SOGA
Topic: Games
Everquest has been, many people believe, turning into World of Warcraft, little by little. It has borrowed mechanics from their competitor (just as their competitor has borrowed from EQ and EQ2). It has developed similar races too, but who hasn't? After all, how many different ways are there to say "Dark Elf?" How many different ways are there to be a dwarf or gnome?

And they have to play to the expectations of the audience, too. I'm reminded of the words of Alfred Molina, when describing his role as Doctor Octopus in Spider-Man 2. He described the pressure of acting a known role to a very dedicated fan-base, who will destroy the actor for any perceived inconsistency with their perception of the character. "You can't do him gay with an Irish accent." he said.
And, in that same manner, you can't make an entire race of dark elves that likes flowers and puppy dogs.* The fan base isn't going to buy it, so they won't buy the game either. They have to have dark skin, pointy ears, and a serious mad-on for anything that walks in sunlight.

Somehow, in World of Warcraft, Night-Elves (as they're called) became good guys. They got away with it. They made a race of dark elves that like flowers and puppy dogs.** Who'd have thought it? And they gave them a very Anime appearance, too. The elongated ears, for one thing. The hair styles too.

EQ2 dark elves looked like elves with dark skin. Their ears looked like what you'd expect to see on Mr. Spock, and they were bad guys. They kept the expectation.

So, basically, despite their similar concepts, the dark elf races in World of Warcraft and EQ2 looked dissimilar, and were on opposite sides of the whole good/bad conflict. Yet both races were staggeringly popular. Sony Online Entertainment gave this some thought.

Enter SOGA. SOGA stands for "Sony Online - GAmania." Sony Online apparently partnered with Asian group Gamania in order to make the graphics of the game more popular in Asian cultures. The result was the Anime appearance of the new models, originally intended for those Asian markets. But they made them available for American markets too. They look very cool, I think.

The problem is that WoW created their Night Elf race models in a way that they were appealing to Asian markets as well. So there's a huge similarity.

It may not have been the intention, but EQ2 has made another step in the direction of WoW. And they'll be accused of it. Hells; it's the first thing I thought when I saw them. But here's the thing: you have far more customization with your character appearance in EQ2 than you do in WoW, despite the similarities. And they look damned good. Oh, there's a few things I don't like, but for the most part, it's a big improvement. But if you don't like the SOGA models, you can use the original EQ2 models anyway.

That way, you can keep track of which game you're playing.

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*Unless they like them baked for 2 hours at 350 degrees with a hint of lemon and garlic, and a few mushrooms.
**Unbaked.

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