Is EQ2 Dying?

Now before you say I'm just bashing EQ2, let me explain my headline.

 Just before the new year we had some server merges, and some of those servers had a low population so I'm not arguing against them, now in January they announced another server merge, and thats Lucan D’Lere with Crushbone, a RP server merging with a nonRP server that has the second highest number of players after Antonia Bayle.

Now this move doesn't make a lot of scene to me, why do you want to increase the server load on a server that already has more than enough issues with lag? I play on Crushbone and see the lag issues first hand, and if SOE server population are to be believed, Crushbone has 252,013and Lucan D’Lere has 201,987 after the merger that would give Crushbone a population of 454,000 which would make it the largest population server.

So my first reason for my opinion is the server merges.

Next  up is the expansion. According to SOE the next expansion for EQ2 is set to be released on February  8, 2011, however I have yet to see any advertising, or anything at all that EQ2 has an expansion coming out. Even EQ had emails going out well over a month before the expansion was set to be released. We don't even know if it will be download only or a retail version.

So my second reason, no real advertising for the next expansion of EQ2.

Last but not least is EQ2X. The free to play version of EQ2 has been out for a few months, but nothing has been said on how well it's actually doing, no press releases saying we seen this large an increase in subscribers or a huge influx of money from microtransactions.

We've seen Turbine announce increases for both DDO and LOTRO but nothing from SOE, it sort of makes you wonder if the F2P wasn't that succesful after all?

So my third reason, no announcement from SOE on how well EQ2X is doing.

So there are my reasons I think EQ2 is dying, it may be a slow death, but EQ2 is unlikely to last as long as EQ.

RGX

Do we need the box?

Tomorrow, September 22nd, is the release date for Final Fantasy XIV for those that bought the Collector's Edition. My question to everyone do we really need a box for MMO's anymore? The reason I ask is, when you get the box copy, install the game, you normally have to install a huge patch before you can start playing the game, sometimes it maybe even be the entire game.

Now my main MMO is EQ2, and every time an expansion is released all I do is insert the serial code and let the patcher do the rest.

So do we really need a box release any more, or should the box just contain the manual, serial code and a map, and maybe some extra stuff for the collectors edition?

RGX

My theory on why SOE announced a lifetime membership for Free Realms.

As people have heard Free Realms is offering a Lifetime membership for $29.99us until Aug 2, 2010. Now I don't think this will be the last time we see a lifetime sub offered for Free Realms, but next time its offered I think its going to be higher, and the reason I think this is because of the PS3 release.

When Free Realms is released on the PS3 I believe its going to come out in a box for 50-60$ and thats going to include everything that's currently offered in the membership. This gets away from having to worry about having to sell memberships and having restrictions for people without, and eventually we may see memberships phased out for the PC as well. This will than also allow them to sell new areas in the marketplace, instead of adding more restrictions against non-membership players.

The other thing we may see with the release on the PS3, is Sony standardizing the payment methods used in all its games. Right now you can buy cards for the Playstation network and they are separate from the StationCash used in the Marketplace for SOE games. This will allow Sony to just sell one type of card, and its probably easier to release just one type internationally as well. 

Living up in Canada I can't get StationCash cards, I can buy StationCash with my Credit Card, but I prefer buying the actual cards, since you can get a better deal when the have double StationCash weekends. I can however go to my local Walmart, Gamestop, etc and buy a Sony Network card, but Only in 20 and 50 denominations not the 5, 10 and 25 like SationCash. Having cards in smaller amounts also opens up more people buying items from the marketplace, since a 5$ card is much easier for people to buy.

Well that's my theory

RGX

Confesions of a single character player

Hello My name is RGX and I am a single character player.
My current game of choice is Everquest II, where I currently play a Half-Elf Ranger.
Who is currently at max lvl (90) with a Maxed Tradeskill (Woodworker) and Maxed AA's Points (250) Tinkering and Adorning is also maxed (450).
But I can't switch to playing an Alt.

I do have a lvl 82 Dirge Alt, that I built up when I had some friends rejoin the game, but since the expansion was released he has been sitting on the sidelines, and only bringing him out to work on crafting.

However I'm not bored.

Currently I'm working on working on going thru and working on slayer achievements, trying to get all the Destroyer titles, and when I don't feel like slaying gray mobs, I run sets of writs, run BG's, Gray quests, and completing other achievements. I also raid at least 2 nights a week in an alliance and spend a number of hours setting up my house in Halas.

While most players would start working on an Alt at this point, I spend my time trying to improve my Ranger to get as much DPS from him as possible, (hoping to release a DPS AA guide in the next few days),

While many rangers betrayed over to assassins, that's not for me, I intend to make my Ranger the best he can possible be.

Now you'll excuse me I have to get back to grinding faction in the Hole, those quests wont do themselves.

RGX

Playing a single MMO for to long, or entering a new MMO for the first time, or Am I just a Newb?

  I started playing MMO's in April of 99 with EQ when a friend recommended it to me, a year later my friend left and I continued to play because of the people I met in EQ. Than when EQ2 was released I moved over to that along with a number of guildmates to form a guild in EQ2. In that time I've met a number of people, either thru pugs, raid alliances or crafting.  

Now during this time I also tried a few other games WoW, Vanguard, Pirates of the Burning Sea, Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camalot, and out of those games, only two of them , WoW and DAoC, had people I know playing them. WoW I tried playing twice once with some friends and the second time with my sister who had taken over my old account, each time I was a subscriber for 4-5 months. With DAoC I played with some people I had met in EQ but than again I only played for a few months. The other games I played for a month or two basically because I had the Station Access Pass and was never really able to get into the game.  

Now here it is, 11 years later and I'm still enjoying EQ2, however there are a number of MMO's coming out, and I have a number of them sitting on my shelf behind me, WAR, EVE, AoC, LoTRO and I'm not not sure how to approach them.  

Entering a new MMO seems to be a very daunting experience, your entering the game with no connections and no real idea where to start building those connections. Joining a game when it's just been released seems to make it a little easier because everyone is starting of on the same foot, but  coming into an established game seems to be even harder. As an experienced MMO player I have a basic idea on building these connections but it still a lot of work, going thru the forums, searching the net, and just paying attention to general chat. And as most people know going thru this stuff you will find a lot of garbage, official forums takes a lot of sorting to find anything actually useful, the same for just doing a google search, and as for general chat well I might as well just say barrens chat.   

Now I've just started playing Global Agenda, I picked it up from steam when they had it on sale and now that is gone free to play so if I didn't enjoy it, I wasn't out that much and didn't have a time restriction. Now I'm really enjoying the game and the character intro is really  nice, and i hope to post my impressions later on. However there are a number of things that intro didn't explain, and as for a manual, well I haven't found it yet, and actually had to do a google search to find a post called Global Agenda: The missing Manual. Even that didn't give me the answers I was looking for, so I tried asking in chat.  

Well I got the replies I was expecting, the go back to Wow, the Chuck Norris, and you suck comments, and than eventually an actual answer. This made me wonder are MMO players so jaded that most of us can't be bothered to respond to a simple question with any sort of helpfulness? and if  thats true, I have to feel sorry for anyone actually entering an MMO for the first time, if this is the  type of responses a person gets from a simple question, why would you want to continue to play?  

As for my self I'm going to stick it out, and if anyone has some suggestions for some of the other games I've listed I would really like to hear them. So this asks the question;  

Am I hardcore for sticking with it or still just a newb?  

RGX

Sparkle Pony vs the Sparkle Cat

I'm writing this post partly after listing to MMOVoices podcast #34, and partly because of some of the other things I have read during the last week regarding SOE introducing the sparkle cat in EQ2 (kinda weird for me to defend SOE on this). Lots has been said that this is just SOE copying Blizzard with a 25$ mount, but I think people are not looking at it from the right angle, it really comes down to Blizzard copying SOE.

Why do I say that, well lets look back at RMT in both games. SOE introduced its Marketplace back on December 9, 2008 when it started they had a few items with the most expensive being 10$ for a set of appearance armor, time goes by they slowly add things to the marketplace including change name and change gender potions witch they sell for 25$ (which the reveal at FanFaire 2009 is there biggest seller), more time passes they add race change potion 25$ and character transfer also 25$, on December 22, 2009 they started selling backpacks for 25$, these are 44 slot backpacks tha would actually have an appearance on your character. Also during this time they have been creating lots of house items for people to buy, to the annoyance of the carpenters in EQ2, and they sell complete sets for 50$, yep thats right 50$.

Now we have Blizzard, on November 4, 2009 Blizzard announced it was selling 2 pets for 10$ each. Granted until Dec 31, 2009 50% of the Pandaren monk pet was going to the Make a wish Foundation (SOE also had a similar thing with donations going to Child's Play for the 2nd year). Now April 16, 2010 they now offer a new pet for 10$ and gasp a sparkle pony for 25$. That's 4 items that are offered in to WOW store (yes some of you may say what about the 2 stuffed pets you can buy that give you digital pets in game, and I say if your getting something thats real, its not the same thing)

Now comes May 20, 2010 and SOE anounces its sparkle cat for gasp 25$, now I will say here I think the sparkle pony in WoW is a better deal, I believe that SOE just had the bad luck of releasing this after Blizzard.

As for the price point being the same, well looking at the stuff that SOE has released, I'm surprised it wasn't more, and maybe we should be glad for Blizzard for releasing their mount first so that it wasn't.

So who is really copying who, well I think that's just what MMO's do.

RGX

The Sparkle Cat and why I'm going to buy one

So SOE has followed in Blizzard's footsteps and have released the $25.00 mount, now yes this is a cat and it does have a few stats, but nothing that's really game breaking or that you cant get better in game, and I'm going to have to say the same thing I did when the WoW horse came out, if someone wants to spend $25 on a horse let them.

I do think the WoW horse is a better deal since you get it for all your alts, I think one thing that people are not looking at is the Station Cash itself. Now I've been playing the game for a long time and one thing I learned is to pay attention to things like twitter, facebook,ect, The reason I pay attention to these things is that you can find out when its advantageous to buy SC and when you can get SC for free.

When thy had the connecding promotion valid EQ2 subscribers got 1000SC, I also managed to pick up another 500SC when I attached my Pax Nora account to my Station account, also got another 500 from buying the expansion, I think i picked up some more SC thru some other promotions that I can't recall atm, but the most important thing I did was to redeem SC cards when they had double station cash promotions. So a 25$ card now gives you 5000SC, so its possible to get the mount for free or at the least $12.50.

So needless to say I have a little bit of SC and so far had nothing to spend in on, however one thing that nobody seems to have mentioned it the SC Store update is you can now buy LoN cards with Station, this could become a problem.

RGX