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

Discussion in 'General Gameplay Discussion' started by Kalika, Mar 12, 2019.

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  1. MightyMeaghan Well-Known Member

    Daybreak does not listen to useful criticism.
    Mizgamer62 and Rhodris like this.
  2. Fensy New Member

    The population of this game is emotionally driven regardless. It's like an abusive relationship, they think they will change, and it never happens lol.
  3. feldwebel87 Active Member

    And they listen to rants?
  4. dirgenoobforreal Well-Known Member

    No no of course not.

    A fall from 2013 to 2019 of 81.43% usage of the number one community site is not an indicator of a games health, NOT AT ALL. Now you can claim "oh but not every one use eq2u" and thats true. No one said the numbers were the 1 to 1 player numbers, but it shows a trend, a huge down spiral in player population over the last few years.

    Feldon also released UNIQUE character look ups in 2018:
    With alts and what not, this indicated the games has an extremely low player count in 2018.

    White knightning in this thread is just as horrible as the trolls. I don't troll. I still raid on Thurgadin 4 times a week, but even I acknowledge this game have serious mechanical issues and a huge population issue. People have legitimate reasons to be unhappy with the state of the game and voicing those concerns is not trolling and its not trying to harm the game for whatever reason people might believe that. If we had a dev team that actually talked to the playerbase and listened the game could be in a much better shape. But the last two expansions have been made without any input what so ever from the playerbase and its starting to show for real now.
    Mizgamer62, Rhodris and Fensy like this.
  5. Adoninilol Well-Known Member

    Yeah it's not like every expansion the game has a drastic down turn in population, specifically in the past nine years. Which can easily be proven by the fact that the server count just keeps getting lower and lower.

    Crazy idea's right Sigrdrifa?

    Regardless of what people's "opinion" on the matter, this game is dead basically. I mean if you just look at the census data, you can clearly see how many players are actually playing this game. It's not a lot. I think one server of wow classic will probably rival this entire game's population, which of course is a shame because; wow is ****.
  6. Adoninilol Well-Known Member

    Oh and a side note, TLE's which typically have the most populated server count per the "heavy, light, medium" load listing, have typically around 5-10k max level toons in t5, then around 2k by RoK, at least looking at fallen gate's data. I think nagafen season 2 has under 500 players on it, who even tried it. Now? Under 100.

    I'd guess maybe 1-2k people play tle's, I know kander boasted 5k unique accounts on stormhold. I'd guess maybe 7-10k people play eq2, maybe 15-20k in unique accounts but at least 1/2 are bots.
  7. Raff Well-Known Member


    Games that are "Dead" do not get twice yearly content updates & yearly expacs. They go into maintenance mode for a time, then are sun setted later.

    The game may not be a populous as you would prefer, but it is obviously making enough money to keep expacs & yearly content coming.
  8. Adoninilol Well-Known Member

    Yeah sure "content updates and expansions" don't you mean rehashed copy + paste content.

    Do you even play this game?

    Since CoE they have literally just copy + pasted entire zones, changed a few assets and rereleased them. I remember fighting fabled DoF, KoS, EoF, the list goes on.

    Eventually they just said "forget fabled zones" and just copy pasted all of RoK.

    Jesus christ, you really think reskinned loping plains and ferrott is content? No, it's maintenance mode milking by DBG.
  9. feldwebel87 Active Member

    Sorry, that's not a good data source. Yes players have left, but a third party graph is a third party graph. All this tells me is site usage is down. It could be correlated somewhat, but this isn't a very strong indicator.
    Breanna likes this.
  10. Adoninilol Well-Known Member

    Just the third party website that just about every player in everquest 2 uses who is slightly serious about raiding/engaging in PVE content.

    Just a third party website that saw more web traffic than eq2flames and the official forums for a period of time.

    Lul.
  11. Fensy New Member

    People on here are emotionally driven, they don't want the truth. They think that copy an paste stuff they get on the so called twice a year updates is real work in the game. Yet they don't actually see anything new at all. It's an abusive relationship lol. Hit them in the face, they come back for more, oh they will fix it next time, this time will be different.

    Every year yall get fervor items, and increased potency, they bring out some old content an just make the levels higher. Hard work right there.... Oh new xpacs? No, they copy an paste the old ones and add new color themes, the only person doing tons of work is the writer. There is not one place in this game you can't go find the same textures somewhere else now.
    Mizgamer62 and Pixistik like this.
  12. Obano Well-Known Member

    If your lowball figure is accurate of 7k people playing EQ2 that should be enough to keep the game going for a while.

    I have played games where there was only one server and it only had 500 people on it. Given these games were cheaper to maintain ports of Korean MMOs; they still got regular updates. Those games are still open even after years and years of having a low playerbase. What is happening to EQ2 is not unique. The entire MMO industry is in decline but the better games tend to hang on and not go under. There will always be some rich whales that will spend a crazy amount of money to keep the lights on of the games that are worth saving. I have said it before and I will say it again. My bet is EQ2 will still be here in 20 years.
    Breanna likes this.
  13. Wimble Active Member


    Its a huge indicator of this: that there has been a a consistent decrease in the number of people who care enough about how they play eq2, to use a third party website to gain insight/advantage. That is a fact.

    It follows that either: those players have either stopped caring enough to use eq2u but still play or, they just stopped playing. As people's natures tend not to change so much i'm making a reasonable assumption that they actually stopped playing and found something else to engage with. So, the usage numbers of eq2u are a strong indicator of the general helath of the game

    While it is "just a third party website", as others have pointed out, it is and mostly has been the first port of call for players looking for information on the game re: player profiles/discoveries etc etc. The extent to which people engage with it is naturally indicative of the levels of interaction with the game itself. This isnt a troll, and as i pointed out actually, its moot for me now, i log in every few days to do a solo. I guess my angle is a bit of sadness for the game. I notice some absolute deniers in this thread though, i think i feel saddest for them!
    Mizgamer62 and Rhodris like this.
  14. Mountbatten Well-Known Member

    Yes, there is a correlation. It's called a decreasing active population causing a correlated decrease in activity on a third party site that has traditionally been used by a large portion of the active population. But if you want other indicators, I can point you to server merges, employee layoffs, decreasing forum activity. I mean, the list goes on. Your constant burying your head in the sand to facts really adds nothing to the conversation. Telling people to go play something else is equally void of value.

    I'm not even one of the ones saying EQ2 is in its death throes. It's an old game. Some people are leaving, some are returning. Summer is usually slow. But denying an obvious downward trend despite mountains of evidence supporting it is just doing yourself a disservice.
    Mizgamer62 likes this.
  15. Raff Well-Known Member

    Then go play something else if you are that dissatisfied. I like some expacs. Some I didn't like as well. But overall I'm having fun with the game right now. And I'm okay with content they are releasing.

    But then again, I'm not wedded to "any" game to the point of losing my mind if things don't go my way.
    Cyrrena likes this.
  16. dreamweaver Well-Known Member

    The discussion in this thread is going well, this is just a reminder to take a break if you feel things are getting too heated.
    Breanna, Cyrrena, Snikkety and 4 others like this.
  17. feldwebel87 Active Member

    Go look at my post history and then ask me again if Iam burying my head. I specifically took the stance that it appeared to be dying, and if I should bother.

    How is telling people to play something else void of value? I think it's great advice assuming they are fed up.

    I am simply saying the site's graph isn't a good source because it's not. You don't have to point out server merges and population loss - that much is clear. I am saying the graph isn't a good source and stand by it.
  18. feldwebel87 Active Member

    How many others log in once every few days and don't use that site because they lost interest in looking information up? Again, not a great source. Not saying it's not true that subs have dropped, transitioned to other games using the same account, but I wouldn't put too much faith in it. Maybe there is a very close correlation based on what some think they know, but how do we really know? Where's the details about how it was conducted?
    Breanna, Dude and Snikkety like this.
  19. Arclite Well-Known Member

    Moving away from site visits and/or population numbers, i sense some folks perhaps do not appreciate that a lot of people who are termed as "whiners" or "moaners", are just long term fans of the game venting and all of their criticism (often logical) stems from deep fondness for the game.

    If the game was intact its core with its original groundbreaking gameplay, you can have a population of 1000 and people will still be enjoying it. Ever wonder why EQ1 is still going strong? I have never played it but would be surprised that it has been run in to the ground mechanics wise as eq2 has been.

    The blatant ignoring of players constructive criticism over the years has led this game to where it is now. Its playerbase bitter and rightly so. Conversely, some may argue that the executive producer's statement about keeping the game afloat via microtransaction being the normative state of play these days, and hence, adding items/mechanics to facilitate that notion can be justified. It should not be....ever. There were plenty of areas where financial gains from the game's still active monthly subscription could have been accrued but just because the game was not handled properly does not mean we get our cherished memories of this game being ruined with superfluous mechanics and tacked-on novelties that no one in the game ever asked for nor likes.

    How many of us flock to the TLE every time a new server is launched? even though we know that it gets ruined with each iteration and progressively so. We still look for the stiff challenge of the launch days, where time put in equalled level of reward. Where making a decision to equip an item having +7 crit chance over + combat art damage made notable difference to your dps or using your AAs to spec for a tower shield or a buckler on a tank. Where the grind to get all mastered out whilst the expansion was current was an attainable objective. Where defeating tough raid and heroic bosses dropped items with unique effects that you would not mind playing until the middle of the night for. Where a player in heroic gear would outshine a raid player in raids in their respective roles just because the former had more skill. Where using your combat arts in between auto attacks correctly resulted in success or failure. Where not all classes cared to look at their dps parse at the end of the fight. Where having and using the "mirror of reflected achievements" at the right time changed the outcome of certain fights.

    These and many other facets like these made the game heads and shoulder above the competition. Where less was more. This is what we want. Pure unadulterated mechanics that are tough to master but when you do, its a delightful experience.

    Sadly, we will never get this back. Having been given the option to purchase the next expansions class spell upgrades through ethereal coins just shows how little care is given to the core game. No new abilities/AAs to speak of. No uniqueness conferred...Except that we are getting forums updates that talk about "new familiars and levelling your mounts to the next level"...

    Then we I ask this question to myself...Is it really too late to do anything about this?
  20. Cyrrena Well-Known Member

    I am replying to your post and not the last in sequence as I notice in your reply using Feldon's Data for UNIQUE Character Lookups for 2018, which also includes data for 2019, that the highest number in the table occurs in April of 2019 and is 42,065 which is 11,156 lookups higher than the next highest number of lookups which occurred in December of 2018 and was 30,909. Yes, this is a 15 year old game. Yes, the player base population is decreasing overall. Is the sky falling? No, the sky is not falling. An investment capital firm does not keep anything in its portfolio that is not profitable. If the EQ2 IP was not profitable, it would no longer be in the hands it has been in since 2015. UO is now a 23 year old game, its player base is no where near 100,000 players, its more like 1000-2000 at most, but it must be making money as EA keeps it going.

    My head is not in the sand and never has been and my opinions here are not popular and I do not care. I have been through the sunsetting of games and it is not fun. But if you are done and do not play the game any longer whether you love the game for what it used to be or not, you should not be coming here and shouting how hideous it has become and how you would not give your money to DBG to play it, if you are done, move along, keep your fond memories in tact and let those that are here and enjoying themselves have their fond memories. It is not your dollar paying for their memories, they are finding value for the dollar they spend and should not be belittled for that.

    Just let everybody do what they want with their money and leave them be. Stop belittling them because they do not believe the same thing about the game as you do. If you hate it, you hate it. If you love it, you love it. Just leave each other alone.
    ConcealFate, Oranorn, Fangrim and 3 others like this.
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