I think there is a definite niche for an EQ classic type of game.....There are still people out there that want a harder game with those mechanics......Project 99 and Shards of Dalaya did ok but they both took EQs world and modified it....Every time EQ has a new progression server it draws alot of interest.....Many of these guys are used to paying subs so that may not be a detterent.....The question is how many of course......
someone brought up Vanguard earlier but Im not sure thats a great example.....Vanguard was very poorly optimized...It ran like crap on alot of PCs......Most of us were fed up with that game pretty quickly because it was so poorly done...sure the world is huge but what good does it do when parts of it are empty, falling through, etc......I still think alot of us are looking for a great PVE game.....
Your main problem will be if you want to play oldschool EQ you still can, for free. You'll also run into the same problem as them. Small populations on a group-required gamed = death. Most people will be forced to solo unless you find a way for people of all levels to benefit and contribute to the same groups.
Even then there are other good oldschool games still live like Asherons call and anarchy online. Not to be rude but do you honestly think you can do content better than those games? Otherwise you're just touting new graphics.
* Good grahpics (not AAA but on par with other recent kickstarter projects) GW2 level of graphics would be perfect for me.. not too cartoony, not too realistic..
* 40 zones with non instanced world dungeons, bosses agreed, I would stay with zones, and I do like how GW2 does it.. EQ was the invisible line, I like to SEE that line myself..
* No "!" questing, Having to 'H'ail NPC's and ask questions etc Personally I don't want to hail anymore either, and I don't want the ? icon either.. I do like the icons over the head that ID what a NPC is such a vendor or trainer, banker and things like that.. I hate questing, and rather see everything e repeatable bounties..
* Corpse runs / XP loss when you die Penalty yes, but corpse runs should be elective.. If you die take a combat debuff sickness.. you can reduce that sickness via corpse run or rez..
* Placeholder mobs / A mix of long and short spawn timers Honestly I like mobs being on a random and mix timers, but no more NPC's that are farmed for questline or loot.. That just causes too many problems..
* Epic quests (and i mean EPIC - read months and months of work, 2-4 hours a day etc...) old fashion epic quest yes, as long as they are done right.. which means NO MORE QUEST NPC's that get farmed.. Again too many problems.
* A dozen playable classes and over twenty races I like to keep it about 10-12 races and classes.. maybe more classes depending..
* Factions / Religions where your KOS to a decent % of the world Factions should be a major part of the game.. I'm surprised that so many MMO's stayed away from them.. It's content
* Very very long levelling treadmill - 50 levels at launch (8+ hours a day will still take 6 months+ to reach max level) The average gamer should not be able to max level in weeks or a few months..
* Very limited automated fast travel - player to player travel would be the main way
* Real darkness, lack of infra / nightvision on most
* a /pizza command that auto alt tabs from the game and loads up Dominos.com ;-) DELETE..
How many subs do you think it would get a month, on average for say the first two years and how much do you think they would be willing to pay for that month.
I summise the player base would max out at 10k people (if the game achieved the maximum success possible) and more likely would be sub 1k but on the flip side these players would be willing to spend a little more than your average sub fee for a modern eq-like experience (say $25-$35 per month)
In general a reboot of EQ could and should be very profitable.. AS long as you clean up the problems that caused people to dislike it and leave to greener pastures.. One major issue with EQ was the lack of solo'ing.. Too often players would have to wait to find a group, and could not solo.. BAD MOVE.. I always said that most of the games wondering trash mobs should be soloable.. and special camps with elite type mobs are tailored for groups.. Happy Happy Happy..
I can speak for other players, and i don't know any statistics that can answer your question of if this will be profitable.
But i will pass.
He said an old school reboot of EQ. Instantly every single person on this site knew you wouldn't be interested in it.
Great .. so we are on the same page and he would know that my statements are accurate.
You statements are accurate... to your point of view.
If he had said he wanted to make a super casual, no difficulty, everyone gets everything they want whenever they want it, then we would have all known you would like it. Instead he said an Old EQ1 reboot so we of course all knew you'd point out how it wasn't the super casual, no difficulty, everyone gets what they want game so therefore you wouldn't like it.
That's all I'm saying.
Of course. I am very clear that i am only speaking for myself. I don't think there is any confusing that i am speaking from anything BUT my point of view. But thank you for make it even more apparent.
Although apparently you do miss some of my post which talk about i prefer a difficult slider and an appropriate level of challenge (hence i prefer D3 over most MMOs). And also why i don't play games like Eve which has easy-mode pve mission (at least up to level 2 or 3).
Although more than likely a typo due to Nari's obsessive compulsion to post as quickly as possible in every thread for post count purposes....
Do you mean, if you and your colleagues made it, or if some top notch game designers made it? If the former, then it would depend tremendously on the skills that you and your colleagues have.
All out of original ideas, even before you've started?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Myself and a few collegaues got around to debating whether a rebooted EQ-like game could actually make a profit in todays market.
If i made a new indie MMO that at its heart was a reboot of the original eq and the first few expansions how many subs do you think i would be able to get per month.
When i say reboot, i dont mean reskinning the dungeons and zones and models as this would be copyright infringment, but if we made something new but very familiar.
Lets say hypothetically that at launch i have:-
* Good grahpics (not AAA but on par with other recent kickstarter projects)
* 40 zones with non instanced world dungeons, bosses
* No "!" questing, Having to 'H'ail NPC's and ask questions etc
* Corpse runs / XP loss when you die
* Placeholder mobs / A mix of long and short spawn timers
* Epic quests (and i mean EPIC - read months and months of work, 2-4 hours a day etc...)
* A dozen playable classes and over twenty races
* Factions / Religions where your KOS to a decent % of the world
* Very very long levelling treadmill - 50 levels at launch (8+ hours a day will still take 6 months+ to reach max level)
* Very limited automated fast travel - player to player travel would be the main way
* Real darkness, lack of infra / nightvision on most
* a /pizza command that auto alt tabs from the game and loads up Dominos.com ;-)
How many subs do you think it would get a month, on average for say the first two years and how much do you think they would be willing to pay for that month.
I summise the player base would max out at 10k people (if the game achieved the maximum success possible) and more likely would be sub 1k but on the flip side these players would be willing to spend a little more than your average sub fee for a modern eq-like experience (say $25-$35 per month)
U paint a limited game^
But a real premium game using real technology and real GM's.. could easy pull in $20~$30/month... depending on the quality of the game.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
I can speak for other players, and i don't know any statistics that can answer your question of if this will be profitable.
But i will pass.
He said an old school reboot of EQ. Instantly every single person on this site knew you wouldn't be interested in it.
Great .. so we are on the same page and he would know that my statements are accurate.
You statements are accurate... to your point of view.
If he had said he wanted to make a super casual, no difficulty, everyone gets everything they want whenever they want it, then we would have all known you would like it. Instead he said an Old EQ1 reboot so we of course all knew you'd point out how it wasn't the super casual, no difficulty, everyone gets what they want game so therefore you wouldn't like it.
That's all I'm saying.
Of course. I am very clear that i am only speaking for myself. I don't think there is any confusing that i am speaking from anything BUT my point of view. But thank you for make it even more apparent.
Although apparently you do miss some of my post which talk about i prefer a difficult slider and an appropriate level of challenge (hence i prefer D3 over most MMOs). And also why i don't play games like Eve which has easy-mode pve mission (at least up to level 2 or 3).
No no... you missed Wolf's point, he was backing up his rebuttal, then suggested you didn't have to chime in, because nobody cares what you have to say anymore.
Ironically, you are the butt-end of many jokes on other websites dude, u have to know this..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
Just look at Vanguard. Can you pull off the quality and scope of Vanguard? Most probably not. And even with that scope and that quality(which wasn't of course the best.. but by far not the worst either) is not capable of making any decent profit, you will most probably even less have a chance of being successful. Furthermore Vanguard got Brad McQuaid, one of the designers of EQ.. and he got actually a good reputation before of the release of Vanguard.
Vanguard only failed because Brad McQuaid didn't know how to run a company. Then Vanguard had the worst launch in the history of MMORPG. In spite of these failings the game still pulled 200k box sales and initial subs. That is more initial sales than EQ1 had in 1999.
This proves there is pretty sizable interest in an new EQ1 type game. There is an under served market out there waiting for such a game to be made. Vanguard failed in part due to poor execution of the product and quality issues. The lesson to be learned here is it can't be some indie game just thrown together like OP is proposing. It has to have real quality and polish that would be expected in a AAA title.
I agree with you that there could still be some interest in an EQ1 type game but all that the Vanguard box sales at release really prove is that there was in interest back then, which I believe was 2007 if I remember correctly.
Just look at Vanguard. Can you pull off the quality and scope of Vanguard? Most probably not. And even with that scope and that quality(which wasn't of course the best.. but by far not the worst either) is not capable of making any decent profit, you will most probably even less have a chance of being successful. Furthermore Vanguard got Brad McQuaid, one of the designers of EQ.. and he got actually a good reputation before of the release of Vanguard.
Not even Vanguard.
Just look at Darkfall (both versions). Can you pull of the quality and scope of the Darkfall games? And don't be fooled, even that is not easy.
If the answer is yes, prepare to run a game that is permanently in "life support" mode.
As a developer myself, in the graphic industry (real time effects for TV/video/movies), I could make an engine to render great landscape graphics and allow players to roam through it together connected to a server. That's the "easy" part actually, sort of. I could even design some great textures for that landscape. Then come the buildings, the cities, dungeons, etc... there it becomes harder, you need artists for that. And then come the character and mob graphics, and animations... and that's what "indie" developers can't do with a decent production quality. Specially the animations.
I hate Darkfall games, I think they are poorly designed crap, but even to achieve that kind of quality, there's a lot of work and money involved (actually a shame of a waste of good developer, artist and animator time which could have been used to make something better).
Not to mention that I believe that an EQ1 clone made nowadays would fail so hard it's not even funny.
This^
THen you get into the real cost, of server, IT & netcoding, etc.. that is where the real cost of making a MMORPG come from. Art & textures are cheap compared to backbone character linking & server structures, etc.
That is why an Open World game is so costly. Because the actual hardware to provide such an environment cost MILLIONS more upfront. It is that upfront cost that scares most of these developers, because if their game flops (Aion, Conan, Allods, Warhammer, Rift, LoTR, etc..) it is very... very hard to recoup the cost.
Thus bad investment for those who care about instant money returns. But for those willing to wait..? (EVE..?)
Ironically, looking at Mortal Online & Darkfall.. they are premium games. That are slowly building up over time, because they have to listen to nanny-yammering on their forums to survive. Instead of actually tolling-in an additional few million to complete those projects as planned and garnered their original following. Both could've been megahits, instead of cop-outs
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
15 years ago, such a game was very interesting to me, with it's promise of endless adventures in a virtual fantasy world. Nowadays, with 15 years of experience with the genre, knowing it's opportunities and limitations, it's mechanics and dynamics, and more importantly, a much better idea of my own expectations and desires towards a game in this genre, I have absolutely no interest in playing that game. I enjoyed the games back then despite those mechanics, not because of them.
Originally posted by Naqaj I enjoyed the games back then despite those mechanics, not because of them.
Well said.
In fact, i don't even think i enjoyed it that much back then. It was a case of i didn't know better, and there weren't better games like WoW and GW as alternatives.
Just look at Vanguard. Can you pull off the quality and scope of Vanguard? Most probably not. And even with that scope and that quality(which wasn't of course the best.. but by far not the worst either) is not capable of making any decent profit, you will most probably even less have a chance of being successful. Furthermore Vanguard got Brad McQuaid, one of the designers of EQ.. and he got actually a good reputation before of the release of Vanguard.
Not even Vanguard.
Just look at Darkfall (both versions). Can you pull of the quality and scope of the Darkfall games? And don't be fooled, even that is not easy.
If the answer is yes, prepare to run a game that is permanently in "life support" mode.
As a developer myself, in the graphic industry (real time effects for TV/video/movies), I could make an engine to render great landscape graphics and allow players to roam through it together connected to a server. That's the "easy" part actually, sort of. I could even design some great textures for that landscape. Then come the buildings, the cities, dungeons, etc... there it becomes harder, you need artists for that. And then come the character and mob graphics, and animations... and that's what "indie" developers can't do with a decent production quality. Specially the animations.
I hate Darkfall games, I think they are poorly designed crap, but even to achieve that kind of quality, there's a lot of work and money involved (actually a shame of a waste of good developer, artist and animator time which could have been used to make something better).
Not to mention that I believe that an EQ1 clone made nowadays would fail so hard it's not even funny.
I agree with you. And even more the niche crowd Darkfall focused was at least used to low quality production games.. like shadowbane before. As we have seen with Vanguard.. that a lot of people pretend to like EQ1, but only with full production value of WoW/GW2/SWTOR.. and that will never ever happen.. because as you said as well a EQ1 clone made nowadays would fail so hard it's not even funny.
And by the way.. Darkfall was not that cheap either.. as much as i know the invested around 20-30 million into it.. i guess similar to Vanguard. That is not a little of investment.. look at Mortal Online what you get with less than 10 millions.
And Darkfall was that expensive(and the same is true for Vanguard) because both are actually huge worlds, a lot of work for graphic artists.. and especially if you have to redo a lot of stuff twice, like in the case of Darkfall. Because technical progress obsoleted a lot of your work. (problem of huge worlds with small teams.. when you need 4 years + to create a world it is more than likely that your art asserts are out of date .. and i only talk about creating the art asserts of the world.. there is a lot more work before to do to create all of your tools and stuff)
So.. really.. for any indepentend or small team.. START small.
I do not know if this is a good indicator, but there are EQ emulators available and the most popular one rarely has over 1K players (more like 500-800 people) signed in at any given moment. These are free to play (no cash shop), though some players do donate to the hosts.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
I do not know if this is a good indicator, but there are EQ emulators available and the most popular one rarely has over 1K players (more like 500-800 people) signed in at any given moment. These are free to play (no cash shop), though some players do donate to the hosts.
Think of it this way. If there are a few thousand players willing to play for free, how many are willing to pay anything?
Plus, a lot of the private servers are using "donation" as cash shops. I don't play EQ (won't touch it with a ten foot pole) so i can't comment on EQ specific servers. But i tried WOW private servers before (before i subbed .. so years ago) and at that time, you can "donate" in exchange of good stuff (like gear).
The amount of stuff you can get with money vary from server to server, of course.
Originally posted by Naqaj ...Nowadays, with 15 years of experience with the genre, knowing it's opportunities and limitations, it's mechanics and dynamics, and more importantly, a much better idea of my own expectations and desires towards a game in this genre, I have absolutely no interest in playing that game...
Ok I get that. But know that you are 1% of gamers. Over five million people played EQ as of a few years ago. What remains now? 50,000? That means 99% of us (me included) left before getting burnt out on that style of gameplay. EQ's progression servers were not marketed in the slightest, and still drew more players than any expansion launch in eight years.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky I do not know if this is a good indicator, but there are EQ emulators available and the most popular one rarely has over 1K players (more like 500-800 people) signed in at any given moment...
Don't think its a good indicator because:
It requires EQ Titanium (which was out of print about eight years ago). It requires technical expertise to get up and running. The forums are full of juvenile behavior The hosts have a "my game and if you don't like it GTFO" attitude. Good spawns are permacamped. It bears much resemblance to EQ but major differences do exist.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon. In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
If you like EQ, why not just play EQ? It's because you want EQ, but with some 'improvements'. However, any improvement that you suggest is debatable:
"I want better graphics" - Yea, Sony has revamped old zones and the new ones are nicer looking. Did you want to go with more realistic graphics or stylized? Whichever answer you choose is WRONG according to many people out there who will say that you've failed to create this 'new' eq.
"I want to improve the quest system" - Need I go into all the attempts to create better ones? They're worse which is why we want to go back to EQ. Of course, if you don't improve the quest system you have a bigger problem- EQ was played out of the Allakhazams website search box- that's an immersion breaker. You can come up with better ideas, but any system you come up with have its detractors.
These are just 2 potential 'improvements'. I'm curious what else you want to change. If it isn't a lot, then just play EQ.
Originally posted by Naqaj ...Nowadays, with 15 years of experience with the genre, knowing it's opportunities and limitations, it's mechanics and dynamics, and more importantly, a much better idea of my own expectations and desires towards a game in this genre, I have absolutely no interest in playing that game...
Ok I get that. But know that you are 1% of gamers. Over five million people played EQ as of a few years ago. What remains now? 50,000? That means 99% of us (me included) left before getting burnt out on that style of gameplay. EQ's progression servers were not marketed in the slightest, and still drew more players than any expansion launch in eight years.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky I do not know if this is a good indicator, but there are EQ emulators available and the most popular one rarely has over 1K players (more like 500-800 people) signed in at any given moment...
Don't think its a good indicator because:
It requires EQ Titanium (which was out of print about eight years ago). It requires technical expertise to get up and running. The forums are full of juvenile behavior The hosts have a "my game and if you don't like it GTFO" attitude. Good spawns are permacamped. It bears much resemblance to EQ but major differences do exist.
I both agree and disagree.
Saying 99% left does not mean they left before they got burnt out. Maybe 98.999% left because there were burnt out on them. I don't know. All we do is they left and reasons are many and varied.
I do think the progressions servers show there is still money to be made in them. I don't know how much, but at least enough to launch a couple servers and have them pretty full.
I do think the EQ emu servers do not accurately give any indication on the size of that market for the reasons you, the big one is anytime I looked and tried them I did have to have some copy of EQ anyway - noticed lots of lag too.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Not in today's game market. There are too many options and no one would notice you. If anything, I'd try Kickstarter to see if there is really any demand for your game. I suspect there is none, if anything people want a AAA MMORPG with the things you listed with perhaps some innovation.
Comments
Bet if you repackage DOOM to run on smart phones it would make money.
EQ1 joke.
I think there is a definite niche for an EQ classic type of game.....There are still people out there that want a harder game with those mechanics......Project 99 and Shards of Dalaya did ok but they both took EQs world and modified it....Every time EQ has a new progression server it draws alot of interest.....Many of these guys are used to paying subs so that may not be a detterent.....The question is how many of course......
someone brought up Vanguard earlier but Im not sure thats a great example.....Vanguard was very poorly optimized...It ran like crap on alot of PCs......Most of us were fed up with that game pretty quickly because it was so poorly done...sure the world is huge but what good does it do when parts of it are empty, falling through, etc......I still think alot of us are looking for a great PVE game.....
Your main problem will be if you want to play oldschool EQ you still can, for free. You'll also run into the same problem as them. Small populations on a group-required gamed = death. Most people will be forced to solo unless you find a way for people of all levels to benefit and contribute to the same groups.
Even then there are other good oldschool games still live like Asherons call and anarchy online. Not to be rude but do you honestly think you can do content better than those games? Otherwise you're just touting new graphics.
In general a reboot of EQ could and should be very profitable.. AS long as you clean up the problems that caused people to dislike it and leave to greener pastures.. One major issue with EQ was the lack of solo'ing.. Too often players would have to wait to find a group, and could not solo.. BAD MOVE.. I always said that most of the games wondering trash mobs should be soloable.. and special camps with elite type mobs are tailored for groups.. Happy Happy Happy..
Although more than likely a typo due to Nari's obsessive compulsion to post as quickly as possible in every thread for post count purposes....
=P
On topic however... Yes, I'd play such a game.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
He should fit right in.
"yes sir!" is all the originality you need to make an mmorpg.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
h a Oh crap forgot to hit enter now Im dead damn.... and I thought my class trainer was my friend.
U paint a limited game^
But a real premium game using real technology and real GM's.. could easy pull in $20~$30/month... depending on the quality of the game.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
No no... you missed Wolf's point, he was backing up his rebuttal, then suggested you didn't have to chime in, because nobody cares what you have to say anymore.
Ironically, you are the butt-end of many jokes on other websites dude, u have to know this..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
I agree with you that there could still be some interest in an EQ1 type game but all that the Vanguard box sales at release really prove is that there was in interest back then, which I believe was 2007 if I remember correctly.
This^
THen you get into the real cost, of server, IT & netcoding, etc.. that is where the real cost of making a MMORPG come from. Art & textures are cheap compared to backbone character linking & server structures, etc.
That is why an Open World game is so costly. Because the actual hardware to provide such an environment cost MILLIONS more upfront. It is that upfront cost that scares most of these developers, because if their game flops (Aion, Conan, Allods, Warhammer, Rift, LoTR, etc..) it is very... very hard to recoup the cost.
Thus bad investment for those who care about instant money returns. But for those willing to wait..? (EVE..?)
Ironically, looking at Mortal Online & Darkfall.. they are premium games. That are slowly building up over time, because they have to listen to nanny-yammering on their forums to survive. Instead of actually tolling-in an additional few million to complete those projects as planned and garnered their original following. Both could've been megahits, instead of cop-outs
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
... only if you have $50M to polish it.
Well said.
In fact, i don't even think i enjoyed it that much back then. It was a case of i didn't know better, and there weren't better games like WoW and GW as alternatives.
I agree with you. And even more the niche crowd Darkfall focused was at least used to low quality production games.. like shadowbane before. As we have seen with Vanguard.. that a lot of people pretend to like EQ1, but only with full production value of WoW/GW2/SWTOR.. and that will never ever happen.. because as you said as well a EQ1 clone made nowadays would fail so hard it's not even funny.
And by the way.. Darkfall was not that cheap either.. as much as i know the invested around 20-30 million into it.. i guess similar to Vanguard. That is not a little of investment.. look at Mortal Online what you get with less than 10 millions.
And Darkfall was that expensive(and the same is true for Vanguard) because both are actually huge worlds, a lot of work for graphic artists.. and especially if you have to redo a lot of stuff twice, like in the case of Darkfall. Because technical progress obsoleted a lot of your work. (problem of huge worlds with small teams.. when you need 4 years + to create a world it is more than likely that your art asserts are out of date .. and i only talk about creating the art asserts of the world.. there is a lot more work before to do to create all of your tools and stuff)
So.. really.. for any indepentend or small team.. START small.
10 million will do.
"If the Damned gave you a roadmap, then you'd know just where to go"
I do not know if this is a good indicator, but there are EQ emulators available and the most popular one rarely has over 1K players (more like 500-800 people) signed in at any given moment. These are free to play (no cash shop), though some players do donate to the hosts.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Think of it this way. If there are a few thousand players willing to play for free, how many are willing to pay anything?
Plus, a lot of the private servers are using "donation" as cash shops. I don't play EQ (won't touch it with a ten foot pole) so i can't comment on EQ specific servers. But i tried WOW private servers before (before i subbed .. so years ago) and at that time, you can "donate" in exchange of good stuff (like gear).
The amount of stuff you can get with money vary from server to server, of course.
Ok I get that. But know that you are 1% of gamers. Over five million people played EQ as of a few years ago. What remains now? 50,000? That means 99% of us (me included) left before getting burnt out on that style of gameplay. EQ's progression servers were not marketed in the slightest, and still drew more players than any expansion launch in eight years.
Don't think its a good indicator because:
It requires EQ Titanium (which was out of print about eight years ago).
It requires technical expertise to get up and running.
The forums are full of juvenile behavior
The hosts have a "my game and if you don't like it GTFO" attitude.
Good spawns are permacamped.
It bears much resemblance to EQ but major differences do exist.
Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
It boils down to this:
If you like EQ, why not just play EQ? It's because you want EQ, but with some 'improvements'. However, any improvement that you suggest is debatable:
"I want better graphics" - Yea, Sony has revamped old zones and the new ones are nicer looking. Did you want to go with more realistic graphics or stylized? Whichever answer you choose is WRONG according to many people out there who will say that you've failed to create this 'new' eq.
"I want to improve the quest system" - Need I go into all the attempts to create better ones? They're worse which is why we want to go back to EQ. Of course, if you don't improve the quest system you have a bigger problem- EQ was played out of the Allakhazams website search box- that's an immersion breaker. You can come up with better ideas, but any system you come up with have its detractors.
These are just 2 potential 'improvements'. I'm curious what else you want to change. If it isn't a lot, then just play EQ.
I both agree and disagree.
Saying 99% left does not mean they left before they got burnt out. Maybe 98.999% left because there were burnt out on them. I don't know. All we do is they left and reasons are many and varied.
I do think the progressions servers show there is still money to be made in them. I don't know how much, but at least enough to launch a couple servers and have them pretty full.
I do think the EQ emu servers do not accurately give any indication on the size of that market for the reasons you, the big one is anytime I looked and tried them I did have to have some copy of EQ anyway - noticed lots of lag too.