Don't get me wrong I have loved this game a long time, also played it a long time, but the skill is gone, and progression can be bought. The situation lines that are becoming a tad bit nerve racking. 1. You can buy with station cash all your spells and ascension spells, yet otherwise they are rare drops 2. The introduction of mythical slot, ethereal, and t1 raid gear all in a RNG system just for doing key quest that take less than 10 minutes 3. Class imbalances included with the huge amount of money needed to keep up in high end, I mean seriously, you have Shamans eating other healers, Summoners killing off most all other dps classes, Utility classes are not so much utility at all 4. Stat inflation gone mad. Your focus used to be to struggle to reforge into getting as much of the stats you wanted to have to optimize, now a lot of those same stats are completely useless, which leave nothing really a challenge to think about, because at the end of the day, it's just potency and rotations. 5. This game is massive, yet nothing older is actually utilized, which brings 0 new players to the table, and this game is in need of new players insanely bad 6. I loved the idea of Kunark Ascending, but it has left no room for anyone to enjoy anything else besides that one toon they play. You log in and it's tithe, expert zones, raid, class ascension xp, and hours and hours of it each day on just one toon. 7. The fixes that get put in are rarely relevant to larger issues. 8 No one is unique anymore, all the gear is the same, every hunts for the exact same pieces most the time. Nothing really unique about your class when you inspect someone else unless they have some higher raid piece. The bosses loot tables are extremely low on good items. Most of the loot is pure junk with an extremely limited loot table. 9. Stats are shared across the board. This used to be part of being different. You had scouts with auto attacks and ca's to balance, and mages has there spell dc, pets, and spells. Now everyone shares everything. Flurry, Ma, Attack speed, auto attacks, mit, block, etc... Everyone can get it. This also effects procs, everyone uses the same procs. 10. Solo, Advance, Herioc, Expert, all these zones are exactly the same. Nothing different about them besides higher combat mit and health and a few actual strats if you dont burn 95% of the mobs in the herioc level right off the bat. 11. Ascensions are so insanely over the top. They can so much more than anything else a class originally had, and with that said goes along with what I said prior, you can either wait and wait, or spend tons of plat on the broker looking for each teir of the asc spell, or just straight up buy each tier with station cash. 12. Prestige items that you spent insane hours earning. I mean seriously, If I stopped paying becuase of the annoying other things, I lose items that took hours upon hours to receive? That is bogus. There is so many things that are only money focused, These are just a few things I see myself and a lot of others questioning the tenacity in the game. Are we paying to win, when do we get skill back, when can we start getting things good for newer players in. When can we become unique again? The game literally does not seem to cater to content or players anymore, only money. I run a business, I get it, money has to be made. How can you make money if you are not investing in quality support, services, and mechanics that get produced in a timely manor?
13. The recent ultra massive inflation with game currency, prices raising so quickly, economy is centered around Krono, more and more players have to buy it with real money and resell it ingame to get enough plat to buy what they want. DBG is happy.
They only care about making money now, they are being run by an investment firm. Investment firms only care about making money hand over fist not what the players of the game want. They can alienate a large majority of the player base because the rest embrace the pay to win method. When that model starts to fail, they will close the doors or sell the smoldering remains.
You must remember things a bit differently than I do? It was under the reign of SOE, that LON, EQ2X, Cash Shop (Marketplace), Spell Research, and a slew of other game design decisions originated where the clear intention was making money. These decisions set this game upon the path it now travels. It was under the reign of SOE, that many players purchased exceedingly expensive "early access" to EQNext Landmark (later renamed to "Landmark"). The policy of paying for access to beta began under SOE. It was under SOE that excessive amounts of money, and developer resources, were siphoned from EQ2 to work on EQDisneyNext. This vaporware flopped its way through several terminated iterations, before a patch-job of the PlanetSide2 engine was used to "inspire" the fan base, and help make the sale of SOE to CN look like a good deal. It was under the reign of SOE, that "micro transactions" proven to be nothing resembling micro, when using the cost of a monthly sub as a baseline. The original prices of house decorations, and even the standard pricing of mounts, prestige houses, and appearance gear, truly set the standard for where this game was headed. It was under the reign of SOE that Krono was introduced. Clear support for wholesale RMT of Plat to use in a SLR heavy system, that would favor SOE coffers. Based on the Q&A for Krono at launch, they knew exactly what type of an impact they would have. Probably a bunch of other things I could have pointed out, but if you think the blame falls squarely on CN, I can only assume you did not pay much attention to what happened before SOE was sold. There is a disturbing amount of people who think the EQ franchise would be saved if Smed and Smokejumper returned. A pity these people do not comprehend that Smed and Smokejumper are the reason the EQ franchise is in this state. Looking at the situation objectively, it would be quite a challenge for CN to justify any real investment into EQ2. If I put aside my bias/favoritism toward EQ2, I can not fault CN for letting EQ2 limp along, and gain what profits they can before it is put out to pasture. I would rather they did that, than axe it like EQNext (which was deserved).
Rather than let it "limp" along, put it on the market now while there still be something desirable for a potential buyer. Perhaps someone that would see the value in investing to make it great again so people would want to play. Do this now, before everybody that has supported the franchise since inception throws the towel in and jumps ship.
Pay to win means that there is no way to earn what you want in game. Everything plat related is not pay to win as you can earn plat by playing the game. There is only one pay to win aspect that really matters atm and can be considered gamebreaking: ascension ability progress.
I think the underlying implication from the posts above is that the current state of this game is one that is ambling towards being put to pasture. Looking at it objectively (NOT as a longtime fan) just like the poster above did, I can honestly say a third-party potential buyer would look at this game for what it is: dated. A stone where most of the blood has already been squeezed dry. Any potential investor would look at whatever price and measure it against how much more they could squeeze out of this game before it's time to sunset it.
Good luck in finding "someone" who thinks that EverQuest2 is worth investing in. Not only does someone need to perceive value in EQ2, they would need a minor miracle to turn it around. While not impossible, I find the concept unrealistic to the point it is not even worth hoping for. A stupendous amount of work (a full engine re-write, all art assets, full global mechanic & stat overhaul) would be almost required for EQ2 to start climbing out of this whirlpool. In all likelihood, the big red button would also need to be hit on the player files (ie: FFXIV reboot). If someone was willing to risk an extensive amount of money on this old game, I would wish them well, but consider them to be reckless. It is most likely that CN made the purchase of SOE based on H1Z1, and EQNext (maybe also PS2). The old old mares roaming around the stables were just fluff benefits (much like the Euro subscribers when Sony made the deal with PSS1). So long as EQ2 brings in a few more dollars than it costs to maintain, they will let it plod along. When that changes, we know what happens. I would be pleasantly surprised if anyone with the available funds, is even remotely interested in acquiring the EQ IP at this point in time.
Not sure what you are trying to say. I was around for it all as well and have been playing from launch. At least back then there were mechanisms in place to advance your characters without the need to spend money other then your membership fee. Moving into the latest zone increase and since it went live most means to improve your character have been basically eliminated to the point where you can wait months, get really lucky on the ultra rare RNG, or just pay additional money (thr route a lot of people take). CN has taken it to a new level, almost everything today is for sale in the game now - not just house items and mounts. SoE might have started it, CN perfected it and took it to new levels.
You earn plat by SLR items, that pot of money is not available to everyone. The cost of items in auction far exceeds a persons (especially a new player) ability to make that plat in game using normal game mechanics. Sure, if you turn the game into a job you can do it; or you can buy and sell items from the cash shop. Then there is the method of hoping you get lucky on the RNG or just wait the months required to do it the slow method.
Let me say first, I do not like the path Daybreak, production and the development team have taken our game. That being said... You would be surprised by how many companies (Gaming or otherwise) are owned by investment companies. They are money driven as should be any business or it would fail and not be able to sustain. Population was down last xpack as it has generally decreased over time through all expansions. This expansion I would assume a bit more than previous expansions. But to think it is so black and white in that it is the investment firm would be a mistake I think. Daybreak makes game decisions most likely based on budget constraints. They decide what goes in based on the resources they have at their disposal during the development cycle, up to the release of the new expansion. If the budget only allows for this set amount of content, then how can they create so much diversity as the OP is asking for, or wanting back in game. They could have left the ascension idea out of game and spent more time on gear diversity as well and class improvements and still had the epics. I believe the ascension classes have only significantly added to stat inflation, while given the game a small crunch of character stats making them more simple. A combination of things have attributed to the state of the game. All starting with the slow loss of population (money) over the past couple of expansions before KA. Could they have invested more money, sure if they were willing to lose? Could the producers have come up with better ideas, sure but at what expense both money and time? Could the dev team have done a better job of programming and implementing the new content, sure but at what cost (testing takes money, changes and fixes takes time which eats up production time and money)? I am not defending the KA expansion, but making everything look like it's all black and white isn't realistic. I only hope the next expansion is more quality over content driven to help correct a ship without its mast. I, as a long time player, would be more likely to continue to play with a quality enhancement over huge content expansion. Just sayin...
Okay, let me rephrase that: Pay to win means that if you pay you get advantages over those who don't, advantages that you cannot earn by playing the game, sometimes.
I am saying that I could see the writing on the wall, long before CN entered the picture. If you want to believe that if SOE still owned this game, they would not have done something equivalent, all power to you. I believe that it was inevitable, whether it be SOE or CN at the helm, and that the failure of EQNext (SOE) accelerated the process.
They won't discuss or acknowledge it because they know pay-to-win is cancerous to the game. No excuse, reason, or weasel-words can change that fact. So let it spread and kill the game, as I expect them to, or admit there's a problem and try to make things right. Kind of obvious what Daybreak is doing. Hello? Holly? Got anything to say? No? Okay then.
MMO companies are a one to many relationship, A company in general usually wants many repeating revenue streams. The goal would be to maximize revenue by keeping the player base happy with content that is original, engaging, and fun to do. So you have the DBG Store, AND you have the gold subscription. This is where they have gone with it, ala RIFT model. However where they are failing IMO, is with content that is engaging and fun to do. For example the boat key quest, I've been trying to do it now for days, I've watched the videos that players have made to try and help (NOT DBG), etc. and for what ever reason I can't do it before the timer runs out. This is NOT engaging, its frustrating. So frustrating that I start looking for other games to play.Bottom line its not engaging, its just a time wasting sink with mandatory penalty box (or 15-30 minute time out) per try. This flat out sucks. Around the economy, its broken. Everything is crazy expensive, I don't know how anyone does it with out buying krono and cashing in, books adepts are 50-200 plat at times.. armor..look out, don't even think about it. now I have to level a crafter to 100, its pretty much mandatory. I have to grind faction, I have to grind ascension with restrictions and more. AND how exactly am I supposed to do this and make satisfactory character progression progress when I work a full time job? I can't. And lets not to mention the @#%#% map system (everyone uses EQ2Maps) and lack of guidance on quests unless I alt+tab to eq2 wikia or some other site for help. With that said I love EQ2, the music is the best out there, the combat is pretty good, the world is beautiful.. BUT....IMO...DBG needs to rethink a few things in regards to making the game more engaging, and interesting at the top end, versus frustrating, and boring. Hell I'd be all for a new 1-110 continent or something...versus the bottle next top end grind we have now. anyway...thats my 2 cents.
the boat key quest is by far the hardest and most rewarding, if it frustrates you so much, don't do it, do other key quests instead that you can do, you aren't forced to do it. just because something is in the game doesn't mean you have to do it. this is a game after all the goal is to have fun, why waste your time doing something that is a negative experience? The economy has massive inflation due to plat exploiters having driven up prices, people afford stuff by selling loot rights, selling keys, selling kronos on the broker. there is no uniform definition which is part of the problem, whether something is P2W or not is entirely subjective.
Nope that's not the definition either. Pay to Win means I can swipe my credit card and buy player power that would otherwise require abnormally tedious gameplay to acquire. Our biggest fears when the Marketplace appeared was that raid gear or the best adornments or Epic Weapons would appear on the marketplace. That hasn't happened. Generally the Marketplace has had appearance fluff with a few time-saving elements. But we've seen a shift. I think Grandmaster spells were the start of it. Sure you could run a metric ton of dungeons to get the GM (and the Master for a 2nd time for some reason), or you can just click Upgrade. Yes the items drop in the world, but very rarely. Then they put the prestige white adornments. There wasn't much outrage at this, but I saw the writing on the wall. The materials to make them were pretty rare or you could buy a bag of materials off the marketplace. This was the start of "the smartest path is your credit card." And now with Ascension abilities, the upgrades basically do not drop in the world and the only way to upgrade them is to wait for months. Despite protestations to the contrary, upgraded Ascension abilities can mark the difference between killing T3 raid mobs and not, so raid leaders are encouraging their members to swipe the credit cards so they can keep raiding. A bright line has been crossed.
Remember when I was protesting about prestige items and everyone was white-knighting saying its not a big deal and they need to get paid etc etc, and i was all like 'if you think this isnt the first step in a long line, you crazy' and yall were like 'no this is just subscriber benefits' and i was all like 'lolz'.
