Everquest II to get its own Cataclysm after WoW test case?

Unless you've been living under a particularly heavy rock for a while, you should know that players of World of Warcraft are anticipating a cataclysmic expansion pack next week. But you may have missed the news that, according to John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, Everquest II has beenconsidering a similar reboot.


Above: Does Deathwing loom above the world of Everquest as well?

In an interview with Kotaku, Smedleysaid, "Is it something we would do within the next expansion cycle? Probably not. But I think it's interesting."

So why haven’t they pulled the trigger yet? According to Smedley, making such a massive, sweeping change to the game would pose a huge risk to their user base. As such, they have been watching Blizzard’s endeavors with great interest.

"The reason I respect Blizzard so much is that they don't make massive mistakes," saidSmedley. "I think World of Warcraft is looking great. I think it's going to bring a lot of people back into the game; they hit the reset button."

But Smedley isn’t worried that WoW’s Cataclysm is going to steal Everquest’s player base. "We have five years of World of Warcraft experience behind us to know that people that play EverQuest II don't play World of Warcraft," he said. "We don't see big dips in concurrency. We see a tiny drop for awhile."

Would you welcome a ‘Cataclysm’ in your MMO of choice? Tell us in the comments.

[Source:Kotaku]

Dec 3, 2010