I never played EQ, only EQ2. The first three years of that game were fantastic, Harstman was in charge of things and it had a great community with moorguard/blackguard running the forums. I don't expect things to ever be perfect and to a extent I can accept the whole dangling a carrot in front of the players with a new expansion every year. However this was NOTHING compared to SOEs introduction of microtransactions in EQ2. The blatant lies and shear obnoxious way in which everything else was thrown out of the window to force microtransactions in every single detail of the game was mind blowing.
I still cannot believe I stayed as long as I did, guild loyalty and people who I raided with are the only thing that kept me in the game, but NEVER again. There's not a doubt in my mind that EQNext is going to be the poster child for milking players of every penny, if it is free to play then it will be shockingly bad.
Yeah their leap in to the world of RMT was laughable from the outside, from a customers point of view it must have been horrifying. But again, SOE's fuckwittery knows no bounds. Even EQ2 itself was based on stupid shit all over the place. Like when they admitted it would only have 2 towns and everyone instantly said wtf? What about bottlenecks etc? But SOE insisted it would be fine. Then as soon as large numbers hit the game, it all turned to shit. They had to quickly shoehorn some instances in so you ended up in the 11th instance of the same zone.
And they announced that they would have regional specific servers, and you would be forced on to a specific server based on your location. So Euros would never see US players and vice versa, etc.. The community went absolutely ape shit and they ended up having to come up with a new policy. I think it's clear that their number 1 priority is their profit, so keeping costs to a minimum and service quality etc. is all a key part of that. Priority number 2 is propaganda and talking a good game when the reality is very different. Actually supporting a good game and happy community is just far too far down their list of priorities.
I think Vanguard is a really good example of how they work, because it's basically just pure lies. They talk about how they are now committed to adding to the game and they have a new team and these are going to be happy days! And then in reality all they have done is throw in one shitty bit of content that various teams have been working on for years and never bothered to finish, and everything else has just been RMT. And then you have assholes like Moorgard talking about how they are looking at tweaking their RMT and F2P policies because they don't want to milk the players, and then a moment later they add gigantic backpacks with XP boosts on them for 3000 station cash.
Unfortunately, instead of putting effort into creative ways to keep people interested in their game long term, they are pushing boundaries to see what they can get away with charging people for. (See SWTOR)
I don't understand how the devs involved in EQN had to already scrap a version of the game. How do you not have a rock solid plan before a single pixel is generated?
It is totally baffling. It makes me just think that they do what Smedley wants and he changes his mind on a whim. Not only do they seem totally moronic for wasting money on developing something they weren't committed to, but they basically have also admitted that what they made was a WoW clone. After 10 years of nothing but shitty WoW clones... if I was SOE I would be ashamed to admit that I had joined the bandwagon too.
It will be interesting to see where the MMORPG genre will be when EQN launches. I see a game that is just awful in SWTOR and the biodrones so willing to spend cash on the cartel market, on packs that have awful odds at getting something decent on. It also appears that the better looking gear is not being added in to the game itself As a drop, but as A RMT.
I think the game might be decent, kind of like a remake of the original EQ but with better graphics and some more sandboxy shit. But I definitely see it being totally RMT based, and pay to win like Vanguard. They question the term pay2win and yet you can spend money and load up on potions that instantly completely heal you and restore all your mana. If that's not pay2win then wtf is. But there is also: Raid quality weapons you can get as a newbie, entire sets of good gear you can just buy from the store, amazing mounts far better than what you get in game, gigantic backpacks with XP boosts and run speed increases, XP boost potions, cosmetic gear galore, rez potions (a clicky gem), potions to remove your experience debt from dying, etc..etc..etc..
I would be hopeful for EQ Next if it wasn't for them having such a massive hardon for RMT in all their current games.