Like others I won't get to excited about EQ Next until more is announced but once i get into the alpha ill get hooked im sure. (yes alpha ill get in dont worry how).
Ah alright thanks for clearing that up. So was it purely PvP or was there also PvE too? Still though 1k vs 1k fights is pretty impressive.
Planetside was purely PvP. Although you had levels, all they did (at least at launch) was allow you to have more implants or learn to use a wider variety of equipment at once, as you gained levels. However even at level one, you could still choose to use any of the equipment available, you couldn't just know how to use a lot of it at once (for example, pilot power armor, use your faction's anti-vehicle weapon, wear heavy armor, AND pilot a transport; you could only choose a couple of those).
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I really hope they don't screw up this new engine... I'd still be playing EQ2 if it wasn't such a poorly coded mess.
EQ2 was ahead of its time hardware wise it was set for the high end Gaming PCs that only until recently became affordable for most people. The fact that SOE is using an engine thats never been used before interested because every other engine has been used for an MMO so you get nothing new from them since you can only do so much with the unreal or far cry engines or the ones that aion or rift used i believe rift uses the one Oblivion used.
I really hope they don't screw up this new engine... I'd still be playing EQ2 if it wasn't such a poorly coded mess.
EQ2 was ahead of its time hardware wise it was set for the high end Gaming PCs that only until recently became affordable for most people. The fact that SOE is using an engine thats never been used before interested because every other engine has been used for an MMO so you get nothing new from them since you can only do so much with the unreal or far cry engines or the ones that aion or rift used i believe rift uses the one Oblivion used.
SOE banked on CPU tech evolving into a single super core and lost. They never conceived CPU's evovling into multi-cores. Their engine was and is largely CPU based, which is incomprehensible, given the proliferation of GPU's well before EQ2 went into development. The EQ2 engine was and is terrible. Even if they get the engine right, Smedley will find a way to drive the game into the ground. He's batting 1.000 with his other games so far.
They again booted Vanguard...what a pity and unfair treatment to this great game and to its loyal community...
forgot about an expansion , they don;t even mention its name in fan faire....why don;t they just sell or close it , rather than humuliating the community
And DCUO then? A brandnew game getting nothing either. Pretty much confirms the game is already as good as dead (especially on PC) and SOE not bothering investing much in it anymore and just let it run it's course.
EQ1 and EQ2 are now the only 2 games still making enough profit to warrant continuous expansion development.
They again booted Vanguard...what a pity and unfair treatment to this great game and to its loyal community...
forgot about an expansion , they don;t even mention its name in fan faire....why don;t they just sell or close it , rather than humuliating the community
Vanguard is the red-headed stepchild in SOE's "family", nothing more. If Vanguard is Cinderella, then EQ and EQ2 are the evil stepsisters, and Smedley's the stepmother.
It doesn't surprise me at all that they're not giving it more attention than they are. I'm with those who are of the opinion that SOE bought up Vanguard just to make sure no one else could get it and turn it into a serious competitor with EQ2.
As it is, people already will say Vanguard is what EQ2 should have been. Imagine if it landed in the hands of a developer who was serious about improving it and had the means to do so?
I know there are people who think such a thing is "ridiculous", but I don't think so.
A former boss of mine would go to auctions and outbid his competitors on equipment he saw them bidding on. I'm talking equipment costing 10s of thousands of dollars. He didn't need the equipment and would usually end up re-selling it on eBay or whatever. He just wanted to make sure the competition couldn't benefit from getting it.
It's not far-fetched sounding to me, at all, to think that's exactly what SOE did with Vanguard. Buy it up so no one else could, sit on it and keep it on life support. Meanwhile, they also get the side benefit of using it to bring "added value" to their Station Pass.
...
As for the article... I find it rather funny that SOE's excited about being able to do things, graphically, in their new engine that other games have been doing for some time now. Really underscores just how tied their hands have been dealing with the mistakes they made early on with EQ2's tech.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
And DCUO then? A brandnew game getting nothing either. Pretty much confirms the game is already as good as dead (especially on PC) and SOE not bothering investing much in it anymore and just let it run it's course.
EQ1 and EQ2 are now the only 2 games still making enough profit to warrant continuous expansion development.
Actually Drew saw lots of stuff for DCUO, but we can't talk about it until Monday. There's a lot that's under embargo until after the show.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
I really hope they don't screw up this new engine... I'd still be playing EQ2 if it wasn't such a poorly coded mess.
EQ2 was ahead of its time hardware wise it was set for the high end Gaming PCs that only until recently became affordable for most people. The fact that SOE is using an engine thats never been used before interested because every other engine has been used for an MMO so you get nothing new from them since you can only do so much with the unreal or far cry engines or the ones that aion or rift used i believe rift uses the one Oblivion used.
The EQ2 engine was specifically designed not to utilize the processing power of graphic cards and at the same time tried to push graphics that were beyond the hardware capabilities of the time. It is beyond absurd to try to get better graphics with less resources. There is a reason no other company was doing this, because it doesn't work.
Wether they thought single cpu speeds would increase to fix the problems they created or graphics were pushed to the CPU in effort to capture the PC market which was largely dominated at the time by built-in graphics cards, it was a monumental error.
Now keep in mind EQ2 was a brand new engine when SOE used it to build EQ2. Its problems were not just limited to performance.
Again SOE is going with a brand new engine that they are touting as being cutting edge for graphics and effects. It will scale with all types of hardware and is being built from the ground up with future computers in mind. Does this sound a little to familiar?
I think Smedley has got a bad wrap. I think the money got him away from what made him successful and that's what they are trying to get back to with EQ Next and PS2. I'm actually excited about an SOE game for the first time since SWG's launch.
Actually Drew saw lots of stuff for DCUO, but we can't talk about it until Monday. There's a lot that's under embargo until after the show.
Hmm, wonder if some of that is the solid light powerset (i.e. lantern corps)?
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
They again booted Vanguard...what a pity and unfair treatment to this great game and to its loyal community...
forgot about an expansion , they don;t even mention its name in fan faire....why don;t they just sell or close it , rather than humuliating the community
Vanguard is the red-headed stepchild in SOE's "family", nothing more. If Vanguard is Cinderella, then EQ and EQ2 are the evil stepsisters, and Smedley's the stepmother.
It doesn't surprise me at all that they're not giving it more attention than they are. I'm with those who are of the opinion that SOE bought up Vanguard just to make sure no one else could get it and turn it into a serious competitor with EQ2.
As it is, people already will say Vanguard is what EQ2 should have been. Imagine if it landed in the hands of a developer who was serious about improving it and had the means to do so?
I know there are people who think such a thing is "ridiculous", but I don't think so.
A former boss of mine would go to auctions and outbid his competitors on equipment he saw them bidding on. I'm talking equipment costing 10s of thousands of dollars. He didn't need the equipment and would usually end up re-selling it on eBay or whatever. He just wanted to make sure the competition couldn't benefit from getting it.
It's not far-fetched sounding to me, at all, to think that's exactly what SOE did with Vanguard. Buy it up so no one else could, sit on it and keep it on life support. Meanwhile, they also get the side benefit of using it to bring "added value" to their Station Pass.
...
As for the article... I find it rather funny that SOE's excited about being able to do things, graphically, in their new engine that other games have been doing for some time now. Really underscores just how tied their hands have been dealing with the mistakes they made early on with EQ2's tech.
I dont know if anyone else would have bought Vanguard. It was in such abysmal shape at the time Microsoft dumped it, and needed a TON of work.
SoE spent a couple years working on it, fixing it, adding some high end content, yet the player base kept falling.
They could have done a better job marketing it, but even when they got rid of the major bugs and were adding content, the player base was still dwindling. the ship never seemed to be righting itself.
The game probably has 1/10 the active players SWG has. At least SWG has 3 or 4 servers with some signs of life. Thats 3 or 4 more than VG does.
Impressive that EQ is still pumping out expansions.
I'm intrigued about the beastlord and the mercenaries. They were very well done in EQ, but I've never really gotten into EQ2 due to its low population.
Low population is relative. The servers have plenty of people on them. Yes, its very top heavy and people stick within their guilds, but there are tons of guilds on each server.
The population of an average EQ server probably isnt that far off of the average WoW server these days (post Cataclysm, not pre-Cataclysm..servers *are* noticeably lighter now) its just that you dont see as many players because of guild halls.
For US population EQ2 is likely behind only WoW, Rift, and EvE in terms of active subscriptions.
And DCUO then? A brandnew game getting nothing either. Pretty much confirms the game is already as good as dead (especially on PC) and SOE not bothering investing much in it anymore and just let it run it's course.
EQ1 and EQ2 are now the only 2 games still making enough profit to warrant continuous expansion development.
Actually Drew saw lots of stuff for DCUO, but we can't talk about it until Monday. There's a lot that's under embargo until after the show.
Can you confirm wether or not Vanguard was mentioned at all please??
Planetside 2.... they ruined PS with the BFR's and the underground complexes ... hope they learn from that and stick to the aboveground base capture/defence method.. which worked really well... its the only thing that could make me buy another SOE game.. praying that they don't mess it up.....SOE's rep couldnt be any lower thats for sure... its about time they started working to turn that around.
For US population EQ2 is likely behind only WoW, Rift, and EvE in terms of active subscriptions.
I'm sure it falls behind LOTRO, DDO, Runescape and several others as well.
Note I said active subscriptions. It was far ahead of DDO and comparable (likely ahead) to LOTRO when those games shifted their models. Everyone you see on EQ2 is an active member (because EQ2X is quarantined off in its own world) whereas LOTRO its mixed and DDO its mostly non-subscriptions.
You will never get a true # for SOE or even blizzard. People say oh wow has 12 mil players thats bs wow has 12 million players how many are in asia who have 10m or less on time cards over there and havent logged into the game in years ? Just like SOEs numbers if released would be BS they count station access subscribers to all the games not just one. Give its only 15$ a month if you pay yearly you might as well have a station access now days.
I mean active subscriptions also. If you include hybrid games that have people paying micro transactions in place of subs I think the list would only grow.
I don't think EQ2 has as many players as people think it does.
I mean active subscriptions also. If you include hybrid games that have people paying micro transactions in place of subs I think the list would only grow.
I don't think EQ2 has as many players as people think it does.
it had surpisingly not that long ago. But not now, particulrly not after Sony got hacked, I know a lot of people that cancelled after that.
At least one disaster that really wasn't Smedleys fault for once...
Comments
Like others I won't get to excited about EQ Next until more is announced but once i get into the alpha ill get hooked im sure. (yes alpha ill get in dont worry how).
Planetside was purely PvP. Although you had levels, all they did (at least at launch) was allow you to have more implants or learn to use a wider variety of equipment at once, as you gained levels. However even at level one, you could still choose to use any of the equipment available, you couldn't just know how to use a lot of it at once (for example, pilot power armor, use your faction's anti-vehicle weapon, wear heavy armor, AND pilot a transport; you could only choose a couple of those).
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I really hope they don't screw up this new engine... I'd still be playing EQ2 if it wasn't such a poorly coded mess.
EQ2 was ahead of its time hardware wise it was set for the high end Gaming PCs that only until recently became affordable for most people. The fact that SOE is using an engine thats never been used before interested because every other engine has been used for an MMO so you get nothing new from them since you can only do so much with the unreal or far cry engines or the ones that aion or rift used i believe rift uses the one Oblivion used.
SOE banked on CPU tech evolving into a single super core and lost. They never conceived CPU's evovling into multi-cores. Their engine was and is largely CPU based, which is incomprehensible, given the proliferation of GPU's well before EQ2 went into development. The EQ2 engine was and is terrible. Even if they get the engine right, Smedley will find a way to drive the game into the ground. He's batting 1.000 with his other games so far.
Planetside was epic. Great battles that lasted for days just to take a bridge. The 3 faction system works well. I will play this game for sure.
Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
sigh... truth hurts:D
And DCUO then? A brandnew game getting nothing either. Pretty much confirms the game is already as good as dead (especially on PC) and SOE not bothering investing much in it anymore and just let it run it's course.
EQ1 and EQ2 are now the only 2 games still making enough profit to warrant continuous expansion development.
Vanguard is the red-headed stepchild in SOE's "family", nothing more. If Vanguard is Cinderella, then EQ and EQ2 are the evil stepsisters, and Smedley's the stepmother.
It doesn't surprise me at all that they're not giving it more attention than they are. I'm with those who are of the opinion that SOE bought up Vanguard just to make sure no one else could get it and turn it into a serious competitor with EQ2.
As it is, people already will say Vanguard is what EQ2 should have been. Imagine if it landed in the hands of a developer who was serious about improving it and had the means to do so?
I know there are people who think such a thing is "ridiculous", but I don't think so.
A former boss of mine would go to auctions and outbid his competitors on equipment he saw them bidding on. I'm talking equipment costing 10s of thousands of dollars. He didn't need the equipment and would usually end up re-selling it on eBay or whatever. He just wanted to make sure the competition couldn't benefit from getting it.
It's not far-fetched sounding to me, at all, to think that's exactly what SOE did with Vanguard. Buy it up so no one else could, sit on it and keep it on life support. Meanwhile, they also get the side benefit of using it to bring "added value" to their Station Pass.
...
As for the article... I find it rather funny that SOE's excited about being able to do things, graphically, in their new engine that other games have been doing for some time now. Really underscores just how tied their hands have been dealing with the mistakes they made early on with EQ2's tech.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
FFS SOE, where is Vangaurd in all this? At LEAST acknowledge it's existence.
Just selll it already so I can play without my sub going nowhere else but helping to fund other new games.
Actually Drew saw lots of stuff for DCUO, but we can't talk about it until Monday.
There's a lot that's under embargo until after the show.
Try to be excellent to everyone you meet. You never know what someone else has seen or endured.
My Review Manifesto
Follow me on Twitter if you dare.
The EQ2 engine was specifically designed not to utilize the processing power of graphic cards and at the same time tried to push graphics that were beyond the hardware capabilities of the time. It is beyond absurd to try to get better graphics with less resources. There is a reason no other company was doing this, because it doesn't work.
Wether they thought single cpu speeds would increase to fix the problems they created or graphics were pushed to the CPU in effort to capture the PC market which was largely dominated at the time by built-in graphics cards, it was a monumental error.
Now keep in mind EQ2 was a brand new engine when SOE used it to build EQ2. Its problems were not just limited to performance.
Again SOE is going with a brand new engine that they are touting as being cutting edge for graphics and effects. It will scale with all types of hardware and is being built from the ground up with future computers in mind. Does this sound a little to familiar?
I think Smedley has got a bad wrap. I think the money got him away from what made him successful and that's what they are trying to get back to with EQ Next and PS2. I'm actually excited about an SOE game for the first time since SWG's launch.
I hope their new engine and net code they'll use has a system for picking and and detecting lagswitch users, which became a huge issue in PS1.
Hmm, wonder if some of that is the solid light powerset (i.e. lantern corps)?
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I dont know if anyone else would have bought Vanguard. It was in such abysmal shape at the time Microsoft dumped it, and needed a TON of work.
SoE spent a couple years working on it, fixing it, adding some high end content, yet the player base kept falling.
They could have done a better job marketing it, but even when they got rid of the major bugs and were adding content, the player base was still dwindling. the ship never seemed to be righting itself.
The game probably has 1/10 the active players SWG has. At least SWG has 3 or 4 servers with some signs of life. Thats 3 or 4 more than VG does.
Low population is relative. The servers have plenty of people on them. Yes, its very top heavy and people stick within their guilds, but there are tons of guilds on each server.
The population of an average EQ server probably isnt that far off of the average WoW server these days (post Cataclysm, not pre-Cataclysm..servers *are* noticeably lighter now) its just that you dont see as many players because of guild halls.
For US population EQ2 is likely behind only WoW, Rift, and EvE in terms of active subscriptions.
Can you confirm wether or not Vanguard was mentioned at all please??
I'm really looking forward to EQN and PS2. I wonder if they'll be added to the Station Pass, or if they will be a separare sub???
Real time physics in an MMO?!! Life sub please !!
Planetside 2.... they ruined PS with the BFR's and the underground complexes ... hope they learn from that and stick to the aboveground base capture/defence method.. which worked really well... its the only thing that could make me buy another SOE game.. praying that they don't mess it up.....SOE's rep couldnt be any lower thats for sure... its about time they started working to turn that around.
I'm sure it falls behind LOTRO, DDO, Runescape and several others as well.
Note I said active subscriptions. It was far ahead of DDO and comparable (likely ahead) to LOTRO when those games shifted their models. Everyone you see on EQ2 is an active member (because EQ2X is quarantined off in its own world) whereas LOTRO its mixed and DDO its mostly non-subscriptions.
Runescape I have no clue about.
You will never get a true # for SOE or even blizzard. People say oh wow has 12 mil players thats bs wow has 12 million players how many are in asia who have 10m or less on time cards over there and havent logged into the game in years ? Just like SOEs numbers if released would be BS they count station access subscribers to all the games not just one. Give its only 15$ a month if you pay yearly you might as well have a station access now days.
I mean active subscriptions also. If you include hybrid games that have people paying micro transactions in place of subs I think the list would only grow.
I don't think EQ2 has as many players as people think it does.
it had surpisingly not that long ago. But not now, particulrly not after Sony got hacked, I know a lot of people that cancelled after that.
At least one disaster that really wasn't Smedleys fault for once...