Refunds, Mergers, and Flags
by Loral on December 15, 2004
This week we saw the largest update in some time. Wednesday's patch included pages and pages of changes covering everything from the long awaited backflag solutions to new hotzones and alternate advancement point refunds.
We discussed a these changes previously so I will only touch on a few things. The AA refunds, for the most part, seem to be very reasonable. SOE's goal was to make the point costs of Gates AAs fit better with the costs found in Omens of War. In a few days we should know how well this meets the desires of those it effects.
The backflagging solution should help guilds. While some guilds stayed at their current rate of power and delved deep into Anguish, other guilds began opening their doors wide open to new recruits since the release of EQ2 and WoW. These backflag changes help guilds continue to progress at the point they left off by using the 85/15 rule to bring in unflagged recruits. Because guilds won't have to backflag, they should be able to retain members rather than lose them. These backflag changes came at a good time for many raiding forces.
A few older zones had their experience modifiers increased including Shadeweaver's Thicket, Kurn's Tower, Unrest, Crystal Caverns, Solusek's Eye, Katta Castellum, Lower Guk, Nagafen's Lair, and Umbral Plains. These new hot zones should help get newer players into zones they might otherwise skip for newer content. I like the idea behind hotzones. Without too much effort, older zones become much more desirable than they once were.
Tacvi, the deepest and darkest corner of the Gates of Discord expansion, had a couple of nice changes for those powerful enough to reach it. It received a new zone in that doesn't require the weekly slaying of an ubermob to enter. This prevents guilds from simply waiting until another guild comes by and takes care of the large fellow. Tacvi also received a larger cache of new loot. I would expect this loot to be on par with the equipment we see coming from the depths of Anguish.
We saw our first wave of epic alterations this patch. These updates mainly handled the content required to receive the epic, but more than once we've heard that the epic effects themselves will be looked at. Expect to see some changes to epic 1.5s and 2.0s coming soon.
Both /autofire and /melody made it into this patch. Many archers and song singers rejoiced.
The two revamped zones, Mistmoore and Splitpaw made it to the Legends servers. I haven't yet heard what sort of content we can expect, but rumors speak to Elemental-level beasties worming their way through the infected paw of the Karanas. We shall wait and see. Expect these zones to make it to the live servers in about a month.
While we saw many good changes for the upper-end of the game, we didn't see that many that effected the larger group of players below level 65. Backflagging, epic 1.5 changes, and Tacvi matters to high-end raiders, but there wasn't much in this patch for the larger group of non-raiders and single-group hunters. At this critical stage, SOE must consider the low end and mid-level game a priority over these changes to high-end content.
Hopefully in January we should see the much-anticipated task changes we heard about at the Fan Faire.
A few different board postings offer some excellent advice that effects every player, not just raiders. Three interesting threads, one on soloing and task changes, one on user interface suggestions, and another on grouping and LFG changes, all have excellent suggestions and advice that effects a large majority of Everquest players.
Two topics seem to dominate the conversations over on the Live forums. Class balance continues to raise its ugly head, usually wrapped in "SOE doesn't listen!" Most of the time, the complaint isn't really that SOE doesn't listen, but that SOE doesn't agree. People don't seem to want to hear it when their ideas are shot down. In the meantime, to squash the rumors of lack of communication, continue to watch the dozen or so postings a day from various SOE employees over at the dev tracker.
One other topic became so prolific recently that threads had to be consolidated into one huge thread. I speak of server mergers. I think merging servers should be an absolute last resort for SOE. It is the sort of change that cannot be undone, once done. It breaks up of our identity within the community and it gives the (perhaps inaccurate) impression that EQ is on a steady decline without a chance of going back up. Yes, numbers have been low, although anyone who tells you they have real data to support specific trends is most likely lying. Nothing tells us that we won't see the continued trend of new players joining in and old players returning when a shipment of new shiny expansion boxes hits the shelf sometime between March and May.
Ok, time for the scoop....
Recently, a large group of players from the Zek servers, Tallon, Vallon, Sullon, and Rallos, got together with representatives from SOE to discuss their merger. These servers, being evil red PVP servers, have a much different demographic and player base than the other pansy huggy blue servers. They also, apparently, have many fewer active players.
My vast network of spies tells me that SOE is indeed considering consolidating all four of these servers. While they have no definite plans yet, there are discussions within SOE to consolidate these four servers together. It is easy to consider this a reactionary move, however SOE apparently considered this merger well before EQ2's release and the meeting with the Zek players.
Those same spies did not reveal what the rule set would be for this combined server, so they were all immediately put to death.
Many will use this to feather their giant "EQ is Dead" mardi-gras hats. Yet, these same people will continue to pay their $12 a month and visit sites like this one and the EQLive boards. People love to hate.
The MMOG business tells us otherwise. Many other MMORPGs continue to not only run but bring out new expansions even with nearly 1/10th of the population of EQ. I expect that the server numbers need to drop dramatically over a long period of time before SOE decides to pull the plug. In the meantime, I see those who never enjoyed the game go off to greener pastures and those of us who do enjoy the game will form a new, tighter, and stronger community than ever before.
The day I don't hear anyone shouting "EQ is dead" is the day I really begin to worry.
Loral Ciriclight
15 December 2004
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Talaen on December 16, 2004 12:34 AM
Server splits were one of the most evil things you could do to a server community way back when. You had guilds splitting apart, friends finding themselves on different servers because one decided to catch the movelog train and the other didn't, and so on. It took months for things to stabilize and for a community to really take form.
A server merge may or may not be a bad thing. If the server is truly in a position to warrant a merge with another server, then it would bring relief to a lot of players who simply can't find people to group with or raid with now. However, there's bound to be some chaos and confusion - suddenly you'll have a bunch of new players and new guilds, all trying to find their place in this new community. Old bonds will be shattered, new ones will be formed, and very likely there will be some conflict along the way, as people suddenly find themselves faced with more competition for the same limited spawns than they have seen in perhaps two years.
Regardless, as long as the numbers don't push the combined server's peak population over a breaking point, then it's an option that should be explored.
One thing SOE could do to help dispel some of these rumors is give the players information on server capacity. Show us a nice, pretty graph (sans numbers) that tells us how close to capacity our server is during peak times. While capacity might be an arbitrary number, the folks over at SOE should be able to come up with something pretty accurate. After all, they should know just how many of what level players are on at any given time, and exactly how much content there is available for those players to do.
SOE as a company has never gotten good marks on communication with its player base, and it's something that several other MMO publishers have really outshone them on. Considering that SOE probably has the largest combined player base AND one of the longest-lived titles, that's pretty sad.
That's not to say that they're the worst, but they are far from the best at it. That's also not to say that they haven't improved since the days of Abashi/Aradune and the original EQ forums. There have been quite a few changes made to how they communicate with their players that have been very helpful. Unfortunately, they still have a very long way to go.
SOE in particular, and game developers in general, need to start doing some very simple things to promote positive communication. They need to capitalize on the passion that players have for the game and use that to help make it better. They need to treat their players as both a resource and a stakeholder in the future of the game. SOE has always had an operating principle that they won't reveal what they're doing until it's done - that needs to change. The only thing it's accomplished is to breed negativity and mistrust among the player base.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 16, 2004 03:55 AM
"While we saw many good changes for the upper-end of the game, we didn't see that many that effected the larger group of players below level 65. "
The new hotspots are for below 65 players. It's significant.
"People don't seem to want to hear it when their ideas are shot down."
That's a pretty easy blanket statement when everybody knows that some classes remain LFG way more than others. Even if SoE doesn't agree with the sugggestion, it's their job to spread the attractiveness of classes for grouping and raiding. The quote is too easy an excuse to do just nothing. Which is exactly what the players have ressented. Not uniquely the disagreeing.
Putting two community reps that can decide nothing on their own ISN'T listening. It's just throwing a bait. We know better. Thanks.
Some devs are truelly active at communicating but not that many and not about class balance most of the time.
Some love to shoot down bias. This is indeed a good place to do so.
Comment Posted by: TZer on December 16, 2004 04:16 AM
The Zek server merger is needed, at least between Tallon and Vallon Zek. Guilds are reduced to backflagging or changing their play styles, as only the largest guild currently on TZ brings in numbers to raid anything above the elemental planes. Still, while a server merger would help one has to wonder how those prim-and-proper Vallon Zek players with their ruleset would react to the chaotic cesspool that is the TZ I love.
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 16, 2004 04:55 AM
"Most of the time, the complaint isn't really that SOE doesn't listen, but that SOE doesn't agree. People don't seem to want to hear it when their ideas are shot down."
I don't consider having items on top ten lists "currently being evaluated" for 6 months as listening, answering, or shooting down anything. That's called stonewalling.
"Yes, numbers have been low, although anyone who tells you they have real data to support specific trends is most likely lying. Nothing tells us that we won't see the continued trend of new players joining in and old players returning..."
So in one sentence you say that people don't have specific data to support trends and in the next you claim the trend of new players joining and old ones returning for expansions as if it's fact. So I ask you then where is your specific data to back that up? As I pointed out in 2 articles ago when you claimed GOD brought in a lot of people that this was false based on Sony's own press releases of EQ having dropped from ~470,000 (as of aorund LDoN) to ~420,000 as of a few weeks after GoD came out. That is called hard data (as hard as you want to think SOE's own numbers are).
I mean it's all good you like EQ and all but can't you try to be somewhat objective? This article was bascially propaganda with contradictions and so much spin it makes a politician look bad. Also a nice touch taking shots in your article at people who disagree with you. Are you getting bitter or something?
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 16, 2004 08:21 AM
The press release I received from SOE post-GoD but pre-OOW had the numbers at over 500,000. When GoD came out there were a lot of problems with server stability due in part to the casino but also due to a large return of older players and a large influx of new players, again according to SOE who used that as the reason for the stability issues. If I recall correctly, they also released the Mordin Rasp server at the same time. That is where I justify my statement that the numbers went up after GoD. SOE has also stated at the summit and Fan Faires, that the numbers always jump back up right after an expansion release and then drop lower between the two releases. That shouldn't come as much of a surprise, people always want to try new things and get bored when they don't see much.
Lets talk about SOE and communication. I've gotten into far more debates over on the EQLive forums about communication than I care to admit. Many times I hear that SOE isn't communicating when what really upsets people is that SOE doesn't agree with them. Those class lists, as stated by all three CR folk many times, are not intended to be task lists for the developers. They're not going to address them all. They might not address any of them.
In a few cases, class issues remain on class lists even if they're fixed not because of any practical matter but because of what the small group of players responsible for those lists (vocal class board posters) consider to be the principal of the matter. We gained five new buff slots but still clerics want their spells jammed into the bard's songs box. SOE stated a few times that they don't ever plan to do that. Clerics also continue to ask for invis even though instant cast potions for 10 plat are available all over. SOE also stated that they don't plan to ever give us invis, but there it sits and now we complain that "SOE doesn't listen". They heard us, they just don't agree.
SOE's developers always act on what they feel is best for the game. They do not act upon popular demand, and we don't want them to or the game might turn into Yu-Gi-Oh online. I would argue that the class lists themselves aren't popular demand since few subscribers to EQ even read the forums, much less discuss their issues with their class rep.
Many times I don't agree with the direction SOE goes with EQ. I don't think the backflag solution was a good use of time. I don't like their departure from the LDON style of loot. I don't like how corpse recovery is handled. I have a lot of ideas to improve EQ as well, but so does just about everyone else. So I send them email and I send in feedback and I get on with my life.
SOE isn't going to give us their daily task-lists. SOE isn't going to release specific numbers or statistics. Even if they did, people like me would continually misuse them as justification for whatever evil agenda we have. SOE isn't one single entity, its a bunch of guys and gals who like the game and work to improve it. Sometimes they are at odds, sometimes they make mistakes.
We all want to be in the driver's seat in this one. We all love this game, whether we admit it or not, and we all want to move it in the direction we think is right. But we are not in the driver's seat and it frustrates people when they cannot control things.
But its inaccurate to say that SOE doesn't communicate. We heard about the backflagging changes a few months ago. We all read Grumbuk's excellent and detailed threads on code changes. We have community liasons who continually monitor and update those class lists every two weeks. SOE made themselves available at Fan Faires twice a year, they get up on panels and make themselves available throughout the event. They post on community forums outside of SOE's control.
I really want to see some sort of alternative to deep corpse recovery woes. I want to see either a spell or an NPC that will summon a body to Shadowrest from anywhere in the game for a high cost and no experience res. I've talked to SOE about this through emails and feedback many times. It isn't implemented not because SOE isn't listening, but they either don't agree or have other priorities.
So, after that painfully long post, lets discuss SOE and communication. What sorts of things would you like to see improved? What areas have they failed on? What areas do you like and want to see more of?
Pants, I warned you before. Personal attacks against anyone, including me, will be edited out. You make good points, but stick to the topic and forget about the author.
Comment Posted by: Katahn on December 16, 2004 08:32 AM
Hotspots help powerlevelling or more accurately getting through low levels fast, they do not help the low level game. All they do is let you get through it faster which ironically can be worse, especially for a new player.
Are the gear drops (even if level restricted and/or nodrop/attunable) significantly improved in the hotspots? Can an untwinked newbie levelling up through them expect to be reasonably equipped at 60, 65, or 70 through single-group adventuring? Will these hotspots prepare them for the content in OoW where good single droppable loot is alledgedly "easy to get"?
Does rapid levelling teach people how to function in groups? Does an abundance of uber over-level gear teach people how to depend on others? Does a tank that at level 10 capable of easily soloing group-oriented combat learn the fundamentals of grouping some of us learned at orc1, derv2, or in dungeons like Blackburrow, Najena, and so on?
Hot spots, if anything, are not healthy for a game that has new people entering it. They are a means of retaining people who have been playing longer and for getting people to the top-end game where the new content is starting anyway. If that's the goal, why not just have everyone start at level X and skip the hack of hot spots? For the reasons above, they're like sugar: taste sweet but not nourishing.
Revitalize old and unused content by updating it. Advance the conflicts in Norrath, tie them to existing expansions, etc. Instead of wasting time on a short-term fix, devote that time to a long-term fix (or a long-term fix that gets implemened a few zones at a time) and then....
Keep your customers informed of what you are planning and why!
Not the specifics, never the specifics, but let them know. Tell them changes are coming to older non-expansion zones, give a timeframe for when these things might happen. If the "roots" of EQ aren't tended: its newbie and non-high-level games, and the fundamentals are not addressed such as the disparity of classes in means to function within their designated grouping role, the effect of over-level gear and spells, and so on, then these changes while nice are ultimately not going to mean a lot.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 16, 2004 08:49 AM
I agree with a lot of what you say, Katahn, but I don't think hot spots are damaging to the game.
I agree that hot spots don't fix the low and mid-level game. They won't get new players playing. I think their goal or results will be a little smaller than the fixes I think a lot of us would like to see for the low and mid-level game.
Hotspots will hopefully keep players from bunching up in places like Paludal Caverns. They reinforce to players who don't grow up overnight the exploration of strange zones, like Kurn's Tower, that they may not have seen before.
While it is certainly easier to level up these days than it was back when Norrath was new and Kunark was unheard of, new players, players without higher level alts or guild friends, won't level up overnight. I've watched the paths of a few brand new players that I met and helped out early on. Sometimes they find some high-level friends and zip on up, an action I would argue robs themselves of a lot of the content they paid for, but some do take their time and explore the lands they can.
I don't think hotzones harm anything and I do think they help bring players to zones they might otherwise ignore. I also imagine the announcement of hotzones brings some higher level players to their alts. This may help with lower and mid-level population and grouping woes a little bit. Sure, some will hammer their way to the top with a 65 druid in tow, but some will level up and group normally.
We don't know how much development time it takes to create new hotzones, but I would imagine not a lot. I don't see them taking time away from some of the fixes you discuss and I agree with. I do think the lower and mid-level game needs something new to spark its fire, and hotzones aren't the only fix.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 16, 2004 10:55 AM
If SOE has decided they disagree with the suggestions in the top ten lists they asked us to create, they need to have the guts to say so. That would be communication. Instead they just leave them as "currently being evaluated" for months on end. "NO" would be better. Even "We don't think this is important enough to take the time to really evaluate it right now but we might think about it some day" would be honest. "Currently being evaluated" implies an active process that can't possibly have been going on for six months.
Comment Posted by: Xaas on December 16, 2004 12:15 PM
It really seems to me, its there skills at communication not volume that is the problem. But i have to agree, that I don't happen to agree with how SOE has made the game. There are 4 primary jobs, in EQ, Healer, Tank, DPS, and CC. You might be albe to say 5 with pulling, but its really a form of premptive CC. IMO, the Tank class is really the only one that balanced out at all. Of course that really depends on who you ask what a tank is, but I would say Warrior, pally and SK. Warriors are better tanks, Pally/SK hold agro easier. So..just depends on what you need for your group what is better. Everything else is outta wack.
What worries my most is that they had no internal document about what class is what, and how they all relate. They should be readly able to answer questions like what is my shaman supposted to be able to do. Like should a shaman be able to main heal current content, heck what even is my "main" job as a shaman. Cause its not slow, you nerf that all up.
To much of SOE is they can't tell you cause they don't KNOW, at least I don't think they do. I want eq to be a better game, even though I play WoW, i still have friends that play, I just don't have faith in SOE to fix it, in what I see as right.
Comment Posted by: on December 16, 2004 12:53 PM
Teremar said: "If SOE has decided they disagree with the suggestions in the top ten lists they asked us to create, they need to have the guts to say so. That would be communication. Instead they just leave them as "currently being evaluated" for months on end. "NO" would be better. Even "We don't think this is important enough to take the time to really evaluate it right now but we might think about it some day" would be honest. "Currently being evaluated" implies an active process that can't possibly have been going on for six months."
Thank you, yes, that is exactly the lack of communication many of us are complaining about.
Take the Wizard top 10 list for example. Almost every single item on there is "Currently being discussed/evaliuated" and hasn't changed from that status for SIX MONTHS.
We got one answer about upgrading Pillars (basically - no way, hosé) and while I'm not thrilled, I accept that at this time they don't want to upgrade our Pillars line.
Oh, and they are asking us what new ports we might want....a minor item that some schmuck mentioned and they latched onto like a leech to an open vein. Like new ports are going to add some utility and group desirability to Wizards....with PoK books, Wayfarer Magi, PoDs, Nexus Spires, mage summoned stones and even a NPC that ports you to Hate....yeah right...
Wizards were always fed this garbage about being weak in low levels (cloth wearers, no ac, no damage mitigation at all really) to get the big payoff at the high end, but high end wizards, supposed to be masters of burst damage, can only hope to equal rogues in damage, if that...many of us are actually doing LESS burst damage than rogues, with the daggers that are available to them now and the melee disciplines they can trigger every 10-20 minutes or so.
Hmm, getting off the subject...SOE communication....nope, not doing a great job in my opinion...Dev Tracker...HA...so you see lots of Halflings making jokes with the forumites and moving posts here and there, but how many posts with actual substance do you really see?
Comment Posted by: angry_customer_33445 on December 16, 2004 01:52 PM
"continue to watch the dozen or so postings a day from various SOE employees over at the dev tracker."
Yes, cheap talk from halflings - but nothing substancial to the game.
No one at Sony does have a clue about the game they bought from Verant.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on December 16, 2004 02:25 PM
"No one at Sony does have a clue about the game they bought from Verant."
Sony = Verant.. they may not all be the same developers as when EQ started out.. and probably arent. but that doesnt mean they arent the same company. every company has turn around.
I would think that without Ashlanne and Kyth the developers might not know about alot of the players gripes. and I know the players would not be aware of the developers opinions as much as they are now.
I beleive in the end the only thing hurting Everquest are the whiners. not the developers. the people who constantly nit pick and ruin everyones good time by pointing out the flaws.
The George Castanzas of the world (for those who would get that seinfeld reference) :P
http://www.movieprop.com/tvandmovie/Seinfeld/george.htm
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 16, 2004 05:25 PM
"The press release I received from SOE post-GoD but pre-OOW had the numbers at over 500,000."
Do you have a link to this press release?
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 16, 2004 05:33 PM
And by the way warn me all you want. I don't consider it a personal attack to question the bias and credibility of these articles. That's what it's like in the real world. Journalists and commentators write stuff and people analyse and criticize. If you can't take that you shouldn't be doing this website. I assumed this website was about debate not a personal soapbox for EQ propaganda. By the way you should practice what you preach because you did take shots at people in your article who disagree with you, not listing anyone specific, but it was in there. I don't think that is professional behavior even if this is more just an amateur fansite. I know this is more of a commentary based site but in a way people do look up to you Loral as a quasi-journalist so you should exhibit some of the qualities that would be expected in journalism. At times these article more resemble SOE press releases than anything else. Other times the articles are excellent and thought provoking. I would like to see more of the latter and less of the former.
Comment Posted by: Pants on December 16, 2004 05:50 PM
I have done a search to try to find this press release claiming over 500,000 accounts on SOE's site and have yet to find it. Does anyone have a link to old press releases there? On http://pw1.netcom.com/~sirbruce/Subscriptions.html
which is a site that tracks subscription numbers of various online games based on the official press releases of companies he had EQ at 420,000 subscriptions as over July 2004 (his site was last updated in Sept/Oct I believe so I assume he had no new data from Sony since the July numbers). Unforunately the site is down now because he went over his allotted bandwidth for the month. I guess everyone is checking it out for EQ2/WoW numbers.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 16, 2004 07:30 PM
The press release I got in hardcopy at the Summit. I'll dig around and see if I still have it. It described Everquest as having over half a million subscribers. Take it for what you will.
This is an editorial site, not a news site. I don't report news, I comment on news. My comments come with my own personal slant and I state this quite often. There are hundreds of EQ news websites that simply post the news and those are fine places to go if you just want data. I don't give SOE a free pass with rose colored glasses. I point out when there's something I think concerns people. I wrote two evil agendas and a slew of other articles with suggestions on how to play the game.
Show me any SOE press release that states that they had a nice big patch but there wasn't much in it for most players. Find me a release that states that they really need to work on low and mid-level content instead of just high-end stuff.
I'm happy to debate on the issues I bring up. That is why this site has a comment feature. However, time and time again, people seem to come here strictly with the intention of poking me in the eye. It wastes people's time and it scares off people who want to simply chat about the topics.
What we all have to remember, what about a dozen angry posters on the live forums need to remember, is that, as much as I love it, this is just a game. It's a game, thats all. It isn't an investment. It isn't a job. It isn't a government. It's a game. Go over to Id Software's website and find a forum to argue over the power of the plasma gun with John Carmack and see how far you get.
Pants. Feel free to send me an email at loral@loralciriclight.com so we can chat about this more. I am happy to talk about what you do and do not like about the site or the game.
Comment Posted by: menleniel on December 16, 2004 07:31 PM
I do check the DevTracker frequently. See any responses to the clerics in there? Didn't think so.
The invis issue is a good one. They aren't going to give it to us, they've said so numerous times. But not once have they explained why. Especially in light of the spells they've given to other classes I'd like to know the reasoning. But we hear nothing and I agree with the other posters, lack of communication is not communication.
I wouldn't expect too many people to return to eq, not one of people I've talked to have any intention of returning.
Comment Posted by: Naladini on December 16, 2004 09:29 PM
"The invis issue is a good one. They aren't going to give it to us, they've said so numerous times. But not once have they explained why. Especially in light of the spells they've given to other classes I'd like to know the reasoning. But we hear nothing and I agree with the other posters, lack of communication is not communication. "
Bearing in mind that the dev's can't possibly answer every philosophical question that comes along, when single issues get debated for long periods of time, I do think the dev's should provide additional justification, especially for something as simple as invis. Currently, there is a tremendous burden on the players to prove that something is "broken" before the dev's will pay attention to an issue. Sometimes, it not about something being broken, its about something being fun. Changes like invis for clerics and root for magicians are simple, easy, and don't upset the high end DPS parsers. ;)
The Split Paw Revamp is definitely looking to be level 68+, not sure about gear/aa levels, the first mob I saw was a solid red con to me at level 63.
Some screenshots of mobs from splitpaw can be found in this thread: http://www.stormhammer.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5261
Comment Posted by: Armarant on December 17, 2004 01:46 AM
Naladini
"Bearing in mind that the dev's can't possibly answer every philosophical question that comes along, when single issues get debated for long periods of time, I do think the dev's should provide additional justification, especially for something as simple as invis."
Now lets see how I can change this to help me.
"Bearing in mind that the dev's can't possibly answer every philosophical question that comes along, when single issues get debated for long periods of time, I do think the dev's should provide additional justification, especially for something as simple as 96 percent rez for druids"
Hmmm does that sound as right as the Invis for clerics?
No?
Hmmm..
Comment Posted by: Wombat on December 17, 2004 02:20 AM
Hmm the newbie low level game? It may exist on some servers but not mine.
There are virtually NO new players on my old time server. They are 99% alts. When I levelled up an alt from scratch about 8 months ago I didnt find one new player, I levelled in empty zones like EC and MT.
Only my twink gear enabled me to level a pure mellee class beciuase I was soling, and not by choice.
A lot of the lower level zones need to be upgraded to 50+ and 60+ with modern loot drops. I cant comment on other servers but we were holding numbers ok until WoW and EQ2, despite the lack of new blood.
To experience new expansions which are typically group or raid orientated as is most of EQ you need groups/raids.
Currently I see no new players and older ones leaving and giving away their PP and gear. I see this A LOT.... I do not think a new expansion will reverse this. Too many are in the new games for the long haul and enjoying it.
The low level game needs to be made so that it can be done solo or in sub par groups. Increase lowbie hp/mana regen so a genuine new player isnt left stranded in deserted zones with no way to level.
All the players are 50+ how is anyone going to enjoy the low level game??? unless solo??? All they want to do is get to where the other players are as soon as possible.
If numbers went up after GoD its was due to bots!
Wombat
Comment Posted by: SFG on December 17, 2004 05:00 AM
Regarding Communication:
Speaking as someone who has been involved with three different companies that sponsor games (larps rather than mmorpgs, but the principle is the same - if you've ever played a larp you've probably at least heard of a game I've worked on) discussing class balance issues with the playerbase is generally a *BAD* idea *UNLESS* the communication is to say "that unfairly penalized the class, and we're changing it to {this}". As a general rule, the way you judge whether class balance is working properly is to see if ALL the classes are complaining. If they are, they're probably balanced out right.
I know that sounds incredibly horrible from a dev perspective, but it's accurate. When you have a person in Class A saying that Class B does something better, Class B is angry that Class C is better, and Class C is complaining that they can't do as much as Class A, it's usually balanced out.
The actual way baselining is done for class balancing in every company I've worked with is to gather the raw numbers of how many people of what levels play the class (keeping in mind that leveling takes considerably longer in a larp usually than in an mmorpg) - If you have few players in a class, it probably needs a boost. If you have a ton of players of a class, it usually means either A. The class is too powerful or B. The class is newbie-friendly (like warriors in EQ) so people who don't know how to play pick it. In MOST larps I've been involved with the "warrior" class (straight melee, no significant "spell"-style abilities) are generally significantly more played than caster classes because people can grip the rules better. EQ is a good example - at LOW levels, a caster still has to understand their spells to an extent while the warriors and monks just run around beating the crap out of things.
What I find constructive as a dev is input from a player along the lines (putting into eq terms) of "our class is supposed to be the highest dps but fast burnout (mana loss, sorta). We have the high burnout, but in fact X class has a higher damage output for less burnout." Along with numbers backing it up. In virtually every case where concrete numbers have been presented that *objectively* defined the problem and sometimes even a proposed solution it's much easier for us to say "hmmm.. we probably made a mistake.." and fix the bug.
DO NOT, EVER as a dev team agree with a player that the class MIGHT be unbalanced unless you intend to make upgrades to it. If you say "you might be right on that, I'll have to look into it", you are doing the following:
A. Admitting there is a problem. Your "might" is a player's "are".
B. "I'll look into it" means "I'll change it"
C. Members of other classes start in with the "You're fixing THAT, but you're not fixing THIS for *US*"
Our dev team communicates changes to things like class balance ONLY WHEN either we recognize a significant balance issue (hey, when the wizards melee better than the warriors, there is clearly a problem) or when we're tweaking an adjustment but intending to release it in the NEAR future. Our last upgrade to the "Soldier" class said something along the lines of "This has been upgraded but will probably be upgraded again because the dev team still feels that the class is underpowered". The second upgrade was already halfway through the dev team and we were fairly sure that it was going to be needed.
NEVER EVER say anything against what a player's arguements are because it is *NEVER* the right answer. Contrary to the popular line, the customer isn't always right, but when they're wrong it's bad PR. My current company has a policy of reading EVERY email we receive and sending an appropriate reply, usually to the tune of "thank you for sharing your concerns with us, this will be forwarded to a member of that team" but ALWAYS written by a real person and immediately forwarded to the team leader of that team. EVEN IF it's something stupid like a wizard complaining his melee is sub-par to a warrior. Often the team leader will write an additional "thank you for your suggestion, but implementing your suggestion at this time may cause side effects that we need to more accurately identify" - this is a polite way to state that nothing is changing without arguing with a player (saying they are wrong).
The reason why: Players who are told they are WRONG usually get pissed off, then there's the "we wizards never get any love" arguements. The exact same arguements that (if we're doing our jobs proper) every other class brings forth.
I think you'll find few enough devs arguing that solo content is unneeded. At the same time, there probably won't be much agreement with this outside of a few "we'll look into that and get back to you" because if they say "yeah, that's a good idea" the community responds by saying a year later "Those devs can't get anything done, they've been working on solo content and that's taking forever" even if they aren't actually doing that.
What you say in the gaming industry doesn't matter. Not even a little bit.
What matters is what the customers hear. And frankly, the bulk of the EQ players that I've read commentary from are incoherent, think that they are the only ones that have a good idea, and frequently hostile.
Overall, speaking as a dev for a game - I've never, ever, not once, ever in the entire history of my experience in the gaming industry met a developer that didn't play their own games. MOST developers care way more about the game, its mechanics, and its playability than any player ever will. The devs want to see a game run and be successful for two main reasons: 1) Its their baby and they want to see it succeed, and 2) If it succeeds they get to play it too.
Money is rarely the motivator.
Server splits will be done if and when the devs decide that it's the best thing for the game. Not a second earlier or later.
The EQ Devs also have the position of being independent of EQ2 as far as funding is concerned - they need to succeed in order for their division to keep making money (and thus putting food on their tables).
One concise post on a topic in the messageboards is usually enough to get a dev's attention. That's it, just one. When there is 50, it becomes a rant, people get pissed, and no one wants to give in to the angry mob mentality, so you're actually less likely to get things done.
And seriously, regarding communication:
The MMORPG community is the only one I've ever seen that actually gets feedback from developers at all. When was the last time you sent feedback about HALO 2 or StarCraft and got a response?
Lastly -
Agree with them, agree with me, disagree with them, disagree with me. I don't really care. But there are a lot of people who get downright mean and/or hostile in their posts. People need to remember that despite the fact that you're a customer, SOE people are *PEOPLE* as well. The general respect level (particularly in the US, and this is coming from an american) of people (not just in EQ) is depressingly low and I think if there were more person-to-person respect maybe devs would *WANT* to come out and be part of the community. As it stands now, I wouldn't want to poke my head out for fear of having it blown off, and they *DON'T* get paid for that.
Devs are paid to produce product, not participate in the boards nor listen to our bulls#$%. Next time a dev answers a question or adds a comment, maybe try being polite to them instead of getting pissed about the other 20 things they didn't do to your liking, because you're getting a bonus.
Community reps are frequently not even paid for what they do, but they are actually the only people "assigned" to participate on the boards. Brenlo is the only person I'm currently aware of that is actually paid to listen to us, and he's just an intermediary between us and the devs (read: he has no power or authority to do anything, he's just a receptionist).
To the people who are respectful - I wasn't talking about you. Loral I've disagreed with more than once but I've always found him insightful at very least - his arguements are thought out and polite, and whether his ideas are good or bad I can at least respect his presentation.
Just some thoughts for people.
SFG
Comment Posted by: Tyndal on December 17, 2004 05:19 AM
Crystal Caverns was already an awesome mid level zone I made 5k solo there lvling on my bst alt back when I played EQ a year ago. The Ry`Gorr are far weaker than standard velios mobs of thier level. I am happy to see SOE luring players to one of my favorite zones
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 17, 2004 07:17 AM
I'd love to see SFG' post stickied somewhere. Thanks for the different perspective.
Back to pre-level 70 content. Fact of the matter: the least unbalanced one is below 50 on own SoE accord. There's plenty. It was and it is probably still fun. The holy trinity is definitely less stringent. So what exactly is missing?
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 17, 2004 08:19 AM
That's a great post, SFG. Thank you very much.
Redcloud, yes, there is a lot of raw content for new players and I don't think giving them more zones is the way to improve the low-end game. I think older players need new content in the form of new quests including a nicer quest interface, perhaps deeper improvements to the task system (I could write pages of ideas here, upgraded items in older quests, improvements to LFG, some sort of apprenticeship system where low levels can adventure with high levels, more raid-style single and multi-group encounters, more ring events, improvements to the tutorial zone (mainly in look), graphic overhauls to the starting cities and newbie yards, and better no-drop loot. One person I talked to had an idea for lower-level AAs that people could earn. This would let people stay at a lower level longer yet still grow in power. This could help balance players across levels on a single server.
It's a really hard question. I am sure SOE beats their head on this too.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on December 17, 2004 09:58 AM
Here is how I believe that SOE could improve communication. You may think this goes too far, or you may think that it's not enough, but in my view these are simple things that would help much more than they could possibly hurt.
1. Bi-weekly "here's what we're working on" posts/blogs from the producers. These should include:
- An overview of the current top priorities for the dev team (including why it's a top priority)
- Recognition of some of the other things that players have asked for that aren't a top priority (and again why)
- Explanations on why certain issues are really tough to find a good solution for, and insight into some of the ideas that the dev team is tossing around for them.
2. Accurate patch notes. "Stealth nerfs" and "Stealth fixes" should never be needed. If something is going to cause that negative a reaction, then they didn't do a good enough job explaining to people why it was needed.
3. Clear class definition documents that tell players what the role of their class is supposed to be. People want a basis to evaluate their performance on. Everyone wants to know that they are fulfilling their potential.
4. Regular updates on ongoing issues - the whole "this is being looked at" thing is really getting out of hand. If it truly is being looked at, they should give some examples of solutions they've thought about, and why they threw those out. If it's just not on the priority list because of something else, just say so (see #1 above). If it's something that ain't gonna happen right now - then say so, and say why.
The key things that I don't see from SOE, on any of their games, are the regularity and the why. Sometimes there will be three or four posts in a week, other times we'll go for a month and see only one or two. Individual replies to threads with a "thanks, we'll look into this" are good, but what we need to see is more structured communication, and by more I mean quantity.
I appreciate SFG's perspective and I know it's no fun for those devs to come to a forum and basically watch their baby get ripped apart by clueless players waving torches and pitchforks because invis isn't available to clerics or druids can't do a 96% rez. But I'd like to counter that. Developers in general seem to have this attitude that once a game is live, players degenerate into some sort of angry mob that's going to attack them and kill them if they show their face in public.
As an example of good communication in the industry right now, I point at CCP, the makers of EVE Online. If you have an account in that game, there's all sorts of communication going on at their website. Granted, they have a much smaller player base than something like EQ, but the concepts they leverage could be applied here too.
Overall, what I think needs improving is the structured communication - I have been impressed with the individual developers' posts and replies and threads when they occur, but I just don't just see much else happening. In fairness, this isn't a gamebreaking issue for me - but it's one of those nagging things that would go a long way towards making me more tolerant when things aren't just the way I want them or when I have to wait for a bug to get fixed.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 17, 2004 10:51 AM
Good post, Talaen. Mind if I repost that over on the Live forums? I'll add those to the list that some of the Summiteers are putting together to get to SOE. I think more structured lists of what they're working on and better patch notes without stealth nerfs would be good. They might argue that they work on too much stuff too quickly to keep notes like this, but its worth us bringing up. There is a middle ground that needs to be reached. SOE can't let us micromanage their stuff too much but they can't hide everything either. I don't know that a middle ground will be acceptable to either group and that may be the problem. We want to know what each developer does every day (I would argue that the best way to play EQ is to never read any forum, however) but SOE doesn't want huge uproars every time a spell change hits Lucy. Its a difficult area.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on December 17, 2004 11:25 AM
Sure, feel free. Hopefully some good will come of it.
Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on December 17, 2004 05:12 PM
Talaen -
Totally agree on that, I was under the impression that that's actually what the Community Rep (Brenlo) was supposed to be doing.
*SOME* stealth nerfs/fixes can't be made public. Sucks but it's true. There have been several cases where stealth fixes were implemented to fix exploits, and by telling people where the exploits were found it would give them a clue where to look for the next one. *HOWEVER* - Agree 100% with you in every situation that isn't directly because of that.
I think #3 (clear class roles) would go a HUGE step towards the mythical game balance issue. I say mythical because I've never seen truly balanced classes in a 6 class game, much less a 16 class game. But having played EQ as literally every class (albeit some at low level - my beastlord JUST got a pet) there are some classes that are "better" than others with regards to survivability and combat skills.
Regarding content:
We don't need more classes, we don't need more races, and we don't need more zones. If the zones were being adequately utilized, we wouldn't have hotspots.
Generally what happens is people grind to 10 or 12, hit paludual, hit whatever the current equivalent of HHK is, then I think it's dsp to 46 and Justice to the 50s.. misc planes from there (or the latest hotzone.. UP now?). A surprising number of players couldn't even tell you what was between qeynos and freeport, much less have been to those zones.
We have enough zones. What new players need is compelling enough content to want to play. For your average gamer, graphics, gameplay and UI are the main things that draw you in, then content should take over from there.
What *I* see in everquest is a lack of content. There is stuff there.. I KNOW there is. They actually have some pretty interesting lore stuff.. I read a thread on /gucomics once that ran into the dozens of pages and it was full of lore, took me days to slog through - and that was just stuff players had collected in their travels.
The problem is that the majority of players don't *care* about the lore and there is no good reason for them too. Quests are practically meaningless - the loot reward is typically not as good as something you could bazaar buy with plat you made instead of doing the quest. XP on quests is practically nil.
I think implementing quests that give substantial (ie, noticable) XP rewards, nontrivial loot, and the quest journal thing everyone seems to love (haven't played eq2 so I have no idea what it is, but it's been getting great feedback) would make for more compelling reasons to stay.
But still - from a marketing standpoint I *REALLY* can't see a way for them to improve numbers without some drastic move. Calling the new game EQ2 was criminally stupid.
SFG
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 17, 2004 05:33 PM
Very little of what Talaen suggests is actually new (not that that's a bad thing). SOE had pages where they would describe what they were planning for future patches. Class definition documents have been in the works for a very long time. The dev responses to the top ten lists were supposed to be informative.
But the upcoming updates pages were never updated, and finally taken down, the class definition documents have yet to appear, and the top ten lists just sit at "currently being evaluated" when that's obviously not the case.
SOE doesn't need our help to figure out how to communicate. They need to make the decision that consistent communication is important. And stick to it for longer than the three weeks after a summit. Basically someone in higher management needs to really buy into it and write it into someone's job description.
Hopefully Loral has some idea how to make that happen, because just telling them how to do it won't change a thing.
Comment Posted by: menleniel on December 17, 2004 06:45 PM
Good post SFG. Some food for thought.
Just two more comments.
Loral mentioned that Halo2 (or whatever game) you don't get to talk to the devs like you do on eq. Well thats to be expected compared to a game that has a definite end. That dev only needs to know if you liked it or hated it so he can use that on the next game. EQ is constantly changing and has people playing for years rather than days. That rates a bit more dev contact I think.
I like the clueless comment. Lets assume I'm clueless because I think clerics should get invis. Okay, now to make me non clueless what do you do? You explain the fallacy of my argument. Unfortunately that never gets done :(
Comment Posted by: Stamp on December 17, 2004 09:30 PM
I just wanted to say something.
I've been playing FFXI alot lately, and that game doesn't have any Public Relations Reps answering boards at all. There is no communication between the gamer community and the devs. In fact the devs and the North American Community don't even speak the same language. There is no top ten lists for any of the jobs in that game at all.
They just released a big nerf patch on there servers. There has been nerfed popular foods, Auction house fees raised to the roof, among other things. There hasn't been any press releases saying "This is why we did this" or "were sorry but it was for the game"
My point is communication between the Everquest Devs and there players is actually pretty good. Yeah we may not always agree with what they say or do, but they are there and they are listening. There are plenty of MMO's out there were we don't have that level of communication that Everquest does. I think we tend to lose track of that.
I hope that the lower server trends are not pernament because Everquest has been the best MMORPG I've played. I'm sure that even if they have to resort to server mergers, or anything of that degree, it will still be around. I wouldn't be suprised one bit if people are still playing EQ 5-10 years from now.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 17, 2004 10:48 PM
One thing I might tell people who play these games for the first time. One thing to drastically incrase your enjoyment: don't read the forums. Its just too depressing out there and I really think, sometimes, that they suck the enjoyment out of people who go read them.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on December 18, 2004 12:33 AM
Menleniel, the use of the word "clueless" wasn't really meant as a jab at anyone in particular - so sorry if it offended. There's always going to be a few people asking for something the devs won't do and that most of the community doesn't see much justification for - that's what I was intending to express. It's got to be a painful experience for a dev to log onto a forum and see people flaming them, their game, and their company all because they wouldn't do something that, to them, just doesn't make sense to do.
Teremar - good point, and yes, all of this has been said before - some of it by SOE themselves. I find it interesting and disheartening that not only do we still have the same problems after so long, but also that they don't seem to support even the solutions they themselves put in place.
(FYI, I'd cut Brenlo and the EQ1 people some slack tonight at least, all the EQ2 servers have been down since about noon EST today - first for a short patch to fix a bug, then for a rollback to server startup this morning, and who knows what they're trying now. There's a BIG fire burning in San Diego at the moment, and the EQ1 team is working side by side with the EQ2 team to try and get it fixed. Brenlo and Moorgard both probably aren't getting any sleep tonight, or any of the other names we're used to occasionally hearing from.)
SFG,
Good point about the exploits and that's always a sticky one. I don't mean to imply that we need minute technical details on every fix. It shouldn't be too hard to say "we corrected an exploit that allowed players to dupe platinum" and leave it at that though.
I totally agree with you on the content. EQ isn't really lacking content, it's lacking a reason for players to want to experience that content. My gameplay experience the first two years was probably the best of my entire time in EQ, and precisely because I was out adventuring in the WORLD - not just in 3 or 5 "exp" zones. Unfortunately for SOE's dev team - this is a problem that they themselves have created. Each additional expansion focused players more and more on the high end, and what once was something that only crazed powergamers did has become the norm for anyone under level 50 - exp grinding.
Grind is a four-letter word in my book and any time it comes up in reference to any game system, something is wrong with that game system.
This is why I say that the biggest thing EQ1 needs is a redesign. EQ2 is doing as well as it is because it essentially is that redesign. The only business reason I can think of to not start getting the coffin ready for EQ1 at this point is the system requirements. SOE can capitalize on this and have two great games, but they need to take the initiative now and fix the underlying core issues with EQ1. At the same time they can do enough to differentiate it from EQ2 so that it really, truly is a different game and a different style. The Norrath of EQ2 is an era of rediscovery, of rebuilding. The Norrath of EQ1 is an age of heroes and struggles of epic proportions. When I play EQ2 I expect to be involved in reclaiming the shattered lands. When I play EQ1 I expect to be saving the world from the latest machinations of the gods, or the latest threats from beyond.
EQ1 still has a lot of potential - but in order to keep a viable player base, they have got to get the basic gameplay focus moved back from the leveling treadmill and the high-level raids to something more fun for everyone.
Comment Posted by: Talaen on December 18, 2004 12:36 AM
Loral,
Very true. I crawl forums and post news for my guild, along with one of my officers who does as well. But I would never wish that experience on a new player.
I also don't agree with spoiler sites. I will admit there have been times where I was just plain stuck on something and had to consult one, but by and large for me, hearing people choose quests based on results posted in a spoiler site is like someone telling me how the movie ends while I'm standing in line to get the ticket. Of course, given the state of most of EQ1's quests at this point in the game, I can't say I blame them too much - but there was a time when my Aegis of Life was a sought-after item, dammit. Sigh, the good old days....
Comment Posted by: Amphitryon on December 18, 2004 02:23 AM
I think it is a false hope, that is hoping for the return of players because of another expansion or that they will get tired of the new games.
GoD proved that an expansion can have the exact opposite effect, sending players packing rather than coming home. If you browse the server forums, you will see long term EQ retirees coming out of the woodwork for games like WoW or EQ2. Going back to EQ is NOT an option for these people.
Confidence has been lost in the ability of EQ to attract people (aside from people buying lvl 70 EBay accounts). Its not holding the long term players, and new (as true, 1st time MMOG'er N00b) players hardly exist anymore (they havent for some time now)
Since EQ is so raid centric, the only way to have the critical mass of people for a raid is going to be merging the servers,. The alternative being watering down the content so fewer people can do it or having large amounts of content being inaccessbile simply due to lack of people. Either way clas balance will go even further askew (personally I dont think the classes can be balanced in any way that the majority of the playerbase will accept)
Bottom line is EQII & Wow have the element of the fresh start, the ability to start over and actually do things people havent been doing 5 times a week for the last 4 years. I also cannot ignore the sheer amounts of fun people are having in the new games. Its got people excited again, and hopeful for a change.
EQ is NOT at its peak as a game anymore. What goes up must come down (it entropy plain and simple)
Comment Posted by: Dust on December 18, 2004 04:56 AM
Pants = Eloran? Is that you? :P
Comment Posted by: Vatyrae on December 18, 2004 05:46 AM
[edited out personal attacks, email loral@loralciriclight.com if you want to talk about it]
Class balance?They cant fix classes because the code for the game is so out of wrack that if they even try they will just muck up more stuff.
Lets take the flagging issue..in the last 3 days
we have had a 9hr,7hr and now a 3 hr patch to try to work things out.
If the Devs would just come out and say ...sorry
we can not do this it is what it is and I think most of us that love EQ would be fine with it.
But to have some kind of utopian dream about
a game and its code is just that a dream,its not going to get better,they may make it easier but not better.Accept that and move on.
Comment Posted by: Katahn on December 18, 2004 10:58 AM
When it comes to the mythical "class balance" what is really needed in an MMO is to have a defined number of "roles" that is less than the maximum size of one group. Now a role can equal a class if there are fewer of them than there are group spots, but otherwise the inevitable is that players will latch onto the most efficient combinations of certain classes, use them, and the others become out of favor in the community.
Class balance in EQ is really nothing more than SOE identifying what they want their grouping roles to be, and then assigning classes to those roles. Classes assigned to "ranged DPS" should all be capable of doing the same level of "ranged DPS" and classes that are assigned to "healing" should be able to cover the role of healer in a group equally as well. Also, either every class is able to solo as well as every other class, or no class should be able to solo through some mechanism (perhaps mandatory grouping to even get xp).
Why? As much as that sounds like class blending, its really necessary. The longer it takes to level up, and the less solo-friendly the game is overall, the more of a disincentive exists to start over. "Why bother" is what folks say, they talk about being willing to restart except for things like flagging, keying, getting geared up, and accumulating the power to get to the point where the only really new content is being added.
EQ2 has an interesting approach in their class balancing, via the archetype system and branching out. Its got its rough spots but overall seems to (so far) work pretty decently. Mind you the real obstacle is the community playing EQ2 using the same assumptions as EQ1, but so it goes. I even had someone insist that an enchanter was "required", folks who only want a cleric to heal, others who have told me that my Adept III Tellurian Crawler (a very powerful version of that pet) "can't tank" (which is news to me and my pet, which has done an admirable job of taking hits and holding aggro....)
SFG makes some very good points though, and its something I've learned over time. The majority of forum posters in any MMO are children, either literally or figuratively who are there to whine.
I don't care if its a 50 year old business executive, or a 12 year old with a paper route, they want "to win" and have or be "the best" and will be upset with anything that prevents them from doing so. They can and will adopt unrealistic expectations of what can happen in what timeframe (the recent big crash over at eq2 is proof of this.) People will issue threats, stomp their feat, and throw temper tantrums. Now that I've learned to recognize that (having my own kids helps) its actually kind of fun to read message boards sometimes.
Mind you not all, and not spoilers (I like learning that stuff for myself), but some of the whining can be truly hilarious reading, and occasionally some very good points are made by it.
Comment Posted by: Abalieno on December 18, 2004 08:34 PM
Loral writes:
--
A few older zones had their experience modifiers increased including Shadeweaver's Thicket, Kurn's Tower, Unrest, Crystal Caverns, Solusek's Eye, Katta Castellum, Lower Guk, Nagafen's Lair, and Umbral Plains. These new hot zones should help get newer players into zones they might otherwise skip for newer content. I like the idea behind hotzones. Without too much effort, older zones become much more desirable than they once were.
--
Rod Humble writes (answering to myself):
--
As for the hotspots, no, the original intent was not to change populations in underused zones. It was to assist a more casual playstyle (whatever "casual" means in this case it just meant how some folks including myself play.)
Many of us in at SoE are casual players, its been an ongoing joke that I play a character upto level 23 then restart, then I discovered another person who played that way, then another, then another. Obviously we were not doing something right for people like us. If there were 4 people in the studio who played that way there must surely be many others out there.
This combined with the refrain I kept hearing from experienced players that "anybody can get to level 50 in a week" started to grate on my neves after all I know I cant do that..... so we took a look around..
We did some data farming and sure enough there was a big dropoff around certain key levels in player activity as a percentage of their numbers which shot back up again at later levels (when for various reasons there is a ton of more stuff to do).
Well EQ is in a pretty rare position of having more content than most casual players can ever handle so why not hit the level ranges where casual players have the biggest barren patches and give them a boost?
This combined with Marks comments about "why are developers afraid of letting players get to the top?" struck a chord with me. After all "hardcore" players get to the "top" anyway and they can still enjoy playing so why not extend that to a wider audience?
After all we WANT people to succeed and experience all of the fun content, we have years of it just waiting for folks to experience we dont want to put roadblocks in their way we want to take barriers away and give them a boost.
My initial suggestion was to alter the experience tables but the design team prefered "hot spots" as it would also bring people together so they were more likely to meet friends on the way up.
--
And it was a reply to something I wrote (beginning of May) that was mirroring what you say here:
--
Weren't hotspot introduced because of the basic problem of the umbalance of the PvE?
With the infinite and continuous addition of more zones and content it's obvious that large parts of these games are left completely unused. This is a general design problem that every PvE game presents. FFXI, DAoC and EQ. In general the new zones provide better rewards, so they simply replace the old ones. But the true result is that large parts of these worlds become obsolete, and the content, even if expanded continuously, is simply lost in a zero-value zone.
I thought that hot-spots were being added to recycle the value of unused parts of the game. If this is true the purpose is good but the application poor.
In my opinion you need "substance" even below the PvE. World of Warcraft is addressing the problem right at the base. The world is balanced because you move through the PvE with quests. Quests are equal to a value of *use*. You move around to *do things*. Each thing you do is connected to a part of a zone. So each zone is kept "balanced" because it has a solid role and value in your story and gameplay. The quest system keeps the world alive and working and, if done right, it means that no part of it will turn obsolete.
This is how I "read" the "hotspot" implementation and the supposed problem behind it.
--
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 18, 2004 09:59 PM
That's good information, Abalieno. Thank you.
Comment Posted by: Ckorik on December 19, 2004 11:10 AM
I've posted this before but it usually gets lost in the shuffle.
Hot spots are only needed becaue the exp reward is busted in EQ.
Frankly all zones should give the same exp reward (per mob lvl) with dungeons being normalized (per mob lvl) also.
What does that do? It means that you don't get people that refuse to go to X zone because the exp sucks.
Frankly it's sad that people go gonzo trying to get to elementals... why? Because you can get 2-3 more AA per hour there than pre-elemental at the same lvl. The risk is NOT that much more (Frankly if a bard can solo Fire tables why is Fire the best exp in the game when an entire group can wipe in BoT at the same lvl (65))
It's a very simple thing - normalize your exp and that stops people from trying to go nuts to get to those places... I never had a problem with most of the zones - it's just that I couldn't find a group most times due to the fact that everyone was going to the 'best' place for exp (Guk, Dreadlands, OS, Velks, Paludal, ME/Grey, BoT, Fire/Earth, etc as the game moved on).
If you normalize the exp across places so outdoor zone X is the same as any other - and dungeon X is the same as any other - then you don't have the 'where to go for best exp question... you have the 'where do we go to have the most fun?' question.
And that's the bottom line - people aren't thinking about the content when they 'grind' - because they are trying to level up way too much.
That's step 1... step 2 would be to start looking at balance as a 'gear level' issue - look at things and re-adjust loot rewards on monsters down - I know that's painful but it needs to be done - the old content is old - re-adjust your loot tables so your avarage groupd character from 1-65 is going to be 'elemental' by the time they hit 65 - just grouping (or questing if you can make quests fast and fun not week long grinds to frustration).
Frankly what you have to realise is that as the game moves forward you have to make sure that the 'challange' is no longer 1-50.. or 50-60... or even 60-65 (or 1-65) - it's now 1-70 WITH 150+ aa... that's a hell of a lot of difference. Your average grouped player (on release) could hit 1-50 within a year of normal playing in EQ - 1-50 within about 6 months on kunark's release..
Now... shoot I've been playing 4 years and I still haven't hit 150aa (130) and yet I've been to every zone in game except Time and Anguish. Yet if not for long standing membership with a group of people that don't care - well lets just say newer people are expected to have 70 150+ aa to hit the top end zones..
Frankly 70+ 150AA should be doable within 6 months to a year - that's a long time to be playing a game, and it shouldn't require pulling your teeth to get there.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 19, 2004 06:07 PM
There are so many other variables other than just dungeon or overland that experience values need to be different for just about every zone. An incomplete list of these other variables includes general pulling difficulty, zone complexity, zone location, various individual mob difficulties even within one level range (some mobs are just plain harder), travel time, corpse recovery difficulty, item rewards, and general popularity. Evening out the experience reward won't get people to spread out, they'll just go to the easiest zone.
Fire is a bad example because the experience reward there is a mistake that never got fixed. If you ask me, SOE should just stick a zone sweeper in there to make things a bit more dangerous. Fire has little risk for great rewards and it was never meant to be that way.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on December 20, 2004 07:01 AM
Loral Said :
"Fire is a bad example because the experience reward there is a mistake that never got fixed. If you ask me, SOE should just stick a zone sweeper in there to make things a bit more dangerous. Fire has little risk for great rewards and it was never meant to be that way."
....
if you think fire is a bad example then you would hate Muramite Proveing Grounds.. and Riftseekers Sanctum. both Fire level experience grinding areas.. with MPG having several areas were I know druids have soloed.
there are alot of alternatives to elemental plane experience now.. if your still stuck up on Elemental planes your not experienceing everquest. your just moping. :P
at level 70 MPG > Plane of Fire experience. and I can already hear the complaining in 2 expansions about how MPG/RS has leet experience compared to all the other zones.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 20, 2004 08:42 AM
The difficulty of MPG makes the experience there a reasonable reward. It's also an open zone that doesn't require a raid to enter. Same with Riftseekers, it isn't locked for raiders only and from what I understand its a pretty dangerous place to hunt.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 20, 2004 12:35 PM
Difference being that a sub-par tank can do well in fire and will me annihilated in MPG or RS. Fire is easy and safe mostly. MPG and RS has its share of wipes and dangers. In fact xp-wise including wipes and CRs, fire is still better than MPG and RS because its safe. MPG and RS aren't as it should be. Kudos to SoE for designing them that way.
Along the years, the players interaction has partially moved from in-game to off-line. Most probably because of fair share of griefing behavior that SoE has tried to prevent with instances among other ways. Probably because of the funneling of the player's progression within the game too. I would have preferred a much wider spectrum of progression and no instance whatsoever.
I don't know how much the off-line EQ activity has contributed or detracted to many player's experience but it is now one of the aspects that make EQ1 stand out. That's probably the whole point of having again Reps and Sony forums after a long period without. SoE is capitalizing on current EQ1' strengths. Yet they didn't find a way to keep it positive. They still have some odd way to ask customers for input yet put that input on hold indifinitely. To me, that can't a good move whatever the reason. For the community and SoE's own sake, they should either change the format or give it up entirely in its current form.
Back to lower levels: I'm not sure that hotspots will change the basic problem of having fun at those levels. If twinking and droppable gear has ruined it permanently and that xp boost is the only reward at hand at the moment, make it somehow worthwhile through faction, long lasting quests, tradeskills, toy effects, whatnot.
I'm sure people would love something special, an illusion, a different horse model, anything really. It doesn't have to be game breaking. Just throwing ideas, mind you.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 20, 2004 03:36 PM
I think players are pretty good at figuring out "expected xp per unit time" in various zones, and do take into account CRs, wipes, travel time, etc. The trouble is the answers come out heavily favoring a fairly small number of zones. This negates one of EQ's biggest strengths: its vast amount of content. Who cares how many zones you could be playing in if PC gives by far the best xp?
I would like to see SOE redress that imbalance, so people aren't penalized for exploring or playing in places they enjoy.
Hotspots do help people get groups, which is good. I just wish they'd move them around more often, especially at the lower levels, so it would help people see more zones. As it is now, maybe people see Unrest instead of PC, but by the time the hotspot moves again they've long since leveled past that point. I'd be in favor of moving the sub-40 hotspots every week, in the hopes that maybe at least some of the more casual people might see two or three zones per level range instead of one.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on December 20, 2004 04:37 PM
I have checked and Splitpawe has been revamped into another Uber high level zone (per Everquest) I can only pray it does not come live. As I have spoken before in other threads, I love the low and mid level game, and roaming searching for lore and dungeon crawling. Splitpawe was one of my favorate zones. I thought when then said they were going to revamp it, it would be with new graphics, fixed quests, and more interesting lore and mobs. I had heard the story about elementals over running the zone, but I thought they would be the level of the Twilight Sea elementals. Why did the take a great dungeon and kill it for the low to mid level players. In their own words, they said there was more characters below level 50 in the game. I am sorry I do not see the logic of this. If there was something about EQ that would make me stop playing, it is things like this. Splitpawe along with Mistmore, they just removed a large hunk of my EQ play time. It saddens me.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 20, 2004 05:59 PM
Good thoughts, Teremar.
I am very happy to see such excellent thought provoking comments this past week. Thank you all.
Here's a good question for the group: Based on Teremar's statement that EQ needs to play to its strength of lots of content, what sorts of things can they do to reenergize that content? Hotzoning it is one, but what other things that are cost effective to SOE could get people back into older zones?
I have a couple: Hotzoning like mentioned above, and continued use of the task system to send people on adventures throughout places they may not normally travel. Each expansion could have a taskmaster who sends you on adventures throughout that expansion on exploration, hunting, and collection tasks.
Comment Posted by: Ckorik on December 20, 2004 07:19 PM
Making Exp equal across all zones is only one part of my post.
You need to normalize exp as step one - that means people will look at *HOW* they want to play (low risk low item rewards vs high risk better equipment).
Step 2 is to get equipment up to par (as you have stated) but this needs to be done all across the board so that people can *GET* to the new 'content' they keep putting out.
If they are going to keep putting out expansions aimed at MOSTLY high end content - then they need to make the progress to that content quicker and with the equipment they need.
The time it takes to reach 'normal' end type level (lvl 65 with 150+ aa) should be the amount of time from the last expansion to the next one.
Otherwise why would you keep buying the newest expansions?
Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on December 20, 2004 11:36 PM
Making content worth viewing.
Screw XP. The original game had 40 levels and people enjoyed it for a long time. I can hit 40 in a few days.
What made the old game fun is the multitudes of quests at those levels, the fact that most of the quests gave an XP bonus worth having at those levels, and that the quests gave off gear worth having versus the time invested at those levels.
But the main issue is still getting new blood. The other stuff is mostly pointless if no one cares enough to pick up the box.
SFG
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 21, 2004 07:30 AM
The original game had 50 levels.
While many of us with a lot of experience and a lot of friends could hit the high levels very quickly if we worked at it, new players still take a while to reach the higher levels. It certainly isn't as hard as it used to be with tasks, LDONs, and all of that content out there, but it does take time.
Quests are a good way to bring people out into the bigger world. I would like to see smaller 2 hour quests for single-groups that offer bazaar-level rewards at all levels. These quests could also offer decent experience rewards but only at one time, not every time you do the quest.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 21, 2004 08:26 AM
You can't compare EQ1 pre-kunark and EQ1 today.
For one, you have a population problem. The spikes are probably around 60, 65 and 70 now. It doesn't mean that there aren't people lower, it just means that EQ needs a critical mass of players at lower levels for the game to BE fun. You can make it as fun and nice as you wish, if you're playing a solo game for 65 levels because everyone is in some higher level zone that would shred you to pieces, then you aren't having fun. It really ends there.
Original CT, great zone, great fun. Now empty. Fun: 0. Lower guk in '99, great zone, great fun, packed with people. Now? 0 people and 0 fun. And the list goes on. The problem is not the content per se. Those zones probably don't need anything but a revamped graphic but they need people and a lot of them to make any point going there. Hot spots can attract some and with so many zones out there, they probably have to make hotspots to concentrate the small population in those places. Yet to make it thriving they need to change some different in my opinion:
a) allow lower levels to group with level 70 gaining xp at their rate (fixed percentage of their current level.)
b) put coldain ring quest style of quest that run across many level and many zones with items that give utility (aka not armor, nor weapons, not focii) without being game breaking. Like a ds, an infinite charge of endure breath, night vision, resist buff, levi, invis (I wish), illusion, mount model or whatever else players may fancy that isn't class or level specific. Each step of the quest shouldn't take more than 2 hours and more than 1 group.
c) make factioning or tradeskilling give xp at whatever level and be it FUN, yes FUN, not insanely tedious (please make the whole tedium is good die...)
d) make tradeskilling and questing be good xp. Epic 1.5 and 2.0 give AAs. It's a very good thing. More quests like the new epic please. And with balanced RvR...
Questing, factioning, farming tradeskill drops should give very good xp, be spread around zones, be a cross-class, cross-level thing and a valid alternative to keep people entertained.
Back to xping topic: There always will be places where xp is better by the level of the mobs squared. The more melee centric, the better. If/when SoE doesn't think well through the mix of classes of the mobs or doesn't tune them well, you can have an equal ZEM (zone exp modifier) across all zones and still have people in 3 or 4 zones because the mobs are higher level and more melee centric. It will be a recurrent problem in the way they design mobs, one time having casters too dangerous, another completely gimp. Mob level makes zones obsolete. Itemisation makes them obsolete. Aka zone revamps. Yet I have to see a single revamped zone with decent RvR in a long time (last was CT iirc).
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 21, 2004 10:36 AM
In addition to what I've said before, embrace twinking. No, I'm serious. EQ's #2 problems at low levels (right after not enough groups) are the slow pace and the downtime. Twinking alleviates both problems.
Of course I don't just mean for those with high level friends or mains--anyone past about level 20 can easily twink themselves in the Bazaar (lower if you're willing to put some time into it). But getting cool gear ought to be part of the fun at any level, and buying stuff in the Bazaar just doesn't cut it. SOE needs to look at how much money people generally have at each level and what's available in the Bazaar at those prices. Then they need to reitemize the low level zones so that they drop items which are at least as good. Make them no drop to limit further swamping of the Bazaar. Creativity is always good, but if there's no time/money to make new items just copy the items everyone twinks with anyway.
Does it make the game easier? Not really--most people will push themseleves as hard as they can in order to get xp as quickly as possible. So fighting yellows becomes normal rather than blues--I agree with those who say xp should come faster at the lower levels so people can get to the part of the game where the real action is, so that's okay.
Of course someone will soon complain about 60+ people who still don't know how to play the game. But I'd say the fundamental problem there is that the high level game is now so different from the low level game. You could revamp the lower level zones to be more similar (all single pulls who hit like trucks) but frankly the low level game is a lot more fun than the high level game so I wouldn't recommend it...
Comment Posted by: Braxis on December 21, 2004 11:47 AM
What the game needs is higher density of players at lower levels. I brought up a similar idea a year or so ago, but I like to re-introduce it with a few more ideas.
EQ needs a dedicated new player friendly server or servers. A server designed from the ground up to introduce new players to EQ.
The server would have a level cap, the level cap doesn't really matter could be level 30, but I think level 45 or 50 would be better. At any time a player could elect to transfer to any of the live servers for FREE. Alternatives might have to be given for Firona Vie and the PvP servers.
This server would be designed for new players in mind and veterans who want to have a fresh EQ experience without the headaches of level 70 bots monopolizing their favorite zones. This would allow both new and veterans players to find new friends and enjoy the game like it was meant to be.
The server should have both original EQ zones and expansion zones that reflect the level cap of the server.
Both Quests and Itemization should be revamped throughout to reflect the realities of the game past the level cap.
I can't see why any new player would renew their subscription after the first month when there isn't anyone to meet or group with because new players are spread so thin among the 40 servers with dwindling populations. Put everyone together and you have a better chance to renew your player-base from the ground up. The worst thing you can have is a server where there isn't anyone else to meet, talk to, or group with.
-Braxis
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 21, 2004 11:57 AM
Imho I don't think that making everything no drop is the answer either. The attunable system seems a nice compromise without requiring item decay.
I like the single low level server. Many won't put up with the lack of high level support though when they actually level a needed class, be it a tank, healer or CC.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 21, 2004 01:22 PM
I think the last thing EQ needs is another dedicated-rules server. The forums already flood with calls for server consolidation.
The theory is correct, though. EQ needs more low level players. Now its a very mature game with a large amount of players who went pretty far over the years and go pretty high. This group is also the most vocal.
Rather than a new server I would like to see new features given at the low level to both entice older players to not only play again but stay at those levels. When the new tutorial quest and new armor quests came out, I started up a new Berserker to try them out. I got him to level 9, the time when he had is new armor and got a nice axe in the bazaar, but then put him on hold. Tasks got me to try him out a bit more, but I would like to see something more.
Again, I go back to quests, improved tasks, and LDON-style content. If they put in more mini-raid content in controlled instanced environments at different levels, even high-end players might go back to older content.
Adding in a new Epic 0.5 that a level 40 single-group hunter could accomplish would get new players a new goal without wanting to just rush out to the high end but also get older players to want to go back and get it.
Other features like alt-tracking, improved friends lists, tell forwarding and other communcation improvements would help people stay connected when they do decide to try out an alt.
You have to get people to NOT WANT to twink, which is really hard. People want levels, but you want people to realize that by leveling too quickly, they miss a lot of good content and can never go back.
I'm just throwing ideas out there, I don't even know if any of these are practical, but I do think EQ would improve by getting new players to play and older players to play lower level alts. That's the only way to get more low and mid-level folks into the game.
Comment Posted by: ubu on December 21, 2004 04:09 PM
I disagree with the call to embrace twinking. In fact, I think one of the best examples of Sony giving the players what they wanted instead of what they needed was in backing off from the restrictive recommended and required levels they were putting on items, around Luclin.
My 39 ranger is running around with gear my 65 enchanter acquired for him. Because of that, I have no NEED to go to many zones or work many quests. I completely blew off the Ivy quests (which I was working on in my 20's over a year ago before I took a hiatus); I spent less than 5k in the Bazaar and equipped myself far better.
Now the counter-argument is that I could STILL take my 65 enchanter to those zones and farm gear for my ranger, and that's true. So what else is needed? Increased use of No-Drop flag, and reviving the restrictions from old Stonebrunt regarding getting drops from green mobs.
This would require players to spread out, acquire their own loot, group up, and slow the progression through the levels. Oh wait, I forgot... no one wants to do that, do they? The whole *point* is to reach level 65 with 150AA and go raiding....
Could that be because they made the lower levels such a breeze with twinking? It's NOT the journey, it's the destination?
Comment Posted by: Braxis on December 21, 2004 04:10 PM
"I think the last thing EQ needs is another dedicated-rules server. The forums already flood with calls for server consolidation."
My idea wasn't for another special rules server, however, I guess you could call it that. The idea is to offer a place for low level characters to group and meet people on their way to becoming high level players.
You could consolidate servers but I don't think you could consolidate enough to force a high enough population in low level zones to foster grouping. You also would still force people to compete with BoT farmers and Powerlevelers, and the next popular expanison could produce overcrowding again. Not to say consolidation wouldn't be good, but don't think you could consolidate enough to help that level of the game.
Think of it as a Server Instance where everyone who starts a new character can elect to play till they are ready to leave. Similar to the Toturial but on a much larger scale.
Once you leave to your destination server, you are gone for good.
Because it is a closed economy and not effected by expanison level content, you could adjust the rules slightly to accomidate different play styles and rewards based on the mudflation of the current game.
When I first picked up EQ I didn't have friends already playing. The only reason I kept playing was I had fun meeting people, exploring, and advancing together. Without player density new players don't have the community veterans did when they first started.
-Braxis
Comment Posted by: ubu on December 21, 2004 04:26 PM
Braxis, now that might be an idea... a true Newbie server, level capped at 20, then a "Mids" server, capped at 50. Then an "upper" server limited to 65/50AA. From there, you have your choice of "main" servers. You cannot leave any server more than "ten percent" early or late. So you could play on:
Newbie: until 18-22
Mids: until 45-55
Upper: until 65/30AA-70AA (approx. guess)
Although I'm not sure that I'd make it four levels. Or I might change the Mids to a max 50 hard limit, so no AA's on that server.
Certain zones would not even "exist" on the given servers; there's no point in POP or OOW on Newbie servers, etc. The zone design would stay pretty much the same, and some zones would be universal (POK, ect.) This also cuts down hugely on twinking.
Comment Posted by: Solistic on December 21, 2004 05:26 PM
I actually think a "server" "instance area" that all new players have to start in, is a great idea. It probably can not be done with EQ1. But a world without players above a certain level, maybe 40. By that time you have had to learn to group with people and work with people, you could all choose to go to same server when you "Graduate" or go off on your own. I think something like that is a great idea to ponder.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 21, 2004 05:38 PM
With my last few new chars the very first thing I did, even before rolling them, was look for a good weapon for them to use. Good armor was secondary. Why? Because having a good weapon sped up the game and made it more fun. It's not that I wanted to speed up the leveling process--I wanted to speed up the staring at the screen with auto-attack on watching numbers scroll by with no real decisions to make process.
Still, EQ is a progression game. I'm all in favor of trying to get people to focus more on the journey than the destination, but telling people to forget about having a destination and go in circles isn't going to get very far.
I don't think SOE backed off on recommended/required levels. New items almost all have them. They're just not willing to go back through all the old items and apply them. Unless they change that, twinking (by which I mean using items you could not get yourself--even if you got the money yourself and bought it in the Bazaar) will continue to be universal.
I want people to want to do quests at low levels. I want them to care about drops. If SOE went and gave everything a recommended level so people in CB couldn't use anything better than the good old Dwarven Ringmail Tunic, that would do it. But that would also make the game slower and increase downtime. Not good in my book.
Or you can recognize that the people in CB are getting half their gear from Velks, and make the CB gear--drops and quests--good enough to interest them anyway. And they'll move from CB to Unrest or whatever a few levels earlier in search of better xp because they can. I don't see the problem.
Comment Posted by: on December 21, 2004 06:28 PM
The only thing that putting overly powerful loot in CB is, it would just flood the zone with higher level players farming for their twinks or worse yet farming for ebay.
Making the loot no drop wouldn't matter, they would either use secondary accounts so they could kill with one toon and loot with another, or have 'friends' help PL/twink them that way, circa pre-level limit fear.
Only if they implemented some type of trivial loot code would putting such powerful loot in the reaches of newbies/lowbies be a viable system.
If I am not mistaken, some variation of TLC is built into every new/recent game isnt it?
Comment Posted by: Kinladar on December 21, 2004 07:00 PM
Loral Said:
Quests are a good way to bring people out into the bigger world. I would like to see smaller 2 hour quests for single-groups that offer bazaar-level rewards at all levels. These quests could also offer decent experience rewards but only at one time, not every time you do the quest.
-------------------------------------------------
You just described WoW and to a lesser degree EQ2 to a T Loral, that is why so many people enjoy those games, quests are not all long endurance events. Look at that idiotic Breakdown in Communications Quest. Purest example I can think of where the attempt to make everything a huge drawn out time sink back fired.
Also Loral, you are 100% wrong when you state that "When people's ideas are shot down" etc etc etc.... so many of those issues have been stated as under discussion for months, and over all, at it's peak, we had dozens of replies on the Ranger's boards with well thought out ideas, parses, and concepts for fixes to the class. Only now is anything even showing up.
Add to this fact that they asked us for the top ten issues lists.
Also, to comment on your premise that with each expansion numbers rise, I would hazard an uneducated guess that since WoW and EQ2 followed right on the heels of OoW release, that they did not see that peak once again of players.
I know for a fact with some of the nerfs by ommission in the Ranger class, IE the harmony exclusion, and now introduction, they lost many long time players to other games when they were inflexible about giving us a lull spell for pulling, even though in the Middle of GoD, Monks got a single target lull, the first time ever, and then get an upgrade in OoW.
Sorry Loral, those are just some examples of poor game design, and inflexibility, because we were on them during the OoW beta to include a lull for Rangers, and were ignored, then told on the Ranger's glade it was quite intentional to omit it. We were told that to get something for Rangers, we had to be willing to give something up.
We'd already been giving up Archery, because to hear the Devs talk, it was a mistake that archery took such a key role in Ranger DPS. Yet that was one of the few things that made Rangers wanted for a long time.
This is simply the Ranger's perspective, I know that Chanters, Shaman, and many other classes have thier own stories to tell. The simple truth is, SoE needs to put more money into EQ if they want it to continue as a real viable product, because the simple reality is, they made this game to require large numbers for progression, and that is getting hard to come up with now.
Comment Posted by: ubu on December 21, 2004 07:47 PM
This is why I like Braxis' idea even better than mine. The more I think about it, the more I like it. There's a slew of advantages, though it would be a huge amount of work, both on the physical side (rearranging the server farm & routers) and game side (editing quests). I figure about 2-3 servers per tier until the 50+ level.
Lets say:
>>Tier I Servers: Lvl 1-25. Tradeskills limited to 100.
These servers have a limited number of zones:
Old World: minus Lguk, Sol A&B, Permafrost, CT, and The Hole.
Kunark: minus everything but Cablis E&W, FOB, Kurns, and LOIO.
Luclin: only Shar Vahl, Bazaar, Hollowshade, Shadeweaver, PC, Nexus, Shadow Haven, Netherbian Lair, Marus Seru.
Shadowrest.
POKnowledge to stitch it all together.
((Emphasis here is on getting into the game, questing, etc.))
>>Tier II Servers: Lvl 18-50. Tradeskills limited to 200.
Add all the old world zones back in except maybe the Hole.
Add all of Kunark except Chardok, HS, Droga, Seb, and VP.
Add all of Velious from Iceclad through Great Divide. (no Kael, VL, ST, or early planes).
Add all of Luclin in except ME, AC, AR, GE, Grey, Ssra, VT (IOW, the 50+ zones)
Add LDON.
((Emphasis here is on more leveling, quests, learning difficult dungeons, and beginning raids)
>>Tier III Servers: Level 45-60 (w/20AA) Old tradeskill limit of 1 @250.
All zones through Luclin + LDON + POK + old planes.
((Emphasis here is on gearing up and climbing into the early planes; serious raiding, epic 1.0))
Tier IV Servers: 50-Unlimited.
All zones.
((Endgame))
The only problems I see here are that I'd like to put a division between POP and post-POP content, in order to keep the population density up for raiding POP, but I think five tiers is too many. The alternative would be to make tier II run through 50, and Tier III run through POP, but that means Vox and Naggy would be beyond endgame content for the Tier II people, and trivial for Tier III. Maybe five tiers woudln't be that bad...
All caps are soft caps--once you hit max level, you can accumulate one more level's worth of xp but NOT advance to it without jumping to the next tier. Each tier overlaps the next somewhat so players could speed through if their sole interest was just getting a character up to raiding level. Progressive transfers are free, but "lateral" ones cost $$.
The fewer number of servers at lower levels increases the density so that the old world content is no longer wasted due to lack of raid forces, and at the same time keeps away competition from L70 farmers.
The real beauty is it restores the social aspect of the game that has been semi-destroyed by exclusionary/raid guilds. A newbie guild will never be anything BUT a newbie guild. It may have links with (or even be a branch of) a high level raiding guild, but it will be organized around doing things at its own level.
The rading guilds will naturally recruit from these lower guilds, enabling friends to move up together from server to server if they want.
The only bad things I can see about it are:
1. Prevents twinking and PL'ing by those who only value the end game and just want to get another character to it. (of course, that's also a good thing....)
2. MASSIVE amount of work to reorganize the game around this concept, and move characters to the appropriate servers.
Still, I am going to kick it around a bit more and see if there's any public support for the idea.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 21, 2004 10:29 PM
Kinladar, I disagree with most of what you said except the last sentence. I agree that too much emphasis on high-end raid progression took place since PoP. It got better since Omens, but not completely.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 22, 2004 08:14 AM
"My hobby sucks to me so it has to suck for
others too"
For the sake of the quality of the thread can't we drop the self-serving one-sided bias for once?
Providing less raiding content isn't per se a good thing. Never will in EQ1. What matters is how it is balanced, made accessible and what other options other players may have.
Thinking that removing fun to others is in any way going to provide more to non raiders is a very foolish thing to do. Chances are they won't either.
Comment Posted by: Kinladar on December 22, 2004 08:56 AM
Loral,
You state you disagree with mostly everything I have said, but what does EQ really offer in quests that are achievable at all levels, that gain a signifigant amount of Exp (few quests have ever given adequete exp gains in my opinion,) and do not take at least a couple days to achieve the final objective?
WoW and EQ2 are more of a task based, quest driven experience gaining systems. EQ looses alot of appeal, since in many ways the only ways to get top notch EXP is to kill the same mobs, over and over and over and over again. IE it gets really boring.
People have been complaining about the grind aspect in EQ for as long as I can remember. They've had ample opportunities to correct that for the same amounts of time as well.
Alot of people quit during GoD times, due to how badly that expension was received, and I will grant you, many people did come to EQ when GoD was released, since it was marketed as an expansion for everyone etc... and it turned out to be the opposite. I know some of my friends came back for a month to "try out eq again" due to GoD's promises at the time.
They left again shortly there after, and did not spend any money on OoW after being burnt so badly on GoD.
I'd like to see current subscriber information, not something that is almost a year old now. It'd be interesting to see if they can still claim over 400k subscribers now, much less 500k.
You see Loral, I am not specifically bashing EQ at all, I am looking at it from a realistic third party position, because I see flaws in WoW, and EQ2 as well in many areas.
But overall, WoW and EQ2 have fewer flaws in general game play, and direction due to the facts they are younger, and have not had 4-5 different desig teams over the years. Time will tell if they are able to keep thier visions intact, and continue in the ways they have already begun with.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 22, 2004 11:30 AM
Reality check: Wander through any sub-40 zone some time and see what people are equipped in. Want to guess what proportion of it drops from mobs the person wearing it could kill? 20 percent? Less? Even someone starting from scratch will soon find they are better off taking their plat to the Bazaar and buying gear than relying on drops and quests. And that's without going out of their way to make money.
As a result, any gear that drops is just vendor fodder and doing quests is a joke. I think doing meaningful quests and getting useful drops are fun. But for that to happen you have to go one of two ways.
One is to go back and make recommended and required levels universal (and it has to be both--some OoW gear with recommended levels in the 60's are still overpowered at level 10). Then there will be nothing better available than what you can get for yourself. It is true that this is what other games do. But other games are also much faster-paced than EQ, and just plain less frustrating at low levels. Basically this would be a massive nerf to the power of low level chars, especially melees, and I'm not at all convinced that would be good for the game at this point. Do you really think making Minotaur Axes standard equipment in the teens again is going to attract more players?
The alternative is to just accept that gear has improved and make low level drops comparable to what is easily buyable in the Bazaar. Yes, they need to be no drop: the whole point is to bring back the idea of getting things for yourself at low levels. There is plenty of sellable gear to fill in holes and reward earning money already. As for people getting seperate accounts so they can farm CB for their twinks, that may or may not be more efficient than the current methods of equipping twinks, but it's hardly anything new.
Shifting gears: I really like the idea of a newbie server, but don't you realize it's going to take more work to make a server with fewer zones? The easiest thing for SOE to do is to slap down a new server just like all the others (or perhaps reuse an old one after a merge), not allow transfers to it, add the soft level cap, and give free transfers with gear off of it at any time. No other special rules with special coding required.
Comment Posted by: ubu on December 22, 2004 12:28 PM
It will take more work the first time (a huge amount of work!) but the key is that there are NO differences to the zones on the newbie servers, save one: the zonelines to missing zones don't work. That might require a program change to simplify it in the long run, but I bet the simplest expedient for a quick-and-dirty change would be to change the "target point" of the zoning to be within the zone itself.
Anyway, I've played with the idea some more and posted it in the Newbie Zone on sony's boards, so of course it's getting a "positive, fair, and uplifing review" from the masses. i.e.: they're screaming it would kill the game. :-)
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=TNZ&message.id=142596
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 22, 2004 12:52 PM
Kinladar, I wasn't specific enough in my posting and I apologise. I disagree with any conclusion made from statistics we don't have. We don't know how many people left, we don't know why they left, we don't know how many rangers want what, all we know are the few people we talk to. I'm not going to get into class issues, but I hear the same thing from nearly every other class.
I do agree, however, that EQ2 and WoW reminded us how much fun quests can be. However, at level 21 in EQ2 I am finding more quests to be tedius than entertaining. Many of the entertaining ones end up not being that rewarding (Book of the Rat Queen). It is also hard for me to find more blue and white quests so I have a journal full of green quests. Some of those green quests give great rewards, some give terrible ones, and I don't know which are which. Now I still enjoy EQ2 but it slowed down a lot for me at level 20.
SOE should steal any idea they can from other games that fit well into EQ1. They should rebuild and add new quests. They should modify or enhance the task system to include item rewards. They should add group tasks and quests (something I haven't yet seen in EQ2). They should focus on the single-group as the single unit in Everquest and do everything they can to help form groups and send them off on wild adventures.
Yes, the bazaar became the best place to get new equipment. One way to combat this is to add level ranges onto just about every item that needs it. Then offer quest rewards with higher power at lower levels. Lets say I can go to the bazaar at level 35 and buy a 10 / 21 dagger, but I can complete a quest and get a 15 / 25 dagger instead. Recommended and required levels on items give SOE the flexability to always insure that at any level, quest gear will be better than bazaar gear. Some people will still prefer the bazaar gear and its certainly easier to get, but the option for better gear is given to those who achieve it the hard way.
Comment Posted by: Braxis on December 22, 2004 12:52 PM
Breaking up servers and moving people around based on tiers is not what I meant. Definetly an interesting idea but I think it would never get off the ground because of the sheer man hours and testing needed.
Keeping things simple is the best way to go, especially starting out. Sony could create a pilot project where, they create a new server with a level cap.
This server would be recomended to new players and avilable to veterans who want an alternative. The goal is not to stop twinking or slow advancement but to increase low level player density to foster community.
Level Cap 45 to 50, players can elect to /movelog to any current Live server for free at anytime. Oneway only can't /movelog back. So if someone is ready to leave at level 10 then great off they go, if they want to stay to 50 that's their choice. If they never want to level past 50 and stay on that server, again their choice.
The development team could make special modifications to improve the 1 to 50 game on this server alone over time.
They could increase expierence rate gain.
Improve Health and Mana regen rates.
Improve Corpse Recovery and Death System.
Revamp drop taples to better reflect equipment avilable in the bazaar on Live Servers.
Improve quests rewards for both newbie armor and quests level 10 to 50. Add additional quests that would entice veterans to roll up an Alt and give the server a try.
This server should be optional, and would provide a test bed to improve content for the 1 to 50 game.
-Braxis
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 22, 2004 01:51 PM
"Lets say I can go to the bazaar at level 35 and buy a 10 / 21 dagger, but I can complete a quest and get a 15 / 25 dagger instead."
Exactly--except I'd be reasonably content if you could just get a 10/21 dagger by your own efforts. But to do so will require putting 10/21 daggers in level 35 zones. Mudflation? Not if people already have them. It's really just a recognition that mudflation has already taken place.
Comment Posted by: Kinladar on December 22, 2004 02:29 PM
The adding more stuff for groups is fine too Loral, but the aspect of the very casual gamer, who may only be able to get online for an hour or two needs to be seriously addressed as well.
More, and consistent solo content that any and all classes can take advantage of needs to be created. The task system is a poor substitute for a real solution to this problem.
Trying to get people to group more in EQ has always had lack luster results at best. Utter failure in others. By being so adamant on enforcing a group based model in EQ, and making changes that adversely (granted some unintentional) affected the soloists in game have also driven a good number of people away.
Such as for instance, yes I can arrow kite mobs in Fire, or even in WoS etc... just like my lower levels as a ranger, but that was never as efficient as Fear Kiting prior to level 55.
They need to put more thought into ways that everyone can have a viable way to solo, group, or raid at will.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 22, 2004 07:08 PM
Really, that's can't be so hard to have all new characters start in a single server where at any time they may choose to movelog to their final destination. That would solve by and large the critical mass needed for lower level grouping.
Attunable + level required gear would go a long way into fixing twinking imho and be tested and enforced there to be later replicated all other if it works.
Wouldn't that be simple and straightforward?
Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm on December 24, 2004 03:20 AM
Okay.. making the game newbie friendly is good, I'm not necessarily against the "newbie server" idea (although I've got mixed feelings as to whether it's good or bad) but here's my question:
Regardless of the newbie-friendly changes (if any) HOW do you get *NEW* people playing?
Even the long term semi-retired vets, who might get a temporary renewed interest, aren't going to save server populations. New bodies fresh to the game are the only thing that's going to accomplish that.
How do you get a newbie to pick up the box when EQ2 is out?
SFG
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 25, 2004 06:02 AM
Because people hate straight jackets? Give some time for the hype to placate and you possibly have a number of new people that would prefer a graphically revamped EQ1 to EQ2. That is if SoE would actually do his homework and bring old content and models up to par. I'm not convinced that providing new content would be enough.
Comment Posted by: on December 25, 2004 12:33 PM
I just wanted to chime in about something I continuly read and feel strongly about.
I dont think people realize just how many EQ'ers were literally offended with the GOD expansion. I bought it, for 2 accounts, and only stepped there once. I dont know what it was about the expansion, but after being there for minutes, I never went back.
The people I knew who raided hated it too. After a month, they couldnt get anyone to log in for GOD raids. It just wasnt worth it. They could get 5x the loot in 1/4 the time by doing POP. They simply couldnt get anyone to waste their time.
The only real point to this is that I honestly think they shot themselves in the foot with GOD. Myself, and most of my friends from EQ left shortly after GOD, and the ones I've kept in touch with have no intention of going back, ever.
I know that terms like "a slap in the face" have lost alot of their sting, but I really and truely felt that they (SOE) insulted me. The people who left around the same time feel exactly the same.
On a side note, almost all of them now play World of Warcraft, most having been offered beta slots because of their guilds, and then buying the game on release.
Striken, X-cleric of Xegony
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 25, 2004 03:04 PM
Insulted seems a little mellodramatic for a $30 game investment. I hated a lot of games in the past but I don't think I'd every say I was insulted by the company. Well, perhaps in the case of Sewer Shark.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that we're talking about a game here, not a government or our family or our job, sometimes we get $30 worth, sometimes we don't.
Certainly a lot of people with characters level 45 and below got very little from GoD. With Omens they got mostly tributes, something I hope to see improved in January. LDON, I still contend, is the best EQ expansion I've seen. Others disagree, but it is the only expansion with over 90% of its content available to everyone levels 20 to 70. I'd like to see more expansions like that.
Comment Posted by: on December 26, 2004 09:17 AM
I wasnt being melodramtic.
If someone offers to take you out to eat, and when the bill comes, they say they have no money, and ask you to pay. Now, lets say the bill is only 10 bucks. Not much money right? (1/3 what GOD cost)
Would you be offended?
Now, a week later, that same friend offers to take you out to dinner again. Would you go out with em again?
They advertised an expansion that I didnt meet others expectations, I think most of us could agree on that. And then, before even fixing GOD, they announced the release of OOW! That was the kick in the teeth.
And again, I'm not speaking only of me, I'm speaking of the 20 or so people I knew well enough in game to call "Friend". No, its not hard data, its not even a fraction of the percentage of people who play even during off-peak hours.
Its the way that myself, and a few people I know, felt. I only posted to see if any others felt the same.
In a nutshell, I wasnt being melodramatic.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 26, 2004 02:41 PM
I can relate to that. The overall feeling I have is that people felt cheated by SoE when they had to sit outside of single group content because they couldn't add sufficient value. Be it in single group content or by the major shortcomings and changes of the raid content, people felt cheated by an order of magnitude compared to any previous expansion.
It doesn't have to be melodramatic to express deep ressentment and distrust due to SoE's irresponsible behavior.
It seems Sony management didn't take heed till they realized that the distrust would turn into lost sales for omens and cancellation.
Oddly they corrected many error for Omens but seemingly too late for many.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on December 27, 2004 03:34 AM
I can empathize with the melodrama. Yes, it's only a game. But it's also a huge part of our lives.
Think of the time invested, the friends made, the goals achieved...but almost all of that has meaning only in the context of the game. Everything we've invested depends on having a game to play that's worth playing.
And that depends on SOE making a fun game. That's why people get so upset when SOE makes mistakes. That's why people become so negative when they perceive SOE as incapable of not ruining the game.
Because when SOE goofs badly enough, and the game isn't fun any more, all we're left with is memories, and hopefully some friends. For myself I feel like it's not a lot to show for all the time I put in. If I had known what then SOE was going to do with the game, I definitely would have quit as soon as LDoN got old. I could have passed on PoP too if it weren't for the PoK portals. But I kept clinging to the hope that EQ would become fun again, because I didn't want to see my huge time investment wasted. Classic throwing good money after bad--I won't make that mistake again.
Comment Posted by: Loral on December 27, 2004 03:52 PM
"And then, before even fixing GOD, they announced the release of OOW! That was the kick in the teeth."
You're being melodramatic again.
I was disappointed with GoD but mainly because of how much I liked the direction LDON took with the game. I don't feel like I got kicked in the teeth or slapped in the face. Even though I was disappointed, I spent hundreds of hours in Gates having a lot of fun, so it was still well worth $30. I paid $50 for "Enter the Matrix" for crying out loud, now that was a slap in the face!
The vocal Everquest community (a small subset of the total EQ community who is mostly silent) has a problem of being unable to separate melodrama from details. Instead of saying "I didn't like how little content I, a level 36 rogue, received with my purchase of GoD" we say "SOE broke their trust with their customers and the game is dying!"
We each are customers and our own opinions are each very valid. There is no need to try to give the (often false) impression that we represent everyone or even a large group. You and your 20 friends didn't like GoD and felt it wasn't worth $30. Thats a good point and worth communicating. Rather than getting into some breech of trust discussion, how about just telling them why you didn't like it. Was it too hard? Was there too much raid content? Were there not enough quests for single-groupers? Was there no clear and consistant gear progression for non-raiders? Was there not enough (any) content for people below 55? Did you hate the environments or the models or the battles you fought? Were there not enough new features? All of those are useful bits of feedback. Saying SOE violated your trust and kicked you in the teeth is not.
I'm not trying to pick on anyone here, I'm just trying to help find a way for useful feedback to help alter the game into the game we want it to be.
Here are two things I would love to see the vocal EQ community realize.
- It is impossible for any single one of us to speak for more than the people we know personally. It doesn't matter anyway, our opinions are valid regardless of how many agree with us.
- Effect doesn't always reveal cause. Some have trouble finding groups but it doesn't necessarily mean their class sucks. Pointing out the problem is more important than trying to define a solution. Even if you offer a solution, make sure to articulate the problem.
- Speak from facts, not emotion. How angry you are won't help SOE fix problems; detailed information and suggestions will.
- Don't make up statistics you don't know. "Most players have left EQ for WoW" and "Most players want a backflag solution" and "Most clerics want higher DPS" aren't accurate statements. We don't have those statistics to speak from. Instead try "I have left EQ for WoW and so have my friends" or "My guild and I would like a backflag solution" or "As a cleric, I would like to increase my DPS". Those statements are far more accurate and useful.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on December 27, 2004 09:07 PM
Don't you think that the problems of GoD have been exposed in great length by a great many people on as many boards?
- lack of flexibility in group make up for single group content in GoD, mainly in trials.
(More valid pre than post "fix")
- lack of choice in progressing in GoD. You either get KT flag or you are a bystander for the rest of the expansion.
- lack of gearing options in GoD as a single group yet some trial drops seem too good. Wacky RvR. That is before dieing of boredom.
- total lack of creativity in the geometry of ikkinz trials (seriously, that must be the cheapest effort ever done on an expansion geometry)
- lack of fun factor in GoD in general. Mobs just hit like trucks. Period. The trials were punitive. Not fun. Ikkinz, Uqua, punitive. Let's make players jump through loops once we change a dozen times GoD encounters and let them waste hours upon hours guessing if it broken, bugged, both...
- let's not bother warning players of what is broken and what isn't and when, which part. That would avoid burning out people for nothing.
- let's have 3 mob models in differnent sizes so they basically have the impression of f