EQ1 is opening a new progression server that looks awesome. EQ1 and EQ2 play very differently. I liked EQ1 play style allot more. Also I have gone back to EQ2 and I find their community closed to new players. They loving helping out new players but letting them into their community end game. Not so much.
EQ2 was such a lonely experience really....I find most quest driven games to be that way...Players just don't need each other much there.
It kinda surprises me that EQ keeps on making the progression servers, but the players seem to keep falling for it...Last count I did there were 9 of them iirc......
There seems to be an entire community of EQ players (including whole guilds) who move to the newest progression server and race to be the first/best/whatever. Then they build alts to race along until the next new progression server appears. That's one aspect of EQ I really don't understand.
It probably has to do with nostalgia, gambling , and the hope of being first. Though most of it is eq has no economy, other than at first, so those new servers have the most people always. Which means I would say the majority of them are just trying to sell stuff for kronos or the paid for currency of everquest. Think they start at like 2000 plat, on those servers which is obtainable by a average player.
If I wasnt gonna be playing swg restoration, I would def try that new server though. It sounds interesting to have loot randomized, and can all be traded. I always thought eq static look was rather stupid and boring my self, and always lead to bots farming the same things with average players not being able to get anything. The random loot, and everything tradeable definitely changes things for the better. Though I doubt I would stay most of eq community is just bots, cheaters, and anti social people who think eq should be soloable while playing 6 to 50 characters at once with bots. With eq devs already showing with their last server they are incapable of enforcing no cheating, rmt, and bot armies.
I'm not familiar with eq community but after classic WoW I know there is some truth to gradual community decline in retro servers. Classic WoW community was at its best during its first few months, as will likely be the case with TBC Classic, and so the same logic for new EQ progression servers. I believe if you play in those early phases you can more likely find a satisfying social experience.
I dono if I call a bunch of people scrambling around to make max level first equals a satisfying social experience, it's subjective. I definitely don't find that satisfying, that's just me though. Also eq progession servers aren't really old eq, which forced you with punishing game play if you didn't group up. In the original concept of eq, you really couldn't solo, there were ways around it of course, but it would punish you badly for trying it. They made it way to solo friendly for my tastes. I like games that force you to work together or you fail, and when you fail your punished for it. Which in everquest use to be a corpse run, and serious exp loses. So punishing in fact if you didn't make it back in time then you would lose your stuff. Eq now if you die it doesn't matter in the slightest, you can just log off. Before it most people would try to come back if they wiped now they just log off. It also leads to people just randomly fin up, or leaving because it doesn't matter. That is just me though, most can't handle that kind of game.
eq 1 it just has more players (3 times) as many all access players and like 20k more total players. Neither game is near maintenance mode though. EQ makes 3-4 times as much as they spend on it they will keep that going for as long as people are playing and the active players has been stable or going up slowly for years. Both games have also added new developers since the acquisition by EG7.
EQ1 is opening a new progression server that looks awesome. EQ1 and EQ2 play very differently. I liked EQ1 play style allot more. Also I have gone back to EQ2 and I find their community closed to new players. They loving helping out new players but letting them into their community end game. Not so much.
EQ2 was such a lonely experience really....I find most quest driven games to be that way...Players just don't need each other much there.
My experiences match yours -- EQ2 was 100% solo. I don't think it started that way, though. It has just shifted into that over the years.
I don't know if that the reason why modern games feel so isolated is because the bulk of a character's experience is now earned via quests. Quests that are designed to be performed solo. In early EQ1, the fastest way to level was to group up and grind a near-constant stream of mobs from a relatively static location. The individual quests were an afterthought. Once WoW included XP as quest rewards for almost every step of a quest, other games copied that. The group grind became less favorable as a mechanism because it was possible to nearly duplicate that rate of XP gain with the supplimented XP from quests.
This trickled into the design. New zones didn't have the same mob density as older zones. Techniques such as in-camp CC became less necessary as CC abilities became widely distributed among all classes and there were fewer wandering mobs to jump in a fight. Pulling became easier for everyone. The real necessity for a group became less as solo became more and more convenient. You might not gain as much XP compared with a two or three hour group grind, but with the supplemental XP from questing, solo play was much more rewarding.
Not only that, but solo play didn't suffer the headaches of building a group or replacing group members. A good group could be golden, but it could also take 20-30% of the total play time for group maintenance. Solo play enabled shorter game sessions; taking away time from a 30 minute session leaves the result less than satisfactory if you try to factor in group overhead.
The games followed the player's habits and play styles. Really, when you think about it, that makes good business sense. Successful (especially long-running) games cater to a variety of players, and accommodate a variety of play styles.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
EQ1 is opening a new progression server that looks awesome. EQ1 and EQ2 play very differently. I liked EQ1 play style allot more. Also I have gone back to EQ2 and I find their community closed to new players. They loving helping out new players but letting them into their community end game. Not so much.
EQ2 was such a lonely experience really....I find most quest driven games to be that way...Players just don't need each other much there.
My experiences match yours -- EQ2 was 100% solo. I don't think it started that way, though. It has just shifted into that over the years.
I don't know if that the reason why modern games feel so isolated is because the bulk of a character's experience is now earned via quests. Quests that are designed to be performed solo. In early EQ1, the fastest way to level was to group up and grind a near-constant stream of mobs from a relatively static location. The individual quests were an afterthought. Once WoW included XP as quest rewards for almost every step of a quest, other games copied that. The group grind became less favorable as a mechanism because it was possible to nearly duplicate that rate of XP gain with the supplimented XP from quests.
This trickled into the design. New zones didn't have the same mob density as older zones. Techniques such as in-camp CC became less necessary as CC abilities became widely distributed among all classes and there were fewer wandering mobs to jump in a fight. Pulling became easier for everyone. The real necessity for a group became less as solo became more and more convenient. You might not gain as much XP compared with a two or three hour group grind, but with the supplemental XP from questing, solo play was much more rewarding.
Not only that, but solo play didn't suffer the headaches of building a group or replacing group members. A good group could be golden, but it could also take 20-30% of the total play time for group maintenance. Solo play enabled shorter game sessions; taking away time from a 30 minute session leaves the result less than satisfactory if you try to factor in group overhead.
The games followed the player's habits and play styles. Really, when you think about it, that makes good business sense. Successful (especially long-running) games cater to a variety of players, and accommodate a variety of play styles.
I dont remember the exact time of it, but players in EQ1 started to complain that "Hey I only have a half an hour to play and getting a group and finding a camp just isn't feasible in my playtime." THen they'd add if you want us to stay subbed then find other ways for us to play! SHortly thereafter came the mercenary system, OP gear, and other means to make solo play much easier. In all games, it comes down to money.
I came back to it after a long break and it was such a cash grab I decided to move on from it. You really do have to pay real money (even if subbed) to progress your character unless you want it to take years. The research time alone for spells and abilities is absurd and there is something like 8 levels per ability.
I came back to it after a long break and it was such a cash grab I decided to move on from it. You really do have to pay real money (even if subbed) to progress your character unless you want it to take years. The research time alone for spells and abilities is absurd and there is something like 8 levels per ability.
You don't need that unless you are raiding at top levels and even then a lot of guilds manage without the ancient spells or combat arts. The masters of the spells are sufficient and you won't mow down the content but you can clear the raid.
These guys are poorly geared but they are enjoying themselves. It is not all about getting the best stuff and EQ 2 has a lot of fantastic dungeons. Just get onto a guild like this and you can have fun. They are doing dungeons almost nightly. This is a recent video so new people are rolling and playing EQ2.
EverQuest and EverQuest 2 have been in maintenance mode for almost a decade. Lol. They release new expansions, but that content is largely derivative... At this point, they are nothing more than cash cows...
That's kind of a shame, too. All SOE needed to do was upgrade the graphics engine in EQ2 and implement an add-on system, and maybe even lower the subscription to $9.99/mo. to compete more aggressively with WoW.
IMO, EQ2 at its peak was better than WoW in the Dungeon/Raiding department.
But that game is really frustrating to play with the bad performance, and the art style has not aged well.
They also developed too many classes/professions, which created a perpetual balancing nightmare. 20+ Classes is far too many, IMHO.
EQ2 was great up until around DoV. It was struggling at that point, but once they launched AoD and especially after going subscription, a lot of guilds collapsed and long-time players who stuck around started dropping off.
And they took WAY too long to do server mergers.
Fewer, more populated servers are always a better look for your game than more dead servers.
Comments
EQ2 was such a lonely experience really....I find most quest driven games to be that way...Players just don't need each other much there.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I dont remember the exact time of it, but players in EQ1 started to complain that "Hey I only have a half an hour to play and getting a group and finding a camp just isn't feasible in my playtime." THen they'd add if you want us to stay subbed then find other ways for us to play! SHortly thereafter came the mercenary system, OP gear, and other means to make solo play much easier. In all games, it comes down to money.
These guys are poorly geared but they are enjoying themselves. It is not all about getting the best stuff and EQ 2 has a lot of fantastic dungeons. Just get onto a guild like this and you can have fun. They are doing dungeons almost nightly. This is a recent video so new people are rolling and playing EQ2.
That's kind of a shame, too. All SOE needed to do was upgrade the graphics engine in EQ2 and implement an add-on system, and maybe even lower the subscription to $9.99/mo. to compete more aggressively with WoW.
IMO, EQ2 at its peak was better than WoW in the Dungeon/Raiding department.
But that game is really frustrating to play with the bad performance, and the art style has not aged well.
They also developed too many classes/professions, which created a perpetual balancing nightmare. 20+ Classes is far too many, IMHO.
EQ2 was great up until around DoV. It was struggling at that point, but once they launched AoD and especially after going subscription, a lot of guilds collapsed and long-time players who stuck around started dropping off.
And they took WAY too long to do server mergers.
Fewer, more populated servers are always a better look for your game than more dead servers.