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Player Disquiet Leads To EverQuest Expansion Delay
EvilBastard writes "Sony Online Entertainment have announced that, due to an almost universal player backlash against the next expansion pack that is seen more as a $30.00 patch for missing content, they are delaying the new EverQuest expansion by 6 weeks, and will 'spend time fixing the problems you have brought to our attention'. Also announced is a plan to fly some of the more vocal website people to SOE headquarters, to try to restart enthusiasm for what may be the last EverQuest expansion ever. With the cancellation of Everquest for Mac, some high-profile guilds quitting, 6 months of allegedly declining numbers, big - budget competition and now a widespread call to boycott future games, is the much-predicted end of EverQuest almost here?"
Some day, when MMORPGs have matured a little more, I might get back into them. So far, I have seen very few that aren't essentially EverQuest clones. Ultima Online used to be good...
LOAD "SIG",8,1
There are tons of problems with existing content, and people got pissed of off the fact that Sony would rather release more pay-to-get content instead of putting resources into fixing the existing content.
Also, people weren't too happy to hear they announced the new expansion before they even had finalized its features. This GU comic summarizes the hassle nicely.
Ummm... MMORPG's ARE PC games. For that matter, so are MUD's, but I'll go with it. Most MUD's are cobbled together in free time by one or two people. MMORPG's have multi-million dollar budgets and are put together by teams of 20-30+ people. They are in no way comparable, and this entire argument is stupid. It's basically "Well, it's ALMOST like a MUD, except that a MUD doesn't have graphics... or an interactive combat system... or any sort of visual stimulation whatever except for text... but it's free!"
There's a reason it's free. It's IRC with stats and nothing more.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Yeah, I think the whole MMORPG price structure is pretty messed up. I'd like to see them set a monthly price, say $15.
The price would be: $0 + $0 + $15/month. If you're paying them monthly to make the game better, expansions should be part of the deal. They should be relatively frequent, and incremental as expansions in Muds often are.
The game itself should be free if you download it online or maybe $10 in store to cover distribution costs.
The customer is always right. And right now they are tired of mmorpg's in general.
:).
I personally loved everquest, however I logged out for the last time a year and a half ago, played daoc for a year intermittently, and now don't play any mmorpg's.
I honestly think everyone in EQ is going through the same boredom/withdrawal that I did. MMORPG's as they stand are dying. It won't be until we have a paradigm shift in their design that they are reborn. This may take an even greater technological leap though.
Star wars galaxies had the best chance to implement a new paradigm, but instead chose to create a similar game, with less content. (randomly generated fields of monsters doesn't count). Nobody wants to be a slimeworm killing grunt in the star wars universe. For me SWG was great for about 10 minutes of looking around and going wow, I'm in the star wars universe, and I'm a slug.
Perhaps world of warcraft or guildwars can reinvigorate burned out mmorpg'ers, but lets face it, mmorpg's had a good run, comparable to the run of RTS games, and it's time for something new.
Personally, I've taken up golf again.. no not virtual golf, real golf. The sun is a lot warmer than I remember, and I'm a lot weaker and fatter after a few years glued to mmorpg's. I highly recommend getting up and doing something fun outside again
Same here. I never liked EverQuest expansions, especially because they came out far too frequently
Something happened at Verant after the "Scars of Velius" expansion. I don't know what it was but EQ went downhill from there. "The Shadows of Luclin" was such an ugly, ill-concieved expansion. The bazaar is a moronic way of implementing player auctions. Why not run the auction on a separate chat channel, with visuals, accessible from any vender? Instead they decided to pack 600 players into the same zone and bring everyones graphic card to its knees.
A single programmer could have implemented a good auction system in a few weeks. Instead they make this crappy bazaar idea a 'feature' of thier expansion.
Unfortunately Sony is just using EQ as a convenient cash cow, leveraging its addictiveness to provide funds for the war against the x-box(I do sympathize, as Microsoft is as hostile as ever with its constant price gouging). Still it's a shame that such a great game/player community as Everquest used to be is being sacrificed.
Sure they need money to finance EQ2 and SWG, but it's sad that they are canabalizing such a wonderful piece of art as the original Everquest world. I bet you 5 to 1 that the artists/designers Sony end up hiring won't have clue-one how to breath real life into a fantasy world...it will just be another lifeless clone with slightly improved player models. *sigh*
Who knows, maybe another company will fill the very large shoes that EQ used to wear?
The government has a defect: it's potentially democratic. Corporations have no defect: they're pure tyrannies. -Chomsky
Casual Everquest Player is an oxymoron.
How EQ could become more of a grind and time sink, I cannot fathom.
In all honesty, I have EQ'ing friends, and they tell me that the game got much better after the first couple expansions, and that the end-game didn't play anything like the low-level game. But there was never anything about the low-level game that made me want to pay a monthly fee for 2 years (let alone 5) while they got their shit straight. Particularly since all I hear from these EQ'ing friends is how every expansion comes with broken and misbalanced content that takes months to get corrected.
That said, I tend to think Everquest will die with a whimper, not a bang. It'll slowly bleed players over the next couple years, and then Sony will spin off its support to a subsidiary or 3rd party who cares enough to operate with mere mortal profit margins.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
I still find EQ to be the least boring of all of them
Never played City of Heroes, I take it?
US$10 a month? Fine. Here's my money order in NZ$... What, payment in US$ by credit card only?
Well, that $10 is fine, if they'll let me PAY IT. I don't have a credit card, nor can i get one as i don't earn enough to be eligible for one. So, as a non-US gamer, that cuts me out of playing MMORPGs. (and WoW sounded so nice, too...)