This is my first post writen from my iPhone, just to warn you before hand
If Everquest 2 was released today by another studio it would have over 1 million subscribers. Because it is one of the most polished mmo out there today. today though it strugles to keep 200,000
When everquest 2 launched in 2004 it managed to get about 500,000 subscribers pretty quickly. Soe had polished the lower level content pretty well. But after level 20 the game to me at Least was not fun to play. And there was a huge massive lose of player just a 2 or 3 months out. Because the mid and upper levels of the game were unfun. Wow had also come out at this time and unlike eq2 the game was polished all the way through.
Someone high up at soe made the choice to launch before wow. Most likey they had seen or played woe beta and was not sure if they would be able to steal market share back from wow If they launched afterwards. So they worked really hard to polishes the lower lower levels. And that worked as eq2 did really well it’s first month. But people got to 20 and the game was no longer fun at that point.
Had soe waited until they had a full polished game I do not thing they would of suffered that huge drop in there player base. They probably would of had 500,000+ subs had they not rushed there launch. First opinions are that important in an mmo. If the general opinion of your mmo is negative one or two month out you can pretty much call it quits for new subs.
Which is what happened to eq2 they have had a hard time getting people to play the game. People still believe the bad negative things from 2004 and 2005 and refuse to try the game. And I can’t blame them for that.
There is another major reason soe does not have a million subs. They have a bad reputation. There customer service back in eq1 time blew. They killed off star wars in one patch and there really bad eq2 launch has kind of given everyone a bad flavor in there mouths.
To put it in mmo terms soe was was the person on your server who would take all the loot even when others needed it and got a bad rep on the server. Now they relized that was messed up and want you to group with them. And at the end of the day most people will not give them that second chance. And that soe own fault.
In the end if another studio put out the exact game and called it something else they would have 1 million sub by the end of the year. But since soe messed up there own launch and have a rather bad reputation it close to impossible for them to gain more player I’m eq2 than they allready have
Related posts:
- Are We Expecting to much from MMO’s? Part 2 O yes… i’m going part to on you guy!!!! Ok...
- Are We Expecting to much from MMO’s? Hell no! We Fly Spitfires posted a good questions. Do We Expect...
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
you are right on ogre. I have long been baffled that EQ2 does not perform better against the competition – it also IMO represents the most full featured and polished MMO on the market. It is ashamed that past reputation prevents people from playing.
However, the second problem is that “do know wrong” belief where blizzard is concerned. I hold that the vast majority of the gaming media where defacto Blizzard fanbois – players of Diablo and Warcraft – these are the people behind the opinions which helped WoW and hurt EQ2.
What amazes me is the common use of the word “polished” for a finished game. WoW produced a game, period. SOE published an unfinished product. The first 20 levels were finished, the rest was underdeveloped at best.
Just because it has become a bad habit to publish unfinished games in the software sector, it doesn’t mean the customer doesn’t realize it and reacts accordingling. And recognizes finished products and buys them if there is no good alternative, disregarding a vague possibility of a better quality of some other game that might come or not after a dozen patches.
“Not polished” from SOE is just an euphemism for something half-finished that is not working yet. As you said, SOE just shouldn’t have tried to sell it in 2004, but still seems to think common customers are stupid enough to buy something like that if they just call it “not polished”.
Well memories sweeten over time. WoW was NOT polished either. It worked pretty well, but had immense problems as well.
If WoW was released today (without BC and WotLK), it would crash. It would be considered technologically inferior, too “flat”, no lore, and basically only playable because of the previous reasons listed.
But as I said – people forget fast.
IMO the only MMO games released that deserve the “polished” label is LOTR and WAR. They only suffered minor bugs and inconveniences.
>>>
I just returned to EQ2 now after brief flirts with WAR, AoC, Tabula Rasa and WoW.
And I have to say that EQ2 is the deepest, most involving, most rewarding and challening MMO of them all.
I do enjoy WoW in its current state, but to return to the original topic of the article:
Yes, if both games were released now, there’d be a ton more players on the EQ side of things compared to the current situation.
Whether this be SOE’s fault or not, I think they should try and find funding for a large marketing campaign, because if people knew how good the game currently is, they’d play it (also hardware has caught up
).
My 2 c’s
[...] further. Comparatively Everquest 2 arguably tried to take a step back towards sandbox and this (along with many, many launch issues) saw players not hang [...]