f13.net

Looks like EQ2 on the 8th and WoW on the 22nd.

http://www.freep.com/entertainment/videogames/gbits24e_20041024.htm

I think it's a mistake by VU not to tell the team to slap on missing talents and match EQ2's release date.  Or announce a Lineage2-stype "open beta/beginning of retail" starting November 2.  Releasing WoW after HL2 is also a mistake, but a smaller one.  EQ2's "we'll be just as unfinished Dec 8th and Nov 8th so lets go grab some grindshare now" move is pure, unmitigated business brilliance.   EQ2's low level game does not suck, and they can get people hooked in 2 weeks.

The fatalistic response to the release date of EQ2 is a bit disturbing. That's the vicious cycle we are supposed to be railing against, isn't it? The whole, "well now is better than later because we can always patch in content" thing should be bad business, not good.

They will get none of my money anyway, regardless of release date.

We should be, but consumers are weak sheep-minded beings.  MMOs have learned this and know that people will pay to beta. SOE is just taking advantage of this, and I can't blame SOE for it, since it's good business to (legaly) exploit stupid people.

I agree with ElGallo. This is a brilliant move for SOE because 1) anyone who was on the fence and trys-out EQ2 will get hooked before WoW releases and 2) they've blown less money over the course of time (shorter dev cycle, shorter beta and therefore less bandwith, etc. ) and are getting a ROI on that money now, rather than later.

Only the hardest of the catasses will get into the untested areas of EQ2 before the first month(s?) are over.  I don't expect their whiens will scare off anyone more than the early SWG or EQ whines did.  *IF* that stuff isn't fixed by the time the majority get there, though, yeah it'll be a wondeful cacophony of "WTF it's SWG part 2!"

heck, if I were Blizzard, and I could convince VU to let me... I'd push make my release date to Dec. 8, or into next year if possible.  Get the game absolutely smooth, clear up balance problems, etc, and launch around the time everyone's coming off their free month of EQ2... A month for most early adopters should be enough time for them to see the grind rear it's ugly head, and give them the chance to deal with the negative and positive aspects of the game.

Then you launch WoW, and have the in-store displays talk about how WoW is different from/better than EQ2.

Profit!

Alkiera

I agree with Alkiera that Blizz should consider a possible pushback for profit motives if they can get the game humming to near bug-free stablization in that time. People will burnout on EQ2, and if you can get the hype train rolling at the same time you can steal that consumer wave. Besides, coming in a close second in the release game doesn't really matter. Now, its important to start distinguishing WoW from the competition.

Blizzard is numero uno in the push back sector.  It has probably been done already.

I have a hard time picturing the disappointing launches of SWG and Shadowbane did not do severe damage to their forecasted player base in the long run.

First to market in MMORPGs, given the history of events, may be less imporant than First Impressions.

But would longer before release actually have helped?

Last time I played SWG a few months ago I was still running into bugs from release.

Yep, gotta agree with Gallo here that this is just brilliant on SOE's part.  

In my estimation, EQ2 will have a bad release. The server stability and bug squashing just isn't there.  But, it isn't to the point of "FUCK THIS GAME, I'M NEVER COMING BACK".  Someone at SOE really understands the market.  Their game is more about the hook and retention than WoW is.  EQ2 needs to hook people and get them attached to their characters because the game lacks the overall enjoyment of WoW (IMO of course) and currently lacks some of the polish.  WoW is more complete but EQ2 is fantastic at hiding how far from ready it actually is due to the excessively long grind.

This is really going cause WoW to lose a lot of the fence sitters. WoW is going to come off looking splendid in comparison to EQ2, but it won't matter when they've lost a significant portion of people that got hooked on the first "next big thing" out the door.

It's amazing just how well SOE knows their audience and how to manipulate them. Hats off.

Frankly its probably a great move for eq2. The content up to level 20 has been pretty well done for a while now.  A few quests need some fixing and the lag in antonica I needs to improve a bit more but the majority of folks will not see any of the more unfinished content probably for at least 3 to maybe 5 weeks.

I am sure it will get alot of board bitching but the main thing for the suites is get people in and playing money now. Appologize and fix post releaseas needed.

With another big competitor like WoW getting ready to release beating them to market is a huge thing for SOE.

kaid

I would think some people would be asking for whichever is out for christmas.  I'd be very happy with another week delay of WOW - I'm going to be vacationing that week.

Or for the "here's your EQ2 since it was out, don't burn the house down while I am at work and you are on vacation." scenario.

Do you folks think that these games have legs..and what I mean is..how long can SOE et al. keep producing these same sort of games before the market is just exhausted.
First off, will EQ II have more subscribers than EQ? If it doesnt do as well as EQ is SOE bound to come out with EQ III?
How many ppl will buy and play both WoW and EQ II? Is there enough market share for both of them?
With EQ II will SOE try to get everyone over to that and eventually bring EQ to an end?
Will Shannow stop with the fucktard questions?

Seriously Im interested to know what ppl forsee for the future with the release of these two games into the market. (Maybe we could start a new thread). The reason Im interested is the belief that the industry will at one point or another face a time where they simply cant keep recycling the same old shit and that if one of these games fails miserably (maybe more importantly EQ II) then we may see change that we are looking for.

Let me rephrase 'fail miserably'. Neither of these games , espcially in the short term, is going to fail miserably, but they may fail nevertheless. By that I mean they may fail simply by not being a EQ/DaOC smash hit...either they never reach the subscriber numbers seen by those games or they quickly start losing subscriber numbers after an initial burst of 6 months or so.

Again feel free to enlighten me here as I keep rambling...Im wondering if a game goes out and get 300k subscribers in its first 6 months but then quickly drops off to say 100k or less is it a failure? Or is that large amounts of cash they bring in initially enough to turn in a decent profit over dev + maintenance costs?

Basically what Im asking is 'What will be the definition of success for these two games and if these don't succeed do we see that having a long term effect on the MMOG industry, good or bad?'

I'll check the box marked "Strongly Disagree"

Not sure what game you were playing, but it pretty much sucked cock to me. Also, I think it's a HUGE mistake for EQ2 to release this early just to try to beat WoW out. Better to, oh, I don't know, FINISH the game first. Get rid of Lagtonica, maybe have some actual time to test the new "character diversity changes" and such. Hell, if you release early with a shitty game, it doesn't matter if you beat WoW or Jesus Christ himself to the punch, you'll take one in the chao sack. Whereas if you release later, make the game better, you let people get over the honeymoon period of WoW and pick up the stragglers.

This will just not end well.

I agree with the HaemishM.

I got tired of EQ2 before I ever reached Lagtonica. But I'm a veteran who can spot the evil Grind Wolf in pretty sheep's clothing.

If I could scrub my brain clean, and EQ2 was the very first MMORPG I ever played, I would get hooked. Hard. And I'm sure that's SOE's strategy for this move.

Morons (SOE and Blizzard).

Bruce

I think SOE will probably make EQ3 if EQ2 makes money. Otherwise, they probably will not make another EQ game unless it's on consoles or not an MMO. As far as subscribers go ... well, my guess is that it'll be about the same until a few months in, then EQ2 will nose dive. Or so my prayers go at night.



I don't see very many people playing/paying for both. I may pay for EVE and WoW at the same time, but I really can't see justifying paying for two fantasy MMOs at the same time.

I also think that there is more than enough market share for both. Look at it this way: millions of people play video games, only a million or so play MMOs. So, in theory, there's plenty of room for both.

WoW has an advantage because of what Richard Bartle calls the 'newbie hose'. There are plenty of bnet players (not to mention just plain ol' Blizzard fans) who have never played an MMO who will make WoW their first. EQ2, on the other hand, is basically (imho) just catering to all the EQ players they've lost and want back on their bottom line - we probably won't see very many players from the "neverplayedanMMObefore" market letting EQ2 pop their cherry.



I'm willing to bet (at least $5) that they let EQ go until it dies. Right now it makes more money than any of their other MMO games (I think) and it would be silly to disrupt that. I do see a lot of people moving to EQ2, but it'd be interesting to see if they cancel their EQ2 subscription and continue to play the more stable/familiar/whatever EQ1.

I think they are aiming at the "I like MMOGs and want MMOG1.5" market rather than the "I hate MMOGs, the whole genre should be burned to the ground and replaced with something that I can't ever manage to describe but any idiot can see is vastly superior to anything ever put out by the industry so far because it is entirely populated with moronic cockgobblers" market.

Then they failed, because EQ2 is MMOG 1.0 Shiney Skinned Version.

Hopefully this will hasten the end of this current generation of MMOG's. Whether that end will give us a dearth of investment in the genre or give rise to some new players doing some innovative things to tap the unused market remains to be seen.

Or, people really are stupid sheep and will keep lapping up the same crap in greater and greater numbers. Somehow I don't see that happening..colour me foolishly optimistic.

As far as the whole EQ2 vs WoW thing goes, I'm still in the middle. I know that everyone has their opinions about it, but I will try BOTH before making my desicion. I don't know if many people are like me, but even if EQ2 blows me away and I fall in love with it, I will STILL try WoW and try to go into in unbiased. I, for one, want to be able to weigh the pros and cons of both before throwing myself at the mercy of SOE or Bliz. But, from reading these posts, it seems that a lot of you guys think the masses will be swayed by EQ2 because it is releasing first. Why is that?

For those who are totally burnt out on MMRPG eq2 and wow are not going to bring back the warm fuzzy feelings. If they release the 8th or wait till next year for those who are truly burnt out on MMRPG it aint ever going to be your thing.


Most of the folks I know who I have been playing with are all enjoying EQ2 and most enjoyed WoW as well.

I so far have a character to level 20 in eq2 and I still have not really gotten much past the antonica zones such as stormhold and black burrow. There is a great deal of content and places to visit even at this point. leveling is pretty painless at least so far till 20 not quite as rapid as WoW but not that far behind either.

Honestly one thing I really like about eq2 is it is very group oriented. My favorite way to play MMRPG are with a group of friends who I always game with.

oic
<3

Yes but what about those who aren't quite burnt out yet? They're not satisfied enough to stay with their current choice (EQ1, DaOC whatever) so they try out the shiny of EQ2/WoW and how long before they start to burn out on those espcially when they find nothing much has changed outside of prettier graphics.
I'm thinking we are headed into a cycle of diminshing returns for these MMOGs until something truely innovative comes out.

Amen.  I bought the DAOC "Trials of Atlantis" expansion, and spent about 3 hours saying "oooh what interesting underwater graphics", about 2 weeks saying "WTF are these godawful quests that require 50 people," and about 30 seconds to hit the CANCEL button.

DnD is just a bunch of dice, books, and smelly people, and it is a great game.  EQ had crap graphics arguably even in 1999 at release, and it continues to hook 400k subscribers or so.  Graphics may help you lure some people in, but they are not going to stay if your gameplay is excrement.

Sums it up for me... well phrased.

I would have to bet that nearly everyone here feels this way about almost every mmog.  So... what is it that keeps dragging us back?  Is it some distant glimmer of hope that "this time will be different"?  I liken it to the nightmare relationship you're "friend" clung to as a teen thinking that they could magically make it all better.  I guess the reward for such wisdom is that we buy the box, play it until it gets stale, and then move on just as we would with a single player game.

A friend told me how much fun I would have if I just tried taking some red pills. He was right, it was fun. I had so much fun I couldn't wait to get home and do some more red pills. Eventually, I started getting sick of the red pills and it just wasn't getting me as excited as before. So I decided to try some of this new blue pill everyone was talking about. Sure, the blue pill was a little different, and it worked pretty well in the beginning. But it didn't take long to start feeling the same as with the reds. I then tried some greens and some oranges. Some lasted longer than others, but eventually they all ended up with me feeling the same way. Then I would remember how great the reds made me feel and I thought I would try them again. It wasn't the same so I had to quit again.

I'm sure this new purple pill coming out soon will be the best ever.

Remember Haemish and his "Dear MMOG (http://www.f13.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=467)" letter?  Well there ya go.  Everybody longs for that newbie virgin feeling, back when they explored their first MMO with lust and longing, desperately craving it when they were apart.  Yet every time it ends tragically, until you are left as a jaded F13 poster, telling everybody how cynical you've become yet secretly hoping to rediscover your inner n00b.

If the erection lasts more than 4 hours, be sure to consult a doctor.

We all want to rediscover our inner nOOb, the problem is no one has introduced anything sufficiently new (caveat: New AND well implemented) to the genre lately. We the sheep coming back, but! the difference is we last less and less which each new game until the point that we try the beta and go 'gack, no thanks' and don't even bother to buy the box.

The critical point is whether enough people (not just us jaded types on f13) are starting to hit that cycle. We'll see I guess.

We're screwed whatever happens. If EQ2 is a huge success, the money men will pronounce the EQ2 formula as the only one worth banking on. If EQ2 is a dismal failure, the money men will pronounce the death of the MMOG and cease to finance them.

Interesting.  If it fails though - we might see a surge in CoH instead.  I would regard that as a positive.

Dont be so sure. They know its out there so what some money men do is look for new ways to tap that cash. Yes some will drop out but others will stay in knowing that all we've seen is the first round..(think Atari early 1980s)

(Why is it I keep having an image of Timmy Turners dad from 'Fairy Oddparents' when talking about the mysterious 'money men' heh I have to stop watching tv with my son.:P)

Why does it make a difference? I don't think a lot of MMORPGs are "try and then buy." I would assume a lot of people were in one of the betas or know people who are and already have made their choice.

You guys make it sound like people who are "on the fence" will buy EQ2, then stick with it and play it forever. More than likely they know that WoW will be coming out very soon after, and are planning on playing only one.

If you told me that the day EQ2 was coming out there would be a free open beta you might be right. But as it is you HAVE to buy the box to get hooked. The opening level content is meaningless, you can't get hooked on it without buying the box first.

People get hooked on demos, betas, etc. They don't get hooked on boxes they have to buy at full price. Once you decide to buy or not buy the box the decision is made.

The reality is that both games will lose money as more people will be more inclined to just stick with what they play now.

Actually, if Blizzard plays this smart I think they can totally pwn SOE.

It's simple, Blizzard starts the open beta on Nov 8th with the caveat that if you purchase the retail box within one month of the retail's release date then you can keep the characters you played in open beta.

So, you can play WoW free for a couple of weeks and still keep your character you started in OB. Plays right into the "need to level quickly" mentality that most MMOGers have.

That would totally trump SOE, assuming they could pull if off without any glaring bug issues associated with it.

I think the subscription revenue stream will always appeal to investors.  And I am not just refering to MMOGs.  There is alot of money to be made with the subscription method.



I agree.  Whenever my guard is down, the initial full retail box price is the wall that constantly keeps me from testing out the latest grind/level POS.

That'd be interesting to say the least. Increase burnout factor, piss off new players, etc etc..Go ahead Blizzard.[/u]

Letting people keep Beta toons is a nightmare waiting to happen. You instantly create the haves/have-nots in your playerbase which is not a good idea at LAUNCH. Let that happen naturally as the game goes on, but don't handcuff youself right off the bat. The people playing in open beta that would be inticed by keeping characters are the same people that would play without it. In other words, its an unnecessary feature that can only piss off the casuals. Especially when you factor in any exploits that didn't make it to retail which bumped up all d00ds.

MMOG launches are one of the few times of near equality in the players, don't fuck with that.

FFO seems to be doing decently despite that.

I just don't understand how glacially slow Blizzard is.  The EQ2 team is flying right now.  All Blizzard needs to do to be release-worthy is slap on talents for 2 classes and some BS racial abilities.  But just doing that takes months.

I don't know that open beta alone will be enough to stop the bleeding to EQ2.  People would rather play their character than play some throwaway for a few weeks.  I think people are underestimating the number of people who are out there waiting for the next big game, think that both WoW and EQ2 could be it, and will buy whichever one hits the shelves first.  Or maybe I am overestimating.

I think you are underestimating the people who will be completely turned off because their computer shits a brick trying to run EQ2. I can almost guarantee they will sell a lot more boxes than they will have subscribers after the free month. And I don't think they'll sell a lot of boxes.

I'm sticking with my estimates of 50-100k for EQ2 (subscriptions) and 200k tops for WoW.

I'll bet you five dollah that EQ has more than 100k subs 6 months after release, including gold accounts or whatever they are calling the EQ+EQ2 package.  Remember when EQ1 was going to fail because nobody would ever buy a 3d card just to play a game?

Remember when MMOG companies gave out accurate subscription numbers in press releases?

I'd rather bet you $5 EQ2 doesn't do that.

It most definitely has taken them a long time to wrap things up but they're almost there.  Hunters and Paladins are the only classes left without talents.  Tigole has stated that Hunter talents are complete and will be going live in the  next patch.  Paladin talents are being worked on - who knows if they'll make the next patch or not.  One of the community reps made a post yesterday and said that they are "working" on the racial abilities and hopefully they will be ready for release.  Whether or not that happens remains to be seen.  They finally got all of the world maps in place along with maps to the major cities.  There are still quite a number of quests with no rewards on them, but most of these are in zones on Kalimdor and Blizzard has said they are doing a content pass on that continent.  I think things are shaping up quickly.  This next patch should be huge and will probably be the last patch before release.

I figured we would rely on our very own resident Font of All Knowledge Regarding MMOG Subscription Numbers and Politics. . .

Al Gore?

I'd rather use this service (http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/prophecy/45350).

I was convinced that would be goatse.

Yup, that was one item of wisdom about EQ. I certainly doubted it. And I played AC in emulation mode for a while because I had a laptop without a 3d card.

If my memory serves me, the other bit pre-launch bit of conventional wisdom was that the "PK Switch" was a dumb idea because only maybe 5 or 10% would turn themselves to non-PK.

I suspect WOW will do better than EQ2 at launch, but six months down the line, I suspect the reverse will be true. Unless you're a PVPer, I don't see where the game is with WOW.

If it is halfway decent, Guild Wars is going to devastate the idea of a "casual" MMPORPG market. GW is a very good reason to get WOW out the door now instead of February.

Blizzard North vs. Blizzard would be a battle I'd almost pay to see.

Arena.net = Blizzard North right?

Right.

One thing to note would be long term viability. WoW may have some issues because its graphics while very stylish and I like them currently are already sub par technically. While this is nice and it allows it to run realy fast on current systems there is some question about it in the long term.  If it already looks a bit dated polycount wise what will it look like in a year or 2 years?

Eq2 on the other hand already looks pretty good if harsh on system performance. I have for kickes turned the graphics up to HOLY CRAP PRETTY slideshow mode. There is a LOT of improvement available for improvement as peoples systems get better and better over the next few years.

EQlive aimed pretty much the same way. People had many doubts about a game that required a 3d card to run at the time it was released.

As far as game content additions I would have to say if beta is any judge SOE will leave WoW in the dust. WoW's patching is glacial even in beta they are pumping out maybe one patch a month. In release when they are not in full on frantic mode I expect it to be even slower.


kaid

Um if EQ2 only has a 100k subscribers after 6 months won't that be considered a bit of a failure (in the eyes of SOE and compared to EQ)? I cant see a mmolg greatly increasing its sub numbers that long after its release in todays market withouth some radical changes.

Stylish. Like it does now.  Seriously, in 3 years, Zelda: Windwaker would still be a beautiful game.  WoW will always be stylish.  This works for some people, it doesn't for others.  I don't mind it.  

After playing a bit more, EQ2's graphics just aren't doing much for me anymore except slowing me down.  I actually prefer the functionality of pre Luclin EQ or pre-ugly-3D of UO.  

Sometimes pushing the envelope is just pushing.  EQ2 shouldn't have gotten so ambitious with their graphics, because what became of it is somewhat underwelming.

I agree with Rasix on the visuals.  As DAoC has pointed out and EQ, the ability to upgrade the visuals is possible after release.

As for EQ leaving WOW in the dust by patching quickly, I do not agree with a caviat.  EQ has released some bombs over time patch wise, hopefully this has changed but to be honest I don't like SOE's track record.  I have not heard great big shouts of Broken in the WOW beta on the patches.  If they release them with the frequency of COH, I will be more than happy.  COH has about a month in a half to two month cycle it seems.

There's always the option of releasing new models later on like what Rasix mentioned with Shadows of Luclin for EQ and what Mythic is doing with Catacombs.

In short:

Other MMOs have patched-in new graphics.

None have patched-in the fun that wasn't there on release.

If there is any genius behind WoW - this is it.  These graphics will never become dated for all intent and purposes.  Imo, too few people recognize this.  EQII claims to have graphics built for the future that you can upgrade into - which as HaemishM points out - is dubious logic.

My problem with the 'Graphics your computer grows into' argument is that The engine designers are SOE... and EQ1, whose engine they also designed, runs far worse now, on my 1.4 Ghz +Radeon 9600 Pro, than it ever did when I had a 300Mhz K6 and a 8 meg Rage3D card.

My machine has grown, quite a bit, in power...  Yet EQ runs just as crappily.  Admittedly, if I turn off all the shiney features, so it's closer to the original client, I can speed it up somewhat...  But I'd still say it's slower than 5 years ago.

"OMG Pretty" is great in a game where you have time to stop and sniff roses and examine views without interruption.  It is less than great when it slows down your machine in a game that requires real-time decision making.

Alkiera

Honestly, a 1.4ghz is a piece of ass. You're 200% behind the curb. Now someone with a 2.4ghz+ would have a complaint. But ya know, complaints are complaints and SOE should listen to them every once in a while...but they don't (or don't seem to often enough).

And it's been a pretty fine piece of ass up until the last 3 months or so.  With my recent video card upgrade, I get good framerates in lots of 3d games, except EQ.  Considering the current engine is a couple years older than my hardware, low teens framerates really aren't acceptable.  This isn't a hardware problem, it's an artifact of their engine, which sucks.

And yes, schild, I'm aware I need to upgrade.  When I have the $450+ required to do so, I'll jump right on it.

Alkiera

Graphics style never goes out of date. I can still play plenty of 16 bit games.

One thing that annoyed me watching EQ2 movies was the way the characters moved, they just kind of slid along the ground while making vague foot-waving motions.

A small detail that helps a lot is when peopel walking/running really LOOK like they are walking/running, because you do a lot of that in these games. It takes you out of the game when you see the animation is very off. (That is the very first thing I noticed about AC2, the running animation didn't match the movement at all)

Yes the EQII movement animations have issues all stemming from the fact that they've had to use the original run and combat "stride" animations in ways that were never intended. The normal run animations look pretty good for the races I've tried (which isn't many). However, the "sprint" animation looks like something they added into the game later on since it's just a speeded up run animation which for many races (like the elves) looks horrible. The other problem is that they did not originally intend for you to be able to run while in combat but when they added that in, they took the original combat stride animation and again just speeded it up. That's the "stick up the butt" animation you see in many videos where the character is swinging her arms stiffy at her side with her weapon drawn. This is just the stupiest looking animation you could imagine. It's actually even worse looking when you play the game than it looks in videos cause you are normally sprinting when running away from combat which speeds up the goofy animation even more.

200K on launch for WoW? heh... I very much doubt that. It has substantial pull from multiple populations.

I'm also amused by the people who assume that because WoW has fast levelling relative to EQ2, EQ2 must be the more durable game. It confuses level curve with game, which I thought would be a hanging offence around here, and flies in the face of how little EQ2 endgame content has been revealed.

I think they assume that it will be more durable because over the course of a year SoE can push out three admittedly buggy but nonetheless popular expansions.  During that same time, Blizzard could maybe pull off 3 lines of code, but only if they were jacked on speed.

And those people are going to be seriously disappointed when they realise how awful a SOE "production line" expansion is. They tried this, one expansion every 6 months, in EQ and the results were spectacularly bad. I've also noticed SOE's patches look massive, but part of the reason is they list every game resource they modified, Blizzard doesn't.

Still, the growth phase will be fun to watch. This will be Blizzards first subscription game, so previous precedents are probably invalid. I have this dream, almost certainly foolishly optimistic, that they might act unlike SOE and actually keep a substantial live team able to keep growing content between expansions. They should also have more revenue to play with (depending on how hard EQ1 gets hit).

Some people are happier to have content they can bitch about while still using it than no content to consume while bitching.   I prefer quality over quantity, but I never got to any of EQ's upper content until 2-3 years after an expansion was released at the earliest.  It remains to be seen what players will prefer, but I do know that massive amounts of WoW hardcore players are bitching they're bored and the game isn't even out yet.

Problem is WoW isn't designed to cater to the Hardcore MMO player's consumption rate at this point.  Really, it's not. IMO that's a good thing, but if Blizzard can't manufacture content faster than they currently are you'll even have your casual players bitching that they've run out of new things to do, an entirely new phenomenon in MMOs.



Thing is, they have a substatnial live team NOW and content is pushed pretty damn slowly.  If they're going to do an expansion a year with a sizable portion of content, they're not going to have the resources to push content between them IN ADDITION to patching-in the stuff they're saying "after release" to right now.

A lot of people like to defent Bliz's slow patching by saying they're testing it thourougly internally.  Great if you catch all the big bugs that way, but they don't.  It's the nature of such a huge game that you don't catch all bugs until you've got 300k+ idiots trying their usual daily "Oh we didn't intend that skill to be used in THAT situation.. no wonder it broke" ways.  

SOE learned this early-on and decided a fast-response was better than slow-to-patch & still buggy. You're going to have to pay to fix those bugs regardless of who catches them.  While it's cost them some egg on their face for things they should have tested internally, and often they DO push without checking the actual test center bugs their cost/ bug is probably a lot lower.

I'm not saying I approve of SOE's method, but I understand it.  They're less concerned about reputation than Blizzard, and therefore will have higher ROI than Bliz will in the long-run, IMO.  There's a line that needs to be walked between the two methods that fosters both goodwill, & customer loyalty while not cutting into your profits by such a large margin.

I don't agree. If you look closer I think you'll find the loudest whiners are those who soloed to 60 and find no content because they don't have the social structures (or skills) to challenge instances. The true hardcore gamers know they'll exhaust content in any game, but they're also the ones most interested in loot farming. In theory it's meant to be life quests and hero quests that keep the soloists interested, but I've no idea if blizzard can pull that off.



It's the issue of SOE being `fast' that catches my attention. When they had problems with the introduction of DX9 or luclin animations in EQ1 it took *forever* for a response. In fact the luclin animations are still broken 4 expansions later. Their development of the combat openings system in EQ1, or their fixing of content errors in GoD was similarly tardy.

I get the feeling you're looking at the patch lists from EQ2 development, which appear quite inflated to me, with blizzards patch per month. I've no idea which team is developing faster, EQ2 patch lists have only just become available and I'm not interested enough to run a comparison. But to assume those will be indicative of progress after launch seems dangerous.

Patching in graphics is always an ugly, nightmare affair. Granted, the EQ1 engine was ass and had huge technical problems to start, so Luclin did not help that. DAoC is a lot more stable and functional so perhaps Mythic won't run into any problems there. But quite honestly, today, EQ1 still looks like absolute ass compared to anything available. But that's because they concentrate on the wrong things when attempting to make the graphics look better. But I digress.

I'm not trying to defend SOE though. WoW's graphics are stylish. I like them. EQ2's graphics are gorgeous. I like them.

I didn't agree with the "scalable graphics" comment when it was used as marketing on SWG, and I still don't agree with it now when it's being used on EQ2. I will state this, however. The people who purchased Luclin back in EQ1 and then bitched that it didn't run well on their minimum requirement hardware pissed me off. "You can't make butter with a toothpick, baby!" The same goes for EQ2. I've always been of the camp that the graphics shown by marketing are always the best system running the game. I've also known for years that the minimum system requirements are a mistake to try running anything on. Windows XP will run on a 233 MHz PC with 64 MB of RAM, but it won't be the pretty blue and green shiny version with shadows and fading that you see in marketing. But I preach to the choir. You all know this and understand it.

My point is that on my PC (2.1 GHz AMD Athlon XP, 1.5 GB PC2700 RAM, GeForce 6800 GT 256 MB VRAM, Creative Audigy Gamer), EQ2 runs at 35-40 FPS average on the Very High graphics setting. My PC is one that I consider behind the times because of the processor. I'm not saying everyone should have over a Gig of RAM or the bleeding edge video card, but I do think that as players of games we need to understand the hardware limitations and realize that software will always try to push the envelope.

I am, as always, impressed with Blizzard's work on their engine. I am, as always, impressed with SOE's attempt on their engine, but disappointed at the amount of bugs and technical issues with it. However, I would not have wanted SOE to skimp in the graphics department, because they have managed to make one hell of an immersive world and I'm glad they did. WoW made an immersive world as well and did so by sticking to their previous style of graphics. Nothing wrong with that. I get the feeling that everyone thinks SOE should have pulled a "Wind Waker" on EQ2.

Assuming that SOE will patch faster after launch is foolishness. If we look at the precedent of EQ1, it's laughable to think that SOE will even be able to or attempt to fix anything after launch. They rely on player complacence and ingenuity so their playerbase finds ways around the bugs and just accepts them as a fact of life in Norrath. That's why there are still bugs in the game from release (release!) and also the aforementioned bugs still in existence from Luclin. They'll never be fixed. There just isn't enough time or resources to put into patching up legacy code that has already been patched over with so many expansions. That's the SOE way. Love it or hate it, it's here to stay.

This is just another thing continues to capture my fanboi attention about CoH.  The kinetics behind the movement of the avatars in running and jumping is amazing.  I loaded EQ recently just compare - and I had to howl.

It isn't superficial.  Been playing CoH since release and I have to say that the kinetics behind them movement of the avatars still adds to the game for me.  That said - the absence of this sort of achievement in EQII based on the videos is going to bother me.

The issue isn't bug fixing patches.  Both games will be slow as shit in bug squashing.  SoE will be much faster with new content.  WoW's current PvE content will be utterly exhausted by even a time-starved powergamer in a few months.  Blizzard keeps reassuring us that the real game is going to be patched in later.  But they are SO DAMN SLOW with everything they do.  



I have fears that this is where the game is headed.  Right now, the 60 PvE game is much more of a rare-drop grind than EQ ever was, because Blizz has been putting in Diablo-like drop rates (i.e. you are looking at hundreds of multihour instance runs to get the sword of roxxorage, a 1-in-300 drop from the boss, which makes camping a FBSS look like a momentary diversion).

Also note that most time-starved powergamers, and even a lot of straightforward powergamers, never exhausted all the available content Kunark and beyond.   Now the reasons may not be pleasant (mostly timesinks, turnover, and chokeholds by more advanced guilds), but the fact is that there was never a massive "I've killed everything, farmed all its loot and am now bereft of any way to increase my character" outcry in EQ1, because only the bleeding-edge guilds ever hit that point.  Even the #1 & 2 guild on my server would often not be finished with the previous expansion's content when the new expansion came out.

Having half your playerbase at the maxed out point will be a new thing, and I am curious how WoW will respond to that other than "go PvP".

It works for DAoC.

True dat.  I am a carebear at heart, as all righteous God-fearing gamers are, and expect everything to be designed for me!

Amen, brother!

Personally I see this as a great opportunity to be able to play multiple characters. Maybe CoH turned me into an alt-monkey, but I'm glad that the level grind is not prohibitively long, most of WoW's classes sound fun and I'd like to play a few characters.

I think WOW's quests would kill me the 2nd time I tried to make a character of the same race.

At least some of those same guilds (FoH, Afterlife, et al) are now rabidly pro-WoW.  One more reason I most likely won't play it, because even if they haven't totally fucked up the game yet, I'm sure they'll get around to it at some point...

We'll see. I think you're wrong, and that it will be SOE slow to deliver content, but neither of us have any proof. And since Blizzard has never had a subscription game before previous evidence is not terribly valid.

And yes, WoW is going to be a loot centric game, they don't evn try to hide it so I'm surprised it comes as a shock to anyone. The instances are fun in themselves, but what gives them durability will be the hope that this time something novel and exciting you've been lusting after drops. Between that and in instance quests they've set up a system where you will not be content with doing an instance once. Check out thotbot and look at some of the mob loot tables, they're deep and varied and some of the drop rates are low. They've even made it quite clear there will be dependancy chains in the form of must kill/farm X before you can challenge Y.

I'll point again at diablo-2. People have had maxed out characters for years with zero new content, but it still has a player population. Heck, they're even doing set items and I wouldn't be surprised if we see an augment system like runes in the future.

But what do you expect EQ2 to offer? It's not going to have any PvP, it's unlikely to have high level single group content like WoW, and they're going to have to motivate people to kill Vox more than once. You can put money that the drops are going to be carrot there too.

Part of what made Diablo loot work was that you could trade items to complete whatever loot set you were looking for. (set is a bad word, I'm not necessarily talking about set items).

The thing is, most WoW loot binds on pickup so that won't be possible.

They tried that originally, and it led to a massive trade in `common' end game items. I also think that discouraging trading increases longevity (at a cost in frustration of course). And finally the raid document they've released makes it clear that ego is a part of it. The highest end items will be rare and visually distinctive. A whole heap of gamers will go to extreme lengths just for the chance to strut. You could even see this in the lust after pirate hats, dragon whelps (rare drop pets) and other things. If you can buy uber items then the ego element is reduced.

I never did get my pirate hat. Bought a lucky fisherman's hat though and gave it to a friend.

Shit, there's a pirate hat?

Guess my dual sword wielding orc is going to be a pirate!

Yep,  it used to be a rare drop off "pretty boy" duncan.

http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=8699

Not to mention this one, a Tauren in a tux is a sight not easily forgotten;

http://www.thottbot.com/index.cgi?i=13156

Hm, it's marked as being limited supply off a vendor, I wonder what that means. A sale item with a respawn time? It also takes two components, one a vendor item to create a money sink and one a craft component dropped off high level mobs. Of course you have to stop the warrior turning it into bandages first.

As was observed, WoW is just another MMORPG, but it's not without some thought in its construction.

I had a full Tuxedo at one point. And yes the pirate hat is literally, a black pirate hat complete with skull and crossbones. ALot of rogues wear them.

Yes.  EQ had these on some vendors as well, though the 'respawn' was only at server reboots. I can't recall if DAoC or any of the others had items that were like this.

Yeah, there are a couple decent low-mid level weapons and a few tradeskill recipes that are limited vendor spawns (the alchemy vendor in ogrimmar, and 2 weapons dealers in the barrens come to mind as ones I have used in the past).  You can also find this stuff in the auction houses because people farm the vendors.  I like the idea anyway.

Or the extreme lengths gamers will go to so they don't look like a carbon copy of 3/4 the damn server.

- I actually like to thank FoH and the first few uberguilds to reach the endgame for (insert expansion here) for "beta testing" EQ1 endgame encounters and allowed my guild to get a fairly bugless and sort of well balanced content.

IMO, it's not fair to say FoH or Afterlife will fuck up WoW, a lot of raid content is instanced so there won't be competition for content (something that sucks and SOE still has problems comprehending), and maybe endgame will be more balanced.

Furor might look like a pompuos arrogant asshole on EQ boards, but he made a lot of great suggestions and some were implemented by SOE to try sort of balance EQ1's classes.

Give the man a chance :)

...but he is even worse in RL? That is the only way that sentence makes any sense. The guy is a self-aggrandizing gasbag heading a guild that has a huge sense of entitlement. Color me unimpressed.

29A, while it's fun to *think* uberguilds deserve a chance. They don't. Sure they are vocal and great for word of mouth. But what a bunch of asspirates. Every time. Guaranteed. I hope he plays Guild Wars so I can skullfuck him with my necro.

Edit: Ironically enough, if everyone in Bat Country played one game competitively, we'd probably dominate just as much. But we're fun, nice, and mostly bunnies.

I remember having this exact thought in COH after seeing the group play together.

My fear with FOH and all of these other Uberguilds is they are going to try to squash things like soloability in WoW (as discussed in that other thread somewhere on this very forum) and basically anything that doesn't require an Uberguild to complete it. If I give these guys any credit it is that they play together so much their groups run well together for the most part. So they easily crush most content. What they don't realize is that to make the game challenging for them it makes it much harder for people that have lives outside of the game.

29A, mentioning Furor in any positive light around here is the equivalent of dropping your pants and bending over a prison radiator.  Most people here either assume he loved everything about EQ because they never actually read his commentary on the game, or else take his rant posture seriously.  

     For my part, I think that Furor was the best EQ ranter of the post-Lum era, hands down.  The things he criticized about EQ were things I hated about the game as well.  Raid sizes are too big, not enough skill involved, too many tedious timesinks, too much rushed, unfinished and/or unimaginative content that got worse with each expansion, too many developer cockblocks to hide the same, too few strategies, too many unbalanced abilities, etc etc.   If he can actually pull off raids without the crap he bitched about <lol> I can't wait for WoW raids.

We did just fine for the first couple of weeks of SB, before the crippling bugs and required 24/7 vigilance broke everyone's will to play. Just mention sb.exe in Haemish's presence and watch his eyelid start to twitch =)

I am looking forward to seeing what BC can do in GW. Should be interesting.

Furor is an assmonkey of the highest order. Had SOE not been so interested in taking your money first, THEN giving you a working expansion, Furor would have been just one more self-important catass weasel fucker with a web page. His endless tracts of e-peen waving were useless co-dependent relationship bullshit. He was the battered wife bitch to SOE's redneck in a wife-beater t-shirt. He didn't help make the content balanced; he helped ensure that the content was made fucking unreachable for the mass of players just to cater to his loudmouth vocal minority.

EQ WAS a fun game, until his achievement-minded stat-obsessed bunch of lewtz whorez challenged the egotism of McQuaid and Co. to "up the ante." EQ development became a contest of who could fuck who first. Except that it was everyone else getting fucked by being cockblocked and timesinked out of content they might otherwise have been able to experience.

There is no challenege in EQ-style Furor-loving content besides the challenge to persistence.

Sb.exe .... /eyetwitch

Well said as always, Haemish.

Furors fame is directly connected to the fact that SOE couldn't find a spine between the whole of them. Once it became obvious that a strident voice could affect game design it assured that players at least listened to what he said, which in turn meant that developers would respond to what they now perceived as a public concern. The latest episode, where they flew an entire legion of uber-guilders to a "summit" so they could listen to their concerns was simply proved that they haven't changed.

Incidentally you're also inflating his fame here. He's just a minor quest writer at Blizzard, he's not setting design directions. And I find it harder to imagine Enoyls getting pushed around in a similar fashion.

Uh, Enoyls = Rob Pardo = Ariel, guildmaster of Legacy of Steel, an EQ uberguild pretty much indistinguishable from FoH, Afterlife, and Triton.  Sometime after he left LoS, Tigole, also of WoW fame, took over the guildmastership.  He and Furor have been circlejerking for years.  For kicks, you can find Tigole's announcement they he was joining the WoW team here, beneath numerous updates he wrote that read like slightly-less-witty-than-usual Furor updates here http://www.legacyofsteel.net/newspro/archives/arc23.html

Yup. I know. Although the way I hear it LoS wasn't an uber-guild when Pardo left and Tigole was not connected with Blizzard until well after (April 2002 I see). I was just commenting on connecting furor with wow, I don't believe he has much design influence.

But you can certainly blame Tigole for WoW being uber-guild compatible should you care too.

According to Fileplanets WoW Beta page (found here: http://www.fileplanet.com/subscribe/wow/index.html) the Open Beta will start the 8th.

I wonder how many people (other than the fanbois who preordered) will forgo buying EverQuest 2 on the 8th and just play WoWs open beta.

Too bad the SOE won't tell us how many boxes they sell in the first week.

No offense to Raph and all the people who worked hard on EQ2, but Go Blizzard! (There's nothing like cheering for the underdog who takes on The Man).

Blizzard has been around longer and sold more games than any SOE title (I'm confident the end of that statement is true). What you're rooting for is a fucking snowball. Going down a hill. The hill is everest. Unfortunately, I think it will hit a tree when WoW needs to patch every other day.

Oh I know. I just want to see someone displace the biggest North American MMO publisher who happens to have really low production and customer service values. I don't care who it is, but Blizzard has the best chance right now. Besides, if anyone can show the world how to deploy a successful MMO without selling their souls to the devil, Blizzard's the one to do it.

Of course, NC Soft is doing a hell of a job too. Should be an interesting couple years.




I hear you saying this (over and over) but I have yet to see anything that says this will be the case. Care to make a wager? ;)

I'm just testy. I've been at work for 12 hours.

Heehee, obviously you didn't play the WoW beta much.

Patches were every other MONTH, if we were lucky.

See, I was right. Patches need to be every week for an MMO. Their coders Just Don't Subscribe to That Religion.

Viin


OMG!!!  His name is Corey

(http://www.robisworried.com/2coreys.jpg)

Run!

I was trying to think of some snappy and witty comeback but my intellect and googling skills have failed me, yet again.

Fuck you.

I don't need a fucking job.  I just made a spiffy open wheeled racing car sculpture out of my morning meds.

"And now i'm a paraplegic, and i know why - "

Ugh.. what the hell, the size of the forum just doubled?! Maybe this coffee is spiked with kitty litter or something...