Worried about future of EQ2

Ok, I'm worried about what SOE sees as a future for EQ2 and what gets me wondering is that when I go to stores there is no shelf presence; which is to say no games on the shelf and I noticed that the game store I pre-ordered from only got in pre-orders. When I look at circulars and lists of PC games, EQ2 is never listed. How are you building a base for new players? Are you satisfied that you have enough to maintain the game for a few years? Are you concidering letting it stay the same population base? Do I hear EQ2 mentioned on game shows or Colbert Report? or any media? I see and hear WoW all the time....I hear people talk about it...but not EQ2. I see EQ2 adopting elements that were found in WoW like the graveyards in RoK. (Yes, I tried WoW, when some old guild friends asked me to come over, but it's not as good as EQ2 which is why I'm concerned) So where, how, does SOE see EQ2 and it's future?
Comments.....?

What do you mean by graveyards?

I don't live in the US so I don't know anything about how many copies are on the shelves in stores, but I do know that the release of RoK sold quite a few more copies than were even expected by SoE. After seeing server problems caused by the extra players on the more popular servers I don't worry about the future of eq2 so much.

I do have to comment on this because for some reason eq2 is never on the spotlight anywhere when i always hear people saying "Try out everquest 2! it rocks!" Actually the only way i knew about eq2 and started playing was from a friend......who works for SOE. This is kind of embarrasing, i mean many MMOGs advertise their game everywhere, and I have to confess that just a hour ago i saw a commerical on TV on WoW lol. I even searched the internet on recommended pc games, eq2 was on there but when you try to click the name it comes up with "No information about this program is avaible." While many other games when you clicked on the name at least gave background information about the game.
Please dont get me wrong and think that im trying to flame eq2, no way I love this game and it has been the most mature and nice community I've ever played with, I'm just saying whats up with the advertising SOE?

I think RoK sold very well. I know over see it was sold out. And in the us is was sold out in places as well. Which mean soe sold more copies than they thought they where going to.

Second the server have all been packed, with more players than SoE thought were going to be on.

Now the problem is how many of these players will still be here 6, or 9 month out?

Josgar wrote:

I'm guessing the OP is referring to the places where you 'rez' after a death. In many zones in EQ2 we rez at a tent (old world places at least) and in RoK it is a little graveyard. In WoW you also rez at a graveyard.

Liljna wrote:

Er... that happened in some places in EOF too... but meh?

GrunEQ wrote:

I get tired of people saying a feature from WoW.
Everquest 1 in a lot of the zone you revied in a gray yard area. Some had tomb stones and everything. It not a freature they took from wow. It a Feature WoW took from eq1, and now people assume WoW created the feature and eq2 is ripping off of it.

GrunEQ wrote:

With as much of a nerd as Stephen is, you would figure that he'd say something about it! I'm sure we could persuade him to take his Paladin off of his wall for one last goround.

Ogrebears@Kithicor wrote:

To be fair, EQ2 did take quite a few notes from Blizzard's playbook after WoW went live. No death shard, bonus XP after not playing for a while... just two things that I can think of off the top of my head & neither of which were initially in the game at launch. You actually had debt as well!

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it but let's not deny things that are obviously true. WoW has taken some things as well.

Vitality was there since launch - it just wasn't visible to players at first.
They revealed it to us because:
A) All races/classes were supposed to gain exp at the same rate
B) Some people were comparing notes and finding this to not be the case
Unseen vitality was the culprit.

worried about the future of eq2?
the servers are currently overloaded during peaktimes....
besides... eq1 disapeared from retail shops more than 5 years ago and is still going.....
so am i worried? nah, not really... unless they pull a stunt like they did in swg that drives away tons of players eq2 will keep going.

I've seen full page ads in PC Gamer the last couple of issues. I guess they're just relying on online and preorder sales rather than jockeying for shelf space. My local best buy usually stocks EQ2. Mind you, they don't have a whole display like WoW or anything.

I live in Germany and MMORPG is extremely popular here, and although RoK didn't get WoW style shelf space (or even DAoC space) it was stocked in all the major retailers on day of release

I got my copy from Best Buy. I had a choice, EQ2 or WoW. I picked EQ2, heres why.

I was faced with a decision, WoW or EQ2. I did not want to play both, I like to immerse myself into one game, and only one game. I downloaded the trial of EQ2 and played that. While shortlived, it was fun. It really didn't take much to beat the trial quests on the island but I had fun doing it. I them went to Blizzard's site and attempted to download the trial for WoW. I filled out the registration with all the required info and it popped up telling me I was too slow, do it again. So I did, much faster.. same thing. Forget it.

Went to Best Buy, saw the WoW display with all their expansions and such all seperately priced. I went around and found EQ2 and found all the expansions (at the time) were all included in one box.

Decision made.

Never played WoW

GrunEQ wrote:

I hear plenty of people eat at McDonalds everyday. I hear Vista is the fastest growing OS. So what....
I play EQ2, eat Wendys, and will be buying a new PC with Win XP installed.

SOE has a crappy marketing team. Simple. They are going to build this afetr EQ1 and go from there.

And yes in a year this game will be down 50% of the servers and 75% of the people will have moved on. People who stay will just love the game or can not afford to buy a new computer for the new games in the future.

BTW, i love this game.

the servers always fill up every expantion... because old players return ... just to see if things are better now... and normaly stay for 2-3 months while they check out the new content before going back to whatever other game has there intrest at the moment.... eq2 has a very Loyal fan base many of them moved from eq1.... im not worried about eq2's continued existance... i mean eq1 is still going strong...from the perspective of drawing new people... well who cares really... im glad when i meet new people in eq2 and almost always they are a friend of a friend... this imo is a good thing i played wow and about 50 other MMORPG's normaly only for a few weeks... cause i almost never like the people there... eq2 has a much older and more mature player base... thats the only reason i play here instead of somewhere els.... i worry a bit about next year though... Warhammer Online will be going Live around this time next year....and frankly if eq2 doesnt give a real good reason to stay i know alot of people who are going to leave for War, wich by its very nature has an already built in Mature player base from its Table top players.

TheSpin wrote:

source? where did you get that fact from?

how would they have been able to sell more if the shops didnt receive the shipments to start with? lol....
the biggest part of the sales went through digital download.... not retail.... or, through amazon which delivered atleast a week late....