What caused the decline of EQ as the #1 MMO?

[Knuckle]

Originally Posted by Rogean [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What caused the decline of EQ was WoW pretty much.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

whatever made you think that I am a wow player - you are wrong. Oh yeah right - typical hard core fanboy attitude. If we - the Normal players, don't like your hard core approach, we are immediately downgraded as "wow-fanboys looking for instant gratification".

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Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

i would not mark that as instant gratification- this is just too overused.
WoW simply broken down one GIGANTIC grind EQ1 had into thousand small steps with a little carrot attached to each.
And yeah, I prefer to log in for 30-60 min, and actually complete SOMETHING, than spend 30 min just putting group together, then another 30 min running to a dungeon, grinding it for 30 min, then discovering that oops cleric has to go, then spend 30 min looking for another cleric... And what about those 8 hours VT raids? I mean fucking seriously? I have a full time job you know.

call it what you want- wow approach is better [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

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I call it WoW fanboi, obviously.

Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

And what is eq1 is not a LARGEST time sink that ever existed?
Ever asked yourself who does eq1 cater the most? Right unemployed school boys who actually have 12 hours a day to waste on something stupid like camping VT key components, and cleaning out it out for 8 hours straight.
Seriously, grow up!

More total BS. Cry me a river. The guilds I were in (including being a raid leader in one) we had families, jobs, days off. We played EQ. Spend your days off playing EQ or spend it playing WoW, or 8hrs vs 8hrs playing as many do. WoW players just want the shiny gold star sticker and the pat on the head every 30 minutes for the duration, but it adds to the same time spent. You are not forced to raid for 8 hours, you can craft stacks of afternoon tea 30 minutes a day (no one only plays 30 minutes in any mmo) and sell them off for raid loot until you have the time to spend raiding on your days off. *yawn*

[Kika Maslyaka]

Originally Posted by Daywolf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

...

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I call it WoW fanboi, obviously.
More total BS. Cry me a river. The guilds I were in (including being a raid leader in one) we had families, jobs, days off. We played EQ. Spend your days off playing EQ or spend it playing WoW, or 8hrs vs 8hrs playing as many do. WoW players just want the shiny gold star sticker and the pat on the head every 30 minutes for the duration, but it adds to the same time spent. You are not forced to raid for 8 hours, you can craft stacks of afternoon tea 30 minutes a day (no one only plays 30 minutes in any mmo) and sell them off for raid loot until you have the time to spend raiding on your days off. *yawn*

right, please do cherry pick my quotes. Just because I disagree with you, doesn't make you right. So you can drop the hard core elitist BS act.
You are the minority. World doesn't give a crap about your little hard core game, where you think its a tremendous achievement to sit 8 hours straight in front of your PC everyday, at the same camp, killing same mobs over and over, and thinking that its some how makes you better or more intellectual, than the rest of the world.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

right, please do cherry pick my quotes. Just because I disagree with you, doesn't make you right. So you can drop the hard core elitist BS act.
You are the minority. World doesn't give a crap about your little hard core game, where you think its a tremendous achievement to sit 8 hours straight in front of your PC everyday, at the same camp, killing same mobs over and over, and thinking that its some how makes you better or more intellectual, than the rest of the world.

It's the same thing they do in WoW. They play the game for hours on end, day after day and year after year. The only real difference is they/you are sold on the marketed idea it's not the same time-sink, because you get little gold stars every 20 minutes. Wooowee, another gold star! I can winz!

[Doors]

I think it was the direction they went with EQ. That and other games, like WoW.

[Harputluyuzz]

Thanks for share

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

When, PoK, Bazar and AAs were added - the EQ was growing from 400k subscribers to 600k for yet another 2 years and 3 expansions - hows that possibly qualifies as a downfall???

eq was too hard core for the majority of people that played it.
Except there was no alternative to it for a long time, so people kept playing it.
When EQ2 and WoW came out, the majority of players (and potential player) have clearly shown that they prefer the casual gaming, rather than hard-core group/raid oriented gameplay. So they left.
Those who still like the hard core- they still playing to this day.

I am not sure if MMOcharts.com is still up, but their data showed how EQ was declining. If you accept their charts at face value then EQ was declining from 1999 onwards. It was the RATE of new players incoming to the game that declined, NOT the total user base! The game eventually became top-heavy. This means most of the players were high level. So any new players that entered the game found themselves much lonelier than their forebears. It got increasingly worse. This made the game harder and, of course, increased complaints. But this was not the only reason EQ did some of the things it did. In sum, SOE did a mediocre job with EQ over the years and gave up on it. GOD is probably the best example of their failure to connect with their users. They could afford to be cocky and sure of themselves when they owned the market, but they couldn't do that anymore because back then MMORPGs were popping up all around them. They just got too confident and perfekt.

(there is one thing I will say, though. i like the music in god. feels so bittersweet.)

They don't learn very well. I don't think SOE can make a game that respects its players. Whether they're just spending their time and money on some other project, or ignoring you even when they do help your game, or impulsively making changes to your game, or just not understand you... they're the underachiever that beats himself up over not getting number #1 in the charts. They focus so much on being number #1 that they forget to BE number #1! Now, I don't want to criticize them too much or give them unearned hate. Obviously, I played EQ1 off and on until 2010, so I was giving them my money even when I disagreed with them. And they can make good content. The problem is that all of the good things I can think of are too far and few between.

I hate to generalize. You know another reason EQ1 got hurt was because SOE put its attention on EQ2 and other sony online games. EQ1 was just one part of their portfolio. If you look at EQ2, it has many upgrades that would be nice to have in EQ1. But, bottom line, i've been hurt before by SOE and I just can't trust that they can look past the $$$ and be original. They're too indifferent. Too business-oriented. Too cocky.

But again... maybe I'm generalizing too much. One possibility is that all MMORPGs get old and all companies respond similarly: they move on to another game. Who wants to invest in an old game? Even I wouldn't, if this were 2005. I would have invested in EQ2. Maybe MMORPGs will always die. Looked at from this perspective, SOE is just like anybody else. It was a gut reaction to recoil from the old and run to something new. So it goes.

[Knuckle]

Originally Posted by Rogean [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What caused the decline of EQ was WoW pretty much.

[stormlord]

Originally Posted by Daywolf [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

It's the same thing they do in WoW. They play the game for hours on end, day after day and year after year. The only real difference is they/you are sold on the marketed idea it's not the same time-sink, because you get little gold stars every 20 minutes. Wooowee, another gold star! I can winz!

Ofc, you're very right about this.

We're all wasting time playing these games. How we waste it isn't as important as whether or not the companies that we buy from are doing their job legally. And is what we do, as players, legal?

[G13]

When they lost the most hardcore players. Furor from FOH for example. Up until the release of WOW, EQ was the l33t game where the most hardcore raiders played. People like Tigole and Furor became lead developers on WOW. The reason being that with the launch of Luclin and AA's, SOE had become arrogant and made development decisions that were open cockblocks/fuck yous to their player base.

When EQ lost forums like FOH and the most influential communities, they started to go downhill. I worked at SOE at the time WoW came out and EQ2 was being developed. Up until that time, SOE was the king of MMOs. 60 minutes even did a documentary about the game. It was a revolutionary product.

SOE made 2 major mistakes with the development of EQ2 that forever changed their future.

1. A graphics engine that was too realistic and even the top PCs at the time couldn't run it. It still runs like shit today. WoW was polished and artistically stylized. It ran on low end machines very well. It was a polished product designed to attract as many players as possible. You had to do a serious upgrade to run EQ2. EQ2 was had ugly horrible character models that looked like they had down syndrome.

2. The newbie experience. EQ2's Newbie experience was pathetic. The ISle of Dawn was boring and repetitive. Leveling was abysmally slow and you couldn't even pick a class until lvl 10. It was a huge grind just to pick a class. The 2 starting cities were a mess. Tons of "race city" zones around the huge castles that were barren and empty and difficult to fund your way around. Constant zoning over and over in the newbie areas sucked balls. It wasn't a centralized hub for social gathering. That's why there was "Barrens chat" and everyone leveled. A huge zone that felt like a community. Yes, I understand it got annoying, but you enjoy these games more when there is a real sense of community. Not a buggy POS cluster of bad zones with too much ugly brown and mobs like "crabs" and "snails" to endlessly whack. It was terrible game design.

SOE was oblivious to this. I rememberr George Scotto at the time would make fun of WOW. We weren't allowed to lay it at work. His exact words were "We've seen WOW and we're not impressed. Let's just say we're not worried about the competition."

They had lost their touch on the pulse of gamers, and started developing games to feed the addiction of their play base. Cock block them from content to keep them playing. Take their money. Where else are they going to go? EQ was it at the time. As soon as another option game that was from gamers who knew what people wanted, EQ was finished. WOW pre BC was the shit, and fuck anyone who thinks otherwise. It was a bad ass game with raid content that was a lot of fun. Naxx pwned faces and will always be the pinnacle of MMO raiding IMO.