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Message ID: 5972
Date: Wed Dec 8 17:59:39 GMT 2004
Author: ej
Subject: Re: [EverQuest] Re: Regular EQ


Wulfric Rennison wrote:
> Just goes to show, you can't please all the people even some of the
> time. If you're so hell bent against the game, then why are you even on
> this list???

Just never left. It's not like there is a ton a mail that clogs my inbox.

> I don't believe your argument that EQ2 was rushed either.

Whether you want to believe it or not, it was rushed. WoW beta was
twice as long as the EQ2 beta and EQ came out 2 weeks earlier.

> Considering
> there was word of EQ2 in development long before there was ever a
> release date set, considering the game was in closed beta for months
> before we ever got a peek at it, considering it was in open beta for
> several months BEFORE it went live, AND considering the release date was
> even pushed back so tha tit came out later than it was supposed to, I
> seriously have a hard time believing it ws a rush job.

They didn't even put in class spells until a week before release. How
on earth do you balance and test the classes with only a week of
testing, after the game has already gone Gold? They basically reworked
the entire class system a week before the game went live without any
player testing. That doesn't sound rushed to you?

Instancing zones was rushed because they suddenly realized that they
couldn't handle player traffic in their zones.

The quest system was added later in development, almost as an
afterthought because, I guess, WoW had one that people were fawning over
so SoE needed one.

They still haven't figured out how to make nice graphics that don't need
a supercomputer to run. Guild Wars has great graphics (just as good, if
not better than EQ2), and well made player models that don't take high
end video cards to run well. And GW is still in Beta.

They continue to run with the model that slow leveling equals a challenge.

> And apparently you don't know anything about business. It would seem to
> me that to be competitive in the market place you have to take into
> account things like the release of other games and holidays and so on.
> Let's face it, Sony Online Entertainment is a profiteering company.
> they want to make money just like the rest of us. If they have to cut a
> few edges to get the product out in manner to be more competitive with
> other companies, then that's what they have to do. Since the game is an
> ongoing development, they can always add the stuff after the fact.

No, they did it because they were worried that no one would buy their
product after playing WoW.

> As far as I'm concerned they did a damn good job with EQ2 and I think
> they will continue to do a damn good job with it. EQ2 had far more
> content to it than Lineage II did when L2 was released.

Lineage 2 was a piece of garbage. If that is your benchmark, then there
isn't a MMORPG around that doesn't get high marks. Hell, the Knight
Online beta was better than Lineage 2 retail and KO was pretty crappy.

> Besides, SOE is only adding the stuff that people are asking for anyway,
> so if we don't like it, we can't complain cause we're the ones who asked
> for it.

Maybe you want some of this stuff, but there are a lot more people out
there playing games that don't want pulls handed to them or knowing that
a mob is underconned or overconned. Or don't want flagging for
mid-level content. Or don't want to have to buy a $300 video card to
have decent graphics.

> If you really don't enjoy the game, then why are you here?

Because I'm interested in hearing people's opinions about games. I'm
sorry if you can't accept the fact that some/many people don't have
ultra glowing reviews of EQ2.

> This list is
> supposed to be for people that like EverQuest and want to see it grow,
> not for people who are going to argue every single little nitpicky thing
> wrong with the game or SOE.

If you think the problems that people have with the game are "nitpicky",
you are mistaken.

EQ was a great game, until probably Luclin (which was, I believe, the
first "SoE expansion"). The "moon" was always buggy and most of the
features never really worked well. Was the Hollowshade Moor "war" ever
fixed to work correctly? The high end Luclin game was poorly
implemented into a massive timesink. From there it just went downhill
(LDON was good for casual players for a time, but it was far too little
and too late to save most server populations and guilds after PoP came
out.) It doesn't seem to be that SoE has learned much from their
previous titles.