Everquest 2 the worst thing to happen to Eq 1?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Dday99, Jun 7, 2013.

  1. Talif Augur

    To be fair, it's not like that anymore. Hasn't been for a very long time. I suppose it's possible to die doing combines these days, but it's very, very difficult to do (other than the Coldain Shawl, that one is specifically designed to make it easy to die if you screw up, which makes sense with it being the tradeskill epic quest and all).
  2. Kelefane Augur

    Wait a minute, you can die doing trade skills in EQ2?
    /fail
    Samtan likes this.
  3. Deveryn Elder

    That's how things were around launch. Now, there are only a couple of challenging recipes here and there in major quests.
  4. Dday99 Journeyman

    The older content generally doesn't feel that way, just the newest stuff. And it's not just the items, it's the zones, abilities etc etc that tend to feel much more unpredictable than WoW. I enjoy leveling up a lot more in EQ, partly because it's so boxing friendly (I tend to 2 or 3box).
  5. Nolrog Augur

    I don't agree with that at all. Quests give really nice XP rewards these days. It didn't evolve into a total quest based system, like WoW is (get all the quests in a zone, hit the achievement, move to the next), but it certainly has evolved.
  6. Kamea Augur

    I do too, but for a different reason. In 2001/2 EQ1 was king and logic at the time was that when you have a success with a game, you make a sequel. If they used the ~$25m of EQ2's initial development costs to revamp EQ1, I think EQ1 would have peaked in subs higher than 500/550k and later than 2004.

    Asheron's Call made the same move to even more dire results. WOW learned that a sequel was a mistake and instead reinvested a much higher % of the revenues into the original game and not making a direct sequel.
  7. Mykaylla Augur

    It's actually pretty fun if you like being able to say "I made that!"; even when it was harsher (which was when I was tradeskilling, I haven't played EQ2 in a while), it's not like you're just clicking 100 combines in a row and boom, surprise, you're dead. Events happen, like a weak spot in your metal, or a hotspot in the forge, and you have abilities that can counter that. If you don't use those abilities, yes, you could die, but the likelihood of doing so- well, you'd mostly have to be doing it AFK, and you get the same kind of XP off *one* combine in EQ2 as you get off 100 in EQ1. It's very different.
    Deveryn likes this.
  8. Deveryn Elder

    Quests do give some decent xp rewards, but RoF has been exactly what you described: get achievements and move to the next zone. That's how I maximized my leveling from 95-100. The problem is that underneath that layer of questing and xp is the same old "Sit here and wait for this to drop." "Fill your bags with worthless items, which will continue to drop, even when you're not on the quest." You have solo quests in areas that require groups and only offer individual updates, extending the whole process of sit-n-wait. You then have some group quests that can be done solo, but have a minimum requirement for group members. It's sloppy design. The only quests worth repeating are older ones, like Repo and Menagerie from Underfoot. Let's not forget every anniversary that comes along, providing so many opportunities for exploiting the system. It's more of a digression than an evolution.
  9. Siddar Augur

    EQ2 in hindsight was a huge mistake and it hurt EQ immensely.

    EQ was robbed of resources to pay for EQ2. No new character models after luclin, no new helm and armor models, very limited weapon graphics change.

    Many potential growth paths in EQ were shut down because new ideas were reserved for EQ. Why did we have to wait over a freaking decade for a pointy wizard hat?

    Deliberate attempts to nudge EQ players towards quitting EQ in misguided belief they would change to EQ2. Hello OoW spell system.

    A disastrous attempt at corporate level product definition between EQ and EQ2 led to bad choices. EQ was defined as the hardcore EQ while EQ2 was for casuals. This led to EQ not following it design intent of being a mass market mmog. EQ and EQ2 at heart are two games aimed at same market. Trying to make them different just to make them different. Driven simply for the sake of corporate internal reasoning of justifying not having two games designed to do the same thing.

    Still you have to look at it from position of SoE at the time and it clearly seemed that making EQ2 was the right thing to do.
    Mary Poppins likes this.
  10. savrin Augur

    I really don't think they would ever admit to that. I am just implying that is the reason they did it. I don't know why they wouldn't just release it all at once if they had the time for doing it. Only reason that makes sense to me is they did not have the time to finish it on time. Which is fine by me, as long they don't hose us this November with just one tier or something like that. If they did it because people don't use all 4 tiers equally, they could always go back to locked zones and normal group progression like HoT had instead of just going to the end zone on the first day.

    I don't like a big batch of content then nothing either. But like my previous post pointed out they used to do with that but no longer have the time for it. And gear from t1 and t2 is basically catch up gear imho. Not true upgrades. A lot of people keep old gear on just because heroics and other stats are way better and they are waiting for the final tiers for this expansion just so they can get decent upgrades and not sidegrades. For example I am still waiting on t4 so I can get my new damage aug. If all tiers were useful content I would agree with you that this way is better. But all this does is force people to wait months for new upgrades when they paid full price for it already.

    A person can very reasonably say I won't buy this expansion because its only 2 tiers. I shall wait for the full thing to come out becuase I give my hard earned money. Paying $40 for unfinished content did not happen in the past since discord raids. It is very new actually for EQ at this time.
  11. FatbukSlapmeat Augur

    A big problem with EQ2 is it was named EverQuest 2. (see newer, better). From the outside looking in, as if you had never played either game before. If you are going to start playing either EQ or EQ2, which would it be? Most everyone who hasn't played either game would go directly to EQ2 without a thought. Why? Because you see the "2" and you automatically think it's the newer, upgraded, better version. Currently, on console, I own Black Ops and Black Ops 2. Which do I play? Black Ops 2. Why? Because it's the newer, better version.

    They should have named it EverQuest: Insert Witty Tag Here. That way it continues the franchise and keeps the lore and other things. But, it doesn't take away from the original by being "2".
  12. KC13 Augur

    Unfortunately this is very true. When I came back, I tried to get two friends to play so we would always have a group. Both quit within a few days even after leveling quite fast. After experiencing a couple of camps, one said he could get the same experience banging his head against the wall for hours, but why would he want to........
    Sinestra likes this.
  13. Fluid Augur


    Just a ditto post. Tried to get my gf to play and it was 'a deer in the headlights' experience for her. She's a fairly avid gamer, probably spends 20 hours a week playing various games.

    The experience for her was overwhelming with no reward in sight. We used to refer to the entry levels as 'newbie hell' because it took so long to develop a character to a point where you could do something other then smacking small fur bearing rodents. SONY has gone a long way in fixing that but not all the way. Time spent there is reduced with rapid advancement, lots of good low level quests, mercenaries, easy travel, quite a good list.

    The last hurdle would be the user interface. I remember talking to someone I would call fervently religious. When he found out I did not share his passion for religion he told me "You need to learn Ancient Greek and read the bible in that language to get a true understanding." I was stunned stupid by the suggestion on just about every level.

    I saw that same expression on my gf when I tried to convince her, learning the EQ interface would lead to a wonderful journey of discovery of an acclaimed magic and battle tactics strategies game. I might as well have told her she had to learn Ancient Greek to play this game.

    At this stage it would be a tough switch. Only way it could be done is to develop another client and that would upset existing players. You would almost need something as intuitive as the original Diablo interface but able to handle the depth and complexity of EQ.

    I'm not sure if it is still used, but the turnover rate of players used to be called 'churn,' If your and my experience is indicative of what happens to new players exposed to EQ, the churn is a bit high even at free to play.
  14. Deveryn Elder

    The problem is the game engine and code are so old, it's easier to simply make a new game. Just how many times are they supposed to update the character models anyway? Even if they could do that, there's all the equipment that has to be updated to fit with the new models. There's simply no value in spending all that developer time adding another set of models. Any company with any sense can't just hold onto an old dinosaur like EQ1 and continue to give it the support it had when the competition is doing much bigger and better things.

    Honestly, you should be happy that it gets any support and quit trying to pin blame on some other game. People like to rag on SOE for this and that and make up all these corporate conspiracy theories, but the bottom line is they've been very supportive of their games. Look at them and look at NCSoft, who drops any old game. Vanguard was a big flop and it's still hanging around.
  15. Wuttever Augur

    EQ2 tried to compete with WoW. I kinda doubt many people chose EQ2 if they are EQ kinda folks.

    EQ2 is still more involved than WoW, though, as far as I am concerned. I have played both, and there is more to do in EQ2.

    November 8, 2004
    EverQuest II, Release date
    November 23, 2004
    World of Warcraft, Release date


    This does match my poor memory. I beta tested EQII, and played first day WoW. EQII was being modified constantly, and it seemed to me the goal was always to make some aspect or other more like WoW.
  16. Siddar Augur


    EQ could have been rebuilt from ground up with money spent on EQ2. That money was all basically made by EQ in the first place. So ending support for the game that funded all the other SoE games wasn't going to happen and wont happen anytime in the near future.

    Noting that EQ was under funded because funds were removed from EQ to fund other SoE games is simply a statement of fact. That's not ragging on SoE its simply stating what happened.

    The real issue is that EQ2 was simply a huge failure. Looking back you can say SoE would have been better off putting the money spent on EQ2 back into EQ. But at time EQ2 seemed like the right choice.
  17. Deveryn Elder

    What's the difference between rebuilding EQ and making EQ2? Assuming they started development in 2002, they would've had to develop the new engine and get all the content to match up to a release in 2004. Then what? They run both versions of the same game side-by-side, while some people pay the price of a new game and upgrade their computers to play it? Or do we just alienate a ton of players and let them suffer without the game? You claim to know about their financial decisions, but you don't seem to know much about what goes into making a game and doing all those zones and characters. These are very important factors in the continued production of MMOs. If revamping zones was so easy, we wouldn't have received carbon copies of Eastern Wastes and Kael in RoF.

    I don't know how you can consider EQ2 a failure, when it's going on 9 years now and influencing a great deal of features that have gone into EQ1 (housing, achievements, questing...).
  18. Xianzu_Monk_Tunare Augur

    EQ2 didn't really hurt EQ; as krozman said it was GoD that hurt EQ. SOE could have not released EQ2, and the only things that would have happened were that even more people would have went to WoW and SOE would have made less money over all. Also as other have said, EQ2 has been used as a kind of test lab for new features (partly because they are easier to add to EQ2 than EQ1) to find out if they work.
  19. Mykaylla Augur

    EverQuest: Cataclysm would have been great- it makes sense for the EQ2 timeline, AND it would have beaten WoW to the punch by years!
  20. Kelefane Augur

    I think it was a combination of WoW, EQ2 and GoD that hurt EQ1 myself. The fact that new shiny awesome looking games were coming out about the time overtuned and broke GoD came out, was the proverbial nail in the coffin that lead to a huge exodus.

    I dont think it was any single thing that happened to EQ1 that hurt it. It was a huge chain of events during that era that hurt EQ1. The perfect storm so to speak.