Jimbo

Wjowski: How about EQ2? It was released a few months before WoW and had virtually the same questing system. To be honest, EQ2 and WoW are extremely similar, released close to the same time, and imo the reason WoW went on to crazy success while EQ2 went on to being average is that WoW had its initial popularity from being a Blizzard game and its much larger established fan base from the Warcraft RTS series.

I agree. I don't blame WoW for the stream of games that have copied it, I just won't play those games. I think that especially b,c,and d are the biggest problems in the genre today.

I remember the Aion launch, for weeks the LFG channel was full of nothing but people either saying how much WoW sucks or saying how much Aion sucks compared to WoW. It got extremely annoying.

Those of us who have been around pre-WoW are really the only ones who can understand the feeling. The majority of players in the genre now are people who started with WoW and know that as their only MMO and therefore it's their expectation for all MMOs. Obviously any producer with a brain is going to develop for that large group, not us fringes who grew up on EQ or UO. That's fine, we get it and we know that producers and developers understand our perspective.

It's the players that are annoying, the ones who believe that WoW founded the genre, that it defines the genre. It doesn't define anything other than the most financially successful product, the best business model to follow: Take a popular gaming franchise and turn it into an MMO, using its installed fanbase to springboard you into the lead of installed userbase. Then be good enough to keep them playing.

My favorite useless spell was the Druid's TreeForm in EQ. Or, even better: Group Treeform. You could turn yourself or your entire group into whatever type of tree was around in the environment, which was especially awesome/useless in places like Greater Faydark where the trees were HUGE. You got slightly increased mana and health regen, but the downfall was that you couldn't move except to spin around in circles.

Actually, I think games need to have more of these novelty type mostly useless spells.

I agree with the bolded phrase at the end of the post: It's very dangerous to assume that lower than expected subscription numbers means the game has failed.

I think we need to remember the days back before WoW, when EQ was the king of the hill for subscriptions with around 200k. Think about that for a minute: the leading MMO before WoW didn't even have 1/10th of the subscriptions WoW now has and yet it was considered a huge success in its time and really is still considered a success. Games like UO and EQ have been successful because they have lasted a long time.

I'm really not getting the love for this feature. Why should we remove even more player to player interaction from MMOs? Sure, it might be more convenient but it totally ruins the concept of a game about players teaming up to go on quests. I guess this game is tailored to the Guild Wars/STO semi-MMO crowd.

From everything I hear, this game is sounding like KOTOR 3: Now with better multiplayer mode. I wish they would just be honest and market it that way.

Am I the only one who got cash by killing the lower level Tier'dal guards on the edge of Nektulos forest?

Hahahahaha it was sooo much fun too, though I had to promise the newbies nearby that I would kill any trains that got on them. Sorry, Wood Elves FTW!

A direct knock off of WoW's flight system? Or a copy of EQ1's book/Plane of Knowledge system? A modification of EQ2's existing "mariner bell" system?

EQ2 was released before WoW. It is not a WoW clone and it does not rip off WoW. I really hate it when people act as though everything in MMOs, especially those released prior to WoW, was taken from WoW. If anything, both WoW and EQ2 knocked off the original EverQuest.

It will never change that it is not cost effective or efficient in any way to have true competition until we can transmit all those utilities wirelessly. Of course, it's not possible to do that for things like water, gas, or sewer but that's the way it is I suppose.

onetrueping, I work for an electric utility so I have a pretty good understanding of the way the electric system works. What you are saying is that there are many generating companies who you can buy electricity from, all on the same grid that is owned by one company? That means you still don't have true competition. What happens if the company who maintains the grid is gouging you in price? To have true competition, you would need 2 or 3 more of these PPL type companies. I work for an electric utility, so I have a pretty good understanding of how things go in that world. True, transmission (and I would assume distribution, the lower voltage lines that go to homes and businesses) is only a small part of electric costs. That doesn't change the fact that there is not true competition in your PPL system.

Ultra-Humanite-

See my post earlier in the thread for why this won't happen.

"There is a reason why utilities (and services like cable tv and internet) are regulated monopolies. It is cost prohibitive and also impractical for there to be direct competition at every home for these services. Imagine your house with 5 cable lines coming into it, 3 electric lines and 2 water lines. That's what would have to happen if there were to be fair competition, every company competing for your business would have to be able to provide you service and you can bet that they won't share infrastructure."

Also, (and someone correct me if I'm wrong on this) but as I understand it there are only a few broadband providers out there like Comcast, Verizon, AT&T etc and the local providers buy their broadband from these larger national companies. So, even if you have Local Company X and Local Company Y and Local Company Z who compete for rates and might be inclined to remove the restrictions, they are all buying their broadband from Big Company A who will impose these kinds of restrictions on them that they are then forced to pass on to you.

So it's your opinion that internet providers should be able to throttle down speeds of services for arbitrary reasons? Why do you feel they should be able to do that? Don't say "If you don't like it, move to another provider" because many, many people can't move to other providers.

There is a reason why utilities (and services like cable tv and internet) are regulated monopolies. It is cost prohibitive and also impractical for there to be direct competition at every home for these services. Imagine your house with 5 cable lines coming into it, 3 electric lines and 2 water lines. That's what would have to happen if there were to be fair competition, every company competing for your business would have to be able to provide you service and you can bet that they won't share infrastructure.