Everquest coming to PS2

[Mongo222]

Found on slashdot this morning.....


Sony will announce on Tuesday the release of a PlayStation 2 version of its popular online PC game "EverQuest," as it tries to build an audience for an upcoming online add-on for the video game console.

http://news.com.com/2100-1040-878576.html

[SyberWired]

Now what am I supposed to use my super-buffed-computer-to-play-Everquest-with-all-models-turned-on for?! Oh well, at least now I can delete Windoze and load Mandrake on the entire box!!! That will at least be an improvement.

[Mongo222]

I don't know if I'd go that far. There are a lot of reasons why the PC is a better machine to run EQ on than a PS2.

1. Keyboard
2. Mouse.
3. PS2 has 8 meg of memory...what are they going to do with the textures?
4. That ethernet adapter best come with a harddrive, otherwise forget patching the client.

[rasthan]

<<PS2 has 8 meg of memory...what are they going to do with the textures?>>

Hehe take a look at the screenshots. Not very impressive at all....

Also from a news article I read, the online version is supposedly "free".

[Mongo222]

I'm missing something here....

Screenshots?
Where?

[high_jeeves]

castersrealm has some screenshots... Also, note that there are fewer races (probably due to graphics constraints), and the zones appear to be completely different... This is a game "based" on everyquest... it isnt the same as the real deal. From the reading, i get the impression that it runs on completely different servers in a completely different world.

--Jeeves

[dolemite01]

One day I asked myself, what really peeves me?

Then I thought, well a price increase on a product I enjoy, but thats ok it's just a small nominal fee.

Then I read about new products that this company is bringing out, that I don't care for.


/petition Can you ensure my extra 2.95 per account will not go towards your new expansion as your last caused massived downtime and multiple problems with my characters, and oh yeah I don't own a PS 2 so can you make sure my extra funding doesn't go towards that project either. Thanks

[high_jeeves]

Ummm... if you think the money you pay towards a game (Any game, not just an online one) doesnt go towards other projects, you need to take a few business classes..

--Jeeves

[dolemite01]

Agreed, however, so does Verant.

If you pay for something that is ever occuring, such as Cable Television, Tivo, Satellite, your own ISP, 99% of those products and services constantly upgrade, improve, or start new projects that improve.

PS2 Doesn't improve my game with Everquest.

Arguably the expansion pack may improve my game, but we could discuss all night, the multiple bugs, broken quests, errors, and constants that are flawed with everquest.

Yes, if you pay for something they do start new projects, but those generally start after they completed what they launched.

If you argue that everquest is ever changing, thats not so much true.

Gnolls always attack qeynos, etc.

Verant changes the game when they feel a mob was taken down too easy, or a quest reward is too great, which is fine in some sense.

But we constantly pay for expansion packs, etc. and the service and product we get in return is not always up to par.

[high_jeeves]

Ummm... just for fun I looked at the last 4 patch messages... roughly 80% (probably more if I really counted) of the changed were aimed at making the game either better, or easier...

Also, I beleive EQ is the #1 video game of all time and the #1 most profitable game of all time, so Verant should be giving business lessons, not taking them...

As for your cable analogy... I tried responding to this 40 minutes ago, but my cable modem went out for the 4th time this month.. so much for improved services for my payment... they actually spend most of their profit (after paying people/rent/expenses) on expanding their network, not adding services to existing companies... companies either grow, or die.. its just the nature of the beast... When you buy an "offline" game, a significant portion of your payment goes towards new/different projects... otherwise nobody would be able to ever make games! This is true with all businesses, otherwise they would never make money!

--Jeeves

[dolemite01]

Also, I beleive EQ is the #1 video game of all time and the #1 most profitable game of all time, so Verant should be giving business lessons, not taking them...

Try the Sims from Maxis with over 3 million copies sold at 49.99

Thats
149970000

Everquest with 400k subcribers at:
29.99 for the game = 11996000
And those for only 2 years at 9.95 = 95520000
Total thats: 107516000


The Sims is still the #1 Selling Video Game

Sorry.

[Cryonic]

You could probably triple the amount pulled in from the game to account for the sales of the expansions (this is a guestimate for total cds sold, both core game and expansions).

$35,988,000

[high_jeeves]

Well, I bought EQ when it came out.. was $49.99...

I've been playing 3 years... $9.95 * 36 months.. I have all three expansions... (I beleive they were $39.99, $29.99, $29.99.. not 100% sure on that)... I have 2 accounts, so multiply all these numbers by 2...

I saw the sims on the shelf the other day at $14.99 (in the discount section).. Quite frankly, your numbers suck..

Just because I dont feel like arguing about this (since it misses the point of my post entirely..) lets say EQ was only the ::gasp:: #5 selling game ever... I would bet its not that low, but lets go worst case... That still makes them one hell of a business, and still means they should be teaching business lessons, not taking them..

--Jeeves

[casey]

Originally posted by Mongo222
I don't know if I'd go that far. There are a lot of reasons why the PC is a better machine to run EQ on than a PS2.

3. PS2 has 8 meg of memory...what are they going to do with the textures?


this is one of the bigger obstacles ps2 devs had to get used to. The "standard" convention, and the one you are supporting here is common when you have a decent amount or video ram, but high latency. This is the situation on pc's and most game consoles. So, you take your highly latent connection and load a crapload of textures into memory once, and then you can use them as you need them.

On the ps2, what you have is a smaller chunk of video ram, but a low latent/high bandwidth link to the memory, so you can afford to keep a constant stream of textures into the memory, from the standpoint of the renderer, it is no different, because in either case all the textures it needs for the current frame, are in texture ram.

The problem is that developers largely prefer the "lazier" approach of load everything once, and just have it ready. Which approach is better? depends on the underlying hardware characteristics. do i think VI's programmers could pull off what was needed to work well with the ps2 hardware? dont really know, and the only reason i'm not sure they cant, is because they are owned by sony, so they have good access to the people who designed the hardware.

[high_jeeves]

Another big problem with the PS2 screenshots, is resolution... they are gonna look like crap on a PC monitor, because the TV resolution is so much lower.. but they will look better on a TV...

Casey, any idea what the transfer rate is off the DVD drive of theirs? I have no idea, but that would be the limiting factor moving textures -> RAM... (The bus is going to be way faster than the DVD -> bus transfer)

--Jeeves

[fyodorst]

just a thought...

sony releases linux for ps2
sony releases eq for ps2

maybe just maybe we could get eq for linux... then i wont need windows at all

[high_jeeves]

That would be nice.. I wouldnt bet the farm on it tho... as Loki has recently proved, linux gaming does not make money.

--Jeeves

[Cryonic]

In the case of Loki:

http://www.linuxandmain.com/features/lokistory.html

Sounds more like the company prez didn't really know what he was doing. Games were selling, he was just ordering way too many copies and squandering money on useless things.

[casey]

fyodorst: VI can barely code a directX based engine, what makes you thing they can port it to OpenGL so it could work under linux :)

[fryfrog]

shoot, i totally forgot that sony makes the ps2... i bet the sony/varent collaboration is pretty hot. i wouldn't be surprized if some of the people who designed the ps2 didn't come over and help them get eq for ps2 right :)

[SyberWired]

Here is the link for the news story from Gamers.com:

http://www.gamers.com/game/1130619

IMHO:
I agree with Fyodorst. With Linux for PS2 coming out around the same timeframe as EverQuest for PS2, it seems a great time to move over and give it a try. Also if you have read the articles on EQ for PS2, it is based 500 years prior. Look at the picture of "Telethin", i.e. present day "Kelethin" and the "Spider Mines" i.e. present day "Ak`Anon". That gives them a reason to use less characters and races.

Also, The graphics are not that bad. They are comparable to the graphics the pc game has had up to the Luclin expansion. Everyone remembers that right?! When every EQ fanatic had to go out and buy a new video card, upgrade to 512 mg ram, etc.? The purchase of a PS2, EverQuest for PS2, and the Linux kit for PS2, it still costs less than a 1.4 mhz system, 512 mg ram, 19 inch monitor, cable/dsl because since the Luclin upgraded graphics, a dial up sucks, new video card, new sound card, etc.

WHEN I get it, I will let you know how it is, and provide screenshots for you.

[cbreaker]

I just read that column on Loki, and even after laughing my ass off at the incredibly stupid an downright terrible person Scott Draeker, I have to disagree about the comment that Linux games cannot make money.

This column even proves it; they sold many copies of their software, and the people that did purchase it were very happy with it.

The problem with Loki is that you had dumb (scott) and dumber (his wife) running the company, and spending company money on anything they wanted. Big screen TV's. Huge salaries. Probably everything from state-of-the-art foot massage machines to brand new BMW 7 series cars.

If the company had simply managed the money better, didn't make poor business discitions, and held on, I believe they would have been successful.

Not every company needs to profit by selling millions of copies of whatever; selling 10,000 copies would serve a small company well. And it would have only gotten better.

Oh well..

----
Anyways, on the EQ for PS2 subject.. Those screenshots actually look pretty good to me. And like someone said, it will look much nicer on a TV. And at 60FPS it will probably look great. 640x480 on a TV looks GREAT! But trash on a modern PC.

I'm sure there's plenty of ways to get good looking models within that 8mb of SYSTEM ram. I'm sure there's also a large amount of video memory too.

I really don't know how the PS2 works in comparison to a standard PC-type machine. I'd be willing to bet that 8MB of system memory is plenty to do whatever they want to do. Maybe their video subsystem can use it's own ram to store the textures and models. Who knows.

You can't compare it to an XBox. An Xbox is a PC. All standard PC rules apply, and that means you need gobs of everything (Ram, processor power, etc etc) to make it do anything nice.

Everquest for the PS2 will most likely be very limited in terms of the interface. You probably won't see too much /auction spam, if any. You could probably use a keyboard if you had one, but most won't. I imagine that the game world will be small, with limited items, it will be easy.

I bet it will be a lot of fun, too, but more in a Final Fantasy II way, not an EQ way.

-cb

[cbreaker]

Ohh yea, and although I'll check it out most likely, I'll be staying QUITE FAR from a version of EQ that now a 6 year old can play.

The average age of players will drop by half, and it will be a kiddie nightmare. No thanks! EQ on PC is bad enough.

[Dedpoet]

Everquest for the PS2 will most likely be very limited in terms of the interface. You probably won't see too much /auction spam, if any. You could probably use a keyboard if you had one, but most won't. I imagine that the game world will be small, with limited items, it will be easy.

I bet they do something similar to what you can see in the screenshots for Neverwinter Nights (www.neverwinternights.com). The screenshots hint that you would click on an NPC, and an overlay pops up with a pointer in the center and different options arranged around it, like a clock face: Attack, Talk To, Examine, etc. Typical Final Fantasy-type stuff. A MMPORPG with little to no inter-character chat would be interesting, to say the least. It works well with single-player games, but it will be interesting to see how they do it with so many players around.

[fryfrog]

the ps2 is a very interesting beast, when it comes to its memory architecture. i think one of the devs (fee, rat, i don't feel like scrolling to find out) described it pretty well.

it has a small amount of system cache/ram BUT the link between the system cache/ram is GIGANTIC and INCREDIBLY fast. so, while you can only have 8mb of textures at a time (or what ever) you can swap them in and out like nobody's buisness.

its just that that method is exactly opposite to the way most people think and do games / computer stuffs. at least from what i've read and think i understand :)