Why was it not as successful as WoW ? Higher pc requirements and WoW had from it's single player Warcraft RTS series also a much bigger player base and therefore popularity as EQ2 with EQ which had still a tiny community compared to other games/genres. And SOE marketing sucked compared to Blizzard.
in 2004 I picked EQ2 instead of WoW namely because I found the WoW graphics annoying. A friend of mine selected WoW. I asked him why, he said PvP.
now that is based on memory and I have no idea if WoW had PvP from the start or not but that is how I recall the conversation
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Why was it not as successful as WoW ? Higher pc requirements and WoW had from it's single player Warcraft RTS series also a much bigger player base and therefore popularity as EQ2 with EQ which had still a tiny community compared to other games/genres. And SOE marketing sucked compared to Blizzard.
in 2004 I picked EQ2 instead of WoW namely because I found the WoW graphics annoying. A friend of mine selected WoW. I asked him why, he said PvP.
now that is based on memory and I have no idea if WoW had PvP from the start or not but that is how I recall the conversation
WoW had PvP once you got past level 20 IIRC. I played to level 12 or so I don't know for sure and had EQ2 also. My decision to go to EQ2 was very similar to yours. I could not seem to get into the cartoonish characters.
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
wasnt WoW and EQ2 basically the same game play just different graphics?
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
It ran like crap on most mid to lower end PCs, and the it was still actually pretty good despite that until they decided to dumb it down to compete with WOW
It ran like crap on most mid to lower end PCs, and the it was still actually pretty good despite that until they decided to dumb it down to compete with WOW
I got my character, jumped into the tutorial, got to the city and started exploring. I spent what seemed like hours going from one location to the next ignoring the missions and quests because honestly I just wanted to see outside. Everywhere I went was inside places.
Then when I finally got out into the open I had to ask people 'why are all the mobs red and yellow'
'oh because you dont have a chance to kill them at your level you have to go back'
fuck me...almost didnt come back after that
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
The only real problem i have ever had with EQ2 was the quest tracker and map. I have always wanted them to update them to something easier instead of having to download a 3rd party map.
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
wasnt WoW and EQ2 basically the same game play just different graphics?
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
If you mean you create a character with a class that has skills, stats and gets gear running around a game controlled by a keyboard and mouse, then yes.
Wow was superior experience over EQ2. Therefore, they are not the same on some level. Don't need to spell it out though.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
wasnt WoW and EQ2 basically the same game play just different graphics?
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
If you mean you create a character with a class that has skills, stats and gets gear running around a game controlled by a keyboard and mouse, then yes.
Wow was superior experience over EQ2. Therefore, they are not the same on some level. Don't need to spell it out though.
oh I am sure it was, but I am curious in what way.
Like, unlike EQ2 bullshit, can a low level character travel to any map and still find something to fight or is it this lineal bullshit like EQ2 is/was
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
wasnt WoW and EQ2 basically the same game play just different graphics?
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
If you mean you create a character with a class that has skills, stats and gets gear running around a game controlled by a keyboard and mouse, then yes.
Wow was superior experience over EQ2. Therefore, they are not the same on some level. Don't need to spell it out though.
oh I am sure it was, but I am curious in what way.
Like, unlike EQ2 bullshit, can a low level character travel to any map and still find something to fight or is it this lineal bullshit like EQ2 is/was
That should be a homework assignment for you to figure out... Assuming you really don't know that already.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
wasnt WoW and EQ2 basically the same game play just different graphics?
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
If you mean you create a character with a class that has skills, stats and gets gear running around a game controlled by a keyboard and mouse, then yes.
Wow was superior experience over EQ2. Therefore, they are not the same on some level. Don't need to spell it out though.
oh I am sure it was, but I am curious in what way.
Like, unlike EQ2 bullshit, can a low level character travel to any map and still find something to fight or is it this lineal bullshit like EQ2 is/was
That should be a homework assignment for you to figure out... Assuming you really don't know that already.
I assume its exactly the same, if you dont explain otherwise I will just go with that
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Everything - because naively, I expected a better version of EQ1.
What SoE was doing however is - they made a game that had almost no overlap with EQ1 so that it could attract a playerbase that wouldn't compete with EQ1.
Still - what a massive disappointment for me EQ2 was.
It's worth noting that I only played EQ2 at launch - what happend after the first month and all the years later - I'll never know as I never went back.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
wasnt WoW and EQ2 basically the same game play just different graphics?
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
If you mean you create a character with a class that has skills, stats and gets gear running around a game controlled by a keyboard and mouse, then yes.
Wow was superior experience over EQ2. Therefore, they are not the same on some level. Don't need to spell it out though.
oh I am sure it was, but I am curious in what way.
Like, unlike EQ2 bullshit, can a low level character travel to any map and still find something to fight or is it this lineal bullshit like EQ2 is/was
That should be a homework assignment for you to figure out... Assuming you really don't know that already.
I assume its exactly the same, if you dont explain otherwise I will just go with that
Pay me $500.00 to teach you this. Cash up front, US Dollars only.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
So I was one of those people who pre-ordered, looked forward to, and played EQ2 for about 8 months until my friends slowly but surely left for WoW until I was last man standing, eventually I relented and played WoW with them.
That being said my opinion is there were 2 things that really hurt EQ2 that were directly the games fault.
First and foremost was performance issues. I actually built a brand new $1300 gaming rig specifically for the game with an at the time high end GeForce 6800 GT. At 1280x1024, with all setting maxed, I was averaging in the mid 20's with frequent dips into the low teens. These were slowly fixed over time, but still plagued the game for a couple years (basically until hardware progressed to the point of "overkilling" the problem).
Second (and this is more my opinion) is the fact that they "gated" all the content by levels. So for example, if you were the type who liked to go explore, and loved the danger of trying to check out a higher level area even knowing that the mobs would roflstomp you if you got too close... you couldn't. You would get to the zone in area and it would tell you to go fly a kite until you reached a certain level. This was eventually removed but not until the damage was done.
Third, and this is minor, but I remember a LOT of complaints about the art style. Lot's of complaints of it being "plasticy" and "shiny" looking skin and that sort of thing.
The main thing though that hurt EQ2 wasn't really their fault "per se", was the fact that it released within a few weeks of World of Warcraft. Obviously blizzard being what they are, the warcraft IP being what it is, generated a LOT more interest and such, and frankly it was a poor decision by Sony to try to release at the same time. However, they kind of had to. It was either release significantly earlier (and have the associated problems with bugs, and such potentially kill the game) OR, release after WoW and hope that somehow they would be able to take market share. Pretty much it was a lose/lose proposition in that respect.
It is actually a fantastic game, and if anybody is looking for something with a ton of content and also likes to explore, there is a lot of fun to be had.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
It's like they cooked a plate of asparagus and named it Chocolate II. Your taste buds are ready for some epic chocolate and you get a soggy flavorless veggie instead.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I'm surprised at the % of comments not bringing up it's requirements more. Even with a beast of the day, EQ2 ran poorly.
No one has mentioned how they had to dial back the fidelity of their models either. The avatars used to be much more detailed (though they did still look plastic) ... that's how bad it was. They had to do it in order to get the game to play on people's mid range machines.
Another thing was how they gated the starting. If memory serves you only started as 4 classes (warrior/Cleric/Rogue/Mage) and didn't actually unlock your true class until something around level 20(?).
ex: Warrior until level 10; Crusader until 20(?); finally you got to choose Paladin/Shadowknight after that.
People didn't like that. They wanted the 'freedom' of being locked to the class they started with from the start, like in EQ1.
I honestly don't remember a single person complaining about the class pathing thing. If they only had 4 classes and it only ever was 4 classes, certainly that would have been a problem. However, level 10 was very fast, as was 20. I was level 13 in the first day of playing and level 19 by the second day. So getting to 20 to "unlock" your class or whatever wasn't really an issue that people complained about.
As you said before, the performance issues were the VAST majority of the complaints, with the graphics/fidelity/overall art style being the second biggest source of complaints.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
It's like they cooked a plate of asparagus and named it Chocolate II. Your taste buds are ready for some epic chocolate and you get a soggy flavorless veggie instead.
I love asparagus. Bake it, flavor it with some lemon and salt and pepper and it's great. I feel like making some now.
I'm surprised at the % of comments not bringing up it's requirements more. Even with a beast of the day, EQ2 ran poorly.
No one has mentioned how they had to dial back the fidelity of their models either. The avatars used to be much more detailed (though they did still look plastic) ... that's how bad it was. They had to do it in order to get the game to play on people's mid range machines.
Another thing was how they gated the starting. If memory serves you only started as 4 classes (warrior/Cleric/Rogue/Mage) and didn't actually unlock your true class until something around level 20(?).
ex: Warrior until level 10; Crusader until 20(?); finally you got to choose Paladin/Shadowknight after that.
People didn't like that. They wanted the 'freedom' of being locked to the class they started with from the start, like in EQ1.
I honestly don't remember a single person complaining about the class pathing thing. If they only had 4 classes and it only ever was 4 classes, certainly that would have been a problem. However, level 10 was very fast, as was 20. I was level 13 in the first day of playing and level 19 by the second day. So getting to 20 to "unlock" your class or whatever wasn't really an issue that people complained about.
As you said before, the performance issues were the VAST majority of the complaints, with the graphics/fidelity/overall art style being the second biggest source of complaints.
The class thing was very much after your first char play through, by the time you got to your 3rd or fourth char try it just got plain bloody annoying, they did fix this and the starter experience and different locals to choose from was a massive improvement.
The biggest issue with EQ2 was the performance. Not only did they spec a lot of people out of the game, but they made it impossible to recruit people to the game efficiently. This is something WOW didn't face, and is why that game grew so astronomically for years after release.
With EQ2, people would install the game and within 20 minutes uninstall it because it was unplayable on their systems.
Classes and other philosophical arguments about content and gameplay don't matter if the game is unplayable and/or looks like a train wreck due to so many users having to run it at "Extreme Performance" settings. The graphics were supposed to be a selling point of EQ2 over EQ and [to a lesser extent] WoW, but the way it was implemented was such that the game actually looked worse than WoW - and not much better than EQ - in practice for many people.
The game was also hurt a lot by top clans and guild leaders moving over to WoW over EQ2 from EQ. Very few of the top guilds that left EQ (usually en mass - together) for one of the new MMORPGs went to EQ2 back then. Some of these guilds were fairly legendary (for lack of a better word) in EQ, and had a lot of influence in that community. Some of their guild leaders actually ended up working for Blizzard (Jeff Kaplan, Alex Afrasiabi, etc.).
I think SoE made a huge mistake when they did EQ2 and didn't simply do a massive revamp to the engine and UI/UX in EQ. It didn't nothing but fracture their player base and dilute their IP.
Players who tried EQ saw it as dated. Players who tried EQ2 were [often] disgusted by its performance, and at "playable" performance settings it actually looks worse than WoW on the same machine.
I think with the proper updates, SoE could have grown EQ's playerbase, without the massive investment and drain on the company developing/running EQ2 had to have incurred.
Can you imagine what it would have been like if EQ had been updated with graphics comparable to WoW's, and an engine as efficient?
It seems odd to me that people forget what really happened when these 2 games came out and the mistakes that Sony made which allowed WoW to capture the market. Let's break this down:
1. EQ2 graphics and environments were far better than WoW, miles ahead. They were doing things graphically that nobody had ever seen before in a MMORPG, truly ground breaking. Remember that when WoW came out it didn't look like it does today, it basically looked like a cartoon. But as mentioned before Sony had made a huge mistake:
a. Sony made an engineering decision not to fully utilize the graphics card, instead of offloading rendering to the graphics card they made a bet that in the future the main CPU would handle these calculations (remember that back then cards weren't near as advanced as they are today). That decision would haunt EQ2 for the next 15 years and was probably one of the worst decisions Sony has ever made.. kind of like 'New Coke'. lol
b. Because of Sony's decision to rely on the main CPU for their graphics it confused gamers. You could spend 800 dollars on the most advanced graphics card for EQ2 and it wouldn't make a difference at all. If you wanted to really experience EQ2 at it's best you need to focus on the core computer.. super fast harddrive, 8 gig's of ram (which was a lot back then) and the fastest CPU you could buy. If you built your machine with this in mind you got to experience what EQ2 could really do graphically, everybody else got to experience the 'plastic models'. To this day, for EQ2 this is true, if you want to play it with high graphics, focus on CPU first.
c. EQ2 came out first, with WoW getting released a month later. After a month of gamers struggling with EQ2 CPU based graphics WoW was a breath of fresh air. To Blizzards credit they built a game that did not require a new computer to run, in fact many older computers ran the game just fine which was a huge advantage for them. They got a lot of market share from EQ2 because of this, plus it also allowed them to reach gamers that they other games couldn't.
2. The second thing that people seem to forget is that Sony made the mistake of listening to it's old EQ1 hardcore playerbase for a number of critical design decisions. What they failed to understand is that both EQ2 and WoW represented the next generation of MMORPGs and those hardcore players did not represent their new target customer. An example:
a. When EQ2 was released they made the decision to continue punishing players for death. In the old UO, EQ1, DAOC when you died it was very painful. You would lose XP, items, levels etc, it was brutal for anybody who has not experienced that before. In DAOC when you died you could lose a weeks work of leveling, it would make you want to throw your PC out the window. EQ2 decided to continue this tradition, when you died you would go into xp debt which was their fancy way of taking xp away. If I remember correctly you still had to do corpse runs to. This was yet another tragic mistake as players hated this, I remember this being one of the core reasons why I quit. When WoW came out, there was no punishment. They made the correct decision in that players naturally don't want to die, you don't need to punish them for it. Just having to run back to where you were was punishment enough.
Simply put, EQ2 did not identify their new target customer and they built a game that was partly a new generation MMORPG but yet they made the mistake of bringing old stuff in to the game that people did not want. By the time they realized this mistake and corrected it ( a few months after released) it was too late. WoW was experiencing massive growth and EQ2 had lost their moment.
The tragic thing is after EQ2 made the changes to remove xp death penalties and some of the 'features' that people didn't want, the game it's self was far better than WoW.. and for many years EQ2 outclassed WoW in many ways but WoW had the subscriber base and EQ2 was never able to win those customers over.. they were already set in WoW.
Even more tragic.. or ironic was that all the new MMORPGs players who WoW was their first MMORPG will claim it's the greatest thing ever.. in reality WoW didn't really innovate anything new. They basically took the core features of previous MMORPGs, took out all the crap that players hated, and released a relatively bug free game (which was a big deal back then). Those players have no idea about the incredible game play that DAOC provided, or the massive amount of content and quests that EQ2 had, customization, owning a house etc. It's kind of sad really.
I can answer this easily. I played both for years, and I loved EQ1, and not EQ2. Eq1 was a open world game, with harsh consequences, and specific classes that depended on one another for success, so grouping and being social was vital. Also the lore was top notch, so you felt truly immersed. EQ2 was a wow clone, mostly instanced dungeons, anything outdoors could be soloed easily. It basically gave into the instant gratification crowd that wow made bank on, and i hated that style of gaming. I only stuck with it for a while, because every game out like that at the time was like that.
Loved EQ Classic and hates that carebears had it changed.
You could quest all day if you wanted and you could also join dungeon parties and grind killing mobs. Its the only game I know that gave you the option of questing or grinding. I remember all I had to do was quest to like level 20 then I could do Black Borrow Dungeon and after that it was always a dungeon around my level range where I could go grind if I wanted.
I can answer this easily. I played both for years, and I loved EQ1, and not EQ2. Eq1 was a open world game, with harsh consequences, and specific classes that depended on one another for success, so grouping and being social was vital. Also the lore was top notch, so you felt truly immersed. EQ2 was a wow clone, mostly instanced dungeons, anything outdoors could be soloed easily. It basically gave into the instant gratification crowd that wow made bank on, and i hated that style of gaming. I only stuck with it for a while, because every game out like that at the time was like that.
"EQ2 was a WoW Clone,"? You know it came out before WoW, right? What I might say is that EQ2 became a WoW clone. It started out with some majorly hardcore mechanics like corpse runs, minimal soloable content and crafting that could kill. I remember being in EXP debt all the time, having trouble even duoing mobs, and dying while trying to make a cup of watery coffee.
Now, having transitioned from EQ, which SOE could've done better, all this hardcore stuff was fairly normal. WoW was certainly better at making a more accessible game. It's funny, or sad, that both games have continued to dumb themselves down over the decades. Even though it's mostly trivial content, EQ2 continues to do fun things that no MMO has replicated. My wife and stepdaughter still play, especially for the holidays. Besides LotRO's music system and AoC's crit graphics, I really haven't seen anything innovative since EQ2.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
It seems odd to me that people forget what really happened when these 2 games came out and the mistakes that Sony made which allowed WoW to capture the market. Let's break this down:
1. EQ2 graphics and environments were far better than WoW, miles ahead. They were doing things graphically that nobody had ever seen before in a MMORPG, truly ground breaking. Remember that when WoW came out it didn't look like it does today, it basically looked like a cartoon. But as mentioned before Sony had made a huge mistake:
a. Sony made an engineering decision not to fully utilize the graphics card, instead of offloading rendering to the graphics card they made a bet that in the future the main CPU would handle these calculations (remember that back then cards weren't near as advanced as they are today). That decision would haunt EQ2 for the next 15 years and was probably one of the worst decisions Sony has ever made.. kind of like 'New Coke'. lol
b. Because of Sony's decision to rely on the main CPU for their graphics it confused gamers. You could spend 800 dollars on the most advanced graphics card for EQ2 and it wouldn't make a difference at all. If you wanted to really experience EQ2 at it's best you need to focus on the core computer.. super fast harddrive, 8 gig's of ram (which was a lot back then) and the fastest CPU you could buy. If you built your machine with this in mind you got to experience what EQ2 could really do graphically, everybody else got to experience the 'plastic models'. To this day, for EQ2 this is true, if you want to play it with high graphics, focus on CPU first.
c. EQ2 came out first, with WoW getting released a month later. After a month of gamers struggling with EQ2 CPU based graphics WoW was a breath of fresh air. To Blizzards credit they built a game that did not require a new computer to run, in fact many older computers ran the game just fine which was a huge advantage for them. They got a lot of market share from EQ2 because of this, plus it also allowed them to reach gamers that they other games couldn't.
2. The second thing that people seem to forget is that Sony made the mistake of listening to it's old EQ1 hardcore playerbase for a number of critical design decisions. What they failed to understand is that both EQ2 and WoW represented the next generation of MMORPGs and those hardcore players did not represent their new target customer. An example:
a. When EQ2 was released they made the decision to continue punishing players for death. In the old UO, EQ1, DAOC when you died it was very painful. You would lose XP, items, levels etc, it was brutal for anybody who has not experienced that before. In DAOC when you died you could lose a weeks work of leveling, it would make you want to throw your PC out the window. EQ2 decided to continue this tradition, when you died you would go into xp debt which was their fancy way of taking xp away. If I remember correctly you still had to do corpse runs to. This was yet another tragic mistake as players hated this, I remember this being one of the core reasons why I quit. When WoW came out, there was no punishment. They made the correct decision in that players naturally don't want to die, you don't need to punish them for it. Just having to run back to where you were was punishment enough.
Simply put, EQ2 did not identify their new target customer and they built a game that was partly a new generation MMORPG but yet they made the mistake of bringing old stuff in to the game that people did not want. By the time they realized this mistake and corrected it ( a few months after released) it was too late. WoW was experiencing massive growth and EQ2 had lost their moment.
The tragic thing is after EQ2 made the changes to remove xp death penalties and some of the 'features' that people didn't want, the game it's self was far better than WoW.. and for many years EQ2 outclassed WoW in many ways but WoW had the subscriber base and EQ2 was never able to win those customers over.. they were already set in WoW.
Even more tragic.. or ironic was that all the new MMORPGs players who WoW was their first MMORPG will claim it's the greatest thing ever.. in reality WoW didn't really innovate anything new. They basically took the core features of previous MMORPGs, took out all the crap that players hated, and released a relatively bug free game (which was a big deal back then). Those players have no idea about the incredible game play that DAOC provided, or the massive amount of content and quests that EQ2 had, customization, owning a house etc. It's kind of sad really.
Never realized info about graphics cards since over the years I tried the game with many cards and never could understand why the game ran like a jalopy. The game seemed everything I wanted in an MMORPG since the idea of "ever" questing was exciting, but the poor performance just drove me away.
Before I respond I want to say that EQ2 has many good things about it.
1. In no way, shape, or form did it feel like EQ. And yes, when you buy a game called [something]2, you are hoping for some major carry over with upgrades.
2. It introduced a lot of touchy feely nanny features, like no kill stealing, no trains, no naked corpse runs, no major death penalty, etc. People liked that original EQ was hard and edgy. Those players didn't want that sort of thing removed.
3. Little known fact. I was at one time ranked #10 on my server in the kill to death ratio statistic. WHICH IS SAD! What that tells you (other than that I am very cautious) is that the game is way, way too easy.
4. Lots of WoW style cutie pie quests - very un-EQ like.
5. The character models - especially the female ones - were ugly.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
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now that is based on memory and I have no idea if WoW had PvP from the start or not but that is how I recall the conversation
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
I feel similar to you. I played at release and made it 60 days until I switched to wow. I wish I had picked wow instead of EQ2.
Note: The EQ Next announcement was the same kind of feeling for me.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
To be honest even though I played EQ2 I was not impressed with it, WoW was not interesting to me, Archage was basically the same boring bullshit.
That is my 'mainstreaming' MMO experiences for you
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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Then when I finally got out into the open I had to ask people 'why are all the mobs red and yellow'
'oh because you dont have a chance to kill them at your level you have to go back'
fuck me...almost didnt come back after that
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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Wow was superior experience over EQ2. Therefore, they are not the same on some level. Don't need to spell it out though.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Like, unlike EQ2 bullshit, can a low level character travel to any map and still find something to fight or is it this lineal bullshit like EQ2 is/was
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
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That should be a homework assignment for you to figure out... Assuming you really don't know that already.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
Pay me $500.00 to teach you this. Cash up front, US Dollars only.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
So I was one of those people who pre-ordered, looked forward to, and played EQ2 for about 8 months until my friends slowly but surely left for WoW until I was last man standing, eventually I relented and played WoW with them.
That being said my opinion is there were 2 things that really hurt EQ2 that were directly the games fault.
First and foremost was performance issues. I actually built a brand new $1300 gaming rig specifically for the game with an at the time high end GeForce 6800 GT. At 1280x1024, with all setting maxed, I was averaging in the mid 20's with frequent dips into the low teens. These were slowly fixed over time, but still plagued the game for a couple years (basically until hardware progressed to the point of "overkilling" the problem).
Second (and this is more my opinion) is the fact that they "gated" all the content by levels. So for example, if you were the type who liked to go explore, and loved the danger of trying to check out a higher level area even knowing that the mobs would roflstomp you if you got too close... you couldn't. You would get to the zone in area and it would tell you to go fly a kite until you reached a certain level. This was eventually removed but not until the damage was done.
Third, and this is minor, but I remember a LOT of complaints about the art style. Lot's of complaints of it being "plasticy" and "shiny" looking skin and that sort of thing.
The main thing though that hurt EQ2 wasn't really their fault "per se", was the fact that it released within a few weeks of World of Warcraft. Obviously blizzard being what they are, the warcraft IP being what it is, generated a LOT more interest and such, and frankly it was a poor decision by Sony to try to release at the same time. However, they kind of had to. It was either release significantly earlier (and have the associated problems with bugs, and such potentially kill the game) OR, release after WoW and hope that somehow they would be able to take market share. Pretty much it was a lose/lose proposition in that respect.
It is actually a fantastic game, and if anybody is looking for something with a ton of content and also likes to explore, there is a lot of fun to be had.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
I honestly don't remember a single person complaining about the class pathing thing. If they only had 4 classes and it only ever was 4 classes, certainly that would have been a problem. However, level 10 was very fast, as was 20. I was level 13 in the first day of playing and level 19 by the second day. So getting to 20 to "unlock" your class or whatever wasn't really an issue that people complained about.
As you said before, the performance issues were the VAST majority of the complaints, with the graphics/fidelity/overall art style being the second biggest source of complaints.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
The class thing was very much after your first char play through, by the time you got to your 3rd or fourth char try it just got plain bloody annoying, they did fix this and the starter experience and different locals to choose from was a massive improvement.
With EQ2, people would install the game and within 20 minutes uninstall it because it was unplayable on their systems.
Classes and other philosophical arguments about content and gameplay don't matter if the game is unplayable and/or looks like a train wreck due to so many users having to run it at "Extreme Performance" settings. The graphics were supposed to be a selling point of EQ2 over EQ and [to a lesser extent] WoW, but the way it was implemented was such that the game actually looked worse than WoW - and not much better than EQ - in practice for many people.
The game was also hurt a lot by top clans and guild leaders moving over to WoW over EQ2 from EQ. Very few of the top guilds that left EQ (usually en mass - together) for one of the new MMORPGs went to EQ2 back then. Some of these guilds were fairly legendary (for lack of a better word) in EQ, and had a lot of influence in that community. Some of their guild leaders actually ended up working for Blizzard (Jeff Kaplan, Alex Afrasiabi, etc.).
I think SoE made a huge mistake when they did EQ2 and didn't simply do a massive revamp to the engine and UI/UX in EQ. It didn't nothing but fracture their player base and dilute their IP.
Players who tried EQ saw it as dated. Players who tried EQ2 were [often] disgusted by its performance, and at "playable" performance settings it actually looks worse than WoW on the same machine.
I think with the proper updates, SoE could have grown EQ's playerbase, without the massive investment and drain on the company developing/running EQ2 had to have incurred.
Can you imagine what it would have been like if EQ had been updated with graphics comparable to WoW's, and an engine as efficient?
1. EQ2 graphics and environments were far better than WoW, miles ahead. They were doing things graphically that nobody had ever seen before in a MMORPG, truly ground breaking. Remember that when WoW came out it didn't look like it does today, it basically looked like a cartoon. But as mentioned before Sony had made a huge mistake:
a. Sony made an engineering decision not to fully utilize the graphics card, instead of offloading rendering to the graphics card they made a bet that in the future the main CPU would handle these calculations (remember that back then cards weren't near as advanced as they are today). That decision would haunt EQ2 for the next 15 years and was probably one of the worst decisions Sony has ever made.. kind of like 'New Coke'. lol
b. Because of Sony's decision to rely on the main CPU for their graphics it confused gamers. You could spend 800 dollars on the most advanced graphics card for EQ2 and it wouldn't make a difference at all. If you wanted to really experience EQ2 at it's best you need to focus on the core computer.. super fast harddrive, 8 gig's of ram (which was a lot back then) and the fastest CPU you could buy. If you built your machine with this in mind you got to experience what EQ2 could really do graphically, everybody else got to experience the 'plastic models'. To this day, for EQ2 this is true, if you want to play it with high graphics, focus on CPU first.
c. EQ2 came out first, with WoW getting released a month later. After a month of gamers struggling with EQ2 CPU based graphics WoW was a breath of fresh air. To Blizzards credit they built a game that did not require a new computer to run, in fact many older computers ran the game just fine which was a huge advantage for them. They got a lot of market share from EQ2 because of this, plus it also allowed them to reach gamers that they other games couldn't.
2. The second thing that people seem to forget is that Sony made the mistake of listening to it's old EQ1 hardcore playerbase for a number of critical design decisions. What they failed to understand is that both EQ2 and WoW represented the next generation of MMORPGs and those hardcore players did not represent their new target customer. An example:
a. When EQ2 was released they made the decision to continue punishing players for death. In the old UO, EQ1, DAOC when you died it was very painful. You would lose XP, items, levels etc, it was brutal for anybody who has not experienced that before. In DAOC when you died you could lose a weeks work of leveling, it would make you want to throw your PC out the window. EQ2 decided to continue this tradition, when you died you would go into xp debt which was their fancy way of taking xp away. If I remember correctly you still had to do corpse runs to. This was yet another tragic mistake as players hated this, I remember this being one of the core reasons why I quit. When WoW came out, there was no punishment. They made the correct decision in that players naturally don't want to die, you don't need to punish them for it. Just having to run back to where you were was punishment enough.
Simply put, EQ2 did not identify their new target customer and they built a game that was partly a new generation MMORPG but yet they made the mistake of bringing old stuff in to the game that people did not want. By the time they realized this mistake and corrected it ( a few months after released) it was too late. WoW was experiencing massive growth and EQ2 had lost their moment.
The tragic thing is after EQ2 made the changes to remove xp death penalties and some of the 'features' that people didn't want, the game it's self was far better than WoW.. and for many years EQ2 outclassed WoW in many ways but WoW had the subscriber base and EQ2 was never able to win those customers over.. they were already set in WoW.
Even more tragic.. or ironic was that all the new MMORPGs players who WoW was their first MMORPG will claim it's the greatest thing ever.. in reality WoW didn't really innovate anything new. They basically took the core features of previous MMORPGs, took out all the crap that players hated, and released a relatively bug free game (which was a big deal back then). Those players have no idea about the incredible game play that DAOC provided, or the massive amount of content and quests that EQ2 had, customization, owning a house etc. It's kind of sad really.
Loved EQ Classic and hates that carebears had it changed.
You could quest all day if you wanted and you could also join dungeon parties and grind killing mobs. Its the only game I know that gave you the option of questing or grinding. I remember all I had to do was quest to like level 20 then I could do Black Borrow Dungeon and after that it was always a dungeon around my level range where I could go grind if I wanted.
I hope this series returns one day.
Now, having transitioned from EQ, which SOE could've done better, all this hardcore stuff was fairly normal. WoW was certainly better at making a more accessible game. It's funny, or sad, that both games have continued to dumb themselves down over the decades. Even though it's mostly trivial content, EQ2 continues to do fun things that no MMO has replicated. My wife and stepdaughter still play, especially for the holidays. Besides LotRO's music system and AoC's crit graphics, I really haven't seen anything innovative since EQ2.
TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO,
2) poorly optimized
3) bad community
4) not very fun
5) did not feel like eq1 to me.
I stayed for 60 days then went to wow. I wished I had purchased wow instead of eq2.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
1. In no way, shape, or form did it feel like EQ. And yes, when you buy a game called [something]2, you are hoping for some major carry over with upgrades.
2. It introduced a lot of touchy feely nanny features, like no kill stealing, no trains, no naked corpse runs, no major death penalty, etc. People liked that original EQ was hard and edgy. Those players didn't want that sort of thing removed.
3. Little known fact. I was at one time ranked #10 on my server in the kill to death ratio statistic. WHICH IS SAD! What that tells you (other than that I am very cautious) is that the game is way, way too easy.
4. Lots of WoW style cutie pie quests - very un-EQ like.
5. The character models - especially the female ones - were ugly.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests