How come Everquest has so many....

servers active, and EQII is crumbling? What is it about that game that keeps it so strong, while this one is gasping for air. Please discuss, and offer suggestions as to how we might grow our server populations again. Oh yeah...please be polite.

Advertisements. You didnt see many in the past and you dont see them now. SoE relied on word of mouth but...

EQ2 (I was not around but had friends who were who told me) had problems because Sony had a hacker break-in and EQ2 (not sure about EQ) was shut down for like 2 months. They lost lots of players at the time and never really recovered. I was told that EQ was to be more for raiding and EQ2 was more for grouping and questing. You don't really do many quests in EQ, after all.

I am told that many of the players on EQ are people who have 2 or 3 or more free accounts and make their own groups. So there may be many people online, but a lot less REAL players. I (presume) it is harder to do quests multi-tasking than just mass slaughtering mobs to gain levels. Why many of them play EQ instead of EQ2.

EQ/EQ2 also (IMO) suffer from the damage SoE did to the name of EQ with the GoD/OOW fiasco and other actions showing their contempt for the players and wanting more money out of our wallets and purses. (GoD/OOW was sold as 2 expansions but originally was supposed to be one, but more money if you sell it twice, but that cause problems for the players as we didn't get certain things in the first expansion that we needed to succeed easier until the second one was released.) as well as releasing some expansions unfinished just to get more money come in and finish the expansion (uncompleted zones) later, as well as making sure no one could reach those zones to find out they weren't ready yet... Many people left in that time of OOW/GoD and I don't think most came back, they played other games and then got older and got real lives. The new players play other games now and computer games are just not the rage anymore, I am guessing.

I would suggest cheap advertising or some players start making YouTube videos that will interest new players to try the game for free. That's what the f2p is for, after all.

EQ2 had a rocky beginning that a lot of people tried and didn't like. Many people returned throughout the years and the content has been so hit or miss that it depends on which era they came back for if they stayed or not. The last few expansions have been mediocre at best. The halfway through ToT gear upgrade caused an exodus simply due to the fact that infusing is way too expensive and people spent a good deal of their resources infusing the gear they had because they believed it was the best there was, then they had to completely regear with no compensation. This last update really hasn't done the game any favors either, creating another small exodus of players who are simply bored. We need a cross server heroic queue system that max level players can use to farm ToT tokens, even if base loot is disabled. People are bored and grinding key quests for their last upgrades with multiple levels of RNG. Many of us log on outside of raid wanting something to do, but with no groups to be had, we log out. Those that don't have raids to lean on seem to have left the game as of late.

Shinies, shinies, many many new shinies to gather and try out........old shinies get forgotten about with nothing to remind players of, they do!

signed,
Giggleberry Shinie King

This article might a good read:

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-04-25-early-access-good-for-our-whole-industry-daybreak

I left... and that's all that matters!

I think this mirrors my exact sentiments. I know a lot of people are indifferent to server populations because the social inactivity doesn't affect their gaming style, but I know it affected mine. For me, it probably had less to do with the mechanics of the current game than the lack of participants. It's hard to believe there's still people who want to eliminate ftp.

Um, this never happened. Unless you are referring to something pre-launch of which I am unaware. There have been a few DDOS attacks etc. over time on many games including EQ2 but nothing that brought it down for 2 months.

What someone else mentioned is accurate though in that the game did have a ton of people try at launch and then had pretty big attrition take place not long after.

When push comes to shove, we have no idea what the number of active accounts are for either game.

It wasn't two months, was closer to one month. Was back in 2011. It wasn't actually an EQ2 hack, was the PSN hack, but it affected EQ2 as well because they (SOE) brought everything down.

Here's some info, even if it's just wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_PlayStation_Network_outage

I cannot vouch for EQ. However, I can give my experiences with EQ2: I started in 09ish- during the ROK era. I had never played an MMO before. However, I do remember people out in the open world- EVERYWHERE- EL docks, Thundering Steppes, Kylong Plains, even the home cities. As a matter of fact- the little starting home towns were fairly packed as well ex.- Baubleshire, Willow Wood, Beggars Court etc. I started right before guild halls. One thing I noticed almost immediately after guild halls was the lack of people out grouping and killing things. More and more instances came about, and chat died. To sum it up- Easy travel, Guild Halls, lack of overland content, and resetting the whole game practically on each expansion severely crippled this game. I understand that people grow-up and do not have the time. However, this is an MMO. PS- I suppose they put in mercs after they found out- NO ONE WANTS TO GROUP OR really play an MMO. It is more like a solo- instanced game. The only reason I still play is for nostalgia and EQ2 graphic style is what I like. Peace- The Shaggy one...Rutro

I think EQ1 is preparing for another merger soon. They recently did a few things that are usually part of the prelude to server mergers.

I remember that Erevis but also note that period was for PSN. I remember being back online in EQ2 well before my kids could get back on their PS3. My recollection is that EQ2 was down for a far shorter time (I'd venture to say it was measured in days not weeks for EQ2 but maybe my memory is faulty). I also don't recall any max exodus from the game being notable after the EQ2 servers came back up as was implied from the post I quoted.

Not quite accurate.

http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/02/all-s...ices-down-for-pre-emptive-security-hardening/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/02/soe-services-downtime-around-the-web/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/02/sony-denies-soe-was-subject-of-second-attack/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/02/soe-customer-info-was-compromised-in-initial-april-17-19-attack/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/02/soe-database-compromise-news-around-the-web/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/03/poll-how-long-do-you-think-soe-will-be-offline/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/04/soe-network-down-until-friday-possibly-longer/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/04/soe-offers-some-updates-on-situation-no-timeframe/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/06/station-soe-websites-show-signs-of-life-not-open-yet/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/11/daily-fail-may-11th-not-today/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/11/tilting-at-timetables/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/12/a-few-more-days-and-make-good-details/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/15/sony-online-entertainment-restores-game-services/
http://eq2wire.com/2011/05/15/welcome-back-program-details/

Yea I knew your site had the info, was just easier to google "PSN outage 2011" while at work than find all of it =), thanks for the links!

Everyone is generally giving you why EQ and EQ 2 populations have gone over the years, but no one has really addressed why EQ I is holding up better than EQ II these days. I play both so I can give you some insight into the matter and clarify a couple of other misconceptions in this thread.

The new TLP (Time Locked Progression) servers on EQ are wildly popular. Basically they are fresh EQ servers (that require All Access to play on) that start with Classic EQ then progress on an unlock schedule to Kunark, Velious, etc etc until they reach the current expansion. The only advertising they did was to send out a mass wave of emails to every email account used to register that they were launching these servers and then word of mouth. It has attracted a ton of returnees from WoW, EQ 2, emulation servers and those who had dropped out of gaming.

The last few regular EQ expansions have been very underwhelming, but these TLP servers provide "Live" players with something else to work on once they are done with the group content and on nights they are not raiding. It also puts all of the returnees in contact with Live server players. When many of these returnees run out of things to do on the TLP servers between unlocks they create Heroic toons on the servers their Live friends play on and with their help are able to get caught up to current content very quickly. So the Live servers and TLPs have created something of a mutual support system for each other and increased the populations for both.

I agree with the sentiment about EQ raiding. In my opinion it has been and still is better with EQ than it is with EQ 2 and was probably what kept it going a few years back. As for the boxers and multiple accounts, it is generally accepted that of all the accounts active in EQ only about half are unique account holders. However, there are very very very few F2P characters in EQ as the limitations there are pretty extreme and makes nearly all classes unplayable in current content. Overall game has changed massively. For the past few expansions (1 per year) EQ has been almost entirely centered on a linear quest arc that progresses the majority of the player base together through the 5 - 10 zones of the new expansion and there is very little grinding or mass slaughtering anymore. Most of the quests and tasks in that arc are in instances and revolve around kill x mobs, looting xyz or killing big bad soandso and take 10 to 30 minutes each. Some can be done with a single toon and merc depending on the class while others require 6 actual players. Once you finish the expansion quest arc you will be max level, max AA'd and have pretty much a full set of gear and spells. When you're not raiding, it is off to the TLP servers you go to mess around in whichever expansion it is on.

Another thing mentioned in this thread was the work being done to possibly merge the EQ servers. That is a possibility in the future, but nearly all of that work has been on condensing and consolidating the game to make things much more user friendly. They have overhauled, combined or reworked entire AA trees, various stats, various stat modifiers, and other clutter from years of mudflation. They have been making changes to make all the classes relevant and even started a process of overhauling how DoTs work and other quality of life improvements that were long over due. Condensing and consolidation with an eye toward play ability and user friendliness is something EQ 2 could seriously use. Mudflation in nearly every facet of EQ 2 has gotten to almost comically levels from our stats, abilities, incoming damage, etc and is something that many of the people that have left EQ 2 gripe about.

Pretty much this right here. I first started playing EQ1 during the days of kunark and went from there. When I find out about EQ2 being implemented I tried like heck to get onto the beta but never succeeded. But when game launched I started I think that week or the next cant remember its actual launch date without looking up. I still have my first character which i still play from time to time.

I saw a lot of the ups and downs and kept going back and forth. Heck, I still remember LU13 (what a disaster). I liked the spirit shard version of a corpse run but hated the sharing of debt xp with a group if I wasnt solo'n. Sometimes I look at the game now and wish they would follow the same thing they did with the revamping of EQ1 stats and such. In a way and its just my opinion I wish EQ2 had the same form of a stat, ability, aa and so forth as EQ1 but that would take a total revamp of the entire system. Just wishful thinking.

I do play a few other games and see there ups and downs also. And as someone else said, computer games are being consumed by console games in that when I have my daughter she tells me that all the time. LOL

But to be honest there was one advertisement I remember way back sitting in a movie theater. I almost thought it was a trailer for an actual EQ movie but it was a light ad for the game.

The first time I started playing was when EQ II Extended had just been introduced. The Freeport server was almost always at a high population and there were lots of people everywhere I went. It was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed that time. Coming back now there's barely a fraction of people left, but I couldn't really say why. There's more now for free players than there was then, but for whatever reason people don't flock to this game like they did a few years ago. I don't know how much advertising would help or not, but it sure would be nice to see populations like I did when I first started.

Why do people always blame those who choose not to group on guild halls and the like? The truth is we, who don't group, do not do so because we are not interested in feeding the over arrogant egos of too many of those who think they know better than everybody else how to play not only their own character, but everybody else's as well. I don't play this game to feed someone else's ego. I don't play to listen to someone tell us how great they are and how they can "solo everything in the game". It's not my job to feed the egos of those who have nothing else in their lives except playing video games and I'm sure not going to pay for the "privilege". EQ didn't have individual houses and decorating and the tradeskill system that EQ2 does. That's one of the reasons I chose to come over and stay. I wouldn't mind going back to EQ, and do both, but my characters are on my husband's account and there's no point in playing if we cannot play together and I see no reason to start all over. People need to realize that if they cannot get groups or cannot convince people to want to group more, there's a reason for that. And unless or until they figure that out, blaming everything else isn't going to fix anything.

Also remember that EQ2 was horribly optimized for it's time, leading to many people not being able to play it. Instead they went over to WoW which was much more accessible for people with lower quality computers. One of WoW's biggest selling points is that almost any computer can run it.

Optimization aside, the graphics engine for EQ2 also required a fairly high-end video card at the time (e.g.: GPU support for vertex and pixel shaders). IIRC, they even had a program that you could download which would tell you if your video card was compatible with the game. It was unplayable (as in the client would just not run) on the majority of laptops and many lower-end desktop systems of the day. You have to be fairly committed to be willing to spend hundreds of dollars to upgrade your system hardware just to play a game.