It's not yet too late to save the live servers ......

This this this so freaking this. I dearly miss the Scott Hartsman era. That version of EQ2 was just amazing. EoF and RoK was my Eq2. I stopped just after that, but keep tabs of the the game every now and then. I just can't imagine trying to grind through all the different mechanics now. WAY to confusing and time consuming. Sadly, I think the MMO genre is all but done.

Yeah, I guess you're right.

I notice characters in Qeynos, on both Skyfire and Maj'Dul. I see fewer characters in Freeport. Characters in Kelethin. Don't remember numbers there though.

Weekend nights seems the busiest. Weekday mornings not so much.

If they planned on fixing the game, they would, but they don't, they want money. They give you a small update with tons of grinding, it cost them nothing but time, you buy it, then buy DVD, etc.. they don't have to fix anything.

If you are still playing this game for more than just talking to old friends, you're addicted

Bill

They still release expansions on discs?

PoP and CD are two of the worst expansions ever created. The summer update coming is one of the most hated zones in the history of the game. The lack of content should be obvious to everyone and the time gate called Resolve has messed up several guilds that had to backtrack for months and months to get new recruits ready for raids. There has been a horrible content drought for months already. The expansion were cleared by a lot of guilds in March already.

In my opinion the last decent expansion for both solo players, people who group and people who raid was Terrors of Thalumbra released in 2015.

They need to release a stellar expansion this time around with wow classic launching. Their answer for that so far has been Kael and panda events.

The Doom and Gloom Posts have been going on for years and years. Will the game come to an end? Of course it will. If you don't like how it's not like the good old days afraid that's pretty much how things work. Find it too annoying then quit and move on. Play and enjoy while it lasts.
Of course there are people who like to predict something is about to cease. Not sure eventually being able to say "I told you so" is a great life ambition.

Someone told me Everquest as a franchise was going to be dead by the end of 2017 in 2017 *laughs in Norrathian* Granted you didn't say something would happen before a certain date. They are releasing an expansion later this year, and my guess is it will be something awesome.

It entirely depends on what people consider a "dead" or "dying" MMO. For me personally a MMO is dead if its almost entirely impossible to get a group going for group content outside of prime time. That is the case on at least 3 servers, Thurgadin, Halls of Fate and Antonia Bayle. I know this for a fact because I tried several times the last few months to get groups going on all 3 outside of what is called prime time in EU and NA.

For others a game isnt dead as long as the server is open because they mostly solo or they pretty much only login to raid or even just decorate a house thats fine, but a MMORPG has a lot of aspects and a lot of the aspects are hard to do in EQ2 and its been increasing in difficulty for years to get PUGs or even guild groups going outside of prime time hours. If you deny that EQ2 have seen a huge downwards spiral in population over the last year, I dont know how you could possible keep fooling yourself into believing that. The only time Thurgadin returns more than 100 players with /who all is between 17:00 to 00:30 CEST. Outside of that its almost entirely below 70 total players.

Ill wrap this up by saying lag needs to be sorted, like a year ago.. How a game from 2004 still have such massive network lag in 2019 is beyond me. It truly is. Server merges have been needed for YEARS, but the bad press is most defiantly the reason they haven't done it yet, because if any of the people on the dev team played the game, they would know just how dead almost all the servers are compared to other MMO titles.

Agreed

I am on Maj'Dul and haven't had any trouble getting a group. Needless to say those groups worked in a mentoring capacity due to all the 110s.

Yes, there has definitely been a downward spiral of players. In fact, you can check my first post on these forums in years (https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...o-play-again-but-i-have-a-few-hangups.590073/) asking if the game had life left and if it was worth playing again, or if I was just going to start and be disappointed when they shut down the servers. So yeah, I had a pretty cautious viewpoint--at first. And then I started playing, and I realized I made a good decision (https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq2/index.php?threads/best-decision-ever-to-play-again.590115/).

I played Final Fantasy XIV before coming back to EQ2 for a couple of weeks, and I had to wait in line to get on a server. So yeah, there's a pretty obvious difference in the number of players to say the least. But you know what, FFXIV is pure garbage in my opinion, and feels like you are going down a path laid with tracks. I immediately thought of EQ2 and the true open world feel, the amount of customization, etc. So, I came back. I wasn't even thinking of playing another MMO at the time or coming back, but when I tried FFXIV out of curiosity, I decided I wanted to play a real MMO, and then began thinking of a few I could play--and guess where I ended up?

So no, the game isn't dead to me, at all. It's all starting to come alive again, and I sure hope it has plenty of life left in it, but I can't guarantee it any more than one can predict the exact time of its demise. Needless to say, I am having a ton of fun, and no other MMORPG can quite capture the look and feel of EQ2.

I am not delusional, again see my first post, and the promise of a new expansion pack and my ability to play with a great group of people makes me feel like the game isn't "dead," which as you pointed out can be subjective. If a measure of liveliness is going to be in the numbers, then it's pretty obvious this isn't exactly a shining beacon of popularity or "being alive/not dead."

And to conclude, the story I mentioned a person earlier that told me EQ wouldn't last past 2017, and I had to chuckle in 2019 when they told me that 2019 was the final year for sure this time. I can see the negative posts on this forum as a reminder of the 2017 prediction, so I can't help but reminisce a bit. I just can't help but think, if you don't like the game, don't play it.

I'm not saying it's dying, or will be dead soon. I am saying, however, that EQ2 is not in good health and hasn't been for awhile. I think EQ1 is in a much better state than we are here and will probably outlive EQ2. Daybreak itself I'm sure is maintaining just fine.

These are certainly just my opinions, but I do not feel they are without merit. Anyone who has been here for the long haul and is capable of looking at things objectively has noticed the slow and seemingly inevitable decline. Beyond active servers, look here at these forums themselves. There are only a handful of active posts on the first page anymore and the number of active users has certainly plummeted compared to even a couple years ago.

I agree it has been declining but we also have a lot of return players that keep coming back, I see all the time people posting they are returning. I would also be willing to bet not even 1/4 of the people who play come to the forums.

As for the PUG's I think players have a lot to do with that. They are always looking for, used to be 350 AA's or you couldn't group, then it was something else, now it's potency. People don't PUG anymore because of the requirements put on them by other players.

Just my opinion I'm probably wrong I usually am.

Breanna,
you are not wrong .
It is indeed a case of player gating that makes it difficult to get a group.
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the players get maxed out, at which point they 'forget' what it took to Get Maxed out and the number of people that grouped with them when they were getting started either in the game it self or that expansion, even if they were under geared or short on stats .
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As soon as they hit cap and the stat goals they become an Elite (at least in their own opinion).
Then they become inspector 7, you know the inspector that checks all the socks in the factory to be sure they are all the same? They then apply this skill to their fellow players, who of coarse then fall short of the now high expectations.
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add to that the players funding their accounts with kronos , the play style that forces means they are Always farming the plat for that next krono , which basically puts them on the work clock . they are impatient and in a hurry and not inclined to help anyone but themselves. so again no willingness to let a 'lesser' player work up a character in one of their groups.
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.
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so yes i agree it is player opinion that makes getting a group to run with hard some days.

That's kinda the point of this thread though. A lot of people might say they are thinking of returning, and then see all of the crazy, grindy stuff they need to do just to be remotely competitive, and be like yeah, no thanks. I haven't touched Live since Altar of Malice, and looking at all of the stuff that's been added since then, it really doesn't look like it's something I'd be willing to do. I'm not averse to putting in work, but given the sheer amount of stuff that's been added since then, it looks like it would take weeks just to get up to parity with the average player who hasn't taken a break from the game for more than a couple months. Maybe it isn't actually that much work, but it's the impression I get, and tbh that's enough to put me off. The novelty wore off when you had to grind green adorns every time you got a new one. It's primarily why I'll probably only ever play TLE servers again. But, it's probably just because I'm getting older and have better things to do with my time.

why do you have to "grind" the adornment they will level as you play. it's the same as lvl'ing just play the game and like all other aspects of eq they will lvl with you. getting stuck on one aspect, can just be frustrating. enjoy the game and adventure

That was just one example. It was one of the first cases of EQ2 having items that essentially leveled up, and IIRC the best in slot ones had a pretty slow XP curve, not to mention be a pain to get in the first place (I think they were RNG drops). I was doing end-game raiding, so every stat gain, even if small, was important.

Since then, the number of things to grind has gone up significantly, so it's even worse now, plus I think some are gated behind older expansions, so before you can even start grinding them up you've got a bunch of stuff to do.

I game to game. Ah, on a computer. We used to game with paper, pencil, dice, and miniatures. Or dice if I didn't have a miniature for a particular monster.

But hey, we imagined a dragon even if it was just a d10.

In 1984, we imagined what all 7 of us playing on a computer would be like. We were sort of close. Each one of us would have a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. We would see what our character saw.

We laughed. Impossible !

And now we have it in MMOs like this.

There are things that need tweaking, yes.; however, this was the far distant future. Haven't been able to convince my players from back then though. Ah well.

And I gots this cell phone. I can talk long distance with it ! And see the people I am talking to !

Don't you get it ? This is the future I was told as a kid, Would Never Happen. [Tm]

Too bad some of those naysayers from back then aren't still around. They would be shocked at the progress gaming and telephones have made.

I can just see it now. Some kids up on Earth's Moon, complaining about the view of Earth. Why, it never changes ! Its so dull !

Have fun !

I liked your post, not because I like it, but because it makes no sense what so ever, in any universe.

I am basically saying that things we were told about as kids, and later in the 1980s we thought up, would never happen.

It happened anyway, in spite of people claiming it wouldn't.