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Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka
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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???
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Well, AA and Bazaar I agree with you. I viewed the bazaar as an ok addition, but pre pop. Pre pop, people would still hang out and sell stuff but just at a different location. Not talking about vendors, I mean trading and haggling prices outside of the vendor area. lol a lot of people would not even go into the vendor area due to the horrendous lag/video thrashing. When pop came around, with the instant travel, it became vendors only. Then later they broke up the vendor areas to kill the lag.
I liked AA, well enough at least. It was an answer to balance and better specialization. Though maybe not implemented quite right. At least it was an addition and not a total revamp of the existing system, as often that does not work out *cough SWG*
PoK (the books) is valid point made as a bad thing. It would not be a sudden downfall, just like many of the new play to win games last for a few expansions before players get bored and leave. EQ got reeeeal easy with instant travel, which is a point to which the vendors became so dominant over the hagglers/traders; no one would stick around more than 10 minutes. Then players could just travel anyplace at any time, as they did often, rather then spending a week or two in an area and meeting new players over time. It killed the community this quick travel, and EQ's strong point was community.
I'd also mention instancing as a bad thing. It brought further division to the game community just as instant travel did. So now not only could you get someplace instantly, and leaving an area after a day or two thus not getting to know anyone, but you could have your own secluded area of the game to play in, just like a multiplayer RPG.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Kika Maslyaka
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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.
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Well not on EQ live.... apart from the occasional progression servers they run now. All the community breaking "improvements" they introduced still exist. Some still sub, though probably a large part of them being station access members that play EQ as an alt game to the other games SOE includes into access. That's what it became to me after the game changes, for me at least, playing planetside and SWG but until those got screwed up too.
Yes, and too, when new games came out, players started filtering out of EQ. However, most of WoW consisted of Blizzard fanbois; those that preferred games like Diablo and warcraft (rts) playing those for years, following Blizzard games like mad puppies. Blizzard had a large playerbase before WoW was even conceived, and they got all their non-mmo players to join through aggressive marketing. As it became popular, many from the existing mmo's filtered into it due to the large communities it spawned while games like EQ having it's community destroyed by SOE. And as many of the hardcore (desiring depth) realized, WoW sucked pretty hard, at least after vanilla (I didn't play vanilla but later, and it sucked). But then maybe vanilla WoW sucked too, but just a delayed effect like what PoK instant travel books did to EQ in time.
I don't disagree with Rogean, it a way WoW did kill EQ. Not because WoW was better though, but because Blizzard pulled in a lot of non-mmo subscriptions, flooded the market with a lot of "prospective subs" that every developer decided to chase after, rather than the traditional MUD/MMO player any longer. These non-mmo players went around criticizing all the existing mmo's for not being WoW enough for them, or like before WoW they criticized mmo's for not being like Diablo enough in which the debates raged for years as they wanted Diablo recognized as an mmorpg. But they are mostly Blizzard fanbois, and no game will be good enough for them to hang out bored to death in but for Blizzard games. Developers only see leprechauns, chase after them while abandoning their existing communities and the games they like to play.