General Discussion

EverQuest II Correspondent and relative newcomer to the game Daniel Stull writes this second article about some of the EQII hate and SOE hate responses garnered by his previous article.

After my first article was published, a few players chimed in with comments that I could only best describe as hate. Hate of Sony Online Entertainment, developers and publishers of Everquest 2. Hate of the game itself. Even as I type this, I am watching what can only be described as an argument brewing in the comments section of "Through the Eyes of a Noob." This wasn't my first encounter with people complaining about the game. But I did want to know more, and most importantly, why?

My first trip was to Everquest 2 Flames, an entire online forum community that, for the most part, complains about SOE and Everquest 2, even to the point that they have created a "Declaration of the Populace," a crudely-worded mockery of the Declaration of Independence to SOE. There are also other posts - "Proof that providing sexual favors to SOE staff leads to employment," "I cancelled my account, and here's why," and "Stupid guild names." To the positive, however, EQ2Flames also does have in-depth discussions of the game itself, even going so far as to answer questions from newbies in their own forum, which is moderated. They offer their own caveat to people who register to the forum: "The profanity filter is disabled and strong language is used on this site. Do not read or use this site unless you are prepared to be offended."

Read the article here.

Nice article!  A great read, very well written.

"find something you like and have fun"

Your right that quote does do the trick, except not how you put it. Orginally EQ2 was its own game and was something people liked, then SOE decided they wanted money, obvious I suppose. Playing the game now feels dirty and unnatural. I Logged in and felt as if I was playing a very very shity WoW mod. Its sad that SOE ruined such a great game.

Maybe EQ3 will come one day and make its own mark.

Every game I try sends me back to EQ2. Best Fantasy MMO out there. Can't understand all the hate too.

Cause SOE released a buggy game missing tons of content that was needed and we all warned SOE but they pushed EQ2 anyways and it got owned by WOW and since then they've ruined most of what made EQ2 unique and made it into a WOW clone with crap PVP. They did the same thing to Star Wars Galaxies and doing the same thing to Vanguard and ruined Planetside due to a lack of direction, we wanted them to change the bases so we wernt capturing the same layout over and over agian. Yet SOE scrapped that idea and decided to go for stupid things like caverns and BFR's and all that shite.

Until someone with a clue takes over John Smedleys job then SOE will continue to suck.

Decision after decision, John Smedley continues to prove he is the most unliked CEO of any MMO business.   One of these days Sony will wake up and fire him.  When a CEO consistently overrules game design issues to the detriment of the playerbase, especially when he is as ignorant of the genre as Smedley is, you are going to have hate.

EQ2 could have been a great game, instead it is just another mediocre attempt at competing with Wow with a small niche audience.

SOE used to be the top dog in this business for years, now they are taking a back seat to all the other major MMO producers.  It has to be obvious to everyone that SOE needs to change and change drastically to reverse this trend.

It is not just the SWG debacle that is drawing hate, it is what is being done to all the titles.  Look at their upcoming Agent offering, they are doing the cash shop revenue model for it.  How many people will play a MMO where people can buy their way to success?  Not many.

Having been to a variety of MMO forums, I can offer my opinion on the spewing of hate, on criticism in general, and on criticism of SoE in particular.

Firstly, some people just spew hate because they like to complain.  The type of people who I see on music forums saying "That band is so trendy, they suck" (obviously, this is the watered-down version of their complaints) are the same type of people who are on MMO forums saying "This game is for newbs.  Everything has become vulgarized to suit the players who don't want to take the time to understand and learn a game."  In truth, I see some validity to their criticisms, but I also see a continuing thread of complaints that makes me believe their propensity to complain is something endemic to their personality.

Secondly, it is obvious that there are some players who enjoy the hardcore world of MMOs, where death penalty is harsh, where you can become "ganked" at any moment, etc., etc.  These people are in the minority, however, because the majority of players do not want to lose an hour of playing time rebuilding their character due to an egregious death penalty.  This silent majority is too busy playing and enjoying the game to post up on the forums (generally).  This is why, I suspect, companies are more likely to receive complaints than compliments on their forums, customer support websites, etc.  But on the subject of the minority's opinions, I suspect that its members are feeling increasingly disparaged by the "WOWisation" (as one person was quoted in the article as calling it) of MMORPGs.  I can sympathize, but only because I can see why that would feel disparaging, not because I do not want to see companies make their games generally accessible.

Thirdly, there are also Everquest 2 criticisms  out of line with either of the two above circumstances.  These criticisms are genuine, fair, and too varied to categorize in a paragraph.  These, however, are not the source of hate.

The hatred for Everquest 2 is, I believe, partly fueled by hatred for SoE in general.  If you ever go to a Star Wars Galaxies forum, you will see the hate for SoE's treatment of the game, which turns quickly into hatred for SoE itself, spewing everything, and if you hover in the forums too long, you will be severely drained by it (I suspect it would be even worse for a game developer/designer than it is for me).  Every game of SoE consequently becomes subjective to ridicule, at least potentially.  Anything that SoE does that reminds people of how they have popularized their games to "make a quick buck" will further fuel this rage.  Indeed, the games themselves that have been popularized are obviously open to ridicule.

Beyond that, hatred for EQ2 continues for the same reason that anything or anyone on the internet is slammed or viciously chided: because hate is easy to have when no one is there to keep you in check.  On the internet, people are untouchable, which allows for the amplification of feelings that would otherwise be tempered by social presence.

As for me, I just didn't like the game much.  It was fun for a bit, but I couldn't stay interested in it--I am not sure why.  Some of the quests are hard to complete because there are 5 creatures available to be killed for a quest that requires you to kill 15 of them (not because others are working on the quest, but just because the developers did not make enough creatures).  The game is also very large and, to some degree, overwhelming.  Others may like the game's vastness; for me, my interest waned before I could come to grapple with it all.

I'm tired of writing.  That's all I have to say; lol.

going to eq2 flames, the pit of unmoderated posts probably isn't a good ideal. Anyone with any grievance against eq2 goes there as it's completely unmoderated. Posts won't be hushed up 5 seconds after there posted.

And the sony forums? Its where the majority of whining people go to protest. I don't actually see much informative posts on the soe forums. Mostly it's change this or else, or do this or else, or how can you possibly do that.

If you want to see more positive posts go try some of the smaller comunities. Try Eq2 Ui - Eq2 maps, I have no ideal of the links however. The eq2 wikki forums, and Eq2 traders - Their away from the bickering of the soe forums and concentrate on helping people.

Unfortunatly you picked two of the worst places to visit when it comes to looking for information.

-B-

In my 4 years of playing EQ2, I would say it was very rare for the official forum moderators to delete a post due to it containing "hatred".

And this is for a few very good reasons.

1. The player base is mature, friendly and polite. Even in PVP heated discussions, people will back