EverQuest II offering aerial races and time-limited aircraft prizes

@Dunraven So Blizzard has a monopoly on mini-games now?

@Saker Does that logic work? You know, since WoW was an EQ clone.

So if WoW is an EQ clone, and EQ2 is trying to be like WoW, isn't it technically trying to be more EQ then before?

Also I'm sure there was other online MMOs before EQ.

@hami83

I'm not sure why folks are giving your remark a +. EQ wasn't the first graphical MMO. I believe that distinction went to Ultima Online. Before either, there were text-based MUDs. But EQ was almost certainly the first 3D MMO. It was the first MMO, I believe, to use instancing (LDON). It was, I believe, the first game to introduce a grouping tool. It was the first MMO to introduce many of the conventions that WOW would later greatly refine.

However, WOW introduced many NEW concepts that EQ players had not necessarily agreed with. An increased emphasis on solo play. An increased emphasis on gear. An actual reduction of variety (there are more unique roles and classes in EQ than in WOW). Reduction of penalties. More hand-holding. Smaller zones. Faster travel times. Quest hubs and kill counts.

WOW was/is vastly easier than the original Everquest. Some would call that a huge bonus, while others would disagree. Many players who moved on from EQ to EQ2 did so for a variety of reasons, including the fact that they liked the game's perceived difficulty vs. WoW's. I admit that I much prefer EQ's class system, fantasy setting, and world than I do WOW's, even though I ultimately played WOW instead. (That was mainly due to my perceptions that EQ's client was a horrible resource hog and that the graphics were just not very attractive at all.)

I can understand how someone who wanted to avoid the WOW model for EZ-mode MMO's, along with their immature and irritating communities, might want to preserve what they had. When the company begins to undermine that, I'm not surprised that they're disappointed. EQ needn't have become a WOW clone, because then why not just play WOW instead? (Of course, RIFT is proving it patently clear that people are dead sick of WOW so much that they're willing to play a game that is its spiritual cousin.)