Here you have it!
He looks attractive enough to make me buy the box. And another All-In-One pack is goooood. =) Rawr. Announcement post here:
http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=384848
On the topic of EQ2, I haven’t played the game since I moved to San Diego. My guild is still going relatively strong, but I sort of just ‘lost’ the motivation to play it. I just can’t figure out why that game does that to me more than any other. I’m not sure if it’s because that’s just my attitude towards ALL MMO’s and only EQ2 has the power to keep me subscribed and wanting to return, or if the game just loses its fun factor quickly, or if there is something fundamentally wrong with the game. I don’t think it’s the latter two…but I just can’t put my finger on it. While I’m playing that game, I’m having a blast. I love the zones, the nostalgia, the art, the immersive world, the quests and the lore, the playerbase/community, the classes. Why is it that I can’t keep playing!??!?
Compare that with WoW. For me, WoW has so much about it that I do not like. I don’t enjoy the playerbase very much (although my guild is great.) I don’t like the major emphasis on raiding and PvP as the only options in the end game. I’m not sure what exactly it is that pulls me back to WoW so frequently, but I’m having a good time this time around. I’ve been slowly leveling up a blood elf hunter and I’ve also gone up two levels on Cuppycake, my priest that is level 62 now. I play less than 10 hours a week. Maybe less than 5….but it’s working. My level of dedication to the game pretty equally matches the amount of dedication that it requires for me to feel like I’m accomplishing something when I play. I like that =)
Anyway, enjoy the box art!
Tami Baribeau is the Associate Producer for Metaplace, Inc, currently working on Island Life. She is also the Lead Editor of feminist gaming blog The Border House, and the National Facebook Games Examiner for Examiner.com. She can be reached on Twitter or by email.
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I have precisely the same evil cycle with EQ2… And I can’t come up with an answer either. I keep saying it is the best overall MMO out there, but I keep topping out around level 30 and then eq2-fading. We need to start a think tank to solve this and let SOE know what we come up with.
Agreed. I’ve said over and over again that it is the best MMO on the market in terms of what I’m looking for when I pay a monthly subscription fee. It really is the total package – but why can’t it hold my interest? My highest character ever is a 34. =/
I’ve kicked around the idea of jumping back into EQ2 as this next expansion looks pretty interesting. It’s been about a year since I last played, and the all-in-one package sounds nice. We’ll see…I’m still holding out hope for a War beta invite because I know I’ll probably drop everything for that.
Ah yes, the elusive WAR beta invite. Grr….
My problem with EQ2 is the same problem I have with most MMOs. I hit 70 and I hate raiding. period.
I finally talked my wife into playing about a year and a half ago and it was nice to always have a mini-group. We first leveled to 70 because that was the thing to do… then found out that we hated raiding and started over. This time we had a goal… level to 70 doing only HQs. That actually worked but to finish the last two HQs we need to… wait for it… raid.
I just don’t get raiding. A large group of 24 people standing on top of one another in a dungeon fighting whatever… Wheee. Invaribly the warlock causes the raid to wipe and then we start again.
I guess what I am looking for is a game that has absolutely no raiding. Pipe dream I know.
Just let me keep questing and soaking up lore. God knows it beats watching tv.
Well, I think an Iksar standing over a chained up high-elf female in a skimpy outfit would’ve been better…
I think that’s been done, though.
For me EQ2 just never had the “it” factor that could keep me around. I played it for a few months a while back got up into the mid 50’s or so and then got real bored.
WoW…. well… been to the endgame (pre-bc) 3 times and quit shortly afterward… raiding just isnt something that I really enjoy all that much.. well… I enjoy it the second and third times through, normally. But, thats the end of it. The first time kinda sucks because I am at a loss as to what it is I am supposed to be doing and spend most of my time trying to do what it is I am supposed to be doing (usually dps as 2 of my toons are hunters) and trying to manage my aggro so healers dont bitch and whine about having to heal me lol. The second and third times are where the fun is at for me.. its still new enough that I can learn a bit, but I have a good enough idea of whats going on that I can actually enjoy the show. After that though its not about accomplishing a goal, its all about loot and blech. That’s not what I play these games for.
I almost reinstalled wow the other day so I could go ahead and get my shammie and 2 hunters up to 70 but midway through the install I talked myself out of it.
On a happy note I love the new theme Cuppy!!!!
I have been playing, quit and gone back to EQ2 a couple of times. My mind likes all the different elements and game systems in there and that there are a lot of them to fiddle around with. But I think it may also makes the effort to get back into the game a bit heavier while still not being a completely new game where everything around you is new which may provide some excitement in itself.
when i tried playing wow i had that problem, but in reverse. I couldn’t get in to wow, it was fun… but i keep going back to eq2.
And i think it because we are accustomed to a certain play style. And no matter how fun another game is, it just isn’t the same style and we go back to the old one.
Try not to blame EQ2 for your OCD / ADD tendancies. If you are fickle, you are fickle, and it doesn’t matter what game(s) you play, you are going to be bouncing around, itching to do something new.
EQ2 has such an amazing depth, so many different angles, things to see, and things to do, but it takes time, and it takes an investment of effort to get there and do that.
It took my over a month, a month of steady play to complete the Hero of Maj Dul questline, and you know how much I play. Sure I didn’t work on it 24X7, but I shudder to think how long that would have taken me to do if I only played 5 hours a week.
If your time commitment to the game is small, you are inevitably going to get burned out because you will be stuck on the same content / zones / dungeons for weeks at a time.
And for raiding, if you take it for what it really is; a fellowship working to overcome challenges and better yourselfs, rather then some grand epic storyline / adventure / visual experience then it really does work well.
I run 2 labs raids a week (2 different characters) and you would think I would be bored out of my mind, but honestly I enjoy the challenge, the strategery*, and the friendships and social interaction.
It’s your playstyle that dooms you.
I am right there with you Cuppy, once you moved I kinda stopped playing as well but I outlined my feelings in that WoW is just so much more visceral and fast and quick, and EQ2 seems too ploddy for me combat wise. Plus Blizzard knows how to hook you with their annoying dailies, little quest pets and crap like that. Also I started in that game and I must finish there because I have not seen so much yet but I am close to 25 man content
THK – I would have no problem blaming it on myself – but the fact is, it’s not just me. It’s a VERY common issue with EQ2 – so I’m starting to feel that it isn’t my MMOADD. =/
It’s certainly not MMOADD. Were that true I’d have not stuck it out with Auto Assault (a much lesser game) and spent 2 solid years playing WoW (with nary a console game between sessions).
There is something intangible missing in EQ2 for me, and apparently a good number of people, that just makes it so I lose interest within a few weeks of picking it up each time.
Don’t feel bad, Cuppster… my highest is 21 and I’ve had the game for over 2 years. I’ve seen it grow from a sham of an MMO compared to WoW, to rivaling Blizzard’s beast and often overtaking it in many areas. But then why can’t I love it as much as it feels I should? Why do I keep falling away from it every time I pick it up? It’s not ADD, that’s for sure.
For me, since EQ2 was my first real MMO and I’ve had a great time there, it is the game that gets compared to every other that I’ve attempted to play. I’ve tried WoW, GuildWars, CoH, DAoC, LOTRO, Vanguard and each time I’ve returned to EQ2. Couple that with the fact that EQ2 has continued to add more and more content with each update and expansion and I’m quite pleased with my investment.
I don’t think yourself and the few examples here can be corrolated into a “very common” issue. I grant you, different strokes for different folks is at play here, and EQ2 is not for everyone, and it also has a lot steeper system requirement then say Wow, or LOTRO, but there are still quite a few people playing EQ2 who can and do make it past low level whatever, and enjoy the game.
I stand by what I said, if you put a tiny amount of time in played wise, you are by default going to get bored with the game at a quicker pace then say someone who pushes 4 hours a day or more.
It’s an objective based game, and unlike Wow, those objectives, many of them, require a significant amount of time invested to complete.
Judging the entire game based on your 1-30 experience (or others and their 1-20 or 1-whateverlowlevel experience) is insane.
If the game doesn’t do it for you, then it doesn’t do it for you. It doesn’t mean there is something wrong with the game. Oh there is definately something wrong with a game, hell there is a gigantic list of somethings wrong with the game, but failing to “hook” the self acknowledged MMOADD chica is probably not one of them.
No game alive attacts 100% of the possible gamer population (though I am sure Wow comes pretty close), and no game should, or ever could.
Interesting comments all around, but I haven’t yet seen a mention of what I finally figured out was my particular MMOADD-cause. Some background:
Every time I’ve gone back to a game it’s been because someone else is picking it up and wants to play, and I go back to play with them, but as soon as there’s a recurring disjoint in our playstyles or availability, I’ll stop playing. I think my addiction to the whole ‘team-spirit’ aspect of playing MMOs actually explains why I’ve tried WoW twice and have never managed to ‘get’ that game — I have friends who play(ed), but never actually started a character with them to progress with, and it was just way… too… quiet.
MMOs for me started with Ultima Online’s Beta and daily doses of the IRC/forum hype over getting in. They hadn’t even started taking beta apps and we already had guild drama going on (aw yeah). Result was that I started playing with a large group of very excited, very eager, very committed players who already had an established social circle. What ultimately led to my leaving that game was the eventual moving-on of the people I knew and played with — nothing to do with the game itself, which I still have fond memories of.
Next up was actually DAoC (I skipped EQ entirely), which I started by inheriting a character from my then-significant other’s hardcore RvR/PvE raid guild. Crazy fools with a multi-guild alliance and teamspeak, and they’d rather let one of their officers’ girlfriends take over the char than lose a bard. This was my introduction to raiding schedules and DKP and endless talking smack on guild chat, and it was awesome. It turned out that this particular guild was an offshoot of an EQ raid guild who basically started up teams under the same flag on whatever games were coming out — “very excited, very eager, very committed players who already had an established social circle.”
I started FFXI when it came out in the US with their offshoot team — same concept. I had already committed to their EQ2 team because the significant other was going to lead it. Every game I picked up I went into with the same basic ‘here’s my guild and we roll hardcore’ enthusiasm. When the people I knew and liked eventually burned out, my interest in playing universally dropped along with, regardless of the game.
Lately I haven’t had the urge to commit the time to play high end raiding like I used to – I found some other things I like doing just as much.
Clearly I am addicted to guild drama and can’t handle playing an MMO without it. XD But seriously. For me what keeps me hooked on a game really has nothing to do with the game itself and everything to do with who you’re playing it with. I’ve left games I felt were ’superior’ to play with a group of friends and had a blast, and I’ve gone back repeatedly to my favorites trying to recapture what exactly it was that causes the nostalgia and never quite can.
I do miss the scheduled raiding playstyle, but man, so much catching up to do…
Very good point Ama, and I point that I’ve made on several occasions on this blog. I never have quite found that group in EQ2 that I fit in with…so perhaps that is my trouble. The most fun I’ve ever had in EQ2 was just duoing with a friend….and as soon as one of us stops playing – the other stops pretty quick thereafter.
THK – I don’t think I really do have MMOADD. That was mostly a joke. And I think I can judge the 1-30 game when my comments on EQ2 are “Everything I’ve experienced in the game I have loved. I love everything about EQ2.” You also haven’t played with me when I was playing 4+ hours a night. That was pre-AB times, and I used to have one hell of a time playing the game for hours and hours a night. This last go wasn’t my best go. =)
Finding a group of people to play with and with similar play styles and interests is a very important factor I think. My second round in EQ2 lasted around 5 months and I had multiple characters in 40s and 30s starting from scratch then.
Even though there were nice people in the guild I was in, they were mainly focused on raiding, playing their 60-70s and if they played lower levels that was mainly to farm master spells from named mobs and work on twinks. And most groups I got into was mainly about raw xp grind (pick one spot, kill everything that spawns), farm master spells or rush through quests to get the rewards as quickly as possible.
Neither of these appealed to me and when some fellow ex-WoW players I met in game felt the same and jumped (back) to City of Heroes/Villains I joined them. Now it is 16 months later and I still love playing that game and it is definitely because there are some people around that I can play with and have good fun. Plus a few “wow that’s cool” elements from the game itself. The first time I was in a PUG in CoH/CoV and experienced a full 8-man group + sidekick/lackey and the combat experience there sold me on the game.
Since then I have jumped back into old games and tried some new, but ended back into spandex
If you have had a good combo of elements in one game and maybe still have that somewhere, it is going to be an uphill struggle for any game to beat that, regardless how good it is on paper. And a game that has these things in place may be crap in some other areas, but you will still like because it still has these things that are “it” for you.
I have the same problem with EQ2, its almost embarassing to admit that I actually own all of the expansions and yet have no toon over level 17.
My theory is that EQ2 very rapidly attains the level of “itplayslikeitsadamnjob”. The reason for this is the constant upgrading of skills that is necessary. Face it, if you try to play with only the skill set you get from leveling, by level 10 even con mobs wipe the floor with you. You absolutly must upgrade your skills.
For new, unguilded players this is a significant obstical. One wonders why they included it in the game, as it removes focus from things that actually enhance your game play experiance to something that you absolutly must have to progress.
Hence, adding a mundane and worklike mechanism to something that should be fun.
-Gooney
*Beckons suggestively…with a mystical voice* come back, come back, EQ2 is your home…come back…
I h ave the same problem I am stuck at level 30 and want to play but when i sit down to do it i just cant log in WHY IS THAT ?!?!?!?
WoW got revived for me when some RL friends and my self made a guild. That was a lot of fun. I wonder if I can round the troops up and make a guild in EQ2.
I think the things that plague me about EQ2 are the lack of an overarching continuous storyline represented by quests as you level and the incongruity of the art.
In explanation: the quests seem to be abundant, but all of them seem to have some small story, some good some not-so-good, but when the quest is done, you’re left standing at the quest giver wondering where to grind til the next decent quest. I’m not looking to be led around by the nose, WoW-style (no bang on WoW, I like that game as well) but being able to level from min to max by doing quests seems ideal to me and the way to tell a story.
As to my comments about art, something always made EQ2 seem less polished than WoW, and now LotRO. That thing, I realized, is that the scenery, characters and assets (buildings, artifacts, etc.) all seem to have different level of detail. The most striking recent evidence of this is the new Neriak. The buildings have good detail, my toon has good detail (albeit strangely different detail) and these two exist on a ground that looks devoid of detail and looks as if it was created by a different team using a different palette and textures who were not allowed to ever talk to the other team.
These are the two things that continually niggle at me as I play. Not to say these things are cause for universal complaint, just wondering if anyone feels the same way.
Vance
Label it what you like – ADD, diminishing returns on investment or something indefinable missing from the game. It all boils down to the same thing, as a player your not getting what you want out of the game anymore. It takes different people different amounts of time to reach that point ’cause we’re all getting something slightly different out of the game than the next person (Richard Bartles player types being one way of looking at it)
MMO’s have a hard task in trying to maintain a players interest over an extended period of time… its nigh on impossible to keep one persons interest in performing the same actions again and again and again.
Traditional MMO’s are well known for grind, and those players that seem to still be enjoying EQII after extended periods of time always talk about the rewards attributed to persistence and needing to dedicate yourself to the game. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing – just that their getting something out of the game that I probably never will, acheiving goals via dedicated and thoughtful play, while I’m an experience junkie – give me red wine followed by some white wine, then some beer, a nice schnapps etc – but if I have to drink red wine every night… no matter how much I like it… I’ll get sick of it pretty damn quick. Others will love the minor variations you can get in red wine – and probably could drink it every night.
For me, once I’ve hit level 20 or so I’ve pretty much seen everything the game has to offer… not literally, obviously, but apart from changes in scenery, what I wear/wield and the animation effects and damage of my abilities I can pretty much predict what the next umpteen hours of my time spent in the game will be like. What keeps me coming back is the promise of something different, people add that element sometimes – in other cases its the promise of changed game play (end of game raiding) or getting that mount so I can move around the map quicker or just look cool. But some point is always reached where I just feel that whatever is around the corner just isn’t worth the amount of effort I have to put in.
So when EQII release a major update, expansion or adventure – I dive back in to the game to feel those new elements, craving that old experience like a junkie needing that fix. But I quickly experience those new elements and the old ones are still the same as they were the last time I got bored of them… so the gameplay palls even quicker this time round. More so if I haven’t convinced my friends to resub – or there aren’t any old guildies left around.
So I don’t think that EQII has anything indefinable missing necessarily… I think its more of a case of new experiences not being provided at the correct rate to suit peoples tastes, and the method of getting there the same as its always been.