The Grimfather!Follow

It is safe to say that SOE misread the MMO market in 2004 when they launched EQII. While the game sold an impressive number of copies their retention rate wasn't all that great.

Also clear that since kos was released they have been shifting the game to be a little more like WoW, but avoid some of the MMO lite hate that WoW gets. Rest xp, flight points, solo content were added, crafting subcombines removed etc. Created a nice little niche between EQ1 hardcore and WoW pick up and play. That was about the time the first free trials were launched. You look at the Newbie forums between KoS and EoF and there are quite a few "Used to play wow, now play eq2" type posts so it worked Also saw people leeching over from other games such as FFXI as well. It is safe to say that VG:SOH stole some people away, but they quickly returned to EQII upon finding out how incomplete VG was.

I also think it is safe to say that the release of WoW: The Burning Crusade stopped a lot of the bleed over from WoW burnouts and probably made a few people convert back to wow. With that in mind, shifting the focus to getting old EQII ppl back online is a smart move.



Edited, Oct 4th 2007 2:12pm by bodhisattva