people seem to think you only play that certain game because of its features but the ONLY reason il ever play a game is if like how it feels when you fight and move around if it feels like a piece of shit game when moving around then il quit after 5 mins but my self i like everquest 2 since its got good movement system and so on but cant speak for other failures like darkfall and some other mmos
well i tried it when it first came out and like some said it did have problems , but then i decided to give it ago again and i like it now its not so clunky and i do get decent frame rates as well .
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
^^ me too. Their problem is they can't stop once they've got something good. It's like the devs or suits in charge have to keep changing what's working to prove how great they are, until the game experience is totally broken. I think they've all got WoW envy or something. A friend still plays, and he refers to the game as WoW II, the sequel, for all of the free-ride, easy-mode changes they've made to it.
Well station cash has not interfered with any gameplay or anyones enjoyment of the game. You can not buy any significant stuff for station cash (yet anyway) except for xp potions. I have been playing SOE products for 8 years now and have never had any problems with their customer service or billing or anything but I may be lucky who knows .
As for the graphics that is a mixed deal a lot of people actually prefer the original models in the game especially those of us over 30 (gasp) that did not grow up on Asian style artwork. It is a good game try it, could it be better, absolutely but it is a good offer and still different enough from WoW to be worth playing. And unfortunately I guess that in the future the games launched by major developers will contain even more of the features that people hate in SOE games, that is market research for you . . .
But is that because of SWG that you won't even try Everquest II? I've seen a lot of anti-Sony bias due to their OTHER games, and somehow that hate spreads into this game. Why? Sony is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Do you really think that hating all their games will somehow hurt them? Have you even TRIED Everquest II?
The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.
Well station cash has not interfered with any gameplay or anyones enjoyment of the game.
You are speaking for a rather large group of people with that comment. Maybe you do not feel that way, but many people do. Others see station cash for the gentle push towards bigger things to come from a company that blatantly ignored their opinions on this issue by stealth patching it into the game without even discussing it with the playerbase first.
It is debatable how detrimental it is to the game, but more importantly there is zero reason for a cash shop in a subscription game of this nature. There is no benefit to players having content that is normally a free reward based on in game accomplishments being ripped from the game and having a price tag slapped on it. It is a very dangerous precedent and a lot of people feel betrayed by the company for doing things like this. It doesn't matter how much or how little there is now. All soe wants people to do is accept it and they can take it any direction they want later as can be seen with their other edeavors in these areas. They are counting on people to support them by saying things like "its not a big deal, it doesn't affect the game".
which is a point to addresses misutus point above this about anti-sony bias being swg centric. The actions of this company are not limited to just swg and the way station cash was handled is just another example of bad choices by this company. Just because everything they do isn't as grand a screw up as the nge doesn't make it any less important to the overall effect.
The old saying goes, a happy customer will tell 1 person about their good experience; an unhappy customer will tell 100 people about their bad experience.
Others see station cash for the gentle push towards bigger things to come from a company that blatantly ignored their opinions on this issue by stealth patching it into the game without even discussing it with the playerbase first.
It is debatable how detrimental it is to the game, but more importantly there is zero reason for a cash shop in a subscription game of this nature.
Turbine is no better for adding a Cash shop to Dungeons and Dragons Online with zero player feedback
Turbine gave the impression that no existing games would be getting RMT earlier this year
Turbine's RMT Manager position not for any current games
It is debatable how detrimental it is to the game, but more importantly there is zero reason for a cash shop in a subscription game of this nature. There is no benefit to players having content that is normally a free reward based on in game accomplishments being ripped from the game and having a price tag slapped on it. It is a very dangerous precedent and a lot of people feel betrayed by the company for doing things like this. It doesn't matter how much or how little there is now. All soe wants people to do is accept it and they can take it any direction they want later as can be seen with their other edeavors in these areas. They are counting on people to support them by saying things like "its not a big deal, it doesn't affect the game".
Well its sad that some appearance items and furniture and other decorative items makes you so upset. Personally I do not think it is a good idea with station cash either but it does not upset me to any significant degree. You can also look at it differently that it allows new players more customisation at an early level instead of having to grind materials and gold to get the cool looking items available in game. But unfortunately it is something I guess you have to live with as the trend now is to cater to the base of the subscriber base and that is the casuals it is not even me as I read the forums and generally keeps track of what happens in game, most casuals do not. BUT they are the main subscriber base for any MMO nowadays and the trend is to keep them happy.
No matter how much you hate it this is business decisions Sony is a big and succesfull company and most likely know what they are doing, they do not care abut the vocal purist community more than major retailers cater to small customer groups. What I personally am upset about is that Sony and the players has created a system where you HAVE to have T2 shard armor to participate in more or less any harder Lvl 80 content, most of us casuals have no chance of getting that armor in any reasonable time. But maybe it will be buyable by station cash? I will surely buy T2 armor then if anything just to infuriate people and their sense of "accomplishment" (not that they do not deserve it but when T2 becomes a must have I object).
Others see station cash for the gentle push towards bigger things to come from a company that blatantly ignored their opinions on this issue by stealth patching it into the game without even discussing it with the playerbase first.
It is debatable how detrimental it is to the game, but more importantly there is zero reason for a cash shop in a subscription game of this nature.
Turbine is no better for adding a Cash shop to Dungeons and Dragons Online with zero player feedback
Turbine gave the impression that no existing games would be getting RMT earlier this year
Turbine's RMT Manager position not for any current games
Thanks, that is the link I was looking for in another thread. I was positive that turbine has said that and wondering why no one was referencing it, but for the life of me I couldn't find that statement. I'm a bit disturbed by what turbine is doing, but they are at least involving the players in the process and making the game free to play.
I still think there is a lot of difference between soe/turbine in this manner, because turbine is making their game free to play, where soe is simply choosing to charge extra money for items that were traditionally free. Turbine is working with the playerbase to develop this system where soe simply patched it in and said "it is here to stay". Mountains of difference there and it still remains to be seen how the changes work out.
If soe was as successful as you think they are, there would not be threads like this one. It wouldn't take to much effort to show a history of bad decisions by this company that has cost them major market share or collapses in their playerbase. I think you are partially correct when you say they don't care what the "purist" customers say, but actually don't care much for what any of their customers say. That has always been the problem. The attitude of "we know what customers want more than they do".
Also please don't talk about what makes me so upset or what I hate. You read far to much into my words.
First of all, let me preface by saying I HATE station cash. I absolutely detest RMT, and loathe nickle and diming a game with "extras". I am one of a lot of players that watch SC closely, and as soon as I HAVE to spend money to keep up or to advance my character, I will be canceling my account. Actually, I've removed my credit card completely and now pay monthly with a cash card, just to make sure that there is absolutely no mistake in my cancelation. I just won't buy any more cards, simple as that.
With that said...
Sadly, RMT IS where it's at. I personally do not, and never will spend 1 penny on RMT. However, RMT makes more money for SoE, and a LOT of companies with RMT games, than any other revenue. They showed the revenue curve on station cash at the fan faire, and it's HUGE. RMT brings in more revenue than all the games put together. RMT vs losing what... maybe 10,000 accounts through cancelation is more than worth it. It not only pays for those accounts lost, but every single account in every game they make. It's just the facts, RMT makes a ton of revenue.
SoE has a totally RMT based game called Free Realms. In one year, this game has topped 4 million simultaneous accounts and is projected to absolutely decimate WoW in unique logins in the next couple of years. It's just a simple little children's game with cartoon graphics and racing games, little character jobs (like classes) that they can level and do quests (missions). It's not even really that special in any way.
Are they WoWifying EQ2 to try to compete with WoW? LOL, they already have a couple games that completely destroy WoW's numbers, they don't have to. Is RMT hurting their subscriptions? There were some people that left and I'm sure at first they were biting their nails, but that's a thing of the past now. I'll admit, I immediately took my card off the file and decided to go with prepay because I was so angry with their decision. And I love EQ2. But the proof is in the numbers and if they're making more money to put more content into the game I love, then I just can't complain. More updates, more content, larger expansions, and lots and lots of new innovations (some work, some don't :P) will keep me around longer. And like I said, if I have to RMT to make my character viable, or advance, then no prepay card for next month...
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
Sony is greedy and they wont leave crap alone. A new player pays 15 a month he shouldnt have to pay at a cash shop to get anything this stuff should be added to crafting recipe's.
Sony will never get my money again till they do 3 things:
- stop improving what players dont want, majority not the whinners!
- get rid of the cash shop and never let it rear its nasty head ever again in a pay MMO
- promise to never again do to a game what they did to SWG, SWG was good as it was
EQ2 is a great MMO and Vanguard has the most potential of any out but as long as sony is running them under their current thinking they will never challenge wow for subscriber base. In essence sony did this to themselves and to the person that says why would sony miss your 15 bucks all I can say is they didnt lose only me look at the thousands if not millions they could of had.
Turbine is working with the playerbase to develop this system where soe simply patched it in and said "it is here to stay". Mountains of difference there and it still remains to be seen how the changes work out.
I see no difference for DDO subscribers that do not want any RMT in their game
what are their options? cancel ?
if Turbine really cared about player feedback
they could at least offer 1 server with *zero* RMT
Others see station cash for the gentle push towards bigger things to come from a company that blatantly ignored their opinions on this issue by stealth patching it into the game without even discussing it with the playerbase first.
It is debatable how detrimental it is to the game, but more importantly there is zero reason for a cash shop in a subscription game of this nature.
Turbine is no better for adding a Cash shop to Dungeons and Dragons Online with zero player feedback
Turbine gave the impression that no existing games would be getting RMT earlier this year
Turbine's RMT Manager position not for any current games
Didn't I read that DDO was also being made Free to Play? That kinda changes the whole issue doesn't it?
That aside I'm not bothered in the least by the cash shop in eq2. It doesn't really have anything I'd want to buy now and if they do add some cool appearance item then maybe I'll think about it. But generally it doesn't matter to me at all.
SoE has a totally RMT based game called Free Realms. In one year, this game has topped 4 million simultaneous accounts and is projected to absolutely decimate WoW in unique logins in the next couple of years. It's just a simple little children's game with cartoon graphics and racing games, little character jobs (like classes) that they can level and do quests (missions). It's not even really that special in any way.
I think you drink to much of smedleys cool aid. The playerbase has boiled down to pretty much only the die hard fans, because over the years they have driven away so many customers. They used to have multiple games in the 300-500 thousand customer range.
Maybe they make more now with RMT in comparison to subscriptions, but we are talking about a company that has went from a million+ subscribers to maybe a few hundred thousand. Chasing away customers to make some extra money is a short sighted business practice.
Free realms may have 80 billion logins or whatever they want to claim, but the game still only has 10 servers with a combined world surface that wouldn't fill 1/4 of the original EQ2 zones. Even then only servers 1-3 have decent activity on them while the rest of the servers are pretty barren. They could cut the number of servers down to 5 and the game still wouldn't fill up.
Sony is greedy and they wont leave crap alone. A new player pays 15 a month he shouldnt have to pay at a cash shop to get anything this stuff should be added to crafting recipe's.
Sony will never get my money again till they do 3 things: - stop improving what players dont want, majority not the whinners! - get rid of the cash shop and never let it rear its nasty head ever again in a pay MMO - promise to never again do to a game what they did to SWG, SWG was good as it was
EQ2 is a great MMO and Vanguard has the most potential of any out but as long as sony is running them under their current thinking they will never challenge wow for subscriber base. In essence sony did this to themselves and to the person that says why would sony miss your 15 bucks all I can say is they didnt lose only me look at the thousands if not millions they could of had.
I agree with the cash shop, and I also wonder who actually pays that much for furniture, armor skins and other junk.... But it doesn't really have any game breakers so I just stay clear from it.
As for SWG, no it wasn't good. It was a buggy mess. They shouldnt have done what they did to it, very stupid of them but if you remember it as a great game before you probably forgetting how bad the game actually launched. Yes, they should have fixed the game instead of screwing their customers and by fixing it I mean continue the general rules and features while adding more and get rid of all #¤%& bugs. Remember the Jedi that was supposed to be in the game?
As for Vanguard I think SOE have done good, Sigils mess was just so bad that it almost took 2 years to make the game acceptable. Brad shouldnt hire in his beer drinking buddies as programmers. Nothing SOE can do now will give the game more than 100K players. The only possibility for that would be relaunching the game with as a new game with a new GFX engine. Too bad because the ideas in VG are very good and it is rather fun to play. But it wasn't SOE fault, no other company could take over the game now and make it a huge success either.
But all this and Smedlys idiot ideas is not the reason why EQ2 dont have more players. The reasons are: Art style (many people don't like it), difficulty (Yeah, not so hard but still a lot harder than Wow, the friends from Wow that tried it out quited because they kept dying, most players want the games to be easy and simple), N PvP (no good PvP at least) and a bug ridden release.
EQ2 is a great game, I love it but it could never get Wows playerbase. Many of Wows playerbase are not MMO fans anyways but Blizzard fans. They loved Diablo 1 & 2, Starcraft & Warcraft. the only company that can pull so many new players into the genre is Bioware, they have many fans also. And Blizzard knows what Blizzard fans want, SOE don't, that is why they did what they did to SWG.
I don't think that RMT is the reason why not more people play it.
EQ2 was very low on players except for like 1-2 servers long before SOE turned in RMT.
IMO the reasons are
-very bad performance of the game client even on highend pcs. SOE recently started to fix it with more or less success, but for many years performance was an absolute game breaker unless you accept to play the game below balanced setting at which it looks plain awful.
-art and design is not liked by alot of people. I've read so very often that people are turned off by what they say is the "clay" look of the characters. I personally like the look and art of EQ2 alot, yet i always thought that the lightning looks a bit too artificial.
-static and repetitive combat system. If you are i.e. coming from WoW like many players do, the combat system of EQ2 feels rather static and less "quick on the trigger" , at least for the many caster classes. I so missed the ability to throw an instant with my necro or dot an enemy while running. But i guess the lack of any instant casts is the downside of not having a global cd.
Turbine is working with the playerbase to develop this system where soe simply patched it in and said "it is here to stay". Mountains of difference there and it still remains to be seen how the changes work out.
I see no difference for DDO subscribers that do not want any RMT in their game
what are their options? cancel ?
if Turbine really cared about player feedback
they could at least offer 1 server with *zero* RMT
Which is still a possibility since they are working with their playerbase beta testing the changes.
I'm not saying what turbine is doing is a great thing or that they deserve a pass. I think it sucks to make changes like this, but at least they are trying to work with the playerbase and come up with options. I'm not a big fan of it, but I'm keeping an open mind until the results are in.
I am not entirely against cash shops, but I there is no justification for having a cash shop slapped on top of a subscription game just so the company can make more money, especially when it doesn't benefit the playerbase one bit. The only one who benefits from the cash shop is soe. It is actually a net loss to players if you really look at it and overall it is part of the root cause that gives birth to threads like this.
Does anyone really wonder why more people don't play EQ2?
I think you drink to much of smedleys cool aid. The playerbase has boiled down to pretty much only the die hard fans, because over the years they have driven away so many customers. They used to have multiple games in the 300-500 thousand customer range. Maybe they make more now with RMT in comparison to subscriptions, but we are talking about a company that has went from a million+ subscribers to maybe a few hundred thousand. Chasing away customers to make some extra money is a short sighted business practice.
SOE never had a million players. At best EQ had 500K and SWG 250K. That's it, 750K players.
I think you drink to much of smedleys cool aid. The playerbase has boiled down to pretty much only the die hard fans, because over the years they have driven away so many customers. They used to have multiple games in the 300-500 thousand customer range. Maybe they make more now with RMT in comparison to subscriptions, but we are talking about a company that has went from a million+ subscribers to maybe a few hundred thousand. Chasing away customers to make some extra money is a short sighted business practice.
SOE never had a million players. At best EQ had 500K and SWG 250K. That's it, 750K players.
EQ had 550k during 2004
EQ2 had 300,000+ during 2004-2005 (you forgot this game)
SWG had somewhere around 350,00 at its height, but settled around 250k by 2004.
and that is just their big 3 which is over a million.
There was a job ad for a some job position where they boasted over a million customers. I actually read it myself a number of years ago.
How many customers do you think they have now? Why do you think that happened?
The biggest and "most successful" game SOE has ever had?
Free Realms.
They are trying to copy NCSoft with having a wide range of F2P titles and P2P titles on the market to diversify and expand their over all player base.
And it is working, Free Realms is very successful and a few P2P SOE games are still chugging along.
What SOE doesn't have and what NCSoft does have is games like Lineage/L2 that are huge in the East.
It's easier for Eastern games to break into the Western market, like Aion looks to do or FFXI was/is decently successful in the west... but western games breaking into the Eastern market? Only WoW has really done so.
So NCSoft definitely has a clear advantage over SOE.
How many customers do you think they have now? Why do you think that happened?
They probably have less then 500k between SWG, EQ, and EQ2 but well over a million in Free Realms. SOE is doing fine.
They've shifted their focus to the more casual market and F2P games because they just can't compete with NCSoft who has huge P2P games like the Lineage series, Aion (in the East so far) and also HUGE F2P numbers with games like Guild Wars and a lot of their small little F2P titles.
EQ2 isn't popular because it was made on the premise that it would be viable 5 years later on an engine that was planted in the present. Looks fine, performs terribly compared to others.
Also very top heavy game. 1-70 is a ghost town.
Which is too bad since I personally like it and have a rig to run it. But there are days I wonder why I keep my sub when I could be playing CoX PvE fantasy though its EQ2 or LotRO. EQ2 just released update 52, yes 52 free content updates, and has announced yet another exp for next year that isn't Velious grrr. Realize its split in half and all but Luclin would be awesome too
Comments
people seem to think you only play that certain game because of its features but the ONLY reason il ever play a game is if like how it feels when you fight and move around if it feels like a piece of shit game when moving around then il quit after 5 mins but my self i like everquest 2 since its got good movement system and so on but cant speak for other failures like darkfall and some other mmos
well i tried it when it first came out and like some said it did have problems , but then i decided to give it ago again and i like it now its not so clunky and i do get decent frame rates as well .
why don't i play eq2?
one reason:
never ever again will SOE get my 15 bux a month.
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
^^ me too. Their problem is they can't stop once they've got something good. It's like the devs or suits in charge have to keep changing what's working to prove how great they are, until the game experience is totally broken. I think they've all got WoW envy or something. A friend still plays, and he refers to the game as WoW II, the sequel, for all of the free-ride, easy-mode changes they've made to it.
I used to play, and love the game. Best pay-per-month fantasy MMO going, IMO.
Why don't I play anymore? Two words:
Station Cash.
|The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it. -Salvador Dali|
Well station cash has not interfered with any gameplay or anyones enjoyment of the game. You can not buy any significant stuff for station cash (yet anyway) except for xp potions. I have been playing SOE products for 8 years now and have never had any problems with their customer service or billing or anything but I may be lucky who knows
.
As for the graphics that is a mixed deal a lot of people actually prefer the original models in the game especially those of us over 30 (gasp) that did not grow up on Asian style artwork. It is a good game try it, could it be better, absolutely but it is a good offer and still different enough from WoW to be worth playing. And unfortunately I guess that in the future the games launched by major developers will contain even more of the features that people hate in SOE games, that is market research for you . . .
Sigtyr lev 77 Mystic AB
Lozz Lev 73 Dirge AB
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
But is that because of SWG that you won't even try Everquest II? I've seen a lot of anti-Sony bias due to their OTHER games, and somehow that hate spreads into this game. Why? Sony is a multi-billion dollar corporation. Do you really think that hating all their games will somehow hurt them? Have you even TRIED Everquest II?
The contents of this post do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com and its management.
You are speaking for a rather large group of people with that comment. Maybe you do not feel that way, but many people do. Others see station cash for the gentle push towards bigger things to come from a company that blatantly ignored their opinions on this issue by stealth patching it into the game without even discussing it with the playerbase first.
It is debatable how detrimental it is to the game, but more importantly there is zero reason for a cash shop in a subscription game of this nature. There is no benefit to players having content that is normally a free reward based on in game accomplishments being ripped from the game and having a price tag slapped on it. It is a very dangerous precedent and a lot of people feel betrayed by the company for doing things like this. It doesn't matter how much or how little there is now. All soe wants people to do is accept it and they can take it any direction they want later as can be seen with their other edeavors in these areas. They are counting on people to support them by saying things like "its not a big deal, it doesn't affect the game".
which is a point to addresses misutus point above this about anti-sony bias being swg centric. The actions of this company are not limited to just swg and the way station cash was handled is just another example of bad choices by this company. Just because everything they do isn't as grand a screw up as the nge doesn't make it any less important to the overall effect.
The old saying goes, a happy customer will tell 1 person about their good experience; an unhappy customer will tell 100 people about their bad experience.
Turbine is no better for adding a Cash shop to Dungeons and Dragons Online with zero player feedback
Turbine gave the impression that no existing games would be getting RMT earlier this year
Turbine's RMT Manager position not for any current games
www.massively.com/2009/01/05/turbines-rmt-manager-position-not-for-any-current-games/
EQ2 fan sites
Well its sad that some appearance items and furniture and other decorative items makes you so upset. Personally I do not think it is a good idea with station cash either but it does not upset me to any significant degree. You can also look at it differently that it allows new players more customisation at an early level instead of having to grind materials and gold to get the cool looking items available in game. But unfortunately it is something I guess you have to live with as the trend now is to cater to the base of the subscriber base and that is the casuals it is not even me as I read the forums and generally keeps track of what happens in game, most casuals do not. BUT they are the main subscriber base for any MMO nowadays and the trend is to keep them happy.
No matter how much you hate it this is business decisions Sony is a big and succesfull company and most likely know what they are doing, they do not care abut the vocal purist community more than major retailers cater to small customer groups. What I personally am upset about is that Sony and the players has created a system where you HAVE to have T2 shard armor to participate in more or less any harder Lvl 80 content, most of us casuals have no chance of getting that armor in any reasonable time. But maybe it will be buyable by station cash? I will surely buy T2 armor then if anything just to infuriate people and their sense of "accomplishment" (not that they do not deserve it but when T2 becomes a must have I object).
Sigtyr lev 77 Mystic AB
Lozz Lev 73 Dirge AB
Chi puo dir com'egli arde é in picciol fuoco.
He who can describe the flame does not burn.
Petrarch
Turbine is no better for adding a Cash shop to Dungeons and Dragons Online with zero player feedback
Turbine gave the impression that no existing games would be getting RMT earlier this year
Turbine's RMT Manager position not for any current games
www.massively.com/2009/01/05/turbines-rmt-manager-position-not-for-any-current-games/
@Nadia
Thanks, that is the link I was looking for in another thread. I was positive that turbine has said that and wondering why no one was referencing it, but for the life of me I couldn't find that statement. I'm a bit disturbed by what turbine is doing, but they are at least involving the players in the process and making the game free to play.
I still think there is a lot of difference between soe/turbine in this manner, because turbine is making their game free to play, where soe is simply choosing to charge extra money for items that were traditionally free. Turbine is working with the playerbase to develop this system where soe simply patched it in and said "it is here to stay". Mountains of difference there and it still remains to be seen how the changes work out.
@kyntta
If soe was as successful as you think they are, there would not be threads like this one. It wouldn't take to much effort to show a history of bad decisions by this company that has cost them major market share or collapses in their playerbase. I think you are partially correct when you say they don't care what the "purist" customers say, but actually don't care much for what any of their customers say. That has always been the problem. The attitude of "we know what customers want more than they do".
Also please don't talk about what makes me so upset or what I hate. You read far to much into my words.
First of all, let me preface by saying I HATE station cash. I absolutely detest RMT, and loathe nickle and diming a game with "extras". I am one of a lot of players that watch SC closely, and as soon as I HAVE to spend money to keep up or to advance my character, I will be canceling my account. Actually, I've removed my credit card completely and now pay monthly with a cash card, just to make sure that there is absolutely no mistake in my cancelation. I just won't buy any more cards, simple as that.
With that said...
Sadly, RMT IS where it's at. I personally do not, and never will spend 1 penny on RMT. However, RMT makes more money for SoE, and a LOT of companies with RMT games, than any other revenue. They showed the revenue curve on station cash at the fan faire, and it's HUGE. RMT brings in more revenue than all the games put together. RMT vs losing what... maybe 10,000 accounts through cancelation is more than worth it. It not only pays for those accounts lost, but every single account in every game they make. It's just the facts, RMT makes a ton of revenue.
SoE has a totally RMT based game called Free Realms. In one year, this game has topped 4 million simultaneous accounts and is projected to absolutely decimate WoW in unique logins in the next couple of years. It's just a simple little children's game with cartoon graphics and racing games, little character jobs (like classes) that they can level and do quests (missions). It's not even really that special in any way.
Are they WoWifying EQ2 to try to compete with WoW? LOL, they already have a couple games that completely destroy WoW's numbers, they don't have to. Is RMT hurting their subscriptions? There were some people that left and I'm sure at first they were biting their nails, but that's a thing of the past now. I'll admit, I immediately took my card off the file and decided to go with prepay because I was so angry with their decision. And I love EQ2. But the proof is in the numbers and if they're making more money to put more content into the game I love, then I just can't complain. More updates, more content, larger expansions, and lots and lots of new innovations (some work, some don't :P) will keep me around longer. And like I said, if I have to RMT to make my character viable, or advance, then no prepay card for next month...
"Granted thinking for yourself could be considered a timesink of shorter or longer duration depending on how smart..or how dumb you are."
Sony is greedy and they wont leave crap alone. A new player pays 15 a month he shouldnt have to pay at a cash shop to get anything this stuff should be added to crafting recipe's.
Sony will never get my money again till they do 3 things:
- stop improving what players dont want, majority not the whinners!
- get rid of the cash shop and never let it rear its nasty head ever again in a pay MMO
- promise to never again do to a game what they did to SWG, SWG was good as it was
EQ2 is a great MMO and Vanguard has the most potential of any out but as long as sony is running them under their current thinking they will never challenge wow for subscriber base. In essence sony did this to themselves and to the person that says why would sony miss your 15 bucks all I can say is they didnt lose only me look at the thousands if not millions they could of had.
I see no difference for DDO subscribers that do not want any RMT in their game
what are their options? cancel ?
if Turbine really cared about player feedback
they could at least offer 1 server with *zero* RMT
EQ2 fan sites
Turbine is no better for adding a Cash shop to Dungeons and Dragons Online with zero player feedback
Turbine gave the impression that no existing games would be getting RMT earlier this year
Turbine's RMT Manager position not for any current games
www.massively.com/2009/01/05/turbines-rmt-manager-position-not-for-any-current-games/
Didn't I read that DDO was also being made Free to Play? That kinda changes the whole issue doesn't it?
That aside I'm not bothered in the least by the cash shop in eq2. It doesn't really have anything I'd want to buy now and if they do add some cool appearance item then maybe I'll think about it. But generally it doesn't matter to me at all.
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Ethion
I think you drink to much of smedleys cool aid. The playerbase has boiled down to pretty much only the die hard fans, because over the years they have driven away so many customers. They used to have multiple games in the 300-500 thousand customer range.
Maybe they make more now with RMT in comparison to subscriptions, but we are talking about a company that has went from a million+ subscribers to maybe a few hundred thousand. Chasing away customers to make some extra money is a short sighted business practice.
Free realms may have 80 billion logins or whatever they want to claim, but the game still only has 10 servers with a combined world surface that wouldn't fill 1/4 of the original EQ2 zones. Even then only servers 1-3 have decent activity on them while the rest of the servers are pretty barren. They could cut the number of servers down to 5 and the game still wouldn't fill up.
I agree with the cash shop, and I also wonder who actually pays that much for furniture, armor skins and other junk.... But it doesn't really have any game breakers so I just stay clear from it.
As for SWG, no it wasn't good. It was a buggy mess. They shouldnt have done what they did to it, very stupid of them but if you remember it as a great game before you probably forgetting how bad the game actually launched. Yes, they should have fixed the game instead of screwing their customers and by fixing it I mean continue the general rules and features while adding more and get rid of all #¤%& bugs. Remember the Jedi that was supposed to be in the game?
As for Vanguard I think SOE have done good, Sigils mess was just so bad that it almost took 2 years to make the game acceptable. Brad shouldnt hire in his beer drinking buddies as programmers. Nothing SOE can do now will give the game more than 100K players. The only possibility for that would be relaunching the game with as a new game with a new GFX engine. Too bad because the ideas in VG are very good and it is rather fun to play. But it wasn't SOE fault, no other company could take over the game now and make it a huge success either.
But all this and Smedlys idiot ideas is not the reason why EQ2 dont have more players. The reasons are: Art style (many people don't like it), difficulty (Yeah, not so hard but still a lot harder than Wow, the friends from Wow that tried it out quited because they kept dying, most players want the games to be easy and simple), N PvP (no good PvP at least) and a bug ridden release.
EQ2 is a great game, I love it but it could never get Wows playerbase. Many of Wows playerbase are not MMO fans anyways but Blizzard fans. They loved Diablo 1 & 2, Starcraft & Warcraft. the only company that can pull so many new players into the genre is Bioware, they have many fans also. And Blizzard knows what Blizzard fans want, SOE don't, that is why they did what they did to SWG.
I don't think that RMT is the reason why not more people play it.
EQ2 was very low on players except for like 1-2 servers long before SOE turned in RMT.
IMO the reasons are
-very bad performance of the game client even on highend pcs. SOE recently started to fix it with more or less success, but for many years performance was an absolute game breaker unless you accept to play the game below balanced setting at which it looks plain awful.
-art and design is not liked by alot of people. I've read so very often that people are turned off by what they say is the "clay" look of the characters. I personally like the look and art of EQ2 alot, yet i always thought that the lightning looks a bit too artificial.
-static and repetitive combat system. If you are i.e. coming from WoW like many players do, the combat system of EQ2 feels rather static and less "quick on the trigger" , at least for the many caster classes. I so missed the ability to throw an instant with my necro or dot an enemy while running. But i guess the lack of any instant casts is the downside of not having a global cd.
I see no difference for DDO subscribers that do not want any RMT in their game
what are their options? cancel ?
if Turbine really cared about player feedback
they could at least offer 1 server with *zero* RMT
Which is still a possibility since they are working with their playerbase beta testing the changes.
I'm not saying what turbine is doing is a great thing or that they deserve a pass. I think it sucks to make changes like this, but at least they are trying to work with the playerbase and come up with options. I'm not a big fan of it, but I'm keeping an open mind until the results are in.
I am not entirely against cash shops, but I there is no justification for having a cash shop slapped on top of a subscription game just so the company can make more money, especially when it doesn't benefit the playerbase one bit. The only one who benefits from the cash shop is soe. It is actually a net loss to players if you really look at it and overall it is part of the root cause that gives birth to threads like this.
Does anyone really wonder why more people don't play EQ2?
SOE never had a million players. At best EQ had 500K and SWG 250K. That's it, 750K players.
who benefits from Turbine's cash shop? except Turbine?
to be more clear
Ive seen many people give Free Realms grief
over having BOTH an optional monthly fee and a cash shop
Turbine's DDO is doing the same thing and its not even a new game ...
EQ2 fan sites
SOE never had a million players. At best EQ had 500K and SWG 250K. That's it, 750K players.
EQ had 550k during 2004
EQ2 had 300,000+ during 2004-2005 (you forgot this game)
SWG had somewhere around 350,00 at its height, but settled around 250k by 2004.
and that is just their big 3 which is over a million.
There was a job ad for a some job position where they boasted over a million customers. I actually read it myself a number of years ago.
How many customers do you think they have now? Why do you think that happened?
The biggest and "most successful" game SOE has ever had?
Free Realms.
They are trying to copy NCSoft with having a wide range of F2P titles and P2P titles on the market to diversify and expand their over all player base.
And it is working, Free Realms is very successful and a few P2P SOE games are still chugging along.
What SOE doesn't have and what NCSoft does have is games like Lineage/L2 that are huge in the East.
It's easier for Eastern games to break into the Western market, like Aion looks to do or FFXI was/is decently successful in the west... but western games breaking into the Eastern market? Only WoW has really done so.
So NCSoft definitely has a clear advantage over SOE.
They probably have less then 500k between SWG, EQ, and EQ2 but well over a million in Free Realms. SOE is doing fine.
They've shifted their focus to the more casual market and F2P games because they just can't compete with NCSoft who has huge P2P games like the Lineage series, Aion (in the East so far) and also HUGE F2P numbers with games like Guild Wars and a lot of their small little F2P titles.
EQ2 isn't popular because it was made on the premise that it would be viable 5 years later on an engine that was planted in the present. Looks fine, performs terribly compared to others.
Also very top heavy game. 1-70 is a ghost town.
Which is too bad since I personally like it and have a rig to run it. But there are days I wonder why I keep my sub when I could be playing CoX
PvE fantasy though its EQ2 or LotRO. EQ2 just released update 52, yes 52 free content updates, and has announced yet another exp for next year that isn't Velious grrr. Realize its split in half and all but Luclin would be awesome too 