Poll: Gear progression, horizontal or vertical?

[kyuven]

Huh? I actually don't know anyone who plays it and never heard of the game. It apparently had 200k subscribers in 2006. That.. isn't very successful. I mean if it only had 200k in 2006, I'd imagine its like nothing now.

I mean, the SWG Emulator has more subscribers then that. "NOW"

200k subscribers is a LOT, especially post-WoW.
People just seem to confuse "accounts" with "subscriber numbers."
F2P games can count accounts, as once you make one you're part of their business. Some people have multiple accounts. Since XI actually DELETES inactive accounts (or at least, they did) then they can't use this data. SWG Emulator DOES use this data, since they don't HAVE subscribers.
P2P games have to count subscribers.
With 200k subscribers, XI was VERY successful. To this day it's still SE's most profitable Final Fantasy ever.
Just because you haven't heard of it, doesn't mean it's not popular.
Also, how the heck can you call it "not a good game" when you apparently haven't played it?

Rare Drops in Dungeons, Common Drops in Raids, Rare Drops in Trials? In Everquest II there were about 70 pieces of unique gear.

You...probably weren't around for the early days of the game I take it.
See, to get to that "horizontal progression" took years and years of expansions and new content. When the game started and up through Desert of Flames, the game was pretty much exactly like XIV is now, with the exception of a few special "effect" items that were damn near required (looking at you, manastone!) to do endgame content.
There were no options. You HAD to have this gear. And let's not even get into how unimaginative the armor designs were (the lvl 40, 50, and 55 plate armor looked EXACTLY THE SAME, just tinted a little different)
There's a reason they felt the need to add an Appearance Slot (probably one of the better ones out there IMO...even if most of the options looked meh)
Oh and EQ2 did vertical progression as well. Every expansion, with the exception of gimmick items, all your old gear became instantly outdated. Hell my lvl 50 raid gear was replaced instantly by Mastercrafted (yes, CRAFTED) lvl 55 gear in a week. A practice they only really stopped when they slowed down raising the level cap, and even then it wasn't "sidegrades" as much as "inclinegrades"
And that's not even getting into how they felt the need to add a quest to strip the effect off your Mythic weapon because, while the effect for many classes was VERY good, the stats were outdated the very next expansion.