If you look at the screenshots, it's pretty obvious, these rumors about EQ2 have nothing to do with EQ Adventures for the PS2, this is something completely different

As a follow up to my "Oh Grow Up" message below I direct you to the Sony Press Release about EQ for the PS2 at:

http://www.verant.com/press/eqoa040902.html

Note that they excitedly reference the current installed base of 8.8 million PS2's as potential platforms. If they get only 10% of those users to buy into EQ PS2 it would be DOUBLE the active subscriber base of regular EQ for the PC.

The believers in corporate conspiracy theories among you will likely view this as the evil empire once again trying to rip us off, forcing us to switch platforms to follow all of the development and support teams that will abandon us on our PC's and be shifted to the greater revenue source. Perhaps EQ PC was just a bait and switch, they never ever intended to support it FOREVER and EVER like we want and we've just all been funding their faulty Beta Testing for the PS2 - a console platform where the users tend to be far less tolerant of bugs. EQ PC was a great conspiracy and we weren't REALLY having any fun - just paying to support Sony's R&D programs.

I offer it (as stated in my original post) of how the rational Mega Corps behave. They look at the BIG picture and follow the money. Is that good/bad/irresponsible? Capitalist societies kind of demand it of business (that whole risk/reward thing) and history shows societies that follow those rules tend to deliver the most goods wanted by the most people (albeit not always THE goods wanted by EVERY person).

Heck if it's fun enough I may even buy a PS2 myself - but then that's my bottom line. Am I enjoying myself based on the time and money I CHOOSE to spend on these products. If and when I don't think I am I'll pull up and go down the street. I don't think I'll be stamping my feet on the way out the door though.

I quote from various messages, an ongoing theme it seems.

<q> If I can't switch my lvl 60 character to EQ2, I'm going to go play a new game!

Hrmmm, now tell me exactly how this would be different than starting on EQ2 with a new character? I mean really, do you think they will let you transfer your lvl 60 Everquest Ranger to DAOC? or Shadowbane? I highly doubt it, so basically whether you play EQ2 or some other MMORPG you will be starting over. This makes no sense to me, and do these people posting this think VI is going to read this boarad and go....whoa guys!!!....we got to totally scrap the stuff we been working on for the last year, and make the game engine the same as in EQ so these folks can transfer their characters. But wait, then in effect wouldn't this just be another expansion? And not a whole new Game?

Well yes, poppa VI it would.

First off, I agree that seeing twinks running around all over the place probably does ruin a newbies game. But well to tell you the truth Ive been playing since EQ1's first debue and ive found it increasingly harder and harder to entertain my self with this game. Quests are usually filled with major **** time consuming camps that in the end give you a crap item at the lvl you can solo the quest, when u could just go get a mob drop item that does nearly the same exact thing!

Quests are usually at least in my eyes unrewarding to the player and with the exception of some velious quests, give obsolete items. This waists time you could be having fun in RL.

The game itself does not reward your time and effort with lvling. Instead of being able to toss a green con creature aside when you first character hits lvl 50+, you get your **** almost kicked if your unprepaired and the creature just turned green. It takes armys of 30+ all in their high 40's to low 50's to do a vox raid, and even then she may still wipe everyone out. When in old storys it only takes a hand full of heroes to slay the mighty dragons of old.

It seems to me that the higher lvl you are, the more ease mobs have trashing you. Kinda makes you wonder, why am i working so hard just to get my **** kicked? This is the real reason i beleave people creat Twinks, Not because they are bored with the game, but because they want to feel all mighty and be god like ( wich they should for the ammount of time and money they put into this game )

Tourneys on Eq are a joke as well, There is no skill involved at all, and almost always at least on my server a tank will always win. ( this is because the GM's will limmit the spells a caster can cast )

All in all Eq1 is addictive, and fun for the first couple years. Unfortunatly i beleave EQ2 is not going to fair as well. If players cant twink they will get bored verry quickly of having to start from scratch every time they make a new character. To solve twinking i would have just made seperate Nontwink servers where these rules skill rules applie. This would make the newbies and roleplayers happy and the power starved player base all happy.

These are just my thoughts and i relize some of you may not agree with me, but that is your oppinion and it is your wright

I quote from a prior message:

"DOWN WITH VERANT
DOWN WITH VERANT"

Ha HA HAA! - I love these strings that flame Verant or Sony for "not caring about the game" or ruining the game or ripping off another gave, blah blah blah! As a prior poster commented, Take a class in Economics and keep at least part or your head here in the real world (errr, last time I checked playing RPG's in any form was still considered by most inhabitants of the real world entertainment and a hobby at best or an often addictive time wasting obsession at worst and NOT one of the worlds great religions, philosophies or social movements to be held in awe or to pattern one's life after).

Sony and Verant are not "evil" entities out to spoil your fun or ruin the RPG gaming world, they are BUSINESSES that exist to make money for stockholders. Granted, they may be evil for other reasons, such as social irresponsibility, but I would put things like polluting the environment, supporting corrupt or non-democratic governments or using slave or child labor in the manufacture of products in that category and NOT nerfing a class' spells or deciding on a product line/marketing strategy that interferes with my personal entertainment preferences matrix. They are not government agencies providing a necesary "fantasy world" service to voting constituents. In the world of business the only voting is done with your dollars/feet, go somewhere else/spend your money on something else. They make decisions based on (especially companies like Sony) the consideration of what will maximize the long term profits and return on investment of the STOCKHOLDERS (the concept of "making decisions" in an organization will also inject an measure of uncertainty as to whether the correct decision, even based on this criteria will be made). And for mega companies like Sony that doesn't even mean the profits from a single business (like their entire online gaming business) but the entire entity (this individual division may not be making as much money but it feeds to another or helps us provide a full line of products, etc.)

This is not to say that complaints should not be made. In any customer / business relationship the customer may desire to let the service provider know of dissatisfaction. The rational business entity will evaluate the level of customer satisfaction against the matrix of expected effect of changing to rectify the complaint (i.e. cost and possibly increased revenues) compared to the effect of ignoring the complaint (potential revenues lost). It seems that in many cases (but not all) Sony/Verant decides that it will make more money by not changing (avoiding the cost of doing so) as the effect on revenues will be zero or less than the cost of fixing the issue. if enough people do so you may raise the issue in question to the level where it crosses the cost/benefit threshold and moves the service provider to take action. In complaining about matters the most effective complaints will always end with a subtle or not so subtle mention of the potential cost for not paying attention. Note however, due to the fractured buyers' market (multitudes of buyers of low revenue items vs. large individual purchasers representing a substantial percentage of revenues) any single complaint will not clear the cost/benefit hurdle. Only numerous complaints that represent a credible potential loss of revenues will be heeded.

I think in the end the bottom line (another business term for the uninitiated) choices you have are:

1) Continue to play (and pay) and enjoy or not enjoy the game. You can also combine that with complain directly to the service when and as you see fit. This can be combined with posting your complaints on forums such as this. It may encourage others who share your complaint to tell Sony/Verant when they might not otherwise have done so. It also may provide the critical mass of complaints if Sony/Verant reads them here AND believes that people will actually stop purchasing based on the level of dissatisfaction they voice.

2) Quit playing. Vote with your feet and go play something else. This will let Sony know they have made a mistake (if enough people do it). Unfortunately this only works for you if you find something that gives you more satisfaction for your money and time spent. Otherwise you have only "cut off your nose to spite your face" (Always wondered about that saying and the psychological issues with self mutilation).

3) Continue to "rant and rave" about this matter in a manner which attaches an air of great import to it. While I do thoroughly enjoy playing RPG's as a form of entertainment (and sometimes reading the flames against the service providers) I have one suggestion to those who do feel the need to post them. After you post your flame message, sit back and imagine it being read at your funeral as an example of something that was really important to you. Then turn off your computer and go play outside - you'll be better for it, I assure you.


Edited, Mon Apr 29 19:59:51 2002

Everquest at the high-end has become somewhat corrupted.

VI's programmers are finding it difficult to keep some of the uber guilds satisfied. Every zone in EQ has been mastered, and VI's answer to this is to create rediculous key quest and bane weapon quests. This solution, however, only delays the inevitable, which is a guild obtaining enough keys and enough bane weapons to enter a zone and defeat whatever creater is to be defeated. Leaving the guild that spent the last 2months gearing themselves with keys/weps feel cheated.

The key camps/bane quests released with SoL are ****** lame, crazy-rare camps of low-level ****. This leaves most players ending their high-end game in tov/st/deep.

The effect of this trickles down. Bored, rich players starting twinks and giving them rediculous armor/weapons.

One of the features of EQ2 is a limit on the quality of gear new characters can use. I believe this is the main catalyst behind EQ2. *************** characters can ruin the game for an honestly new player. I am ready to quit EQ and have a fresh start with EQ2, sure it will be rough to throw away my 89days played, but in the grand scheme of things, we are still playing a game, right?

Paloos Level 59 Cleric of Rallos Zek
Rantag Level 2 Shadow Knight of Rallos Zek (500 hps)

I'd like to announce the grand opening of EverQuest-2.com

The design is still in its infancy, but it is presentable and ready to be seen by the public.

Check it out at: http://www.everquest-2.com

I used to play everquest all the time with my friends. Then on a very cold January morning I was arrested and spent 3 months in jail. When I beat the case later that year, I had been out of the everquest loop from that january until september. My friends had progressed far beyond me and I was not really in the mood to play anymore. I am now ready to start anew. A brand new game would give me a fresh start and keep me at a level that is close to those friends I have that will also switch when EQ2 comes out. I can't wait for it to come out. I hope that Star Wars Galaxies takes a large chunk of the rpg public, so that the EQ2 servers stay manageable. To all those that will switch: See you in the future.

Og'nir

Everquest is getting old. I left it a while ago, because no matter how many add-ons it got it was still essentially the same game. If EQ2 came out and was a lot like EQ today, I would get it- for the new graphics, towns, npcs, storylines, spells, and class abilities. If they make it too much like AC and DaoC I would just as soon stay with DaoC if I wanted PvP and AC2 if I wanted safe mmorpg style xp-grind stuff.

This really doesn't appeal at all. SW Galaxies is gonna wipe the floor with this - yes i know they are licensed by the same companies. Wake up Verant! People are bored of killing the same things over an over just to see their exp bar move. EQ2 needs to to be more community based, i.e. like Galaxies.And i dread to think the charges they are gonna place on this game to play it. They considered legends a superior version of EQ and charged 40 bucks a month for it. No doubt they will consider this even more superior and charge even more....50 bucks a month probably. No thanks!

Read a few of these posts, have to agree with verant and sony's track record I'm inclined to agree with the fears of servers being allocated in favor of EQ2. Also I find the arguement of EQ2 ripping off ideas from DAOC funny. Most of the ideas both games have in them or will have, have already been around in MUDS (multi user dungeons) text based internet RPGs that have been out for years, and MUDs took their ideas from book based RPGs that were pre internet such as D&D which started out as 1 dice a crayon and a 2 page folder. This is just a desperate attempt by everquest to keep up in an ever growing game market. DAOC is taking away from their profit margin and forever winter nights probably will when it comes out also. verant and sony have contiuously stepped on their on you know what. good example is the cleric class who have traditionally been 50/50 healer/melee. one example among many. another example is how they keep saying the game is balanced yet a NPC of the same race and 10 lvls lower can bare hand a player for 40 yet a player with full armor and weapon can barely do half the damage.

So now a few years down the road other game makers studied everquests faults and made a game(s) that caters to people who think a game should be more balanced or should give more reward versus the amount of time invested all of which everquest is not. i'm not saying everquest sux (well yes i am) but it also has it fun points like the players, (which is why i still play). But now sony/verant is feeling the pressure and since the only way they can keep up with progress is to revamp the game they are trying to keep their profit margin. But with the loss of windows 95 when SOL came out,AND all the system upgrades players had to do, and the chance of EQ/kunark/velious/SOL being eventually phased out (if that ends up being the case). Then quite possibly verant/sony are ******** themselves very very badly. Personly if they make it so my 4 past games i've bought to play everquest obselete ill go look for another game to play.

Just checked out the screens of EQ on the PS2 and I must say it looks very Zeldaish or well, twee.