climbhi
05-20-2005, 12:30 AM
<DIV>EQ2 gamers,</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Anyone who plays EQ2 and reads these boards knows that EQ2 is still in beta. Sony focused very hard to offer the best most expandable graphics on the market but <U><STRONG>failed to focus enough attention on game play/ class balance/ Character vs. Mob balance/ Quests/ economy/ Music</STRONG></U>. This has resulted in a game that looks nice but is boring to play. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>The reason why they rushed EQ2 to market was to capture market share from WOW and other new games. In general this is a good strategy because the game that is released first has the largest share of the market. This is illistrated best when you look at Sony play station (60% market share), X Box (25%), and Nintendo (15%). This is why Microsoft released the X Box before they had games and content in place. Games are very big bussiness. These games cost a few million to develop but if it is a blockbuster can return 100+ million. Sony made a calculated risk assessment that EQ2 could only be a block buster if released first and if released after the buggs were fixed would have less return. What they did not count on was how hard these buggs were going to be to fix.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>SOE and EQ2 is left in a difficult situation of trying to fix current buggs, add new content, and keep subscribers while this is done. Esentually they are having to totally redesign the game play without taking all the servers down and starting over. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>EQ2 game buggs are more than buggs but are base programmng architecture errors requiring major rewriting of millions of lines of code. This is why they simply cannot just fix buggs such as Combat, Wards, pets, spells. etc... If was that simple they would have already done so. SOE miscalculated on how flawed the game was at release and how difficult it was going to be to fix. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV><U><EM>Stay tuned EQ2 may be worth playing again in 6 months to a year</EM></U>. EQ2 has a more advanced graphics engine than WOW and may have a longer life expectancy once out of beta.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>For now I am going to play WOW with my limited gaming time because I can have fun questing and grouping when I have the time.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Neasawatch- Retired Mystic</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV>