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Originally Posted by Trzzle
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EQ2 from launch until the end of Sentinel's Fate was the greatest MMO ever made. Sadly it suffered a full item/stat/mechanic revamp that murdered the game thanks to Smokejumper. Pretty much died overnight similar to how people talk about that Starwars Galaxy update that ruined that game.
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Agreed. Sentinels Fate was such a fun time to play EQ2 too. Then they changed it so each class only cared about a single stat. Meant there was now no differentiation between items on the same "tier". The inclusion of non-stat enhancements (haste, potency, etc) was the new meta but was 10x more confusion to a new player than the old stats-based itemization.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Secrets
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Shut your goddamn mouth. John Smedley is the only reason you're actually posting on this forum right now and not seeing a "FBI seized this website" message. The guy actually was the driving force that wanted to see EQEmulator live on because he cared about the game. He's met with Rogean and nilbog at multiple EQ-related events in real life, and you better believe he's for the 'common person'. Several Cease and Desist letters would have moved on to action taken against EQClassic, EQEmulator and Project 1999 if it wasn't for him. He's also the reason the Daybreak agreement exists.
The reason why he's not considered a good businessman is because he cared about his consumers too much.
He's had to make some really rough decisions over the years. One of those was shutting down SWG, which was beyond his control. LucasArts actually wanted to kill Star Wars Galaxies because 'it wasn't like WoW' and not bringing in the people that they wanted to cater to. They had a year to shut the game down after NGE failed at doing that. I personally worked with SWG's old community manager during my first job in industry and the horror stories I have heard do not include John Smedley. If there was an example of someone who was an outside-the-box thinker, it would be about Smed.
Smokejumper (Dave Georgeson), on the other hand, was a shady, F2P-snake-oil salesman which is why EQNext never took off.
You take that back about John Smedley right now.
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Really happy to see someone else say this. As someone who's been a fan of SOE and their games since the 90s, Smedley gets a lot of shit he doesn't deserve. He always wanted to make the best games possible.
I had no idea Smokejumper was Georgeson. Now it all makes sense, as EQ2 took a deathspiral from a quality perspective when he came onboard.
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Legacy EQ2 was awesome, tho. It was a good intermediate between EQ and WoW in terms of gameplay and experience. WoW XP gain was way higher than EQ 1/2, the graphics were cartoony, the playerbase was on average 10 years younger, etc.
I think EQ2 was at it's best shortly after the combat revamp. That's what introduced stances and a more even playing field for classes. Classic pet classes, for example, had pets who were better than a fully buffed tank at times. The revamp also got most of the base guidelines that EQ2 held onto for the next 13+ years.
I don't miss crafting at release. Having each class develop subcomponents required by other crafting classes was really confusing and would deadlock high level leveling.
The questing really put the Quest into EverQuest 2 tho. So many quests. Was really awesome.
EQ2 is still probably my favorite game of all time. EQ my most memorable.