Content is king but kings can be tyrants and easily deposed, kings can be arrogant, ugly, hard to get along with or make stupid decisions.

I will again say I've never played WoW - seen plenty of friends play it live & up-close , holds little to no fascination to me , tis too 'easy' to me other than the hard part of time-sink and i just don't have that sort of time when i'd rather solve problems or raise my daughter.

I have played EQ2 and as a few others have noted

1) EQ2 was finicky with systems - who the heck wants that sort of hassle? blizz has usually been good with games/patches and system issues

2) EQ2 graphics though having a higher polygon count , other tangential factors ... looked kind of staid - seriously, just no groove or catchyness to them [apple plays big on catchyness and flash/glam , something that keeps it afloat amongst computer manufacturers besides the fact that now Leopard is unix certified]

3) EQ2 was difficult to solo in ... quite difficult at times

4) EQ2 tried to tell too much story, too intricate in terms of percentage of quests initially

I logged a ton of hours in d2 and d2lod and u know the graphics were not 'great' but the playability was - it was "fun". Content may be king but fun trumps king any day of the week! EQ2 is more like work, WoW was more hack n slash with some bells n whistles - what i loved about d2 was just going in after a 20 hour day or 80 hour week and hacking n slashing without having to think deeply about quests, items, etc

Also mass impetus is great - tough to stop an 800 pound gorilla when everyone else is a lil chimpanzee trying to get at the banana bunch - look at how big MS is compared to every other OS. Once you get a big lead you can pummel your competitors on multiple fronts if you have to(OS, office suite, database,...).  Blizz took the ball and ran with it and  Joe B. wants to play with his friend Jimmy T online so if they both have WoW accounts and are having fun questing/raiding/pvp-ing they will probably continue to do so   - simple law of physics (thank you Isaac Newton)

I may eventually break-down and buy WoW(doubt it though - going to put some time in 2moons and LOTRO) if they ever drop the monthly sub down under $10 - for my mindless mmo/rpg-ing i do GW. I'm presently potty training my toddler and well raiding sure wouldnt work very well right now under those circumstances (hold on, i need 15-30 minutes to get the kiddle to poop or pee...  ) too many impatient people - so i can go pick and choose what to do in GW either alone or with a friend or 2 and still have some fun :)

Fun is what it is all about - probably the same reason vanguard fell flat on its face -  trying to complicate matters, toss in the kitchen sink and yet the fun factor isnt that much higher. Forums on game sites are always going to be filled with  greedy desires and wishes of uber-features for games, but if you bog down the game with so many complications you really reduce the   fan-base you can reach with it.

In other words the KISS principle still reigns supreme :)  [i'd much rather read a 1 page uncomplicated proof of something in a research paper than a 10 page proof pulling in 20 different areas of mathematics 10 of which i am far from an expert in - would make me want to toss the paper in the trash rather than deal with it]

content is king if kept simple, fun, and you reach a large enough number of people out of the starting gate :) otherwise it's just syntactic sugar....   

x

It's a common occurance in the tech industry that after messing around with computers for so long that you act like everyone has basic computer skills, ranging from knowing how to navigate explorer, using access, some even have it SOO bad that they think most people know what a database is.

It's the same thing for game reviewers and people who play 'enough' video games, they assume that the average computer has a graphics card some are SOO bad that they assume that most computers have more than 512MB of RAM.

blizzard is one of the only realistic game companies out there,  and thus they sadly win the MMO wars the RTS wars and likely what ever other war they want.

I think it is a combination of factors that keeps people going to WoW instead of EQ2. Part of it is just the snowball factor-- more people play WoW because more people play WoW. It really is an easy entrance point to the genre, which might also set up certain expectations. I know that I came into MMOs via UO and EQ1, so both WoW and EQ2 seem to do a whole lot of hand-holding to me, but if my introduction to what MMOs are "supposed to be" had been WoW, I might think EQ2 was being deliberately difficult.

I can understand what people say when they talk about how unappealing the EQ2 world is, but I think some of that could be remedied with minor seasonal adjustments-- just a little more frosting on the cake, as there is at Frostfell/Christmas time. More surprises would be nice.

I didn't like EQ2 the first time I played it, and I still don't like the tutorial island very much, but the newbie experience has improved greatly since they added Greater Fay/Kelethin and Neriak + newbie zone. If all I had to go on was the Trial of the Isle now, I am not so sure I would buy the game. (I had played on 30 days free account once after the major changes (no more class changes, etc)', but didn't purchase the game at the end of the month. I bought it when EoF was released strictly for the Fae. I was very pleasantly surprised by the Fae newbie experience!)  Turning trials into subscriptions and keeping subscriptions rolling may be a trick SOE needs to continue working on.

Also, there's a tiny bit of viral advertising factor with WoW-- I've seen 3 commercials for the game itself with actors in them, a Toyota commercial, and a Coca-Cola commercial that wasn't even in English, all right here on the good old Internet, and I've never gone out looking for WoW videos. Even with my decided disinterest in everything Azeroth, these things crossed my path. People mention them on forums, people send them to me in email... I've gotten more L2 videos than EQ2 videos, for that matter. Noone has ever sent me an EQ2 video.

I played EQ2 on a computer that will turn 7 this year, after a couple of minor upgrades to video and RAM (for about $100 TOTAL). I think the performance has improved since the first time I tried the Trial of the Isle. But who is going to try a game again on the same system after they've decided it doesn't work, especially if they pay to do it? I mean, other than me. ;)

But I am quite happy with the graphical settings set pretty low in EQ2. (I came from EQ1, remember? I just don't play many graphically intense games, so I have nothing to compare it to.) On the other hand, WoW ran fine for me *before* the upgrades, and with the upgrades, it was faster and sharper. WoW had a nice, coherent art style that wasn't all drab and blah. (Too cartoony? That's not even an issue for me, personally. Performance is, though.)  At this point, for the graphical settings I am willing to play at, I could go play LoTRO and feel somewhat less behind the curve.

WoW's numbers would make it likely that you'd get WoW's community too. Maybe EQ2's mediocre sales are a blessing in disguise for its players.

I dont think SOE likes EQ2 any more they have no advertizing/marketing EQ2 at ALL

Maybe its content at release that is king, not content 4 years later?

Also quantity and quality differ.  Many people simply don't like EQ2 content for various reasons.  Arts, design etc.

"if content is king, why is eq2 after 4, yes 4, expansions, still lagging behind WoW after 1?"

Gameplay is king.

EQ2 may have lots of content and fluff but at its core its an awful game.  Its combat system is terrible and plays more like a free Asian game not a AAA title.  It's crafting is dumbed down and terrible.  The classes are all alike and boring.  Last of all its simply not a fun game to play.  EQ2 is all about fluff but with no substance and that is its problem.  It is simply a very bad game that has been dressed up in nice clothes.  Thats why EQ2 has not added any new servers in 2 years since they had to remove most of their servers and thats why they have less than 200k subs.  SOE can give away all the free accounts they want but the game is still a ghost town simply because the gameplay is bad and not fun. 

Another factor, apart from PvP.

Is that people who have played Diablo, or the Warcraft series, knows the quality blizzard build their games on.

While EQ2 primarely gets their fanbase from the niche, that is MMORPGs.

WoW reach out to many more, through the Warcraft series...

I think its simple.  EQ2 is painful to watch, and cmon why would you be playing a "Video" game if you weren't planning to look at the screen.

The devs have determined they are going to do things...their way ....period.This is a game that won't even allow players to color their armor so they can look half way decent..

It shows the difference between the game management that determines the direction of a game.EQ2's is very directive.The upper management had a vision for the game and stuck to it....and paid the price in low subscriber numbers(even now after softening their vision with less forced grouping for example).The management at WOW says ....what does the consumer want...ok...done...now how can we make it even better.

I'd put it on the ugly graphics cause me and all my mates say we can't stand the bland world and the ugly character models which look like plastic.... just doesn't have the great artwork and interesting world of WOW.

Originally posted by CleffyII

I think its simple.  EQ2 is painful to watch, and cmon why would you be playing a "Video" game if you weren't planning to look at the screen.

I disagree. 

WOW is allot more painful on the eyes than EQII even pre SOGA models.  What's simple is WOW is more fun than EQII and In the end fun trumps all.

While I maintain EQII is the more complete title, WOW is jump in and play and that's perfect for adults and children alike. In today's busy world being able to log in for an hour and get away if you will accounts for allot.

/throws in McDonald's analogy for reference

Originally posted by miagisan

/throws in McDonald's analogy for reference

/stands confused as to how MacDonalds has anything to with the MMO genre

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Originally posted by CleffyII
I think its simple. EQ2 is painful to watch, and cmon why would you be playing a "Video" game if you weren't planning to look at the screen.

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Have you played EVE?

Content is not king, Game Play is.

Think about it.. did you play Super Mario Bros. because it had tons of different content? No.. it had very little content. Same bad guys, same smashing blocks, fire power, mushrooms, getting coins, killing moving turtles and goombas. But people played it through every level there was.

Originally posted by CleffyII

I think its simple.  EQ2 is painful to watch, and cmon why would you be playing a "Video" game if you weren't planning to look at the screen.

Originally posted by cupertino

 

Originally posted by miagisan

/throws in McDonald's analogy for reference

 

/stands confused as to how MacDonalds has anything to with the MMO genre

same theory applies...by your standards...having million of customers is indicative of a great product....well by those standards mcdonalds serves the best food on the planet..considering how many billions it boasts to have served. WoW=McDonald's...it's an analogy

Originally posted by Orca

 

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Originally posted by CleffyII
I think its simple. EQ2 is painful to watch, and cmon why would you be playing a "Video" game if you weren't planning to look at the screen.

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Have you played EVE?

True, good graphics can trump a total lack of content and lousy gameplay.  EVE is the only Freelancer clone MMO right now, so it has no competition to take people away, of course.

This topic is black and white.   Wow is just far more fun to play than EQ2.  SOE just does not get it, although they have really fixed a lot of the problems in EQ2 the last two years.  The two games are really much closer than they were at launch.   Again SOE released a buggy ill thought out game and paid for it.  You would think that by now, SOE would understand that, but they just repeat the mistake time and time again.