In that scenario yes, but what about a scenario where WoW is released in the 1920's, in a world that is completely under water and we are ruled by sea horses? In that scenario I would propose that EQ would have crushed WoW, with a killer whales mattress.
EQ Never
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nah pretty sure it would have been a financial failure in that scenario. What I find more interesting than trying to imagine this comparison is to actually look at the MMO space over time. EQ and most every other game at the time grew overall (with minor peaks and valleys around expansions) until WoW. Then their (and nearly all other) populations dwindled. Post Wow (during the WoW Clone Era) games are launched and shoot up for 1-6 months then nose dive. The quality of the game is generally indicative of how long their peak will last before they crash, with some newer games not even lasting a month. This is visible on graphs from places like mmorgchart etc (if that still exists and is updated). With the widespread prevalence of F2P the water is muddled and comparing subscribers vs players becomes meaningless.
On a graph they all look like rolling hills (pre WoW) or mountain peaks (post WoW), they go up, they go down, some faster than others, but they all peak then fall and then stabilize at some minor population that slowly dwindles over time. Unless/until of course they are shut down. Even WoW has reached it's peak and it's numbers are finally coming down the other side of it's mountain, largely due to the oversaturation of WoW+ clones and the prevalence of F2P models they use.
With the exception of Eve Online and UO. Here is a game launched before WoW that wasn't immediately impacted by WoW's release. It started small and has slowly and steadily increased in players over time, and it is still growing despite the major shift to F2P that is killing WoW.
UO wasn't "killed" by EQ's release either. It also continued to grow despite EQ and then later, despite WoW's release. In fact is mostly still alive and kicking though the extremely dated graphics/isometric game design makes the game nearly impossible to attract new players.
What do they have in common? Well unlike EQ and all the games that came after it which were all just updated/different versions of EQ (including WoW), Eve was based on UO. They are both sandbox virtual worlds. That means PVP. (PVE sandbox is called Sims/GTA/etc and are single player offline games).
SOE are at their heart, band-wagoners. They talk as if Sandboxes are some brand new novel idea. They are a business, they certainly aren't the best at it but they can read the writing on the wall, and that is WoW clones (which are, at their heart, just EQ clones) aren't working. The reality is that virtually every MMO currently in development is a sandbox virtual world. Wildstar will be the last AAA WoW clone title and after it's 30 days of subs it'll be DOA just like the rest.
EQN is just SOE's "Me too" Sandbox title that will join the dozens currently being developed.
But sandbox is such a crappy wishy washy term. Stuff like ArcheAge is not what I'd call a sandbox at all, it's just another WoW clone but with a bit more emphasis on crafting and pvp.
If EQ Next has hard mobs and gets rid of the quest grind, then that alone will make it special. If it has a destructible environment and player made towns and stuff, then I think it could be classed as a true sandbox, all this other crap isn't.
If EQ Next has hard mobs and gets rid of the quest grind, then that alone will make it special. If it has a destructible environment and player made towns and stuff, then I think it could be classed as a true sandbox, all this other crap isn't.
My point is this. A lot of you have so much faith in SOE to make EQ Next the next big thing. A lot of you are saying that's it for you and MMO's if it fails. You have so much faith in SOE because if they did it with EQ they can do it again. I'm not sure if you guys realise but they have already tried again with EQ 2 and were crushed by WoW. I hope EQ Next is great but all of your hope is misplaced and irrational there is really nothing to indicate that SOE above any other dev team will make the next big thing. At the moment all of you are clinging on to an irrational sense of nostalgia. Especially guys like Qwerty and Tad.
I think player designed content could work if everything was voted on and then went through final approval by SOE. Give the players the tools to create content but only a very few things ever get chosen (best of the best). If the content you were working on didn't get picked then you go back, make it better, and try again. This would allow for quicker new content to players while SOE worked on larger content releases for the game. I think there are a ton of super talented people who could create some really great content for players.
I've always thought minecraft + X mmo is the next step in the genre. So I agree with you.
oh mi godd there woz a seqwel to everqest?! omg omg! Wot other hot new informationz do you haz?
How many thousands of times do you morons need to be told this? It's not nostalgia if you go back and play it today and decide that it was in fact good, even compared to modern alternatives. That's not nostalgia, that's just liking something old.
And for what it's worth, I hate SOE. If you want to prod me with gay snipey shit, at least come up with something vaguely valid.
Yeah keep those "I agree with you" kiss ass posts coming, you have to mix those in with all your dumb fuck ones so you can get those oh so important +1 points you care so much about.
Mr Creed
Too old for this shit
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Pretty much the reason for half my posts here as well - having faith in SOE remaking EQ in a way that does not make HEAVY concessions to the changes that swept the whole genre (imo the worse) is just setting your up for a rude awakening. Rather then clinging to that hope, I do hope they can actually make something "kinda new" that clicks with me.
Edit: After the reveal if EQN is not the second coming of EQ1, do we migrate the demand for an EQ remake into another thread or keep it here?
Lol you think I care about negs? On FOH board I had over 100 because I enjoyed trolling. Only you would think agreeing with someone is kissing ass. I'm not even going to bother with you. I enjoyed arguing with Cinge more because at least he had logic behind his arguments. You are just a fat pedo that needs to see a shrink. If anyone wants a good laugh just read your posts they are pure gold mines when you actually realize how retarded you are.
Of course you care, you are the one who judged me based on mine. It was only then when I realized you farm for them by kissing ass. It is sickening to watch. But the reason you are the worst poster is that you are just so dumb. You make a whole series of idiotic posts and then I call you out on it and you say you are done and run away like a little bitch. And you pretend like you have these deep logical arguments with someone and then call someone you know nothing about a fat pedo in the same breath. You have the mind of a 9 year old.
If EQN isn't it, then it's not worth waiting for. Because it definitely wont happen from any mainstream game. People will have to settle for Shroud of the Avatar or something until some small fry low budget indie MMO comes along eventually that will do a decent job.
I do not think they tried at all in EQ2 to make it like EQ. They were VERY different games. To me, EQ2 felt like a worse version of WoW. Trying to go the same way, but not as well. They were released within a few months of eachother if I remember correctly, I was in college at the time. I played both, liked WoW better, but I never got into wow. Fun to run around, but it also missed quite a few things. It never felt dangerous. It was so bright and cheery. No darkness at night. No danger of dying.
I do not think it is irrational to believe that other people have come to the same conclusion as me. Some of EQs mechanics are no longer in play in MMOs, and in all this time, no other game has given the same "feeling". All this talk of "you can never get your first again" "can not get back your mmo virginity" is nonsense. Rarely will your first time be the best in your life, but if that first tickled you at the right spot, that does not mean that can not be replicated. It can be better as well as featuring some of the old kinky stuff you only got from your first who might be considered batshit insane compared to the norm today.
SOE has an edge because they have the creators of a mmo that did things differently. They too, like us, have seen where the mmos have gone. If they played their own game, which they did, they know just as I do that EQ had things that did not cater to the norm. Some unintended, lacking things that today are must have features like quest logs, maps and automated auction houses and others deliberate designs like death penalty, a harder difficulty of mobs and, a black night and longer downtimes.
It is easy to say those features would not be wanted today, but most mmo players today have never seen them. There are far more people who played WoW as their first than EQ. But similar to EQ, I constantly how WoW players long back to vanilla features. I do not really know the difference between vanilla and new, but having tried it again now with a mist of pandaria trial, it seems so... streamlined amd accessible. Even more than what it was compared to EQ. No talent trees, just automated skills, hunters start with pets...
I see it as completely reasonable that the developers of SOE know now to implement, or not implement, features that can once again make it players vs the world. If the world has no hardships, it will not feel real. Similar to the Matrix where they mentioned that the machines tried to create a utiopia, but the world crashed because people did not believe it was real. in EQ you were in a world that could hurt you, but a community formed around every part of it. Clerics would come rez, necros would summon. Players interconnected because they had to. Then later on, you might try to solo as you learned your class enough. It was not hard to see what higher level characters were PLed or bought characters. This because it was impossible to progress in EQ by yourself without learning or communicating with other players, which would make you learn anyways. Because the hardships of the world would make others pay if you kept being incompitent, so it was in everyones best interest to give help rather than just shout out "newb".
Tldr again, but I do not think it is an irrational sense of nostalgia to see what has been lost. Most people now never knew it was there to begin with. SOE now has the ability to bring back features to make them seem new. Problem is that nearly every feature they can bring back are downsides, that make the game less accessible. SOE is perhaps the only company with developers with enough pre-knowledge on this to be able to pitch it to the people financing it and make it sound good to be hurt. They made it profitable before. If EQN does not go backwards to some hardships, we will never see that in mmos again. Next gen mmos will rather be on pads, tap here to win your daily. More people might play them then, but I doubt those games will be for me. There are a dozen mmos out now, all of them "this is your story, this is your set progression". And everyone has the intro of being the special someone. Thousands of people with stories destined to save the world jumping from quest hub to quest hub in a optimal path. Interacting mostly with people when you need to. In EQ you interacted with people on a constant basis because you were all there together, in a world that was against you. Nearly every downside of the game could be countered by certain classes. Make the world special, then we can create our own stories having to band together to survive it. You are in our world now. I miss that. It should not be impossible to re-create. They have the mission statement in the original EQ intro.
Grim1
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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QFT
This is why I only lasted in WoW for less than 2 months, and the same for all of it's clones. WoW is boring, no danger, no challenge, no sense of accomplishment.
Grim1
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Have played EvE off and on since it was released, have a couple accounts. Usually only last a month or two though, just can't stand the actual combat. Everything else is good, and it looks like Smedley is heavily influenced by EvE. Which is a good thing. Still haven't gotten around to playing Darkfall, been meaning to. Should probably pull the trigger.
Miele
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In all honesty, I thought EQ2 was worse than WoW mainly for combat and some crappy animations, but I liked it for a lot of other features above wow, from dungeon design, to heritage quests and similar stuff. WoW was superior as a whole, but in the end it was the spammy 24 hotkey per rotation combat that made me flee from EQ2. I still enjoyed playing it in KoS and EoF, but Kunark was disappointing.
Nonetheless SoE has always implemented interesting stuff: Qeynos Claymore, Peacock Line, Prismatics, the EoF weapons, etc. and their dungeon design has always been interesting, from larger to smaller zones, often very beautiful to see.
So, no, EQ2 was not a total failure in my eyes, even if eventually lost most of its subs to other games, WoW ahead of them.
I played WoW as well, still sporadically load it up to do challenge modes with friends and we still epically fail some of them, because yeah, we suck sometimes
but until it's fun, I'll do it.So... GW2 is fun, WoW is sometimes fun, I'm okay right now. If EQ next will be fun, good, another to play, but I'll doubt I'll spend the ridicolous amount of time playing it as EQ made me waste back in those years.
Grim1
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EQ2 had very little to do with EQ Classic. It was seen as more of a group game for the masses at the time it was released. Everyone who was "hardcore" thought it sucked. Great game for playing with the family though.
There are some things to like in EQ2 but it is nothing like EQ1.
I would love to see a modern recreation of EQ Classic with some updated mechanics and I think it would be popular, but EQNext will not be that. My guess is that EQNext will be very different from EQ and EQ2. I hold out hope that it will be a little more harsh and unforgiving like EQ because of EvE's influence, but otherwise expect it to be very different game.
EQ and EQ2 still have a bunch of servers and are very profitable for them. They will not want to cannibalize too many of those players. They are mainly looking for a new audience and to bring back players that they have lost.
There are some things to like in EQ2 but it is nothing like EQ1.
I would love to see a modern recreation of EQ Classic with some updated mechanics and I think it would be popular, but EQNext will not be that. My guess is that EQNext will be very different from EQ and EQ2. I hold out hope that it will be a little more harsh and unforgiving like EQ because of EvE's influence, but otherwise expect it to be very different game.
EQ and EQ2 still have a bunch of servers and are very profitable for them. They will not want to cannibalize too many of those players. They are mainly looking for a new audience and to bring back players that they have lost.