Instead of releasing a full expansion next year, I’d much prefer a consolidation of spells, CA’s and skills. A complete reworking of all classes to restore their individuality and purpose, removal or a lessening of ascension abilities, and a big debugging and overall game play improvement. I love this game but I’m of the opinion we have lost our way. And please, never do this to our crafting/decorating community again.
Cata killed warcraft, and its ghost is now running around selling out right and left like a cheap prostitute these days, in a rather flaming and cartoony fashion I might add. I did not even check back with it for the demon hunters, long ago, I truly gave up on warcraft. Its a cash cow, but its udder shite. Sell it to the facebook flakes as a flash game, because I'm not buying. I keep current on eq 1 buy all expansions and play eq2 off and on, mostly because these guys had the wit to introduce things like house actors, and advanced interior decorating, as well as rp and progression. I cant hate eq2, don't change that by putting it on a diet. I mean, there is only one downtown restaurant that actually serves a real pizza these days...its like that, and I have to pay near 50 bucks for it. Eq is already pushing it with the vials...I just fill and sell them.
(wasn't it the mortals [players] barging into the various Planes the reason the deities got so pissed off with us in Everquest 1...?) Spoke to one of the devs/techs awhile back, not long after the month-long "crash" due to a nasty hack; of SOE or even SONY itself, I can't recall at the moment, but he'd said he'd kind of wished it had actually been down a tiny bit longer: that way, they might've had time to FIX everything that was making them pull their hair out, too. I think they tried to do too much with EQ3 (I will not, ever, call it "EQNext!!1!1!! " when the only maps I saw were exactly the same as EQ1: in other words, EQ2 wasn't to count any more for any reason, and I much prefer this game). Too much difference in game mechanics (whether or not it took the reality of GPU peripherals and multiple CPU cores into account notwithstanding), too much difference in the art (though I actually preferred WoW's art, especially vs. original EQ1's), too much of things people were not happy about. Then with the idiot move of SONY's: the disaster that was Pro7, and SONY trying to disown us later (apparently for embarrassing them ["You can't kick us out! We're leaving!"]), and a big staff reduction, I'm pretty amazed we're doing as relatively well as we are. :-/ There's mutters about if it sunsets with Nova, that Amazon Games might pick us up, since last I knew, Smed was there already (and Domino? dunno, but 'twould be a consummation devoutly to be wished! ), and hopefully they would trust the instincts of gamers and computer people, rather than try to insist on a massive profit every quarter, apparently ("You have yet to reward our faith in you this week. That is very, very bad."). :-/ On cataclysms: yeah, that pretty much killed WoW for me, frankly. One thing I did like about that game was actually the old storyline; if they'd kept that and done a WoW1 and WoW2, like they did here with Everquest, I'd probably still be playing WoW1 and EQ2. But I detested the "only game in town" WoW: Cataclysm. Uwk
I think it's too late. There are too many classes, stats are ridiculous, I don't think they've ever fully re-itemized everything when they've made changes over the years and that should all be addressed, content would need to be re-scaled across the board. It's not a bad Idea, one I would like to see happen. It's just that I don't see how they have enough resources to get it done. Also, if they don't release an expansion in a year's time they will lose players. People are too conditioned to expect it. I don't see how the remaining staff could pull this off.
Well, everything after WotLK (I.e. Everything developed after the Activision merge...) started to kill WoW more and more. However, not everything that happened was terrible. Cataclysm improved the group finder, revamped the old unvisited zones to make them fresh and more in-line with the more polished quests of the recent work, provided an overhaul on a number of art assets (I.e. Old zones and old races got shiny new looks that didn't feel 20 years old...) Mists of Pandaria, revamped many outdated stats either removing them or merging several different stats into one (I.e. Spell Hit and Hit just became Hit and worked for all attacks regardless of type), it introduced Cross-Realm zones to help improve sparser areas (I.e. Cities that are usually crowded stayed single realm only. But out questing you'd see multiple zones worth of people to improve impromptu grouping) - Also, a mechanic where named mobs needed for quests and open world bosses started to become FFA so there was less fighting to tag the dude and then if you failed waiting for the respawn and more smoother "Yeah, I can totes help this guy out" (It came with scaling health pools for bosses so more people = more health too). Scenarios was also a interesting idea (I.e. Small "Dungeons" for 3 players that doesn't have role requirements. Something like a step up from Solo but not quite Heroic) Warlords of Draenor provided a much needed stat squish to bring numbers back to reasonable levels (Albeit for a short duration, because the following expansion was stupid and undid everything... Went from 800k health as a tank at the end of WoD to 3mil as a fresh 110 in Legion...), more model updates and some QoL additions (Account-wide items such as Mounts, toys, heirlooms, etc. Accessible from a nice easy menu instead of having to mail crap across characters)... That's about it from good WoD stuff (90% of the expac was literally facebook garbage garrison crap, with the final raid tier and conclusion to the story being scrapped so they could instead spend 9 months doing nothing and then sell the new expac...) Legion... Uhhh... Well, there's Artifact weapons if you're into that (Essentially, 1 single weapon you keep for the entire expac and you just level it up. Instead of you know, farming for loot, you farm for weapon experience items... Yay, 'cause that's how MMO's work right?) I'll leave the bad stuff these expacs did that caused the game to die, 'cause I could write a TON about that (Short answer is Activision wanted them to stop making good games and to start making more money for less work = they started pooping out whatever they could vaguely call content and selling it for a premium) On Topic: I wouldn't mind a overhaul "Expac" for EQ2. Fine tuning stats, maybe a squish if they can fit one it (It hurts my head to look at items that are covered in so many numbers... Comparing skills with millions of damage is just ehh...) Adjusting classes (Maybe introduce a new class like BL/Chan but for Fighter/Mage... Ideally Fighter so to entice more Tanks to exist after murdering potential Scout tanks...) both balance wise *Cough*Swashy*Cough* but also mechanically (I.e. Diversify the pairs of archetypes a bit more. Kind of like how Priests have a "Melee" and a "Caster" variant. Or how SK and Paladin are polar opposites (SK does damage and more damage, Pally does healing and protection)) Though, to be honest, I'd love an EQ3 that essentially re-did EQ2, but with better graphics (Nothing too OTT, don't need Crysis levels of gawdy), more fluid mechanics (I.e. A looting system that doesn't cause carpal tunnel syndrome...), proper cash sinks (You know, so people aren't asking how to put things on the broker for over the standard UI's plat cap on a daily basis...) and the like. At the end of the day though, it all comes back to cash money. An expac that doesn't well... Expand the game? How would they sell that? Especially if most of it is overhauling the core aspects of the game? Do they just force people to buy it to play? (At best, I can think of selling a new class(es) with its release, but compared to people buying access to a new expansion... I'm not so sure it'd cut it) Similar, EQ3 is just a pipedream because once they axed what they were working on... It's a matter of funding the endeavour... I mean, sure EQ and EQ2 are functioning. But it's not like WotLK WoW where you're raking in so much money you could probably fund a space exploration company IN ADDITION to paying staff to work on new content while sitting on your own private island watching your fleet of Yachts sail past...
EverQuest 2 IS the Cataclysm of Norrath. Two events, in which Druzil Ro was instrumental: the Sundering (splitting the timeline) and the Shattering (mass destruction across the world due to magical backlash and upheaval) - because mortals got uppity and invaded the Planes of the Gods. Mechanically, I don't think EQ2 can be 'fixed'. Not without an upgrade to the engine and a complete re-write of the code. It's a nice thought, but it's not going to happen.
Well, hmm. If we do sunset and Amazon Games picks us up (I'd still like to see that happen, if need be), that should give them, hopefully, enough time (and funds? Please?) to properly revamp everything. And Amazon being Amazon, maybe, just maybe, there might actually be some ADVERTISING to let people know when it's back? :-/ Uwk who hopes to be grandfathered with everything intact... ;->
