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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?"
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
This post would make more sense if its fundamental thesis was actually true...
First-generation MMORPGs are dying. In this group, I'd include the classic MMORPGs such as Ultima Online, Everquest, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online etc. However, I see no evidence that this is symptomatic of a wider decline of interest in MMORPGs in general. It's like saying that the FPS is dying, because fewer people now play DooM than played it 5 years ago.
All that's happening is that players are switching to the second-generation MMORPGs. Galaxies' player numbers tend to wobble up and down quite a lot, but they're still solid. Final Fantasy XI is bigger than pretty much anything we've seen before. World of Warcraft is also almost certainly going to be massive.
Everquest deserves its place in gaming history. It may not have been the first MMORPG, but it was the first one to have a really major impact on the mainstream gaming consciousness. It's had an extraordinarily good run and, for all its flaws, will probably remain the model for the successful MMORPG for a long time to come. But it's an old game. Its joints are getting creaky and its looks just don't seem as good as they once did. With games like FFXI helping MMORPGs to shed their "ugly duckling" image, it's inevitable that games are going to move on to the latest generation.