Why so few new players?

this is the reason so many people dont try it, because they either did in the past and didnt like it for a stupid reason and tell everyone else not to etc etc. so annoying.

And often, whatever it was that made them leave, got corrected or just plain dropped. There were times I was frustrated with it in the early years, but my buddies helped me through it; they're not in game any more, but I'm good with most stuff now, and I'm patient and optimistic enough to hope that whatever's still pestering me about the game will get changed eventually, for the better. ;->

Uwk

I started EQ2 just over a month ago. I agree that there are few brand-new players, but that's normal for any mature game. WoW has the same issue. For some people, that's a turn-off. For others (like me), it's no big deal. Being a mature game, there's also an available body of knowledge available through a little internet research. It's not as comprehensive as the info available for WoW, but it's been sufficient.

Are you referring to the solo-unfriendly design of the game, or the rabid dislike that much of the playerbase had for the players who soloed?

As for the design, I think the designer's vision didn't mesh well with real-world player preferences. If you look at games in general, players prefer to be able to solo effectively. I think the designers wanted to foster a strong sense of community, and forcing players into groups promoted that (to at least a small degree). But almost half of the initial classes were brutal to solo beyond the early levels.

For the playerbase, there were four things that contributed to their dislike of the soloers:

1. Jealousy - For the classes that couldn't solo, and who sometimes struggled (or always struggled) to find a group, there was a lot of envy about the rapid progress of the solo classes.
2. Inconsiderate soloers - A lot of the people who soloed (especially those who kited) would end up training mobs into stationary groups. That bred resentment.
3. The jerks - I observed a strong tendency for jerks to be drawn to whichever class was the most overpowered at any given time. The ability to solo rapidly was a quick path to power. Those classes became associated with the jerks who gravitated towards them.
4. Incompetence - People learn through experience, and players learn how to play in a group by playing in groups. It was not uncommon for solo players to solo all the way to high level (or max level), then join a group with no clue how to work in a team.

What appeals to me about EQ2:
I like playing buffing/debuffing classes. EQ and EQ2 have some classes that fit (like bards). City of Heroes was the best by far with their defenders. With enough buffs/debuffs, healing was unnecessary. When people insisted that a team needed a healer, we would point out that they were no longer playing WoW.

And contrary to Uwk's claims, CoH had about as much variety in their missions as EQ2 does. You could certainly choose to only do "defeat enemy" missions, but there were other options that were equally available.

WoW's cartoon-like graphics are a bit off-putting to me. I certainly enjoyed some of the humorous moments, but I also want the epic moments to feel epic. Not like a Saturday morning cartoon spin-off of epic on a tight budget. EQ2 isn't as visually appealing as Perfect World or Aion Online, but it runs a bit better on my computer than either of those. It's a good balance between visual appeal and playability.

I like having the ability to solo. I no longer have the time that I did when I was younger (and playing EQ1). The ability to start the game, play for 15-20 minutes and get something accomplished is essential to me.

Oh, absolutely amen to that last! That's one of the primary reasons I love to solo now, especially when my primary group that got me into EQ2 in the first place is gone from the game these days...I've soloed with every single class in the game here, and there's not a one that can't be done solo, as long as you're careful and wise about target selection with the Cloth Folks (the only one that wasn't viable was a low-level Coercer in the middle of the Hedge Maze for Nights of the Dead. Wound up Betraying her to an Illusionist [I like "pet" classes!]). I will say some are better than others; the leather or chain priests, imho, are way better soloers than Templars or Inquisitors.

And yeah, I'm probably guilty about that #4; when I'd been soloing as a Wizard for awhile, way back when, and got back with my group briefly, I was doing my solo tactics and confusing the heck out of them... X-P

Yeah, I will say there were awesome things about CoH, and I also soloed with every single type there, too (again, be careful, pick your targets, and realize you can't fight the same way with all the classes); the things that started upsetting me about what the designers there were doing was instead of making the Defenders and Controllers a bit more viable without a group to "protect" them, they started nerfing the Blasters, Tanks, and Scrappers down immeasurably, to the point where most of our group there thought it was getting pretty unplayable, even in a group (and, well, there's Perez Park... /shudder). :-/

But it's weird about soloing for me: if it's just the players that have issues, I can generally ignore that; if it's something built into the game by the devs, not so much. It's another thing that turned me off of EQ1, and I'm very happy with this game here for it.

Uwk

I started EQ2 about a week ago, and have been enjoying it. I used to play EQ1 on my dads account when I was about 12, that being about the same time the kunark expansion came out. Now that I have (sort of) grown up, I played WoW for a couple of years, but got bored with it.

Overall, I am a solo player. I tend to quest alone, and level along. I like having a guild there to talk to, and I like raiding and dungeons too. The biggest issue with grouping is that I like doing it with friends or guildies, except they all have lives too. That means when they are off doing other things, either I have to stop playing, or I have to play solo.
If I play solo while leveling then our levels aren't usually close enough to play together for long. I have the impression that EQ2 has the chronomancers which can help mitigate that problem, but none of my friends play EQ2 so that doesn't help anyway.

The biggest thing that I like about WoW that is missing from EQ2 is dungeon finder. In WoW I quested while being queued for a dungeon, so I got experience grouping, and if I was a healer/tank, then experience in those roles too. This doesn't seem to exist to the same level in EQ2. It does technically have one, but I have never seen it being used, so maybe it's just a max level thing.

Mercenaries help, they let me play solo with a lot of the harder quests because I can just have them tank while I stand back and DPS. It's similar to playing with friends, but without the difficult task of organizing play time.

Thats my rant about me starting EQ2.

I think, ultimately, branding is partly to blame - that and the lack of advertising to compete with what seems to be a WoW/Blizzard juggernaught.

I love the game - first encountered the brand as EQ1 when my bro-in-law tried to get me interested, but I didn't like the user interface at the time.

EQ2 launched, and within a month or 2, I was playing (a lot) - and I'm sure there was more or less population parity with WoW, which of course (!) was a much lower quality gaming experience because of the rubbish cartoony characters, etc, etc. *cough* EQN *cough* I'm glad EQ1 has set the bar for longevity, and can only hope that EQ2 at least matches it!

Blizzard though, kind of picked up the advertising ball and ran away with it - really pushing the brand, the game as an exciting place to be. Credit where it's due, the latest TV advertising for Warlords of KickAss or whatever it is are pretty eye-popping, but I'm staying loyal.

I love the attention to detail in EQ2, and would encourage anybody looking for a good, quality MMORPG to look past the staid image and give the game a chance. Yes, there are a lot of quests if you want to try them out but the game is so much more than that.

I created a channeler alt lately and made a point of following the HQ quests (at least until the Dark Gauntlets before I got impatient to try him out at the endgame content, and get his epic weapon, lol) and it was great fun, even just to have the items to use for appearance having soloed* content that on my original toons had to be grouped. I well remember the Dwarven Work Boots, for instance.....


Actually, advertising seems to be an issue for all SOE games, as has already been noted by somebody.

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* mentored down by Chronomage, that is so I could take my time and do each of the quests in turn even though I'd technically out-level them

I will say this about the advertising: Blizzard does one thing, and one thing only...make computer games. They HAVE to advertise; if no one buys their games, they're sunk. SONY doesn't apparently feel the need to support SOE and us, the consumer (and potential consumer!), with ads; if the entire SOE department sank tomorrow (which I hope it won't! :-/), SONY might notice, maybe. They'd probably do that "What was that noise?" bit and shrug and go on about their other 8,700 businesses (rough guesstimate) that they're involved in. :-/

Uwk
who wonders if SONY really, actually knows what to do with a gaming company, no matter how long they've had one :-/

I think another issue could be the whole "Jump on into the game at a high level, even though you've never played before and don't know what to do with all the stuff we give you, for only an additional 35 real dollars!" bit. Cute money-spinner, that, but I can't imagine how it fosters much more than frustration with a brand-new player...and even if they do all right with that, they play for 15 levels, "finish/win/etc." then get bored and leave (and might word-of-mouth to their buddies...). :-/

We old fogies might think going from level 1 up to 85 and beyond the old-fashioned way may be tedious these days, but those "tired old quests" are new for someone. ;->

Uwk

Some of us get stuck in old-fashioned content--we tend not to be very visible during these days, even though we are every bit as active as high end players! I spent all of 2011 level locked at 32 because there was so much to do that I didn't want to outlevel it. (Yes, yes, chronomages...) I just wanted to quietly explore and do everything that could be done at level 32 before moving on.

I soloed the Bloodskull Valley raid and Deathfist Citadel, ran through Nektropos Castle, got my Fishbone Earring and Manastone, and finished the Bloodline Chronicles and most of Splitpaw. I spent a good month each in Thundering Steppes, Commonlands, and Nektulos attempting to complete every quest in the zone. I maxed out crafting, adorning, transmuting, tinkering, and harvesting, and completed virtually every crafting quest in the game at the time while dodging mobs 50 levels above me. Then I made a tidy profit buying high level masters off the broker, transmuting them, and turning them into adornments.

Eventually my friend got tired of waiting and told me to start a new character, a dirge, who would be brought from level 1 to Velious raid-ready condition in a month so I could raid with her.

Must be nice to be able to focus like that! With my gang of alts, I usually toss out old grey quests if they don't give me status points, a house item, or something I can use or Broker (or quests that lead up to such); I just don't have enough time for everyone to be so thorough with a zone (though I do like getting all the "explore this area at these points"- and "do all these quests in this zone"-type Achievements ;->).

Uwk

There are a series of level agnostic dungeons available between 20 and 89; I actually started a new character recently and have been leveling primarily through dungeons to see what the experience is like out in the real world (and there will be adjustments coming as a result of that experience!). It's also important to note, though, that we just shipped an expansion a month ago, so people are still on their high/max level characters playing around in the new zones.

I just started playing the game myself, as well... Yesterday, to be exact. It does seem pretty quiet, but it's kinda relaxing to me, in a strange way. (Though, I did run into someone who had been playing since the start of EQII who was helping me out.) I just hope people are kind on this newbie. Haha

the issue is everything is focused to High End, where low-end is getting nothing. Maybe do something with that island off of the coast of Timorous Deep to start?

Generally, people are, especially if/when they remember we were all there once, too.

Uwk

Well I know what server you aren't on. I can't get any one to group up for these on Permafrost and spent 8 hours in the dungeon making queue with nothing. I don't think the general populace knows these exist let alone want to use them. The fact they cut off at 90 hurt as well.

I agree with the 90 cut-off yeah, but I also know why lol. It would literally be impossible to balance them with the gear differences in the 90's, unless they make them specific to 90~100 chars, which would mean they'd have to actually work on it. Not to say the Devs are lazy of course, it's just that atm they are dealing with the post-launch expansion bugs, plus the continued focused feedback in the Class forums, so this probably isn't their immediate priority. Especially since LADs for that range would invalidate 95~100 gear, and probably result in some pissed off crafters unless it was weak enough to exceed quest gear, but not exceed crafted

I also think the low pop servers need SOMETHING (maybe the cross-server DF Kander promised us in 2015 ) to fix their population discrepancies. When LADs were added, for example, AB had a straight week of "Heavy" status on the server screen, which usually only happens during the first three months of an expac; conversely most of the other servers were Low still . It honestly sucks from a community viewpoint too, because new players see the server status upon creation, making them pick the one that is frequently on medium/heavy over the ones that are always on low.

What I want to see to help stimulate the Dungeon playstyle though is a currency called "Hero's Marks" which are earned from running actual dungeons from Blackburrow up until about eh....Velious dungeons (Replacing any current currency that is already in place) which are earned by finishing tasks in the dungeons or defeating Nameds, along with updates to the gear already in these dungeons to reflect the current end-game style of mixing/matching for desired stats, having set bonuses, and gemmed upgrades (I am a glutton for systems like these, sorry guys who hate them >.<)

Alternatively, Hero's Marks could be used to purchase goods from a vendor to make your 1~99 grind somewhat easier. Or be used for cool dungeon-themed appearance mounts and such as well, to encourage mentorship.

Amen to all of the above, though I wish they'd be applicable to player-made dungeons as well, or perhaps in place of...I don't mind getting rid of "easy leveling," but I like the alternate currency idea.

And I, for one, if I'm looking for a new server for one of the Many of mine, deliberately look for a Low pop server; easy to get into, and since I solo all the time anyway, I'll just look for a good guild. After that, I'm good.

Uwk

That's true xD Sadly, some peeps are social butterflies though (Like me) and would have a hard time w/ low pop servers

And I agree the DM changes aren't all good. Maybe make those "story book" quest things actually usable as quests, with rewards given for doing them? Still makes them mostly for designer purposes unless you want to shove several quests in one dungeon. Have those award the hero marks/alt currency as well, and purchase small things like 2 hour research pots from DM store

I too am on Permafrost and I have 21 toons on my one account. Those 21 toons are spread through three guilds and I know no one, not a single person in any of those three guilds that have run or even plan to run the agnostic zones. With the cut off at 89 there simply is no reason to go. Spending all my precious game time grinding a "Linear" (one way only) expansion instead. This new expansion has already started to make this game feel more like a job then a game, doing useless agnostic dungeons just don't fit in anywhere for any reason. Basically a huge waste of programming that could have been used to make the new expansion better.