Why is this game dying?

As an all access member, mercenaries are free if you use the 500DBC that you get each month.

That's not what free means.

I'd rather invest 3 months worth of DBC on my main in EQ1 since EQ2 is new and unknown to me. The problem is that new, returning, and EQ1 players can't properly try out EQ2 without mercs.

I'm not trying to be a cheapskate and not complaining about other feature locks. Mercs are free on EQ1 and are a quintessential part of gameplay. You can enjoy EQ1 with basic Mercs (Apprentice 2 for F2P) and top Mercs (Journeyman 5 for All Access). You don't get that full experience with EQ2 even with free Heroic Characters.

Edit: Mercs seem even more necessary for new casual players now that people are complaining about population and pick-up group issues.

Just FYI mercenaries are in no way necessary for EQ2. At all. Not even close. 1-90 most dungeons can be solo'd without them as long as one at least tries to put on new gear as they level up (and new gear drops pretty frequently, is quested, can be gotten from crafters fairly cheap because handcrafted is more than sufficient at lower levels).

Just wondering, honest question...

Judging by the number of servers, EQ1 has more players than EQ2...?
Am I reading it correctly? Or are EQ2 servers populated with more people or something?

I'm not sure anyone could answer that but Daybreak. Since they don't show actual numbers just high/medium/low loads and different servers might have different capacity.

I can say personally, my EQ1 server seems pretty dead compared to my EQ2 server, but I also don't have a high level character in eq1 anymore since I've not played really in years. The progression servers in Eq1 seem to be jumping when they are new though.

the game is old, not dyeing at all. even Ultima Online (2d MMO just before everquest), is still alive. someone close this tread, it's mostly 3 fanbois trolling the forums.... go play the game and find an MMO you like. get a sub, that's what DBG needs atm.

1-20 can be done questing on newbie island. Don't quote me on this but I am pretty sure Agnostics are free, good xp (25% bonus just for entering), and grants you guaranteed usable armor/jewelry from every name kill that is top notch compared to anything you would find in the open world. Plus you have a group to help you. Mercs are no where near as necessary as you might think. They are exactly where they should be and they aren't even ground breaking except for the tanks with target locks.

we get sales in the marketplace for subscribers. when we are offered 40% or 50% off, that is the time to buy it.

Maybe it is not dying yet, but it is definitely on the decline. That is sad, as it had big potential. And still has.

ok you are simply wrong.

I played eq1 for several years before coming to eq2. I didn't buy the aod pack until much later - about 1year later. i had no problem soloing with my toons until level 50. the mobs are not hard to solo. unlike eq1, where mobs required a merc or a group to kill, the mobs here are easy. when i finally got my merc, i zoomed through content. sometimes the merc kills it before i have a chance to hit anything.

one of the things that helped me when i didn't have mercs was grouping. i was in a guild and people grouped with me.(sometimes- if they were online or if i asked ahead of time)

later i decided to make an alt on a second paid account that i had not used in eq2 but was one of my mains in eq1. i made a warden and began to box my wizard and warden and my ranger and warden. now all of those are level 100 - as well as a number of others.

i still have a lot of memories of the year i didn't have a merc. i think my main was around 70 when i finally broke down and bought the aod. i always kicked myself for not buying the collector's edition. i bought it on two accounts. later when they broke it up, i was able to get it on most of my free accounts.

$10 is not too much to pay for the unlock. in eq1, i went through the long questline to get my JV mercs. - you know the one that is the tier 5. i did it for all of my mains on three accounts- about 8 toons. all of these accounts were gold accounts back then. after i came to eq2, i had a different account from the three paid accounts for eq2 - silly me i didn't think about putting my main account on the same accounts i used in eq1. back then it all had to be paid for.

when i started playing eq2 almost exclusively and everything went to silver, i dropped two of my accounts from eq1. those mercs i worked so hard for were now useless. the lower tier mercs in eq1 are so inadequate that you can barely play with them.

in eq2, when you unlock mercs, it is for your entire account. the mercs are fantastic. they heal and fight - not just heal or fight. the same problems that existed in eq1 with healers exist here. sometimes they can't heal you- or won't. sometimes they refuse to rez you even when you know the ability is up. but that is all healer mercs in both games.

don't think i was just a casual player in eq1. three of my toons had their raid unlocks for the pure orbs long before they ever allowed everyone to use them. i have one toon there who is 103. i have at least 5 who were in their late 90's before they ever had any heroic toons. the rest were in their 70's and 80's before heroics. of course, i now have several heroic toons as well. so when i tell you that eq2 is easy to solo, and is way more fun than eq1, i do know what i am talking about.

it is not that eq1 has more players. it is that eq1 subscribers are in love with progression servers. the other servers that are special is the rp server- which is also free trade - and the zek server - which is pvp. the rest of the servers have seen mergers but are still kind of dead. it is hard to get a group even at high levels. people often find someone to group with and stick with them.

however, there was a time not so long ago when you had to wait for a chance to play on the farm - the place where most of the plat is made and the levels are easy to get. we used to make around 30k plat there in just a few hours- picking up all of the trash and selling it. people would camp there for hours waiting for someone to leave and asking for an invite. there were usually at least two groups on the field at any given time.

if you are raid geared there, you really don't need a group. it is those who don't have raid gear who can't kill mobs without a group behind them. i used to triple box there but the higher you get the harder that becomes.

everything was gray to me by level 15. i also had finished the quests by then. i went to commonlands or antonica after that. if you quest, you will level fast. i don't bother with agnostics. i find them too hard when you are grouping. they remind me of dungeon maker which increased in difficulty depending on the amount of people in them. for that reason, i always moloed the dungeon maker dungeons. agnostics seem built around the same principles. if you are soloing or moloing, they are good. if you are grouping, they are harder.

it takes me usually a week of leveling to get to level 76 - at which time they can do the newsies. but then, i use a different route to level with each toon because it allows me to do quests i didn't do on other toons and also lets me learn more lore. it keeps the game fresh. yes, i am an admitted alt-a-holic with more than 40 toons at 70 + and 15 toons at 100.

It really depends on whether you are trying to do the old content or not honestly. If you are then yes you could even venture into Wailing Caves or do Lightstone. Thing is no matter which way you do it you don't need a merc. If you are trying to solo heroic content then yea I could see the need for it. The mercs are pretty meh in at 100. If you really can't fill a spot or 2 yea I guess, but the average player should be able to 3-4 man 90% of ToT heroics with the right classes.

At some point I think rather than claim the game is dying people will have to join up with in-guild groups to do the content they want to do. Heroic/Raid content should never be solo/duo possible unless you are in the 1%. To progress you will have to move up to another guild that is doing the content you wish to do. I would never get angry because my casual guild can't do T3 content. You can leave and not sever ties with the original guild.

Mercenaries are NOT necessary. They do make the game much easier, however, if you could play on the TLE server, you would see all classes there are without mercernaries and some players without a guild. They solo carefully or find someone to group with to help finish a quest they cant do solo. Since exp is slower there, they will run out of quests before they can level out of them and so will have to do some just killing to get some levels to get new quests, or find some other way to compensate for the lack of mercs.

I know I did.

You don't need a merc to solo any class in EQ2 to max. All the classes are soloable...

If you want to faceroll stuff though, then yeah you'll need a merc for that.

i agree to a point. no, you don't need mercs for regular content. this is nothing like eq1. however, about mercs- that new warpriest from zek that i got just by exploring the zone is the best merc i have ever had- both for healing and fighting.

if i was a new to EQ customer looking for info about the game and saw the title of this thread, i would have second thoughts about investing any time in this franchise.

but, the title no longer covers this conversation. you guys are off topic and need to stop bumping this thread. go to reddit and bash games. some of us here like EQ....

To be 100% completely honest I think everyone has their own opinion about the game and they make it solely from their perspective. There are ups here and downs there. Your outlook will usually lean more to the side of what you experience more. Just because one person says something is bad doesn't mean the game is crap because of it. And you also have to take into consideration that the devs are doing far more work than they normally do. It is rough no doubt but after so many 70+ hour weeks you would be making mistakes are your job too. Lets be real here. I think they are trying to make everyone happy and it is proving to be quite the task.

"the graphics are really dated even though the game mechanics are still great." if u enjoy the game why do graphics matter?

"Even WOW has had a complete graphics overhaul and to tell you the truth it makes the game into a new game because of that."

as for this, no it doesnt IMO. WOW has a HUGE issue of spoonfeeding its players. and the social aspect is almost non existent UNLESS ur in a raiding guild or pvping. and most of time theres always players ******** at others when their just as bad. thats the great thing about eq1, it forced people to make a name for themselves, make friends, go on adventures. Not log in, do dailies, work on garrison/whatever is out at this time. i found myself almost always alone in a world with millions of players in WOW and it was sad. even though all mmos are pretty much the same i cannot seem to get back into wow. just the site of it makes me wanna throw my comp against the wall. filled with elitests and thats funny comming from a MMO that spoonfeeds their players. i always tell wow players that ***** about grinding etc, go play eq1 get to 60 and do ur epic... then come ***** to me about grinding.

I couldnt believe the amount of help and advice i was given coming back to eq2 after 11 years. the community here is awesome (well in my experience anyways). Everyone likes what they like and there are always going to be haters no matter what MMO ur playing. most of the time people are biased towards the said MMO. but IMO if u didnt start from the beginning of the MMO genre its hard to say what the better MMO is. mine started with MUDD, ive been there from the beginning and till now. ive seen them come and go. it amazes me no matter what MMO i have switched to there are always a decent amount of people still playing them. When a MMO fails and is removed its more so of the lack of interest from the said company who made it which is sad.

MMOs are ALL the same. Quest/grind, Level, Gear grind, Raid, and do the quirks. it just a matter of what MMO u wanna waste time on.