Bull, bull, bull. You are just repeating what the publishers are telling you. SoE is especially horrible with their F2P crap. When you watch game breaking bugs persist for weeks and 2 dozen new sweet cosmetic items roll out, you should really be happy that you can "play your way."

F2P is the new strategy to gouge gamers at every single turn. And no, it's not "cosmetic" items only that F2P games sell.

I'll take a $50 game and a $15 a month subscription any day over the F2P garbage. At least then the devs will be thinking about how they can improve the game to bring new players in and make more people buy it, rather than having meetings about what the most profitable pieces of gear they sell in the in game shop are.

PREACH BRUTHA! so true too. if eqn is like vanguard, but with eq lore then it won't be horrible. we can't expect it to be like eq1 at all because that's not what is seen as appealing by the devs, unfortunately. if they had something as massive and immersive as eq then it could be great if they keep on top of bugs and improving play. they also need to have enough content for the hardcore and the adventurous need the open spaces, and not have a player base that whines because there's no helm graphics.

McQuaid and Smedley founded Verant, and then SOE bought it. You may be right that EQ was always SOE IP as part of that deal, it's not really clear:

http://www.silkyvenom.com/pages/devt...ite=1&id=51141

What did happen when McQuaid left/stepped down is that Smedley took a much more active role in the ongoing design. I know this first hand not only from the forum posts he made regarding changes at the time, but the clear change in ethic and tone of the game from then on. Perhaps the classic quote of that time came from Verant CEO Kelly Flock: "Players don't know what they want; we just want to know if they have a valid credit card". No really, he said that in an interview regarding EverQuest. I met the guy years later with that quote still ringing in my ears, and he was pretty much what I expected.

The "downturn" occurred with Luclin and everything else after the Sony acquisition of Verant (the first expansions done without McQuaid and only Smedley at the helm - you see the theme here). We all left for WoW in droves (me in beta) because Smedley and SOE had already destroyed the game we loved via a war of attrition firstly, and straight out bad design secondly.

I hope you're right, I really do. But my experience with games and the people who make them is EQN is doomed to be what it will be from the beginning because of the people making it. The proof of this already is that Smedley, in usual form, threw away 18 months of development based upon the awesome idea to recreate and reboot classic EQ, and instead make a "world changing, genre redefining" MMO, yadda yadda.

For anyone who has been around the traps even a few years, that sort of talk is the kiss of death from people who are more adept at hyperbole, spin, and straight out dishonesty (combined with the parsing of player data to find new ways to exploit them) than making great and memorable game experiences.

As I've said though, I want to be wrong about this.

I get where you're coming from, I personally like the microtransaction model better. Honestly, I'd pay a sub for a game, and have a store, if the game was deserving. I don't buy anything in a game that sucks.

The devs seem genuienly good guys who want the game to be fun. It sounds like it's August is gonna be huge; gonna get interesting to see how they get the EQ1 elements down. It doesn't have to be a clone..but use the same type of blueprint - non-instance, group, exploration of a vast world. They seem to mention the original EQ a lot more then EQ2...a lot more. So maybe there's hope.

Not all Free to play/Micro-transaction models are actually bad. I was against the idea as it started to get influence here at first. But I have spent a lot of game time playing Planetside 2, have about 150 hours logged. The Transaction model they have setup there is actually really good. Every weapon available to someone who just throws $100's of cash down is available to any player via Cert's in the game. I know MANY players who are near max level and have not spent more than $15.

It really all depends on how they setup the microstransaction system. If it's pay to win. Then every whale who throws down $250 on a triple station cash day is going to be miles ahead of the pack. If they were to somehow follow the Planetside 2 style microtransaction system, I'd be more than happy.

I'm not exactly sure how you would convert it over to a Fantasty/RPG genre, but I'm sure people can come up with some ideas.

They win another best of E3 show award, this time from TenTonHammer:

http://www.tentonhammer.com/node/251130/page/8

As with any MMO that's come out in the last 10 years I'll believe the hype when I play the game. Nothing past Burning Crusade has been worth playing for an extended amount of time. That said I am excited yet reserved about what EQN will be.

The PS2 model is....everything is for sale. Which would be an awful model for an MMORPG. Achievements are trivialized for everyone when progression through the game can be purchased.

And uhh....$250 in SC on PS2 will put you miles ahead of the pack or more like hundreds of hours of grinding ahead of the pack. Planetside 2 is pretty damn close to pay to win. And it is a prime example of SoE rolling out new fins for jets or new camo or new gun while the game is in an unplayable state for a good portion of its playerbase.

Gadwen it is true that you are able to buy all of the weapons in PS2 if you were to throw down $250, but the reason I say that it's a balanced system is the fact that that does not make you superior. The game is all about getting attachments For your weapons, and THIS CANNOT be bought, it must be earned through in game XP.

Like I said, I'm not sure how you would make this system work in an MMORPG successfully, but i'd wouldn't mind some developer trying.

It happens to be the best micro-transaction system that I have seen implemented.
I never liked the idea of micro-transactions, but after seeing PS2's model I think that they can work.