person in question and the bad behavior. I have to tell you, I get the same reactions in both games. People are looking to just play a game and have fun, its just there are more people on WoW and that leads to more people to misbehaive and act immature. But to say that most players on EQ II are more mature is just opinion. Its just there are less people on EQ II so less people misbehaiving. If the populations were the same, the situation would be the same.
I mean look at the chart above, 68% of the market share is WoW, and 1% of the market share is EQ II, so that shows you more people subscribe to WoW at any given time and are playing, to the 1% on EQ II. Less people, less people to misbehaive and make the community look bad. I have to tell you, between the two game communities, the full time EQ II players do seem to me, in my opinion, have a much higher opinion of themselves for playing EQ II. But more people play WoW at a given time then EQ II so more people to misbehaive, though the people there are less concerned about "How they are much better than people playing EQ II". They just simply don't worry about it. People on EQ II, the whole time I played (from beta to about 5 months ago) bashed WoW in open chat channels "EVERY DAY", where as people in WoW don't feel the need to bash other games there. I have not heard ONE person bash another game in WoW in open chat channels in the five months I have been playing that game. Fear what you don't understand and hate on it seems to be the philosophy of EQ II players. I was guilty of it too. I did exactly the same thing, "WoW sucks, its the worst thing ever" but I realized after I tried WoW, I was just trying to justify my loyalty to EQ II and make myself feel better about playing it because it just simply wasn't as much pure fun as WoW.
Sorry to bust thy bubble, but that is a total load of crap i just read and here is why!
First if the communities were the same in population, We as eq2 players would still have our community in check. We dont take to kid play lightly community shun comes to mind!
Next what you wrote above would be the typical WOW response and here is why!
For a fact i played wow from starting day to last month and you say they dont crack on other games..Please come to my server
Scarlet crusade and listen and read the posts, you will change that mind!
I play on Antonia Bayle server (RP) and we keep our server clean best we can. Now why is eq2 a lower population... well i just explained it. We keep the kids away and it's a mature game.
Also in eq2 you must EARN YOUR WAY. Not buy it on the ah .. kids love the easy way!
Sorry to bust thy bubble, but that is a total load of crap i just read and here is why! Ok this is again "YOUR OPINION", nothing but your "PERSONAL FEELINGS" First if the communities were the same in population, We as eq2 players would still have our community in check. We dont take to kid play lightly community shun comes to mind! You never played on GUK server did you? You only play on the RP servers huh? Things are exactly like in WoW except there are fewer players around and thats the only reason it seems like less silly kids being rude to people in open chat, I can tell you horror stories about kids ninja looting in groups, or getting people killed on purpose, or by refusing to heal in group because they couldn't get to be group leader. It happens in EQ II, don't fool yourself, maybe not as much on the RP servers, but I don't ever play on the RP servers. Next what you wrote above would be the typical WOW response and here is why! Again, what you said is the typical response of a kid in either game that doesn't think out what they are arguing about and just want to be heard and tries to speak the loudest. So you, by your own actions are admittedly acting like a WoW player kid huh? For a fact i played wow from starting day to last month and you say they dont crack on other games..Please come to my server I Said I played EQ II from BETA to about 5 months ago, so I think I have pretty good insite into what goes on there. I have played through every expansion packs beta test and saw all the changes first hand on the regular servers, since I played everyday for several hours I know what the regular servers are like. I constantly heard people complaining about WoW and talking bad about it to make themselves feel better about playing EQ II and get through all the lousy changes that were forced on them. I have never heard any other community, WoW, Guildwars, City of Heroes, etc. talk as much "Smack" in regards to another game as the community on EQ II. I have NEVER heard anyone on Korialstrasz do it, they are too busy having "FUN". Scarlet crusade and listen and read the posts, you will change that mind! AGAIN, I do not wish to play on a RP server or I would be there, I play on Korialstrasz, and we don't have the problems you apparently do over on Scarlet Crusade. I mean you make it sound like you just "Recently" came over from WoW to EQ II anyway, give it time, you'll see it happen in EQ II. Then again with EQ II having only 1% of the subscriber market share, maybe it will be a long time till you do. I play on Antonia Bayle server (RP) and we keep our server clean best we can. Now why is eq2 a lower population... well i just explained it. We keep the kids away and it's a mature game. How can you keep a server clean, do you have the GMs on your payroll? Do you have anti-kid magnet? Most kids choose to play on the fun servers and the RP servers on EQ II are boring and bland, with people like yourself making up the rules on how people should behaive in OOC and open channels acting like the EQ II Nazi's, so in my opinion, thats why they play on the regular and PVP servers. So go play over there and see what happens. You won't be able to keep the kids away from the regular and PVP servers, in particular the PVP servers. Also in eq2 you must EARN YOUR WAY. Not buy it on the ah .. kids love the easy way! That statement is total bull too, you can buy your way in EQ II now as well. You can buy up all the items on the auction house, transmute them, make them into adornments, buy good gear and put the adornments onto the items that you bought. Its the same in ANY GAME that uses and Auction system. You can buy your way to the best spells (if you have the cash you can buy all the master spells from the broker and you have a HUGE advantage over other players), the best gear and the best weapons in EQ II. Plus in WoW now, the best quest items are now bind on pick up and you can't sell them on the auction house. You have to use them, disenchant them or sell them to the npc vendors now. So don't try to make people think the way you do with your "OPINION" of the way things work in other games, its just not that different between WoW and EQ II because they both work on a Buy and Sell Auction system where the person with the MOST MONEY WINS. remember that one! I know what I am speaking of, EQ II is easy too, you used to have a decent death penalty, you used to be have to level up to pick your class, you used to never have quest helpers to point you to where the quest givers are on the map, or the little pens and books over their heads to make it easier to find them, the longer the game goes the easier and more WOW like the devs are making it. EQ II is easy too, don't fool yourself and they pulled most of the stuff to make the game easier from WoW because it worked better and more people were enjoying it. Matter of fact, even in the forums the Devs, including the president of SoE, John Smedly admitted they too played WoW and like a lot of the game and thats why they were adding things from WoW, to make it easier and more fun. So maybe you should be playing vanguard if you really wanna get rid of all the kids, trash talk and have a game you have to really "EARN" stuff on. I think you would fit right in with their community there anyway.
Ok that is my response to your silly rantings, trollings and "OPINIONS". Nothing you stated was fact, its all based on your opinion and what you believe to be true. So please, if you can't give real facts, don't comment at all or go back and start playing on a regular or better yet PVP server. Thanks
I don't even know how to highlight and put all them yellow words into my reply...
Fact is, I play WoW AND EQ2 and I am honest, the Warcraft community is one of the worst I nhave ever gamed with. The cats playing EQ 2 are kinda cool.
It's very simple...
There are less people on EQ II, by a lot, 1% EQ II, 68% WoW, of course its going to seem like more jerks there, there are simply more "PLAYERS" on WoW. If EQ II had 68% of the market, we would be talking about how the EQ II community being worse than WoW because of all the jerks. Its just simple math. More people, more people to act like jerks. So I guess in a way, its a blessing that WoW has 68% of the market share to EQ II's 1%.
- Both games host complete idiots and a good share of kids
- Both games are very very much alike. Both are "easy-mode", which is not necessarily a bad thing
- Both games offer - to a great degree - the very same features.
It's - as I said before - the package that gives EQ2 1% market share and WoW 68%. It's in no way "cool as hell", literally, nothing in EQ2 is like "Whoa, that sword/dungeon/armor/landmark/zone/building/city is so cool"... And don't fool yourself, EVERY player wants these moments, 50 year old or kindergarten-aged...
Meridion
EDIT: OH, and I agree, in WoW, nobody is bashing other games, some are bashing WoW because they are burned-out, but that's a different story. In other games though, everyone is bashing WoW, which is so ridiculous it makes me laugh every time I hear it.
I played on the EQ2 test server full time and the population there doesn't get any tighter or close knit than that. We still had our share of immature kids, we just all knew them by first name. They continued to play the game despite most people not wanting them around. Claiming EQ2 has some magical means of controlling how people behave in an online game is just delusional. You have no more control over your game than anyone else in any other game.
Also, I left the live servers because it was packed with jackholes in hopes of finding a better community on the test server and for the most part it was. However all games have idiots and loudmouths. All pools of gamers are the same, no one game is "mature" compared to any other. Everytime I hear someone talk about how mature EQ2 is, it is quickly followed up by a bunch of name calling towards WoW. I always scratch my head when I read that and wonder what people are thinking.
Maybe this is a contributing factor to the lack of popularity of the game.
Of all the MMOs I've played over the years - must be around 20 - EQ2 was one of the communities that lived mostly in "their own world"; Living in this world by the credo "EQ2 is fine and people that don't realize this (any other gamer) are just screwed". Now while you can say at the moment that EQ2 is a fine single player casual game; Back in 2005, HELL this game was a mess, with constant changes from heroic bugs across the qeynos bridge to 4 steps to craft some stacks of wood...
Even then, EQ2ers where inquisionally sure their game was objectively "the best" and ALL the other people where just totally off-track
Meridion
EDIT: This goes as far as a guy on a german board who told me in all seriousness: "Hey, you don't believe that crap about population, do you? EQ2 has just as many people playing as WoW, WoW just hast the more criminal methods and better propaganda"... And yes, he did use the words 'criminal' and 'propaganda'... Conspiracy anyone?
I state my opinion like he said above yet im not the one yelling and going raving mad!
Well shows right there my point alot really, We as eq 2 players love mature and great game play (we pay for playing) and we like to earn and do things right. Now for WOW players when in doubt buy gold and buy it on the ah. thats the life of a average wow player. I know i played WOW from day 1. As i stated and will do again WOW is a easy game that is controlled by kids and for kids thats why the community is bad and gold sellers make fortunes!
Raiding is WOW - I am a soloist and yes i can solo in wow ... but if i want the best gear to even compete in pvp i must raid , very interesting! That show best gear in WOW wins!
Eq2 - totally different and to the guy above im sorry but if you played EQ2 you would know the communities in EQ2 do not tollerate kid play. (now to those who dont know what i mean by kid play here is an example) chuck norris jokes, not playing right in groups like not healing helping out etc... We as a community in EQ2 ask them politly once start playing right or be ignored community wide. and many kid do get the boot from the community. we pay for our game and just ask respect to play the game!
Thats why we hate gold sellers and account sellers. also! We also try to keep the brokers (exchange for those who dont know) in check! so if you played EQ2 for real you would know what im talking about plain and simple!
I hear opinions are like.... In that case yours must be big and spew yellow because thats about as good as it read. Again thanks for the big yellow opinion.
Several factors come to mind for me. Poor Customer care, game was not a great release, for the first few months there was hardly any solo player content. The fact that a few players who knew what SoE were like have avoided the game.
Even though the game has improved (its taken 2yrs to do that) many feel that was too long (me included), and there have been improvementrs with 1 update but all it takes to wipe that out is 1 poor update (much like LU19) that took the game right back to square 1.
After the release of said Vanguard i have to be very dubious about any game that has the SoE tag label with it from now on. I have learnt the hard way myself but i still will purchase SoE games IF and only IF they have a 70% player recomendation, so out of 100 players 70 MUST say its good to get, any lower and i would have to side with don't touch teh thing. my opinion only but i don't fully trust SoE anymore, for community, its more like give us your money and then sod off till next month.
After the release of said Vanguard i have to be very dubious about any game that has the SoE tag label with it from now on.
What does Vanguard's poor release have to do with SOE?
That was Sigil's mismanagement, not SOE.
Actually, Sigil just ran out of money because they were trying to do what no MMORPG devs have done before: release a game that is COMPLETE from beginning to end. However, as we saw they ran out of money and had to rush the release. If they hadn't run out of money the game would probably be launching now or by the end of the year and would most definately be one of the best MMORPGs ever made. Anyways, I do agree, this wasn't SOEs problem... it was Sigil trying to do more than their budget allowed for.
I quit for several reasons, most of them social in nature, and having little to do with the game, which I will say was excellently designed.
- Difficultly grouping. I don't like to solo. If I did, I would play console games. I like to group and work together as a team. But I always had trouble in EQ2 for some reason. Maybe I kept picking the wrong classes or just have bad luck. Later as I fell behind in level, there were ever fewer in my range to group with. Near the end I spent an entire week LFG with my wizard with no success. It got to be depressing and I began to see less reason to keep paying for new expansions when I never got to fully explore the last one.
- Bad luck with Guilds. Tied into the first problem, I never could seem to find an active guild. I lost count of how many I joined; they always seemed to be on the way out. The highly active ones were based around raiding, which I could not participate in, leading to my next point ..
- Raiding. Besides the simple fact that I don't like it, considering it a boring and badly designed game mechanism, there was the simple fact that I could not do them. I was willing to suck it up and be a team player, to go along and do my part, but the few times I was in a guild that raided alot, they were set well after my playing time. I start work at the airport at 5 a.m. and that means an early bed-time by most player's account. At first I was just annoyed that most of the cool stuff went to the tanks and healers, and as I wizard I seemed to be omitted from the Dev's field of vision. Maybe just more of my bad luck, dunno. But later when I just gave up on the whole enterprise, I realized I was never going to have neat loot, not like the constant raiders seemed to amass, anyhow. I, as a casual player, realized that the game wasn't designed for me. The whole goal of the sort of game is to work toward acquiring cool gear, and since the Dev's had designed it so that a non-raider would have limited or no access to it, I didn't see much point in continuing.
There are other factors, but those are the basic three. I'm sure constant players will find fault with my assessment, all I can say is that is my own judgement and experience, being that from launch, and having played til just before the Fae expansion was released. Perhaps if they add Pirates of the Burning Sea to Station Access at a reasonable rate, I'll journey back a bit. I've been back to City of Heroes, which I will admit is much more limited in scope that EQ2. I've never claimed EQ2 is a bad game, in fact I will say it is a very good game. I just didn't have fun playing it.
I hear opinions are like.... In that case yours must be big and spew yellow because thats about as good as it read. Again thanks for the big yellow opinion.
Hahaha, I couldn't have said it any beter myself. Ironman just because you are TRYING to present YOUR opinion as fact, doesn't make it so. Hypocrisy anyone?
I played EQ2 since launch for two years straight. I finally packed it up to try the dreaded WOW and simply found it to be a better game on many level including raiding progression, armour/weapon uniquness and yes, beleive it or not, the community.
I don't know how many subs EQ2 has currently, and I would love to see some accurate data about it. But I think it's lack of popularity, compared to other games, are due to the following (sorry if Im being redundant to others that have posted prior to me:
1. Lack of mass Marketing. I simply dont see the game being advertisied. I buy and read many gaming mags every month and its a rare occasion to see EQ2 ads in them.
2. First off, it should never have been called Everquest 2. The game was a total departure from the original EQ however being named "2" ended up being very misleading to many. In fact, in my observation, the first people to depart EQ2 seemed to be the ones that had played EQ1 previously. I lost most of my first comrades in this exodus.
3. Alot of broken issues at launch. I played a Shaman Defiler and my class had major issues that were allowed to linger for the first 9 months of the game. I'm sure other classes had their issues unaddressed for just as long (based on my observations on the main forums).
4. Promises not kept. Guild Houses, rewards for guild levels, etc. alotof things promised that were never properly implemented.
5. copycatting WOW. It seemed at one point everytime I logged in there was a new feature straight out of WOW being implemented. This alone is not necessarily a bad thing, but it showed me that SOE devs lacked imagination and creativity. Doing away with the death-penalty and shard recovery was over the top. Death-as-transportation quickly became a in-game feature due to this. Im not so hardcore or carebear, I sit in the middle of these two extremes, however, I dont see how doing away with the death penalty improved the game. If anything it makes players lazy and careless.
6. Community. MMO communities are a main reason people play them. And I found the community during my 2nd year playing to be going toxic. Childish, no professionals to speak of, cliquish, nasty, racist, backbiting and political for the sake of being so. And these people were the same to disparage the WOW community. I found an adult guild in WoW (of which there are many) and thoroughly enjoyed playing with these people. I also met alot of professional people in WOW (Doctors, Lawyers, etc) that liked to play hardcore but couldnt play a game like EQ2 that didnt have enough soloing in it. As these people live very busy and productive lives, WOW was the only MMO available to them that allowed one to level without having to stand around LFG for hours. I simply found I had more in common with the adult players in WOW than with the unemployed (mostly) kids and adults of EQ2.
7. Lack of a unique look. The armours all the same looking. Sorry if this seems petty to some but to me its of great importance. I take great pride in my character and I simply got sick and tired of looking like every other fabled out shaman (or medium armour wearer for that matter).
8. Progression mostly non-existent. Altho I dont think its absolutely neccessary, I find progression to be a fun aspect of MMO's. Not so hardcore as TBC but at least something! Other than access quests (of which EQ2 did away with for the most part), I found it completely lacking.
9. Empty zones, deserted starting areas. yes this happens in many MMO's thats what time does to many of them, however they have not made it any easier for players that are starting the game from scratch.
10. Customer service. Very poor indeed. SOE has a bad rep in this department and I know many people just end up staying away from any game being supported by them.
I think SOE is making money due to it's sub package and is content to leave things as they are with EQ2. They also have their sights on their new MMO's and steaming pile that is Vanguard, so I dont expect anything to change insofar as increased marketing, etc.
Comments
Becuase they end up merging them into US servers due to low population of the euro servers.
Becuase they end up merging them into US servers due to low population of the euro servers.
No they have not done so, and never have.ide suggest you go read up on the merger of the Asian servers into US servers, or perhaps the pvp servers ............. it does happen ............. and it has
of course whats even worse is when US servers merge into other US servers from US population dwindling .................. but that probally never happened either lol.
HHmm i was reading all the post in here and the itle doesn't justify, Eq2 is a total successful game the only difference why the subs are lower it's easy, Its called a mature (you have to earn it game) Most kid players do not want to earn there way. Wow offers the paved way by buying and not earning on the ah. Also the game (WOW) is centered around children (aka why the community is terrbile)! Eq2 is more mature and adult themed and there are (last time i checked) more kid players than adult!
Praises to SOE EQ2 is perfect!
Ok this is just pure "OPINION" and "CONJECTURE". Guk server had plenty of immature people that made it abundantly clear they were "Kids" and more of them were on during the off school hours and weekends. The community is about the same on both games, there are just more people in general on WoW at any given time (at least on Guk in EQ II and Korialstrasz in WoW the amount of immature people was the same). I have had to deal with immature people on both games and do so in the same ways. First I private message them and explain what they did wrong, then if they don't see the error of their ways, I ignore them, and then I look at EQ2players.com and the Warcraft armory and find out who their guild leaders are, send them messages about the person in question and the bad behavior. I have to tell you, I get the same reactions in both games. People are looking to just play a game and have fun, its just there are more people on WoW and that leads to more people to misbehaive and act immature. But to say that most players on EQ II are more mature is just opinion. Its just there are less people on EQ II so less people misbehaiving. If the populations were the same, the situation would be the same.
I mean look at the chart above, 68% of the market share is WoW, and 1% of the market share is EQ II, so that shows you more people subscribe to WoW at any given time and are playing, to the 1% on EQ II. Less people, less people to misbehaive and make the community look bad. I have to tell you, between the two game communities, the full time EQ II players do seem to me, in my opinion, have a much higher opinion of themselves for playing EQ II. But more people play WoW at a given time then EQ II so more people to misbehaive, though the people there are less concerned about "How they are much better than people playing EQ II". They just simply don't worry about it. People on EQ II, the whole time I played (from beta to about 5 months ago) bashed WoW in open chat channels "EVERY DAY", where as people in WoW don't feel the need to bash other games there. I have not heard ONE person bash another game in WoW in open chat channels in the five months I have been playing that game. Fear what you don't understand and hate on it seems to be the philosophy of EQ II players. I was guilty of it too. I did exactly the same thing, "WoW sucks, its the worst thing ever" but I realized after I tried WoW, I was just trying to justify my loyalty to EQ II and make myself feel better about playing it because it just simply wasn't as much pure fun as WoW.
Sorry to bust thy bubble, but that is a total load of crap i just read and here is why!
First if the communities were the same in population, We as eq2 players would still have our community in check. We dont take to kid play lightly community shun comes to mind!
Next what you wrote above would be the typical WOW response and here is why!
For a fact i played wow from starting day to last month and you say they dont crack on other games..Please come to my server
Scarlet crusade and listen and read the posts, you will change that mind!
I play on Antonia Bayle server (RP) and we keep our server clean best we can. Now why is eq2 a lower population... well i just explained it. We keep the kids away and it's a mature game.
Also in eq2 you must EARN YOUR WAY. Not buy it on the ah .. kids love the easy way!
remember that one!
Ok that is my response to your silly rantings, trollings and "OPINIONS". Nothing you stated was fact, its all based on your opinion and what you believe to be true. So please, if you can't give real facts, don't comment at all or go back and start playing on a regular or better yet PVP server. Thanks
I don't even know how to highlight and put all them yellow words into my reply...
Fact is, I play WoW AND EQ2 and I am honest, the Warcraft community is one of the worst I nhave ever gamed with. The cats playing EQ 2 are kinda cool.
It's very simple...
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
There are less people on EQ II, by a lot, 1% EQ II, 68% WoW, of course its going to seem like more jerks there, there are simply more "PLAYERS" on WoW. If EQ II had 68% of the market, we would be talking about how the EQ II community being worse than WoW because of all the jerks. Its just simple math. More people, more people to act like jerks. So I guess in a way, its a blessing that WoW has 68% of the market share to EQ II's 1%.
In my book
- Both games host complete idiots and a good share of kids
- Both games are very very much alike. Both are "easy-mode", which is not necessarily a bad thing
- Both games offer - to a great degree - the very same features.
It's - as I said before - the package that gives EQ2 1% market share and WoW 68%. It's in no way "cool as hell", literally, nothing in EQ2 is like "Whoa, that sword/dungeon/armor/landmark/zone/building/city is so cool"... And don't fool yourself, EVERY player wants these moments, 50 year old or kindergarten-aged...
Meridion
EDIT: OH, and I agree, in WoW, nobody is bashing other games, some are bashing WoW because they are burned-out, but that's a different story. In other games though, everyone is bashing WoW, which is so ridiculous it makes me laugh every time I hear it.
I played on the EQ2 test server full time and the population there doesn't get any tighter or close knit than that. We still had our share of immature kids, we just all knew them by first name. They continued to play the game despite most people not wanting them around. Claiming EQ2 has some magical means of controlling how people behave in an online game is just delusional. You have no more control over your game than anyone else in any other game.
Also, I left the live servers because it was packed with jackholes in hopes of finding a better community on the test server and for the most part it was. However all games have idiots and loudmouths. All pools of gamers are the same, no one game is "mature" compared to any other. Everytime I hear someone talk about how mature EQ2 is, it is quickly followed up by a bunch of name calling towards WoW. I always scratch my head when I read that and wonder what people are thinking.
Maybe this is a contributing factor to the lack of popularity of the game.
QFT
Of all the MMOs I've played over the years - must be around 20 - EQ2 was one of the communities that lived mostly in "their own world"; Living in this world by the credo "EQ2 is fine and people that don't realize this (any other gamer) are just screwed". Now while you can say at the moment that EQ2 is a fine single player casual game; Back in 2005, HELL this game was a mess, with constant changes from heroic bugs across the qeynos bridge to 4 steps to craft some stacks of wood...
Even then, EQ2ers where inquisionally sure their game was objectively "the best" and ALL the other people where just totally off-track
Meridion
EDIT: This goes as far as a guy on a german board who told me in all seriousness: "Hey, you don't believe that crap about population, do you? EQ2 has just as many people playing as WoW, WoW just hast the more criminal methods and better propaganda"... And yes, he did use the words 'criminal' and 'propaganda'... Conspiracy anyone?
umm, yellow, let's all go rainbow!
Hmmm interesting,
I state my opinion like he said above yet im not the one yelling and going raving mad!
Well shows right there my point alot really, We as eq 2 players love mature and great game play (we pay for playing) and we like to earn and do things right. Now for WOW players when in doubt buy gold and buy it on the ah. thats the life of a average wow player. I know i played WOW from day 1. As i stated and will do again WOW is a easy game that is controlled by kids and for kids thats why the community is bad and gold sellers make fortunes!
Raiding is WOW - I am a soloist and yes i can solo in wow ... but if i want the best gear to even compete in pvp i must raid , very interesting! That show best gear in WOW wins!
Eq2 - totally different and to the guy above im sorry but if you played EQ2 you would know the communities in EQ2 do not tollerate kid play. (now to those who dont know what i mean by kid play here is an example) chuck norris jokes, not playing right in groups like not healing helping out etc... We as a community in EQ2 ask them politly once start playing right or be ignored community wide. and many kid do get the boot from the community. we pay for our game and just ask respect to play the game!
Thats why we hate gold sellers and account sellers. also! We also try to keep the brokers (exchange for those who dont know) in check! so if you played EQ2 for real you would know what im talking about plain and simple!
don't know if you were talking to me....couldn't be, I've been playing EQ2 from launch (yes, I've made a batch or
two of eolith oil)......just hate flamers who reply in bold, colored text as if it makes their opinion more important.
I hear opinions are like.... In that case yours must be big and spew yellow because thats about as good as it read. Again thanks for the big yellow opinion.
Several factors come to mind for me. Poor Customer care, game was not a great release, for the first few months there was hardly any solo player content. The fact that a few players who knew what SoE were like have avoided the game.
Even though the game has improved (its taken 2yrs to do that) many feel that was too long (me included), and there have been improvementrs with 1 update but all it takes to wipe that out is 1 poor update (much like LU19) that took the game right back to square 1.
After the release of said Vanguard i have to be very dubious about any game that has the SoE tag label with it from now on. I have learnt the hard way myself but i still will purchase SoE games IF and only IF they have a 70% player recomendation, so out of 100 players 70 MUST say its good to get, any lower and i would have to side with don't touch teh thing. my opinion only but i don't fully trust SoE anymore, for community, its more like give us your money and then sod off till next month.
sorry my reply was toward ironman200
That was Sigil's mismanagement, not SOE.
That was Sigil's mismanagement, not SOE.
Actually, Sigil just ran out of money because they were trying to do what no MMORPG devs have done before: release a game that is COMPLETE from beginning to end. However, as we saw they ran out of money and had to rush the release. If they hadn't run out of money the game would probably be launching now or by the end of the year and would most definately be one of the best MMORPGs ever made. Anyways, I do agree, this wasn't SOEs problem... it was Sigil trying to do more than their budget allowed for.
I think a lot of people left fro Vanguard. It seems like they compete with each other.
I quit for several reasons, most of them social in nature, and having little to do with the game, which I will say was excellently designed.
- Difficultly grouping. I don't like to solo. If I did, I would play console games. I like to group and work together as a team. But I always had trouble in EQ2 for some reason. Maybe I kept picking the wrong classes or just have bad luck. Later as I fell behind in level, there were ever fewer in my range to group with. Near the end I spent an entire week LFG with my wizard with no success. It got to be depressing and I began to see less reason to keep paying for new expansions when I never got to fully explore the last one.
- Bad luck with Guilds. Tied into the first problem, I never could seem to find an active guild. I lost count of how many I joined; they always seemed to be on the way out. The highly active ones were based around raiding, which I could not participate in, leading to my next point ..
- Raiding. Besides the simple fact that I don't like it, considering it a boring and badly designed game mechanism, there was the simple fact that I could not do them. I was willing to suck it up and be a team player, to go along and do my part, but the few times I was in a guild that raided alot, they were set well after my playing time. I start work at the airport at 5 a.m. and that means an early bed-time by most player's account. At first I was just annoyed that most of the cool stuff went to the tanks and healers, and as I wizard I seemed to be omitted from the Dev's field of vision. Maybe just more of my bad luck, dunno. But later when I just gave up on the whole enterprise, I realized I was never going to have neat loot, not like the constant raiders seemed to amass, anyhow. I, as a casual player, realized that the game wasn't designed for me. The whole goal of the sort of game is to work toward acquiring cool gear, and since the Dev's had designed it so that a non-raider would have limited or no access to it, I didn't see much point in continuing.
There are other factors, but those are the basic three. I'm sure constant players will find fault with my assessment, all I can say is that is my own judgement and experience, being that from launch, and having played til just before the Fae expansion was released. Perhaps if they add Pirates of the Burning Sea to Station Access at a reasonable rate, I'll journey back a bit. I've been back to City of Heroes, which I will admit is much more limited in scope that EQ2. I've never claimed EQ2 is a bad game, in fact I will say it is a very good game. I just didn't have fun playing it.
Hahaha, I couldn't have said it any beter myself. Ironman just because you are TRYING to present YOUR opinion as fact, doesn't make it so. Hypocrisy anyone?
I played EQ2 since launch for two years straight. I finally packed it up to try the dreaded WOW and simply found it to be a better game on many level including raiding progression, armour/weapon uniquness and yes, beleive it or not, the community.
I don't know how many subs EQ2 has currently, and I would love to see some accurate data about it. But I think it's lack of popularity, compared to other games, are due to the following (sorry if Im being redundant to others that have posted prior to me:
1. Lack of mass Marketing. I simply dont see the game being advertisied. I buy and read many gaming mags every month and its a rare occasion to see EQ2 ads in them.
2. First off, it should never have been called Everquest 2. The game was a total departure from the original EQ however being named "2" ended up being very misleading to many. In fact, in my observation, the first people to depart EQ2 seemed to be the ones that had played EQ1 previously. I lost most of my first comrades in this exodus.
3. Alot of broken issues at launch. I played a Shaman Defiler and my class had major issues that were allowed to linger for the first 9 months of the game. I'm sure other classes had their issues unaddressed for just as long (based on my observations on the main forums).
4. Promises not kept. Guild Houses, rewards for guild levels, etc. alotof things promised that were never properly implemented.
5. copycatting WOW. It seemed at one point everytime I logged in there was a new feature straight out of WOW being implemented. This alone is not necessarily a bad thing, but it showed me that SOE devs lacked imagination and creativity. Doing away with the death-penalty and shard recovery was over the top. Death-as-transportation quickly became a in-game feature due to this. Im not so hardcore or carebear, I sit in the middle of these two extremes, however, I dont see how doing away with the death penalty improved the game. If anything it makes players lazy and careless.
6. Community. MMO communities are a main reason people play them. And I found the community during my 2nd year playing to be going toxic. Childish, no professionals to speak of, cliquish, nasty, racist, backbiting and political for the sake of being so. And these people were the same to disparage the WOW community. I found an adult guild in WoW (of which there are many) and thoroughly enjoyed playing with these people. I also met alot of professional people in WOW (Doctors, Lawyers, etc) that liked to play hardcore but couldnt play a game like EQ2 that didnt have enough soloing in it. As these people live very busy and productive lives, WOW was the only MMO available to them that allowed one to level without having to stand around LFG for hours. I simply found I had more in common with the adult players in WOW than with the unemployed (mostly) kids and adults of EQ2.
7. Lack of a unique look. The armours all the same looking. Sorry if this seems petty to some but to me its of great importance. I take great pride in my character and I simply got sick and tired of looking like every other fabled out shaman (or medium armour wearer for that matter).
8. Progression mostly non-existent. Altho I dont think its absolutely neccessary, I find progression to be a fun aspect of MMO's. Not so hardcore as TBC but at least something! Other than access quests (of which EQ2 did away with for the most part), I found it completely lacking.
9. Empty zones, deserted starting areas. yes this happens in many MMO's thats what time does to many of them, however they have not made it any easier for players that are starting the game from scratch.
10. Customer service. Very poor indeed. SOE has a bad rep in this department and I know many people just end up staying away from any game being supported by them.
I think SOE is making money due to it's sub package and is content to leave things as they are with EQ2. They also have their sights on their new MMO's and steaming pile that is Vanguard, so I dont expect anything to change insofar as increased marketing, etc.
Current Games: WOW, EVE Online