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Would EQ2 have taken the mmo world by storm?
NortonGB
Member UncommonPosts: 279
in Everquest II
If WoW hadn't been released at around the same time just how much bigger would have EQ2 been?
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It would have around 500k, it was to buggy at release and the localized versions were so ridiculous that it had game breaking effects.
People dont forgive such things!
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Imo it would have been a true blockbuster. It had some bugs at launch, but so did WoW. EQ2 actually had none of the problems with server queues WoW had and as far as class balance goes there was no way to be worse than vanilla WoW! EQ2 has a polish that WoW only achieved after an expansion and it had some really nice features at launch, like player housing, NPC and quest finder and an actual LFG system.
I remember distinctly most comparative reviews at the time resulting in a tie and from my personal experience most went to WoW simply because it was made by Blizzard. When WoW launched I was playing EQ2 and trying for weeks to persuade my friends to join me; they refused because they had played Warcarft, Diablo and Starcraft and truly believed that Blizzard's game couldn't be anything but the best; I ended up playing WoW with them for years!
no probably not..it probably will be about the same size as it is now, Whether you like it or not, the only reason mmorpg are so popular now ((well in the west)) is because of WoW.
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If it had ALL the features and depth of EQ1 and had taken away some of the negatives and had lower system requirements to run then it would have been bigger in my opinion.
I played it at launch for a couple of weeks and it just ran badly and there seemed to be too much zoning. WoW came out, had no zoning and ran like a dream. No prizes for guessing which one I ditched. It would be another year before I returned to EQ2.
Yes, and let us all forget the fact that the developers of EQ II themselves admitted to be playing WoW on their free time, and saying with not a little regret that they could see several things in EQII that they could have done differently. And sticking to that remark, they soon implemented dozens upon dozens of features straight from WoW.
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Agreed. While I think EQ2 is the better game, WOW brought in people that had never seen an MMO before. They made it , fashionable to play.
WOW isnt great because it has 12 million players. WOW has 12 million players because its great.
I think the main thing that hurt EQ 2 was the graphic engine. It takes a very good pc today to run EQ 2 so 6 years ago it was a total nighmare for sure.
Not much. Top end system requirements, gameplay, and world design would have kept the game firmly in nerd/niche territory.
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No. The thing that EQ2 lacked was deversity. It was unfortunate that the first 20 levels were the same for a warrior, paladin, and shadow knight. The game also lacked the "Fun" factor. What WoW gave the fans was a fast leveling system, a lack of a death penalty, minimal downtime, and a world that seemed fun to absorb yourself in. EQ 2 had none of that. In my oppinion, if WoW was never released, EQ2 would probably be as successful as Asheron's Call 2 was. If anything, EQ2 benefitted from the increase in subscribers WoW brought into the genre. But that's just my two cents.
Agree!!!
If EQ2 had the potential to be a blockbuster it would have already taken off or at least been more competition to wow. At some point the subscription numbers would have started to climb, but the exact opposite is closer to the truth.
I really don't think it would be much bigger than it is now.
If wow didn't release then the eq2 devs would have most likely stuck to their initial designs and thought them to be a solid foundation for an mmo. As someone else pointed out, eq2 benefitted from wow being on the market.
After leaving EQII to follow friends to LoTRO, then coming back because LoTRO's every release is more of the same, I am still blown away that EQII hasn't grown to epic proportions. Almost everything is better; the graphics, the character models, the game play, and I could go on and on. The only exception being the large amounts zoning, which coupled with the lack of people I knew in game to draw me away in the first place. I'm still playing in those zones, but I didn't lose any of the characters I left behind, so I'm looking forward to finding out what I missed soon.
Oddly enough, what brought me back was the housing, which was sadly lacking on the development end in LoTRO. I should stop now. There's lots of stuff in my head that could end up a block long here. To get back to the point, I don't see how any other game holds a candle to EQII. I thought WoW (because it was from Blizzard) would be the last game I'd ever need to play, and I ended up not being able to hold down my lunch through more than twenty minutes of it. Wait. Getting off into ramble land again. Let's just say that, whatever you're playing now, EQII is where you should be.
There...I said something; now be quiet while I kill this.
I agree with several of the replies that WoW is responsible for the rise of popularity for MMO's. I do think though, had it never existed EQ2 would be top dog of the MMORPG world. Having said that, yes I think the population would be larger than it is now, but I don't think it would have ever came close to the sub numbers of WoW.
On a personal note, having only recently given this game a chance I am glad to say it is one of my favorite games of all time.
If WoW never launched I would say EQ2 would have hit near the 500-600k mark, holding steady around 400k players.
WoW had Vivendi marketing the game (before launch almost any store that sold PC games had tons of advertisments for the game), where EQ2 had SOE (who felt that word of mouth would sell the game). Stores like EB and Software ETC (now all Gamestop) had displays of WoW material (boxes, posters, etc). Vivendi was 'selling' the game long before it even hit release.
At EB we constantly had Vivendi reps in the store making sure anything Warcraft was in a prime spot to be seen by customers. We even had employee contests sponsored by Vivendi (Store in a region that sold the most WoW PO's would win Lifetime subscriptions to the game for all its employees - something my store accomplished, giving me access to WoW untill the year 2030 :P ).
SOE never really did anything to 'sell' EQ2, which was one of the many things that hurt the game. You might have seen a couple of EQ2 articles in gaming mags, but that was about it.
Today EQ2, in my opinion, is the better game content wise. EQ2 is still on the path of an MMO where WoW is more and more becoming a massive version of D2. I still view WoW as more of a 'My First MMO' style game, sort of like the shallow end of a swimming pool. It's fun and gets you started, but it lacks depth, and at some point the floaties have to come off and you need to go deeper.
There are 3 types of people in the world.
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Agreed - strongly. SOE doesn't appear to have marketed EQII at all. I never see it advertised anywhere. Maybe the parent company doesn't understand that, even among gamers, word of mouth only goes so far.
There...I said something; now be quiet while I kill this.
Aye,
Thing is I think WoW was the first MMO to ever be advertised the way it was. I mean sure other MMOs had ads in mags and on websites, but all in all the people who looked at those mags/sites were the people who actually played those types of games.
I can remember about a year before the game was released we had a gigantic WoW cut out standing in the middle of the store floor visable to anyone who walked by. We even had posters in the window. When they released the trailer, the Vivendi rep installed a 19" monitor facing the entrance that played the trailer on a loop.
But yeah, before WoW it was rare to see any sort of MMO marketing outside of the genres target audience. The only time before WoW that I can recall any sort of attempt to sell an MMO to the masses was the EQ Online Adventures commercial that played on TV (It's time to slay the dragon...), but even that was more of a PS2 ad than an EQ ad.
If anything, WoW proved that with the right marketing (TV ads, blitz and glitz, etc) you could easily open up the genre to the masses.
Maybe with 'EQ Next' SOE will launch a strong marketing campaign (and hopefully release a game thats as polished as possible at launch this time)
There are 3 types of people in the world.
1.) Those who make things happen
2.) Those who watch things happen
3.) And those who wonder "What the %#*& just happened?!"
EQ2 had plenty of marketing and advertising at release. Soe had platform publishing which was a division specialized in just that sort of thing. The problem is that advertising will only get people to try a game. It will not get them to stay nor will it get them to recommend it to their friends. How many games have we seen now that have been hyped and marketed to the moon and back only to crash and burn shortly after release. Eventually word of mouth gets out about the game and reality sets in.
Even if wow never released, eq2 would not have broken the market open. EQ2 was already struggling to retain its playerbase within the first year and was closing servers in that time. If the game had blockbuster potential it wouldn't have been in that situation. It would have grown right along side of warcraft. Maybe not in the same number, but certainly not closing servers.
I think a lot of people forget just how disconnected eq2 was at release and how many years soe spent revamping mechanics, redesigning systems and constantly changing design course of the game. There is a reason the sequel to EQ leveled out at about half of the success as the original.
I have my doubts about that. My impression was that EQ1 players didnt really like EQ2. Also the client was poorly optimised and didnt offer much scalability.
And even though I like EQ2 for its gamemechanics, I find it one of the more ugly games from that generation. I mean artstyle and world. The original pastel (candycolour armour? why?)coloured armoursets are some of the least create Ive ever seen in a MMO. The world also doesnt really look like a world. Mobs in the old areas are placed as if someone had a map with boxes where to put the different mobs in. Its as if the game didnt have designers and artists at launch, but everything was made by programmers.
These are oldschool MMO shortcomings and simply wont draw mainstream customers.
EQII would have had a larger population. However, it probably wouldn't have been as wildly successful as WoW. Like many others have said, WoW is what made mmorpgs popular in the west. Actually it had a similar effect on mmorpgs that FF VII had on rpgs (you still see Cloud and Sephiroth references everywhere). WoW made the genre "cool", whereas you would have been just another nerd for playing EQII.
It's run by SoE so no - it was doomed to mediocrity from the beginning lol.
Wow expanded to "gamers", not just mmorpg-ers, as well as expanding to non gamers. EQ2 would never have hit the sweetspot, the non gamers. Think Wii.
I think I'd rather have MMOs still be for us nerds. The jocks beat us up in high school, now they've invaded our hobby and simplified it from chess club to football.
at the time WoW wasn't even on my radar. I was busy in SWG having a blast, some of my friends were going to try EQ2 but they came back quickly, complaining of massive issues. The talk was that Sony was going to discard SWG and put their efforts into EQ2. I don't know if they actually did that but they did let SWG go all to shit. so the rumors were correct.
I think Sony has nuked a lot of titles in order to get more subscriber base for the various EQ's. It's well known, "Sony is where games go to die".
Eq2 was frustrating when it was released but without WoW it would be the best release in that time period and so would have done a bit better but it wouldn't have anywhere near the same effect as WoW.
i'm certainly one of the people that chose eq2 over wow at the time of their release (i was playing ff11 at the time). I loved a lot of things about eq2 but the memory leaks (especially) and other bugs (to a lesser extent) made me try wow, which i've been subbed to ever since (though my time is running down in wow due to ff14 release).
I dont know about thousands of people but i can speak for myself and say if it wasnt for the bugs, i'd have been playing eq2 all these years.
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