I have a feeling that all of these rallying calls, amazing ai, and general world layout will become predictable within a month or so of launch.
This.
Ive tried Aion, AoC, Warhammer, and several others. Aside from one thing these games all had in common (WoW clone) they all had their own gimmicks. This is what scares me about EQN, that the digging, rally calls ect will just be another gimmick that sounds neat but in reality, isint.
In Aion, everyone was thrilled with "Omg you have wings and can fly?! Imagine the possibilities!".
In Age of Conan it was, "Dude! Directional moves and skilled combat, AND you cant run through other players! Think of all the tactical possibilities!" People ranting on and on about how you can block doorways, and since there's real collision, a sword sweep would actually do damage to the players it would hit. The discussions and hype about the new paradigm of MMO combat was all over the place. Turned out to be the worst button mashing experience of MMO history. Maybe more than eq2.
In Rift, "Check out all these possible class combos! You can do ANYTHING you want! The possibilities!" Yeah. That turned out real neat 2 weeks later when everyone found the golden combos and that was that.
In Warhammer it was public quests. Yea, theyre neat. But not as much as everyone at the time made it out to be.
Not going to chime in about gw2 because I never played it, but Im pretty sure I could fit that in here too. Oh wait...here it is..."The trinity is gone!! Now I dont have to worry about clerics/warriors/whatever else ect. "
Im sure I left out a game or two, but you get the idea. Granted, yes, these games had other problems such as stability, bugs, boringness ect. Im aware at how jaded this likely sounds, but its the truth.
I like EQN's ideas. Really, I do. I need more info about their systems. Way more. I genuinely hope the game turns out fantastic because this genre desperately needs it. Itd be nice if there was some EQesque easter eggs or mechanics or what-have-you, but honestly, I don't really give a fuck. As long as its fun, has tons of replay value, and runs like butter, Ill sub. For more than a month.
The cynic in me says it will be just another hype gimmick fest that will plop after 2 months. Fuck, even WoW is hemorrhaging subs at a rapid rate. That, to me, says a lot of things. Mainly what I get from it is that people are sick of the "formula" and the genre has gotten stagnant (obviously). It would be nice if EQN actually turned out to revolutionize some areas of the MMOs, and not just a bunch of neat ideas/gimmicks on paper.