EverQuest 2 Q&A

[Evil Avatar]

Gamecloud has posted a brief interview (http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=554) with Sony Online's Scott Hartsman, talking about the second adventure pack for Everquest 2, The Splitpaw Saga.

[bobbler]

While some might not like the game, Scott Hartsman is a great. He made a lot of changes to EQ2 when he took over, and conceded to a lot of mistakes made.

[Klade]

Compared to the first Everquest or World of Warcraft or even expectations for EQ2, it's a train wreck. To not acknowledge mistakes would be silly in the extreme. That being said I hope they realize at some point in the future that harsh death penalties, and slow experience grinding are part of the first generation of MMOs and don't belong in modern day society. If they fix that then I'll give the game a shot, till then I'm not interested in the slightest.

[Celestin]

Hey look - it's a troll name Klade!

Seriously, *especially* with Splitpaw, but even before it's release, leveling is really quick and death penalties are really light. They've retuned the low-end game to make it pretty darn painless and easy to solo in all level ranges and with vitality, you can earn double exp for everything you do. Very casual, small group friendly.

The death penalties are basically the same as WoW except repairs cost a few silver or gold in the 40+ range. Big deal. I need to complete a single quest to offset getting killed six or seven times, and this is the same regardless of if your in your 20's or 50.

Is it a perfect game? Heck no - but at least be critical of something that's actually wrong with it.

Celestin

[bobbler]

I wouldn't really call it a trainwreck -- I thought it had a far better ground to go from than WoW did. Of course WoW's problems are more of the nature of longevity than anything else. It is for the instant gratification masses -- content is consumed too fast for a company that makes molasses look like speed grease. Just because EQ2 wasn't trivial in leveling or death penalty doesn't mean it was inherently bad -- it was for a different audience.

You do realize how few developers actually admit mistakes? It is amazing to see some actually do it -- most will try to shift the game around their mistakes rather than admitting them. =p

Leveling has already turned into a joke, by the way -- death penalty is only harsh when you compare it to the trivial death penalty (can you even call it a penalty?) that wow has. It isn't bad at all. Death without penalty is pointless -- you may as well be cheating.

Everquest is still a better game overall than WoW or EQ2 is, as far as I'm concerned. The friggin lack of freedom EQ2/WoW have is appalling. That was what set MMO games apart for me -- I could do whatever I wanted and there wasn't a beaten path I had to take. Both WoW and EQ2 are far too much on rails for my tastes.

With that said... I don't really have time to put into any MMO anymore.

[Klade]

*rolls eyes* if you want to critize my post thats fine, I expect it and welcome it. But please read it first.

Compared to the numbers of EQ, WoW or the expectations of EQ2 (before release of course) then yes the current state of affairs is a trainwreck. Most reviewers and such were calling for EQ2 to at least equal EQ1's numbers if not flat out increase them across the board. I think EQ2 is just over 200k subscribers. This of course is nothing to sneeze at. But there is also a pretty darn steady decline in the population. Considering that EQ1 at its hieght at 500k and WoW has even more then that now I'd call it a trainwreck but maybe thats just me.

As for developers not admitting mistakes. Well ya they do it all the time. One of the standard review questions asked these days is "what would you do differently if you could do it again?". Heck there's an entire review genra out now called post-mortem (sp), that basically does just that. It is however rare for SOE to admit mistakes.

Now my knowledge of the current state of affairs in EQ2 comes 2nd hand since I haven't played the game in a while but its my understanding that you still lose exp when you die? If so then thats what I'm talking about. Theres no call for that these days, its a first generation MMO feature thats been slowly taken out of other games over time. I've been told it even takes longer to level a character to max in EQ2 then it does in EQ1 and the first everquest had crazy long leveling times making it impossible for the casual player to advance to max level in less then a years time.

Maybe thats been changed too but somehow I doubt it.

[XenonCJ]

I wouldn't really call it a trainwreck -- I thought it had a far better ground to go from than WoW did. Of course WoW's problems are more of the nature of longevity than anything else. It is for the instant gratification masses -- content is consumed too fast for a company that makes molasses look like speed grease. Just because EQ2 wasn't trivial in leveling or death penalty doesn't mean it was inherently bad -- it was for a different audience.

You do realize how few developers actually admit mistakes? It is amazing to see some actually do it -- most will try to shift the game around their mistakes rather than admitting them. =p

Leveling has already turned into a joke, by the way -- death penalty is only harsh when you compare it to the trivial death penalty (can you even call it a penalty?) that wow has. It isn't bad at all. Death without penalty is pointless -- you may as well be cheating.

Everquest is still a better game overall than WoW or EQ2 is, as far as I'm concerned. The friggin lack of freedom EQ2/WoW have is appalling. That was what set MMO games apart for me -- I could do whatever I wanted and there wasn't a beaten path I had to take. Both WoW and EQ2 are far too much on rails for my tastes.

With that said... I don't really have time to put into any MMO anymore.Everquest1 better than WoW? Now that's a joke right? From what I remember of EQ1, there was NO real quest system at all. You just went to different zones to level up (repeated for DAYS), camp FOR HOURS AND HOURS for "phat lewtz" (fishbone earring/jboots/GBS anyone?), or went on raids with WHEN ALLOWED by "uberleet guildie"-asshole-control-freak-teenagers\kids THAT'S IT. I remember EQ1 more like WORK than FUN.

[TrackZero]

Leveling has already turned into a joke, by the way -- death penalty is only harsh when you compare it to the trivial death penalty (can you even call it a penalty?) that wow has. It isn't bad at all. Death without penalty is pointless -- you may as well be cheating.

Actually, the death system in WoW is one of the best things about it. It doesn't make me want to die more or less, it's still a royal pain in the ass to run back to my body and it does cost me some money in repairs. What it doesn't do is outright punish my character's development in any way (experience points), which is how it should be.

But, different strokes for different folks. I just don't like to be punished for playing a game.

[TrackZero]

Now my knowledge of the current state of affairs in EQ2 comes 2nd hand since I haven't played the game in a while but its my understanding that you still lose exp when you die? If so then thats what I'm talking about. Theres no call for that these days, its a first generation MMO feature thats been slowly taken out of other games over time. I've been told it even takes longer to level a character to max in EQ2 then it does in EQ1 and the first everquest had crazy long leveling times making it impossible for the casual player to advance to max level in less then a years time.

Maybe thats been changed too but somehow I doubt it.

Yeah, EQ1 was a brutal system. Fun game, don't get me wrong, I loved EQ. But that was then and this is now. I spent a about 8 months in EQ only to make it to level 29. That's playing every day for at least a few hours. It didn't help that most of the game was spent in a yoga pose "mezzing" and just chatting with guildies. I then went through AO, DAoC, SWG, CoH and so on until WoW.

Put blunty, everyone looks for different things in their games. EQ2 takes a certain mindset of gamer to enjoy it, most people have a better time with WoW.

[Celestin]

Yer killing me...

1. EQ2 has over 250k subs at the moment per here: http://www.mmogchart.com/. (Which is actually out of sync with published SOE numbers to the low side.) Interestingly, EQ2 is well ahead of where EQ was at this point in it's life cycle.

2. Who knows what their expecations were? And besides that - who cares? You can't *play* expectations. Sure some talking head pundits may have been chattering away, but that simply noise not information and sure as hell not fun. I'm sure somewhere there's a internal company chart that predicted how many subscribers that these games would have at this point and yeah it's probably under as SOE and over at WoW, but here's a tip for you - these numbers are 100% of the time wrong because they're total wide ass guesses.

3. No you don't loose exp. No you can't loose a level. There's exp debt but it's not even worth mentioning it because it's an even smaller non-factor than paying for repairs. It decays over time (even when logged off) and kill a couple of monsters and it's paid. It's just a different mechanic to get you to go back to your body.

As far as game systems go, these games are really really really similiar. Astonishingly so. Nearly all of the differences between the two games, and why people prefer one over the other, can be attributed to art and backstory.

[Klade]

1) The graph thats on there is not very specific, maybe theres a good number in the excel sheet I ddin't bother to look but your right it looks to be over 250k. This is still down from what it once was.

2) There was more then one interview before the launch where devs said they expected EQ1 people to switch over and that they also expected to bring in new people to the genra. Since EQ2 still has numbers significantly lower then EQ1 I think its safe to say this didn't happen to their expectations and its pretty darn significant that they were off by this much. It says that their game isn't as fun and popular as they thought it was going to be.

3) Your kidding yourself. An exp debt IS losing exp. To prove it you simply have to ask if it wasn't there would you have gained more exp then if it was? If so then you just lost exp. If I get a fine from a court thats automatically docks my wages every month have I lost money? I think so.

I'm not trying to say that people can't find this system fun. 250k obviously do or at least a good damn number of them do. I'm only pointing out that compared to what the devs thought, and to what the silly analysts thought, the game is doing pretty darn bad right now.