You seem to be making a certain assumption. That assumption is that people would welcome this game becoming exactly like WoW.
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nowhere in my post did you read that.
i am not talking about turning it into WoW, i am talking about changing the low and mid level game to reflect what the majority of gamers prefer.
EQ is a niche game. so is EQ2. if SOE is happy with the scraps of the gaming community, then it should stay exactly as it is. they can continue to dump resources and get a return of 1/10th of the potential market for the next 10 years if that is what they want to do.
the REASON it is a niche game, the REASON Vanguard fell on its face and even if it is revived, will only become anothe niche game, is the very same reason Blizzard has just announced reaching 9 MILLION subscribers and EQ has 13 expansions full of EMPTY zones and unsued content that most likely no one, not even the current players will EVER SEE.
time friendly game play and fun vs earned rewards, death punnishement and poor rewards for the effort put in.
fun is subjective. i am also not suggesting changing the raid content one bit. nor mabe the top 5 most popular zones. i AM suggesting changing the other 320 zones in the game that have been totally abandoned by everyone. currrently, it is wasted bandwidth serving absolutly no purpose to anyone, nor is it likely to EVER AGAIN.
why anyone would have any objection to retooling zones they have no interest in so mabe the other......90 PERCENT......of the online gaming community might find an interest in is, well, short sighted and ignorant. the more populated your low and mid level content is means a larger pool of top end players eventually, and the LONGER the game will remain viable as opposed to a foot note in gaming history sitting in some corner with one or two servers just plugged in only because they are still making a few hundred dollars on it while their resources are being pumped into games that tap that 9 MILLION strong market.
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I don't agree. Killing 200 skeletons...depending on your level with respect to the level of the mob, it an easy chore. It takes little in the way of thought, perserverance or exploration and so, hardly worthy of "UbergreatSword of Skellykilling 2.0".
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this makes me laugh. by the time you can kill those skeletons, you will be 5 levels or higher than they are because THERE ARE NO GROUPS anymore. and while they dont need to get an UBER SWORD OF GOD SLAYING, they certainly deserve something better than they can buy in the bazaar for 10 plat. if not, just add that quest to the 10,000 other quests in the game NO ONE will EVER DO.
you can justify why people SHOULD earn meager rewards for massive amounts of time till the cows come home. but if you look around, you will see you are arguing it to an empty stadium where no one is listening. and why? because the left you and the game behind a few years ago for another game that does reward them for their time.
and just like you dont really care, they dont either. all 9 MILLION of them, as you sit in a corner with a hand full of people who think like you do. when WoW hits 10 million subscribers, EQ will not even be 10 percent of the market, they will be "1" percent of the market. and if you think that is a good formula for longevity in the minds of a big company like SOE, all i can say is, you 1 percent better have 10 percent of the stocks in SOE.
there is ALOT of wasted content in EQ. over 300 zones that are empty 24/7.
it is in your best interest to help find a way to make that content more appealing to the other 99 percent of the market if you want to keep your 1 percent of powergamer raid content to continue.
currently, it is not appealing. and people are not crying about it on web sites like they did from the kunark expansion all the way through the POP expansion. they have gone else where because Blizzard gave them some place to go that WAS more appealing.
you dont have to be playing in a game full of empty zones. that is my primary message im trying to get across to you. you dont have to like what becomes of those low and mid level zones, adn even if you hate it, if it strikes interest in the other 9 MILLION playes playing online games, you will have bigger guilds, more raiding, and a longer shelf life for a game that has been combining servers even after releasing new expansions.
EQ and EQ2 could become as big or bigger than WoW. could. or it could fade away as a foot note like PONG did when donkey kong came out. i guarentee you, those other 9 MILLION mainstream players dont really care what happens to EQ or EQ2. as long as they have a place to play that is time friendly, they will be content reading about EQs plug being pulled with a shrug of their sholders in a few years while WoW is either announcing reaching 12 or 14 million subscribers or spitting out content fast and furious to keep from loosing too many players to competition who HAVE FIGURED OUT that time friendly fun trumps earned rewards and death penalties at the bottom line of their profit reports.
it is hard to argue EQ quests are fine as they are when most people who still play the game wont do them. it is also hard to argue its content and vision are solid when they have over 300 empty zones their current players wont waste their time in either.
