More Beyond?

[Alaris]

Wow, EQ1 and EQ2 are very similar according to wiki. No real reason to stick to EQ1 if you have EQ2, except for new content. I bet a lot of people play both in parallel.

Anyway, I have to disagree with you RDarken, because although critical population mass might be too low with just BMP-like expansions, you could still sell quite a few of them making them viable. The nice thing about GW1 is that you can rely on H&H to get things done. I certainly would pay for a BMP, a few missions, or even a single additional profession (provided it interested me). The main problem is that I would prefer to play GW2 and advance those chars, instead of playing GW1 which, while fun, would not advance anything... so I'd only really be interested in buying content for GW1 *after* I am done with GW2 content.

They're just better off making that content for GW2 instead, it'll sell that much better.

edit:

[RD]

I didn't play TOO much EQ 2, but they are definitely different games. I keep wanting to reinstall EQ 1 (especially now that it is F2P), but it's SO dated. I don't just mean graphics-wise, either: The camera is so hard to get the hang of and the game is just unforgiving. I don't know how much of this has changed recently (I dipped in a couple of years ago and some updates had been made, but there were still corpse runs and stuff). Anyway, when EQ 2 was released, it was a far different game than it is now. You're probably right that people play them in tandem, which is probably exactly what the Station Pass was for.

Crazy, EQ 1 level cap is 95 now.

[Alaris]

Level cap means nothing to me.

Give me the average time to max level, and how much power difference there is between levels.

In GW2, if we can trust the 30min estimate, the answers are "40 hours" and "not much thank you" respectively.

[RD]

That's because you never played EQ lol When it launched, I believe the cap was 50. They raised it to 60 with the first expansion, then they raised it by 5 every few years, though it looks like more recently they have been raising it more frequently. My problem with EQ was that they just started pandering to this highest-capped, hardcore audience. I guess it makes more sense now, but at the time, there were still a TON of us who weren't even at the cap or who didn't raid, so we were buying expansions once a year and getting no new content.

It's kind of an interesting game, though. When it launched, there was some kind of bug where a few levels were just REALLY hard to get through. For the sake of argument, let's say it took five hours to get from level 41 > 42. Then it would take 15 to get from 42 > 43. Then six to get from 43 > 44. It was SO bizarre and they just left it like that for YEARS. I remember joking to my friend that I was determined to get "hell levels" removed from the game before I had to deal with them. Obviously I never did anything to make that happen, but they removed them right before I hit them.

In EQ 1, the time it takes to level up increases exponentially starting at level 5 (at least it did back in the day - there were no quests, just pull mobs and kill them in groups). Difference in power is ridiculous. Seriously, even a single level makes a difference.

Man, now I have to itch to play lol I think I'm going to investigate a little bit. If it looks like some of the above has been changed, I'll reinstall and poke around. But if it's the same game, forget it, I can't deal with that.

[Alaris]

so we were buying expansions once a year and getting no new content.

Were you forced to get expansions to keep playing? WoW's WotLK offers nothing to low levels, but at least it is not required, unless you want Cataclysm as well.

"hell levels"

Could it be that there was not enough content designed for those specific levels, so you had to grind lower-level content (and thus get an XP penalty)? Either that or they messed up the XP curve.

In EQ 1, the time it takes to level up increases exponentially starting at level 5 (at least it did back in the day - there were no quests, just pull mobs and kill them in groups). Difference in power is ridiculous. Seriously, even a single level makes a difference.

I do HATE when they do that!

I have a big itch to play some MMO, but there's literally no interest in playing the broken ones. I'll have to wait for GW2.

[cosyfiep]

would be nice to have some closure --find out what happened to Evenia, the lunatic court, elona...

but with the timeliness of their updates...I think, if they did do them, it would be well into 2030 or so before they completed them.

so I just dont see them taking the time to do anything except twitttting about what happens.

[Alaris]

In GW2, you can have monuments with something written on it. There's one such thing in the charr starter area, and I read it, but I forget what it said. It'd be another great way to bring some closure to some of those unfinished stories.

[RD]

I posted on the EQ 1 forums to see how big the changes are. I assume the power between levels hasn't changed, but I think the leveling time is a LOT lower, from what I've read (saw some posts about people getting to 50s in ~12 hours of in-game time - not terrible).

You were not forced to get the expansions, no, but you never really knew what you were getting and there was usually one feature you wanted. With one they introduced the Planes which let you travel a LOT faster (not every class in EQ could even return to bind points), another introduced dyes (yup, EQ was basically without dye for several years). So you'd drop $30 for this one feature you could use. Or maybe from what you read, it sounded like the content would be a lot easier than it was.

I think I left at Gates of Discord. That was the expansion where it really felt like they were pandering to the hardcore gamers. There was content that was my level, I went in with my friend (a tank) and a cleric we knew and the three of us got massacred because all of the content was for fully equipped, maxed out groups or raids. So even though it was content for levels 50+, it was way harder than a casual could handle.

[Alaris]

Pfft, you just had to level up a bit more and try again. That's a big reason why I hate those levelling games... the challenge is too often statistical.

[sorudo]

last i checked, it takes a max of 90 min per level in GW2.

anyway, just because there is a newer game doesn't mean the older game is abandoned, i will play GW1 regardless of GW2.
i have spend to much time and effort in the characters to walk away from it, Anet has the same exact idea and i bet they add more stuff and refresh parts of the game that are simply to old. (like better textures in older areas, updating effects like fire and water, etc..)
for now they don't have much time to do a QoL update, after the release of GW2 and the updates needed in GW1 you'll see more QoL updates to not only attract more players but also spice things up.