The Angry Raider

There has been quite a bit of discussion in the MMO blogosphere about hardcore vs. casual, difficult vs. easy, and what the next generation MMOs will have to do in order to compete. Quite a bit of this discussion was fueled by Blizzard’s further nerfing of Ulduar and the change in patch 3.2 to support faster travel on mounts.

I don’t play WoW anymore, but all of this got me thinking about EverQuest II a bit. Game Update 52 comes out tomorrow and adds some controversial additions. First, spell ranks are changed. Gone are the days of App4 and Ad3 and M1. Now there are Journeyman (formerly Apprentice 1-4), Adept (formerly Adept 1), Expert (formerly Adept III), and Master. Second, research assistants are being added to the game. They will take one spell and upgrade it to its next rank. So your Expert rank of Nefarious Sacrament can be upgraded to Master without you having to buy the spell on the broker. Supposedly it takes about a month for the research assistant to upgrade a level 80 Ad3 to its M1 equivalent.

These changes were added to make EverQuest II a bit easier for all the new folks who are coming from WoW, WAR, AoC, and so on. The old system of spell ranks and new names for upgraded spells was very confusing for new players. And getting a Master was either an exercise in frustration (farming for it) or a very expensive proposition. SOE solved the problems by redesigning the spell system and making the spell upgrade process a bit less daunting.

Longtime EQ2 “hardcores” cried foul, understandably. They don’t want the game ‘dumbed down,’ and they worked hard for their spell upgrades. Further, they feel that people don’t even need their masters if they don’t raid. And so on and so forth.

In my opinion, whatever gets more people to try the game—and stick with it—is more important to me than placating the people who want things to stay the same. I do understand where they are coming from: change is difficult to deal with, the time we spend on these games is enormous and it feels like something is lost, and EQ2 specifically has a great community that the players don’t want tarnished by kids coming from WoW.

But in order to ensure the survival of EQ2, Sony has to adapt. They have to adapt to the rules that WoW has implicitly enforced on MMOs. Thankfully, if EQ2 is no longer to your liking, there are other hardcore MMOs like Vanguard or EVE. And if EQ2 is still too hard for the new players, they’ll stick with Runes of Magic or the old standby, World of Warcraft.

My only hope is that SOE remains agile enough to backpedal on a change that ends up bad, like the fighter hate changes they rolled back a few months ago. I am willing to try new things, support the changes that SOE is putting in, and help new players get into the (IMHO) best MMO on the market.

As one of my guildies recently said, “It’s really a good thing that EQ2 is good enough and popular enough for people to get upset about it.”