Just because WoW is the top dog, doesn’t mean everyone needs to compete on Blizzard’s level to be successful. EQ2 is, well EQ2 not WoW and it really doesn’t need to incorporate WoW-ish themes to be successful in the MMO world. if you’ve played WoW and are looking to try something new, then try something completely not WoW like EQ2 or EvE. Just because it would make the transition easier by making it more WoW like at the start, doesn’t mean its flawed, it means you as a player need to adapt not the game.

Granted, I know that EQ2 is a bit more complicated than WoW. It also isn’t solo friendly, or at least it didn’t seem that way when I played it back at launch, but that doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with it or the way I like to my MMO’s. For the record, I like them Easy, which is why I play WoW, but that doesn’t mean that WoW is flawed either, it just means it is MY chose of play.

There doesn’t need to be any hating. WoW is a good game as is a number of other MMO’s currently on the market, otherwise they would close down like Tabula Rasa did. It’s personal preference and people shouldn’t be harping about how one is better than the other, they are loved by everyone that is currently subscribed to them, because who wouldn’t love something for 15.00 a month, well, except Free Realm, but is that really an MMO anyway?

Wolfshead expressed what he thought was a flawed game and he has that right. He is a bit biased because of his time spent with WoW, probably. Did it color his judgment in picking out the problems with EQ2, I’m pretty sure it did, but you can’t compare the new with out holding it up to the old, especially if the old is a game you loved to hate for so long.

I started to read that “First 15 minutes of EQ2″ critique but found it not worth my time. Too many classes, too big an ESRB label?

I mean, if you set out to find things to fault a game on, you can find plenty of faults with every game.

But it gave all the EQ2 haters some joy I guess.

I stated quite the opposite. I liked the fact you had many class choices. I guess you didn’t read that.

I’m not an EQ2 hater as I have no dog in the hunt as they say. However I stated my biases and past experience with SOE products clearly from the outset of my article.

Of course you can find faults with any game but why continue to tolerate them and not fix them to prevent alienating new subscribers?

Much of what is in my article is basically “inside baseball” that would take place at an internal design meeting analyzing the competition of any top video game company today. Therefore I don’t expect the average MMO gamer and EQ2 veteran to appreciate what I’m talking about. To them I’m just insulting their beloved MMO which is not my intention.

I also don’t write blog articles to be popular and gain favor with a certain dominant clique in the MMO blogosphere.

Like it or not as Tesh has so eloquently stated, most MMO players see WoW as the de facto MMO experience. Failure to address their expectations is going to cost you subscriptions. Subscriptions that SOE desperately needs to pay for development costs and new players that MMOs desperately need to keep their MMO fresh and alive.

Take crafting, for example. You can level 1-80 in EQ2 as a crafter. It is as viable a choice as being a fighter. So there’s a reason crafting is there so early on — some folks don’t want to fight, ever.

But the author is treating EQ2 like it is a WoW clone. I’d love to see how he’d trash the character creator in City of Heroes since it has so many possibilities (which is bad, apparently). Even though that’s one of the most heralded character creation systems in the MMO-space.

I also disagree with his assertion that Sony should be promoting The Shadow Odyssey to new players. When I boot up WoW and get promotions for the Lich King, then find out I can’t touch that content for 50-odd levels, that’s just annoying to me. Different strokes.

Anyway, sorry Tipa, for going off-tangent in the comments!!

I’ve spent literally hours studying the wiki, forums, and blogs to learn about what the classes do in EQ2. Even after all of that time, my first attempt at an EQ2 character – a Fury – was a bit of a fail. No one explained to me that I had to be casting debuffs I did not need on mobs I could kill quickly so that my root spell would not automatically fail due to low subjugation skill when I got it four levels later. The tip for the Heroic Opportunity system convinced me that it was only used in parties, and low level druids really need the extra DPS from their solo HO. And yes, frankly, the density of harvestables is a bit distracting at the extremely low levels – your instincts tell you that you should be picking up stuff that is worth money when you don’t have any, and you need to harvest to start working on your skills, but this also means a lot of time watching your character harvest (and fail to harvest), some very full newbie bags, and generally a distraction from exploring the game.

It will be interesting to see whether the new trial area coming next year will try and streamline some of this stuff a bit.