This game needs a relaunch... C'mon SoE, throw some money at it and see what you get back :)

[Hoova_Dalewt]

Personally, I am not looking for a whole new Everquest 2 game right now, but maybe a relaunch is required, considering the state of the hobby at this point..?

Lets look at this realistically... WoW is burnt out for sooo many. DDO has failed. Guild Wars has it's nich carved out and isnt really growing past that. Vanguard has failed. (IMHO) LotR has failed. Thats a LOT of loose players out there looking for a mature real MMORPG fantasy game to enjoy, and AoC can't have them all.

Add to this that EQ2 is probably the last of the true AAA MMORPGs out there, still looking gorgeous after all this time, with a depth of content that the others would die for (if they hadnt died already), and a friendly and helpful player base, and you have a situation ready to be exploited, no?

So.. whats the problem? Why isnt this game No.1, as it deserves to be?

I personally think its a case of most people seeing EQ2 as an established and 'owned' game, with an ingrained player base of already 'l337' hardcore fans and an advanced (some would say broken) economy that gives them no chance of competing and/ or achieving. Anyone who plays EQ2 knows this isnt true of course, but we are talking about perceptions here, not realities.

EQ2 is no longer the new kid on the black, and no longer is it the shiny new game that attracts the eye of the casual observer. TBH, I guess it never was, being so utterly overwhelmed by Blizzards giant fanbase right from the start. There was no way something as niche as EQ was then was ever gonna compete with the mass market firepower of the Warcraft games (500,000 vs 15,000,000?), but I digress... The point I am trying to make is that although now respected and widely recognised for being the superior MMORPG out there, EQ2 can only eventually slide into obscurity, unless something is done...

What do I suggest? Well.. how about a relaunch, a game wide server wipe (almost...), and a restart?

Before you panic, let me explain...

The Aim would be to Invigorate the EQ2 game, while maintaining it's strengths. To build upon what exists, yet to open the world up to a fresh player base, while amply rewarding those that have participated in it's growth.

How would I do this? I would...

• Release Rise of Kunark etc as planned, and use this to carry me over the next 6-8 months.

• Take these next 6-8 months to work on expanding the existing zones in the game by around 150% each, assuming it makes sense for any given zone. Add new content, restructure quests, and basically relay the lands based on all the lessons learned over the past 2.5 years or so (Add racially styalised armour, racial and diety quests from day one, and reconfigure player starting points (such as relaying RV/ EL as the halfling/ gnome start cities, GF/ Kel as the Fae/ Elf start points and the like). Bring down the horses and let players own mounts from L10 or so... let the more exotic ones be quested or bought. Reintroduce and promote the Arenas and the pokemonesque idea of captured/ dropped/ quested Champions to allow players to use them from any city as a unified experience. Make this fun and accessible from day 1.

• I would also develop THE SEA OF STORMS, designing it to do away with the dock bells and place real oceans between the lands. Have all travel made between the continents to be made by ship, unless TPs are available of course. Open up the vast seas to the players... allow player crafted ships (ala VG), sea monsters and lost desert islands, all ruled over by an Atlantis type city from beneath the waves. Use this update to introduce at least 2 new races and 2 new classes, including the Elementalist, and the Beast Master. I would give this all as a free update to existing players.

• Do away with static, stand-around-a-campfire MOBs in open zones and replace them with established strongholds/ bases and an integrated random encounter system that spawns monsters, caravans, quest NPCs, whatever as you travel from tables influenced by your character's race/ faction/ location.

• Do away with camping for quests. Replace it with spawned and locked encounters that require skill over an player endurance test. Randomly spawning contested non-quest linked nameds are still good though.

• I would then repackage EQ2 as EVERQUEST: THE NEW AGE (or somesuch), selling it as a complete box for a low price. On the back of this, mount a relaunch as you would a new game, promote it like mad to all the new players WoW has brought into the hobby, including a WAR style movie to blow people's minds, and give ALL old and new EQ2 players alike a free month if they are current subscribers at the time of the relaunch.

• From a given date, the same date as the launch of the free update and the rebranding, I would declare the introduction of a Veteran Server, and a game wide reset for all other servers.

But but but... I have spent thousands of years building up my character, decorating his house, building my guild, I hear you ask...

Well, yes, you have, and as such you should be rewarded. To this end;

• Give all existing players the CHOICE to sacrifice their characters on their god alters, and any items they have on them, to gain HERITAGE POINTS, which would be attached to their account, to be spent amongst their characters as they see fit. Players would also be given the choice to keep their existing characters, being offered a free server transfer to new VETERAN SERVERS if they so wish. The Veteran Servers would be the home of all the remaing high level characters, though of course new characters could be created there by the players present. Despite it's name, any player is welcome to play on the Vet Server, it's just a way of placing all the developed characters that the players cannot bear to lose in one place and allowing the other refreshed servers a fighting chance.

• Players will be able to spend their Heritage Points on such things as titles, city statues and monuments for their sacrificed characters, special housing in the keep of their home city, titles, avatar customisations, exclusive mounts, streets and landmarks named after their sacrificed characters, ships, and other non combat affecting goodies that will give them a special place in the world without unbalancing it. I would also allow exisiting players to keep the names attached to their accounts, as I would allow guilds to keep their names in the new game, attaching it to the leader's account. Of course, guilds would also be rewarded for their acheivments as a whole, in a similar way using an adapted Heritage Point system.

Well... there you have it... a basic relaunch plan for EQ2 to maybe catapault it alongside the biggest games out there and reinvigorate the brand. I believe with a relaunch, EQ2 could easily hit the 500,000 subs mark, as EQ did before it, and probably even the 1,000,000 mark.

I mean.. really... at this point there is so much to gain, and what really is there to lose?

[Looker1010]

While I despair at the absence of an advertising budget for EQII I cannot agree with what you advocate - a whole new game.

No, after laboring for 2 1/2 years on my 9 gals, I do not want a server wipe and to start over again.

No, I do not want mariner's bells removed.

No, I do not want "static" mobs replaced by strongholds. I, as do many others, play solo most of the time and your idea would be the death knell to soloers.

Well, you get the idea. I don't like your ideas at all.

[Hoova_Dalewt]

Looker1010 wrote:

While I despair at the absence of an advertising budget for EQII I cannot agree with what you advocate - a whole new game.

No, after laboring for 2 1/2 years on my 9 gals, I do not want a server wipe and to start over again.

No, I do not want mariner's bells removed.

No, I do not want "static" mobs replaced by strongholds. I, as do many others, play solo most of the time and your idea would be the death knell to soloers.

Well, you get the idea. I don't like your ideas at all.

It's fine not to, I offer them up with no conditions

Did you really understand what I am saying though? I say this with no offense intended.

• You would be free to move to a Veteran Server with any character/ guild you wished to keep. If you chose to sacrifice them, then you would be rewarded in many ways, from permanent memorials to them in the world, to exclusive non balance affecting content, to custom avatars, to whatever, only obtainable via Heritage Points. Btw, personally I dont see these games as 'labour'... I play them for fun

• When I say strongholds, I meant this as a general term for a grouped base for any given mob (if appropriate), AND the use of a Random Encounter Table as a character moves through the world (based on lvl, location, faction etc) to generate dynamic ever changing content suitiable for your character, which would include solo players of course. I have no ambitions to inhibit soloing, but you seem to suggest soloing relies on grinding static mobs... I am saying it can be better then that with very little work if you open your imagination...

You don't have to like my ideas, thats not a problem and tbh I saw posts like this coming from a mile off so it's not a shock, but I hope I helped you understand them a little better.

[retro_guy]

Why would any existing player do anything  OTHER than move to the veteran servers?? All you'd be left with would be 5-6 packed servers, and 10 empty servers, not much of an invitation for people to join, since I assume the Veteran servers would also have the new content. Effective you'd be consolodation the last of the servers onto fewer servers.

[Hoova_Dalewt]

retro_guy wrote:

Why would any existing player do anything  OTHER than move to the veteran servers?? All you'd be left with would be 5-6 packed servers, and 10 empty servers, not much of an invitation for people to join, since I assume the Veteran servers would also have the new content. Effective you'd be consolodation the last of the servers onto fewer server

Lets take your assumption as fact for now and run with it...

Yep, of course the Vet Servers would also have the new content  

So, we have 5-6 busy vibrant consolidated Servers that the Vets who couldnt bear to part with at least one of  their characters have moved to (at least in part)... and 10 reset servers (at least) full of new, exisiting, or returning players to the game... In effect, we have in practice a new game, unmatched graphically or playwise by any other MMORPG out there (IMO), ready to go with a minimum investment budget (for a game such as this at least).

What do we have now? The same number of servers with (lets be honest here...) ever diminishing  populations..? Wheres the future in that?

I am failing to see how all this wouldnt benifit SoE, all the players, and EQ2 in general... Surely all we have gained is an injection of 10+ servers of fresh blood into the arm of the game we love?

All this for the dev budget (more or less) of a free update and an expansion? Sounds like a bargain to me. The players are out there for the taking, all it's gonna take is for SoE to put EQ2 back on the agenda.

I am sure the existing player base has a healthy percentage of people that would sacrifice their existing characters for Heritage Points and who would enjoy a restart in an enhanced, invigorated game. Maybe not the game I describe in this thread, but this is just an example of what I would do... It isnt the be all and end all of what could be done, thats for sure. 

I am a little confused though by your assumption that all the new players would head to the Vet Servers and want to play on them, leaving the reset servers empty. The Vet Servers would probably represent exactly what was putting them off starting the game right now... It dosent really make sense the new player base would head to them... Why wouldnt returning players, new players, and a healthy dose of existing ones want to start afresh, on an even footing, to explore the world together?

It's up to SoE really... They can continue milking the ever shrinking player base of whatever cash they can get out of them (EQ1 anyone?), or they could potentiolly boost the player base by a huge amount with reliatively little effort.

[kenm]

I'm confused. Who in the world would actually sacrifice their character for anything?  I mean mine has 220 days played, I can't think of anything that'd actually make me want to start over.  Likewise, I'm sure most of the people at the cap feel the same way.  Second, what do you base your assumption that a reason new players haven't started playing is because of the high level players?  What about all the broken content that never gets fixed, the horrible optimization of the game making it impossible to run on extreme quality on raids with ~60 fps, while any recent game nowadays looks nicer than EQ2 does on max and sure as heck runs better?  Or how about SOE nerfing everything down making this game completely tame and playable by four year olds?    Or SOE wasting time making completely stupid new races like the Fae?  Or how about that time SOE went and just completely removed like 100 quests from Qeynos and Freeport all at once, making the newbie experience incredibly bland to what it was at launch? There's loads of reasons for people not playing the game, and honestly I don't understand why anybody dead set on not playing EQ2 would play it just because of a relaunch.  In fact, most people would take that as an admittance that the game blows chunks and the company is incredibly desperate. So I have to agree with retro_guy, the entire population would move to the "veteran servers" while the new servers would attract very few if any new customers.  And odds are those new customers would leave, or play on veteran servers, due to the immensely low population they encounter. Of course, if SOE actually decided to advertise this game whatsoever that wouldn't be a bad idea.

[Hoova_Dalewt]

Kenman@Najena wrote:

I'm confused. Who in the world would actually sacrifice their character for anything?  I mean mine has 220 days played, I can't think of anything that'd actually make me want to start over.  Likewise, I'm sure most of the people at the cap feel the same way.  Second, what do you base your assumption that a reason new players haven't started playing is because of the high level players?  What about all the broken content that never gets fixed, the horrible optimization of the game making it impossible to run on extreme quality on raids with ~60 fps, while any recent game nowadays looks nicer than EQ2 does on max and sure as heck runs better?  Or how about SOE nerfing everything down making this game completely tame and playable by four year olds?    Or SOE wasting time making completely stupid new races like the Fae?  Or how about that time SOE went and just completely removed like 100 quests from Qeynos and Freeport all at once, making the newbie experience incredibly bland to what it was at launch? There's loads of reasons for people not playing the game, and honestly I don't understand why anybody dead set on not playing EQ2 would play it just because of a relaunch.  In fact, most people would take that as an admittance that the game blows chunks and the company is incredibly desperate. So I have to agree with retro_guy, the entire population would move to the "veteran servers" while the new servers would attract very few if any new customers.  And odds are those new customers would leave, or play on veteran servers, due to the immensely low population they encounter. Of course, if SOE actually decided to advertise this game whatsoever that wouldn't be a bad idea.

Ahh I spot a power gamer

If you don't want to sacrifice a character, you wouldnt have to... I thought I had said this before... but, if you did there would be real lasting rewards to buy with Heritage Points. Also, it wouldnt just be a relaunch would it? I thought I had described all that before as well...

It's an admittance of nothing of the sort btw, but you won't listen to me saying that, so I will save my breath and let you assume the worst there if you wanna.

The reset servers would populate imho... Was you there for the launch of EoF? Did you see the influx of existing players rerolling, and new and returning players filling 3-4 instances of Gfay every night? I agree the majority of hardcore power gamers would not sacrifice and reroll all their characters to restart on a fresh server, even with the benifits Heritage Points would give them, but these players simply don't represent the be all and end all of any server's population. Anyhoo... the point here is that the influx of new/ returning/ rerolling players would be ample to fill the rest servers as I see it, so that would take care of that 

The genre is desperate for a quality mature MMORPG, and a relaying, reset, and relaunch would promote the game to a whole new audience that has started playing since EQ2 was launched, but have never tried it simply because it isnt the sparkly new game out this month. Once a game is established and has been running for 2 or so years, most people wont even look at it because they see it as being owned by a 'L337' of hardcore power gamers that they would have no chance of competeting against, so why bother trying? They would be forever behind eveyone else right? As I said before, this isnt really true in EQ2, but we are talking about perceptions here, not necessarily reality. As for the other issues you talk about... a new or returning player prolly wouldnt even be aware of them, so why would that be stopping them playing the game?  My turn to be confused...

Believe it or not, but most gamers out there havent even heard of EQ1 or 2... and that includes a whole stack of peeps that WoW has bought into the hobby.

We have two choices as it stands I think, like I describe above.... a gradual fade into nothingness, milking the shrinking player base for their money as we go ala EQ1, or a pro-active and imaginative move to rejuvinate the game and it's future.

BTW, why would SoE advertise a game like you describe? You make it sound down right horrible...

[retro_guy]

I agree that the game needs some sort of relaunch, and making some new servers, with something only availble on the new servers would inspire people create new characters on them. Perhaps consolodate the main servers further, but there should NOT be server wipes. After the new servers have been going for 6 months - year, allow free transfers to them, for those don't want to be spilt between 2 servers.

[Rijacki]

Hoova_Dalewt wrote:

Ahh I spot a power gamer

You do not need to be a power gamer to not want to sacrifice a character you've had a long time.  I've been playing since launch.  I have a few characters for which I have a strong attachment.  Some have fewer /played than others.  Rijacki is my longest played character (created on the first day within a few hours of the servers going live) and she just hit 70 wizard a few weeks ago.  Power gaming?  with her?  riiiiight.  My dirge went from 0 to 70 in 3 months over a year ago, -she- was power gamed and I am, admittedly, less attached to her than Rijacki.  As for your idea... I find it rather preposterous.  Anyone can pick up the game brand new today and still rise to "compete" with those who have been playing since launch.  The newbie experience has been enriched by the quest lines they've added and the fact those quests are more story oriented than go take this to that person (then again, one does have to actually read the quest dialogue to know that).  In fact, there are 4 (or more, really) distinctly different newbie experiences (err 4 when Neriak/Darklight Wood goes live). The ONLY thing that is needed to get more people interested in playing is making the game more visible.  It needs advertising, it needs shelf space, it needs people actually talking about it (instead of most players reluctantly or even not admitting they play).  The launch of EoF could have been more widely publicised, hopefully the next expansion will be. 

[retro_guy]

There does need to be a better marketing effort put in - I see posted many times that people have difficulty finding a copy of EOF to buy - even at launch it was difficult to find copies apparently. The main problem is that only the retail copy of EOF comes with all the expansions, the download does not. If SOE cannot get the stores to stock the game, or are unwilling to increase the marketing budget to market them to the stores, why not sell the retail version from the SOE website and have it shipped out to customers? Or offer to just email the KEY which would save on the shipping? People want to buy the product, but it isn't easily available! Then again, I live in New Zealand and yesterday saw 2 copies of EOF on the shelf at my local Gamesman (www.gamesman.co.nz), and just to give you some background - the fact that I am playing EQ2 today, is because of an impulse buy - I happened to drop by the store 3 days after the launch of EQ2, and saw it on the shelf and bought it (had no idea that it had been released). I would expect atleast 50% of all sales in game stores are impulse buys, if the box isn't on the shelf, people will buy something else instead!

[Raveller]

You're talking about a whole new game there Hoova. SOE, and the other MMO publishers, learned from the SWG nuke not to do the things you are proposing. While there are many players who felt that the changes to crafting and the elimination of the poorly conceived archetype system in EQ2 were also nukes, I think the changes made to EQ2 were merely corrections to the boneheaded mistakes made in the original game design. While many of your ideas have merit, they would be the end of EQ2 if implemented.

[Brendon344]

Or, you could just consolodate more servers that are almost empty, and create 2 new servers that you can't move characters onto, one normal and one Roleplaying. You could advertise this to new people as the economy would be fitted to them, problem solved!

[Raveller]

retro_guy wrote:

I agree that the game needs some sort of relaunch, and making some new servers, with something only availble on the new servers would inspire people create new characters on them.

A new server with special rules similar to the Firiona Vie server in EQ1. They gave Exchange and PvP a try (neither of those can be considered successes), why not roleplaying?

[Brendon344]

I'd love a server more like FV, without being as harsh. I still want chat channels and OOC to be well, OOC.

[retro_guy]

Even just creating 1 new server every 6 months so the economy is brand new would be appealing to some players - no transfers should be allowed to these servers for atleast a year, or even 2 years.

[sayitaintso]

SOE is buying the rights to Vanguard. I see them polishing it, retooling it to play on PCs with EQish specs and re releasing it as their NEW MMO...EQ2 is nearly 3 years old, it has sort of a bad reutation within the gaming world circles and I doubt any new retooling would change a lot of minds about it. If people aren't interested in playing it now, I don't think they ever will. As time goes by and newer games are released, EQ2 will lose more people, market share and eventually (although not any time soon) fade from exisitence..Just like all other MMOs...I think SOE will use Vanguard as their newest Sword and Sorcery genre game, and then not make any new games in that genre for a while. There are a lot of new games coming out and competition is heavy..It's time to come up with somehting new and exciting...

[Payneal The Great]

All they have to do is advertise advertise advertise for a few weeks. This plus making sure all store have EQ2 on thier shelves, EQ2 would sky rocket. This is by far the best MMO out today, and its complete crap on SOE's advertisment team for not making this game more popular. Put in 1/2 or even 1 million bucks into advertisment, and they will be opening more servers.

[Ithilmar]

Something that should be mentioned is the stigma of the name Everquest. My friends and family still call it evercrack and still confuse EQ1 and EQ2 and the other variants. Before the advertising goes into full swing, SOE should think about simply changing the name, that alone would probably draw more customers. Nearly everyone into MMOs has heard of "Everquest" at some point, but no one would have heard about "Empires of Norrath", or something along those lines. Keep boxes on the store shelves, or give the digital downloads the same bonuses as gotten by buying EoF DVD and potentially future ex-pack releases, and with a new name, people wouldn't have a predetermined idea of what to like or not like about the game(How many times have people said EQ1 and EQ2 have nothing but their names in common? How many people from EQ1 come over and dislike EQ2 simply because it isn't what the expected the sequel to EQ1 would be? How many times have people gotten only the EoF digital download and had to go spend far more money to get other downloads?).

[sundrop]

The complete opposite is happening, SOE knows EQ2 is a dying breed. There main focus now is to absorb as much money as they can prior to it crocking. What does this mean to you, the player? its your pocket book... Expect there to be more "content" added in regards to expansions and adventure packs BUT dont expect huge content. For $30 we will give you a lvl 1-20 zone and maybe a new race, for the cost of an adventure pack we will give you a new quest or two in a new zone.... Expect SOE to be the first ones to raise the ongoing MMO rate of $15 to something higher...I expect to hear $20 when the new launchpad comes out. SOE is not looking to expand, they are looking to reduce there cost as much as possible, server mergers, content reduction. This is just my opinion, feel free to discuss it in a none flaming way. *dont forget SOE has people working on undisclosed program right now, expect it to be there main focus as it gets up and going... EQ2 will be like EQ1 where the  contentt is added just to get more $$ out of a dying game Too save my skin, SOE is still the only MMO I pay $30 a month for, I feel this is the best *bang* for my buck, as I enjoy every SOE game even the old ones like EQ and PS.

[Naubeta]

Not sure why EQ2 would be a dying game. Graphicaly it's still competitive with lotr-online etc and the genre hasn't moved on in terms of gameplay mechanics at all. What would they replace it with? Another game basically the same but with a different name just to be new?

[Raveller]

The very best SOE could do for EQ2 would be to sell it to another company. Any company.

[Freddy101]

More character slots would keep me around 500 times longer then it's goign to considering I reached character cap in 2 weeks and have no intentions of deleting anyone. I won't see a tenth of the possiblity's as I am not paying sony station access pass for more character slots and I won't be playing any other soe games other then eq2. My 2 cents.

[SignumX]

Its just too late for eq2 its an "old" game these days. Learning curve is harsh, lowbie lvls are deserted and people even if they do play low lvls dont leave their guilds own players. Its time for eq3.

[Uilamin]

Raveller wrote:

retro_guy wrote:

I agree that the game needs some sort of relaunch, and making some new servers, with something only availble on the new servers would inspire people create new characters on them.

A new server with special rules similar to the Firiona Vie server in EQ1. They gave Exchange and PvP a try (neither of those can be considered successes), why not roleplaying?

Nagafen and Venekor are two of the more populated servers, it is hard to call them not a success.

[RFMan]

If EQ2 were completely on the decline, I don't think they'd be adding low-level content.  EQ1 is on the decline, and it has been for many years.  The way to squeeze money?  Keep adding new high-end content for those who have been playing a long time, not adding new content.  I think this has been pretty clearly established; however, I suppose it's possible that EQ2 is an "experimenting ground" for SOE to learn if certain new strategies work. You'd actually be surprised how many new characters there are, though.  My guild has been trying to find competent low-level characters so that we can eventually have enough people for light raiding, and we've gotten a lot of new players in just the past week. EDIT: as for what the original poster stated, I think a big, new media push would really do a lot of good, but I disagree with just about every single one of your ideas of how to do this.  They're just plain bad ideas.

[Armawk]

sundrop wrote:

 For $30 we will give you a lvl 1-20 zone and maybe a new race, for the cost of an adventure pack we will give you a new quest or two in a new zone....

That doesnt make much sense when they have more than that as a 'price includes' update on test this week, and their recent addon was just massive by any standards.

[Raveller]

Uilamin wrote:

Raveller wrote:

retro_guy wrote:

I agree that the game needs some sort of relaunch, and making some new servers, with something only availble on the new servers would inspire people create new characters on them.

A new server with special rules similar to the Firiona Vie server in EQ1. They gave Exchange and PvP a try (neither of those can be considered successes), why not roleplaying?

Nagafen and Venekor are two of the more populated servers, it is hard to call them not a success.

Hardly.

[Raveller]

SignumX wrote:

Its just too late for eq2 its an "old" game these days. Learning curve is harsh, lowbie lvls are deserted and people even if they do play low lvls dont leave their guilds own players. Its time for eq3.

That's not even coherent. EQ2 is super simple to learn to play. If you're having a hard time, perhaps Candyland is more your speed, or you could just go back to WoW. The low levels are not deserted. The low level chat channels are very busy with new people.

[sayitaintso]

Deadli@Antonia Bayle wrote:

All they have to do is advertise advertise advertise for a few weeks. This plus making sure all store have EQ2 on thier shelves, EQ2 would sky rocket. This is by far the best MMO out today, and its complete crap on SOE's advertisment team for not making this game more popular. Put in 1/2 or even 1 million bucks into advertisment, and they will be opening more servers.

Advertise all they want, it's not going to change the mind of all those who already have a bad taste in their mouth from all the bad press SOE and EQ2 have recieved in the last couple of years. Some people have been turned off of SOE games by things like what happened to SWG, and to some extent by the way SOE has run EQ2 into the ground. I think it's a bit late for advertising. I don't know too many people who play other MMOs whoare going to just give up their current game to come play EQ2. Nor do I too many gamers in general who are going to come play a game that's been on the market for nearly 3 years. SOE and EQ2 have a stigma surrounding them. Bad press, no advertising, gimping games...all of which contributes to their inability to draw more players...

[Dragowulf]

Dunaway@Guk wrote:

Deadli@Antonia Bayle wrote:

All they have to do is advertise advertise advertise for a few weeks. This plus making sure all store have EQ2 on thier shelves, EQ2 would sky rocket. This is by far the best MMO out today, and its complete crap on SOE's advertisment team for not making this game more popular. Put in 1/2 or even 1 million bucks into advertisment, and they will be opening more servers.

Advertise all they want, it's not going to change the mind of all those who already have a bad taste in their mouth from all the bad press SOE and EQ2 have recieved in the last couple of years. Some people have been turned off of SOE games by things like what happened to SWG, and to some extent by the way SOE has run EQ2 into the ground. I think it's a bit late for advertising. I don't know too many people who play other MMOs whoare going to just give up their current game to come play EQ2. Nor do I too many gamers in general who are going to come play a game that's been on the market for nearly 3 years. SOE and EQ2 have a stigma surrounding them. Bad press, no advertising, gimping games...all of which contributes to their inability to draw more players...

what happend to swg? i always hear people talking about it.