Well the real problem is that Blizzard spends a large part of their time creating content that only about 14-16% of the population will ever see.  This is what happened with the Black Temple, this is what happened with The Sunwell Plateau.  Last time I checked the bulk of the player base, that payed the game were "casual" in nature.  So if people are finding the 25 man stuff "Hard" or "Too Challenging" Blizzard is going to have to evaluate how much time and effort they put into making these big raid dungeons.  For the effort they put into making one big 25 man they could probably have added three or four new 5 mans or maybe two or three 10 mans or a combination of each.  They may just drop back to doing 10 man raids and more 5 man content because 85% of the population actually uses and sees that stuff.  Another problem with the big content is the time it takes to clear it vs the time the casual players have to play and there are so many varities and configurations of whats considered to be ready for 25 man raids that some of them just don't work well together so that leads to a lot of wipes and wasted time.  Now please don't take this the wrong way, i'm just stating from a business standpoint what would make more sense for Blizzard to do and how they may look at it. 

Ok first off, please don't hate me for my "Xfire WoW Tag" lol.  Now i'm not bashing anything, but asking a legitimate question. 

Shouldn't they have just pushed release back some to finish up whats missing?  I mean from what i'm reading it just seems like how sony (and i know this isn't a sony game, i'm just comparing to how sony operates) seems to run with their mmo's (but no where near as HORRIBLE lol).  You know, they release a game or expansion pack before the "Promised" content was ready to go instead of airing on the side of caution and pushing back release dates.

Thoughts?  Opinions?

Thanks :)

PS: I have since decided to wait on MMO's to launch and be out for some time before I purchase them after being burned so badly with some of the "Junk" thats been pushed out lately (and no i'm not saying War is that at all)

and not to mention how rediculously expensive or hard to get these halls will be, only a couple guilds are likely to EVER see them at all.

My major problem with this is the same issue we have with Halaa and the Auchindoun Towers.  On our server the Alliance out number the horde by 3 to 1, sure we can attack and take a target, like halaa, but the minute we get it, the call goes out and before we know, we're out numbered 3 to 1, and i'm sure this is going to be the same thing, but on a zone wide scale....

Thats some of the reason why wow is successful, yes, but not all of them.  Its also very accessible, meaning almost anyone, from little 10 year old billie up to 90 year old granny , no matter if they're a real game player or not can jump right in and learn how to play fast and doesn't take them months to feel like they're getting someplace in the game.  Thats not easy to do.  Games like War and Conan are more "Niche" games, and will have a bigger learning curve and won't be as accessible.  So while they're going to have an inital surge in players that "try" the game, they won't have the subscription numbers that keep people returning.  I mean its hard enough to get a raid of 25 people together, its going to take an act of god to keep realms going at realms.  Plus like it was said before, when WoTLK comes out, anyone that was "trying" something else will come back for the new expansion.

700,000 subscribers, that kinda sounds like the number of people that originally played EQ II when it launched, I bet most of the "Hardcore" EQ II players are a huge portion of that subscriber number.  I'd be curious to see what the ratio of players from all the MMO's out there are, who left to play Conan.  I bet the streets in the EQ II towns are even more empty now.

Seriously, all I can say is, if they put as much effort into actually making the game live up to its potential as they put into their hype machine and blowing their own horns, EQ II would have had a much better chance of being the 800 pound gorilla of the MMO world.  Its just sad now that all they seem able to do is try and hype what little they've done over and over and over again.  I left EQ II about a year or so back, came back to try it again during the "Please come back and try us again, cause we really need your dollars" freeby month and nothing really important changed, and don't get me wrong, i'm not saying they didn't do anything, just that they didn't do anything very important to the player base....  well its about time for SoE's new mmo to come out and EQ II along with the rest of the turds are about to be pushed even further back out of the limelight.  Seriously, what they really needed to do was clean house from the top down.  I mean smedly should have left first off and let the bodies hit the floor from there on down.  SoE will never learn, they lost so much of their brand name value on trying to buy up messes and throw some polish on them but it never works, EVER!  They say, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, and with SoE they prove it time after time.

Originally posted by grimmbot

I'm an "other" voter. I came from another genre.

I'm a veteran of over 20 MMORPGs (including every single one on this list; I only counted the ones I played for 3+ months), and I came out of retirement at the behest of my old guild to try Age of Conan.

Why? The hope of more interesting play than "Click... wait... loot. click... wait... loot". So far the game seems structured to fit my needs nicely.

So far.

20+ MMOs have left me somewhat jaded and pessimistic. I expect the worst, hoping to be pleasantly surprised.

So by your tag below your post, i saw  you were on "Hiatus from AoC" does this mean its not really fitting your needs and if not, why?  I know a fellow that was very much like you, and he was all excited about AoC before it came out, and not that its out, he doesn't want to play and is looking for the "Next Big Thing in MMO's" again.

Originally posted by Ravel_RP

Originally posted by Roin

 

 

Funniest post ever.  As someone who has played EQ2 and WoW.  I just find it hilarious that people that EQ2 is superior to WoW.  EQ2 has many good things about it, but imho it's still not near as good WoW is now, or will be later after it gets another expansion.

If only WoW had a community that resembled that of EQ2.

lol you mean a community that feels they are "Better" than everyone else out there?  Thats the only thing I got from the community in EQ II all the year's I was here :) Oh and this is a serious question regarding the picture or the woodelf on the rhino, is she setting "inside" the rhino's back?  It sure looks that way to me, and do the rhinos shrink in size for the smaller races, like gnomes and woodelves like the horses?  That to me is pretty lame if they do :I

Ya know, this time, the replies seem more like the "Old Dev Double Speak" answers we used to get before I stopped playing back just before the Rise of Kunark came out.  In short they aren't saying NO which it seems like they really are saying but don't want to piss more people off.  I always hated that, "we're not going to say its impossible, but its not at the top of our plate", for gods sake just say NO, we can't do it and be done with it.  I got the free reactivation thing in my email, and I was going to give it a try again, but answers like these are seriously making me rethink reinstalling it.

Things seemed to be heading in the right direction with communications with the community, but I don't know anymore, seems like they are back sliding with the stupid double talk about what they are going to do and not do again.  Sorry, I don't like to be negative, but I feel strongly about this, as it is, one of the big reasons I decided to stop playing EQ II and take my money elsewhere.

Originally posted by Enigma

PS

 

I hope one of your other questions wont be about the skeletal revamp because they answered that too lol

Sorry, I hadn't heard any answers as to when or how long or if the skeletal revamp is going to take place, can you fill us in on what the answer to that question was?

I've been burned one too many times by "The Next Big MMO", i'm not going anywhere.  Tired of spending 50 bucks to buy a game that turns out to be crappy, and no, i'm not saying this is the case with AoC, i'm just saying that there are more horrible MMO's out there then good MMO's.

All kidding aside, I had no idea this game was still going?  Well as long as they fix it, I guess thats all for the better.  Its nice to see they finally are addressing the "Hitching" effect between the stitched together areas (I forget what they called each one, chunks or something).

Simply put...SoE has already gone through and screwed over all the people that were worth anything as employees and are now in desperate need to find employees that are willing to over look their dubious history with employees and games.  Who better than someone trying to start out in the field, heaven help those poor interns when they put the fact they worked for SoE on their resumes.

Originally posted by greenstumps

Originally posted by Ironman2000

Seriously, I read the list, and it looks like stuff that should have been fixed a year ago or more when they first broke it, with the NGE.  So where the hell are they getting Game Update 1 from? I thought this was like game update 8 or something like that?  Or did they just change the name again of what they are calling their updates, cause you know, a turd in a new package is still a turd lol.

 maybe they ment 10?

I doubt it.  Its more likely slight of hand on the part of SoE, they have a history of "Renaming" stuff to make it seem like something totally new lol.

Seriously, I read the list, and it looks like stuff that should have been fixed a year ago or more when they first broke it, with the NGE.  So where the hell are they getting Game Update 1 from? I thought this was like game update 8 or something like that?  Or did they just change the name again of what they are calling their updates, cause you know, a turd in a new package is still a turd lol.

Hold up a sec...weren't they advertising the "Epic Weapons" as content from the last expansion pack? I seem to recall seeing early on, when the expansion was announced they talked about how they were adding epics back to the game in that expansion.  So this is another case of something not finished when they launched the expansion.... they do this EVERY time and act like its something cool and suprising instead of something that didn't make it in time for the expansion, same old same old from SoE.....

Though I like the idea of "Epics", SoE resisted making them early on, people wanted them when the game launched, how many expansions are we in and they finally put them in?

Thats what happens when they only real news they have to write about the games is about the stupid LoN card game...Seriously, is anyone really playing the virtual card game, let alone EQ II anymore?

Originally posted by Zaps

At first glance this looks really cool. Unfortunately one thing Blizzard lacks in WoW is character customization.

Character customization is one thing SWG got right. I loved being able to create a unique appearing  toon in SWG . Even the armor/clothes were customizable.

If you have seen one Orc warrior in Tier 5 you have seen them all.

Zaps, you obviously still play SWG, why don't you go over to the real SWG forums and beg SoE to do this for your SWG character, don't be hating on Blizzard cause they did something cool like this.  I'll be looking at my night elf hunter in "What ever outfit I choose for her to be in" on my desk next to my monitor, while you're sitting there crying because you have a watered down jedi and can't get a cool statue of said jedi because SoE is too lame to think of it.

I can hardly wait to buy one, what do you think would look better on my night elf, the red winter outfit or black mageweave LOL   and you're right, this is a cheap price based on the fact its a custom statuette, I have one of Ironman that was much more than that and pretty much the same size.