We have been trying to tell SOE that an endless token grind for PvP gear, as well as locked twinks, do nothing to help open world PvP and everything to turn new players off. I dislike WoW's simplistic, cookie-cutter class design but I have to admit that their open PvP servers (the ones I've been on anyway) are still booming population-wise after 9 years, and are a lot of fun. No locking (because someone will just call in the level 90s to kill off locked griefers in a zone so no one bothers), no big token grind, you save the twinking until end-game, and every level range has PvPers in it, questing and PvPing along the landscapes. And if you level lock in a BG, Blizzard has it set up so you will only face off against other locked twinks. Problems solved.
I've been trying to find any information about the current number of active accounts, and SOE keeps that info sealed tight, apparently. I do know that a few times recently /who alll had turned up under 100 people (100 is the max, but it does show annon people). That used to only happen on Crushbone when the server crashed/resets and I kept trying to log back in. XD I dunno... the way they keep changing everything to squeeze every dime out of us like eliminating sales, drastically reducing the sales that do happen compared to old ones, separating the race from the xpac, eliminating the prestige house from the collector's edition... To me, it seems like maybe they are struggling. :\ Just feels kinda .. creepy.. foreboding maybe.... but I guess SOE has always been more about stick than carrot. :\ Needs more carrot to get more people interested in subbing. >.> IRL item sales would be pretty good income too. A good merchandise idea would be to get 3d printers for SOE and let players order anything they want, IMHO. Character name, item ID, maybe even a zone name, room and direction/wall for a diorama. >.> I know I have a couple houses I decorated I'd love to get a 3d print of.
I think your figures are so rubbery they would bounce. EQ2 was released on 4 November 2004, World of Warcraft was released on 23 November 2004, three weeks not "almost a year". Now I like this game a whole lot better than I like WoW, but it may be WoW does somethings better, but after all they have a whole lot more money to spend.
Feldon probably has the best data of anyone who doesn't work for SOE. He estimated 60k-70k active players in another thread.
Assume "on average" every player has at minimum one alternate character. Most Raiders I know have 2-3 so going on mins lets assume 2 Alts per players or 3 characters per player. You can assume there are about 23,333 (players) in the game. I would give a of range 19,000 to 26,000 players. Given an MMO can easially still profit on 25K it's fair to say EQ2 is still alive. It's not Burgeoning by any means but it's not dead. The issue some may say is the fact there are too many Servers for such a "small" population. "Min" servers would probably be. PvP-Server RP-Server PvE-Sever PVE-Sever2 (only maybe). BG-Server Instances-Server Do not players can't "live" on the last 2, they are just extras to handle the other data needs.
I know a dozen people that play this game and they have all given up doing pick up groups. The whole ACT, whats your dps, epeen squad has turned a lot of people off of pugs. Every single time someone spams chat looking for a tank, I can promise you that at least 20 tanks are reading it but not responding due to past experiences.
200-250k characters actively playing. 60-70k players. It's my judgment based on the data available to me. SOE does not publish numbers. I wish they did. I think people would be surprised at how many people play.
Thanks for correcting me then. My math (based on inaccurate representation of figures) painted a grim picture.
Well, there is some truth to it. ACT did cause some issue in that it let "good" players screen people and find "bad" players. What people forget is that it doesn't take Group-de-God to do Heroic Content. Heck in Sentinels Fate I was capable of pulling Bad Healers and Bad Tanks through zones. Call me a cynic but I believe that Tanks who don't try for PuG's are afraid of something. 1: Being judged by their DPS. 2: They have problems holding aggro against high-dps classes (especially if they are played by Raiders who commonly know more/dps more due to Gear) and don't want to be judged/yelled at by it. Even if they aren't yelling, Raiding players tend to be rough around the edges when it comes to advice. If someone doesn't want to tank due to past experience there had to be two things. 1: A player who criticized them for their performance. 2: The tank admitting they have a performance issue and are not comfortable trying again. That's how I see it, because I used to be a bad tank in Heroics. I couldn't hold aggro, I could barely DPS. I got better by Pugging and listening to the helpful criticizers and ignoring the "OMG YOU SUCK AT THIS GAME AND LIFE" players.
>.> Honestly, I've bumped into so many jerks and perverts I just don't group any more unless I'm doing a quest and someone else is there killing the same thing and not being an obnoxious twit. (This may be where the rumor that women do not play MMOGs came from.. we're just avoiding icky people and wind up avoiding everyone. XD Not as strong a rumor/joke as it used to be though.) Last few years I've just played to decorate and look at other people's houses. The occasional decorator or 2 will group up to get the Vigilant house items, the Coldain ring stand, or something like that... but General chat is usually all the epeen and assery I can stomach, when it comes to strangers. (I really wish Guides/events could have their own channel so I don't have to keep an eye on General for them... ) The last pug I joined that broke the camel's back was actually not mean or perverted, it just was terrible. It was back when Pools was new and difficult for the average player. The tank kept going AFK without telling anyone. After the first couple bosses we all told him to TELL us when he needed to AFK, not just leave his toon standing there while everyone got killed. So, we got to the timed part for the bridges, juuuust started it... and they he announces he needs to AFK again and will be back in about 10 minutes... -.- And that was that last time I went with a pickup group.
I am terribly sorry you had such a terrible example of a tank. Heck were you on my server, I would offer to take you on a run as an example of what grouping can be. I doubt that would change much but it pains me hearing that some people (especially tanks since I am one) are so... rude. If a Tank's constantly AFKing frankly, he should be kicked. If he complains tell him that he can run a group when he decides to stay at his computer more than five minutes.
I have three raid geared tanks and NEVER do Pug's. Not from fear and I don't care if my DPS doesn't meet their approval. I have no problem holding aggro, but I still can't save you every time you do something stupid. Never been criticized, at least not that I remember and I love tanking. I have two guilds that I'm a member of, a raid guild and a "other then raiding guild" . Royal Guard was nice enough to allow me to take my alt in for me since with my raid guild you're only allowed your raiding main in the guild. I don't do pugs for many reasons, but the biggest two are: 1. There is a lot of people who feel that dying is a sign of failure and throw a fit when they do die. Many will drop out of a group because everyone but them isn't raid geared and keeping them from dying. Really a pain when it happens to be the only healer in the group. 2. Staying in guild keeps most issues under control. No arguements over loot is nice. It also means that I already know who the jerks are in my group and how to handle them. Don't really want to deal with other jerks, for I have neither the patience nor the interest in messing with them. I don't even bother filling in a group with outsiders anymore, again, the hassle just isn't worth them trouble.
What happened to this game? Before I left a month or two after TSO came out..There was always people LFG for PuGs, even PuRs * Leonardo on AB got me my Myth*..Now..I rarely see people even lfg for anything lower than 95 stuff..Noone looks for Nek castle, DFC, Unrest or any of those good zones that were sooo much fun..For me..When I learned that a tank had over 700k hp and could solo most if not all of the old raid zones in like..3min..I think I learned why people are leaving this game
People aren't doing those zones because a lot of us have several maxed alts that we barely every play and have already ran all of that more times than we can count. I can't speak for everyone, but I am tired of those zones, im tired of the tedious grind. Its just my opinion, but the game changes so much at 90 that its a completely new experience and almost everything pre 90 is negligible to what I do post 90. I have a lot of friends who still love the leveling experience, but for me and many others... its a waste of time.
/..\ Sadly, with all the blatant money grabbing SOE is doing... I think it's going to get a lot harder to find groups for those who do heroic content. They just don't seem to be stopping any where.
I don't think you can really narrow it down to just EQ2. All Access makes it more of a count of all SOE Games combined. Those are probably the numbers they are working with. Planetside 2 is packed every time I step in there ( on those days when my toon deathwish is strong). Larger numbers overall can probably support lower numbers in original games. EQN, for all its issues with older players, will probably be pretty popular and draw huge initial numbers. Again bumping up the over account numbers.
EQN is not a true Traditional MMO like EQ, EQ2, WoW, Vanguard, Champion's Online ect (Champions is a BIT more Action but it's traditional at core). EQN is more like Action MMO's like Planetside 2, Tera Rising, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn (which is a bit more on the Traditonal side of Action). Action MMO's require higher reflexes and snap-understanding of what is going on in the environment. They are not the kind of game that will appeal to people over the age of 40 commonly. There are exceptions.
Ummm...no one really knows what EQN is or isn't at this point. Most older players ( I'm in this group) dislike the game because of the direction they chose to go artistically. Doesn't mean we won't try to play it though.
I am speaking of what I have seen from SOE and what I know of MMO design. You are free to disagree with me but since EQN has not been officially gener-ized, neither you nor I can be "right" in this case. You may have differing reasons for liking/disliking EQN compared to myself. In this case, you dislike the Art Style rather than disliking the Game Style. I made no mention of Art Style however and I was not generalizing that all older players dislike it due to Gameplay. I did say there are exceptions to any data point. I do not believe I posited that no older-generation player would try EQN despite it being more aimed at the 15-30 age bracket based on what we have seen so far. EQN is still in development, all talk of it is conjecture, including my own speculations from what I have seen from SOE releases/footage.
