Slightly Bummed…

Well, apparently I misunderstood how the Living Legacy program worked. Since I didn’t have a subscription to the original EverQuest, I don’t qualify for the two free months. This bums me out quite a bit because I was looking forward to playing this game basically for the first time, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen. I actually bought EverQuest long, long ago, but there is no way that I could ever remember my username and password to re-activate it. Guess it’s EQ2 for me.

~Kanthalos

*Great news! I actually did manage to recover my old account information! That said, I’m patching EQ currently and I should be up and running soon.

Living Legacy: Act of Desperation?

Tobold just wrote up a post regarding Living Legacy being an act of desperation to get players to come back. He states that if there haven’t been significant changes to the game, players aren’t going to have any reason to come back and stick around if the problem that caused them to leave in the first place wasn’t fixed. He also thinks that two months is too long to be effective. While the second statement has merit, I can’t agree with the first or the last. I don’t think that this has anything to do with desperation or that it is too long. Two months is really a perfect amount of time to give players to check out the game without making it too long. Honestly, if what he said about people leaving for a reason was true (which 99% of the time it is) then having two months to give it a try could possibly help with that. With all the players coming back in to give it a try, it could really increase the population for a couple months and liven up the community a bit.

MMO’s are constantly looking for more players and the competition is getting steeper, but I don’t think that EQ2 NEEDS players. I think they have enough to be profitable and to keep running, but they would definitely like more. I think the people that are playing now are happy, and the developers enjoy their jobs and want to keep EQ2 going while continuing to improve and expand upon it with an unparalleled expansion cycle. EQ and EQ2 are almost surely the two biggest and most content-heavy MMO’s out there (with the possible exception to vanguard in terms of sheer size, I don’t know) but if players are generally stopping at 20 or 25, or not playing EQ at all, they won’t ever get to see that anyways, so this is a big problem. As for EQ2, is it the leveling people don’t like? Is it the lack of guidance? Is it the community (or seeming lack thereof in the lower levels?) For me it’s the community, but I think it’s different things for different people.

To wrap things up, I think this is an excellent marketing maneuver, not an act of desperation. I think that if this doesn’t work wonders to bring in more players, then it will be pretty clear that they won’t ever see a big jump in players again (without massive changes as you said) and that they should be satisfied with the player base they have now, but until it’s over, I think this was worth a shot. Players likely weren’t going to come back on their own, but this gives them that opportunity if they choose to use it. While they want to build their numbers before the competition gets any stiffer, I think EQ2 (and possible EQ) will still be around for a long time to come.

~Kanthalos

What Should I Do?

Now that I’m back in EQ2, I’m really left with a dilemma on several things. Basically, it’s two fold in that I don’t know whether I should keep playing one of the characters that I’ve already gotten to 18/24 (I have a 25 wizard too but on a server I have no interest in playing on) or whether I should start over. My 18 is on Befallen where Tipa is (as far as I know) with her guild Nostalgia the Guild, and my 24 is on Antonia Bayle. This is a popular server, but I don’t really know anyone playing on there right now. I’ve also started a character on Guk in case I want to hook up with Revelry and Honor which sounds like a lot of fun, too.

In terms of where I should start over or keep going, I really don’t want to start over unless it is with the toon on Guk that I just created. He’s a level 5 warlock and I don’t know whether I’ll like him or not, but I’d already played a wizard to 24 and 25, and an illusionist to 18. I like both of those classes a lot (as you can see, I prefer the caster classes in EQ2 for some reason) but I don’t want to start one over again for some reason. It’s sort of tough restarting with a mid-level toon, though, especially if you aren’t very familiar with the game. In WoW, it wouldn’t be a problem at all, but when your highest level character is the one you want to jump back in with, it’s tough to know what to do or where to go, especially if you quit because you didn’t like any of the zones you were currently playing in or were feeling stuck.

As for where to play, this is tough, too. One of my biggest problems with EQ2 the past two times that I’ve played it is that I really felt no sense of community. I didn’t have a good guild or group of friends to play around with. It felt more like a single player game with a really big world. I’m afraid that if this happens again, I’ll be done with EQ2 for good, so I really need to find a good group of players who would like to have me. I don’t want to be babied or have my hand held really, I just want to have a group of players to socialize with and help me out with advice or a quest from time to time, nothing more than a good guild SHOULD be.

I’m also not asking anyone to fight over me because, well, I’m not worth it 🙂 This is especially true in a game that I’m not familiar with and am struggling to enjoy. I’m just writing because I would like some advice from you all about what I should do or ways to make starting up again easier. That’s all for now, but let me know if you have anything to help make EQ2 home.

~Kanthalos

P.S. Tipa, I’ve never played EQ for more than 30 minutes, so I really have no idea how it works. If you’re interested in working with me to get up to speed and help me understand what’s going on (if you think that’s necessary) then I’d be willing to give it a shot. Send me an e-mail or just comment if you want.