Wolfe

Yep i canceled all my accounts and iam loving AoC atm. But if for some reason i got tired of it wild horses couldnt drag me back to a SOE game of any sort! I rather play WoW instead of going back to eq2 and there corrupt ass devs!

Pink Poodle

Oh. The more you know!

I did read a few years ago about how SEGA fucked up with the Saturn and its advertising, I might go look that up again sometime.

(Plus Mario >>>> Sonic, imo.)

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Rave Ghost says: "EQ2Flames on ED: Click here! Some NSFW content present."

Deson

The ad fuck-up was a small part of a larger problem. When they realized the Playstation was a credible threat primarily because of price, SEGA decided to launch early. The problem was they didn't tell anybody so they had no ads ready and essentially no games because the push up was sooner than even some of the early dev/manufacturing scheds. So it sat on the shelves and got stale while the PS was allowed it's own buzz launch. Some think had SEGA waited, the Saturn would have fared better because of the emerging market of NES/Genesis gamers that now had their own disposable income vice depending on the parents. A competitive launch time with actual product would have placed an established brand up against the new comer thus splitting the buzz and sales.

That's another SOE:SEGA analogy-- It's better to release a solid product with support than a buggy/unsupported/incomplete product early in hopes of jumping the competition. Damaging your brand can be murder when there is real competition.The Saturn failure while perfect storm of events, has enough example of where the company could have not a made a mistake and still survived that it still comes down to just being smart and making good decisions i.e. if no one can program for you, no one will and don't screw your business partners.

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Reality

I have seen quiet a few people log back into their characters and begin playing again. Names that I haven't seen on the chat for a year or two.

And I can tell you that the LFG page has never looked better on prime time. So what ever SOE is doing thus far seems to be working. Let's just hope they can keep the momentum going and not fuck it up too bad.

God Damn Fascist.

Gage

...

Raids are broken and totally exploitable atm anyway, its a total joke.

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Cleansing the internet of e-whores since 2003! Just saying!

Pinski

Not to mention, how about them stat points! They sure are working, wait a second. No, they aren't. Sounds like another MMO that I still play, broken stat points :\

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How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything And no one's ever wrong
Until later...
Who can you believe? It's hard to play it safe
But apart from a few good friends We don't take anything on faith
Until later..

Frogweiser

That 60 page thread on the AoC boards is a good read.

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80 Guardian (R.I.P. Berserker)

Pinski

Wish I had an account to read it Only getting bits and pieces over on the foh boards.

__________________
How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything And no one's ever wrong
Until later...
Who can you believe? It's hard to play it safe
But apart from a few good friends We don't take anything on faith
Until later..

danowolf

As others have stated already AoC will cater to a niche market although given its peculiar game play and system requirments and a cramped feel to the environment(imo) it will fall to the wayside in mediocrity like Vanguard. NOT because it sucks like VG(and oh god how many ways did VG suck? only the Tijuana hooker that taught VG how to suck will ever know) but because it's tightly focused on a particular gamer and will not have broad appeal.
WOW = Can be played on any POS pc stolen by the local tweeker and sold to his little brother and very few characters to chose from and learn how to play Resulting in MASS APPEAL.
EQ2 = Beefier PC required to play so people had to drop some coin on it to get into game(requiring decisions between weekly pot purchase and new video card and memory upgrade... oh the horror!) and slightly complicated(compared to wow) game play resulting in LESS mass appeal.
AOC = Requires latest kick ass hardware(that tweeker cant steal because this expensive anchor came with an electric fence and/or attack dog) or the users experience will suck balls, complicated gameplay requiring user interaction (i.e. "thought" god forbid) resulting in Much LESS mass appeal to niche market of gamers.

So Fuck AOC, Fuck WOW and Fuck you if you dont play eq2 any more and come to this board to complain about it.

Reality

Good brief summary.