October 2004 Fan Faire Report
by Loral on November 02, 2004
The following article was written for both Mobhunter and Caster's Realm.
I return from the Bayou, black notebook laden with facts, details, rumors and the philosophies from the silver temple of the west. SOE put on a fine event, as entertaining as it was informative. SOE developers and staff made themselves available throughout the three-night event, happy to discuss anything the fans could bring up.
If you care not to hear of the festivities, skip down right into the juicy morsels of goodness below. If you have not been to a Fan Faire, however, it is quite a treat. There's always a bit of nervousness going to such an event. We all know each other in-game but to meet face to face can be a bit daunting. Non stop contests, presentations, late-night gatherings, and panels filled out three days perfectly. It wasn't uncommon to see three fellows walking down Burbon Street, hurricanes high, shouting "hail" at everyone they saw. "Train to Zone" they'd shout as a pack of bikers drives by with grim looks on their bearded faces.
Your head swims with after-images as you fly back home. Brenlo hurls sharp-edged boxes at the heads of players in the manifestation of his ultimate Community Relations dream. Vannoth teaches players how to train zones ("OMGZ RUN") and Cyb3r barbarian females in Everquest 2 ("OMGZ YUO USED ME!"). The costumes, the contests, the dialog, the tales of adventure, the personalities; they all add up to a weekend packed with enough memories to last six months. If you ever get a chance to go to a Fan Faire, take it.
Ok, now on to the juicy morsels of goodness.
A large amount of the Fan Faire focused on Everquest 2. By now most people have heard of the November 8 release date. SOE had planned on this date for some time; it was not a knee jerk reaction to the rumored simultaneous release date of World of Warcraft. Who really believes those EBGames dates anyway? Shame on you.
Everquest 2 showed up everywhere. A 24 hour Everquest 2 contest awarded an Alienware PC to the player with the highest level and experience. Over 30 machines were open for Fan Faire attendees to play. Every Fan Faire attendee earned an EQ2 beta account upon registration. I will leave it to other reviewers to discuss the details of Everquest 2 but I will discuss a few interesting tidbits.
I finally met my predecessor, Moorgard. During our discussion he mentioned that EQ2 went through a series of focus tests and usability tests for both new and veteran players. I hope Everquest goes through such tests if it has not done so already. Making the game easy to start and play is a key to bringing in new customers.
SOE demonstrated the new Station Players website for Everquest 2 players. The website offers a wide range of excellent features including guild website tools, Magelo-like player profiles, web-based guild chat, and server community forums. There's a lot to like and demonstrations are available on the EQ2 website. SOE intends to implement these features for all SOE games including EQLive in the next six to eight months.
Now let us dig into EQLive news.
In the next patch or two, the task system will gain over one thousand new tasks including tasks up to level 70. Tasks will include a variety of new actions such as foraging and fishing on top of the existing kill 10, collect 4, talk to an NPC, or visit a location. SOE plans to balance many old tasks as well. Kaikachi, the task developer, reinforced that he uses bug reports and feedback to balance tasks so make sure to /bug or /feedback them if you find a task that doesn't work.
Backflagging came up more than once this event and SOE appears to have a viable solution in the works. SOE will extend the 85-15 flagging rule, the rule that allows 15% of a raid to enter a flagged zone without the flag, to Time and many Gates zones. Raid mobs within flagged zones will drop one or two quest items that let unflagged members begin a quest to receive a permanent flag for that zone. Flags achieved this way will not backflag characters for previous zones. A Time flag quest, for example, will not award a Fire flag.
Rashere, the primary Alternate Ability developer, has a list of AAs to review. He already wrote a spreadsheet of point cost reductions for Gates AAs. A piece of code will soon let players receive AA refunds without losing AAs over 30 should they zone. It will not let players store more than 30 new AAs, however. Players who already purchased AAs at the higher cost will receive the difference; they will not get a full refund for abilities unless the ability itself changes.
During the "Maintain a Living World" panel a pompous jackass of a moderator brought up the Everquest's Economy. According to Lyndro, tributes helped take money out of the economy but targeted the wrong players. High-end players hold most of the money in Norrath but rarely use tributes. Items like horses only take money out of the economy once. SOE designed systems like trade skills to take money out of the economy but SOE always considers new solutions.
SOE does not plan to add new LDON loot. Like Kunark and Velious, SOE intends players who get through the content of LDON to travel onwards to expansions like Omens and Gates. LDON is not intended to offer progression through the entire range of the game. Now that Omens offers fine equipment to single-group hunters, I agree with their assessment.
SOE plans to continue changing hot-zones to get players traveling out to old world zones. From time to time they may add Fabled-like items to old-world content like they did with the fifth anniversary. These changes, on top of epic quests and tasks, help get new players to older world zones.
Rogue's Hour, the first in a series of four planned Everquest-based novels, hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago and Scott Ciencin signed books and discussed future publishing plans. Each of the next three books will come out every three months including one by Elane Cunningham, the author of many fine Forgotten Realms books. These books help add new depth to our world and I look forward to their continued release.
Class tuning came up many times and SOE has plans to address class issues. SOE will release class descriptions, not full class definitions, which contain a lot of SOE internal statistics. SOE community relations folk meet often with developers to help make sure the class issues get discussed and to make sure each class has a clear group role and is fun to play.
I spent a time far shorter than I would have liked speaking with Vahlar regarding lore and story progression. I mentioned my desire to see the Muramites invading Norrath and she assured me that some big changes would hit Norrath in coming weeks. SOE heard the player's cry for a more cohesive storyline, one built from original EQ lore and plans to improve this. The return of Firiona Vie and the Lifeguide to the storyline begins this return to older lore.
SOE already began the design of a new EQLive expansion but details are scarce. Lyndro stated clearly that expansions will follow the Kunark, Velious, and Omens trend for one single locked zone, not a series of progressive locked zones such as those we faced in Planes of Power and Gates of Discord. SOE rebuilt much of Omens, far more than I expected, after the guild summit in June. SOE hears what players ask for and they heard us very well with Omens. I have high hopes and look forward to January's announcement.
The future looks bright. We see many exciting changes on the way and every SOE employee I spoke to said many of the things I wanted to hear. EQ2 presents a huge unknown variable but it is clear that no SOE employee on either team wants EQ players quitting one for the other. I do not see EQ2 affecting EQLive's future in any way but for the better.
Loral Ciriclight
2 November 2004
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Bandi on November 2, 2004 07:37 AM
"it is clear that no SOE employee on either team wants EQ players quitting one for the other. I do not see EQ2 affecting EQLive's future in any way but for the better."
Too bad EQ's days are numbered. There is a finite player base so of course EQ2 will draw players from EQ.
Why not make ostriches the next EQ PC race?
Comment Posted by: Scott Adams on November 2, 2004 07:49 AM
Thanks for the report! Was there any word on reworking the graphics? Old zones, Character graphics, mob graphics etc?
To be honest I really expect EQ2 to pull in all new EQ subscribers. It is already what EQlive promises to be someday. So why would any newbie signup for EQ1 when they can get 2?
It will be very interesting to see the state of EQlive a year from now! I suspect it will start to implode, but SOE has surprised us many times before.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on November 2, 2004 08:38 AM
>>Too bad EQ's days are numbered. There is a finite player base so of course EQ2 will draw players from EQ<<
How much you wanna bet EQ-Live is still around 10 yrears from now. Humm?? how much?
Comment Posted by: on November 2, 2004 08:45 AM
The bigest problem with Wow is that WoS is like KC. End result there are few places to hunt for folks that need runes and they are all over crowed.
Solution, add dropable runes to mobes in GoD and or PoP. Will spread out the mass of folks looking for them.
And yes I know you would then not need Omens to get 66-68 spells, so what they are available in the Bazaar if you have the plat.
Comment Posted by: Intirgue on November 2, 2004 08:47 AM
Hmm, Wow should have been Omens.
Comment Posted by: ANON on November 2, 2004 09:39 AM
Wow just went open beta (through fileplanet). It owns eq. Hell, Guildwars owned eq. I agree that EQs days are numbered, if for no other reason than people are about to be exposed to what real 3d engines can do. A time or ikkinz raid lags all to hell for me with graphics turned up on a ridiculous machine ... seriously, think xp64-3200/6800gt 256/4GB cas2 corsair RAM type of setup here. There is NO reason for this after 5 years, and as a matter of fact YES I AM a 3d graphics programmer in the medical field (I work on radiological visualization software -- 3d ultrasounds), and I am VERY aware of not only the challenges of networking the code, but also making it run efficiently. EQ's engine SUCKS, and always has, and Sony won't care until enough people start leaving to make it painful.
I'm in a raiding guild, and we're bleeding people to Wow like you wouldn't believe (even in beta). What I don't think sony realizes yet (at least publicly) is that entire guilds will be leaving at a time here in order to keep playing together. Sony also fails to realize that between the web and utils like ventrilo and teamspeak, people don't need EQ anymore to organize with other people. Needless to say, we have 268 active non-twink members and apps, or which at least half are leaving EQ in the next month. Sure we'll keep accounts open for awhile, or try to sell em, but...
There's only time in the day to gain progression at one of these games at a time. Wow has record preorders worldwide. Not to mention the 1000lb gorilla that is South Korea (if you don't realize why this is important, ur not paying attention). The decline of EQ seems like inevitability at this point, since folk will migrate to where their friends are most likely. That, and new players will go to to 'cool' game, and EQ is just not as lustrous as it once was. The thrill is gone.
If this seems like a rant, it is. I spent the weekend scraping my jaw off the floor playing guild wars, and becoming more upset at the debacle that is EQ with each minute. At some point it hit me, EQ is fixable, it's just laziness and bad management that has prevented it so far, and that friends will be its end.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 2, 2004 10:07 AM
I expect that EQ will lose a small number to WoW, about the same that they lost to Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot, Ashron's Call, and other MMOGs. I expect they may lose a larger number to EQ2.
Some of these people will come back because of missing feature they grew used to or differences in the games that they can't get over. Others will come back because they miss their friends.
Over time, EQ will lose customers. It can't stay competitive with other MMOGs forever and aside from a vast amount of content, a lower SKU cost, and a huge old existing user-base, EQ has little to offer new customers over EQ2. This might change if they can find the right feature or set of features.
The only really big step that we might see is when it no longer becomes profitable for SOE to continue to make EQ expansions. Without expansions, we won't see new content as rich as Omens but we'd still probably see a few changes, perhaps even some we asked for for a long time but never saw.
Take a look at other MMOGs with far fewer people than EQ that still survive and you'll see that EQ has a very long life ahead of it. I expect EQ to live, perhaps not at 500,000 players, for a long time to come.
It will be a year before we know for sure what is going to happen. We cannot make an accurate judgement on initial sales of EQ2 or WoW. People may flock over there and decide, three months from now, that it has no real interest to them. A new EQ expansion may pull everyone back again. There's no way to tell what is going to happen but I am still confident that we won't see adverse effects on EQ for a long time to come.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 2, 2004 10:50 AM
"I'm in a raiding guild, and we're bleeding people to Wow like you wouldn't believe (even in beta). What I don't think sony realizes yet (at least publicly) is that entire guilds will be leaving at a time here in order to keep playing together."
I think SOE understands what might happen better than we can and thats still not much.
If every Time+ raiding guild left EQ, that would be perhaps 15% of the total player-base. It's not insignificant but its not a game killer either.
High number raid content, as shown in the low-number raids of EQ2, isn't the way to keep EQ alive. Making the game more friendly to new players with limited time is.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 2, 2004 11:42 AM
That is your bet Loral and that's why I think you preach for the wrong features or the wrong game. More in-line with some off-line game, really.
Time limited casual players often don't last.
They don't provide the backbone to build a community upon. The support for long term development of content and revenue.
They are simply not around when needed, not online when needed, don't have the knowledge nor time to explore every virtual inch of the game.
There are not the people that other players can rely on for skill or knowledge or help.
Which incidently is bad for SoE and the players.
To achieve anything on Everquest, you need longevity. You don't need absolutely to be a raider but you need to invest on the long run.
That's what made EQ the success it is today. People kept coming back, rerolled and/or stayed.
What will happen with features catering only to time strapped players? They will try, they will enjoy the first 30 levels then maybe hang around for 30 or 40 more. Then they will go. Because the players infrastructure that are guilds will be gone. You can't keep running half a decent guild without a community, without people coming back to the game for the long term.
Loosing the backbone of EQ, the guilds and the ones that people look up to, IS a game killer because without long lasting community, EQ is an empty shell.
If that's the game you wan't, please cater to another game and leave EQ as is, with a community rich, long lasting social web of raiding or non raiding fans and players.
I wonder if you're paid by Blizzard half the time.
I'm scared to death that SoE might actually listen to your advice in fact.
Comment Posted by: Thaedson on November 2, 2004 11:47 AM
I like EQ. I think its a great game and incredibly cost effective entertainment. But after five years I see my friends and family leaving one by one. Why?
Time is the issue. Until SOE realizes that we have job/family/lives and cannot stay on every night til 1-2 a.m. their player base will suffer. Yes, yes I know I CHOSE whether I stay on or not, but I'm pretty sure that I'm not alone when I say 3+ hours to do a Raid (doesn't matter which one or which level) is nuts.
LDON was successful for a reason folks.
Group/Raiding content should be geared toward reasonable time limits... from the START of the first pull to the Boss Mob(s) should be 45 min to 2 hours. Until that light bulb goes on nothing is going to change and I'm going to continue to watch my friends list dwindle. :(
Comment Posted by: Teremar on November 2, 2004 12:14 PM
I'd say family guilds are even more likely to move as a unit than raiding guilds. If people in a raiding guild leave, you replace them. To a certain degree all you care about is their ability to do their job on a raid.
In a family guild, where relationships are everything, if enough people switch games the only way to maintain those relationships is to switch with them. It nearly happened to my guild when SWG came out--but SWG was an awful game and many of them came back (and only one kept playing SWG). EQ2 and WoW give every indication of being far better than any EQ rival we've ever seen before.
I hear over and over (especially from enchanters right now) that what keeps people playing is their relationships with other players. So far that has worked to SOE's advantage. But it could work the other way when the number of people switching games hits a certain critical mass.
Meanwhile I fully expect the number of new EQ players to be essentially zero once EQ2 comes out. Just the names guarantee that. The only way they might avoid that would be to strongly differentiate EQ from EQ2--the obvious way would be MORE of an emphasis on large scale raiding. Fortunately for we non-raiders who aren't looking to switch SOE does not seem to be taking that path.
Will EQ be around for another five years? Quite likely. But if in two years they have half the number of subscribers they had at their peak I'll be mildly surprised. And the decline will probably not be gradual--"implode" will probably be a good description.
Comment Posted by: Memnoch on November 2, 2004 12:37 PM
Asheron's Call didn't kill EQ.
Anarchy Online didn't kill EQ.
DAOC didn't kill EQ.
Asheron's Call 2 didn't kill EQ.
Planetside didn't kill EQ.
SW:G didn't kill EQ.
Horizons didn't kill EQ.
Shadowbane didn't kill EQ.
Eve didn't kill EQ.
FFXI didn't kill EQ.
City of Heroes didn't kill EQ.
Lineage 2 didn't kill EQ.
If you don't like EQ, don't play. I pity anyone who feels that way yet doesn't quit. And once you've all played 24/7 and hit the last level in WoW or EQ2, been everywhere, done everything and obtained every time, you will return to EQ and moan, complain, and whine as usual.
They are games, play whatever the hell you want. Or better yet, have the courage of your convictions and do something about it.
Comment Posted by: SnowwSilverhammer on November 2, 2004 01:14 PM
Sooner or later.
SoE. Will kill EQ.
Comment Posted by: on November 2, 2004 01:54 PM
EQ 2 will kill EQ.
A previous poster had it right: why would someone new to the EQ genre start playing EQ when they could start playing EQ 2? The combination of existing players leaving EQ for WoW and no new players coming into EQ because of EQ 2 will kill EQ.
Comment Posted by: on November 2, 2004 02:17 PM
EQ2 won't kill EQ. That's just silly. EQ2 is NOT EQ part 2. It plays differently, is geared to an entire different audience in fact. The argument that everyone will leave EQ for EQ2 is baloney. They may at first, but, again, since EQ2 is a different game, those that don't like the play-dynamic will go back. Same for new players starting out with EQ2.
My impression is that Sony is covering their bets with the family guilds that are feeling left out of EQ with EQ2. Smaller guilds, (In fact, PENALTIES for having a large guild), smaller raids (4 groups tops, 24 players) and much more quest content and solo content sounds to me like the kind of game that EQ is moving away from, which is alienating a lot of players.
So, to break it down very crudely, Sony will have 2 games: EQ for the "raiders", and EQ2 for the more family-guild oriented or "casual" player.
And, contrary to the post stating that "casual" players don't create a community, that's baloney too. Caual does NOT mean only plays 4 hours a week. Please read Loral's post about mis-used terms.
Comment Posted by: on November 2, 2004 02:39 PM
The only thing that will kill EQ, is EQ itself.
How so?
The same way players die in game, from lack of HP...
EQ will die from lack of players...
Comment Posted by: Wolfshead on November 2, 2004 02:48 PM
"SOE does not plan to add new LDON loot. Like Kunark and Velious, SOE intends players who get through the content of LDON to travel onwards to expansions like Omens and Gates. LDON is not intended to offer progression through the entire range of the game. Now that Omens offers fine equipment to single-group hunters, I agree with their assessment."
Loral I can't believe you finally capitulated your long standing belief in the LDoN system. LDoN's could still be useful to the level 70 crowed but the exp is terrible, the mobs overpowered and there is no new loot at the LDoN vendors. Risk vs. reward is gone. Such a shame that SOE releases disposable expansions instead of fixing existing content. When is SOE ever going to learn?
"SOE plans to continue changing hot-zones to get players traveling out to old world zones. From time to time they may add Fabled-like items to old-world content like they did with the fifth anniversary. These changes, on top of epic quests and tasks, help get new players to older world zones."
Hot zones are nothing more then a gimmick. The concept has no basis in lore whatsoever. It would be nice if the Lore Dev could actually create a reason that makes sense in the context of the game to go to new zones. Such as the pirates of Gunthak are stealing cargo from supply lines at an alarming rate and must be stopped.
I'm very saddened at how there were no original Halloween events this year. All we got was the same skeletons from the 5th Anniversary. SOE Dev Prathun promised big things for this Halloween. Yet another empty promise. I really miss the Halloween events of yesteryear in Norrath. Shame on the Devs!
"Class tuning came up many times and SOE has plans to address class issues. SOE will release class descriptions, not full class definitions, which contain a lot of SOE internal statistics. SOE community relations folk meet often with developers to help make sure the class issues get discussed and to make sure each class has a clear group role and is fun to play."
SOE asked the various class communities to post top 10 lists on the official EQ boards well over 4 months ago. NOTHING HAS BEEN DONE except marginal cosmetic changes if any to most class requests. SOE's modus operandi is to take the weakest request from each board and implement it and then say "Look, we did something!". Paper shuffling is not action.
The SOE Community Relations people namely Brenlo have been completely inept at presenting the concerns of each class to the SOE Devs. Here you have an ex-Head of CS who barely even played EQ while he held that position and now he's in charge of community relations? Brenlo has displayed a complete lack of understanding of the various class issues. As well he lacks the humility and temperment to even learn.
"I spent a time far shorter than I would have liked speaking with Vahlar regarding lore and story progression. I mentioned my desire to see the Muramites invading Norrath and she assured me that some big changes would hit Norrath in coming weeks. SOE heard the player's cry for a more cohesive storyline, one built from original EQ lore and plans to improve this. The return of Firiona Vie and the Lifeguide to the storyline begins this return to older lore."
SOE should bring back the original lore creators like Amanda Flock and others. I'm not sure when Holly Longdale started creating the lore for EQ as her first credit appears on LDoN but the lore of Norrath has gone down the toilet since she arrived. The only reason she changed the lore of Omens and is bringing back Firiona Vie (the blonde buxom elf on the cover of each expansion) is by popular demand for a return to authentic, traditional fantasy. Sadly not even Firiona can save EQ now.
"SOE rebuilt much of Omens, far more than I expected, after the guild summit in June. SOE hears what players ask for and they heard us very well with Omens. I have high hopes and look forward to January's announcement."
SOE only heard from a tiny minority of priviledge players at that summit including yourself Loral. It was nothing more than a publicity stunt aimed at stemming the faltering morale of the EQ community as more and more guilds left the game. Very little has changed at SOE as it's business as usual once again.
"The future looks bright. We see many exciting changes on the way and every SOE employee I spoke to said many of the things I wanted to hear."
Loral you can only spin your bullish optimism on EQ for so long. EQ is finally on it's deathbed. SOE only has itself and it's corporate philosphy to blame for the horrible state EQ is in. EQ2 will flop and then most players fed up with SOE will migrate to WoW if they haven't already.
To all the employees at SOE, the gravy train is almost over for you. Your cash cow has run out of milk. For a company that's very existance is threatened by serious competition you'd expect to see some sense of urgency at the Fanfaire and at least some promise to make things better in the form of more communication. The EQ devs are silent it seems. They have no real vision for this world we call Norrath because they lack the passion and belief in the possibilities of online communities. SOE betrayed that long ago in pursuit of their common denominator/bottom line approach to online gaming. Anyone with any credibility and creativity left SOE long ago.
They say that Nero fidled while Rome burned. I wonder what Smedley will be doing when his beloved EQ franchise crashes and burns after EQ2 flops and EQ itself disintegrates? He'll probably call for another summit...
Comment Posted by: Random Guy_01 on November 2, 2004 03:04 PM
Well WoW beta just finished loading I got to go my bus is here finally.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 2, 2004 03:53 PM
"Loral I can't believe you finally capitulated your long standing belief in the LDoN system."
I don't think SOE should go back and add more items to LDON; I think they should add an LDON-style system to Omens expeditions. LDON was the first expansion with a better loot system than random drops on rare mobs and I want to see systems like that used more.
I wish I had a dollar every time someone said EQ is dead and ended up being wrong. Dark Age of Camelot, Star Wars Galaxies, and Ultima Online all have half of the users EQ has (source: Google, Analysis of MMOG Subscription Growth). Ashron's Call and Anarchy Online have around 50,000 players, 1/10th of current EQ subscriptions. Both are still in business and planning expansions.
I don't expect EQ to hold 500,000 players forever, but I expect EQ to have a long life even if the numbers drop. Who knows, perhaps the game will be better with the nay-sayers and doomsday critics all off playing WoW but most of us know the truth. They don't leave.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on November 2, 2004 03:59 PM
I have to chuckle about this:
“Time limited casual players often don't last.
They don't provide the backbone to build a community upon. The support for long term development of content and revenue.
They are simply not around when needed, not online when needed, don't have the knowledge nor time to explore every virtual inch of the game.
There are not the people that other players can rely on for skill or knowledge or help.”
Usually the “time limited casual players” are time limited because they work and earn money, and have other duties in life such as family and friends. They are also the ones that can afford to pay each month or 3 months or 6 months. These are the people you want to come back because they are the ones that can afford to get the new expansions, and have more than one account. A lot are the people that play the game to escape from their busy day into a world that fascinates them and lets them be some one else for a short while.
One of the main reasons there are so many family guilds are because people that are on for short periods gravitate together, with like people. I sure Sony is looking at this section of the public, because they are the people with the money, if not they should be.
Comment Posted by: shadow on November 2, 2004 04:01 PM
Redcloud I really have to thank you for that entertaining post. I can honestly say being a business major that I have not laughed that hard in a long time.
The fact of the matter is my friend that every hardcore raiding guild could leave EQ tomorrow and that would be less then 20% of the overall playing base for this game. Most of the people that have played EQ and stick with EQ are casual gamers.
Research shows that hardcore gamers play a game until they get burned out on it then they move on to something else. Most always want to be playing the newest thing. There is not the longevity that you speak of in your post.
Most of this games audience are casual gamers and one of EQ's biggest problems the last few expansions is that they design 80% of an expansions like PoP and GoD to high end raiding guilds when that is less then 20% of your overall customer base.
I am a casual player myself and I have played EQ since beta. Are you going to tell me that I have not stuck in there? EQ is not going anywhere anytime soon. Yes, WoW and EQ 2 are going to hurt but look around. There are games out there making money with a lot fewer customers then EQ has now. EQ's days of being the top dog in the US are about to come to an end within the next year because they are going to be pasted up by newer technology but do not look for EQ to go anywhere anytime soon.
Comment Posted by: on November 2, 2004 04:26 PM
I think the point that redcloud is trying to make, part timer players are generally much LESS attached to the game and their character than longer term, more active players (regardless of if they are raiders, groupers, or soloers)...
It does not make economic sense to change the core of the game which is based upon the long term playing that redcloud refers to.
You do NOT want a large amount of constant turn over in these games, that is detrimental to the world.
Instead you want to KEEP the players playing (and paying), by keeping gameplay compelling and continuously providing avenues of advancement and fun. You want to cultivate brand new players into mid and long term players.
Making the game easier to learn, but not easier to PLAY is what they should be actively working towards.
It's the difficulty of the game and the time requirements needed is what drives the core player base.
I look forward to seeing how the 'easy' path of WOW/eq2 goes, and whether or not the public will chose the more instant gratification of wow, or the long term game play of EQ.
Comment Posted by: spe1491 on November 2, 2004 05:14 PM
My question is, how long to you think it will be before they have to start combining servers?
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 2, 2004 05:24 PM
Thanks for the report Loral. For those of us who can't pick up and go to a convention for our favorite hobby each year it's really nice to get a synopsis of important things that were announced/discussed.
My personal opinion is that the release of EQ2 and WoW isn't going to kill EQ. What it is going to do however, is start the game down the path towards server consolidations. It might take a while, but I suspect that unless something huge happens, within 2 years we will see EQ play servers being combined in order to keep the population at playable levels.
This will cause some chaos but in the end it will be a good thing. EQ has too much inertia in it to die out completely. I know a lot of people who are leaving, yes, but I also know a lot of people who are staying, for a variety of reasons. Those people deserve a game to play and I don't think SOE is going to abandon them.
What I think players would really appreciate from the EQ devs more than anything right now is a good window into what they're thinking and doing. Other games and companies have proven that it is possible to have meaningful communication with your player base, without hurting the game.
One of the great things about CCP (the makers of EVE Online) is that they regularly post a blog that details the issues they're working on, some of the design decisions they've made, technical issues they've experienced recently, and so on. If they're wrestling with something internally or feel like they might not be seeing the whole picture, they come straight out and ask the players for feedback. And sometimes they've even taken the feedback they did receive on an issue, analyzed the opinions, and posted percentages. As a player it's amazing to see it right there on the website that "well, 35% of you said do it this way, 38% of you said do it this other way, and the remaining 32% of you chose option C, so clearly we need to come at this one from a different angle." That sort of thing shows that a company really does want to make a game that their customers enjoy, and it makes me as a player much more likely to look past problems, especially if I know that people are looking at those problems.
This sort of thing is needed for all aspects of EQ's ongoing development, whether it's lore, quests, zones, expansions, mechanics, itemization, or whatever....especially as the player base for the game begins to shrink due to the new competition. This is what the community managers need to be doing and it's not happening. Their communication with the players is sporadic at best, usually doesn't tell us anything, and when they do ask for our opinions there's never an acknowledgement that those opinions are being read or reviewed. This and customer service is where SOE really gets a black eye with players compared to other companies, and I think in order to remain successful as a company for the next ten years these are the things they need to correct.
It feels wierd to say this, but the live team needs to go back to having a "Vision" for the game, and this time they need to have one that is communicated to players and that the players will buy into. EverQuest needs a new charter. It's the only way they'll be able to continue the game for more than a few years, given the age of the game.
Comment Posted by: on November 2, 2004 06:29 PM
a great read available @ http://www.gamedev.net/reference/design/features/mgp1/
Comment Posted by: Aethn on November 2, 2004 08:14 PM
>>we have 268 active non-twink members and apps<<
Christ man, you better hope people leave your ZERG force of a guild for WOW. No reason on earth any guild should have more then 80ish active people at any given time.
Comment Posted by: Zarros on November 3, 2004 09:07 AM
I don't think its reasonable to say that casual players aren't a reliable economic basis for marketing an MMORPG. The claim that they are less consistent and more readily prone to leaving the game is unsubstantiated by anything other than subjective experience, a hardcore player that barely sees casual players, or sees casual players trying to keep up in the hardcore arena and giving up is seeing a very small fraction of the playing populace.
The idea that one has to be hardcore, a reader of forums/message boards, and a peruser of spoiler sites (the latter three hallmarks of dedicated or hardcore players) in order to reasonably develop good game knowledge is a flaw in game design, not play methodology. While spoiler sites and suchnot are going to exist, the game should not effectively require them to find out that quest ABC is broken or zone XYZ has "teh ph4t xp/loot". Quests and zones should be relatively balanced, and in MUDs/MMORPGs that includes keeping them updated and relatively current.
Speaking as a casual gamer with far too much free time at work, I look for a game that is fast paced but not twitch-play, encourages grouping and likely has 'special' or 'extra on the side' content that requires grouping but otherwise is soloable, and where I can play the concept I like without worrying about end-game raid desirability, group desirability, solo capability, and so on. I want a game where if loot/gear is required I can get it as a natural consequence of adventuring and questing, not as a result of hoarding "adventure points", platinum, or "farming" no-experience mobs for hours on end.
I want to be able to solo not because I'm anti-social, but rather because as a parent I could likely have frequent AFKs to deal with kid issues. As a profesional softwrae developer I might get a page to troubleshoot and correct a production system issue. I want to be able to solo so when I run into a friend we can decide what kind of adventure we want, rather than worry about what classes we have and whether or not we could survive.
I have weaned myself off the notion of sticking to one game or genre of MMORPG. I love fantasy gaming the best, but the most fun MMO I have ever played has turned out to be City of Heroes. I tried WoW during its stress beta and found I wasn't really that excited by it (taking into account bugs and such, it was a beta I'm used to such things.) I'll be trying EQ2 to see if its any better for the exact same reason: I wlil neither bash nor "fanboi" a game based on the opinions of others.
Ultimately though, the bottom line is "am I the player having fun?" If the answer is yes, I don't care about casual vs. hardcore or raider vs. non-raider, or any of the other things forum-goers pontificate about as if their opinions mattered in some grand sense of the word.
Conversely, if I'm not having fun, I'll try and point out where and why I am dissatisfied with the game, and give the developers six to nine months to see if they make any announcements or put in appropriate changes that make it fun for me. If they don't that's cool, I'm not worried about it. I'll just stop subscribing. I pay to be entertained, not tormented/frustrated.
Zarros
ex-EQ1 cleric
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 3, 2004 09:36 AM
To date there is no proof I know of that demonstrates that part-time non raiders would have allowed EQ to last 5 years.
What's the plan? Repeat the same old lie hoping that at some point it will turn into a truth? Until proven it's yet to be anything but thin air.
Comment Posted by: on November 3, 2004 09:47 AM
Umm, EQ is still here 5 years later. Isn't that proof enough? Please just shut it, lame l33t raider type.
Comment Posted by: on November 3, 2004 09:52 AM
Re: EQ 2 will not kill EQ, I didn't say people would leave EQ for EQ 2 though some will, of course. EQ 2, not EQ, will attract the new players, and EQ will continue to lose its existing players to other games like WoW like it has been with every new game that has come out.
The important factor is that EQ 2 will be attracting the new players, not EQ. I know you find it hard to believe, and you may very well know that EQ 2 is not EQ part 2, but how many people play the original Madden Football game when Madden 2004 is out?
Comment Posted by: shadow on November 3, 2004 11:14 AM
There is no proof.
Ok, so I guess the study conducted by SOE itself that stated that the majority of the playerbase was below level 60 is not a reliable source. Are you trying to tell me all of those characters are alts?
I would like to say again that I am a casual player. I am not in an uber guild. I am just now hitting 65 and I do not raid more then a few times a month. I have been playing since beta. Are you trying to say that I am not a reliable customer?
The fact is the hardcore gamers are not the majority in this game. Say what you like but I know many hardcore gamers. They are big into a game until the next big new thing comes out and then they are gone. In order to keep this from happening SOE would have to make content on a constant basis for these hardcore 6+ hour a day gamers. Now, if you make it to easy they get bored because they beat it all and move on to the next challange. You make it to hard then these players get frustrated and they leave.
It is a double edged sword. Now, the casual player has a lot left in the game to do. It takes them a lot longer to build a character then the hardcore gamer that can get to 70 in two weeks. These people have a limited time to play and they choose their games wisely. It takes them a lot longer to get bored and move on.
If your theory is correct then why is SOE investing so much time and money into making zones more group friendly, making it easier to start and build characters, and adding more casual player friendly content?
No offense to you guys but I am sure that SOE has watched this a lot closer then you or me. I am sure they have crunched the numbers and if they did not think it was worth their time to invest in casual player content then they would not be doing it. Bottom line is the company is out to make the most money possible. They are not trying to put EQ under because if you anger an EQ 1 player he is not going to play EQ 2 or another SOE based game anytime soon.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on November 3, 2004 11:55 AM
I came across some thing sad Monday while on my little beast lord, in Infected Paw. It shows how big a business EQ1 is, in the commercial market. I was in the zone solo’ing (killing the evil gnolls that took over the zone); in the zone with me were 4 other people. One level 70, from one of our Asian guilds on our server, and 3 levels 20 – 26 in a group together. I was able to speak to two of the people in the group, the level 70 was PL’ing the other three. I do not know if only 2 spoke English or if they we 2 boxing each. Anyway we were chatting, I stated I would be leaving soon because I had to go to work, and they said "We are working" and that they enjoyed their job. Their job was to PL characters high enough with enough flags in order to sell the accounts. They were getting paid for it. If this is true (as bad as this sound) then EQ1 must be still a good investment in order to make money. If it wasn’t I sure the creation of new accounts just for sale would not be going on. It is extremely sad to hear about this going on, but it is good to know that at least one outside commercial enterprise still thinks EQ1 is going to be around long enough for them to make money.
Comment Posted by: Xaas on November 3, 2004 12:36 PM
I had to laugh at the long list of things that dind't kill EQ. Not one of those was a better game then eq. they all did some things better and something much worse. I just havne't found that to be true for WoW, I have yet to do find anything eq did better. Now only haveing played in the Stess tests, its hardly like i have played the whole game, but I will say in every other game it was pretty obvious by level 10 or so what they did right and wrong.
Will WoW or EQ2 kill EQ1, unlikely I have heard way to many, "i have spent 5 years on this char I am not leaveing." I always ask then, are you haveing fun? if so, stay in eq, if not look for something better. I don't have a lot of fun in EQ1, so WoW is more interesting. Does everyone think this no, but thats ok. long as were both haveing fun, its all good. were both right. :)
Xaas
Comment Posted by: Bahlzaq on November 3, 2004 04:03 PM
Don't argue with redcloud, he is the one perpetuating a myth. I still remember the temper tantrum rants like it was yesterday "You better cater to US soe... Without super cool elite awesome sword holders like us around everyone will leave because the only reason they play eq is in the hopes of being cool like us, the heros that they worship... and if it isn't it should be damnit... LOOK AT ME!!!"
well i may have embellished a little but that was the battle cry.. for awhile I even bought into it somewhat.. the endgame needed to be strong.. although I did not buy into the idea that emulation of ubers was the goal so much as longh term investment paying out a long term reward... either way good luck to redcloud and his friends on their quest for coolness through identifying with an in game persona...
Now I am going to get a little crazy here(crazier?) so read on at your own risk... because I have heard this type of rant so often and because I play with MANY people on line and group with MANY people online and do not see this as a prevelant attitude.. I believe the attitude perpetuates itself by them assigning their own insecurities on everyone else... in the mind of the uber raider I think they are jealous and personally bothered when someone else is uberer and therefor, they are willing to forsake all other persuits in persuit of uber sword 001. It is sad and funny that they assign those same motives to the rest of us decidedly geeky, but mostly healthy individuals... oh well good luck in your quest redcloud.
But remember most normal people only play something they like to play, in ways they like to play it. Most of us are motivated somewhat by getting "stuff" in general, but your mania with THE stuff is not contagious to the rest of us. We want a good sword... you MUST HAVE the best sword... not everyone is alike.
BTW perhaps you can explain how ubers "build foundations" in a game they only play like everyone else... I seriously think you and yoru friends may have some significant self overvaluation issues. The percentage of people on who play the game all the time versus people who play a few hours a night seems high cause you always see them, so 50 people you see EVERYTIME you log in seem like they must really be supporting teh community, but the fact is they are a mostly elitist and isolationist bunch.. most of the people who are on at any one time I would guess are much more casual, so you leaving would just lower the strain on the servers for the rest of us, who aren't grouping with you anyway...
EQ may or may not go strong, but it will have little to do with what you do redcloud, unless you 250,000 box, then you could kill it...
Comment Posted by: lenardo on November 3, 2004 04:42 PM
nice report loral..
as to eq2 and wow killing eq...nope not going to happen.
HOWEVER i significant portion of the player base IS going to leave for one of the two games.
Since these games are significantly better than any other mmo that has come out in the past 4 years, they will retain a higher percentage of the playerbase, which will not return to eq.
i fully expect eq's population at eq2 release to drop maybe 10-15% tops with another 5% or so switching to all access so that they can play both.
i fully expect eq's population at wow release to drop maybe 20-33%- atleast for a while as people try the game.
whether or not those people return remains to be seen.
Comment Posted by: Striken on November 3, 2004 05:18 PM
There was a quote someone said... it was something like
"Uber's dont care if they're the best, only that they're better than you"
I expierenced this first-person. The guild I was raiding with had gotten bored with PoP, and their numbers online had dwindled. But as soon as another guild got flagged for the same zones, they rallied and tore thru to POTime.
Amzaing how someone surpassing you as the "Top Dawg" on the server can spur people into action...
Jose'
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 12:04 AM
I have been having fun with my new 4x4 and have not logged on to EQ for two weeks now. It feels weird driving thur the moutains again.
I had a lot of fun for HOURS playing EQ and even went to Las Vegas fan faire. Not sure if am quitting. I am not sure why quest can not start in Old Norrath. The classic world is my favorite. I do not think an expantion or upgrade should disable so much old world content.
I play a Troll and should have quit a long time ago. LIEK what is the point of froglok? My subscibtion runs out in December and I might log on to say good by. If I do not see you game, good by and Trolls rule.
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 02:13 AM
-------
>>we have 268 active non-twink members and apps<<
Christ man, you better hope people leave your ZERG force of a guild for WOW. No reason on earth any guild should have more then 80ish active people at any given time.
-------
You know, there are some high end guilds (that raid 5+ nights a week), that are made up largely of more casual players, and dont get the same 50+ every night.
And god forbid you might find 100+ people that actually get on well together, and not just because they can kill raid_mob_392.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on November 4, 2004 03:46 AM
I have played Evercrack on and off for the last 5 to 6 years earth time. In that time I have been a casual player leveling slowly but steadily and exploring small corners of our little fake world one pixel at a time. I played a ranger up to 51 before the big changes happened with the giant expansions and major graphics changes. Then my uber computer couldn't keep up and i walked away from EQ. I have always had several RL friends who play and kept me up on the game chatter while i was gone and so when i bought a new PC last X-mas i swore I would get back in. I now have 53 war, a 47 druid, a 36 pally, a 30 ranger, and a 23 cleric, and have gotten several other RL frineds started in EQ. I play on my same old server to saty near these RL friends who played before and also the ones i have introduced recently. I love this game. I love every bit of it. I rarely play more then 3 to 4 hours at a crack and only on my weekends 2 to 3 days a week. I am the definition of the casual player. I am a guild member, I do quests when i can, I do not raid, I have close friendships with people on game and many of those have spilled into the real world. I'll never forget the night i was at a party one of my RL/EQ friends was throwing and there were many people there i didn't know. We were all b.s.ing over a cooler of Red Stripes when someone started throwing around EQ terms and calling each other by game names. I soon found myself in the company of a bakers dozen RL strangers, but EQ friends. I knew these people at the party. I had been talking to them for years...we had just never met in RL. It was was a great moment in the EQ community. To say that casual gamers are not an intricate part of the EQ world, that they are not part of the back bone of communtiy building etc al. is a ridiculous claim made by narrow thinking. This is a game. Something we do to kill time and have fun and be around others doing the same. Hard core raiders are awesome and more power to ya. However, if you think raiding makes you a super hero you need to unplug for a while and come back to the G-A-M-E with fresh eyes...
or dont, either way it wont matter.
Casual gamers pay the same game dues to play as raiders SOE so count the money all ya want. You guys sweat the numbers and do the math and reinvent the wheel. Just keep those MGBs coming at the bank in POK and I'll bow and salute and go on being casual.
P.S. I miss the days of auctions in EC tunnel. That doesn't make me sick does it?
/shout: Selling all on me at Torch 1
Comment Posted by: Zarcath on November 4, 2004 08:40 AM
I wanted to respond to some of the things Wolfshead commented on.
"I'm very saddened at how there were no original Halloween events this year. All we got was the same skeletons from the 5th Anniversary. SOE Dev Prathun promised big things for this Halloween. Yet another empty promise. I really miss the Halloween events of yesteryear in Norrath. Shame on the Devs!"
The Halloween events were mostly up to the GMs to run. Other then the static zone changes (like the Skeletons in WC and SF), the Devs have nothing to do with it. I actually spent a lot of time working on the Halloween event for Bristlebane back in 2000, and had to stay late off the clock and enlisted the help of some GM friends to pull off the grand-event. It was the extra things that GM's did that got the Halloween events going, but now that their staff is 1/3rd of the size it used to be, and Halloween events not being in their job description, I guess no one felt like doing it.
"The SOE Community Relations people namely Brenlo have been completely inept at presenting the concerns of each class to the SOE Devs. Here you have an ex-Head of CS who barely even played EQ while he held that position and now he's in charge of community relations? Brenlo has displayed a complete lack of understanding of the various class issues. As well he lacks the humility and temperment to even learn."
I've worked with Brenlo and he's never held a "grunt" position, he's always been in a managerial position. You can't have career managers taking over Community roles. he doesn't know what the common eq-player goes through. If he can't relate to the most prominant portion of EQ community, then he can't effectively do his job. As a professional, I look at what their Community Team does and shake my head. He may be qualified to be a Community Manager, but he's not the right Community Manager for EQ.
"To all the employees at SOE, the gravy train is almost over for you. Your cash cow has run out of milk. For a company that's very existance is threatened by serious competition you'd expect to see some sense of urgency at the Fanfaire and at least some promise to make things better in the form of more communication. The EQ devs are silent it seems. They have no real vision for this world we call Norrath because they lack the passion and belief in the possibilities of online communities. SOE betrayed that long ago in pursuit of their common denominator/bottom line approach to online gaming. Anyone with any credibility and creativity left SOE long ago."
At the time of my departure hintings of this was on the horizon. A lot of people "got out" about when I did, rats fleeing a sinking ship? A lot of them went on to work at Sigil.
Loral - This comment system is inadequite for the type of communication you're trying to foster. You should look into using something else.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 4, 2004 09:05 AM
I can only but chuckle at the wild stereotypes one can read here. Fair enough it's a casual site (pun intended).
One might or might believe a fellow player.
http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/smallworlds_files/frame.htm
People may or may not believe what it's in there of course.
Check the New markets slide and a few others. The meaning being that "hubs" of interest, like probably Loral flown to the Fan Fair to talk about EQ2 (why 2 on a page adressing EQ 1 anyway?)it matters to get through the early adopters, in some cases the hardcore crowd out there, to reach the mass market. The point being that you can catter solely to the second but you might get the word spread and the revenue in much faster by cattering to both or maybe even more to the first to keep those with exposure within your range of influence. That is in my opinion what SOE did with class and guild reps, Loral included. It's not my business but it seems a smart PR move at least.
That's the underlying concept I see in cattering to a minority with exposure, be it raiding guilds or reps. Not because they pay more. Because they can influence more revenue by their actions or departure. Hence the special treatments, the "favoritism" criticized here about raid content by a rep who is in exactly the same position, cattered by SoE, for the exact same reason. Am I the only one grasping the irony of the situation?
Comment Posted by: Wyldrose on November 4, 2004 09:20 AM
Simi off topic meaningless question: I know EQ 2 is just a few days off, but does anyone know how much the monthly fee is going to be? I could not find it on SoE's web site.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 4, 2004 09:54 AM
EQ2's monthly fee will be around $15 from what I've heard.
I went ahead and upgraded to All Access for it. I -plan- to make EQ2 my primary game, but I wanted my EQ1 accounts to still be active so that I can occasionally play there, especially since I have many friends in EQ1 who can't/won't move immediately. For example, I have one guildmate now who travels during the week and simply can't run EQ2 from his laptop in a hotel. We won't abandon him - he'll just IM us when he's online and we'll play EQ1 that night instead.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on November 4, 2004 11:22 AM
You will be missed Talaen. We can not afford EQ2 as of yet. So I am having a High Level Enchanter give me a "Mem Blur" everytime I play my little beast lord. I can then play with fresh newbie eyes, and enjoy the wonders of Old World Norath and not know about Plane of Time, or keys to VT, or Sony's slogan of "To Nerf or Not to Nerf, that is the Question".
Comment Posted by: Teremar on November 4, 2004 11:44 AM
Okay, new topic (wish it could be a new thread):
I'm bemused again that SOE feels the need to take plat out of the economy. Yes, mudflation is rampant, but anyone who spends any time in the bazaar at all knows that deflation is the rule there. Prices have been dropping steadily for as long as I've been playing.
Inflation has been aptly described as "too much money chasing too few goods." So deflation is simply "too little money chasing too many goods." My degrees are in economics and if anyone wants the full mathematical treatment I'll be happy to oblige. But the short version is that steady deflation like we've seen in EQ indicates that items are coming into the world faster than the plat needed to buy them.
"Sinks" are normally described as a way to limit mudflation. But it's not plat that gives people power, it's items. So building in plat sinks without real item sinks does little to affect mudflation, but does cause rampant deflation.
It matters because farming for plat has to be one of the most unheroic and just plain boring things one can do in EQ. Yet every time prices fall again, it becomes more and more tempting to go kill HGs or whatever and buy your new uber item rather than having a fun adventure trying to get it yourself.
SOE needs to realize that when people are deciding what to do in EQ, they will usually go for what will advance their character whether it is fun or not. But when they decide if they want to keep playing EQ, then they consider how much fun they're having. SOE should be trying to make sure that advancing is fun. Deflation does the opposite by encouraging farming.
Is stopping deflation on any player's top 10 list? No, including mine. But I can't understand why making it worse seems to be on the dev's.
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 12:57 PM
I feel that EQ will be around for a long time to come. Look at Ultima Online...it still has people playing it and it has been around longer than EQ. I don't know if this is possible...but someday down the road they will start mergering servers due to a lower playbase. I do think though that EQ will survive and not "implode" as many of you say will happen.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 4, 2004 01:35 PM
Good point Teremar. Mudflation has absolutely nothing to do with money and everything to do with character and monster power. I'd argue that money still needs to be pulled out of the economy, but it's not because prices are on an inflationary trend. It's because even though prices are coming down, when you look at the plat income of "normal" players in the 40-65 range (the level of gear most people go looking to buy), prices are very much out of reach for someone who doesn't farm plat or items to sell.
The problem is really most apparent with things like 61+ spells. By the time you get to 61, you're probably used to buying the occasional spell because it's a drop and you just don't have the time, the friends, or the knowledge to go get it yourself. At first these spells cost a few hundred platinum, which isn't much more than the NPCs charge. But by the time you hit 65 you're looking at 10-30k for some of them in the bazaar. There's a lot of reasons for the drastic increase, but these prices put the spells out of reach of most "casual" players. Yet there are still a lot of players for whom this amount is trivial, because they farm.
Money needs to come out of the economy, at the high end, to even the gap between the haves and the have-nots.
The problem with the money sinks that SOE has implemented is that they invariably hit the people without the money more than they hit the people that have it. This is because money sinks have been implemented through systems like tribute, quests, horses, and so on - which are things the high-end people don't do as much of because it's not as big of a benefit to them.
I don't know that there's a good solution to this problem at this point. Any graduated "tax" to pull money away from the high end would meet a lot of opposition, and changing the root causes of the problem (plat drop rates, item drop rates, ability to twink, ability to level fast, and so on) is practically impossible. What EQ really needs to fix the economy is some form of item decay.
In 1999 I sold Banded armor for 2pp/ac and couldn't keep up with demand most days. By 2002 I couldn't give it away. Today the recipe might as well not exist.
When LDON released you were able to sell the smithed armor in the bazaar for 1.5 to 2x cost. Now it's only good for tribute or vendoring or the occasional level 25 that I meet who isn't twinked.
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 03:05 PM
{ In 1999 I sold Banded armor for 2pp/ac and couldn't keep up with demand most days. By 2002 I couldn't give it away. Today the recipe might as well not exist.
When LDON released you were able to sell the smithed armor in the bazaar for 1.5 to 2x cost. Now it's only good for tribute or vendoring or the occasional level 25 that I meet who isn't twinked. }
And item decay will fix this how?
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 4, 2004 04:31 PM
It won't. But it illustrates (at least in my mind) that money really isn't the problem. Those things didn't devalue because they were oversupplied. They devalued because demand decreased.
Think about it. Prices are determined by three things - the supply of an item, the demand for an item, and the relative value of a single unit of currency - in our case, plat. Inflation or deflation affects the value of the currency. In an inflationary economy, money is worth less in relation to the goods, therefore prices rise. But as Teremar pointed out, we're not experiencing that. Prices are actually falling and have been for some time.
The reason that prices continue to fall and don't stabilize is that when an item is introduced, supply is low and demand is high. Over time, the supply of the item increases and the demand decreases. In a real world economy, where items eventually leave the economy one way or another, supply and demand eventually reach an equilibrium and the price stabilizes. This happens because demand is sustained by recurring needs (people replacing existing goods) and by new consumers entering the economy.
In EQ however, items -never- leave the economy in any measurable quantity (with the exception being consumables like potions). As well, there aren't many new consumers at all coming into it. Think about it. If you buy a fungi tunic, you will probably never need to buy another fungi tunic, at least not for this character. That means that demand falls and falls and falls and doesn't stop until it becomes practically nonexistent. This causes supply to go up and up at an increased rate, and causes prices to deflate over time.
Prices aren't dropping because platinum is worth more, they're dropping because items are worth less from day to day. This is one portion of why EQ's economy operates the way it does. And this is what I was trying to illustrate with my examples above :)
There are other things that go into the equation, like twinking, and the gradual creep in what someone considers an "acceptable" level of gear for a character, but the primary reason for falling prices is the lack of an equilibrium point for just about anything in the game.
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 05:06 PM
EQ has item decay.
Its called new expansions.
Old items depreciate over time due to influx of new and better items.
Supply and demand and changes over time due to these new and better items moreso than the incoming trickle of the old/existing items.
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 05:14 PM
The above statement doesn't take into account the extreme cases of Low availabilty/high demand and the high availabilty/low demand that typically accompany the end/begining times of expansions...
but the overall economy works as the comment states.
Comment Posted by: on November 4, 2004 05:22 PM
Using your fungi example (which is a bad one for several reasons), if EQ had item decay, you would eventually come to the choice of replacing the fungi tunic... would you replace it with the same thing, or would you replace it with something newer and better?
The majority of people will replace it with something better, after all, one of the primary goals of the game is character improvement... you don't improve your character by buying/making/farming the same equipment over and over.
Now one of the reasons why the fungi is a bad example is, its an extremely overpower item, that is not only saleable, its not even level restricted, which keeps it high in demand... while at the same time, sebilis is likely a ghost town on most mature servers, and the only players likely to be down in king nowadays are there specifically to farm tunic's either for themselves/twinks, or to sale in the bazaar.
Ill give you a different example...
Short Sword of Ykesha, once it was one of the premier slashing weapons in the game.
Yet now, due to newer/bigger/better weapons, this SSoY is worthless save for giving to pets in the absence of superior pet toys.
The value of the ssoy has gone down why? not because of the lack of item decay, but because of expansions and the resulting influx of new/bigger/better weapons.
Comment Posted by: talaen on November 4, 2004 06:18 PM
Good point about the fungi being a bad example. It's one of the few items that has held it's value.
Since people aren't including names in their posts (side note: Loral, like someone said above, there has GOT to be a better format for comments and discussion than this one), it's hard to tell if it's the same person responding to me or multiple people. Therefore I will probably offend someone I don't mean to - sorry. But anyway, I think the big problem here is i used the big scary words "Item decay" and that sets people off.
Item Decay alone won't fix the problems with EQ's economy - no one solution will. And it's true that item decay won't create repeat demand for the same item - because people will upgrade.
What it WILL do is insure that items leave the economy instead of getting resold, thus lowering the supply of items. Right now, when someone buys a new breastplate or sword, they typically turn around and put their old breastplate or sword up on their trader - the old item still remains in the economy.
Now, if you were buying a new breastplate or sword because your old one had become useless, regardless of whether your new one is an upgrade or not, your old one isn't going back up for sale - it's been removed from the economy.
Systems like item decay affect supply moreso than demand. Supply is the number of available items floating around for sale. Demand is the desire for that given item. The only true way to insure constant demand is to either make an item consumable (like a potion) and non-upgradeable, or insure that new consumers are entering the market at the same rate old consumers are leaving or upgradeing.
And no, items becoming obsolete is not the same thing as item decay. Items becoming obsolete is a symptom of mudflation. Those items are still in the game, can still be made or gotten, just demand has reached a zero point for them.
Anyone who thinks that EQ is "better" now that you can outfit your level 10 character in equipment that was meant to be worn by level 40 characters has absolutely no clue what the term "balanced progression" means and probably would quit in frustration if they actually had to fight with what we used to use in the old days. I had my 48 druid out the other night doing LDoNs. I got in a group of nice people, all my level or higher, and well....they were newbies. They didn't know what their spells did, they didn't know how to use their abilities, they didn't have a clue about mob positioning or aggro control or how to handle multiples on a pull. They overnuked, and had to stop and med after every third kill even with KEI.
We used to learn all of this stuff well before level 10. Of course, it also took us the better part of two weeks to get there unless we were 12-hour/day powergamers. That's what all of our beloved expansions and increases in item power have caused. That's what mudflation has done to the game. The economy being so skewed is just a symptom.
So, before anyone freaks out about the words "item decay", stop and think about what how much better EQ would be if the progression wasn't so badly out of balance. And all it would take is a few little things that might inconvenience you for the first 3 weeks you have to deal with them and then you're used to it afterwards.
I'm sure that many who read this aren't going to get it. They'll shrug, maybe flame me a bit, and go back to complaining about how everyone is leaving for WoW or how it takes too long to level past 66. I'm not bitter or anything. Really.
/rant off. Flame away.
Comment Posted by: Horzek on November 4, 2004 07:08 PM
LDON, was it a great expansion? I have to say it was. Is LDON healthy today? I have to say it is not.
I have a pretty fair number of LDON runs under my belt now and a lot of my equipment is the top end LDON stuff. It is all augged up and IM proud of the hard work I put in to get it.
I would actually like to do a few more LDONS to pickup a couple more stats on my stone and maybe pickup one final piece of equipment I need. Unfortunately I can not get an LDON group anymore. I wonder how many LDON runs are being done lately.
Why was LDON so successful? For the first time ever, non elemental flagged folks could get some very nice pieces of equipment. All it took was hard and persistant work. They were also fun. Unfortunatley the fun factor started to fade after a while and now after a year, they are pretty boring.
I loved the 90 minute timer on the events and it was even better when we could run in and knock out a couple of them in that same 90 minute block. It was too bad so many of the LDON events, assinations and rescues for example ended up being so badly done that they were rejected out of hand by all but a handful of players. It was also too bad that the LDON raids were rediculously hard. You could barely crack the zone in unless you were a time equipped guild.
I was very disappointed with GoD. There were new zones, new AA points and some nice loots but far too much of the GoD content was outside the capability of an awful lot of folks. An example I have is the Vxed and Tipt events required for the Kod Taz flag. Even after finally winning the two events I was unable to obtain the flags because as the cleric I was killed on the final battle and it was not possible to get me back up for the final hailing of the flag mob. Bad luck, yes, and bad design, yes.
So far I have good and bad to say about OOW. I really do like the ability to get into some neat places and now that WoS is starting to calm down its looking like a fun place. Compared to GoD where I was able to pick up only one spell in 6 months, OOW is a bit of a "God Send". At least here I have picked up a couple and had the opportunity to roll on quite a few so far.
Right now I believe that LDON is broken because there is no fresh content, and because there is not much reason to continue to rack up ldon wins.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 4, 2004 09:07 PM
LDON will follow the same path that Kunark, Velious, and Luclin followed. It is an older expansion with older content. I would rather see SOE add LDON-like quests and loot systems to Omens and other new expansions.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on November 5, 2004 03:57 AM
Too right Horzek,
LDON camps have truely become ghost towns....
E-C-H-OOOOOoooooo.....
I know not many people agree with Loral on LDON like content being developed, but I also agree with Loral's constant chorus of people not getting what he's driving at.
Time limited content was a plus for a player like myself. I could get on and play a quest type event with a single group and not have to shout: Camp check, and then wait in line. This was the true strength of LDon's structure.
As for LDON's current state: all is quiet. I still can get an odd group here and there. However, I agree its on a decline as most old zones are after an expansion (is this a lagging indicator of EQ if EQ2 is the new expansion, sigh... i think not, but I'm no expert). And for those who racked up the LDON points, they do indeed get a bit tedious. The term GRINDING out points comes to mind from past posts. Same ole dungeon again and again and all groups but a few dismiss anything but collects or slaughters.
For those still doing LDON's here's something I've noted as of late. What's with the FEAR in there? I have played all my alts (24 to 50) sometime over the last few weeks in a LDON and I have never seen mobs fearing to this extent. Did I miss the heads up on some Patch?
LOADING PLEASE WAIT.....
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 5, 2004 05:26 AM
From what I understand the iterative questing of WoW and EQ2 try to adress just that: part-time playing with iterative gear progression through quests and tradeskills.
That is apparently the solution both companies have come up with to get out of the cornered situation EQ1 has created. I don't know if the tribute system and the attuneable gear is a better solution than item decay but the attuneable system has the quality to not kill the server economy while removing items from the market without very negative psychological strings attached. Sounds good to me.
With some luck we will never see LDON content again and quality content with attuneable gear or quest iteration that don't involve 200 hours of camping.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 5, 2004 07:32 AM
Mobs are fearing a lot, but it's not just LDoNs. It seems like any necro/sk mob you run into in any dungeon is going to be packing a fear spell now.
I like to go to dungeons, and so it's gotten to the point for me where at the mid levels I'm starting to keep resist buffs up, and at the high levels those fear resist AAs are looking kinda nice....
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 5, 2004 01:11 PM
"LDON camps have truely become ghost towns...."
This was true for Kunark when Velious came out and Velious when Luclin came out. When a new expansion comes out people want to hunt there. I love LDON and I'll still be happy to go on LDON adventures but I get better rewards and higher experience in Omens now. Omens has better content for my level than LDON does. I also have gear equal to or better than LDON and LDON offers fewer rewards. The same is true for Kunark and Velious and Luclin.
LDON is a different expansion than the others, though. Its sort of a mini-game within the game and I think SOE would do well to consider its popularity when building new content for Omens or future expansions.
Some day they may go back and update Omens just like they added Veskar or rebuilt Plane of Mischief. In the mean time, however, I would rather see them add LDON-like systems to content in Omens.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on November 5, 2004 05:06 PM
IF LDoNs weren't nearly ghost towns, I suspect there would be a lot more complaining about the fear spells. The last time I did one with one of my alts, after the third pull there were only two of us who hadn't been feared, run off into the middle of the dungeon, and died there.
The worst part was that someone /q'ed out in frustration, so even though we all quit the adventure the instance didn't poof until the two hours had passed. With no gear and no one that could summon corpses, we were all done for the night.
Comment Posted by: Valeriena on November 6, 2004 01:51 AM
"LDON camps have truely become ghost towns...."
**This was true for Kunark when Velious came out and Velious when Luclin came out.***
Game...set...match.
You really havnt got a clue do you?
Mor.phone home!!!!!
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on November 6, 2004 03:53 AM
Ouch Teremar, that ruins a night real quick.
I hear you're argument Loral. I agree with the basic idea. I'm not certain what the best way to accomplish it is. Perhaps by tweaking the task system that they have put into Omens (which i feel is weak in its current state).
I understand the opposition's argument against LDON's place in our game. They feel or fear the easy nature of acquiring gear and exp. without emmersion into the world. This is the same type of argument the fuels the fear of newbies starting with gear that we didn't get until we were in our 30s or 40s way back when.
However, hear's an idea: if you dont like LDON or ldon type content then stay away from it. Its a big ole world in there. The gear acquired in LDON will never be the quality type attained by raiders or uber Flagged guilders (nor should it be). Our world evolves over time and things only get bigger (and better one hopes). There is plenty of road. The hope is that this range will be or will become the thing that keeps our game alive.
A player who plays 12hours on a massive raid with other like minded souls is obviously doing what they want to do, else they would have gone to bed after the first couple hours. And a player who grinds out points bit by bit until they reach the same 12 hours of play time to attain an item is doing what they want to do and trying to fit it into their own busy schedule of work, familiy, and life chaos. The gear this part-timer attains wont and should not be the quality of an uber raid item, however it will be pretty great to that player who won it, because it is good enough for their style of play. Would they like better pieces... ummmm... sure. I would love to kill a skelly at the crossroads and find 100k on it too, but that aint gonna happen.
If the game can support both types of play then what's wrong with that? Raiders or Causual players both. A player doing an LDON still has to go group up and interact with other players, and that in itself to me is what is most important about our game. Playing together and teaching the world to sing blah blah blah...
I was interested in the earlier posts about item decay and I'm not certain I really got the full argument behind it. I know the EQ economy has changed greatly over the years. Econ majors here's your chance to play EQ and get class credit for it. I also think that the worries over newbs wearing gear we didn't get til our 30s - 40s way back when is not a big deal. Sure we had to walk up hill both ways through 5 foot snow drifts to school and we couldn't wear our shoes because we didn't want to wear them out, but c'mon.
In an evolving world better items always become available to younger generations sooner then to their forefathers. Civilizations change and become more advanced, its the difference of a bronze age warrior and a iron age warrior. It is the mark of the age of our world. I sure wont lose sleep over it anyway.
/Who All LFG
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 6, 2004 08:05 AM
If the primary drive of LDON is the equipment, there is far better equipment dropping in the instances in Omens and the Wall of Slaughter. The problem is that it takes at least a couple of hours, sometimes three, to have a shot at gear. Over time, given enough three hour hunts, you will win a piece of nice gear. In three or four hours last night I saw five items and two runes drop in the Wall of Slaughter.
Next week numbers will be light in EQ due to the EQ2 release. The Wall should have a lot of open spots available and a lot of nice gear floating around.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 6, 2004 08:32 AM
"I also think that the worries over newbs wearing gear we didn't get til our 30s - 40s way back when is not a big deal"
My opposition to this stems from the fact that it's basically twinking. These players, armed with even the best quest gear from their starting city and all the drops from newbie dungeons, can't go out and hunt for this stuff. They'd have no hope of getting the drops or completing the quests at their level. The only reason they're able to get this stuff is that there's so much of it floating around in the game that the price has dropped ridiculously low. EQ itemization was always done with the expected level of the character in mind. It just wasn't until recently that there were tools to enforce this, and that's where the problem started.
I'm opposed to twinking because it results in poor quality players that *I* then end up having to group with. I'm not saying that every EQ player needs to have crawled every dungeon, or needs to know complicated raiding tactics, but I don't think it's too much to ask that they know basic stuff like how and when to fire a nuke for best efficiency. Like it or not, the ease of getting gear for people, because of the bazaar, has lowered the bar considerably for newer or more casual players, and that is a constant source of frustration for a lot of people who've been around the block.
It's also a community killer. There are a whole lot of people now who simply don't do random groups, because they're sick of grouping with people who don't know how to play very well. This makes it even worse for the people who don't have much other choice, since grouping is required.
As far as LDoNs go, I don't think the opposition to them is out of fear of anyone getting items too easily. Everyone can agree that if you want to get something with your LDoN points, you have to work for them. The opposition to LDoN comes from the fact that it turns into grinding really, really fast. Face it, you do enough of any one thing in the game and you're going to probably start getting sick of that thing. A lot of people do enough LDoNs that they begin to feel like it's an exercise in futility. The stuff isn't -that- good. Before level 40 the point rewards are a joke, and afterwards the point costs are so high that you're still going to have to do tons of adventures to get an item you want. Not to mention that even if you did pick something up at, say, level 20, it's not worth the points you spent on it, because the rate of exp gain is so high you will be ready for it's upgrade long before you have the points to buy it.
The way to "fix" LDoNs is to do the following:
1. Lower point costs on individual items to put them in range for people who can use them, or balance the point rewards from adventures so that people can purchase a "level-appropriate" item after completing 2 or 3 adventures instead of 10 or 20.
2. Rework the mission types so that people actually do things other than collects or slaughters.
3. Rebalance mob difficulty at levels 60 and above. Although this is a problem elsewhere in the game too.
4. Reduce the exp bonus on LDoNs from levels 15 to 45 and increase it for 45 and up.
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on November 7, 2004 01:16 PM
I liked your post Talaen,
You brought up some very good points there. I do agree about the damage of gropuping with a newb who didn't learn their role in a group. I been playing for sometime and I still learn new things to do with every group I join. This address's Teremar's problem in his earlier post about a ruined night in LDON. I also liked your possible fixes for LDON. It'll give me something to chew on for a while anyway.
Good dialogue here. And thanx for answering some of my questions.
trolls rule!
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 8, 2004 08:14 AM
There are many ways to deal with gear iteration or questing.
1) You could have a named pop every 60 minutes or so that dropped 6 shards for a quest.
2) You could have successive steps that required different or identical shards, for different tiers of gear and it go on and on to build your gear step after step in different zones with a convoluted storyline, factions etc, whatever. That was in essence the coldain ring quest but with a bit of other MMOs in it.
That would stick to the EQ1 world, give some kind of reward to part-time gamers, that would be fair to everyone, that would be tunable with the spawn time of named. That could also be at some point a random on random trash for given higher steps maybe. You can mix and match many different permutations to this, like a bit of the OOW armor is now.
That would still require socializing and it would need to be tuned so that random unskilled groups would fail. They would still be able to xp, but not achieve gear progress without a required level of cooperation and skill/gear. Without falling into the trap of holy trinity though.
But at least it would be coherent to the EQ1 world and not a fifth leg to a chair like LDON is.
There are many creative ways to provide entertainment, gear progression, through quests, random drops, multiple named drops, storylines, polished dungeons (aka not LDON), polished encounters, etc.
Now if some spells and augments hadn't been achievable only within LDON, I wouldn't mind SoE wasting ressources on another build of that mini-game within EQ. Since SoE finds it necessary to need them in some places of Omens, I'd rather have them do what I suggested within the frame of what EQ is and not some different game with very small added value to the whole EQ community considering the shortcomings of the end product.
Comment Posted by: Zarros on November 8, 2004 08:31 AM
In terms of loot, economy, and game balance, there are some changes EQ1 desperately needs but will not probably ever happen.
1. Retag all non-vendor bought items with recommended level tags. Anyone who doesn't see it as disruptive to game balance for someone to have gear that is designed for +30-40 levels above them content-wise is beyond my ability to convince.
2. Make all magic items attunable (add the attunable flag). Put simply you want to allow people to buy and sell, but you don't want to just keep adding items into the economy without a means of removing them. Attunable is by far the best and most reasonable way of doing that. Nothing rots, but once its used it is out of the economy.
3. Eliminate "looting" and instead have treasure automatically allocated to each person in the group without regard to what anyone else gets. This goes for everything from copper coins through raid loot. The chance of getting a drop dependant on the cumulative power score of all worn and bagged items (in other words, if its in your inventory or bank it counts), the length of time since you last got something, and the difficulty and level of the encounter involved.
The individual chances would be small, and no guarantee of getting an item you can use (hence use attunable so players can trade), but over 4 to 6 hours of hunting getting at least one or two minor magical items, and perhaps a potentially useful at your level item every 20 or so is probably pretty reasonable. Since once an item is used its out of the economy, and recommended levels are in place, overall inflation of power is held back.
This eliminates the "need" to hunt named mobs or to camp specific spawns. This eliminates all player contention over loot of any sort. This allows people to focus on having an adventure and exploring the world of Norrath, solving quests and riddles, and otherwise playing the game.
4. Start changing all existing quests in the game into LDoN/Expedition type affairs or involve the use of flags instead of rare drops. Instead of needing to collect 5 gnoll ears (which for some reason would only drop off a named gnoll that is a rare spawn) the quest would involve defeating 50 (or however many) gnolls, or would involve defeating a particular named gnoll in an instanced (bring a group) dungeon.
Eliminate camping.
5. Eliminate meditation and change all long-duration buffs to work like bardsongs but for group or raid instead of just group. Want KEI, invite the enchanter. Want Temperance, invite the cleric. Long duration buffs, intended to be a convenience for the caster, have instead become a convenience for the recipient who no longer needs the caster.
6. Add resurrection spells to all priest classes, change the death system to use xp debt instead of xp loss, and then only if the person elects to respawn (with gear) instead of waiting for the rez. Rebalance the priest classes so that between debuffing the enemy and healing their group all three can function as main healer without another priest class present in all single group content from level 1 to level 70+
7. Give everyone the "gate to nearest safe city" power usable once per game day. Something useful for getting home at the end of an adventure.
8. Eliminate aggro from all mobs that are not high enough level to give xp.
9. Establish a maximum number of AA per level of advancement, limit the cumulative effectiveness of AA, or adjust the "effective level" of the character for purposes of gaining experience based on the number of AA points they have. AA affects character power and make balancing encounters more difficult as a result.
10. All classes must be able to solo or reasonable xp gain (the ability to solo a single blue-con mob with no more than 5 minutes max downtime afterwards) or none should be able to solo.
11. All classes should be equivilently desirable for their "designated primary group role" with all other classes that share that role. All classes should also be able to function at 50% effectiveness in a "secondary group role" ala the ability of a beastlord to function as a "poor man's shaman" in groups. If one cannot find a priest, a combination of paladin/paladin, paladin/ranger, paladin/beastlord, ranger/ranger, ranger/beastlord, or beastlord/beastlord should be able to cover healing. Similarly, if the secondary grouping role of a cleric is "nuking" then two clerics should provide a combination of magical DPS equivilent to one similarly levelled wizard.
This is to enable faster group building.
And on, and on, and on. None of it will ever happen of course. I know this so there isn't a need to convince me it won't. Disagree if you will (and I am sure some will at least) - that's fine, everyone has their own idea of what is best.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 8, 2004 08:46 AM
Point 6 and 7 have been adressed in a way with Omens AAs.
Point 5 is just SoE own nightmare: make new classes to foster sales yet make the whole impossible to balance with so many classes.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 8, 2004 09:49 AM
/hijack on
This is off topic - but I think it's important :)
It's the end of Norrath as we know it....and no, I'm not just talking about EQ2 today, although that's going to affect the online player population more than the two betas already have. November's going to suck for trying to get people online in EQ1 for anything - it's already pretty bad, but it's going to get worse.
But what I'm really talking about is this:
http://www.guildportal.com/Guild.aspx?GuildID=13279&TabID=110771&ForumID=91086&TopicID=739105
I linked it instead of reposting, because it's long. Feel free to read and comment :)
Change is afoot. Or maybe on horseback, depending how much else the live team has up their sleeves.
Oh yeah, archery autofire is live on test too as of Friday, I think. There's still some kinks but it's looking mostly solid so far. Half the rangers I know are cheering wildly, the other half are saying "too little, too late". But hey, at least it finally went in.
/hijack off. We now return you to your regularly scheduled discussion.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 8, 2004 09:51 AM
Bah, it didn't link right. Just copy and paste it into your browser, it should work. Here's one more try....
Mistmoore and Paw revamps on test!
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 8, 2004 09:52 AM
Ok, I must just suck at linking. Or it's part of Loral's evil plan to confuse me with arcane commenting technologies. If all else fails, click on my name and it will take you to the site. The post is in the Opinions and Commentary section of our guild forums.
Comment Posted by: ANON on November 8, 2004 10:43 AM
Striking again!!
Yes, we could qualify as a Zerg force with 200+ actives if half the clerics would logon for raids anymore =\ (not to defend us, it's just reality that on an average raid night < 72 ppl showup). Oh and btw, for those that think it's overkill, how many do you do quarm with? or rathe? or Ikkinz4? Tacvi? These encounters are much easier now than they were pre70, but it STILL takes a whole hell of a lot of coordination to get all right ppl in place for rathe, and in fact for ANY of the timed events. Sony created the need for a 'zerg' type force in creating encounters like this where everything has to die in a window. I forget how many groups rathe is, but it's like 6 control groups, a group of chanters and a main raid force to run from camp to camp and pull/stabalize the council. The MINIMUM you can do this with is 50, and they have to be exactly the right classes too. Too many of these encounters require the would-be 'holy trilogy' of classes to all be on in number to get the job done. Lately, more and more of our clerics just refuse to logon, so I've seen well planned raids cancelled (after sitting around waiting for 4 hours) in time and other places for problems with class attendance. This is *not* fun.
And yeah, the high end guilds are the economy folks. Do some research on that earthen ring of steel Resilience, or that stormwood bow, or that attunable PG_item_001 you just picked up for some godly sum in the bazaar. Most, if not all, desirable items for the lvl70 player come from raid events OR events tailored to raid-class geared players. Yes you CAN go into PG or RS and try to get it yourself, but without a cleric with a 7-8k mana pool and a 14k tank, it's going to be a short trip. The game's backbone is the hardcore player, without it everyone wears ... uhh banded? or some LDON pt. crap stuff that takes 10000000000000000 hours (of doing the same thing over and over at that) to get and is kinda sorta soso.
Consequently, I find it ironic that Blizzard is so ingrained in gaming that the first term ppl use to deride each other in eq is 'zerg' lol.
Jesus this thread is long.
Comment Posted by: on November 8, 2004 12:38 PM
I'm glad I don't play Zarros's idea of what EQ should be.
Hope you find a game that is closer to your ideals tho.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 8, 2004 01:01 PM
Responses to Zarros's post above :)
1. Yes. This is sorely needed. The mudflation problem EQ1 has today was directly caused because the original developers didn't build in tools to effectively combat it. Those tools exist now, but someone needs to go back and retroactively apply them to the old items.
2. I don't necessarily know that this needs to be ALL magic items, but I would agree that the vast majority of non-tradeskill magic items need to have this flag. And it is probably a better option than true item decay as well. :)
3. I'm ambivalent about this - I don't particularly see much problem with the looting system in EQ, although I know a lot of people think it's not quite fair. I've had problems with ninja looters before on raids (especially before there was a way to control it), but for almost all groups and raids I've been on lately, loot hasn't been an issue at all. People tend to cooperate and do things on an NBG basis. So, while this might be nice, I don't know that it's really needed from a "fairness" perspective.
I do think this would go a long way towards eliminating camping, which is arguably a good goal. However, a large portion of EQ's content is based on the idea of "hunting the named mob" and would probably have to be significantly altered to still be worth it. If players knew they could hunt "trash" mobs and have the same chance of getting a drop, they'd just go kill the easiest things possible in most cases.
Perhaps a hybrid system would work better - distribute loot automatically, and make drop rates individual rather than specific, and have drops available from any mob based on a zonewide set of loot tables, but allow "named" mobs a better chance of dropping an item, or more powerful items to drop from the "named" mobs. There needs to be the chance of a greater reward from a "named" encounter or most players won't consider it worth doing.
4. I don't really know that this will help except in cases where the quest requires a rare drop from a rare spawn, and the reward isn't "worth" the time it takes. I would like to see more quests move to scripted/instanced events instead of simple camping, however.
5. I'm a big proponent of level-appropriate buffs, and I think selling buffs is teh devil. That said, I don't know that this is viable because 90% of post-50 content is tuned assuming that players have those buffs. There are a lot of places I simply can't be effective in, with any group, unless I have virtue, kei, Fo7, haste, and so on... granted, better gear might make up for some of that, but changing buffs to the EQ2 method would be more of a hindrance than a help at this point in the game, unless all the content were to get retuned - and if that happened, then a "perfect" group could tear through it extremely fast.
6. I don't mind druids and shammies getting basic rezzes. I don't think the death penalty needs a change though. The death penalty isn't really the reason everyone wants clerics - the reason people want clerics is mana efficiency. Right now, a druid can heal me just about as effectively as a cleric can except for the 40-60 level range. However, in a tough fight that druid will run out of mana 3 times faster than the cleric will. Druids need better heal options between 40 and 58 to help them keep up with the melee's hp, and shamans need better healing options period. Both classes need their heals to be more efficient, because content has been tuned for cleric heals and they just can't keep up nearly as easily.
7. I agree, but non-combat only. Too many people would use this as a get out of jail free card, and once per game day is not a long time at all.
8. I could go for that.
9. The way it works now, most people grind exp to 65 and then do AAs. I was considered a freak because I started AAs at 51 (although I did it mainly so I wouldn't level while I was waiting for Vox to drop my book). I am 65 now and have 52 AAs, and my AA percentage has been at 50% ever since I gave up on Vox. Since AA abilities already have a minimum level requirement I don't see that this needs to be changed - in fact I am just now getting to where I have enough points to really get some of the nice abilities. Granted, those 52 AAs give me an edge, but it's not really all that noticeable of one and I dont' think it's unbalancing at all. I do agree that someone with, say, 300 AAs is much more powerful than someone with 50 however.
10. Yes. Although this is easier said than done given the variety of abilities.
11. Yes and yes. Especially with a thinning player population.
Comment Posted by: Zarros on November 8, 2004 02:40 PM
The chance and quality of treasure would not be "the same for fighting yard trash" as it would be a traditional named mob. I'm sorry, that was apparently unclear.
The basic idea is that killing enough "yard trash" level-appropriate mobs will still get you upgrades. Just as enough of them will get you your next level/AA. Combined with bonuses based on lenght of time since last "good drop" and "level of gear" in relation to the zone and expansion, and its "LDoN without points" in that regard.
Tougher mobs, like the various levels of named, would of course have better chances to drop items, but never more than one item per mob. The chances would get exponentially better, so that if a raid-level named were dropped by a 56 person raid, and that named would normally drop two items, that the statistical average number of players to get the drop would be the same based on the aggregate of chances.
Its a matter of changing the "drop rate" calculation from being based on the mob to being based on the character. This means weaker characters can be positively affected in terms of reaching whatever desired minimum power level exists without necessarily mudflating the entire game (especially if combined with the ATTUNABLE flag.)
Characters in zone/expedition/level appropriate equipment aren't penalized, and everyone benefits from not having to deal with the hassles of masterlooting, determining distribution of loot, and so on. With attunable loot, items can be used for gear which takes them out of the economy or used for barter/trade which promotes community positively and rewards cooperation. If an item cannot be afforded, one need not hope to get that special camp and win the roll and one need not worry about needing to farm platinum, while it might take a while, usable loot is no longer point-source and thus controllable.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 8, 2004 03:03 PM
Thanks, I think I understand better now what you were getting at.
It's an interesting system - definitely something developers should consider for future games. It'd take such a huge effort to pull it off that I don't think EQ1 would transition to it even if they wanted to, but a good discussion nonetheless.
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 8, 2004 04:40 PM
Those are some good suggestions, Zarros. Some I agree with as they stand, some I think are a bit far outside of the way EQ has been, some I don't agree with at all =)
There are already three classes that are able to res, I don't think they need any others. While I would love to see a change to the way EQ handles death, I'd rather see them take out or offer alternatives to equipment recovery. An NPC that summons bodies to shadowrest for a fee, for example.
All classes should have some sort of gate item. I'd like to see a quest in each starting city, or perhaps a quest in Plane of Knowledge that led to a high casting time gate to Knowledge or to the home city. Omens AAs don't help very many people, they're too high level to be of use to any new player who are the people who need it most.
I see the idea behind your loot system but I think its too radical for EQ. I'd like to see simpler alternatives like quests and LDON-like point systems.
I get nervous any time I read "Any" or "All". I don't think all quests should be changed. I don't think EQ should become a completely different game. I would just like to see a few simple changes that would make the game a whole lot more fun for non-raiding players with limited time.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on November 8, 2004 05:37 PM
I always thought item decay would be great in the world of trade skills if items could be fix by the trade skills person. Items would decay, if you want to keep it longer, go to the trade skill person. The items produced by trade skills have a value like a roller coaster and this would bring money into trade skills to make them more desirable.
With item decay, an item could be made or looted, it would have the level penalties, and item would decay. The cost of fixing it would mitigate the resale value, and take money out of the economy, or at least move it around. Plus the item could not be used for levels below the level limits. It would be nice if there was a way around the no drop items also. Seems to me that this would open up a whole new sub economy where a lot of extra money could be place. If item decay was something they could put into EQ1, then there would no reason fixing could not be installed.
Comment Posted by: on November 8, 2004 07:30 PM
"I expect that EQ will lose a small number to WoW, about the same that they lost to Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot, Ashron's Call, and other MMOGs. I expect they may lose a larger number to EQ2."
A larger number to EQ2? Wake up hun, EQ2 runs like crap on the typical EQ1 computer set-up.
Comment Posted by: Anon on November 8, 2004 09:16 PM
As far as the constant "when are they going to start combining servers?"
Probably never. Where I work we use virtual servers on linux clusters (VM Ware) and have the ability to scale almost infinitely. I assume Sony will just move to servers with higher ROI.
EQ isn't going anywhere if the ppl I play with are any indication. A lot of casual players have paid for every expansion since original EQ and have yet to see a lot of the content ... myself I have been away and back for personal reasons numerous times. I paid SOE a lot of money and I'm not stopping till I hit Anguish at least.
I do wish that they'd improve the point aqcuired loot in LDoN too ... make it level req 67-70 or something to get people motivated?
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 8, 2004 10:55 PM
"As far as the constant "when are they going to start combining servers?"
Probably never. Where I work we use virtual servers on linux clusters (VM Ware) and have the ability to scale almost infinitely. I assume Sony will just move to servers with higher ROI."
The only reason I could see them consolidating servers is for underpopulation. Right now that isn't much of a problem but some day they will have to. 200 players on an EQ server isn't enough to build guilds or groups or anything else.
It would make for great ass sup camping though!
Comment Posted by: on November 9, 2004 01:33 AM
With population of 200, there would be little need for instancing...
:D
Comment Posted by: Glamdrigg on November 9, 2004 03:32 AM
Well here we are. EQ 2 day and has anything changed yet? Did the sun still rise today? No, really, I worked shift work and I slept right through it so someone tell me if it didn't. I didn't log on the game today, is it still there?
Did prices in the bazaar bottom out? Give me a heads up if they did, because I'll go buy everything up and then jack my prices when everyone comes back to our game and needs their stuff back.
/auction Buyng, Selling....Bulls and Bears...
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on November 9, 2004 04:51 AM
From what I hear from friends, there's already an underpopulation problem in some servers, Kane Bayle for one, where it's down to one group in WoS at times. When the population cannot sustain pickup groups or renewal in raid forces, it should be the bell for SOE to allow those people to transfer out before they just quit and stop paying.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 9, 2004 09:26 AM
The problem is worse on some servers than on others.
On the Nameless, most guilds, even high-end raiding guilds, are having a lot of trouble getting people online for raids.
The number of people visible in LFG at the 60-70 range has been cut almost in half since the release of Omens.
For level ranges below 60, the average number of people visible in LFG during prime time is 3. Groups are still happening, but they're becoming increasingly harder to get.
It's not uncommon now to find 5 people for a group and come up missing an important role, like tank, healer, or slower - because there just aren't any online and available.
Zone population in PoK is down, in some cases dipping as low as 20 or 30 people during prime-time. Zone populations in Omens zones are down as well, although the causeway and WoS are still hosting 4-5 groups.
It's not critical on the Nameless yet, at least not if you're 65+. But it's getting bad for the folks who are under 60 and don't have guild groups to fall back on. Likewise, the midrange raiding guilds (the ones who aren't quite elemental yet) are having the worst time of things from a guild perspective.
This trend is going to continue, unfortunately. The missing people are all playing the WoW beta, or were playing the EQ2 beta (and will be playing EQ2 live now). It's too early to say how many will truly leave and how many will come back or split their time, but the next two months are going to be a big time of upheaval in terms of the player community. I expect to see quite a few guild mergers, and probably some of the midrange raiding guilds folding entirely.
I don't think the Nameless is in need of a consolidation anytime soon, but it's an old server and a big one. The smaller servers are going to take the hit worse. I do think it will be a few months before the live team could even consider a consolidation though - there just needs to be time allowed for things to shake out before any decisions are made.
Consolidation isn't a matter of the technology, Loral. It's a matter of playability. Everquest requires grouping and raiding. If players can't do that, they can't play. So there's a minimum active player population during peak time that needs to be maintained. No one has put a hard number on that yet, but I'm sure SOE has some internal metrics for what makes up a viable player population.
The worst part of this is the people who are going to hurt the most for the next few months are the midlevel players who are still in EQ1 for whatever reason. It was hard for them to find groups before. Now it's going to be next to impossible most of the time.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on November 9, 2004 09:47 AM
Oops, I thought I was responding to Loral, but I was really responding to the post above him. We desperately need horizontal rules or something to designate quotes...
Comment Posted by: Zarros on November 9, 2004 03:29 PM
I'm a bit hard pressed to see how "de-camping" the existing quests of EverQuest would be equivilent to making EQ1 a totally differant game. If anything, they might even get those quests used a bit more, and could even put an end to multiquesting if implemented with something like the flagging system of PoP.
Then again, people doing quests might make the game totally differant! ;) Its not as if a lot of them get done with the exception of some of the armor quests, the mage focus item quests, and various epics. Otherwise, its entirely too easy to buy a droppable item from the bazaar compared to the difficulty of doing a quest a nodrop one.
As far as recoding all magic items with required levels and making them attuned, that would have a pretty serious game-altering effect. If nothing else it would bring grouping back to the level 5-30s/40s game, which right now has been basically broken on a lot of servers due to a combination of gear-based power inflation of characters and a general lack of people playing those levels.
I don't for a minute seriously expect either of the above would ever happen of course. EverQuest 1 is entirely too focused on the end-game now and all that goes with it. New (adventuring) content is end-game only in the vast majority, with token exceptions like the newbie tutorial zone being a welcome exception.
Comment Posted by: PrettyPony on November 10, 2004 04:00 PM
Let's face it, EQ and now EQ2 and WoW have sucked the life out of the MMORPG world in total. It's dead, Jim. I'm moving on to my dream game, Hello Kitty World.
Comment Posted by: Just a guy. on November 11, 2004 12:25 AM
Loral after hearing and reading about EQ2 it really sounds more like what you wanted to see in EQ so like go play it and see if it's worth adding EQ2 to your site.
No use staying in EQ1 forever the technological limitations make it so most the stuff you want to see put in impossible.
Just a guy
Comment Posted by: Loral on November 13, 2004 06:54 PM
I have and it is indeed very good. It has a lot of things I'd like to see in EQ1. The quest progression alone really makes it fit the title of the game. While it is too early to judge it completely, its opening round is amazing. It's a great game.
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