I just feel that, since the world has ever been lacking in True Innovative Genius (the label is thrown around at less-deserving folk) - (surely "not much better than we've ever had" doesn't constitute genius?) - that every product of "man" has, pretty much "one relatively ideal form" that we're headed towards.
For (current) Human Economics, that is Capitalism.
For MMO (with today's technology).... It was the World of Warcraft Format.
I really don't see a new game, containing innovative genius, being possible with Today's Technology.
Just as I don't see Capitalism ever NOT being the way of Human Nature, until what it is to be Human is changed.
Post-Human Augmentation and Enhancement, in re-defining humanity, will surely give rise to a new Society.....
And so, I would say we're also waiting on the "technology of tomorrow" to "raise the bar" for what is possible in MMO.
It's just like.... With today's technology, since we lack truly innovative and capable genius developers, MMO has reached the end of it's line.
We've reached Today's "Relative Ideal".
And it won't be surpassed, until either......
- A true innovative and capable genius developer emerges, able to bring everything, that we already have now, together wonderfully.....
or
- The TRULY Next Gen technology opens up a whole new "higher tier" of what is possible with MMO.
(NEXT GENERATION does not mean, a slight upgrade on what came before - as lesser developers seem hell-bent on convincing us of!)
Next generation of often one of those marketing terms believed by idiots who parrot the term around. Next Generation is better when looked at after it happens. Oh, game Y was a next generation. Vs the marketing: Oh, our game HasNoNextGen is the next generation in mmoRPGs. Also, Next Generation doesn't say anything about how a game will match with your gaming needs.
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?"
Everquest holds a high standing to Everquest players because the MMO at it's core it's a mmoRPG. Here are some things of why Everquest fans are loyal and value these particular elements...
- Challenge - debatable
Perhaps it's debatable, but to me it was challenging. Basically any time you have to deal with other people the challenge goes up. In EQ there was no where to hide. You were always dealing with trains. Certain classes had to group and that meant you had to perform whatever role you did well. If you did poorly you would end up going backwards in level instead of forwards. Crafting was fairly difficult in the sense that it was hard to find all the ingredients. You weren't told how to craft. There were recipes you could buy off vendors in different towns. Not all vendors sold all of them though. It was the same idea with spells. You had to go and find what you needed to make a spell. You didn't always buy it off a vendor. Many times you had to figure out what dropped the ingredients to make the spell. Mob level Range in zone was a lot greater so you had to be careful. You couldn't just walk in carelessly and start killing. Well that is not exactly true you could do that, but likely you would end up running to the zone line and killing a lot of people in your path. If you did this a lot you would end up on peoples bad list.
- Immersed World - not sure how you define this as this is very subjective, it's up to the individual. I was super immersed when I played WoW for the first time, a lot more than in EQ.
I would agree, but I did feel more immersed in EQ just because I enjoyed the races/classes better. EQ also allowed you to play different roles because it had limited amounts of quests. If you were a Ranger/Druid you could go out and roam the plains. If you were a Troll you could kill city guards or bring trains on other people. Basically you could do whatever you wanted with your race/class and each had a lot of different abilities aimed towards roleplaying them. This is probably because they were derived from the AD&D 2nd edition rules.
- Variety (Races & Classes & Zones) - like a lot of other mmos.
EQ had a lot of different and unique starting areas, races, and classes. There is no MMO I've played since that made you feel like your starting race/city was something special. I believe this is because each place offered something very different to the setting. Wood Elves and High Elves started in the Faydark. High Elves had a magical looking city. Wood Elves had a tree city. High Elves tended towards arcane magic. Wood Elves tended towards nature magic. Each race had their own distinct beliefs that were part of their racial restrictions and how they were viewed in the world. Each class had unique utility abilities if it fit them. For instance Warriors didn't really have any utility, but that fit them. There were a basic pure fighter who specialized in weapons, armor, and combat. Other classes like the Enchanter had illusion spells to take on the form of other races/objects and to beguile people/creatures. The Druid could turn into a wolf, teleport, snare, etc. The Ranger could track, forage, and had a high sense heading. Dark Elf culture was evil and their starting area reflected that. They were KoS to most races in the world. Basically there were distinct races and classes which were very different from each other. In WoW there is some measure of these things, but to a much lesser degree. I believe part of this is because the lore was drawn from the Warcraft Universe, part of it is because people have some kind of personal grudge against having stereotypical races/classes in game, and part is just to simplify things for people.
- No linear gameplay per say - it was a themepark. You grind mobs > move camp 1 > camp 2 etc. You had your path set by your levels. You go to areas which are close to your level. The only difference was that there were not quests and you just grinding in one spot.
This is true to and extent. Everquest was a linear game, but it's zones were often not setup in a linear fashion. Sometimes a high level zone was right next to a low level zone. There were always mobs of different levels mixed together in every zone and that walked right next to each other. They would often agro on you if you weren't very careful.
- Community - a lot of other games have this - e.g. LOTRO. I am personally not a fan of the EQ "community" due to how elitist is/exclusive.
Perhaps that is because people like to trash make fun of people who played EQs passion for the game. It's something you won't find in todays games because they are made to jump in and out of quickly. I'm not saying this design is wrong, but you wont develop the same passion for a game playing it just once in a while for 2 hours mostly by yourself as you would if you spent many hours traveling around a world and experiencing it with other people.
- Group Content - a lot of MMOs have that....
I've never been a huge fan of forced group content. Even in EQ I wanted to solo a lot. I don't want the easy mode you see in today's MMOs though. Every mob in EQ was made for a group to take down. If you wanted to solo you had to pick a class that had the mechanics to do so and pick out certain mobs that would be manageable. Lets face it most MMOs solo content now is almost impossible to lose a fight or get into trouble. I do like it when people are rewarded for grouping and that they are not instanced away from you so that you can actually see they achieving something. Often times I would go to a dungeon or outside area in the game and see a large group or even a raid taking things down. It was fun to watch. It makes sense that groups and large groups of people can do things that one person can't.
- Tab Targeting - every MMO seem to have this except for certain action focused ones.
I don't disagree that much here. I don't think that the press x to dodge at x time is anything special though. It doesn't seem to add anything great to the game. The solo fights are still easy to win in most cases.
- Character Progression - shocker!
I'm not sure what to say on this one. All games have some form of progression. Even if that progression feels fairly hollow. I say hollow in that I mean you never really struggle to win right from the beginning. You are always powerful and have good equipment right at the start of the game. You are basically setup so you can't lose unless you choose to do instanced group content or instanced PvP.
I would say that these are probably the general things of why Everquest players hold that game dear and are very loyal to that brand of game. Unfortunately, there hasn't been many titles today to provide what the Everquest crowd really wants. If there is a mmo with Everquest philosophy (the above list) with new innovative gameplay mechanics, I am sure that a majority of Everquest players will flock towards a game like that. Even if it doesn't have the Everquest title.
I'm not certain I would want to ever spend the time I did in Everquest again. That is the main problem with the original game. It was not healthy to spend hours sitting in EQ, eating junk food, not exercising, and ignoring people. None the less I will always love my time spent in the game. I don't really have an issue with removing time sinks from games so much as I feel the games are too segregated today and the cultures have no meaning in game ( I realize they have lore and background, but often there is little seen of this in game). Another issue I have is the quests are just to boring after you've done them a lot. They stop people from interacting in the outside world. Instances cut off interaction with people. Most utility spells/abilities unique to classes have been taken out of the game. Even healing/CC is being taken out so all you can really do is DPS in different ways. WoW still has healing thankfully, but CC and utility has been heavily nerfed. Mobs need to be more challenging in solo content. There needs to be more interaction between players in the world. Traveling around the world should be part of the adventure, not skipped over so you can go and get more loot. Zones should have a large amount of mobs of different levels. You shouldn't be able to progress if you keep dying. Clearly that means you are not able to learn how to fight and survive very well. I think I could come up with more, but that is enough. These are all just my ideas. I'm not saying they are right for everyone. It's just what I like.
Everquest wasn't/isn't exactly blazing trails or leading the pack.
Since I've been involved with and following Landmark I must of heard a hundred times "The EQ community wont like this", "The EQ community expects that...", "The EQ community...", The EQ community". How big is that community exactly? 50k? 100k people?
Don't you think the EQ brand would be better served by looking at what the rest of the gaming community wants? I see this recent shake up as something that could possibly unshackling EQ from the past and allow it to move forward in a more progressive way. There's no question that Dave and his team had to show their cards (EQN) and what was shown to Nova must not have been the nuts.
Only time will tell, but am I the only one that sees this move as a potential positive for the franchise?
Are we only talking about EQ2/EQN?
Even though I avoided EQ1 (because I heard like 20 different players tell stories about it, and manage to describe 20 separate ways it sounded like an unfun pain in the ass to play) there's no question it blazed a trail considerable distance away from UO towards where WOW landed.
A company doesn't need to lead a pack to produce great games, but SOE/Daybreak interests me a lot more with Planetside than with their recent MMORPGs. Personally I'm never happy to hear about any layoffs in my industry. But it's often inevitable, since it's a very hit-driven industry where many attempts fail for every breakaway success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'm not following the OP here. What exactly is the difference between what past EverQuest players want and what Never-Played-An-EQ-Game-Ever-Before players want? I mean when playing a Final Fantasy series by Square Enix it is pretty sure bet there will be Chocobos. That company would have an apoplexy if a dev suggested making a Final Fantasy title without Chocobos. But I can't image what EQ devs would want to pull that would upset the community? Housing??? What?
- No linear gameplay per say - it was a themepark. You grind mobs .
Since when is killing mobs a themepark. That would make 90% of all games ever made themeparks.
EQ wasn't a themepark, it makes no sense even saying that.
EQ was a grind game that relied on grouping and this grouping was reinforced by making the world brutal, slow to travel in and by making the death penalty severe. It was a grind game with a good class system and very good raid system.
It's a fallacy of some to suggest that EQ or Lineage or FF players only accept gameplay pre-WoW of their own games. Almost all EQ players I know accept that the current generation of players, and often themselves, would not accept 4 hour corpse recovery runs, or spawn camping for hours on end, or raids that last 6 hours.
People are well aware that that won't be tolerated by players and will just result in a failed game.
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
There is a market for vanguard like games?
Please tell me, how many millions of subs vanguard has?
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
There is a market for vanguard like games?
Please tell me, how many millions of subs vanguard has?
Vanguard was shut down, however that had nothing to do with the gameplay but with the constant crashes, bugs and lack of funds the game had.
I'm guessing you're trying to weasel your way to a "SEE, Vanguard failed, everyone wants easymode F2P bla bla" argument. Pick another game because it doesn't work for Vanguard.
A lot of things went wrong for Vanguard, but gameplay wasn't one of them.
Originally posted by Jemcrystal I'm not following the OP here. What exactly is the difference between what past EverQuest players want and what Never-Played-An-EQ-Game-Ever-Before players want? I mean when playing a Final Fantasy series by Square Enix it is pretty sure bet there will be Chocobos. That company would have an apoplexy if a dev suggested making a Final Fantasy title without Chocobos. But I can't image what EQ devs would want to pull that would upset the community? Housing??? What?
From what I've found is that the EQ community is very PvE oriented. At times almost fearful of the idea of any type of PvP. It's an extremely conservative group.
From what I've found is that the EQ community is very PvE oriented. At times almost fearful of the idea of any type of PvP. It's an extremely conservative group.
That's true I feel, the overwhelming majority of EQ fans are PVE fans who like to stay away from PVP.
(there are exceptions, but the PVE to PVP server ratio in EQ was around 16 to 1 in favor of PVE, much higher than say WoW)
It's a fallacy of some to suggest that EQ or Lineage or FF players only accept gameplay pre-WoW of their own games. Almost all EQ players I know accept that the current generation of players, and often themselves, would not accept 4 hour corpse recovery runs, or spawn camping for hours on end, or raids that last 6 hours.
People are well aware that that won't be tolerated by players and will just result in a failed game.
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
Four hour corpse runs? Funny I played Everquest for four years and never had a corpse run longer than one hour and that one took so long because I could not find my corpse in the swamp. Camping for hours one end, sure, and I would do it again in an eye blink. Raids that last six hours, well I have had that in both WoW and EQ2 as well as Everquest, would I do it again, probably not. I have also had three to four hour raids in Rift.
I am not sure what makes a game fail or succeed, but what I do know is that if I am having fun I am prepared to play a game for six to eight hours a day. If I find a game very enjoyable I will get up at 3am to load the latest Xpac and start playing. On Xpac days I might play for sixteen hours with breaks for meals etc.
Do I remember Everquest with nostalgia? Sure but that is because it was a lot of fun. If a game, any game, came out this year that had as much fun in it as Everquest I would do it all again. But at the moment I am lurking on forums and thinking about renovating the kitchen because there is no MMORPG out there that I want to play any more.
lol... oh god damn it. 500k concurrent. You're so funny.
what's so funny about that
It's one of the most ridiculous unsubstantiated claims I've heard in a while.
I'm sorry. You don't know the difference between a subscription and a concurrent user. Maybe you were trying to speak about concurrent subscriptions or something. They did have around 450-500k subs at one time at their peak. I think that must be what you mean. For instance, WoW has 10,000,000 subscribers and at their peak they had 12,000,000. EQ had, at their peak, 500k or so.
WOW been years the last time I looked at one of his charts. We had some good times back then arguing how his charts showed nothing factual of games subs. Been so long I forgot his name but one thing for sure I would never use his charts to try and make a point. All he did was take a guess and put it to a chart.
WOW been years the last time I looked at one of his charts.
All he did was take a guess and put it to a chart.
Actually he used the official statements from SoE up to the 2004 peak, who back then released the server population.
Later he used other sources from employees, but up to EQ's peak the numbers are 100% correct, they are from investor documents.
thanks for playing
Even if they were based on SOE's official statements that is not an independently audited figure but a marketing statement and one from SOE too. So no not reliable.
Even so 400K subscribers out of what a million subscribers at the time? 40% market share not too shabby.
Then of course WoW came along and the market increased 10 fold. It is this explosion in the market for MMORPG's that makes WoW the giant in the industry.
We all have to remember that, all the time. Blizzard tapped into an audience that had never even thought about MMORPGs and sold them a whole new experience. That audience is still there and although parts of it keep on moving on each year it is still Blizzard that brings most of the new players into the genre.
Everquest wasn't/isn't exactly blazing trails or leading the pack.
It was leading the pack on release. It was extremely popular for quite some time. When EQ was first out, there was no casual. There was no real free to play. There was no dedicated cash shop where you could buy your gear. There was no mass appeal at the time for MMORPG's. It was a smaller segment of our population that even cared about gaming, let alone had the $$ for a nice PC and a monthly subscription. Therefor the amount of subscribers was closer to 2 million at it's peak.
Since I've been involved with and following Landmark I must of heard a hundred times "The EQ community wont like this", "The EQ community expects that...", "The EQ community...", The EQ community". How big is that community exactly? 50k? 100k people?
The EQ community at this point is massive. From 1999 it has been going ever since attracting new players over the years. I personally know ages ranging from 22 to 69 that have enjoyed EQ over the years. Also don't forget the playstation 2 version and EQ 2. Those games at least brought IP recognition to alot of people as well. I would say if you take all those people total over the last 16 years maybe 40 million people have tried and enjoyed EQ.
Don't you think the EQ brand would be better served by looking at what the rest of the gaming community wants? I see this recent shake up as something that could possibly unshackling EQ from the past and allow it to move forward in a more progressive way. There's no question that Dave and his team had to show their cards (EQN) and what was shown to Nova must not have been the nuts.
Sure there needs to be another EQ game made. But what does the rest of the gaming community want exactly? There is really no consensus. The list would also be so massive and contradicting with itself that no one game could ever achieve it. I don't think there was a show put on. I believe they simply looked at the budget and timelines and costs and started chopping down the big salaries since money projections weren't lining up to keep it going that way.
Only time will tell, but am I the only one that sees this move as a potential positive for the franchise?
I don't disagree with you here. Time will tell. Everyone's hopes are not completely dashed just yet. I don't think they will have to completely scrap what was worked on. If they did, it would be a shameful waist of hard work up to that point. I guess you could say that would be similar to the same thing SOE did while trying to make Next a time or two before. Supposedly there have already been one or two versions scrapped previous to this latest version.
- No linear gameplay per say - it was a themepark. You grind mobs .
Since when is killing mobs a themepark. That would make 90% of all games ever made themeparks.
EQ wasn't a themepark, it makes no sense even saying that.
EQ was a grind game that relied on grouping and this grouping was reinforced by making the world brutal, slow to travel in and by making the death penalty severe. It was a grind game with a good class system and very good raid system.
You were restricted to levelling up in zones where mobs were your level. You can't go anywhere and explore the world. You still follow a linear path, the difference is that there are no quests to guide you, you just go to camps your level and grind. UO was a sandbox, EQ was where the modern themepark came from.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
It's a fallacy of some to suggest that EQ or Lineage or FF players only accept gameplay pre-WoW of their own games. Almost all EQ players I know accept that the current generation of players, and often themselves, would not accept 4 hour corpse recovery runs, or spawn camping for hours on end, or raids that last 6 hours.
People are well aware that that won't be tolerated by players and will just result in a failed game.
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
Four hour corpse runs? Funny I played Everquest for four years and never had a corpse run longer than one hour and that one took so long because I could not find my corpse in the swamp. Camping for hours one end, sure, and I would do it again in an eye blink. Raids that last six hours, well I have had that in both WoW and EQ2 as well as Everquest, would I do it again, probably not. I have also had three to four hour raids in Rift.
I am not sure what makes a game fail or succeed, but what I do know is that if I am having fun I am prepared to play a game for six to eight hours a day. If I find a game very enjoyable I will get up at 3am to load the latest Xpac and start playing. On Xpac days I might play for sixteen hours with breaks for meals etc.
Do I remember Everquest with nostalgia? Sure but that is because it was a lot of fun. If a game, any game, came out this year that had as much fun in it as Everquest I would do it all again. But at the moment I am lurking on forums and thinking about renovating the kitchen because there is no MMORPG out there that I want to play any more.
Good post. Good memories. I couldn't care less if some raids required 6 hours to complete. Just because I might not have the time I used to have, doesn't mean that sort of gameplay should be removed. Obviously that shouldn't be the main developmental focus, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.
Its that line of thinking - the "it's not fair" if everything isn't accessible to everyone - that has things so messed up. Its like going to a movie theater as an adult but only being permitted to watch Disney films. A big part of this genre used to be exclusivity, and thats a big part of whats missing today.
- No linear gameplay per say - it was a themepark. You grind mobs .
Since when is killing mobs a themepark. That would make 90% of all games ever made themeparks.
EQ wasn't a themepark, it makes no sense even saying that.
EQ was a grind game that relied on grouping and this grouping was reinforced by making the world brutal, slow to travel in and by making the death penalty severe. It was a grind game with a good class system and very good raid system.
You were restricted to levelling up in zones where mobs were your level. You can't go anywhere and explore the world. You still follow a linear path, the difference is that there are no quests to guide you, you just go to camps your level and grind. UO was a sandbox, EQ was where the modern themepark came from.
If you didn't explore in EQ1 I feel sorry for you. Going from Freeport to Qeynos in classic EQ was one of the most thrilling experiences in any MMO to date. Especially if you hit Kithicor at night.
This. Although I went a different route by starting up a Iksar monk when Kunark came out and moving to Freeport to play with my friends. I made many friends during my rep grind with Freeport and made even more when I could proudly sit beside the gate guards and not be slaughtered.
I also constantly explored zones that were way above my level and was brutally murdered many a time. My friends and I would also just go into a zone that we felt like trying and seeing how long we could last against the mobs that were so far above our level it wasn't even funny. Sometimes we walked out with loot that we had no right to carry, other times we would walk out a level or 2 lower but damn did we have some stories to tell.
- No linear gameplay per say - it was a themepark. You grind mobs .
Since when is killing mobs a themepark. That would make 90% of all games ever made themeparks.
EQ wasn't a themepark, it makes no sense even saying that.
EQ was a grind game that relied on grouping and this grouping was reinforced by making the world brutal, slow to travel in and by making the death penalty severe. It was a grind game with a good class system and very good raid system.
You were restricted to levelling up in zones where mobs were your level. You can't go anywhere and explore the world. You still follow a linear path, the difference is that there are no quests to guide you, you just go to camps your level and grind. UO was a sandbox, EQ was where the modern themepark came from.
That has absolutely nothing to do with anything. You're still perfectly capable of going there. Even in a sandbox game, you won't necessarily be equipped to take on any challenge, including fighting certain other players. You couldn't roll into a dungeon in UO with basic starter gear and expect to solo there, so spare us and think about what you're saying. Are you really calling UO a themepark too?
There was no linear path in EQ. Every starting area was connected to numerous zones and dungeons and you could literally go in any direction. Any quest you might pick up early on could take you anywhere, including to other continents.
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
There is a market for vanguard like games?
Please tell me, how many millions of subs vanguard has?
Vanguard was shut down, however that had nothing to do with the gameplay but with the constant crashes, bugs and lack of funds the game had.
I'm guessing you're trying to weasel your way to a "SEE, Vanguard failed, everyone wants easymode F2P bla bla" argument. Pick another game because it doesn't work for Vanguard.
A lot of things went wrong for Vanguard, but gameplay wasn't one of them.
and yet you claim there is a market for a failed game ... you know this because?
and how do you know the gameplay wasn't one of the failure? The game failed ... even shut down. It can be the crash, it can be the gameplay, it can be the graphics, it can be all of them.
What does not work .. is to use a failed game to illustrate that there is a market.
If you didn't explore in EQ1 I feel sorry for you. Going from Freeport to Qeynos in classic EQ was one of the most thrilling experiences in any MMO to date. Especially if you hit Kithicor at night.
nah ... thrilling is subjective. I have done that .. it is more boredom & annoyance than anything. I would much rather play a well scripted instance with good combat.
All we knowe is Nova bought SoE to make money. How they plan on doing is yet to be seen. So far they have kept the majority of the staff for all released games and also the ones in development. That alone say something, what? I dont know. Keep the games going forward or us the staff for other projects. I think Nova bought now DGC to have...
1. Not have to build a new name in gaming, that how investment firms roll
2. Have a line of games that have a name DCU, PS, EQ mean something for future launches(tablets, xbox).
3. The hot new tech going into EQN (Stroybricks, Voxelfarms) they wanted it for their portfolio. (Will they put this in other games?)
At this point all we can do is wait and see but the speculation has been fun to watch, from doomsayers to people thinking Nova is made up of a board of Saints. Personally I hope this is not the end of a company that is one of the grandfathers of what made MMOs what they are today.
Who are you kidding? EQ was not that successful. And it peaked around 300-500k subs. . There are tons of p2p MMOs which had a lot more subscribers.
By today's standards, no EQ's population wasn't that much.
However, context is extremely important here.
EQ's success was considered a major phenomenon, a huge success, in its time.
EQ gained all those numbers when MMORPGs were extremely niche, to the degree that many, many people didn't even know what the hell a MMORPG was. All they knew was that there's this game that requires you to keep paying a sub fee after you've bought it, and it was somehow extremely popular. That's as far as they looked into it.
It was at a time when most developers/publishers wouldn't touch MMOs with a 10' pole, because it was this weird, and still unproven idea that seemed entirely too risky.
It was at a time, when the amount of people playing MMOs was extremely small, compared to today's population.
To put it in perspective, relatively speaking, EQ's success at its peak was comparable to WoW's at its peak.
And of course, it's easy to look at MMOs like WoW, or Lineage 1/2 (in the East anyway) and say "well, 500k isn't that much". Thing is... 500k is still a lot of people, and a lot of revenue coming in. FFXI maintained ~500k players for several years, and became SE's all-time most successful game.
If the developer is running an operation that requires, say, 5,000,000 active players to break even, but is only maintaining 500k... yes... that's not good. If a developer's operation requires 300,000 to break even, and they have 500,000... they are very successful. Again.. context and perspective.
Comments
Next generation of often one of those marketing terms believed by idiots who parrot the term around. Next Generation is better when looked at after it happens. Oh, game Y was a next generation. Vs the marketing: Oh, our game HasNoNextGen is the next generation in mmoRPGs. Also, Next Generation doesn't say anything about how a game will match with your gaming needs.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?"
I'm not certain I would want to ever spend the time I did in Everquest again. That is the main problem with the original game. It was not healthy to spend hours sitting in EQ, eating junk food, not exercising, and ignoring people. None the less I will always love my time spent in the game. I don't really have an issue with removing time sinks from games so much as I feel the games are too segregated today and the cultures have no meaning in game ( I realize they have lore and background, but often there is little seen of this in game). Another issue I have is the quests are just to boring after you've done them a lot. They stop people from interacting in the outside world. Instances cut off interaction with people. Most utility spells/abilities unique to classes have been taken out of the game. Even healing/CC is being taken out so all you can really do is DPS in different ways. WoW still has healing thankfully, but CC and utility has been heavily nerfed. Mobs need to be more challenging in solo content. There needs to be more interaction between players in the world. Traveling around the world should be part of the adventure, not skipped over so you can go and get more loot. Zones should have a large amount of mobs of different levels. You shouldn't be able to progress if you keep dying. Clearly that means you are not able to learn how to fight and survive very well. I think I could come up with more, but that is enough. These are all just my ideas. I'm not saying they are right for everyone. It's just what I like.
Are we only talking about EQ2/EQN?
Even though I avoided EQ1 (because I heard like 20 different players tell stories about it, and manage to describe 20 separate ways it sounded like an unfun pain in the ass to play) there's no question it blazed a trail considerable distance away from UO towards where WOW landed.
A company doesn't need to lead a pack to produce great games, but SOE/Daybreak interests me a lot more with Planetside than with their recent MMORPGs. Personally I'm never happy to hear about any layoffs in my industry. But it's often inevitable, since it's a very hit-driven industry where many attempts fail for every breakaway success.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Since when is killing mobs a themepark. That would make 90% of all games ever made themeparks.
EQ wasn't a themepark, it makes no sense even saying that.
EQ was a grind game that relied on grouping and this grouping was reinforced by making the world brutal, slow to travel in and by making the death penalty severe. It was a grind game with a good class system and very good raid system.
I feel Vanguard showed there is a middle ground between EQ and recent MMO post-WoW.
You can have long distance travel, class dependency and trinity systems and still make a fun accessible game.
Vanguard had a host of problems and caused it to fail, but the world and gameplay, was really fun imo.
Vanguard felt like a living breathing world like EQ did. It's hard to explain but I think most people know what I mean.
It's a fallacy of some to suggest that EQ or Lineage or FF players only accept gameplay pre-WoW of their own games. Almost all EQ players I know accept that the current generation of players, and often themselves, would not accept 4 hour corpse recovery runs, or spawn camping for hours on end, or raids that last 6 hours.
People are well aware that that won't be tolerated by players and will just result in a failed game.
But there is a market for a game that is like EQ while still being accessible. Like Vanguard was. There's a market for a game that feels like a world instead of a mcdonals drive-through. There's a market for a game in the spirit of EQ.
There is a market for vanguard like games?
Please tell me, how many millions of subs vanguard has?
Vanguard was shut down, however that had nothing to do with the gameplay but with the constant crashes, bugs and lack of funds the game had.
I'm guessing you're trying to weasel your way to a "SEE, Vanguard failed, everyone wants easymode F2P bla bla" argument. Pick another game because it doesn't work for Vanguard.
A lot of things went wrong for Vanguard, but gameplay wasn't one of them.
From what I've found is that the EQ community is very PvE oriented. At times almost fearful of the idea of any type of PvP. It's an extremely conservative group.
That's true I feel, the overwhelming majority of EQ fans are PVE fans who like to stay away from PVP.
(there are exceptions, but the PVE to PVP server ratio in EQ was around 16 to 1 in favor of PVE, much higher than say WoW)
Four hour corpse runs? Funny I played Everquest for four years and never had a corpse run longer than one hour and that one took so long because I could not find my corpse in the swamp. Camping for hours one end, sure, and I would do it again in an eye blink. Raids that last six hours, well I have had that in both WoW and EQ2 as well as Everquest, would I do it again, probably not. I have also had three to four hour raids in Rift.
I am not sure what makes a game fail or succeed, but what I do know is that if I am having fun I am prepared to play a game for six to eight hours a day. If I find a game very enjoyable I will get up at 3am to load the latest Xpac and start playing. On Xpac days I might play for sixteen hours with breaks for meals etc.
Do I remember Everquest with nostalgia? Sure but that is because it was a lot of fun. If a game, any game, came out this year that had as much fun in it as Everquest I would do it all again. But at the moment I am lurking on forums and thinking about renovating the kitchen because there is no MMORPG out there that I want to play any more.
WOW been years the last time I looked at one of his charts. We had some good times back then arguing how his charts showed nothing factual of games subs. Been so long I forgot his name but one thing for sure I would never use his charts to try and make a point. All he did was take a guess and put it to a chart.
Star Citizen – The Extinction Level Event
4/13/15 > ELE has been updated look for 16-04-13.
http://www.dereksmart.org/2016/04/star-citizen-the-ele/
Enjoy and know the truth always comes to light!
Actually he used the official statements from SoE up to the 2004 peak, who back then released the server population.
Later he used other sources from employees, but up to EQ's peak the numbers are 100% correct, they are from investor documents.
thanks for playing
Even if they were based on SOE's official statements that is not an independently audited figure but a marketing statement and one from SOE too. So no not reliable.
Even so 400K subscribers out of what a million subscribers at the time? 40% market share not too shabby.
Then of course WoW came along and the market increased 10 fold. It is this explosion in the market for MMORPG's that makes WoW the giant in the industry.
We all have to remember that, all the time. Blizzard tapped into an audience that had never even thought about MMORPGs and sold them a whole new experience. That audience is still there and although parts of it keep on moving on each year it is still Blizzard that brings most of the new players into the genre.
It was leading the pack on release. It was extremely popular for quite some time. When EQ was first out, there was no casual. There was no real free to play. There was no dedicated cash shop where you could buy your gear. There was no mass appeal at the time for MMORPG's. It was a smaller segment of our population that even cared about gaming, let alone had the $$ for a nice PC and a monthly subscription. Therefor the amount of subscribers was closer to 2 million at it's peak.
The EQ community at this point is massive. From 1999 it has been going ever since attracting new players over the years. I personally know ages ranging from 22 to 69 that have enjoyed EQ over the years. Also don't forget the playstation 2 version and EQ 2. Those games at least brought IP recognition to alot of people as well. I would say if you take all those people total over the last 16 years maybe 40 million people have tried and enjoyed EQ.
Sure there needs to be another EQ game made. But what does the rest of the gaming community want exactly? There is really no consensus. The list would also be so massive and contradicting with itself that no one game could ever achieve it. I don't think there was a show put on. I believe they simply looked at the budget and timelines and costs and started chopping down the big salaries since money projections weren't lining up to keep it going that way.
I don't disagree with you here. Time will tell. Everyone's hopes are not completely dashed just yet. I don't think they will have to completely scrap what was worked on. If they did, it would be a shameful waist of hard work up to that point. I guess you could say that would be similar to the same thing SOE did while trying to make Next a time or two before. Supposedly there have already been one or two versions scrapped previous to this latest version.
You were restricted to levelling up in zones where mobs were your level. You can't go anywhere and explore the world. You still follow a linear path, the difference is that there are no quests to guide you, you just go to camps your level and grind. UO was a sandbox, EQ was where the modern themepark came from.
Mission in life: Vanquish all MMORPG.com trolls - especially TESO, WOW and GW2 trolls.
Good post. Good memories. I couldn't care less if some raids required 6 hours to complete. Just because I might not have the time I used to have, doesn't mean that sort of gameplay should be removed. Obviously that shouldn't be the main developmental focus, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't exist.
Its that line of thinking - the "it's not fair" if everything isn't accessible to everyone - that has things so messed up. Its like going to a movie theater as an adult but only being permitted to watch Disney films. A big part of this genre used to be exclusivity, and thats a big part of whats missing today.
This. Although I went a different route by starting up a Iksar monk when Kunark came out and moving to Freeport to play with my friends. I made many friends during my rep grind with Freeport and made even more when I could proudly sit beside the gate guards and not be slaughtered.
I also constantly explored zones that were way above my level and was brutally murdered many a time. My friends and I would also just go into a zone that we felt like trying and seeing how long we could last against the mobs that were so far above our level it wasn't even funny. Sometimes we walked out with loot that we had no right to carry, other times we would walk out a level or 2 lower but damn did we have some stories to tell.
That has absolutely nothing to do with anything. You're still perfectly capable of going there. Even in a sandbox game, you won't necessarily be equipped to take on any challenge, including fighting certain other players. You couldn't roll into a dungeon in UO with basic starter gear and expect to solo there, so spare us and think about what you're saying. Are you really calling UO a themepark too?
There was no linear path in EQ. Every starting area was connected to numerous zones and dungeons and you could literally go in any direction. Any quest you might pick up early on could take you anywhere, including to other continents.
and yet you claim there is a market for a failed game ... you know this because?
and how do you know the gameplay wasn't one of the failure? The game failed ... even shut down. It can be the crash, it can be the gameplay, it can be the graphics, it can be all of them.
What does not work .. is to use a failed game to illustrate that there is a market.
nah ... thrilling is subjective. I have done that .. it is more boredom & annoyance than anything. I would much rather play a well scripted instance with good combat.
All we knowe is Nova bought SoE to make money. How they plan on doing is yet to be seen. So far they have kept the majority of the staff for all released games and also the ones in development. That alone say something, what? I dont know. Keep the games going forward or us the staff for other projects. I think Nova bought now DGC to have...
1. Not have to build a new name in gaming, that how investment firms roll
2. Have a line of games that have a name DCU, PS, EQ mean something for future launches(tablets, xbox).
3. The hot new tech going into EQN (Stroybricks, Voxelfarms) they wanted it for their portfolio. (Will they put this in other games?)
At this point all we can do is wait and see but the speculation has been fun to watch, from doomsayers to people thinking Nova is made up of a board of Saints. Personally I hope this is not the end of a company that is one of the grandfathers of what made MMOs what they are today.
By today's standards, no EQ's population wasn't that much.
However, context is extremely important here.
EQ's success was considered a major phenomenon, a huge success, in its time.
EQ gained all those numbers when MMORPGs were extremely niche, to the degree that many, many people didn't even know what the hell a MMORPG was. All they knew was that there's this game that requires you to keep paying a sub fee after you've bought it, and it was somehow extremely popular. That's as far as they looked into it.
It was at a time when most developers/publishers wouldn't touch MMOs with a 10' pole, because it was this weird, and still unproven idea that seemed entirely too risky.
It was at a time, when the amount of people playing MMOs was extremely small, compared to today's population.
To put it in perspective, relatively speaking, EQ's success at its peak was comparable to WoW's at its peak.
And of course, it's easy to look at MMOs like WoW, or Lineage 1/2 (in the East anyway) and say "well, 500k isn't that much". Thing is... 500k is still a lot of people, and a lot of revenue coming in. FFXI maintained ~500k players for several years, and became SE's all-time most successful game.
If the developer is running an operation that requires, say, 5,000,000 active players to break even, but is only maintaining 500k... yes... that's not good. If a developer's operation requires 300,000 to break even, and they have 500,000... they are very successful. Again.. context and perspective.