Does anyone play eq2 anymore

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New World is Amazon's first video game hit with half a million concurrent players on Steam Fifth-highest ever. But there was something in the wording and presentation of this in EverQuest 2 that felt desperate for whatever it could get.

Clearly at least some of this had been successful, which makes looking at what doesn't work even more fascinating. If you own the new expansion, in addition to money, loot and experience points, which are already split between two systems, leveling and alternate advancement , you get a new reward for killing enemies and completing quests: tithe. Tithe is a special currency that allows you to purchase new single-use "miracle" abilities from gods of your same alignment. It can also be spent further buffing up your character.

Essentially, it's another timesink for end-game players, which is an important element of any MMO. But there's a strong and fascinating difference between how a game like World of Warcraft handles these systems versus a free-to-play MMO like EverQuest 2.

With World of Warcraft , Blizzard has the privilege of taking its time on expansions. Sure, numbers may dip a little , but the game is still successful on a level that's unheard of compared to other subscription-based games. Meanwhile, there's a reason Daybreak has stuck to one expansion a year for EverQuest 2 without fail.

Free-to-play games and MMOs that are struggling in general need to pump out new and exciting content at a ridiculous rate, both to keep current players happy and hopefully entice new players into the game. So what gets lost in the rush? The time needed to polish content along with the ability to go back and remove content that doesn't really matter anymore. Blizzard is the master of this process. Look at the admittedly controversial Cataclysm expansion for World of Warcraft in Blizzard saw that its quest design had progressed significantly from where it was when the game launched and felt the earlier zones no longer matched the quality of the rest of the game.

So what did Blizzard do? Destroyed everything and remade it. Blizzard is constantly reworking talent trees, tweaking stats and generally making for a smoother, more streamlined experience.

Meanwhile, in EverQuest 2 , systems have seemingly been stacked on top of each other until they reach the figurative, if not virtual, sky. The Alternate Advancements window is full of tabs of abilities, dozens of potential progression paths that are impossible to parse for the beginning player.

Daybreak can't take the time to go back and clean these up or remove ones that don't matter anymore, and it's not because the people working there are lazy; they're constantly pushing ahead toward whatever is next in hopes that it will keep players happy. There is no time to look back. This is a game with history. Real, human history.

Over the course of 11 years, people have become friends, adventured together, even fallen in love. Then the next one, and the next. The idea is that everyone gets to experience the world changing over time, just as intended. Those nostalgic visitors are the players Daybreak want as well. In some ways, the tenacious development of EverQuest feels like a constant marketing push to recapture players that have moved on.

An MMO can sometimes feel just as important as the real world because of the relationships you build along the way. When you invest literally hundreds or even thousands of hours into a character it becomes more than just an avatar.

It can feel like an extension of yourself. It goes both ways. World of Warcraft exists primarily because of EverQuest, but we will take a good idea and use it for ourselves as well. We are just a bunch of creative nerds trying to do what's best for this industry. With such a heavy focus on nostalgia, and trying to recapture the glory days in "progression servers", it sometimes feels like Daybreak and the fans are on a never-ending corpse run to retrieve the body of MMOs past.

Although recent player numbers have gone up, according to Daybreak, it's unlikely this influential MMO will return to the top of the mountain where it resided so comfortably in its early years.

But that would be churlish. Yes, EverQuest can never truly revisit its glory days. If you released an MMO without maps or a compass in it would probably be dismissed before it finished patching. But thanks to 25 expansions and 20 years of survival, its players still have a version of Norrath to call home. One thing about Elden Ring's open world leaves me a bit confused. Death's Door is my kind of Soulslike, and I just can't get enough of it.

This browser game is a post-apocalypse Glasto meets non-violent tech Wicker Man and it's rad as hell. If you click on a link and make a purchase we may receive a small commission. Read our editorial policy. One thing about Elden Ring's open world leaves me a bit confused My level-senses are frazzled.

Ed Thorn 8 hours ago 2. Death's Door is my kind of Soulslike, and I just can't get enough of it Probably because it's a Soulslikelite. Katharine Castle 8 hours ago 1. Katharine Castle 1 day ago This browser game is a post-apocalypse Glasto meets non-violent tech Wicker Man and it's rad as hell Children of the corn. Alice Bell 1 day ago 6.