Topics of the New Year

by Loral on January 02, 2005

With SOE's developers on vacation this week, life in Norrath has been quiet. So let us sit back, relax, and enjoy our new year with a look at some of Norrath's most recent topics of discussion. Four big topics continually seem to dominate the live forums: EQ's lifespan, server consolidation, class balance (egads), and the summit.

Let us get the most painful one out of the way first. For nearly the entire time I've written for Mobhunter, people complain about class balance. I covered it a couple of times before, but let me step back from my own views on the matter and talk about what we see.

Early on when the new EQLive forums stood up, Kytherea and Ashlanne began keeping track of the top ten class issues for each class. Regardless of the continuing disclaimers on these threads, people assumed this meant these class issues would all be addressed. Now even though many classes have had some of their issues addressed, people lean towards statements like "SOE isn't listening" and "none of our class issues are being met". How easily we forget. I had a conversation a couple of days ago with someone who stated that even though some of their class issues were met, they were things that should have been fixed anyway and didn't count.

My head swam with the spiral I see people swimming down. Then, my friend Boanerges from EQClerics linked a document called The Laws of Online Game Design gathered by Raph Koster. Raph worked on a variety of online games including Ultima Online, and Star Wars Galaxies and now acts as the Chief Creative Officer over at SOE. One of these rules shined like Frodo's Light of Earendil:

"Hans Henrik Staerfeldt's Law of Player/Admin Relations: The amount of whining players do is positively proportional to how much you pamper them. Many players whine if they see any kind of bonus in it for them. It will simply be another way for them to achieve their goals. As an admin you hold the key to many of the goals that they have concerning the virtual environment you control. If you do not pamper the players and let them know that whining will not help them, the whining will subside."

Another one might articulate this better:

"Hal Black's Elaboration: The more responsive an admin is to user feedback of a given type, the more of that type the admin will get. Specifically, as an admin implements features from user suggestions, the more ideas for features will be submitted. Likewise, the more an admin coddles whiners, the more whining will ensue."

We might argue that not listening or responding to player concerns ends their whining simply because they go away. If you don't listen to your customers and address the issues that must be addressed, they will go away. Sometimes, however, I wonder if badgering the developers into making changes has become its own progressive massive online game. Why should I hunt for a new hammer when I can get the developers to make the one I have better? Why fight so hard against the Luggalids in Nadox when I can convince SOE to make them easier? It seems the EQLive forums became their own sort of meta-game. I might receive more improved items and upgraded spells there than I will hunting in game.

This brings up a multitude of questions. Should SOE have ever validated class issues by keeping track of them on an open forum? Do those class issues really represent the whole set of players who play those classes? Now that they have validated these concerns, what should they do to address them? Will simply addressing them as-is result in breaking the game even further? Do the players really know whats best for the whole of the game? There are few easy answers and a whole lot of theory.

Let us shift paths and discuss server consolidation. Recent threads reveal no official words on any move by SOE to consolidate servers although I stand by my rumor that they at least consider and discuss Zek consolidation. It makes more sense for those servers with their wide variety of rule-sets on top of population issues. While more and more threads pop up each day, I wouldn't expect SOE to make any other move to consolidate servers until after the release of the next expansion.

Shifting paths again we reach the Guild Summit. SOE had originally planned a summit in January but announced that they pushed the date back to July. The original January announcement started a series of interesting feedback threads on soloing and tasks, user interface, and grouping improvements. While it would have been nice to get a deeper look at the next expansion, a June summit may hit at a more opportune time to offer feedback. As far as the summit effecting the longevity of the game, I don't think opinionated egotists like myself have as much impact as we would like to think. For all we know, Firiona Vie's hem-line has more to do with EQ subscriptions than any feedback found on a website.

Which leads into the last path we will walk today, the life of Everquest. I wrote an article for Caster's Realm titled Is Everquest Dying?. Anyone who read any of my other articles already knows my answer but in case you have not, the answer is "no, it isn't". When we look at the longevity of previous MMOGs and how few users can still finance new expansions, I think it is safe to say that Everquest has a long life.

This brought up an interesting question for me, however. Can Everquest last the rest of our lives? While it is obviously difficult to predict forty or fifty years of technology, we can assume that bandwidth and server costs will continue to go down. The value of continuing to maintain Everquest may be worth the bragging rights of maintaining a MMOG for ten, twenty, perhaps fifty years. Will people still want to play? People still want to play Pong, so probably.

For my last act, I would like to make a formal statement. I was wrong. Yes, I know it is hard to believe and I risk influencing the vast markets in the bazaar with my mere spoken word, but...I was wrong. The prices of Muramite Runes still seem to fluctuate between 20 and 30k in the bazaars well after my Thanksgiving 10k prediction. While I am confident that the prices will continue to go down, it would appear that more people are willing to pay for runes at that price to keep the market high. Shame on you.

Keep an eye out next week for a new article entitled "Loral's 2005 Predictions" for more lies, propaganda, and inaccurate financial outlooks. In the mean time, enjoy the new year and all of the possibilities it brings.

Loral Ciriclight
2 January 2005
loral@loralciriclight.com

Post a new message.

Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/sfg on January 3, 2005 03:14 AM

LOL. Funny that your quotes from the SOE execs echo some of the things that I said on the live forums whilst I got blasted to hell 'cuz I don't know anything. I am *definitely* staying out of that place from now on :P (Note: Wasn't Loral that said mean things so I'm not being snippy at *him*. Just thought it was funny.) But apparently I don't know anything about game design or managing a subscription service ;)

Anyways: Survival yes. Quality of life? I tend to doubt it. I can definitely see EQ being run for a good many years still, especially considering they have the hardware to power it.. but the real test (and I'd love to hear suggestions on this because I haven't heard ANYTHING from Sony regarding any kind of plan) is getting new blood into the game so it doesn't attition out. I'm seriously considering letting my subscription lapse simply because there hasn't been enough people on lately to make it interesting.

Apparently my old quote about why buy eq1 when eq2 is out is invalid because The Sims still continues to outsell The Sims 2, but in defense of the theory I didn't even realize 2 was out - the marketing wasn't nearly as good as EQ2.

Having played eq2 and eq1 now (got eq2 for christmas) and having played EQ2 long enough to get a basic feel for it (only a week, but I think I have the basics down) here's my likes and dislikes:

I like eq2 because:
Graphics
Quest Journal (OMG. That's all I have to say. I now understand the big deal people were making)
Tutorial (Which wasn't around until after I had all my slots filled in eq1, so for all I know the eq1 version is just as good)
Quests are worth XP
The gear/level system seems way less twinkable
No class/race restrictions (Go dark elf ranger :) )
Quest Items don't use up space in bank
Chatting with NPCs is MUCH easier than the old "guess what I'm supposed to say here" thing.

I like eq1 because:
More variety in starting cities
Seems like a more developed world (although admittedly I've only seen a small fraction of EQ2)
More bank space
Interface

The EQ1 interface, imho, is 10x better than the eq2 one. Little things like drag/drop items, autoequipping loot (comes in handy when all slots are free) and window sizes/placement are all MUCH better than EQ2. I realize everything is probably reconfigurable through XML, but even the "stock" version of eq1 is better... my custom gui for eq1 is sorely missed in eq2.

Some of the grouping functions in EQ2 are nice like auto-lotto loot, I've been using that in groups and it seems to be pretty reasonable. The part of it I don't like is that if you win the lotto but your inventory is full, you can't delete something then reclaim the item.. it gets lotto'd again so you ALWAYS have to have a slot free (instead of dropping something when you NEED to). Not having a "drop" option is a PITA as well - I looted something the other day and it had a quest scroll (which you read and discard) and an item that sells fairly nice. I tried to loot the scroll first (so I could read it and clear my inventory) but it looted the other thing instead.. so I had to delete another item, loot the scroll, then after I read it the scroll disappeared. Had I been able to drop I could have shuffled things around better.

I do like the power bar. I don't recall if it was Moorgard or Loral that was all googly for it, but I can definitely see it now. The system for Melee characters in EQ1 isn't as nice. The spellcasting system in EQ2 seems a little oversimplified though - but I haven't played a spellcaster yet so my opinion doesn't count for much.

Overall:
If EQ1 had the melee improvements, NPC chat improvements and Quest XP that EQ2 has (grinding so far hasn't been as good to me as doing quests - as it should be in everQUEST) along with the quest journal I'd be sold. Graphic improvements would be nice, but realistically once I turn down all the options to get decent performance eq2 doesn't look THAT much better than eq1.

Tradeskilling is a big thing for me, and I've got some mixed opinions in EQ2:
I like the xp level system KIND OF, but not totally. It seems much less random than the skillup system in EQ1, so there's less RNG issues to fight, but it's SO TEDIOUS.
In EQ1 tradeskills were a good way to give yourself carpal tunnel. In EQ2 they're a good way to drive you insane. Even with EQtraders and all of the necessary ingredients, it took me about 2 hours and god only knows how much money to make about 30 arrows. I have tons of supplies left over, but everything measures in different quantities, luck determines what you get to a good extent (and since different quality items aren't stackable and you can't drop things without destroying them, subcombines are a bitch) and the time, while more realistic, is MUCH harsher. Honestly, I could have purchased better arrows from the store and saved money, time and bankspace by doing it. In eq1 at least with fletching the cost of making an item was cheaper than buying the finished product off a vendor. (Tin arrows, if anyone cares, are about 2 cp each. Tin Hunting arrows, which seem to be about the same stats, take a freakishly long time, tons of inventory space and about 30 copper for 7). Maybe at higher tradeskill levels it's worth it, but I'm not sure if I care. My Ranger in EQ1 can buy a full quiver for less than a gold (that's about 120 arrows for 100 copper) and get the gold back by killing a couple gnolls in blackburrow and selling body parts.

I'm not high enough to know from experience, but from what I hear there's not really raid opportunities in EQ2. I enjoy "casual raiding" in EQ1 (I'm hardcore at the raids, but don't do it often) and it'd be nice to have opportunities here.

XP debt I'm kinda iffy on. I like not losing my level when I die, and I like not recovering corpses (Or at least having gear when you do it) but I don't like that the whole group takes a hit if there's one dumbass. I had an aggro-challenged mage (i think that's what they're called in eq2) who kept drawing mobs and dying.. I have to pay debt because he's stupid. I understand the concept that it shouldn't always be the tanks that take the hit (I'm a tank myself in EQ1) but still...

My vote for the better game actually goes to EQ1, but I still would rather PLAY eq2 because it's where more of my friends are and grouping opportunities have been pretty limited on my eq1 server. I'm a good war with a good (pretty sure, anyways) reputation - but if there's no one in your level range lfg you're not getting a group if you're the pope. Some days there's a lot and I can get a group in 5 mins, but I was the only one in LDoN range for 2 hours once.

If sony can figure out a way to get new blood involved in EQ1 (and maybe get some of my guildies back) I'll gladly switch back. But for the meantime I'd rather play eq2.

SO: If you were a marketing exec, how would you get NEW people to play eq1?

SFG

Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/sfg on January 3, 2005 03:28 AM

Wow. Just read the castersrealm article. Not bad, good source documentation (sorry for being a buttkiss, but I just finished some APA papers and I'm learning to appreciate it).

Out of curiosity: Do you have any statistics on the number of actively playing subscribers in the other games you quoted AND EQ? I wasn't sure if "active subscribers" meant "people paying" or "people playing"... just a curiosity thing more than anything. 430,000 actively playing EQ'ers seems a tad high to me, although I'm more than happy to admit I haven't bothered to stop and count each person on my server much less any others :P And if your numbers for EQ aren't "people playing" then the numbers for the other games probably isn't either so at least you're comparing apples to apples :)

Personally, *MY* definition of dying is when it's not fun to play anymore and account numbers are plummeting, and dead is when they pull the plug - but everyone is entitled to their own theory and at least you're not all chicken little on us :P

Sorry for the double-post, but I read the article after the first bit.

SFG

Comment Posted by: katahn on January 3, 2005 08:20 AM

I have learned the forums for internet games, or anything really, are simply lousy for people wanting to speak for the sake of being heard or to advance their own agenda (playing the MMO metagame as Loral describes it.)

I see a lot of what Loral wrote about above proven by the kinds of topics on the EQII forums for instance. Despite the fact that groups and encounters in EQII are balanced around a group with one of each archetype, people still either wnat to complain how their class/subclass can't do it, or is the best, or complain that there should be a better or worse class/subclass!

Just proof that no good deed goes unpunished I suppose.

Well, happy new year all, and /smiles from 500 years in Norrath's future ;)

Katahn

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 3, 2005 10:18 AM

Raph's Laws are generally really applicable and came from the MUD dev community. I constantly find it amusing that a lot of MMO publishers keep finding themselves dealing with the same problems that text MUDs were dealing with ten or fifteen years ago - and found good solutions for. I think a lot of the current publishers don't associate today's MMOs with those text MUDs because they're not looking past the graphics, and so they don't do a good job of learning from their game's ancestors.

On class balance, as long as you have classes, there's going to be a balance struggle. The more classes you have, the harder it gets. The most resilient systems i've seen (balance-wise) are hybrid class/skill systems - where the class defines an overall skill set, and then players have to choose how to develop their characters within them. The downside to these systems (when compared to a class-only system) is that players tend to find "templates" that are the most effective, and you end up with most every player falling into one of two or three different class "variants". I think this is more of a design challenge than a tombstone for a hybrid system, however - and I hope that future games move more in this direction.

We have quite literally beaten the server consolidation topic to death so I won't say anymore on it - I'd just be restating the same things I've posted on your last three articles where it came up :) But I do hope that they find some way to "fix" the effects that the lowered population is having on a lot of people's play experiences. It's just darn hard to find a group most of the time in EQ1. Before, it was because of the crowding, or because of your class - now, it's because there's just not many other people looking, or because of your class. Players who take initiative and start recruiting their own groups do a little better, but not much, and nothing is more frustrating in an MMO than spending 75-100% of your play session looking for a group, so that you can play.

I think some good things came out of the last guild summit, but I remain skeptical as to how much of an impact it really has. I do think it's important that the live team at least touch base with the players in some form, however - and if the guild summit is the best way to do that, then fine. But what I would rather see from the live team is a clear vision of what type of world they want EverQuest to be, which is something that I don't think has been very apparent since the Velious expansion.

EQ2 has done a -lot- of things that really should have been done in EQ1. A LOT. Of course, there is room for improvement in EQ2 - there always will be. There's things that are a little annoying. SFG has a pretty good list. But overall, EQ2 has one big advantage over EQ1. It's a new game. That means that they don't have to deal with the baggage of mudflation, of poorly thought-out expansions, or of years and years of fixes. The only baggage in EQ2 is the stuff the players themselves brought with them from EQ1, and hopefully over time those people will let go of their preconceptions and start to understand the game for what it really is.

EQ1 is in the unenviable position of being one of the oldest games on the market. This means that every other publisher out there has had a good, long look at it, seen what its failings and successes are, and tried to learn from those in their own products. EQ1 may not be dying yet, but now more than ever it really needs a gameplay, and content overhaul so that it can bring new players in and keep them in the face of so much more competition. Because that's truly what's going to keep EQ alive - new players, not old ones.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 3, 2005 10:41 AM

Raph has a point. But given his recent output, I'd hardly hold him up as a shining example of game design wisdom.

SOE temporarily managed to achieve the worst of both worlds: they encouraged tons of "whining" by creating an expectation that it would be listened to, and then ticked players off by ignoring the bulk of it. I think you also give the class correspondents far too little credit. I know the enchanter correspondent at least worked very hard to create a top ten list that reflected the opinions of any enchanter he could get to talk to him.

Which brings me to my point: if SOE had made a decision that the suggestions they got were bad for the game and said so, then that would be one thing. I might disagree with them--frankly I think many of the players have a much better understanding of the game and what's good for it than the devs do at this point. Instead the only person who seems to pay any attention is Grumbuk. He's done some remarkably good work, but he can't address the issues people care most about. Those just sit there...

"Currently being evaluated" for months is simply dishonest. There's no excuse for it no matter what you think of the lists themselves.

Of course I said "temporarily" earlier because SOE couldn't maintain the illusion that they want to communicate with their customers forever. What now? They could take the principled stand that they won't listen to players and say so. Or they could actually evaluate the feedback they got and act on the good suggestions. But the longer they try to claim they want suggestions but aren't willing to put in the effort to do anything with them, the more respect they'll lose.

Comment Posted by: Perc the Shadow Bard on January 3, 2005 02:11 PM

Well, I think this can be addressed by saying that the devs relationship with the customers is like a plate of nachos. (mmm) They slowly put more goodies on the nachos, but the customers are complaining that they want more jalapenos, beef, chicken, sour cream, or salsa. The problem is that they should be eating the nachos cuz they're freakin good. Otherwise, the chips are gonna get stale and soggy and you're gonna need a new plate of nachos. You stop having fun with the game and your chips are soggy... you should go find a new restaurant to play in. I hate soggy chips. So we need to have fun with what we got. The more stuff they put on my nachos... the merrier I get, but I like nachos even if they only have some cheese.

Comment Posted by: menleniel on January 3, 2005 07:05 PM

Whiners? Well that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.
So theres no point in the boards then. Really makes me wonder why they ever asked for our input then.

But you do have a good point and its taken me a while to realize it. I probably would have more fun if I just played the game and ignored those things I thought were wrong with the game and my class.
How's the saying go "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. Courage to change the things I can. And the wisdom to know the difference".

Comment Posted by: Naladini on January 3, 2005 09:29 PM

"But I do hope that they find some way to "fix" the effects that the lowered population is having on a lot of people's play experiences. It's just darn hard to find a group most of the time in EQ1. Before, it was because of the crowding, or because of your class - now, it's because there's just not many other people looking, or because of your class. Players who take initiative and start recruiting their own groups do a little better, but not much, and nothing is more frustrating in an MMO than spending 75-100% of your play session looking for a group, so that you can play."

I'd say that this is the #1 problem within EQ1 at the moment. The game just doesn't play all that well in a low population environment, especially at higher levels. The game is balanced around making entertaining content for the 6 person group, but had to be balanced in a way that includes the ability to single pull or Crowd-Control an encounter down to 6 players vs. 1 computer controlled mob. For this kind of encounter to be challenging, the mobs need to be much tougher than what a single player would be able to tackle on their own.

In the "old days", classes that could solo could solo in "modern" zones. This meant they could solo in zones where they could start groups while soloing. Nowadays, unless you can
kite and avoid 100% of mob damage, its difficult to solo in newer zones (naturally, I'm stating this from the perspective of a player with less than EP quality gear). This places people in out of the way places where the mobs are often too low a level to consider grouping. In essence, the game got a lot harder to play with any degree of flexibility, especially as the population dropped.

Rebalancing the Task system is a good first step. Adding in a reward system to help players purchase corpse-summoning potions and rez sticks would be another step in the right direction. One of the items missing from Koster's rules was "if someone wants to play your game now, make sure they can play it now." ;)

Condensing level ranges and expediting the levelling process would be another way to push the population forward into better grouping levels. This is not necessarily the best option, especially for those of us with fond memories of the lower levels, but to be perfectly honest, the newer games really have the low levels nailed pretty well. It will be difficult for EQ1 to compete for newer players in that regard.

Server consolidation will obviously be the first thing to happen though, as it will have the quickest effect on gameplay, without having to rewrite gameplay.

Comment Posted by: Wombat on January 3, 2005 10:02 PM

Hmm I see many constructive posts on EQ forums so the term "whiner" is offensive if used generally. It would be like labelling those who see no problems as "smug simpletons".

I try to be constructive myself or at least I hope that I have. I have concerns about server population issues because as a Family Guild leader on an old server (Guild is 4 years old and off peak) I see the dramatic effect it has had on us and other Guilds. In fact its killing the game for us. We have fallen below critical mass.

This is not to say that other servers havent had a different experience and its all fine over there. Enough information has been presented on the forums to indicate that there are a number of servers in trouble, population wise, and not just the Euro and Zek servers. Equally there appear to be many that are just fine.

There are virtually no new players on my server, newbie zones are empty, how can anyone level up to where the majority of the population is, unless they solo (if they are able to solo)? How long will they be happy soloing to 60? The game may live for a long time but without new players it will contract.

How painfull that contraction will be is up to Sony. Hence all the posts on server closure and population shifts. Making transfers cheaper between servers and accounts will enhance reconstruction.

As far as class balance is concerned, I can only speak for myself, my Paladin has near useless or buggy Discs and has progressively less utility as Stuns and Pacify have been nerfed in effectiveness after level 55. At a time where getting balanced groups/raids is very hard for my Guild I cant tank many nastier mobs. I generally am asking for maintained utility, not uberness.

I need a lot of hit points to survive initial contact vs a warrior with mitigation discs, to get this I have to kill higher level mobs that drop high HP gear, but my Guild has lost the numbers to do this, pick up raids are defunct now. Even Rangers and Rogues have a better mitigation disc than I have ie I have none. Remember I am in a non EP Guild, try doing MPG with 8500hp buffed and no mitigation disc for named and you are the only tank online.... so you go back to old content to keep busy...again and again...

Other classes have lost utility as well, the assumption must be that it forces you to use a particular class to fill a particular role more. Well with lower numbers online you often cant get that class, so events are cancelled or groups cant be formed. Is this good for the game?

My opinion is that Sony is showing massive inertia and wont act till its too late for many of us. Currently they wont even give a response like "we are constantly monitoring server populations and developing strategies for low population servers".

The new game competition is good, thinking those who left will all come back is wishful thinking. What will they come back to? Low population servers with no newbies to give hope for the future. Unless they funnel into the still viable servers of course....

And Vanguard is still to come...

Wombat

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 4, 2005 12:05 AM

On Raph Koster - I never really was a fan of Raph's work, but I respect what he tried to do with UO and SWG. On a smaller scale, it's easy to make a game with a gigantic setting and little to no directed content and have it work - but you can't do that when you start catering to the masses. UO took a huge population hit when EverQuest initially released, and suffered for years until they started adding in more directed content. SWG tried to have directed content at the start but it became apparent quickly that there wasn't nearly enough. Whether the SOE dev team is to blame for that, or whether it was LucasArts pushing for a release, it's hard to say. Ultimately Raph has some really good ideas on how to encourage the growth of communities in games, and I hope that his influence shows in future SOE products - but at the same time, I hope Mr. Smedley is standing next to him saying "that's great, but we aren't shipping this thing without bunches of directed content for the players".

Regardless, most of the stuff in the "Laws" didn't come from Raph - it came from the mud-dev mailing list, which is a great mailing list to be on if you have the time to read it :)

On SOE communication - The problem with forums is the people that post on them. For every one of us with a constructive comment, or a well thought-out post, there's at least one other person who just wants to rant. Even worse, there's a lot of people who, while they have valid concerns, don't really get the "big picture", and tend to suggest things that would cause more problems than they would fix. Still, that comes with the territory.

SOE's mistake isn't having forums - forums are something that gamers expect these days, and a lot of other companies do it fine. SOE's mistake is that they are setting an expectation and not fulfilling it. At this point, they're stuck between a rock and a hard place, because they can't take back that expectation. They need to pony up and start having real two-way communication. Right now, the forums are pretty much one-way. You post, and.....nothing. You don't know if it was heard, you don't know if they liked it, if they had questions, and so on.

I fully agree with Loral's sentiment that gamers are better off never reading forums - but admittedly, too many of us are also armchair or amateur game designers, so there's always going to be people looking at forums.

On server populations and consolidation - yeah, inertia might be the best word. You pretty much hit it on the head there Wombat, with everything that you said.

Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on January 4, 2005 12:17 AM

There've been some really good posts here.. I think I like this a lot better than the EQ forums.. SO FAR I have yet to see a single jerk :P

There's a couple things I want to say about correspondents and top 10 lists:

#1: I personally think that if you're going to have a class correspondent title, you need to be respectful of players. Sony doesn't look good when the class correspondents are more whiny and/or rude than some of the worst offenders. I've met two of them that actually hinder rather than help positive communication.

That's not meant to be a slam on ALL of the correspondents.. Apparently the chanter one is good and I've been happy with Nolrog (the tradeskill one) so far... I just think that in the interests of communicationt there should be some policies regarding professional conduct. If the volunteer ones can't handle it, SOE either needs to replace them or eliminate the position.

#2: I'm not sure about all the class issues, honestly I've not read even the warrior one and I play a warrior... so I don't know if the individual class lists are reasonable or not. What I do know is that three of the issues were dealt with, a few of them have been put onto the radar and there's a few where we've basically gotten a "not gonna happen". The ones we've gotten definitive "no"'s on are basically things that we *want*, but don't necessarily *need*... the things that seemed to be errors have been dealt with, and the things that I'd have classed as "reasonable wants" from a game developer standpoint are being checked out.

#3: The two things that would make me feel 100x better to hear from Sony:
"We have a plan in place to merge servers if the situation requires it."
"We have a plan in place to increase the number of new players in EverQuest."

Obviously I'd hope for a situation where the first isn't necessary, but given SOE's slow movement I think it's a needed judgement call.

Anyone have any ideas on getting newbies?

SFG

Comment Posted by: Wombat on January 4, 2005 01:14 AM

I havent said this before and am a bit loathe to now as well (since every player has a Feild Marshalls baton in his backpack) but I have done a bit of game design (Historical simulation gaming with figurines "chess with a thousand figures") myself, but not recently and before the era of electronic games as we know them now.

I note with interest the parrallels from when I wrote my first rule book and the new electronic forms of play. (yes, I used clay tablets and cuneiform :p , I live on a desert island at the end of the world, so sue me!)

Balance, challenge and playablity have always been issues in any game design. Thank you for your valuable insights Talaen btw :)

In terms of keeping newbies without groups I suggest shameless plagarisnm from EQ2, Soloable (also option of groupable with all getting the same rewards)Quests with Exp and gear rewards.

This will be a tricky balance for a Rogue to solo to 60 though.... possibly alot of sneaking/scouting and pickpocket type quests. How you would do it for a Warrior...possibly by giving new class specific weapons with reliable procs for root, DD/DoT and self healing to reduce the need for groups or at least full, balanced groups? Make the procs unviable at higher levels ie higher level mobs resist them at level 60?

I do not think expansions will lure Newbies into the game. Will Sony be able to turn before the iceberg rips through the watertight holds or plow inexorably onwards into the mist....

Wombat

Comment Posted by: crimsonsplat on January 4, 2005 11:21 AM

Felias definately got the short end of the stick from at least one of the CC's, and I fully agree that a standard of professional conduct is needed for them.

However, I'm looking down the road, and I don't like what I see. "Expediting" the level grind is one of the bad things done to EQ; if you're going to play nothing but the high level game, then just ask Sony to start you off at level 50.

I'm serious. And here is why: I have a 65 enchanter with a whopping 37AA. No Dire Charm. No Arcane Rune. 4k hp with raid buffs. Would you willingly take such a chanter into your group if headed for OOW? Really, he needs some serious seasoning and another hundred AA's to not be a drain from constant rezzing -- miss one mez and he has NO chance.

Now look ahead a few years, after expansion... oh, #12, for instance. What will he need to be able to enter the latest expansion and survive?
Bear in mind that Sony's said that mob abilites will *continue* to scale faster than players.

So what newbie is going to be willing to play longer and longer and longer amounts of time before being able to join the bulk of the population in the latest expansion... after all, he/she isn't going to find folks lots of folks grouping or raiding in outdated expansions, like Velious or Kunark. Or POP (I've been the only person in PON on my server. In prime time.)

If new blood is required for EQ's survival, then how does Sony expect to keep attracting it when they're building the "leveling mountain" higher and higher? Until a solution is devised, Sony's just playing for time until EQ withers away under its own weight.

Comment Posted by: Loral on January 4, 2005 01:10 PM

Most of the content in Omens of War is significantly easier than most of the content in Gates of Discord. The same is true for LDON. LDON offered content scaled far lower in both level and power than Planes of Power offered. I don't think the mountain is getting higher.

Places like Noble's Causway, the Hollows, and Bloodfields has content for non-raiders. There is a lot more open content in Omens for people under 65 than there was in Gates.

The question of "how can SOE get more new players playing Everquest" is a real good one. I'm not so sure my "steps to one million subscribers" is out of date.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 4, 2005 01:48 PM

Just for fun (call me a masochist), I decided to look back at the history of the enchanter top ten list.

It came out in early July, including a few remarkably bad ideas (I'm not sure where they came from--they were heavily criticized on The Runes at the time). One item was marked as "partially implemented" most rejected, two "currently being evaluated." The partially implemented item was to reduce the number of mobs flagged immune to core enchanter spells, so I presume they removed a few immunity flags but I'm not sure anyone knows where.

By early August a much better list was about half rejected and half "currently being evaluated." One item was half implemented and half rejected. In one remarkable case Rytan actually explained why something was rejected in an interview, which satisfied most people and it was dropped from the list.

In late August a substantially revised version was presented. The retained items were all marked as "currently being evaluated" (except for the one "partially implemented") and the new items got no response due to the impending OoW release. They were all finally marked "currently being evaluated" in late September.

In November the list was further refined including new concerns from OoW. One item from August was finally rejected. The one "partially implemented" item remains. The rest? "Currently being evaluated."

There have been no updates since November. Note that the items marked "currently being evaluated" or "partially implemented" in July haven't changed five months later. Most of the list has been "currently being evaluated" since August.

So what's actually been done? One AA of debatable utility had its reuse timer shortened to 30 minutes (a proposal to make it more useful was rejected). And presumably some mob somewhere can now be mezzed or charmed that couldn't before (if anyone has found it please let me know). That's it. And it's not because SOE is rejecting the ideas they're given--only one item has been rejected since August.

One thing that struck me was the importance of a good class correspondent getting real feedback from members of the class. The quality of the list improved remarkably once Kandyman started writing it rather than Kytherea or whomever trying to distill it from random posts on the eqlive forums. I also learned Kandyman is stepping down--which is unfortunate but understandable.

But of course none of this matters if SOE doesn't act on it. As far as I can tell, they all but gave up on the list in August. I believe Grumbuk when he says he looks over the lists for things he can do, but none of the enchanter items are in his domain (programming). For everyone else "currently being evaluated" can probably be translated as "We don't think this looks important enough to really think about right now, but we might get around to deciding if we should do it someday."

To be honest I'd be happier if the top ten lists had been a ploy to make us think SOE would listen to feedback when they really didn't intend to at all. In fact I suspect it's more a matter of feckless management and inertia, which is even worse in the long run.

Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on January 4, 2005 08:42 PM

On scaling:

LDoN imho was one of the best expansions they've released, and here's why:

1) All content was available to all players (pretty much)
2) All content (even raids afaik, although I might be wrong on that) was able to be played in ~2 hour chunks (averaging 1:30 per completion and :30 for setups and splits)
3) The people who put the time in (racked up heaps of points) got the BEST rewards, but everyone could get SOMETHING.
4) Raiders got SOME content, Casuals got content
5) Content was fairly consistent across levels with regards to challenge and risk/reward. Lower level dungeons were considerably easier than high level ones, but this is on par with other zones of a similar type.
6) Variable challenge rating
7) Content wasn't entirely gear-specific - modestly geared toons could advance while superior geared toons kicked ass - as they should having put in the time for superior gear.
8) Spells and other "required" drops were accessible to everyone who put the time in to get them.
9) The game is just as "fun" at level 20 as it is at 60 (and presumably 65 and maybe even 70 depending on your gear if you use hards.. I'm only 60 so I wouldn't know)

My ONLY two complaints about LDoN are:
1) Instanced dungeons take away from the overall community feel of everquest
2) Content didn't really grow as you progressed - after your fortieth trip through the cave fighting sand golems, you're still fighting sand golems, they just hit harder and meaner and drop better loot. And it's still the same cave.

Sounds like the chanter top 10 thing kinda sucked - I'm kinda agreeing with that you should have at least gotten some form of response rather than their "we'll look into it", although from a dev standpoint I understand it - Not going to sidetrack the topic here but I posted a long bit on that in one of the other comments sections (3-4 articles back I think). But I don't know anything because apparently my company is just three dudes in a garage (that's news to me, but Frodlin said so and I guess he's smarter than me :P )

Question for Teremar: Was the chanter list "fixes" (regarding technical problems) or was it "things we can't do that I think we should be able to do"? Not saying you don't have valid points (haven't even read your list, so have no room to comment) but most of the tradeskiller "wants" are still being evaluated but most of our "fixes" have already been put in place. A few of our (imho) more reasonable wants have gotten the "probably but we need to check some things first" response rather than "currently being evaluated" - Velium weapon to ore conversion is a good example of this... The devs don't seem to have a problem with it, but they're concerned with exploits so they're taking a bit of time.

Granted - a lot of tradeskill issues can be fixed by simply adding or adjusting recipes, so if it's messed up it can be retuned a lot easier than mobs, which *might* be the case with things like the mez/charm thing. I've often thought that mez/charm is a little unbalanced/overbalanced/whatever but taking it away completely seems like eliminating a core part of the class. If my chanter was higher than 35 I'd probably be upset too.

SFG

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 4, 2005 09:16 PM

The enchanter list is not a bug list, no. Juwel brought up one bug at the summit which affected enchanters heavily and it was fixed in short order. I do think the coders are trying their best to be responsive to players. The game designers should follow their example.

Yes, some of it is a wish list: give certain mezzes a negative resist adjustment, give us a faster-casting slow, etc. But a lot of the list is about the content rather than enchanter abilities. These could probably be summed up with "make content that gives us something fun to do again." And I'll grant this would be very hard to them to do, for reasons I've stated before.

But that's not my point. "I'm sorry, but our current vision of the game simply does not include significant crowd control" would be a better response than "currently being evaluated."

Comment Posted by: Naladini on January 5, 2005 12:08 AM

"The enchanter list is not a bug list, no. Juwel brought up one bug at the summit which affected enchanters heavily and it was fixed in short order. I do think the coders are trying their best to be responsive to players. The game designers should follow their example."

I partially agree with your example, but I think the designers and the coders are pretty solidly linked in what's being done in terms of enhancements.

As an example, pet classes have received a lot of enhancements since the balancing lists were first released. Speaking from the position of a Magician though, I'd say a lot of us are still frustrated about some of the changes that are more specific to our class being "evaluated" for several months.

Essentially, changes that make a pet class (or specifically a magician) less "cumbersome" to play have been implemented or will be implemented "soon". Zoning pets, pets up while invisible, targetted summons, no rent bags, etc. are all important, positive changes to gameplay, in that they remove some of the major longstanding inconveniences of gameplay.

At the same time, changes that focus on DPS, core defensive skills, or where our DPS is coming from (spells vs. pets) have been stuck in evaluation/discussion mode for quite some time.

This situation tells me that the devs appear to be largely satisfied with the current pecking order of the classes, given that they've avoided making changes in this area. Or at least, if they're planning to make changes, they're going to try and hit everyone at once to avoid the cries of favoritism that you'll hear from anyone who gets left out of the first round of adjustments.

Personally, I just want my pet to tank for me the way it did when I was level 49 so I have some real flexibility in how I play the game when I log in. I don't know if this is a realistic expectation though, especially with increased sensitivity towards the whole pets vs. melee discussion.

Comment Posted by: Wombat on January 5, 2005 12:40 AM

Hmm I would have to agree that a few of the class lists seem stuck in limbo. Most have been honed to include reasonable requests.

I sympathise with Chanters, Paladins had Pacify stripped from them at 55lvl mobs. Now healers and Chanter slowers are expected to pull with Pac and get back and start casting slow or CH in time to save the tank.

Things like (for Paldins) increasing the number of UD (from hardly any) in new expansions and not mixing UD with living in the same spawns (making UD procs and spells useless to load) would be easy and not game destroying also.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: crimsonsplat on January 5, 2005 01:36 AM

The problem with LDON is that almost no one is doing it anymore, especially at 65. And soloing the Noble's Causway isn't interesting to me. The criticism of the Enchanter Top Ten list is spot on... There's absolutely no point in our even having a class rep anymore because SOE has no idea what to do with our class. (We still have no Class Definition.) They won't give us the the ability to reliably survive a missed/resisted mezz, and they won't give us the means to lower MR enough to mezz.

Our TT List (abbreviated)
1. Enhance RvR in OOW -- CBE

2. Reduce immunity to stun, mez, charm, pacify -- PI

3...Mezzing issues:
3A. Mez immunity message before attempt -- CBE (c'mon, you can do it with pacify, but not make a freaking decision on MEZ????)
3B. Lower level enc overwrite higher's mez -- CBE
3C. Fix Mez gap 55-61. Lack of available spells to mez with at this level -- CBE
3D. Reorder OOW spells to put the Mez first.--CBE
3E. Mez Resist mod AA. DENIED
3F. Resist mod to AE Mez (2 resist = 1 rez). -- CBE.
3G. Future design to enhance need for mez -- CBE

4. Upgrade slow from current hi-aggro long cast version. -- CBE

5. Add anti-"tash aggro" augment to LDON (current one is obtained by a raid that is broken) -- CBE

6. Increase stacking mana regen (necro/BL/SK in group + KEI from buffbot is superior). -- CBE

7. WOM upgrade. Many enchanters blew _20_ points to get the AA to extend Word of Morell (PBAE 6 second mezz--a spell they came up with in the first place to end stunlock abuses) to 9 seconds..... and now current content is immune to it by level. -- CBE

8. For Quarmm's sake, give us something to do if we can't mez (besides being a crappy wizard)! Please!!! -- C. B. E.

9. Self only mana regen: We're the "kings of clarity" and have the WORST regen of anyone in a group! (TOT is broken) -- CBE

10. Epic 1.5 sucks and even 2.0 is being bagged in favor of Time level loot. -- CBE

There have been no changes at all since October. Frankly, a lot of this is redundant. They're alternate ways of accomplishing the same goal.

I'm curious to see if anyone even volunteers to replace Kandy.

Comment Posted by: Uh Yeah on January 5, 2005 03:20 AM

Raph Koster is a total loon. Quoting him is a laugh.

Comment Posted by: katahn on January 5, 2005 09:00 AM

When I consider an MMORPG I'm going to spend money on and time playing, I consider a few things. First of all, do I like the setting, is the description of it interesting, and has it gotten good or bad reviews? (Both professional and/or from friends) This pretty much determines my initial willingness to get it.

My next test is: "Do I get 'sucked in', is there a feeling of 'WOW NEAT', am I feeling as if I am in another world and place?" If almost right away I'm struggling with that, its a negative. Not a strong one, but a negative.

Once I get past the "fumbling newbie soloing around" stage, what is grouping like? Can I find people to group with? If a game is heavily group oriented can I get into a group quickly, say 30 minutes or less, and play for a couple hours, and then be able to log off? The more time that is required, the lower a "score" the game gets, with the irony being that the faster I can find groups, and the more fast paced, varied, and exciting it is, the more time I'll spend.

My next evaluation point is: Can I solo if I want, regardless of class, and not have it feel like a total waste of time compared to grouping? I don't particularly enjoy soloing, but there are times when I don't have a practical alternative given real life concerns. Other times, I simply might not care to group, or I might be waiting for friends. Games where the design is solo-hostile, or flat out impossible, don't so much get a "negative" but games that have it get a strong positive and I would be more inclined to leave the former for the latter.

Next is community and friends. This comes with time spent playing. Good friends and good community can make the worst of games bearable and even fun. I ended up quitting City of Heroes for the simple reason that once my main passed level 30, suddenly everyone I knew simply stopped logging on. Soloing was possible, but got very boring, very quickly, and when presented with the more interesting, and populated, EQ2 I dropped CoH.

Lastly is a feeling of progression. I don't mind progression through levels, content, skills, and so on that is time consuming and challenging. But where I get frustrated is when I run into a brick wall where new content is too difficult based on the power my character(s) have accumulated, and the options for getting more are either grossly incompatible with what I consider fun (such as raiding, or repeatedly "grinding" on the same mobs/content such as in LDoN) or simply not possible given constraints on my schedule outside of the game.

I left EQ1 for a number of reasons. Firstly a lot of my friends went on to raiding, something I didn't consider fun and didn't and don't have time to do in bulk amounts. Secondly I did hit that brick wall of advancement, and felt it hard when I tried Gates of Discord. If anything, Gates of Discord burned me very badly on EQ1, it was reason #1 I didn't get Omens, and as nice an expansion as I've heard it is, nothing about it seemed to "draw me in."

Exploration and achievement are important to me, although I realize that others will get to "the brass ring" before I do, games that have me feeling as if their design won't let me reach it without altering my play style fundamentally are ones I reach "the end of" faster. In other words, I get to a point where further advancement is effectively impossible with my playstyle, so I move on to....

Is the game replayable in the levels and content I can progress through? If I levelled up as a priest type, can I create a priest of a diffferant race, or one with a differant healing technique, or perhaps a totally differant class or race and class, and enjoy a familiar but basicaly new gaming experience? If I do this, will I find groups, will I experience the thrill of finding a useful upgrade in the course of an adventure? Are there new quests, new secrets, and so on to unlock?

When I hit "the end" of EQLive, the point where the content felt either incredibly repetitive or simply designed for a power level above what I had, I tried creating "new mains". I found the zones where I would want to hunt and explore to be empty, no groups to be found, and content trivialized in terms of challenge and reward by an abundance of over-level magic items cheaply purchased from a central bazaar.

Looking at it now from an outside perspective, I'm not sure what can be done to "fix" EQLive. Adding the ability for all classes to solo would do wonders I think, but the fundamental design of the game is hostile to that, and I'm not sure it could be done outside of a task system that had people doing non-adventurey things for experience. Perhaps I suffer from a lack of imagination, I'm sure something could be done, but I'm not sure the level of rewrite, rebalance, and so on, is even possible.

Making the lower level game interesting and challenging to play might help, but that would probably take a retroactive application of minimum level tags on magic items. It would require revamping loot tables, and it might even require an advancing storyline that changes the content of zones as time and the story progress. Again, wishful thinking, but is it possible given the constraints of time and resources SOE has devoted to EQLive?

Some nice touches in EQII are the ability for priests to solo as beneficial spells cast at a mob hit you or your ally the mob is targetted. A priest can alternate heals nukes, and hammer swings all without changing targets. The quest journal is so desperately needed its not even funny, and removing literal drops for quests in favor of the "quest drop" system partially used in EQII would allow something like a TLC to be implemented. As much as people hate it, level restricted magic items, and the TLC (that does not affect "quest drops") allow zones to be and remain useful to level appropriate parties, and does not impede people from completing quests. Sometimes good things for the game and game balance are unpopular with players.

The only thing I see EQII as lacking in on a fundamental level, and its something I miss from City of Heroes, is the idea or concept of sidekicking and "reverse sidekicking." Right now if I were to have a friend start playing EQII, I would be hard pressed to do anything with them. My main is level 22 now, plus I have three alts filling up my alotted four characters. I couldn't "exemplar" to a lower level of power to hang out with them, nor could I "mentor" them as a sidekick so they could come and adventure with me. Being a sage on one character, a scholar (eventual alchemist) on another, outfitter (eventual tailor) on the third, and craftsman (woodworker or provisioner) on the third, the best I could do is make them level-appropriate crafted items and cheer them on from the sideline.

Of course, I understand World of Warcraft doesn't restrict grouping based on level, although no consideration is given as far as I know to make sure the higher level doesn't trivialize lower level content, nor that the lower level isn't smooshed by higher level content. Perhaps if I get tired of EQII, that will be the next game I try, or maybe by then D&D Online or Vanguard will be out,and who knows, maybe Matrix Online will be cool and fun.

Katahn

Comment Posted by: Wombat on January 5, 2005 08:30 PM

The Chanter situation is a good example of a class being marginalised. We had the same problems before when only a certain number of DoTs would stack and thus you only needed a small numbers of DoT casters on a raid, freezing out many from Guilds and raids.

How do you even get newbies in to try out new systems so there are enough to sustain a lowby community as they crawl up the ladder? Free play options? Solo options, a Quest Journal and doable tasks for beginners are a start.

EQ1 is written in spaghetti code it may not be feasible to make these changes without huge bugs and dislocation to existing players. Whats the lesson of evolution? - If you cant adapt you die out.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: Merkava/Maitreya on January 6, 2005 12:45 AM

This is kind of off topic, but I'm curious what people here think.

On the Solusek Ro auction channel, the topic of the "good old days" of the pre Kunark or pre Velious eras sometimes comes up. I once asked what people thought of the idea of a server with no expansions enabled. A lot of people thought that such a server would be pretty neat. I got the same response when the topic came up again recently. One person even went so far as to say he'd "play on it in a heartbeat," and there were some others who had similar feelings. I brought it up in the serverwide mage channel, where it wasn't as popular, though some people liked it. I'm curious what people here think of such a server.

Hm, it won't bring many new people, but maybe special rules servers would be a good way to keep existing players interested. I would love to see a server that revived the old Project M.

Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on January 6, 2005 02:59 AM

Based on what I remember (which is a huge disclaimer, because I'm a little fuzzy on this particular thing) they had a minimal or no expansion server up a while ago (just before GoD?) - I think it had Kunark and that was about it. If I recall correctly, not too many people jumped on it for any length of time, although if I remember right it was also a special rules red server so that could very well be part of it.. Someone else with a better memory might be able to shed some light on it. All I remember is that there was something like that for a short bit as a test and it was discontinued because people didn't really get on it much.

Stromm was one of the few servers with no transfers and people really seemed to take to that - so perhaps the idea isn't that bad... that forces everyone to start over and servers get a different dynamic.

I think I'm starting to figure out some of the things that have hurt EQ.. most of them are actually things I like but looking at it objectively maybe it wasn't so good.

- Bazaar. Never has mudflation been so easy. It used to be you had to spend time auctioning things, so things were either hard to get ahold of (and therefore expensive because you also had to be on at the same time as your buyer) or they were underpriced because the person didn't want to spend all day in /auction. Non-Uber gear actually was worth something because the uber gear was hard to get your hands on. Tradeskilled stuff was actually valued because it could be custom made to the player rather than getting passed over for whatever the "in" gear of the day was.

-PoK. Let's face it, running sucks. But around your home city (or adopted city in cases like mine) actually mattered, you had a sense of community within your area (because people didn't stray as far until the upper levels), there was adventure just simply getting to places (I made the FP->Qeynos run MANY times, and every time it was an adventure.. at least till I hit 25 or so and Kith was STILL scary). Faction was important because you couldn't buy or sell wherever you were unless you worked up faction with the locals. Now you just pop a book to PoK and it's all good.

Immersion is usually the 'wow factor' in mmorpgs. Despite clunky graphics, insane numbers of bugs, and the fact that pretty much all the mobs are pissed at you for ruining their lands EQ was highly immersive through the first few expansions. A lot of basic daily concerns, such as travel and buying/selling goods had to be thought out, planned out and dealt with in addition to simple mob-slayage. Evil races had the RP disadvantage Evil races should have - having to constantly run through sewers or dodge good guards, and Good characters had to steer clear of Evil areas until they were sufficiently leveled. Even "uber" characters (for their day) at level 40 had to be concerned that Guard Bob would kick their ass if they ventured too close to a hostile city.

People back then knew the zones and how to get to them and through them to get to where they needed to go. In some cases, merely being a guide could actually net you some plat from someone who didn't know where zonelines were to specific places.

If you were an educated player with a newbie character you STILL appreciated that ride from freeport to surefall glade from a druid who was nice enough to offer because it put you within a zone or so of qeynos and that's where you really wanted to play at. Now you just pop the book at level 1 and jaunt wherever you want to go.

Half the players in the game (yeah, maybe I'm overstating but it sure feels that way) know the entire progression system through PoP, but don't know the route from Ak'Anon to Kaladim. There's quite a few that don't realize that Paineel and Erudin are right next to each other. There's quite a few that don't even know luclin is a separate planet altogether.

Port spires aren't that much better, although the 15 minute timer at least makes you consider the run first. Plus, waiting at the spires (and I'm not sure exactly why this doesn't seem to be the case with the boats) usually involved waiting WITH someone, and as long as you've got 15 minutes to kill you might as well make a new friend.

Don't get me wrong - I like the books and I like the bazaar. I use them both a lot. But just because they're convenient and players like them doesn't mean they were necessarily good things for the game.

I've noticed that (unless I haven't found it yet) EQ2 doesn't have a central bazaar (although it has city ones) and nothing like PoK - boat rides have been eliminated but there's still the travel aspect. Maybe they've got that part right. I'm totally sold on the quest-driven aspect of it, and I think if EQ1 had soloable quest content at my levels (53-60, I dual box) I'd probably be more inclined to load it up instead of EQ2. My shift lately hasn't allowed me much time to play, and at least in EQ2 I can make *some* progress solo even if grouping would have been better. I'm working on some of the easier quests, get a flag or two on them then log. Dual boxing in EQ I can grind by myself (cleric/warrior combo in velks, I can pull all day with minimal risk) but how fun is that really? I love my EQ characters and if my guild hadn't been obliterated by EQ2 I'd want to be with them.. I'm actually keeping both accounts on EQ open just because I don't want to lose my characters and I'm hoping things get better, I haven't bothered to actually log on in a month now. I've been on EQ2 quite a bit, I don't like it as well but at least I can do something interesting every day on it. Currently working on betrayal, then I need to do class selection.. that'll keep me busy until level 20. Not sure if I'll care about anything by then (because I'm seriously just focused on betrayal and I don't really have anything I'm looking forward to past that yet) but who knows.

In EQ1 I still want:
- Epic (VERY few kills away from completing 3 separate epics, just the 1.0 but still...)
- 1750 club (which is soloable, but boring if you're not doing anything else in addition to it, at least for me)
- I'd like to kill quarm, if for no reason than to say I did it
- My personal (maybe silly) goal of being accepted in all of the starting cities with my main (dark elf.. and I can actually walk around in felwithe if I'm careful)

My personal opinion is that they need to design a new game, give it for free to anyone with eq or all the expansions or something reasonable like that, and make it so compatible with EQ that characters can just simply transfer over. Like a completely redone EQ, from the ground up, brand new. New graphics, Fresh (but very similar) content, a few of the gameplay improvements in EQ2 (like the quest journal) but basically still keep the game overall the same - Same zones (maybe with additions, but the current ones should be there) with the same (although prettier and maybe "cooler" stat-wise) monsters. I still want to hunt gnolls in blackburrow and beat the crap out of fippy in Qeynos, but when I'm collecting gnoll teeth for faction I don't want them taking up inventory space. And fippy's head shouldn't be a triangle.

Keep servers and guilds intact - If they make a new game (they won't, but I'm dreaming now) there'll be a tholuxe paells server, I'll already be on it, along with my guild, and we'll be ready to go. Maybe my chat channels will even still be intact. And my regent plate that I worked forever and a day to be able to make will still be there.

Then the community doesn't change (much), the economy doesn't even really change, but we've got a brand new (potentially newbie inducing) game that holds up to the new arrivals.

Just my thoughts..

SFG

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on January 6, 2005 07:26 AM

Or just revamp entirely the graphics of EQ1, make everything but tradekskill material, attuneable, and add something to do solo waiting for a group (tasks don't cut it).

I've read this:
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Crier&message.id=62

And I'm glad they get down to business. I'm not sure at all to like what will come out of it but at least it looks like a step in the right direction. That's a change of format I was advocating.

Comment Posted by: Loral on January 6, 2005 10:07 AM

Here is the official announcement on SOE addressing class issues:

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The EverQuest development team continues the process of evaluating class roles, class definitions, and class desirability to ensure that each class provides value in group and raid situations. Moreover, we have found that the term "class balance" is a term that means many different things to different people and we believe that it's more accurate to define our goal in another way.

We believe at its core, each class should be fun and have a desirable role in raid and group situations and it is to this standard that we will hold our evaluations as EQ continues to grow and evolve.

We have begun the process by looking into group roles. We plan to take a look at raid roles after we have finished with groups. We are looking at what each class has to offer in a group setting, how useful and viable that role is and finally, how well they perform these duties. The team is currently reviewing extensive data from live servers to make sure that the conclusions we make are as accurate as possible. Once we have data that we can share, we will ask for your input and insight on our conclusions.

Our goal is to identify the underlying reasons behind any problems we uncover and we may find it necessary to make fundamental changes to the game to address them. As we move forward with this process, we will keep the community apprised of our findings and gather their input on the changes we feel need to be made to make players of all classes in EverQuest feel useful as they fulfill roles that are interesting and fun to play. We would like you to be part of these discussions and help us to determine the shape of classes in EverQuest's future.

Thank you for you time and for being a part of this wonderful world that is Norrath. As an initial step in this process, while we are gathering data, we're going to host a live chat between players and the developers to begin this discussion. We will announce the time and date for the chat in the next few days.

The EverQuest Team.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Loral's comments:

They're sort of damned if they do damned if they don't on this one. I think it is important for SOE to show they are working on these issues and I think they have the right idea of taking it from a group perspective, an overall look at the game, the encounters, and the classes, instead of just walking down the checklist of class issues and hoping that they don't wildly unbalance anything in the process.

Of course, many of the people who complained in the first place will not be happy with the results, whatever they are. These back-seat game designers think they know more than the developers do (they often state this) and rarely consider the overall game when they decide to make changes.

Fun is most important. Each class should be fun to play in its own way. Keeping players active, busy, and challenged in a variety of different encounters and with a variety of skills is no easy task, but it is the most important task.

Anyway, as always, I look forward to seeing what comes out of this. In a world as this, change is good.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 6, 2005 11:52 AM

The cynic in me is thinking that someone in upper management was broken out of their focus on EQ2 long enough to notice that EQ1 was hurting, had a meeting with the devs, and told them to get on the ball and do something about it.

Exactly like what happened after GoD when the OoW preorders were way down, leading to the guild summit. And then after a few months things went back to business as usual. I'll freely admit those were some awfully productive months, but it didn't last.

"Talk is cheap" "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me" etc. But this probably will keep me paying attention to EQ in hopes that something good will happen.

Of course those who are perfectly happy with how things are may wish I wouldn't.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 6, 2005 01:21 PM

Three further observations:

1) Soloing is conspicuously absent. I never thought EQ was a very good single-player game so that doesn't bother me much, but I'm sure others will have more to say.

2) This statement is really everything I could ask for. Of course SOE has a major credibility problem, but if they follow through it could be very good for the game.

3) This one is really directed towards Loral: of course people will complain when SOE makes changes. No change is going to make everyone happy, just because different people like different things. This is neither a reason to disparage the players nor a reason to ignore their feedback. If 70% of rangers like using archery and 30% like meleeing (totally fabricated numbers) and SOE has to pick one as the focus of the class, does that make them wrong or stupid to complain when their favorite isn't chosen? Isn't SOE better off knowing that some of their players are unhappy, even if they can't fix it?

And while a global perspective is a good thing, are you really sure there aren't a fair number of players who know the game better than the devs? A lot of people have been playing EQ longer than most of people at SOE have been working there.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on January 6, 2005 01:55 PM

SFG,

The server you're thinking of was the Discord server. It was a "hardcore" PvP server. If you were killed you went back to level 1. It didn't matter if it was a player, a mob or falling into the lava that killed you.

The one expansion enabled was Ykesha.

It didn't last long because it was a contest, not a permanent server. People got PvP points, and the 6 people with the most PvP points won. It was said at the start that the server wouldn't be around forever.

Comment Posted by: Loral on January 6, 2005 03:15 PM

I am sure soloing will be addressed, but I still see the balance of the task system as being at least one way to ensure that soloing is an option for all classes. The only way we can help that process is to try the tasks and send feedback. I was horrified the other night to hear a Summiteer complain that tasks were too restrictive with time limits and not saving state when logging out. He aparently hadn't tried them since beta.

>>> This one is really directed towards Loral: of course people will complain when SOE makes changes. No change is going to make everyone happy, just because different people like different things. This is neither a reason to disparage the players nor a reason to ignore their feedback. >> If 70% of rangers like using archery and 30% like meleeing (totally fabricated numbers) and SOE has to pick one as the focus of the class, does that make them wrong or stupid to complain when their favorite isn't chosen? >> are you really sure there aren't a fair number of players who know the game better than the devs? <<<

No, I'm never sure of anything. I think that SOE has access to far more data on the game than we do. I think that while I play the game a couple of hours a night after work, they spend their entire job working on the game. I think the devs have a much wider view of game-wide issues than I do or most of the writers of comments I read. I think no one is in a better position to evaluate the needs of classes and decide what is in the best option than the developers.

Feedback is good. Offering up our opinions and making our voices heard is good. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be writing for Mobhunter, I wouldn't offer up Evil Agendas every time I have an opportunity. I think feedback is useful; however, I have no illusions that my feedback may never be acted upon and may, in a greater view of things, make a very small difference.

Very few of the suggestions I have offered up in the past few months have been implemented. Yet I am not upset by this. I don't expect them to be, but perhaps I can help SOE understand the wide range of players and perhaps give them a different view of the same game that they are so used to seeing from one side or another.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 6, 2005 05:22 PM

I agree that in theory tasks are perfect for soloists. But as long as the tasks involve killing mobs, the ability to do tasks solo will be inextricably linked to the ability to kill mobs solo. Some classes of course have a vastly harder time killing mobs while solo than others--and the ones who can solo aren't the ones who need the help.

The only way I can see for the tasks to be a good way for everyone to solo (short of MAJOR changes in most or all classes) is to have class-specific quests that are carefully designed around the strengths and weaknesses of each class. They would take a lot of work to develop--probably an entire expansions worth. And it would be hard to not turn them into "puzzles" which would be trivial once figured out. But they could be a lot of fun if done right...

Comment Posted by: Wombat on January 6, 2005 10:43 PM

I could be kidding myself but a couple of times over the years when I proposed a couple of ideas that not too many others (or none) seemed to be proposing, actually were implimented shortly afterwards. It could be coincidence or it could be evidence that sometimes someone is listening and if you hit the right cord you can make music...

So there is a point to feedback as long as its rational.

I would say that implimenting the class top 10 would go a long way to fixing things, they have been carefully seived by now. The top 10 are pretty focussed on roles.

I always thought the Berserker class was a filler for another expansion and lacks a role and there may be no room for a role for that class. Some classes are nerfed by lack of content, Paladins have few UD, Rogues need more traps etc to make them needed, Rangers need more wanderers so track is required, make people move around more.

Class utility has been narrowed since level 55 in many cases, why is this the case?? It has caused several problems in getting viable groups with a pacifier etc.

I never thought I would be plugging soloing options but it seems the only way to encourage newbies back in a group sparse lowbie environment.

Part of the problem with grouping atm is the tougher mobs in OoW require CC, Warrior or uber equipped Pal/Sk and CH Healer. Without that, no group! All the other classes have to fit into the last 3 slots. 50% of the player base isnt CC, Warrior or Cleric, that leaves lots who are left out of groups.

Server population is a large part of the problem also. Last night my group broke up in WoS 5 spawn because I had to ZZZZZZ. I was the only tank (Pal) they could get at 8200-8500hp and when I left there were no other tanks LFG or in any of the Guilds in the group, or in any chat channel. This was at about 8am USA PST.

So due to lack of a tank 5 people sat on their hands and then broke up.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 7, 2005 01:47 AM

I gotta agree that feedback is good, and necessary. That said, I also agree with Loral that making too much of a personal investment in the feedback we post is just asking for trouble. Generally, when I post on game forums (any game, not just EQ), I am posting my ideas because i WANT other players to discuss them, rip them apart, and poke holes in them. If the devs see it and use it, great, but they get dozens of those posts every day. But I like the mental exercise, and if it starts a constructive discussion, that only helps the community and the game in the long run.

Back in the "old days" of pre-Kunark, every class had value - not because of generalization so much, but because of specialization. The old game had a really good balance of having every class being specialized enough to be unique, and the "best" in certain situations, but still general enough that groups weren't crippled for lack of a certain class. The only time you ever HAD to have a cleric for your healer, for example, was when you were taking on Naggy or Vox.

The problem came with level cap raises. The classes became more specialized at the high end, just as a natural extension of the specialization they already had at 50.

This has gone on for so long that I'm not certain anything can be tweaked back into some semblance of normalcy at this point. I think what the dev team really needs to do is stop focusing so much on how things are today and instead come up with a brand new vision of how things -should- be. They should build that vision in a relative vacuum, because if they don't, they'll get bogged down in all the details and petty concerns of how it's different from what exists now.

But that's the point. It's not a balance issue anymore - balancing implies that something can be tweaked, a little added here, a little removed there, to bring everything back in line. The original class balance that existed in the early game has been left so far behind that it's impossible to go back to something even resembling balance. It's now a design issue.

What the devs need to do is create a new design. They need to say ok, we have these fifteen classes. What is each one of them going to do. We don't care what they do now, or what they don't do now, but let's come up with a brand new vision. They need to not worry about how to get there from here - because that CAN be done, no matter how radical the changes, it just takes time and effort. I really think one of the reasons the dev team has been so slow to respond on a lot of this is that they are spending too much time analyzing how things work now, and none of them are simply willing to say you know what, forget how it works now, here's how it's -going- to work, now let's make it happen.

The other thing that devs and players both need to realize, and admit to, is that it's not a problem of class abilities anymore. It's a problem in every aspect of the game. In order to truly "fix" the class "balance" issues, 75% of existing content will have to be modified or rewritten in some way. Items will have to be changed. Whatever internal policies and practices they have for new itemization or new encounters will need to be updated to be in line with the new system. This doesn't mean there's a lot that can't be reused, but it will be a major, major change.

From a business perspective, I'm honestly not sure that it makes much sense to put so much investment into EQ1, when EQ2 is pretty much THE EQ redesign. I just can't shake the feeling that 2 or 3 years from now, once EQ2's hardware requirements aren't that big a deal, and it has a few expansions under its belt, we're going to see ongoing EQ1 development come to a halt. EQ2 not only builds on the same game world, but it looks, feels, and plays enough like the original game that it's a pretty easy transition for a lot of players (although there's a lot of preconceptions from EQ1 that players have to unlearn if they move, too). Again, from a business sense, it just doesn't make much sense to me for them to be marketing two products that are so similar to each other. But I don't see that they can take the existing EQ1 and differentiate it enough from the new EQ2 to make them both viable either.

Until they answer all of these questions - how to counter EQ1's legacy of mudflation, how to make all class choices viable, how to make the game friendly/playable with a lower population, and finally how to make it different enough from EQ2 so that you can truly put the games beside each other and come up with several strong, definite reasons why someone would choose EQ1 over EQ2.....until they can do that, EQ1 is going to be on shaky ground.

The original game was designed with a "content spiral" centered at each starting city. This was true even through Luclin (although by then people were ignoring it - I mean honestly, how many people took their vah shir all the way to the 30s and 40s solely on Luclin). The idea was that new players start out in their home city, and adventure just outside of it. Then they go to adjacent zones, and so on, until eventually they hit the 30s and 40s and are traveling the world. This design worked well when the game had lots of new players all starting and advancing at different rates.

Perhaps the best thing to do at this point, however, would be to apply a reverse funnel approach instead (where the population is tightly focused in the beginning and players gradually spread out as they advance). Recognizing that there are going to be fewer players starting all at once even if you put the game with all expansions on store shelves for $20 AND make it available for download for the same price, redesign the low-level experience to push players together regardless of which race or class they choose. Turn the first 20-levels of the game into a long series of tutorial quests (we used to say in the Velious era that you don't truly know what a class will be like until level 20) that take you to various newbie dungeons. Making it quest-driven allows you to artificially force the low-level population into the same areas, thus creating population where you wouldn't have it otherwise. From 20 to 40, players are on their own - but special "mini-epic" quests every few levels help ensure that they are never too far from their peers - and as long as progression through the first 20 levels wasn't too fast (*cough* paludal caverns *cough*) they will have met other players and have people to call on to adventure with, hopefully. Finally, at 40, the world truly opens up for them, and they join the raiding game that is high-level EverQuest. This tighter focus at the low levels would allow a lot of existing content to be revamped into higher level areas without people crying about the loss of low and mid-level hunting grounds.

It still would require a lot of work, but it might be easier than trying to recreate a lot of of old content, especially in the face of increased competition (and therefore lower amount of new subscriptions each month even in the best of times). Instead, only a small subset of content needs to be recreated, and the rest can be scheduled for overhaul/revamp into higher-level areas. Norrath has changed in the last 6 real-world years, and so have the expectations of people who are going to play in it (new players and old) and even if a lot of the more glaring design issues can be resolved, the clock can't really be turned back.

The one thing I don't want them to do is trivialize the low-level game. Bring people together, yes. Insure that players can advance, yes. But not at the expense of teaching players how to play their class, how to work with others, how to handle themselves in dungeons, and challenge in general. The world is a dangerous place. It should be that way whether you're level 10, level 37, or level 64 with 50 AAs under your belt.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 7, 2005 10:46 AM

Now, you don't know what a class is like until about 70, because so many of them change so radically starting in about the mid-50s. I'm not too worried about people learning their class at the low levels--one, I don't think it takes nearly as long as people think, and two, a lot of what they'll learn really isn't that relevant to the high end.

Personally I think redesigning EQ from the ground up would be a huge mistake, especially starting now and finishing in, say, six months or so. Why? Because by then everyone will have decided what they want to do based on how things are now. If they haven't quit EQ and started playing EQ2 or WoW by then, it will be because they like how EQ is today. Then everything changes, and inevitably some people won't like the changes and will quit. And I doubt they'll get many of the people back who quit earlier.

Let's face it: EQ can't compete with EQ2 or WoW by doing the same things they do only better. They'd need a comparable budget for one thing, and that wouldn't make the slightest bit of business sense. Fortunately it isn't just a matter of WoW > EQ2 > EQ. Each game has different strengths and weaknesses. SOE needs to focus on the things EQ has that other games don't, not try to make EQ just like the others. Because given fiscal realities and the burden of five years of history, they will fail. On the other hand, those five years of history give EQ a momentum that practically guarantee it will survive for the foreseeable future. SOE needs to use that momentum, not kill it.

Comment Posted by: Loral on January 7, 2005 12:37 PM

A class shouldn't change radically over the course of its level. One thing I never understood was the focus of clerics meleeing above 56.

From level 1 to about 20 I swung a hammer but after that I sat on my butt and healed. I was ok with that, that is how I expected to play. Then at 56, poof, I get yaulp 5 and the new cleric summoned hammer.

Clerics should be given this melee path all through the game. Yaulp 1 through 4 should include the mana regen and haste components. The previous summoned hammers should scale well compared to the 56+ hammers. If clerics need to learn how to melee, they should do it earlier than 56.

Comment Posted by: Indifferentbozo on January 7, 2005 06:51 PM

The "Laws of Online Gaming" should probably be retitled "One guys opinion of how to run a online game." I still like EQ, but I wouldn't give a ton of credit to anyone at Sony for how well they have done over the past few years running the game. I believe it succeeds despite their best efforts, with a few notable exceptions, such as the first summit last year (which might be considered as pandering to their players by some people).

Comment Posted by: Naladini on January 8, 2005 12:09 AM

"Clerics should be given this melee path all through the game. Yaulp 1 through 4 should include the mana regen and haste components. The previous summoned hammers should scale well compared to the 56+ hammers. If clerics need to learn how to melee, they should do it earlier than 56."

This is one area that the dev's have really struggled with. They introduce some nice ideas and concepts, but rarely do they go back and make the concept consistent throughout the lifespan of the class. My guess would be that this has to do with new ideas being implemented during the tight timeframe of an expansion, and if they improve the lower level spells for one class, then the other classes get upset that they didn't get lower level improvements too.

I really do maintain that there are significant changes coming to gameplay. My guess is that the Jan. Community Summit was cancelled primarily b/c of these upcoming changes. Why have a summit based on the current game if radical changes will be introduced soon? If they're setting a tentative date of June for the next Fan Faire, then its safe to say that many of the changes will be in by May, leaving players a bit of time to collect feedback and additional suggestions for improvements to give to the devs at the fan faire.

Comment Posted by: Moorgard on January 8, 2005 12:44 AM

Someday, when I am even older and even greyer, I will write a book. I'm not sure if I'll call it "The Truth About Community Management" or "I Was Right All Along." Either way, I look forward to Loral quoting me for something other that pop-culture references.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 8, 2005 03:16 AM

Teremar wrote:

"Now, you don't know what a class is like until about 70, because so many of them change so radically starting in about the mid-50s. I'm not too worried about people learning their class at the low levels--one, I don't think it takes nearly as long as people think, and two, a lot of what they'll learn really isn't that relevant to the high end."

This attitude is exactly why I don't play EQ1 anymore - no offense. If this is how most players feel, nothing SOE can do will "save" the game at this point.

The skills you learn at the low and mid levels are extremely important at the high end. How to work with other classes in a group. How to do basic aggro control. How not to break mezzes. How to manage your mana. The list goes on. Maybe it's not all that big a deal in raids, because most raids in EQ1 are a joke, where 6-10 people do all the work and everyone else just presses the right buttons when they're told to do so. Sure the abilities available to classes change and evolve - but without knowing the basics beforehand you'll never figure out the advanced stuff. As a paladin, if I didn't learn the basics of interrupting spells at low levels, I wouldn't be half as effective in the 60s. If I didn't learn how to use my standard heals in combat, or how to root park, or when to lay hands, I'd never be able to use half of my AA abilities effectively. If I hadn't spent the time at the lower levels learning how to form an effective group, move through a dungeon, and reach a goal, I would never, ever have been able to lead a raid and take down a dragon, let alone a god.

It does take time for players to learn these skills - and quite a bit. The game is much too easy now and the only way people learn things, truly, is through either luck or the school of hard knocks. I can't count the number of times that I grouped with warriors who cut themselves to ribbons on a high-riposte mob, or even worse, who couldn't keep aggro to save their lives. I saw clerics that fired their HOTs at the wrong times, that waited too late to use a complete heal, or that burned all their mana on the fast cast heals. I saw DPS classes who stole aggro from the tank because they didn't know how to meter their damage output. Casters who were out of mana or dead before the fight was half over from chain casting. Druids and rangers that never snared a mob, enchanters that constantly mezzed themselves....the list goes on. All these players, all in the 50s and 60s, hundreds of them over the course of years of play, and you say that the low levels don't matter? They didn't ALL buy those characters on Ebay.

I expected that kind of noobishness in Blackburrow, Crushbone, Ill Omen, Paludal, the Ros and the Commonlands. Not in Old Sebilis, Velketor's Labyrinth, or the Plane of Valor. Most definitely not in the Noble's Causeway or Riwwi.

If EQ is going to be game about 10% of the players leading the other 90% around by the nose, pointing at the monster, and saying "ok, attack on the count of 3", then yeah, low levels don't matter. On the other hand, if it's going to be a game where players become individually skilled and powerful in their own right, and then team up to take on the really tough stuff, then they DO matter, a lot.

What kind of game would you rather play? I'm a raid leader, and a decent one, but nothing frustrates me more than having to scream at a bunch of level 60-70 people to assist the tank.

I don't like elitism, but in this, maybe I'm a little bit of an elitist. People who don't know how to handle basic gameplay don't deserve to be high level and doing high level things, and the game should be designed so that it can teach even the most undisciplined, hardheaded player how to play their class properly before they get anywhere near the top end. That's an expectation I have of any level-based game I play.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on January 8, 2005 05:52 AM

I completely agree with Talaen. I have a few examples from my own experiences that show how the trivialization of newbie levels is detrimental. One thing I remember clearly is how I got killed because I had temp on. I was playing my newbie druid and I had a temp on. With the temp, I had maybe 3 or 4 times the hps I should have. The extra hps enabled me to solo a yellow conning mob with a nice chunk of health left over. Later, after temp had faded, I saw another yellow elephant and thought "I could do it before, I can do it now I'm sure." The fact that I now had 200hps, when I previously had something like 1000, slipped my mind. Needless to say, I died.

Now, to generalize using my experience. If a newbie constantly has something like 4 times the hps they should because of temp or whatnot, then they'll learn how to play with 4x their hps, and they won't be nearly as effective when they don't have all that extra hps. In other words, when temp only offers a 50% boost instead of a 400% boost. Or maybe I'm just full of it. Whichever.

I wanted to comment on the "we need more solo content" discussion, but it's 4:50AM here and I'm so tired my eyes are starting to hurt and water. I don't know how that works, but I think it means I should sleep instead of staring at this screen. I'll ramble more later.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 8, 2005 10:55 AM

This is totally, completely off topic, but here is some breaking news:

http://eqiiforums.station.sony.com/eq2/board/message?board.id=news_announcements&message.id=90

My editorial on this article can be found here, for anyone interested:

http://claws.eq2guilds.org/onepage.vm?articleId=33640&detailed=1

This came from Smed rather than EQ2's production staff - which makes me wonder if he's not going to apply the same strategy to EQ1 as well.

Comment Posted by: wombat on January 8, 2005 12:13 PM

Good points Tal. Access is a waste of money for me as I only play one game. Currently unless my EQ1 server recovers population it will be EQ2 soon, I dont have time to play other games so its an complete waste of cash to pay twice as much for 4 extra characters when I dont play the extra games.

Hmm I think I will get access for 3 months at the end of the year and get all 4 adventures free with it then return to the normal single account.

If Access Account allowed packaging of multiple EQ accounts then that would be highly attractive. 3 accounts (or even 2 accounts) for the cost of one Access (equivalent to the cost of 2 normal accounts) for instance via an Accesss account would be very popular I think.

Everyone will need to buy the same adventure zones for grouping will be viable. Can you imagine 6 people saying "ok where shall we go?" and then working through which bits of the game all 6 have? Its a great tool for fragmenting the player base. 4 adventures per year over a few years will really put off new players unless they want to pay twice as much for an Access account. Not a good entry policy for new players after the first year!

Some adventure zones will be seen as having the best reward:risk ratio and may be preferentially purchased by most players of course.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 8, 2005 09:54 PM

I don't know if we'll ever see discounted second accounts in EQ - SOE seems to have a love/hate relationship with 'boxing' and with multiple accounts to single players, and truthfully the community still stands divided on whether boxing is really a good thing or a bad thing for the game in a lot of cases. But I do think if they're on a drive to get everyone onto Access subscriptions, then they'll start offering similar style perks to EQ1 players and Planetside players and so on to make it worth their while to move even if they don't switch.

The main reason people didn't use Access in the beginning was that most people just don't have the time to play 2 games. It's not in their makeup. At best a person will log into one game for weeks or months until they get a little burned out, then go play the other game for a time and switch back, and so on. So a lot of people looked at Access and said "well that's nice, but I'll never need it", and they were right. The only reason that I personally upgraded to Access was that it made sense when I was moving to EQ2. I wanted the ability to come back to EQ1 - I expected EQ2 to ultimately be good, but I also know how it goes with new games, and in EQ2's case, it could have gone a lot worse. I expected a lot of my friends to fence-sit in EQ1 for a few months before they moved. As it turned out, I didn't need this, but at the time Access seemed like a good idea to provide a little insurance. Now, it's giving me all sorts of perks in EQ2, so I don't plan on dropping it. *shrug*

Think back to the LoY expansion. The big selling points of that expansion were enhancements to the game's interface - more bank slots. The new raid interface. Frogloks as a playable race. The new LFG tool (if I remember correctly). Everyone went and bought LoY because of these things, not because of the content (although, it had arguably some of the best and most solid content released between Velious and Omens of War).

Imagine if instead of packaging all those enhancements into an expansion, SOE said "you get all these things if you upgrade to an Access sucbscription". A lot more people probably would have gone out and done that very thing. That seems to be the strategy they're taking in EQ2 now, and I think it's only a matter of time before they start doing it in EQ1, Planetside, and any other future non-licensed games they produce.

Comment Posted by: FeliasGrimm/SFG on January 8, 2005 10:52 PM

Talaen, you're my hero. Loved the raiding comments...

Hate to say it, I've done pretty much everything on that list... but I managed to (usually) do it during the lower levels where it was a bit more forgiving. I still steal aggro on occasion when I shouldn't and everyone misses a CH from time to time, but there are SO MANY people who are totally clueless.

That's one of the things in my bag of mixed blessings about EQ2 - The environment and death system are a bit more forgiving but I think that just encourages sloppy habits at the later levels. But since I'm only 15 in eq2 I can't really comment yet - it's just a hypothesis.

SFG

Comment Posted by: on January 9, 2005 12:19 AM

My experience so far in EQ2 has been that it's a little bit easier and more forgiving than Year 1 EQ1, but not much. At least for me, it really started to show around level 18-20, especially in dungeons. We breezed through Blackburrow so fast and easy we were all saying "wow, was that it??". But then we got to Stormhold, and...well...I actually have to talk people into going there now - they all say "but I die every time I go in, and most of the time it's not my fault, it's that other guy!"

Needless to say, they haven't been to Fallen Gate or RoV yet. Stormhold is cake compared to the level 25 stuff, at least that I've experienced.

*shrug* Hopefully that trend will continue though. A lot of players have complained that EQ1's early learning curve was too steep and frustrating for first-timers, and maybe it was, but I look back on games that I grew up with and loved, and still have to this day, and none of them were ever really easy. So I don't want my games dumbed down to where people can do stupid things and survive consistently. If you make mistakes, you should die/fail. If you do stupid things, you should die/fail. It should happen often enough, and sting enough, that after three or four times you stop and say to yourself "Maybe I need to come at this differently." That's how people learn how to play. Trial, and most importantly, error. Ignoring the errors or letting them slide just contributes to the frustration of other players with you later on.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 9, 2005 12:20 AM

Oopsie, that last reply was me btw.

Comment Posted by: on January 9, 2005 06:19 AM

The last several comments are probably the best ever made on this site.

Comment Posted by: wombat on January 9, 2005 10:38 AM

The 2 account issue relates to families not 2 boxing. I currently have two accounts on my credit card, one for me and one for my son (I have 2 computers LAN'd). If I could bundle them into a access type deal it would be worthwhile.

Access would be worthwhile if it gave discounts on expansions I suppose or gave them free along with adventure zones.

Can you imagine having access so you can play EQ1+2 and having to pay for expansions for both? Thats 4 expansions per year you are paying for. for most people its not viable. It will force them to consider playing one game only.

The idea of many adventure zones in the game maybe dozens after a while that have to be paid for separately or through a 3 month access isnt a good idea. As I said before it was bad enuff in EQ1 with various people not having expansions and half the raid leaving because mob X was up and they couldnt access that zone.

Adventure zones should be free or packaged with expansions. Otherwise you have multiple systems = normal account plus adventure plus expansions, Access plus expansions and any number of permutations of those two depending on the numbers of expansions and adventures you have.

As it is I will not invest in a new expansion in EQ1 unless server population issues are resolved. EQ1's very viability is a serious issue for me.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on January 10, 2005 07:21 AM

Talaen, you haven't been in the right guild to think that you have 6 people tops that know their stuff and 48 that just mash buttons like trained monkeys. It might be the case for middle of the road raiding in POP but I find GoD and Omens a lot less forgiving, depending of the role too.

Some guild don't push their members to excel, some do.

Regarding all those small paying bits for EQ2 and even in EQ1: that's the same stragedy as the paying transfers. They generated a lot of cash with little effort. That's the whole idea. To generate side revenues for Sony. Not a better bang for the buck for its customer base.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 10, 2005 08:25 AM

Redcloud, you're probably very correct that there are guilds out there who don't raid that way. But there are many that do, and I believe that's what the average player sees.

When I actively played, I had a lot of respect for the members of Legacy of Steel. All of them were individually skilled, all of them knew what they were doing - and that was why they did things first, before other guilds were anywhere near it.

But for every guild like Legacy of Steel, there were 10 or even 20 other guilds out there who didn't put that emphasis on personal skill - all they cared about was that their members were X class and could follow instructions.

In this case I would have to say that the majority determines the atmosphere of the game. The fact that so many guilds were able to skate by through the raids, without being forced to rely on the skills of their entire raiding party, is where content design truly is at fault in my opinion.

As far as Gates/Omens - I saw Gates raids pretty much get boiled down to a formula that anyone could do as long as they made sure they had certain classes who did certain things. Granted, it was tougher than PoP, and made more demands on your core group. The raids were smaller in size and so you didn't have as much fluff either. I'm sure that will happen to Omens. In the end, once enough people have done these raids, they become predictable and actions become rote, rather than raiders having to think on their feet and react appropriately.

Comment Posted by: Loral on January 10, 2005 08:56 AM

Rumor's run rampent on the EQLive form of a sighting of a name and faceplate for a new expansion: The Dragons of Norrath.

Let the traditional "how dare they take my money! EQ has bugs!" posts begin.

Comment Posted by: Siriln on January 10, 2005 09:48 AM

Uhhh... can I just do my usual ignore them 'til I'm convinced it's worth my money instead? Besides, not buying the next expansion is the best way to let SOE know you aren't happy with some aspect of the game (imo of course). :)

Comment Posted by: on January 10, 2005 10:14 AM

Just saw a Muramite Rune for 12k pp on Rodcet Nife in the Bazaar. Didn't last long.

Comment Posted by: wombat on January 10, 2005 10:15 AM

Well I put it to the family that we amalgamate our 3 EQ2 accounts into 2 Access accounts (2 comps on LAN) and they voted to keep the 3 normals and not pay for adventures etc.

EQ1 accounts are on 1 month subs atm as we arent sure the gane will be playable on our server soon. I suspect EQ1 will be discontinued the way things arre going.

Basically they are only playing EQ2 and paying twice as much for it to get more character slots and free adventures wasnt worth it to them.

They are pretty annoyed that they have to pay for adventures which are just add on zones like the free extra zones.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 10, 2005 10:50 AM

Back to new players learning the game...

Take any of the skills you mention, Talaen. Aggro control, assisting, etc. Pick one. How long does it take to learn it? Months, years? I'd say a 2-5 hours tops for most--with a good teacher. I hate to burst anyone's bubble, but EQ isn't particle physics.

Another thought experiment: your guild has a brand new member, playing your class, and the guild has made it your job to train them. For simplicity we'll assume they're already high level somehow but know nothing about EQ tactics. (This is not an endorsement of Ebay, just a thought experiment.) They are of average intelligence, eager to learn, and have been told you are a master of your class. Furthermore the entire resources of the guild are available to you, so you can take them anywhere you want with a group or raid to train them. How long will it take to make them a competent player of your class? I'd guess something in the ballpark of 40-80 hours. Again, EQ isn't particle physics.

Note what makes that work: first off, you'd probably take them to a variety of zones, and expose them to a variety of tactical situations. Once they understand the basics, you'd probably be pushing them to their limits most of the time, not having them do something they're already good at over and over again.

But the most important thing is that you would take it upon yourself to teach them, and they would take it upon themselves to learn--recognizing that you know more than they do.

The reality is that no one can figure out current EQ tactics all by themselves--and if they tried they'd probably come up with tactics that are different enough that they couldn't easily cooperate with others. People need to be taught. And where are the people who can teach them? Well, for the most part they are playing high level characters.

So how does the average person actually learn? Maybe they go read their class boards and other guides on the web. Maybe. More likely they just struggle along, trying to figure things out. Every now and then they get yelled at for doing something wrong, and hopefully they’re the type that can learn from criticism even if it's not put nicely. And hopefully the person doing the yelling actually knows what they're talking about. Of course what's probably more common is that when they do something wrong the people who could teach them just say to themselves "Well, I'm never going to group with this person again."

Eventually they get high enough that most of the people they group with know what they're doing. Then those teaching moments come with much greater frequency, and soon most of them become competent players.

So it's rather ironic when people say "I know what I'm doing so other people should know what they’re doing before they play with me" because the only way they can learn is to group with people like you! (Note: this is not intended as a personal criticism. Talaen in particular strikes me as exactly the sort of person who would NOT say this.)

So if you're concerned about the skills of the new players you meet, that is a valid concern but I don’t think just making them play longer before getting to your level is going to help all that much (yes, it will help some). What I do think would help would be to make sure new players are exposed to a broader variety of situations and more difficult situations. Give them even better incentives to avoid places like OT or DL where they learn next to nothing. PC is actually better than average for learning in my opinion, though not enough to justify its current ZEM, and LDoN is quite good. And of course the older dungeons.

And maybe there could be a way to help new players determine whom they should listen to. Maybe give you the option when playing an alt to flag yourself as someone willing to teach, which allows players to see what other characters you have? Hopefully they’ll be more receptive to what you have to say if they see you have a level 70 character.

In short, there are lots of things that can be done to help people learn that would be far more effective than just making it take longer to level up.

A couple of other points--

On how much the game changes at high levels: Yes, there are important basics that don't change. But a lot of things do. Mana management changes a lot when you get high enough to join the crowd that never sets foot outside PoK without KEI. At low levels, doing more damage may justify a DPS class getting aggro every now and then. Once mobs can kill you in one round, it's a whole different ball game. I noticed that everything I read about high-end healing is very different from what worked for my cleric alt in the mid 40s (obviously Loral could say a lot more about this). And, as we've discussed before, the ability to deal with multiple mobs becomes much less important.

On buffs making the game too easy: This is roughly equivalent to saying "Hitting level 20 made the game too easy." Which is true--if you stay in Crushbone! But note what you did, Maitreya, because you had temp: you started fighting yellow mobs instead of blues. One of the fundamentals of EQ's design is that it encourages people to take on the hardest content they possibly can. Give people better buffs, better gear, etc. and they'll just fight harder mobs. Will they get xp faster? Yes. Does it make the game easier? Well, if you define hard in terms of risk or level of skill required, no. Of course if all you mean by hard is time-consuming...

Comment Posted by: Sein on January 10, 2005 01:29 PM

Rumor no longer -

"Hi folks -- I apologize for taking so long to send out a "state of the game" or 2005 update letter. I've been meaning to do that but I keep getting pulled away. In one sense tho, that is a good sign - EverQuest is still going strong and we have a lot planned for 2005. Yes, we opened beta for Dragons of Norrath for a bit over the weekend for some "pre-Beta" testing and will probably open it more later. We've hit the ground running in 2005, things are up and moving forward at the incredible EQ pace. Let me get a cup of coffee, and I promise I'll put up a letter today.

Thanks for your patience.

-Robert

Robert Pfister"
Executive Producer
EverQuest

Comment Posted by: Teremar on January 10, 2005 01:46 PM

Ack--I just noticed the funny characters in my last post. That will teach me to use Word as a spell-checker (or anything else for that matter). I think in every case they are apostrophes which Word turned into non-standard curly apostrophes that the web server can't work with.

My apologies.

Comment Posted by: Wombat on January 10, 2005 08:34 PM

Well the PR blurb Robert Pfister is totally depressing. No comment on server population issues at all unless its coming in the forementioned "letter".

The newbie issue is pretty fundamental as empty newbie zones mean no newbies to keep numbers up at higher levels eventually, and no groups for new players to join so they can level up. Attrition = slow death until critical mass is lost then = fast death.

So soloing classes only need apply = no group skills and no balance of classes at higher levels. Unless we have solo tasks for all classes to level up which still means no group skills for your class, and just as importantly a knowledge of other classes abilities and how to mesh with a variety of group combinations.

I am not buying another expansion when population issues arent even being considerred. I simply cant play on my server (since all my characters require groups) if I log on and cant get a group. I may as well play EQ2. I will not pay current prices for transfers between servers and accounts.

Judging by the amount of time it took Sony to fix the POP and CT armour drop problems it will take over a year by which time it will be too late for many of us. In the case of the POP and CT drops for armour ingrediants it was fixed long after the zones had become deserts thus no ingrediants dropping to make gear that in any case has now been made obsolete by OoW drops.

My Guild is recruiting but they mainly are soloing classes (soloers get to their high 50's and find grouping becomes necessary) or remnants of recently crashed Guilds and those mainly from a timezone that has difficulty raiding at our normal time. So despite numbers picking up we have horrible class balance.

We cant raid as we used to and apart from kiting groups we are lucky to have one or two "normal" groups functioning at any one night. There is no other Guild who raids at our timeslot on our server to merge with, apart from a Raiding guild which plays totally different content, although they are struggling also.

Bazaar population is half what it used to be. I have seen Loral in POK and he would know that the numbers who turn up for an MGB are way down on what they used to be as a rough guide.

Wombat

Comment Posted by: jaguwar on January 10, 2005 09:15 PM

One I see no fundemental differences between the two versions of EQ. EQ 1 has become boring, EQ 2 will become boring even sooner.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on January 10, 2005 11:16 PM

February 15. Hooray!

http://everquest.station.sony.com/dragonsofnorrath/

A series of events has transpired across the world of Norrath and the familiar faces of Firiona Vie and her nemesis Lanys T’Vyl return to find themselves at the forefront of the events. Unbeknownst to them, a dark influence has seeped into the world of Norrath causing new tensions to arise and conflicts to intensify as the dawn of a new age emerges. The Age of War is upon the people of Norrath and heroes return in this ultimate, unending battle between good and evil.
Prepare for EverQuest: Dragons of Norrath and return to the lands between Halas and Lavastorm as you seek out the Nest, the ancestral birthplace of all dragons, long sealed away and hidden from the eyes of Norrath. But beware, if the Nest is exposed too early during the Brood Dawn, all dragons and their eggs will be cursed for eternity and death will storm down on all Norrathian's not in their service.

Featuring new lands with enhanced graphics, bold new storylines, and updated creatures including goblins, drakes and the ominous Frost Giant, EverQuest: Dragons of Norrath is the next great expansion pack for the fantasy saga that is EverQuest. Make ready with new features such as the ability to regenerate your mana/health before a battle, use your potion belt to access your inventory quickly, and quickly swap from Sword and Shield to Great Sword using the bandolier. Plus, with the all new guild management tools you can easily get your guild ready to encounter anything that comes your way! EverQuest: Dragons of Norrath is bursting with new adventures and intense battles for players of all levels.

New Zones, Creatures and Content - From Lavastorm to the Thundercrest Isles adventure in graphically enhanced zones with all new themes. Brave challenging new quests, discover new treasures, and battle new NPCs including drakes, goblins, and fierce dragons.
New Interactive World Map - A full-color interactive map of the world allows players to point-and-click from a world view, to a continent view, to a zone view of the traditional line maps.
Player Barter System - Allows players to set up their own method of giving platinum or items for other items. Players can now buy items!
Potion Belt - Allows for quick use of consumable items, such as potions or food.
Bandolier Equip - Lets your character have pre-arranged, multiple sets of weapons accessible by a single mouse click.
New spells and Tradeskill Recipes

All-New Guild Halls - Individual instanced Guild Halls for guild members to meet and prepare for playing. Includes the following features and benefits:
Guild Bank - Bank slot for storage of items accessible by all (designated) members of a guild.
Mana/health Regen Pool - Allows players to easily regenerate their mana and health in preparation for battle (available only at the Guild Hall).
Mass Corpse Summoning Altar - Allows guilds to summon guild corpses en masse to the altar room after a wipe out.
Guild Portal - Allows guild members to purchase the ability to have a persistent port to pre-determined areas around the world.
Guild Tradeskill Objects - Various tradeskill tools are located in the guild hall for easy access by guild members.
Guild 'Looking for Members' Tool - Allows guilds to recruit by placing persistent “ads” on bulletin boards, search for player characters who match guild criteria and send in-game emails to those members.
Players 'Looking for Guild' Tool - Allows players to find guilds recruiting members.
Buff Timers - In the Guild Halls buff times can be paused for Guild Members.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 10, 2005 11:41 PM

Thanks Matreiya.

Ok, I normally try not to be cynical, but I am finding it difficult here. Just judging from the feature list, that expansion looks like it's going to be a gigantic bugfest as soon as it releases. Everything they want to do there is nice, but it's also all brand new code and features. Given their past track record with this sort of thing, I would hope that they would be a little more cautious about it.

I also agree with Wombat - they need to address the population issues first.

There's a lot of stuff in that expansion that wants to be added to EQ2 as well - which is interesting, because if Dragons has been in development for a while, it means the EQ2 dev team already has design documents available which they can clone/tweak for that game.

Comment Posted by: Talaen on January 11, 2005 12:25 AM

Teremar,

Interesting ideas. I think where we differ is our view of how people learn.

I have very rarely in all my years of playing Everquest encountered an experienced player who was patient enough and effective enough to train newbies. I've seen people give advice, sure, but generally speaking they don't want to be teaching others how to play - they want to be playing themselves.

Likewise, I have met very few newbies who were very trainable. Most insisted upon making their own mistakes in spite of what anyone told them. Some of the best players I've known at the high levels were absolutely hard-headed as newbies and wouldn't listen to a thing anyone said to them. In a way though, I think this is a good thing, becuase they challenged everyone else's preconceptions about how the game should be played. They came to their own conclusions, and sometimes they taught those "elder" players a thing or two in the process.

Regardless, while the "training" is a nice idea in concept, I just don't see it working given my experience with EQ players in general. Your mileage may vary, but most are just too independant and impatient to do that.

I do agree that there should be a way for people to flag themselves as a "helper" though. This is really good for newbies whether there's a lot of them or only a few - it immediately gives them a visible person who they can ask questions of or get advice from. SWG allowed players to do this, and I spent a lot of time in that game with my helper flag up, explaining to new players how certain parts off the game work. The comment from my guildmates a lot of time was "OMG, you have the patience of Job" - which reinforces my belief that most players really aren't suited for training or being trained, but there are definitely people out there that could be a good source of advice for newbies, if only the newbies had a way to know who to ask.

I agree with you that new players need to be discouraged from going to the "camp zones" like OT and DL. In my opinion the best newbie zones in the game are the original dungeons (if you don't take twinking into account). To illustrate why, here is my experience as a newbie.

I started out and soloed outside Felwithe until about level 6.

Then, I went to Orc Hill, where I learned that in order to survive (keep in mind, untwinked), I had to have a group of some sort. I began joining and forming groups on Orc Hill.

When I was around level 9 (about 2 weeks in), I went into Crushbone. There I learned several very important lessons. I learned about trains, about aggro, about pulling, about waiting for the healer's mana. I learned basic crowd control as well, and I learned when the group should cut and run vs. when we could stand and fight. I learned about spawn times and repops and how to position a group so that you didn't get wiped out while you were medding. By the time I came out of Crushbone, around level 15, I had learned the basics of all of these skills. I still needed practice, but I had at least been exposed to them and learned their importance. Between 9 and 15 I spent about 3-4 weeks, and I considered that a fair pace of advancement.

I then went several places, but wound up in the Estate of Unrest. There I refined what I had learned in Crushbone, and I also learned how to work with specific classes - for example, how a wizard was