Caswydian

SOE is already doing this. Freerealms, The Agency and the superheros game are all very different from the current EQ-clone model shared by WoW, EQ2, Vanguard and others.

Illuminator

If WoW is too cartoony and EQ2 has too many class balance issues, then why not use our heads and simply envision an MMORPG that isn't cartoony and minimizes balance issues? Why all the pseudo-desperation to think we have to discard the genre in favor of even more questionable ideas?

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

aduros

Anyone who's willing to sacrifice gameplay for 'realistic' graphics is an idiot. I'll take those 'cartoony' graphics any day, over bugged and dated game design.

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Wormy

You and other players here may like this, but the numbers have shown that games that focus on this type of player interaction are not purchased by enough "casual gamers" to keep the game afloat. While it's hard for some of us to swallow, hardcore gamers do not pay the bills; they lose a company money in the long run.

Illuminator

NES is calling...

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

Lesdat

WoW's mechanics have been much more scrutinized however, by the developers. Because the same builds that are raid worthy are not always PvP worthy. The majority of the WoW community that raids also PvP's.

Granted their is less confusion on what classes do or how to make them work together due to talen trees. WoW for gameplay (not community, not graphics) is done quite well. In my honest opinion, it is much easier to level in EQ2 than WoW.

aduros

Look no further than MMOs today.

You have EQ2 with it's 'realistic graphics' and horrible gameplay, subscriptions declining. WoW with it's 'cartoony' graphics and gameplay that cuts through the bullshit while doing away with dated relics of previous MMOs. 10 millions vs <150,000.

Gameplay will always be > graphics.

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Illuminator

If you have subscription numbers, let's see em.

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.

aduros

Early press releases and news reports indicated that EQII had over 300,000 subscribers, as well as a statement in March 2005 that the game had “over 350,000 players logging in every week”. That is fact, press releases by SOE themselves. Then the population dropped substantially and servers were merged. The population has been declining since.

I'll be generous and pretend EQ2 was a smashing success, everyone resubscribed and brought new people with them so...400,000.

10,000,000 > 400,000. By alot.

Gameplay > play-doh graphics. By alot.

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Illuminator

No, you can't say things like this without numbers. If the population is proven to increase by any amount, a lot of this stuff goes out the window.

400k indicates a major turnaround. Nothing that can be lampooned quite the way you're trying.

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Bow down before the one you serve. You're going to get what you deserve.