A few things people need to realize about EQ2 and what it means for EQ1

1.) EQ 1 service WILL go down the tubes. Verant will have starwars galaxies and EQ 2 out... if that becomes true then EQ 1 will take a back seat to service/no more expansions/fewer patches/etc. as soon as it becomes more profitable for them to do so. (i'd GUESSTIMATE about a 6 months-year after EQ 2/Galaxies are both out).

2.) EQ 2 will likely cost moret to buy, and probably more a month too... SO it will be in Verants best intrest to get folks to come over to it.

3.) You all do realize the reason the game is not being made with Expansion content is just so they can make a kunark, velious, and luclin expansiomn for EQ2 don't you? Remember, EQ has lost most it's main creative staff.

4.) Verant has a poor record of customer service and a horrible record with bugs and patches and incomplete releases. At least with EQ those have been partially neutered by the fact the game has been out and tweaked so long. EQ2 is gonna make them come to the fore again.

5.) As someone else posted below IF VERANT IS WILLING TO REPLACE EQ1 W/O LETTING CHARACTERS TRANSFER, WHAT DO YOU THINK WILL HAPPEN WHEN EQ 3 COMES OUT OUT? (likely after they've released the EQ 2 kunark, velious, and luclin expansions and are out of ideas again).

Thats right, kiss all your work on EQ 2 good bye...


OR you could hop to AO/DAoC/etc who are so far not planning to make a sequel that replaces your current character, and if your like me and play all 3 games, you know it's not something they would pull. Hell Mythic probably has THE BEST customer service views in the industry. And Funcom is definetly better then Verant could ever be.

Not to mention the ultimate flaw in verants logic here (and mind you Verant was never bright buisness folks, just lucky ones who got in a new market in a hurry and greedy ones who know how to milk a dead cow)... and i'll use a car example for the simple minded, and cause i think it's fun...

if you have customers who like driving offroad vehicles, you don't stop their service to convince them to buy a sports car.

That fact is were all on EQ1 for a REASON. although something i hadn't thought of... remember how verant started hiding their server numbers to conceal how many people they were losing to other games?

What if tht number is higher then we thought and their in mroe trouble then we know... ?

okay enough thoughts and comments.

I agree with my friend a few posts down, EQ1 has grown rather boring. Now, I'm only speaking from my limited experience. I've been playing off and on for 2 and a half years, and I have a 19th Cleric, 17th Monk, and a few other mid level characters. Never have I gone on a high level raid (naturally) but I have adventured quite a bit. The fact is, even with SoW or some other speed increasing spell, adventuring on the current land just isn't exciting anymore. I could still pick it up and enjoy myself for a few hours, but it's really lost a lot of the sense of awe it had when I first played it. Too many lowbies (severly twinked low lvl alts of 60 lvl characters) begging for money and pretending their newbies, who I legitimately love to help.
But enough of that venting. A new EQ would certainly be a breath of fresh air. I remember when I first started playing Dark Age of Camelot, I was saying to myself, "All the things I hate about EQ are 'fixed' in this game!" No losing a level when I die. No annoying corpse run or fear of my corpse decaying before I can find it. No more twinking!! The list of possible features for EQ2 have me more than excited. EQ1 can't last forever. There is only so much they can do with the original continents to make them look better. Sure Luclin helped a little, but who can even run it with everything turned on? I sure can't, and I have a Duron 950 with 512MB of RAM and a GeForce 2 with 64MB of RAM. Runs any other game out there without a hitch. I really think that in building the new game from the ground up to run on less of a system, they'll be more successful at lower the system requirments. Luclin was really ambitious for an expansion. But it's time for something new. All games need sequels EVENTUALLY! EQ1 will probably be around for awhile, but as someone has said before, they'll probably slowly reduce the number of servers as the players migrate to EQ2. I for one, will be one of the first to switch. The feeling of being the first to step foot on a new land is a great feeling. Not that I've ever done that, but I'm sure it's a great feeling. :) Bring on the fun!

EQ2 is a great idea. If you don't agree, don't buy it and certainly don't play it. It'll make the game that much more enjoyable for the rest of us.

Stop whining, wipe up your tears, and figure out that games come and go. EQ1 will still be around for years to come (you don't invest in MILLIONS of dollars worth of server farms only to dump them 'cause you decide to run a new game).

I suppose those of us who understand the above concept need to remember the age and intelligence level of the whiners, though. So be nice and polite, even when they feel the need to curse and swear over matters that are, in reality, so trivial.

Ok, I don't really care about building up EQ2 chars from stratch (I managed that on EQ, what makes this any different?). I think it sucks tho that after spending all that money on a damn game, now they expect me to just shelve up EQ and start paying even more on EQ2. You know that sometime in the future (when it is no longer profitable) the game is gonna fall apart. They aren't gonna spend alot of money developing the old game with a new one to worry about. Then I either have to accept that the software I bought and such is now worthless, or I have to pay more money for this new game only to learn about EQ3. WTF!?!?!? I don't have money to upgrade my computer, buy a new game, and then pay another monthly fee on top of that (probably gonna be more than EQ per month). IMO Verant are a bunch of greedy bastards and if I had known about that when I started I never would of started the game in the first place.

Ok for everyone complaining. I am reminded of what my Wife always tells me. "Is there anything you don't complain about?"

1st It is almost 2 year away, pleanty of time for people to get 60th character and to get board with EQ1. (I have been playing since beta, but left for a year and came back this winter)

2nd There will be no character transfer, look at the details on the front page of allakhazam.com. The characters will be develop so differently that old characters will never work in new game. You don't eve pick a profession until lvl 15. Beside everything you own would not be compatable with the new system either.

3rd I can see them keeping EQ1 around for a while, but not for more then a year or 2. New people will want EQ2 just because it is new, and old people will slowly quit the old game or move to the new one. Honestly I doubt they will even keep it up a year but they might.

4th I have tried every MMORPG game and I keep coming back to EQ1 because I like it better. Not that it can't be improved on, but It just has the feel. It is somewhat like a MUD as someone said, but that is what it is based on if you know EQ history. I bet the EQ2 will have a lot of what made EQ1 good, and hopefully fix a lot that has made EQ1 bad.

4th EQ1 is no longer a game for 1st timers. When I came back to EQ after being gone a year I was suprised at the number of people that are starting with Bronze. I remember saving up until level 15 to buy all my Banded. Bronze now is considered newbie armor even none twinked. The decay of new stuff will fix the biggest problem with EQ. The economy. I am not against twinks, I semi-twink all my characters now, but it is getting to be the norm. The game has no new feeling to it anymore, and not because I have played it forever. It is just not fun starting a new character like I did the first 18 months of playing the game.

McBuff 34 Level Druid
Xegony
Harriet 32 Level Rogue
Nameless

It seems to me, that Verant is making this "EQ2" to compete with Blizzard's upcoming World of Warcraft and other MMORPGs(even though they haven't announced a release date for Wow yet).Also,as other people have already stated,some of the other features are taken from already existing games.I guess they think that EQ would be to inferior to compete with WoW and such,so they need to make a completely new game to try to become top MMORPG once again.Or maybe I'm wrong,who knows?They could just be doing it for the money.
Let me know what you think about this

I have been looking at all of the information available. I know that one of the biggest reasons that I play Everquest now is that I can communicate with friends and family around the country and hang out with my Military buddies. If the game goes to a non guild or non team game I will not be even interested. I look forward to see what it will include. I think the ability to purchase land and build a Guild stronghold would be very cool. I guess we will see what happens.

Planes of Power is the logical culmination of the EQ world. Where can you go after you've made a career of killing gods on their home planes? Surely there's no point in expansions beyond that. I know I'll sure be burned as heck and ready to retire by the time I've levelled 60 and played PoP for a while. I wouldn't fret about the timing. Simple economics, folks. Verant has to earn their keep from the investment in the Planes of Power expansion, they have long-term (several year) contracts with existing EQ users, and it's going to take a LOT of development time to get EQ II put together. So don't expect it to happen anytime soon, and don't talk about it as if the existing EQ game is going to be pulled without YEARS of advance warning.

That said, EQ II is the logical next step for the Everquest world. The proposed changes all sound like big improvements to the playability of the game. This isn't just tweaks to improve game balance and mechanics, it's a cleaner new world designed from scratch for better play. I'm very excited to read of these, and will be SO ready for the change after its release. It's evolution.

Of course, as naysayers say, there will be technical issues at the get-go. For those of you who aren't technically inclined, this might be hard to understand, but as a programmer I know this is a FACT of any new computer system. I'll get on board once they get the bugs tweaked out of it. I never go to a big movie opening weekend without expecting long line, and I won't be picking up PoP or EQ II immediately on release either... If you buy it on opening weekend and start complaining about technical problems like people did with the rollouts of EQ expansions, blame yourself if you're a sucker and don't expect the "opening day" phenomenon.

And to all of you who can do nothing but whine and moan about this news, bugger off! Do you realize how pathetic you are? Not only do you spend large amounts of time playing online computer games (which makes ALL of us who play Everquest GEEKS), but you complain about it and keep playing anyway, which makes you the biggest geeks of all. Admit that you love the game. Take a cue from the folks on this board who can provide some thoughtful criticism and back it up, but don't waste everyone's time with a one sentence emotional outbust.

I like the way that Verant is building the existing game and working to keep it evolving, and I look forward even more to seeing what they do with EQ II with all they've learned the first time around.

so they are going to remove people from EQ1 (yeah yeah yeah they "have" a diff team of people working on EQ2 but for how long) IMO they should fix the problems with EQ1 that have been there since the begining of the game (Sol A corpse bug anyone?) I see the service of EQ1 degradeing even more so now, the service went MEGA down hill when Legends came out, once EQ2 is out how much worse will it be? no GM's at all? (like there are any on more then 5% of a week as is now) basicly it will come down to 1. Play EQ1 with more and more bugs and problems, with KSers runnin rampant because gm's aren't on at all (like this doesn't already happen) 2. Play EQ2 and deal with more then likely the same Customer Service problems EQ1 had before Legends and become beta testers from EQ3 (beta testers who pay btw) 3. say good bye to a wonderful game and find something else out there.

Probably wont get this either. Especially after they went through all that trouble to implement Luclin, just to remove it from the game? That is just ridiculous! And even then alienating those people with Win95 and unable to upgrade for whatever reasons to be able to play SoL. No. They wont get my money with the new release. Don't mind paying the extra monthly fees. But will not get the expansion.

/veto

Quite a few of the the features pretty much coincide with Gemstone III (a text version of online roleplaying game).

I've been reading each and every message posted over the past couple days on this board, as well as many others. So far 70-75 percent of the current EQ players want to stick to their current game, and avoid EQ2. VI really needs to run an official poll to see just what the EQ community wants. They may very easily be making a huge mistake, as I believe they are by these figures. Such a mistake on VI's part could very easily end up destroy our beloved Norrath for good. We can't let this happen.

i don't care if we do have 5ghz processors in late 2003. You've seen how "well" verant writes game engines from the first EQ, if they don't buy someone else's engine or hire a new team, this game will run lke crap on a 6ghz geforce7 machine with 4GB DDRAM