Age II is defiantly much more refined. I personally have been playing exclusively Age IV since it got released as I think the mechanics are just cooler and it has more diversity. Age II has like 40 civs but they are all mostly the same. Age IV has much more radically different playstyles which I just fine very engaging. Given Age II has made moves to become more diverse but its often not received well from its veteran player base.
It means that Everquest has survived the launch of many other games some of which have even died off. It isn't a game that is likely to be killed of by any new game launch let alone one that shows no evidence of actually ever happening.
If they're rebuilding it... it's not going to be out in 2 years. MMO's take a very long time to make. Did you drop 10k in to be one of the "Founders" or whatever stupid thing they have? And that's not a knock on Pantheon specifically, that's a knock on every single game that sucks money out of people doing that..
If by survive you mean the servers are still on. But in reality other games mugged EQ took its money broke its legs and walked off. Some of those games later tripped and fell off a cliff or ODed on drugs but in the end EQ has not recovered and is in the process of slow decline.
According to Cohh, funding isn't an issue yet, and they have a decent amount of progress this year. He did say they need to hit their marks of ending pre alpha this year. The only thing I really like so far is the perception system - adding story to exploration is something missing from most modern mmos.
If Pantheon ends up being successful, maybe DBG will take EQ1 more seriously and rise to the challenge. Who knows, maybe DBG(or EG7 ?) will increase funding for EQ1 too, in order to compete with Pantheon. Competition isn't necessarily a bad thing for us EQ1 players...
Cohh's coverage of PRotF is pretty rosy. But for a game that's been in development for nearly a decade - gotta say I'm underwhelmed by what I see.
If it hasn't survived this far how could Pantheon kill it? Everquest has managed to stay around and keep running for 25 years which is a lot more then other games can say. If Pantheon ever manages to launch it will not kill Everquest just as none of the other games that people said would kill it did.
10 yrs in development must be scared of competition what a joke! it will be like eq2 and you know how everyone from eq1 just left to go there NOT!
I would be very happy if this game got released, I just don't think it is going to happen anymore. I love EQ, I loved Vanguard, I hope Pantheon would be Brad's legacy.
They are already pivoting away from the early vision. In another 5 years if it actually gets to a workable beta state, it wont be recognizable.
I don't want to imply that I want Pantheon to fail. It would be a loss to the gaming community if it did fail. Just saying I likely won't go out of my way to play Pantheon.
The only way Pantheon having investors can kill EQ if it is our Guildmates who are funding Pantheon. The odds that a game that reminds us of EQ is going to kill EQ has just as much chance to kill EQ as EQ2 did. Isn't EQ still bigger than EQ2?
Age II is awesome, it started off similarly as eq I would call age of empires, the EverQuest of strategy games. One of the first of it's kind, ripped off by many, however, they now have tournaments with 6 figure prizes, basically came back from almost a cult following to having new expansions every few months, and a revamped graphics system. I see eq as now having more funding and attention than it did the last few years, though not nearly as successful as age 2 now is.
Here is a reaction video to some Pantheon information and the video was from the end if September. It doesn't seem to have many good things to say about the information that was presented and goes as far to say it is the wrost MMO ever.
I do agree with you that EQ has been on life support for many years now and is a shell of it's former self. I'd also say EQ still has a player base because most people that still play the game have been around 15-20+ years at this point and are attached to characters they have been playing for a decade or more. This is why they can keep the game on life support with as little time/money spent on content as possible because they know the current player base is simply not going to drop the game to "try the newest thing". They have a core of players that will never leave until they start dying off IRL. I'm not sure Pantheon being the next coming of EQ (if it ever comes out) will even be enough to drag most people away.