What would it take for you to feel confident/optimistic about the future of EQ2 again?

Text is not a good conveyor of intent, but as read, the intent of your last sentence (to me) is that you think this is a good thing, or an indication that EQ2 is 'doing alright'.

To me, when I can log into other games and see that many players in one city or area of a single zone, it paints quite a different picture.

 

Okay.. .No name calling.
Columbus Nova is a shill holding company for Russian assets.
It is purely a shill holding company.
They are using DBG as a Loss Leader to avoid taxes, pure and simple.
They want it to be a loser, and they are succeeding.

 

I should have added that these numbers are unchanged since KA as to the game doing alright nope I certainly didn't mean that. At face value, given my measurement tool is very poor, it seems that the player population is unchanged by PoP. I couldn't say anything about if the same players are playing or new ones have replaced those that have left. As to the state of PoP I would say that it is an incomplete expansion and that is not just because the crafting signature line is missing. I will try to post in the PoP thread my opinion on the expansion when and if I complete it.

Personally I login each night to chat with the two remaining regulars in my guild, the one that I though was leaving has returned. Occasionally I overlap with the guild leader as he has become a real casual but that started with KA. During the day I play a bit of Wow, currently working my way through Legion and it is amazing what you can produce with money and lots of resources. Low latency is amazing as well, 33ms in Wow due to them actually having Australian servers. EQ2 is 300+ms on a good day and in an optimized zone. I have been having a lot of fun in Wow not sure about that in PoP as I am in the middle of the faction grind there which I dislike in all games.

On seeing other players in the game, well I see some in Coliseum of Valor non peak, and lots during US peak (advantage of being retired) and more on a weekend. How does this compare with say Wow class halls, not very well at all as there are hundreds even off peak, hard to get to the NPCs during peak. I play a hunter in Wow and it is one of the more popular classes so my numbers may not be representative of the overall population.

Sorry for getting a bit off topic.

 

And the above is why I appreciate these forums for discussion.

Thank you for the clarification, it makes a lot more sense now.

 

I started playing just after the game went live always as a casual player. I had a brief stint with hard core raiding in Kingdom of Sky.

For me, EQ2 became too bloated. Stat bloat. Currency bloat. Spell bloat. And just when you got a handle on the latest bloat it got nerfed in the next expansion with new and different bloat.

Plus all the gatekeeping. Trivial restrictions to content just as a way to extend playing time.

I don't think I could ever love EQ2 again. I've moved on. But if I could freeze time somewhere around KoS I think I could be happy there for a while.

 

2006 was an amazing year for the quantity and quality of content...

 

I'm really going to have to reconsider being a participant in the forums. First I didn't participate because it was providing them with free content. And now the reason will be that I'm unable to understand why people would wish for the death of Norrath. No matter how bad the current leadership is, no matter how much they screw up, I still don't want the plug to be pulled, ever. I don't think we're in a Bubble. I think we're terribly afraid it will end. The signs don't look good.

But I think there are two types of people... the divorcers and the stay-togethers. I'm the latter. I continue to have faith because that's what I do when I love something. I love this game. I love the NPCs, the art, the stories, the mysteries and the secrets. I just have to hear the music and I'm happier than I was a few minutes ago. I have millions of pleasant associations with it. If anyone thinks I can just walk away from it and shrug, then they're not looking at me squarely. See the difference between the two types of people is, I allow the thing I love to have its own life. It doesn't have to serve me, nor does it have to be perfect.

OK, so EQ2 now is far far far... away from perfect. But I don't believe that the developers and the designers are trying to kill it. I think they're unaware of the effects they have on the game. The crafting achievement would've been fine, even interesting, if it was in a non-MMO game. But add the dynamic of MMO to it, and it's crap. I'm actually wondering who it was that they lost who was keeping them from making bonehead decisions like that. Somebody was smart enough not to do such things before. Whoever that somebody was, they need to replace them asap. And whoever thought of that achievement, their ideas should be treated with a monster size grain of salt in the future. That was not an MMO type idea.

I also believe that you shouldn't attribute to malice what can be explained by ignorance. If they're not playing the game in the same way we are, ie. they have baubles and whatnot that we do not, then they simply don't see the mistakes until they've made them. And then they are faced with either backpedaling or digging in their heels. Only someone who had not run experts last expac would come up with an idea so dumb as to hide essential items in a zone AFTER you've completed it. Who does one zone and done?

No matter how dumb these things are, I"m still not wishing for the end of EQ2, I'm wishing for its salvation.

 

I've always said I keep logging in for the friends I have.

Well...my guild--once a vibrant one, "Mistmoore's Premiere Starter Guild" as the joke went!--is a shadow of its former self. Not enough folks left for guild groups. I have my raid buddies, but as the sole remaining member of my guild there...well, there are inevitable gaps, absolutely nothing at all against them. There are folks I PUG with semi-regularly, but again, out-guilder.

Add to this things that have happened in RL over the last couple of years...

I don't have it in me to keep on too much longer.

I don't want to go.

I don't know if there's anything left to keep me in Norrath.

I don't know if there's anything else for me to go to.

As the wise man once sang: I'm caught in a trap, and I can't walk out...

 

Norrath was my Home world from the time I started playing EQ in the fall of 2000 until recently. I have played, and tried out, a lot of games, but I always returned to Norrath, first in EQ then in EQ2. What is being dumped out of DBG these days is EQ2 in name only. The heart and soul of the game has been mangled and put up for sale in the cash shop.

I don't 'wish for the death' of Norrath, because for me, the game I loved is already dead. And it's not coming back, the last 2 years have made that abundantly clear. I didn't just walk away from it and shrug - and I doubt that any fans that have left the game did.

Of course EQ2 isn't perfect, it never has been - no game is perfect. I don't think The Team is trying to kill it. I think they don't care... and that's even worse. The nature of the remaining customer base allows them to milk money until enough players get fed up and leave that it's no longer profitable.

For The Team to be unaware of the effect their decisions are having on the game they would have to have never played the game, and currently been living a closet, isolated from the game.

But that's not the case. The folks that made the current round of decisions have made similar mistakes in the past, only they're the ones in charge now. It's THEIR Vision™ that has been the driving force behind the mega fail of KA and PoP. And they're all that's left, so it's not going to change.

No. I will not excuse their ignorance of how their 'fixes' and 'changes' affect the game. (I'm looking at you 0 damage Dagger Storm) All it takes to catch that is for a single person to log in and push a button a single time. Or how about the unfinished 350-400$ premium guild hall debacle? Where again, all it would have taken is a single person to zone into the hall and (attempt) to place a single item. If they don't have something set up in house to test in a live environment, they do have a Test server which they fail to utilize. The fault for that failure lies squarely on their shoulders and they should be held accountable.

If you don't expect better, you'll never get it.

When I refer to the Bubble Gnomes™ I don't mean fans of the game who wish it could be better (or more like it was), I mean the players who refuse to see what is happening, and defends The Team and The Game no matter what and shout down or ignore legitimate problems.

I don't wish for a salvation that will never happen while DBG holds the title. But I would appreciate an exit with whatever shred of dignity and grace can be mustered for a title I have a lot of fond memories for. (and met my two best friends in)

 

Though I no longer play EQ2, I do log in to chat with a few friends, and will continue to do so until they're ready to go. And that will come in their own time.

No game will be EQ, EQ2... or any other game you've enjoyed (or hated) for that matter. But there are a lot of games out there that offer a huge variety of features and are more (or less) designed toward various play styles.

Will any of them be EQ2? Nope. But they are fun (or horrible) in their own right!

And isn't that part of what we, as gamers, do? ... explore new horizons.

 

Brilliantly stated Tekka. I couldn't agree more. I especially appreciate this portion of your post:

If you don't expect better, you'll never get it.

When I refer to the Bubble Gnomes™ I don't mean fans of the game who wish it could be better (or more like it was), I mean the players who refuse to see what is happening, and defends The Team and The Game no matter what and shout down or ignore legitimate problems.

I don't wish for a salvation that will never happen while DBG holds the title. But I would appreciate an exit with whatever shred of dignity and grace can be mustered for a title I have a lot of fond memories for. (and met my two best friends in)

 

That really hits it on the head for me as well. Except I'm currently an active raider. I honestly play because there are too many people that I've made friends with that I'd lose if I left.

I left the game due to computer issues right before Velious dropped. I came back mid KA and from there found a guild who I really clicked with, and now I raid with them. But somewhere in my head, my old experiences keep biting back at me that this game is still EverQuest 2, the game I used to play all the time with my Dad, but it isn't. At this point, it's something else. Fallen Gate was a nice attempt, but the game we loved is gone and somehow I'm still rationalizing myself staying.

 

It may be overly optimistic, but I do expect things to be better. I expect this team to do better. I expect this team to hire who they need to do better. Or to make the changes they need to. I don't see them as permanently inept or misguided, nor with evil intentions. I think they've lost hope as well. Lost hope in us seeing anything they do in a positive light. I expect that part of that bargain will be them having the balls to say "look, this one aspect of the game, yeah we need to monetize it" because without effectively doing that, there won't be a game. But in order for such a bargain to be struck honestly, we need to know that they won't be siphoning it off to some game we'll never be interested in. We've never had this conversation with the DBG company. So we can't be "on board" with the plan, whatever it is currently.

I've also explored many new horizons. Sure they're fun, but they never do it for me. And I don't think I should have to give up hope on my favorite game just because this team is currently failing a lot.

 

I wanted to address the highlighted part. While, for a very brief period, EQ2 was the most profitable title in their line-up, it's not now, and hasn't been for years. (last I checked, original EQ has been more profitable than EQ2 for much of EQ2's history - taken from various sources compiled over the years).

And of course some percentage of those profits were put into a development pool, just like an equivalent percentage of profit was taken from every other title - because that's how the industry works.

I'm not sure where this notion that EQ2 is carrying, or has been carrying, the company since it's launch comes from, but it's incorrect.

That said, if you're still enjoying the game, then by all means, play and enjoy - what's fun is entirely subjective!

 

I seriously doubt EQ2 is even paying for the cost of its own servers currently.

 

Actually that fear about EQ2's profits being siphoned off was entirely from this forum. Iirc, someone theorized that it was being used to fund H1Z1, which I'd never play. I didn't realize they were trolling. /shrug How do we know things are so bad that the game isn't even paying for servers? Seems like they'd pull the plug if so.

I see a lot more multiboxers than before. You gotta figure that's $40x5 and a collector's edition at least for the main. I've never seen less than 100 people online. The game is gimped at high levels if you're f2p and CoV is busy. PQs are still pulling 50 people even at odd hours, generally. It seems just as busy as Skyshrine was, to me. It's just that now, it's a few raid guilds and a lot of 2-3 person guilds due to attrition. It might be the empty guilds that make it seem less populated than it is. But even in the past, you could go to a guild hall, and find guilds that are listed under "visit" but you can't visit them.

I have this feeling like people just alted and started over. Since I didn't, I'm still in the empty guild. I could've done that too. But I like my characters,and have a constitutional aversion to "hiding" from those who might be annoyed with me. We've all annoyed someone in mmo's, through ignorance or basic greed.

I'll add that some of the people I knew "back when" have returned to the guild, and with new alts. They really were hiding, not from me, from their old identity. Hey everyone needs their space. And alts are fun, and starting over is fun. But I suspect the people we knew are still there, on an alt. Or they decided to multibox. After all, endgame is quite different from the early part and there is a TON of old content to play, and mostly you have it to yourself now. And TLE beckons with promises of a more classic playstyle.

We went through that period of "drundering" where people just shut up and played silently so they wouldn't lose their accounts. Probably people decided to become multiboxers. I had the urge to do that myself. I mean, many of my old friends had armies of maxed characters. They could've been moved to other accounts, and bingo... multibox troop formed. I'm almost certain that a well loved guild leader did that. I know it can wear you out, guild leading.

Wherever our friends are now, godspeed. But they may be closer than we think. A guild link system might be nice. Ie: I link with some other guild, and I keep my guild hall, they keep theirs, but our chat is together now and people can set their guild beacon to my guild hall or the other one. And if two can be linked, why not 3 or 4? If an average of 5 people in each guild are present, then 4x5 is 20 active players. No permission changes need to be made. I keep my control over my gh, you keep yours. anyone can set beacon to any gh though. Perhaps a meta guild name is chosen so we all have the same tag now.

I've often though that old games need a way to merge guilds.

 

Let me first say I like your positivism. 50 people is not many at all in a mmorpg.

 

Just for perspective on this, Pantheon's Pre-Alpha testing combat against dragons at the end of PA1 had 100 people per server. So, a non-released, pre-alpha game had 2 times the amount of players running a PQ style fight.