The remarks about not wanting to become "WoW" makes me(and probably most other WoW vets laugh - WoW vets being those of us who played before or at launch). Both games are pretty easy. Difference between the two? One has a shitty client and was poorly managed from release to now(EverQuest) and the other decided to change things much faster and much more frequently for the mass pleasing of the customer base(WoW). In the first 3-4 years of both releases, they were very very very similar in difficulty, time-sinks, and raiding difficulty. If any of those would be different, it would be that WoW had harder raid encounters The only pre-expansion fights that would compare in difficulty was 4-Horsemen and possibly like..........., I dunno, doing Isles 5-6 in Plane of Sky at the same time? Time-sinks were still there(unless you magically became Exalted with anyone you talked to). Tradeskilling was a massive time and money sink. So, where is this information you guys are getting that suggests WoW is easy-mode? Nobody cares about hearing this shit anymore. So why even try to make these obscure claims about two COMPLETELY different styles of games as if it even matters?
We want solutions to problems that are on SoD.
Now, back on subject...
Recent forum posts haven't been about dumbing down the game, they have been about eliminating some of that elitist mountain a new player would have to climb.
If you don't think it is so bad, go make a new toon, don't twink anything, and don't pl him, don't recruit five of your present guildies to join you at it, and see how far you get before the frustration kicks in. Not that you would attempt this, or admit to the real results.
I have offered that exact challenge to people who always reply to my posts saying I am insane for even ATTEMPTING to bridge the gap between new players and the 4-7 year old vets of SoD. I'd say I have asked maybe fifteen or sixteen people to do this, and offered them platinum(up to 100k for the week of leveling a character) as a reward for their time spent. Not a single person said they would do it. All the responses were "This isn't WoW" or "lol your dumb"
One guy sort've tried it out. He said he played a necro up to lvl 53 but quit the necro because he realized he couldn't solo the undercaverns main quest and didn't feel like grinding anymore until we was of appropriate level to do so. I guess he liked questing and just ran out of quests or he was that stuck on finishing his main quest. I seem to remember you being able to do it earlier with the help of some 65's, but once again, during the challenge you can't just ask for help...it has to randomly walk into your zone and be like "Hey, you need help little guy?"
"I still do not see what is that difficult in this game."
Um, you occasionally die in this game. Other MMOs don't have this problem as you almost have to try to die.
Every game in the world aside from EverQuest and SoD is total easy-mode and has no concept of death or risk at all. /sarcasm off! Did you play DAoC at all? How about Shadowbane? How about Tera? Did you ever die playing EverQuest 2? Diablo 3? GW3 beta weekends? Warhammer? WoW? Death is in every single game. Posts like this are posts that are irrelevent to the conversation and are not what the community needs.
tl;dr - It's summer and the population is a little low. We make the game more like WoW or current EverQuest and the pop jumps to 5000 people, the server crashes and no one gets to play.
The population of SoD has been low for longer than just the summer. It isn't like summer destroys gaming population in general. Other EQemu servers are having NO problems getting attendance(and by that, I mean there are multiple servers with 250+ accounts online at all times - even 5am EST) and holding it well. So the "It is summer time, guys" excuse that comes up every time the population is discussed don't really work. And why would you assume that the servers crash and we can't play if the population jumps? Do you have no faith in our Admin/GM/Dev team to find a solution to hardware upgrades and the community to support them?
Edit: Darksabbath, I just accepted that challenge. I will make a character tomorrow when I wake up and start grinding. I will give it no platinum, no gear, and no support from any of my characters. I will use Notepad to record my progress every four or five hours through this journey. Are there any other requests you want me to stray from? What is my ultimate goal on this character? I have the race/class picked out already.