rediculous prices. end of story. Single charge rewards for purchases on the market place with high prices. Lower prices and make all items "one per character". not 800% price and "1 per purchase".
I cant argue with that. I was present for it all. but they tried to keep charging max price for crusty 10 year old game. 35 bucks for an 85? i have a STACK of 90s that are boring as ssssK
ridiculous prices? sorry but wait until you have a utility service that raises their charges by 10 to 20 percent every 3 months, or petrol that pushes 4.00 a gallon then complain about "ridiculous prices", hopefully SOE will never adopt that pricing model. SOE is a for profit organization, they do not run in the dole pricing model, don't like the prices, don't buy, simple as that. Their stock while not as good as my Apple stock is still fairly steady in today's market, at least they are holding their own. Will leave when the monthly cost exceeds the price of a shot of Cuvée Jean Godet cognac
Its all speculation as to why people have left. Some grew up and find work, spouses, children, etc., come first. Real life happens! But posting that the ridiculous prices of the marketplace were the reason people left as this person claims: is probably the least accurate, in my opinion of course.
Here is the reason why I am no longer subscribed: The majority of players I used to play with already left for reasons unknown to me, although I could speculate. On Nagafen, the population has dwindled. I do not see overflow zones or groups of players running around any more. It used to be fun to find an obscure place somewhere in the world and then see that another player was also there. There is no incentive to run heroic content because the advanced solo instances can be soloed or ran with a mercrenary and provides more than adequate gear. I wanted to group with a friend to run a dungeon, but we could not find anybody who wanted to join us, and our guild members who logged in once a day just logged in for the advanced solo's. The gear is boring. There is very little variety. The procs and effects are dull, it's just more of the same but with a V or an X at the end of it to denote the power level. I'm playing another game at the moment and really enjoying it - my friends are playing there and we are having a great time running dungeons, getting nice gear upgrades, and running events all over the world with hundreds of other players
I didn't participate in the F2P Beta known as EQ2-eXtended on Freeport but the one thing they did have that was intriguing was the Platinum sub which came at a premium price and included everything. So they did, at one time, have a subscription offer in a F2P environment that included expansions along side our familiar Gold subscription. If they still honor existing Platinum subs (if any still exist) then they would also have the framework already in place to revamp the Platinum subscription plan. This way, an option could be given to players to subscribe to an all inclusive subscription plan at a premium price without needing to change existing subscription plans.
The moste players, i spoke to left cause of the lack of content, provided within the period of time between expansions..... i had to say.... today i gona play only on raids, cause of, there is not much left i can do. (What i like to do ^^)
Players tend to leave MMO's because they are bored and something new showed up for them to do instead. Sometimes they are angry about some change in the game that they perceived as "ruining" it. More often though they just don't have fun playing the game any more. I've left 7 MMO's at this point: UO, EQ, AC, DAoC, EQ2, CoH and WoW, UO - performance issues after EQ released. The lag was just not acceptable any more when EQ's relatively lag free environment arrived. This would be an "angry" leaving although I wasn't really angry at UO, just unwilling to pay for it any more. EQ - something new in 2001, AC showed up and was interesting enough to make me look at it for awhile. Bored in 2004, the game was pretty stagnant by then. Both times were "bored/something new" AC - bored in 2002. The game just wasn't interesting enough to hold my attention all that long, went back to EQ which had released additional content (Luclin) and enjoyed that. DAoC - bored after a short stay. Was not really into PvP and the PvE game was not very good. EQ2 - bored after a month. EQ2 was too much like EQ. CoH - bored very quickly. All the play was the same just with higher level mobs. WoW - bored after a long 4 year stay in 2008. The game was great for the first year and then as the 40 man raiding went away it became less and less until I left. UO and WoW are the only MMO's that I played once and never returned too even for a look-see. The games I stuck around in are the games that had real player interaction and grouping required. Raiding is a must for a game to have staying power with me. My prediction is that if EQ Next doesn't have real grouping requirements it will likely fail to meet the publishers objectives and languish by the roadside for most of its existence. It also is going to need to be new and exciting. SoE has a big challenge here.
I've played quite a few MMOs over the years. Most times I left due to the game being too repetitive, not just in the action, but the environments. Games like Anarchy Online, City of Heroes, Champions Online and Pirates of the Burning Sea stand out in my mind when I think of that. Pirates also had insane travel time with incredible risk of item loss. It also has a severe population imbalance in RvR, which was aggravated by a continually diminishing population. I was in 3 or 4 different societies (guilds) that all just faded away. Final Fantasy XI was great. I especially loved the multi-classing. It's the only one I regret leaving, but I don't feel like I could commit the time needed to make real progress. I tried the Secret World during a trial weekend, but I couldn't justify buying it, when all I was really paying for was some voice acting. Auto Assault was a fun concept, but it never really took off and NCSoft dropped it in a year. Earth and Beyond was another fun concept, but it got boring quickly and EA pulled the plug on that. I tried SWG at launch and got frustrated with the crafting system. EQ1 has become too dated. After playing other games, the controls feel awkward. The spell system is a mess. The latest series of quests is a mess (Group tasks that require a group, but are better done solo and solo tasks that require individual random drop updates from group content). I just don't care for sitting in one spot and repeating the same process over and over. I'm also burnt out on raiding in that game and EQ2. I've left EQ2 because my friends have left, but I came back and hang around because there's stuff to do, even if I'm on my own. I generally like to pass the time with the housing system. The EQs are the only ones that seemed to do pet classes right. In other games (like LOTRO) I felt like they were too weak. I've missed a few other games, but they were forgettable anyway.
Why does anyone play MMOs? 1) Is the game fun? 2) Is there enough relevant content to keep you playing? 3) Are you rewarded appropriately for playing it? #1, yes, EQ2 is generally pretty fun. #2, EQ2 keeps shooting itself in the foot every 6-12 months, as every xpac or half-season upgrade invalidates just about everything that came before it. When earlier content is "required", (see: complaints about not getting a free epic weapon in Heroic Characters thread, complaints about re-running TOFS for the debuffs in this thread), it winds up being "not-at-all-fun content," and blowing point #1. #3, spell upgrades and XP and AA are practically free, so items are all that matter. ItemScript and reforging (and easily reachable/breachable stat caps) means the items are boring as beige paint, with no choices to be made between stats. And it's not at all balanced for effort/reward, at least at the solo/group levels (see: fabled solo drops, Clefts, everyone farming one single zone for heroic mounts, grotto-mastercrafted). The reward structure in this game is absolutely terrible, and it's all about itemization. At least the last SoE Live said it would be a focus going forward; hopefully they can do it.
Prassha part of what destroyed itemization and made everything all about upgrades was the consolidation of stats. When you only have STR/STA for fighters... there is not a lot you can do gear wise to introduce variance and interesting items. TSO was alright: - Two Main Stats - Three Secondary Stats You could mix those up to get interesting effects and keep a more open loot table. DoV+ items all feel cookie cutter and bland because well, the next zone up is better gear and usually not challenging enough to need the previous gear to get it. CoE was even worse because ALL heroic gear, regardless of how difficult the fight was or the zone was had all the same stats. DC Gear = Wurmbones End Gear? What were they thinking there is what I want to know. SF Gear had 3 different (minorly) sets from Heroic and one Fabled Set that you had to get 1 piece from EVERY zone to complete. Not like CoE where you just farm Obol/Spirits in Harrows/DC/Temple and just buy your gear.
