I have this sneaking suspicion.....that the OP was thinking GRAPHICS when he posted. However, I also wonder if he isn't confused and meant EQ2. But I'm addressing it as if he actually meant what he said, and meant EQ. With that logic, however, I wonder why he didn't ask why UO was "unpolished." lol
EQ isn't "unpolished." Let me use WoW as an example (because...we ALL do). Have you noticed that WoW's graphics haven't changed a WHOLE lot? There are reasons for that. One of which, is to keep from having to require a large part of your player base from having to go buy new hardware. People can get a little pissy about that. lol The other (and I'm sure there are many reasons I haven't thought of) is because the WoW player base OVER ALL...LIKES the stylized graphics. The exact same things can be said for EQ.
Also...say you're level, I don't know....114 (I don't know what levels are in EQ now)....and you've spent 10 years getting there and accumulating special items in a game. How apt are you going to be to EASILY lay it down...IF....IF those items took a LOT of time to obtain. No I mean REALLY a lot of time. (If WoW was your first MMO....you can't begin to relate to this "a LOT of time" part, don't even try, because NOTHING in WoW takes a lot of time in comparison to EQ.)
Now when you say polished...if you DON'T mean graphics aren't "up to today's standards," and you're talking about the game mechanics themselves? HAHAHA....EQ is very polished. It's also very difficult and TIME CONSUMING, compared to WoW. Myself, I don't look at graphics alone as "polish," but more the gameplay, the combat, the quests, is it buggy? Stuff like that.
Anyway, I'm rambling. But if the OP meant graphics....I think I covered that.
How dare you even ask this question? My grandfather is old school and talks about walking 3 miles in the snow to get to school, and killed japs in WWII when he was 20. He may not be as good looking or as fast as me and other people my age, but he's a seasoned bad ass and one of a kind.
You can't compare EQ to WoW. It's apples and oranges. All WoW did was take ideas from EQ and dumb them way down, so theres your polish. And graphically its no comparison either if you account the release dates of the game. WoW looks like a cartoon. EQ looked amazing when it came out. Compare Vanguard graphics too WoW graphics, they were released around the same time.
It was one of the first games that required a 3DFX card to play, which some of the Sony team thought would make it fail, but within a year or two it had 500K subscribers, something that was unheard of. They thought it would last a year, two at max, and had already started to plan a sequel, as most games do. They did not expect for one minute it would last 10 years and still be running.
EQ2 was being designed and built in the background within two years of EQ1's launch, with the plan being to transfer players over to it and close down EQ1 (as most PC's games faded out within a year). But as the years rolled on, it became clear that this wasnt going to work, so they started to work on a much more advanced engine, and opted to try running two games at the same time. The advanced engine idea was born out of the 3dFX uptake they had seen at the launch of EQ1, so again, they presumed people would upgrade to play it. But that was not the case, and so the new players thought it looked bad on their PC's and quit in droves. These days (despite what some say) on a decent rig it looks outstanding on max (and with the new shaders coming in next month its set to look even better and play faster than ever).
None of these mistakes can really be blamed on the dev team at the time. They were trying to learn from the first experience, and push the graphic boundaries, but it backfired on them.
As for Warcraft, they took a different choice, and aimed the graphics for a more cartoon style, and an engine that would run on much older machines, meaning anyone could play it without upgrading. This paid off hugely, as their army of existing fans (which numbered in the millions) could jump straight in and play. And making it funny, simple, and easy to "jump in and play" meant it spread by word of mouth, growing upwards, whilst EQ2 got a reputation for being difficult to get into (losing XP and shards when you died) and hard to run on most PC's.
EQ2 is still an amazing game to play, both graphically and gameplay-wise, with a mature pleasant community and a very open and contactable development team, which is why its sat in the top 10 games on this site for the last X years. When SOE finally announce EQ3, I'm pretty sure it will have learnt alot of lessons, and be a much more successful game.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
EQ was more polished than WOW at the time of WoW's release.
I played WoW not long after release.
The EQ interface was much more polished than the WoW interface. The WoW interface had limited functionality compared to EQ. Also, the EQ servers ran more reliably. EQ graphics looked better. Did Blizzard ever fix that loot bug where heaps of people in an area lagged because at times the server took 10 to 30 seconds to loot monsters?
People who left EQ at the time left to try 2 new games: EQ2 and WoW.
The reason for EQ's decline was not polish. There were a number of factors including:
EQ was an old game and people like to try something new
Blizzard are very good at releasing games with reasonable graphics that run well on older computers
EQ needed a good computer to run well
Blizzard combined some of the best features from a number of earlier MMO's into a fun MMO.
EQ was sensitive to drops in player population. There was a drop in the number of active players when WOW and EQ2 were released. EQ's big raids meant that a drop in population made raiding impossible for many guilds as they did not have enough players to raid. Because raiding became impossible for many players, this led to even more people leaving.
EQ's endgame was raiding only. To be fair, WoW's pve endgame when I played was raiding only too.
WoW was a new and exciting game that was released when there was a massive increase in the number of people with internet access.
SOE's big mistake was in trying to make EQ2. Sequels don't work in MMO's, (see AC2, UO 2, 3, etc) a better tactic would have been to upgrade the current game, but it sounds like early technical designed made that unfeasible.
CCP continues to upgrade EVE and it has evolved quite a bit from its early days. Had they tried to make an EVE 2 it would have been a dismal failure.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I can see my self doing this many many years from now when i am old and grey, with no teeth and a cane. ... Why yes Tommy we did have MMOS when I was young.... Why back in my day we had to group to get the good experience!! We had to make naked corpse runs uphill in the snow!! Dying could cost you hours worth of experience!! Wa actually took long boat rides to get around, we lost poor Bob once when he fell off!! We didn't have these fancy "addons" for our games, if you had an addon back then you were a hacker!! We didn't have fancy ventrillo, we actually had to type!! Those were the good old days! *shakes his cane at you* Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!!!
haha -- I LOVE IT !! I started up with EQ in '99 and I have thought/said this sort of thing for a few years now. Good stuff -- and all true. On a side note, I loved EQ until they started with the forced raiding crap. Sorry, I dont have 8 hours to form a raid group -- yes I said FORM...then you still need to set aside some time to actually do the raid --- sorry, not this guy.
I stil support all of those things.
I also still refuse to use Vent and do all my communication in game by typing. My house is just too noisy sometimes to rely on any headset that does not complety block out sound, and my wife would divorce me if I did not talk to here while playing.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
I can see my self doing this many many years from now when i am old and grey, with no teeth and a cane. ... Why yes Tommy we did have MMOS when I was young.... Why back in my day we had to group to get the good experience!! We had to make naked corpse runs uphill in the snow!! Dying could cost you hours worth of experience!! Wa actually took long boat rides to get around, we lost poor Bob once when he fell off!! We didn't have these fancy "addons" for our games, if you had an addon back then you were a hacker!! We didn't have fancy ventrillo, we actually had to type!! Those were the good old days! *shakes his cane at you* Get off my lawn you young whippersnappers!!!
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
1999 was not that long ago my friend. Most if not everyone had computers, although not necessarily good ones, but EQ didn't take a gaming PC to run. You act like EQ released in the 1970s. Don't talk about a time when you weren't even born yet, because you don't know anything about it.
Dude, were you even there? In 1999, nVidia was still in diaper. 3Dfx was still at its prime. EQ was THE FIRST MMO that ever used 3D accelerator card. You DID need a gaming PC to run EQ back then. I remember buying my Voodoo 3 to play EQ. Heheheh. Back then not everyone and his brother has a 3D card in their computers. PC with a 3D card whether it's an addon card or stand-alone card is a gaming PC.
SOE's big mistake was in trying to make EQ2. Sequels don't work in MMO's, (see AC2, UO 2, 3, etc) a better tactic would have been to upgrade the current game, but it sounds like early technical designed made that unfeasible. CCP continues to upgrade EVE and it has evolved quite a bit from its early days. Had they tried to make an EVE 2 it would have been a dismal failure.
But CCP has the advantage of just being in empty space. They can upgrade a lot through higher rez textures a few extra polys and environment maps. A MMO with thousands of structures, unique zones, ect is a different animal. Eve is a SIMPLE, SIMPLE universe made up of simple models and static backdrops. Spaceships are easy. Its 3D 101. Its just not on the same scale as something like WOW or Aion or whatever. Eve's playerbase also doesn't expect to be honest. They certainly aren't picky considering what they put up with with that game.
Comments
I have this sneaking suspicion.....that the OP was thinking GRAPHICS when he posted. However, I also wonder if he isn't confused and meant EQ2. But I'm addressing it as if he actually meant what he said, and meant EQ. With that logic, however, I wonder why he didn't ask why UO was "unpolished." lol
EQ isn't "unpolished." Let me use WoW as an example (because...we ALL do). Have you noticed that WoW's graphics haven't changed a WHOLE lot? There are reasons for that. One of which, is to keep from having to require a large part of your player base from having to go buy new hardware. People can get a little pissy about that. lol The other (and I'm sure there are many reasons I haven't thought of) is because the WoW player base OVER ALL...LIKES the stylized graphics. The exact same things can be said for EQ.
Also...say you're level, I don't know....114 (I don't know what levels are in EQ now)....and you've spent 10 years getting there and accumulating special items in a game. How apt are you going to be to EASILY lay it down...IF....IF those items took a LOT of time to obtain. No I mean REALLY a lot of time. (If WoW was your first MMO....you can't begin to relate to this "a LOT of time" part, don't even try, because NOTHING in WoW takes a lot of time in comparison to EQ.)
Now when you say polished...if you DON'T mean graphics aren't "up to today's standards," and you're talking about the game mechanics themselves? HAHAHA....EQ is very polished. It's also very difficult and TIME CONSUMING, compared to WoW. Myself, I don't look at graphics alone as "polish," but more the gameplay, the combat, the quests, is it buggy? Stuff like that.
Anyway, I'm rambling. But if the OP meant graphics....I think I covered that.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club
How dare you even ask this question? My grandfather is old school and talks about walking 3 miles in the snow to get to school, and killed japs in WWII when he was 20. He may not be as good looking or as fast as me and other people my age, but he's a seasoned bad ass and one of a kind.
EQ is ugly as sin. At least WoW is barely acceptable.
Easy answer: SOE
Said in the most polite terms, they don't have a good track record with MMO fans.
Ken
www.ActionMMORPG.com
One man, a small pile of money, and the screwball idea of a DIY Indie MMORPG? Yep, that's him. ~sigh~
You can't compare EQ to WoW. It's apples and oranges. All WoW did was take ideas from EQ and dumb them way down, so theres your polish. And graphically its no comparison either if you account the release dates of the game. WoW looks like a cartoon. EQ looked amazing when it came out. Compare Vanguard graphics too WoW graphics, they were released around the same time.
EQ didn't age well. It could have, but sadly it didn't.
EQ1 'WAS' polished when it came out.
It was one of the first games that required a 3DFX card to play, which some of the Sony team thought would make it fail, but within a year or two it had 500K subscribers, something that was unheard of. They thought it would last a year, two at max, and had already started to plan a sequel, as most games do. They did not expect for one minute it would last 10 years and still be running.
EQ2 was being designed and built in the background within two years of EQ1's launch, with the plan being to transfer players over to it and close down EQ1 (as most PC's games faded out within a year). But as the years rolled on, it became clear that this wasnt going to work, so they started to work on a much more advanced engine, and opted to try running two games at the same time. The advanced engine idea was born out of the 3dFX uptake they had seen at the launch of EQ1, so again, they presumed people would upgrade to play it. But that was not the case, and so the new players thought it looked bad on their PC's and quit in droves. These days (despite what some say) on a decent rig it looks outstanding on max (and with the new shaders coming in next month its set to look even better and play faster than ever).
None of these mistakes can really be blamed on the dev team at the time. They were trying to learn from the first experience, and push the graphic boundaries, but it backfired on them.
As for Warcraft, they took a different choice, and aimed the graphics for a more cartoon style, and an engine that would run on much older machines, meaning anyone could play it without upgrading. This paid off hugely, as their army of existing fans (which numbered in the millions) could jump straight in and play. And making it funny, simple, and easy to "jump in and play" meant it spread by word of mouth, growing upwards, whilst EQ2 got a reputation for being difficult to get into (losing XP and shards when you died) and hard to run on most PC's.
EQ2 is still an amazing game to play, both graphically and gameplay-wise, with a mature pleasant community and a very open and contactable development team, which is why its sat in the top 10 games on this site for the last X years. When SOE finally announce EQ3, I'm pretty sure it will have learnt alot of lessons, and be a much more successful game.
"When people don't know much about something, they tend to fill in the blanks the way they want them to be filled in. They are almost always disappointed." - Will Wright
EQ was more polished than WOW at the time of WoW's release.
I played WoW not long after release.
The EQ interface was much more polished than the WoW interface. The WoW interface had limited functionality compared to EQ. Also, the EQ servers ran more reliably. EQ graphics looked better. Did Blizzard ever fix that loot bug where heaps of people in an area lagged because at times the server took 10 to 30 seconds to loot monsters?
People who left EQ at the time left to try 2 new games: EQ2 and WoW.
The reason for EQ's decline was not polish. There were a number of factors including:
SOE's big mistake was in trying to make EQ2. Sequels don't work in MMO's, (see AC2, UO 2, 3, etc) a better tactic would have been to upgrade the current game, but it sounds like early technical designed made that unfeasible.
CCP continues to upgrade EVE and it has evolved quite a bit from its early days. Had they tried to make an EVE 2 it would have been a dismal failure.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
haha -- I LOVE IT !! I started up with EQ in '99 and I have thought/said this sort of thing for a few years now. Good stuff -- and all true. On a side note, I loved EQ until they started with the forced raiding crap. Sorry, I dont have 8 hours to form a raid group -- yes I said FORM...then you still need to set aside some time to actually do the raid --- sorry, not this guy.
I stil support all of those things.
I also still refuse to use Vent and do all my communication in game by typing. My house is just too noisy sometimes to rely on any headset that does not complety block out sound, and my wife would divorce me if I did not talk to here while playing.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
hm I maybe the only one seemingly that doesn't relate Everquest with 'polish'..
I could not have said that better. Excellent visualization Bathnor. Although coming off humorous, that is exactly how it was ... he is not exagerating. Games back then and before everquest are from a different era completely, computers back then were not on everyones desk. In fact back then the only people to even own a computer was few and far between and of those who did own one most people labeled em geeks, nerds, and thier views on those type of people were dim indeed. When MMO's first appeared they were pretty much looked upon in awe and confusion as they were beyond most peoples comprehension and playing online fantasy games back then was considered akin to devil worshiping by some. The gameplay back then was more mental stimulating than anything we have today. It is kinda hare to grasp if you hadn't been there. I could go on but im cutting this short due to interuptions in household................................
1999 was not that long ago my friend. Most if not everyone had computers, although not necessarily good ones, but EQ didn't take a gaming PC to run. You act like EQ released in the 1970s. Don't talk about a time when you weren't even born yet, because you don't know anything about it.
Dude, were you even there? In 1999, nVidia was still in diaper. 3Dfx was still at its prime. EQ was THE FIRST MMO that ever used 3D accelerator card. You DID need a gaming PC to run EQ back then. I remember buying my Voodoo 3 to play EQ. Heheheh. Back then not everyone and his brother has a 3D card in their computers. PC with a 3D card whether it's an addon card or stand-alone card is a gaming PC.
But CCP has the advantage of just being in empty space. They can upgrade a lot through higher rez textures a few extra polys and environment maps. A MMO with thousands of structures, unique zones, ect is a different animal. Eve is a SIMPLE, SIMPLE universe made up of simple models and static backdrops. Spaceships are easy. Its 3D 101. Its just not on the same scale as something like WOW or Aion or whatever. Eve's playerbase also doesn't expect to be honest. They certainly aren't picky considering what they put up with with that game.