Remember Grobb

The Patch that Changed Everquest

by Loral on July 04, 2005

People tend to spend a great deal of time paying attention to very small things. Last week's article on the Equipment Gap received 130 comments in six days. We spend much time concerning ourselves with class balance, Time instancing, equipment statistic issues, and uber versus casual debates.

None of that is important.

What is most important in Everquest is meeting people and having fun. The damage per second on wizard blasts makes little difference. Adding another 50 hitpoints to a level 70 breastplate makes little difference.

This week's patch added three major changes that helps bring in new players and ties the social community of Everquest closer together. These include the new tutorial, the new level 10 to 20 quests, cross-zone group invites, and the autojoined chat channels.

Players now have a wide variety of tools to help find other players for groups. Now you can use the LFG tool to find players looking for groups and ask in the General chat if anyone is interested. If they are, you can immediately invite them into your group regardless of what they are. Group members can coordinate much easier when everyone is in a group instead of a barrage of tells. The cross-zone invite is a great convenience as well as a tool for helping build social bonds between group members faster.

The new chat channels also create entire new social circles. No doubt, due to the age of the game and the typical resistance to change, many people will immediately leave the public channels and stay with the channels they know best. Many will stay, however, and hopefully some of the cynics will return to them. These channels act as an excellent communication pathway. The General chat cuts across all players, whether level 25 or level 70, whether a once-a-week player or a hard core raider.

Smart players will use this channel to find groups or build pickup raids. Supportive players will use it to help people learn more about the game and teach them about their classes.

If you are a player who wants to help teach new players how to play Everquest, add "NewPlayers" to your autojoin list ("/autojoin NewPlayers"). This lets you join that channel regardless of your level. New players are automatically added to this channel so you can easily find new players to help. Using other players as a resource is the only way most players can cut through much of the complexity in this game. Use of the General and NewPlayers channels help solve this very well.

If you're one of the cynics who found the channels invasive and distracting, consider at least joining the General channel and saying hello.

Over the past couple of days I have taken my new warrior through the newly released Everquest Tutorial, Mines of Gloomingdeep. This tutorial will soon become the core of the "Escape to Norrath" free demo, but it is available to all new players now.

The new tutorial is a lot of fun. While the popup windows on the initial lessons can be a bit distracting, especially for older players who learned six years ago how to "hail" someone, the rest of the tutorial is a blast. The lessons are now done as quests in the quest journal, helping EQ compete with the quest journals of EQ2 and World of Warcraft.

There are about fifteen quests including three group quests. Along the way you can collect a new set of armor specific to the tutorial with statistics similar to the original newbie quest armor. There are three boss encounters; the spider queen, the Kobold Overlord, and the demon in the pits. I particularly enjoyed the pit demon mission. The Kobolds in their digging dug too deep and released a great horror. Only you and your heroic friends can stop it.

The new tutorial helps give direction to new players. Both times I hunted there I saw over forty other players hunting as well. Groups formed quickly and met challenges. There was some twinking but powerleveling isn't really possible.

The tutorial looks great. The Mines of Gloomingdeep uses a unique zone, newer graphic models from Dragons of Norrath and even a new unique kobold model. The graphics are very good with light reflections and excellent detail. In my battle with the pit demon I marveled at how good EQ can look after six years.

If you haven't tried out the new tutorial, spend a few minutes rolling up a level 1 and go through it. It is a lot of fun.

This patch also included a bunch of new level 10 to 20 quests from the Plane of Knowledge. When a new player leaves Gloomingdeep they are now sent to the Plane of Knowledge, the central hub of Everquest, and given a set of new exploratory quests to help them get around. While it detracts from the cultural bonding that we once knew starting out in our home cities, the low population of those cities made it harder for players to meet one another. It is a difficult change but one for the better.

There were many other changes in this patch but my hand grows weary. I will leave you with today's Mobhunter Exclusive:

Mobhunter Exclusive: Blood Boils Among the Trolls

As a reporter in the world of Norrath it is important for me to keep my fingers on all of the strands of information that cross our waters and travel over our mountains. It is sometimes important for me to deal with unsavory and questionable people in order to learn everything I must know. One of these unsavory characters, a young troll spy, sent me a scribbled note through the Antonican Bards and it is the contents of this troll spy's note I will report to you here.

It appears the trolls within Neriak begin to plot. They speak of violence. They speak of war. They speak of a warlord named Bortar who will deliver them from Neriak and send them back against the Frogloks of Gukta. These notes come at great cost; it took eight scholars and five engineers to teach the troll how to write with a quill. Here are some of their whispers:

# Luruk Dridor says 'Me hear talk Trolls angry about being stuck here long time Me wonder what happen next'
# Grigdor says 'Me hear dat Daboo do most talking, dat Daboo almost kill Elf cause Elf try to tell him what to do'
# Luruk Dridor says 'Me hear dat too Me tink dat Daboo be lucky he stay calm He kill Elf den we all end up in fight'
# Grigdor says 'Me hear Draboo [sic] say stupid tings at bar too Tings dat Elfs can hear and not like'
# Luruk Dridor says 'What tings?'
# Grigdor says 'Daboo say dat Elfs not let Bortar lead Trolls to kill Frogs He blame Elfs for not giving Trolls enough room in stupid city'
# Luruk Dridor says 'Me tink dat someting Daboo say Sound like Daboo Daboo not too smart'
# Daboo Dogak says 'SHUT UP! Me right here you know!'

# Gardunk says 'You hear Ranjor? He loosing mind'
# Kaglari says 'He just tired of Elf city and still mad about losing home'
# Gardunk says 'He not only one If Bortar not come back soon, Clan Grobb fight Dark Elves Me not sure Clan Grobb win'
# Kaglari says 'Grobb win if work together Lots of Trolls here not want fight here, want fight for Grobb, kill dem frogs'
# Gardunk says 'True dat Kaglari have much control over Clan Grobb hearts Kalgari talk to clan, calm down Ranjor'
# Kaglari says 'Ranjor not listen anymore, me try Me tink Hukulk more likely fight He talk quiet, but his heart angry Angriest in clan'
# Gardunk says 'Me angry too Me want fight But me want home back, not take Elf home Ugly place, Elf home'
# Kaglari says 'Might not be able to stop fight, might only choose where clan fight Me try to keep all quiet until Bortar come back'
# Gardunk says 'Me hope you can'

# Zignal Luk says 'Me had enuf Dis not Troll home! Troll not belong in stupid Elf home!'
# Wista says 'Me no mind Make good money here'
# Ootok says 'You not want home back? You not want kill frogs! You stupid as Ogre!'
# Wista says 'Me want kill stupid frogs, but me like glowy things in elf city'
# Zignal Luk says 'No matter what Wista like We no wait more Bortar lazy slob, no act We take action soon, no matter what Bortar say anymore'
# Ootok says 'Zignal right Trolls wait too long for revenge'
# Wista says 'Zignal maybe right, but Zignal talk too much Elf no like talk of revenge, make too many trolls angry'
# Zignal Luk says 'Me duty to remember Troll past, make Troll culture If me shut up, nobody remember'
# Wista says 'Zignal shut up before inkies hear'
# Zignal Luk says 'Me be quiet, but me not be quiet long'

# Ranjor says 'Me tink it not a good idea'
# Hukulk says 'Me tink you not real Troll Me tink you coward'
# Ranjor says 'I tink me gonna kill you now!'
# Glubtak says 'Dey at it again Stupid Trolls, fight each other not enemy'
# Ranjor says 'You shut stupid mouth! You not know nothing!'
# Hukulk says 'She right Me kill you not help Grobb Clan, so me not fight'
# Ranjor says 'You coward!'
# Hukulk says 'No, me smart You not control self, you fool'
# Glubtak says 'You both shut up You know Bortar tell Trolls not fight Trolls Me Bortar's friend, me not want to tell him you fight'
# Ranjor says 'Me tired of talk! All time talk! Me want do something!'
# Hukulk says 'You get chance soon enuf, Ranjor'

# Slunga says 'Hey, Capee, you kill anyone today?'
# Capee says 'No Me no find anyone to kill But me hurt some Elf real good'
# Slunga says 'Ha! Dat good! Me tired of dem Elfs Wish me had time to smash some'
# Capee says 'You no have customers, ever You got time'
# Slunga says 'Stupid Capee Even if no customers, not allowed to leave Boss make me stay'
# Capee says 'Well, me hear dat some Trolls tinking of taking Elf city for selves Me like dat plan'
# Slunga says 'Dat sound good to Slunga'
# Svunsa says 'You two shut up Me not pay you to make trouble or talk stupid'

Changes are on the horizon. Keep watch.

Loral Ciriclight
4 July 2005
loral@loralciriclight.com

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Comment Posted by: BigFoot on July 4, 2005 02:10 PM

Hey I can post first. I remember Grobb. Everpatch.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on July 4, 2005 04:46 PM

The new low level tasks and missions are a lot of fun.

The missions can actually be started alone (not sure if this is intended or not) and can still be done at high levels. When I checked them out, I was 52.

On the good side, there are missions that take you into instanced versions of Crushbone, Runnyeye and Befallen. On the evil side, you have Kurn's Tower, Upper Guk and another Befallen missions. (That's three total Befallen instances and none for Blackburrow. So sad.)

Some details if you're interested:

Warning, spoilers follow.

For the Kurn's tower one, the backstory goes like this: a caravan was ambushed, by burynai, I think. Or maybe it was ambushed by bandits and the guards and goods were sold to burynai? Either way, there's an artifact held by a burynai in Kurn's tower that you have to go retrieve. Go in, kill, get out, and turn in the artifact.

The mission itself is simple, but there are neat things along the way. For example, in the first room you find an injured iksar caravan guard. She tells you that the undead are animated and controlled by burynai necromancers. This adds an optional stage to your task to take out the necros. You're not required to do it, but it helps. Once you take out the necros, all of the undead are destroyed and the burynai retreat to the lower levels.

There are also dark elf guards you can rescue who will help you. Some follow you around like a pet and help you fight. They accept gear and can be buffed. I found at least 3 of them. There was also a dark elf caster who buffs you when you talk to him. He gave me a few low level buffs to help me out before saying he couldn't spare anymore. I thought that was cool.

I also tried Runnyeye and Crushbone. While I think I liked the Kurn's tower mission more, both of those were great. The Guk mission I couldn't do because of a bug. (The troll leader you need to protect is supposed to be non-kos to everyone, but was kos to me.) The Befallen ones I haven't tried yet.

Comment Posted by: Harbinger on July 4, 2005 06:24 PM

Trying to revive a floundering community by implementing successful formulas from other games, I see.

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 4, 2005 08:58 PM

Phew. I thought I'd lost the trolls. Welcome back! You forgot to call me a phaunboui.

Comment Posted by: sunshadow on July 4, 2005 10:27 PM

The only grief I have with the new chat channels is that people are deciding to use them as new auction channels. I get scrolling lines of WTS this and WTS that bit of trash. If the spam keeps up these channels will get the heave ho from me.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on July 4, 2005 11:13 PM

Harbinger: If by "trying to revive a floundering community" you mean "implementing fantastic new features to further improve an already great game with a healthy community," then yes.

Sunshadow: /ignore is your friend.

Comment Posted by: on July 5, 2005 04:20 AM

Posted by Horzek at July 5, 2005 02:15 AM

Who gives a damn about newbie quests? There are no more newbies joining the game - get it? What we really need are more raids and higher end equipment.

...

Not everyone is at the high end of the game.. nor should everyone be forced to have to reach the end game to enjoy a game they pay for. by filling out the low level zones and introduceing spirit shrouding they should effectively be able to make old content once again something players want to hunt in.

and it is also my opinion that Everquest has the most raid content of any MMO out there.. with them constantly adding new raid content every expansion and sometimes between expansions. they dont need to go crazy adding raid content at the expense of everyone else.

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 5, 2005 06:53 AM

"Who gives a damn about newbie quests? There are no more newbies joining the game - get it? What we really need are more raids and higher end equipment."

If you join the NewPlayers channel you will find this not to be the case. Many of the people in that channel really are new players, not just twinks.

Adding raid and high-end equipment won't get more people playing the game. People at the high end will leave no matter what you do. The only way to keep the game healthy is to get new players playing. This patch helps that in many ways and the release of "Escape into Norrath" will help even more.

"The only grief I have with the new chat channels is that people are deciding to use them as new auction channels. I get scrolling lines of WTS this and WTS that bit of trash. If the spam keeps up these channels will get the heave ho from me."

People need to take more control of the channels. I went in the channel the other day and saw a couple of people talking like it was a 12 year old boys lockerroom. I told them that wasn't acceptable and they shut up. If we take more control of the channels and help our peers moderate them into the types of channels that help foster a community, they will follow.

Tell people that begging and auctioning should really occur in other channels or isn't acceptable. Tell people that extreme language isn't acceptable. Some don't know better and others will quickly back down when they realize how public the channel is. As a last resort, there is always ignore. Giving channel control to the asshats will hurt the channels badly.

Comment Posted by: Harbinger on July 5, 2005 07:30 AM

"New features" meaning groundbreaking, I assume. I hope you dont think that.

Comment Posted by: Aethn on July 5, 2005 08:56 AM

>>>Who gives a damn about newbie quests? There are no more newbies joining the game - get it? What we really need are more raids and higher end equipment.<<<

And the narrow minded check in again. If you believe that then you are ignorant about how this game works. EQ1 adds hundreds of new players a week. These changes ensures most will now stay in game, unfortunatly once they leave Gloomingdeep, they have to contend wth jackasses [just say no to personal attacks].

Comment Posted by: Hiya on July 5, 2005 09:40 AM

Harbinger:

"New features" meaning groundbreaking, I assume. I hope you dont think that.

'New features' as in 'new' to EQ.

What would you have them do, only implement bad ideas from other games???

Are you going to criticize the other MMOs for implementing features that orginated with EQ??? Probably not [please keep out the personal attacks]

Oh and if you want to talk groundbreaking, come back after Dark Hollows is released and tell us what MMO playing as a monster is copied from. [please keep out the personal attacks]

Ta ta ~

Comment Posted by: DJMonkeyFlesh on July 5, 2005 10:46 AM

I played the tutorial with my son this weekend. We had a blast. BTW there are ALOT of new people playing now and this is great for bridging them into the game. They learn how to play and how to group and interract. Once they get to PoK and are exposed to new spells(temp, clarity, focus, etc.) They learn about the community of the server. Where to hunt and they don't wind up stuck in Neriak or something, as the only one in the zone. They wind up in PoK surrounded by players and portals to all the zones that their levels support. Good stuff.

Comment Posted by: Django on July 5, 2005 11:16 AM

Saturday I made a bard to try the tutorial out. It is indeed very cool. I was bound there and I did twink the bard with cash/items through the shared bank. I never did get to do the pit encounter before I left the tutorial.

Yesterday I remembered that I was still bound in the tutorial. The bard is level 20 now and I thought it would be amusing to see if I could get a TL back to the tutorial, which I did and ran around checking the areas that I did not get a chance to see, so that was cool :)

The missions sound very cool and I plan to check those out tonight!

The channels were a nice touch as well. I did not think I would like them but they turned out well I thought. Although, a couple of times I was unable to join one because it was full.

Comment Posted by: Teremar on July 5, 2005 11:19 AM

Originality is over-rated. If someone's got a good idea I'm happy to see it implemented in every game.

There's no way to copyright a game feature. In theory that could be reducing innovation--if a company can't get an advantage over its competitors by innovating then it could spend less time/money coming up with innovative ideas. But while I do think MMORPGs need more innovation I don't think this is the major reason (and if you do you'll have to take it up with Congress). In the meantime let's put the good ideas that are produced into as many games as possible.

[Having said that, the personal attacks in Hiya's post need to go. Feel free to delete this after nuking them Loral.]

Comment Posted by: Aethn on July 5, 2005 12:17 PM

I can run through every MMO ever made since 1999 and probably pick out 100+ things in each one that was directly taken from Everquest.

I can also run through old EQ and find dozens of features from Ulitima Online.

UO took from Rune, Merdian 59.

Every MMO took stuff from D&D/AD&D pen & paper/TSR floppy disk games.

So whats your point?

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 5, 2005 12:43 PM

I just had to edit two of the messages here for personal attacks.

Please keep your conversations about the TOPICS, not the other posters. We all have our opinions and our positions and its fine to state them but not fine to attack the other people here. Debate their words but keep it calm. It's a game, folks.

I agree with a lot of the previous statements. I would be very upset if EQ ever ignored a good idea because they were worried about copying someone else. Steal all you can and make up the rest. I am glad the EQ development team has this same philosophy and we will all benefit from it whatever game we prefer.

Last night I did the Crushbone mission with a friend of mine. While two level 70s were more than a match for the level 12 mobs, it was very neat to see the scripting work out. It has a lot of really neat things. You can get to it by hailing the first guy on your "Find" list in PoK.

As far as twinking in the tutorial, that removes most of the fun. Being able to get 10 levels and gear for nearly every slot from mobs you killed yourself is half the fun. You take away that fun if you give yourself a full set of items. It's fine to give a sword or a haste item or something, but twinking with a full set of gear ruins the fun of earning the breastplate by killing the Overlord.

Comment Posted by: mac173 on July 5, 2005 01:44 PM

I have tried the new tutoral both twinked, and non twinked, and it is true that earning the gear is much more rewarding.

However, the issue of XP and Spell cost are on my mind right now. During the new tutorals time on Test, I tried it, and did many feedbacks on these two subjects. The XP has been adjusted slightly, I think, but the spell cost is still a problem.

A new Palladin, starting the Tutoral, is level 2 before you face your first mob. 2 or 3 kills, and you are level 3. The problem is, your skills are still 0! I got my Pally to level 7 before his 1hs skill broke 3, and this became a problem. He was dying in any fight with a DB mob, because his skills were so low he could not hit the mobs. Either slow down the XP, or start the newbie's with a skill of 5 in everything.

Spell cost. I started a new Shaman, and quickly fell behind in my spells because I could not afford them. Killing tons of green bats and rats to collect money for spells is not fun........

Other than those issues, I really loved the new Tutoral. I have yet to try the new missions for Levels 10 to 20, but Renlar the Paladin is level 8 and will soon finish the Tutoral and try them out.

Comment Posted by: Sprout on July 5, 2005 02:41 PM

I think increasing the rate of skill-ups would be a better solution than nerfing the xp, personally.

Comment Posted by: Hiya on July 5, 2005 03:53 PM

My apologies. The room temperature IQ people whose sole intent in posting here is to bash EQ sometimes get my dander up.

I for one hope they keep the changes to the game coming. To me, changes in a game this old are a good indicator of the committment SOE has for EQ...

If they didn't care, they could let it stagnate and/or fade away like some other (newer) MMOs...

Consider also all the predictions last year that SOE was going to abandon EQ and focus solely on EQ2...What's that crow taste like? Heh~

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on July 5, 2005 06:00 PM

Have not had a chance to check out the new tutorial, but have heard wonderfull things about it. Anything that improves the game experience for new players gets a huge thumbs up from me.

The new chat channels are a mix of good and bad. The floating continent channels to me is kinda a waste, I would prefer a set of channels for level ranges, ie a channel for levels 1 to 10, 10 to 20, 20 to 30, etc, to help facilitate finding groups, especially at lower levels. The class channels are an awesome idea, that have been to my experience so far has been kinda disapointing. I am hopefull that once they have been around a bit longer, more activity will happen in them. The few questions that do get asked, do seem to get answered, so hopefully, as people find it a place to get info, it will get more used.

I am pleased that Soe is putting the time and effort into making the new player experience better. It suggests that EQ should still have a long life ahead of it. Whether these ideas are internally originated, or borrowed from other games...who cares. If it makes the game better, and increases its longevity, it is a positive thing.

Comment Posted by: Hiya on July 5, 2005 06:17 PM

Totally agree Red. The channels are are definitely a mixed blessing. Great for some, information overload to the max for others if you consider tells/group/guild chat/ooc/shout, etc.

Comment Posted by: on July 5, 2005 07:29 PM

"Oh and if you want to talk groundbreaking, come back after Dark Hollows is released and tell us what MMO playing as a monster is copied from. [please keep out the personal attacks]"

Uh duh how about EQ2 which is exactly where it comes from. It is the hallmark of the first expansion that they have been talking about for months. So nice try bucko.

Comment Posted by: Hiya on July 5, 2005 08:08 PM

And you've obviously never heard of Project M...Go to the EQLive forums and do a search on it, ya know educate yourself before you post.

Comment Posted by: BigFoot on July 6, 2005 12:46 AM

Please do mistake change for progress. I would like to see the code fixxed. Once upon a time I played D&D, we made up our own dugeons and took turns playing GM. Was that progress or did we just change the game around. To me changing the content of zones is ok, a little at a time. Fundemetally changing game play does not always help game play. The thing that still buggs me most even as Troll is errors in the code. A complete and detailed audit of all the coding in the game is over due. IF all the old quest in the old world ever worked we will never know, I guess. Sony is not your local government fixxing the roads all the time cause of wear and tear. We pay a subscribtion fee, we pay money for a game that has never been complet. Sony loves class balance talk, it has no extra cost to them. Asking professional programers to audit all there code would cost money. We can spam each other as players here at Mobhunter or we get Sony to fixx there bug eaten game and do better QA.

I think other players are the only reason I come back. I have a 30 day card although I have been invited to a LAN party for SWG, Lucus does the QA there, the SWG folks I know, have none of the complanits we have, about broken quest and other buggy code. I really have no class in real life, so it makes no differance if I am troll warrior or a storm trooper I am going play the game that makes me happy with the least code errors.

Comment Posted by: Maitreya on July 6, 2005 02:11 AM

Audit their code? And how would that work, exactly?

It's not quite as simple as go in, find the old, bad code and get rid of it. I have enough problems trying to clean up a couple thousand lines of Java. I can't begin to imagine what it would be like to remove all of the EQ "spaghetti code."

Yes, the spaghetti code causes a lot of bugs, but that's because with so much code, some changes have unexpected side effects. Do you know how many bugs a complete overhaul would have?

Of course, I really have no idea what I'm talking about, but I don't think anyone outside of SoE does.

Anywho, these new events sound neat. I've not seen any of these Teir'dal attacks myself, but they sure sound nifty. I wonder what permanent changes they'll have on the world? Or if the high elves will take back FV? I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Comment Posted by: Django on July 6, 2005 10:35 AM

Play as a mob? That originated in test a few years back, LONG before EQ2 was around...

The class channel has been great for me so far. As to channels that are annoying or not useful, /leave is your friend :)

Playing this bard that I started on Saturday has actually been a LOT of fun. Using the class channel I had all of my questions answered and learned a lot about the class.

There was an interesting discussion in general about bards that use /melody and how that feature takes away from the skill of bards and that the best bards never use it.

Asking about this in the bard channel, I learned that all of the bards in there use it and love it. It was also nice to hear about soloing with chants. I always need a goal or target to progress to and the discussions in the bard channel allowed me to identify a number of goals to work towards.

Overall, I am pleased with this.

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 6, 2005 11:16 AM

Using a monster to switch to a different class so you can hunt with your friends, using it to drop to a lower level to hunt with lower level friends, and going on missions with your friends using pre-selected monsters against NPC foes isn't at all like either Project M or the Everquest 2 monster arena. Aside from being a monster model, the implementations are completely different.

Particularly the archetype switching and the monster missions are unique to EQ. To my knowledge, no other fantasy MMOG has that.

The dev team seems intent on fixing bugs as they come out but a full code review would be very expensive and I doubt we would see much benefit from it. It isn't like the game will be a shining new beacon when its over, it will still be the same game.

A process that costly will not reap any clear benefit for the cost. It isn't as if they can sell "Everquest Expansion 11: Code fixes of Norrath".

There are also a lot of bugs that aren't in code like getting stuck in geometry, artwork issues, and item statistic bugs.

I agree with the regional channels but I am happy with either "NewPlayer" for levels 1 to 20 and "General" for 20 to 70. I don't need channels for every ten levels. I'm just happy to have a place with 200 people with which I can chat.

Comment Posted by: Striken on July 6, 2005 12:25 PM

I recently restarted an account, to try and mess around with a newbie character again. I have a couple 60's in WoW and its getting alittle boring since the BG's arent really working properly.

Anyway, I restarted and was amazed at how crappy the whole game runs. I have a 3.3 P4 with a gig of ram, so there is no way I should be lagging up when I'm solo in Lowerguk and I cast a spell with my mage.... World of Warcraft looks ALOT better, and plays alot smoother. If they could fix this problem, I'd probly keep an account from EQ open and make em 15 bucks a month

Comment Posted by: Hiya on July 6, 2005 12:50 PM

Loral, the point is that while 'play as a monster' certainly isn't going to be implemented exactly as was done in Project M, it isn't hard to reach the conclusion that the roots of the idea started with Project M....and those ideas were around long before EQ2, [please keep it nice]

Ideas for Dark Hollows

Dev: Let's implement Project M...

Dev2: Too hard to implement, too easy to grief others...

Dev: Ok how bout we let them play as a monster along side their friends...

Not hard to make the leap, and as you said, it's an EQ idea regardless.

Comment Posted by: Zarithar on July 6, 2005 02:28 PM

So basically, a "troll" poster is anyone who disagrees with what has been said in the editorial? Am I right?

Comment Posted by: on July 6, 2005 02:41 PM

----

I'm just happy to have a place with 200 people with which I can chat.

----

You can get that for FREE on IRC and other internet based chat stuff.

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 6, 2005 03:00 PM

No, a troll is someone who posts a generally negative post with no real details, no solution, and no interesting point of debate with the intent of receiving negative responses and attention. In this case it has succeeded admirably.

I am all for the posting of constructive criticism and discussions of problems and situations. Throwing out terms like "floundering community" and "everpatch" is just an attempt (a successful one) to get people upset. It serves no constructive purpose.

Comment Posted by: Keyvin on July 6, 2005 03:28 PM

What I'm not seeing any comments about are the new potions. For 8pp per, I can get +6 mana regen and 30% haste. That isn't bad for level 20. What effects do you guys think this will have on the new low level game? I for one find myself soloing my alts much more since this patch...

Comment Posted by: Django on July 6, 2005 06:09 PM

Loral - Your e-mail address on this site is non-functional. Would you be so kind as to e-mail me?

Thanks!

Comment Posted by: BigFoot on July 6, 2005 10:06 PM

A process that costly will not reap any clear benefit for the cost. It isn't as if they can sell "Everquest Expansion 11: Code fixes of Norrath".

That is the coolest thing you EverPosted. I am not sure what you even mean, sure sounds cool.

Computers are not magic, yup. Computers are finite. Players make EQ. Bugs make players mad, players leave. Sony could try and exit survey, any one ever ask why players leave?

I do play a Troll Warrior in game and hear. I am not here to muck up the postings. I have played EQ since 2001, I am just level forty. I play as many QUEST as I can and hunt mostly for faction. If I hunt down 3000 green Karanna Bandits that is my bussiness, that is how I play. WHAT I pay for is a game that is suspose to work, much better.

Do not believe everything you think, about EQ.

Comment Posted by: Xsi on July 7, 2005 05:06 AM

Quote:

"A process that costly will not reap any clear benefit for the cost. It isn't as if they can sell "Everquest Expansion 11: Code fixes of Norrath".

That is the coolest thing you EverPosted. I am not sure what you even mean, sure sounds cool.

Computers are not magic, yup. Computers are finite. Players make EQ. Bugs make players mad, players leave. Sony could try and exit survey, any one ever ask why players leave?

Do not believe everything you think, about EQ."

I'm not going to attack your post, but I did want to mention that I'm not sure what your point is. That EQ has bugs? Well, of course it does... every piece of software of any size and/or complexity does.

That you like to do quests? Agreed.. a lot of people do. If you find broken quests, you can go to the quests forum on the official boards and help the developers reproduce the problem and get them fixed far more easily than any 'universal code audit' ever could.

So then... how is it that you want the game to "work better", and what does that have to do with the fact that the recent patch gave you a number of tools that can help most of us, regardless of our playstyles? (In your case, potions will help your troll warrior, the channels can help you potentially with quests, etc.)

As I said, I'm really not sure what your point was. I am reasonably sure that English is not your first language, so if I'm simply not grasping your intent, due to language difficulties, I apologize, and remain open to any further explanations you might offer. :)

Comment Posted by: bob on July 7, 2005 06:15 PM

I tried EQ again after being gone a year, I lke the new changes, they are very valuable but it still left me in the same spot I was at a year ago when I quit...

That is its still EverGrind. THe massive majority of EQ is still lvl 65+ , thus there is still massive pressure on newcomers to grind the best grind they can to catch up, whoich means all that effort in making the low end game better is wasted.

EQ is still a bunch of mindless grinding in the same places to make any kind of meaningful XP progress, and you still have to share the misery (aka get a group).

EQ'ers are still cramming themselves into the zone de'jour (now its DoN zones, yesterday it was OoW zones) making the other zones barren wastelands

EQ (post lvl 60) is still not a game for the casual gamer (aka people who only have a scant few hours a week to play)

Call me when the lvl 60-70 grind doesnt require me to spend 28 hours a week to complete.

Comment Posted by: Armarant on July 8, 2005 01:30 AM

Bob Wrote:Call me when the lvl 60-70 grind doesnt require me to spend 28 hours a week to complete.

It doesnt require 28 hours a week to complete. the fact that you think it does means you arent experiencing all the content at your level you can.

The fact that people think they need to get to the end game as fast as possible is probably responisble for the burnout we see. but no where does sony require you to grind out to 70 in a month to experience new content and/or experience new features.

I hope as sony improves their abilitys to create new content and instances out more older zones it will progressively give people more and more reason to not be in such a rush to reach that level 70. instead they will finally give people a reason to relax and enjoy the ride.

Comment Posted by: xsi on July 8, 2005 04:46 PM

"I hope as sony improves their abilitys to create new content and instances out more older zones it will progressively give people more and more reason to not be in such a rush to reach that level 70. instead they will finally give people a reason to relax and enjoy the ride."

Well, it depends largely on whether or not they keep pulling crap like they did in DoN where storyline progression is restricted only to those who are level 70. Some of the 'push' to level is from the players... but some of it is from SOE spending so much of their time restricting the 'interesting' stuff to capped out players.

Yes, the new tutorial, newbie quests, and even the two low-mid level instances they put in before the tutorial are welcome exceptions to this general practice... but they are a comparatively tiny chunk of the game... more needs to be done, by far.

Comment Posted by: Wakk on July 8, 2005 10:51 PM

Going back, to the Troll conversation you listed, is that from in-game story?

The reason i ask is i was in Upper Guk the other day en-route to a LDoN mission, playing my Troll Berserker.I was regularly seeing emotes there of:

"The trolls bash their spears upon the ground in preparation for battle!"

None of the other players i was with noticed an emote, So i am intrigued.

Are the Trolls planning on usurping the Guk Frogs and using it as a base of operation to attack Gukta?

It will be interesting to see how this pans out.

I'm looking forward to DoDH too, i wonder if we get to confront mayong mistmoore at long last?

Comment Posted by: on July 9, 2005 04:00 AM

"Call me when the lvl 60-70 grind doesnt require me to spend 28 hours a week to complete."

One of the real strengths of EQ is its ability to support a wide range of playstyles. If you want to race to 70, you can do that. If your goal is to see every EQ zone, that is doable(I have 3 zones left btw). Want to max all tradeskills...you sure can. The concept that you are "required" to level to 70, and that you are "required" to do so in such a rush that you have to spend "28 hours a week" to do it is simply false.

"Well, it depends largely on whether or not they keep pulling crap like they did in DoN where storyline progression is restricted only to those who are level 70."

The reason for making the majority of the content for DoN level 70 content is that level 70 content was what was most lacking. At the time DoN came out, there were really only a small handfull of zones for a level 70 to exp in. At low levels, there are literally tons of zones to exp in. Add to this that a very large portion of the EQ population is level 70, and it only makes sense to emphasize content for these people. SoE should not, and has not turned it's back entirely on new low level content, but it has to add content where content is needed most, and that is for level 70 players.

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 9, 2005 12:15 PM

There are a lot of events going on currently, many are hidden and they have short durations so you have to be quick. Here are two reports I wrote for the church of Felwithe:

http://eqlive.station.sony.com/news_section/newsview.jsp?story=50016

http://eqlive.station.sony.com/news_section/newsview.jsp?story=50017

Expect a third early next week. In the mean time - visit Innothule.

Comment Posted by: SAbrex_lanys on July 9, 2005 08:55 PM

Im not sure I would agree this was the patch that changed Everquest. Even getting more new starters to stay beyond the first 20 levels, there is still a mountain ahead of them to catch up. Im just as concened over attrition rates of people in 50s and 60s. Those of us that levelled through the last 4 or 5 years may have had worst xp rates in older zones but at least it was fun along the way with plenty of grouping opportunites in diverse spots. Im sorry for those who come after who are probably experiencing EQ via xp grind in one hotspot zone for their level.

To me what will change EQ will be the next expansion. I think its very clever of them to find a mechanism to allow people to play EQ without the constraint of their characters level. It hard enough now finding a groups at level 64 at the times I play. I would probably leave EQ if the next expansion doesnt deliver a mechanism to group up more easily. What class do I play.... Cleric!

Comment Posted by: Drubear on July 10, 2005 01:41 PM

As to the attrition of the 50's (Mathir shyly raises his hand.)

My tres casual guild (mostly topping out in the 50's/60's) has pretty well imploded and either moved up to other guilds or out to EQ2/WoW. I haven't logged in in many a week now. The improvements for n00bs, teens and tweens are very needed and important, but I sadly feel that My Time Is Over. Having to spend a lot of time looking for The Fun (not to mention progression) in EQ when it's just a quick look at my Quest Journal in WoW and 5 minutes to start up Yet Another Interesting (albeit somewhat repetitive) Quest is too effective a competition for my eyeballs.

As to my first love: working on Tradeskills? Depth to EQ, ease of entry, smooth progression and useful stuff at all levels tips the hat to WoW. Maybe I've changed and have become more of a "WoW" type player, but I do miss my days in Norrath. Reading up on the invasion is tempting, but hearing that it appears to be Yet Another GM Gankfest even for 70's is not. Helping out nibblers does sound like a lot of fun, however. May need to start a new toon...

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 11, 2005 08:16 AM

I think attrition at all levels is bound to happen no matter what. The only way to counteract it is to ensure that new players enter as fast as other players leave.

I am already noticing a large amount of new players probably due to the tutorial and helped by the new channels. Crushbone was completely packed yesterday.

Some of these players will leave before they hit 50 but some will stay. The more that join now the more will be around to group with at level 50.

There is a large power gap between the 1 to 50 crowd and the 50 to 70 / 500AA / Omens/Gates/Dragons gear and that may end up being a problem. A lot of us have been earning AAs for three years now while new players will be starting from scratch. These AAs can really matter.

Players who only play 10 hours a week or less can't expect to ever catch up to the players who have played 20+ hours a week for six years.

On the other hand, I have seen people start up new characters and get them to full OMM raid-level in under a year, so it can happen if they follow the right path.

However, at level 50, players have vast amounts of content available. I think all of the Dragon missions scale to 50. LDON is still viable. There are many Omens and Dragons zones available to 50 on top of all of the 50 zones in previous expansions. There's no lack of content at that level. Powerful gear is easily acquired at 50 in the bazaar that far outstrips the gear we wore in Kunark. I was wearing +4 wisdom Jarsath armor when I was 50 and I could still do my job.

The experience does scale, however. It is harder to level above 50 than below and I think that's healthy for the game. The hard part is making sure that people can still have fun even with the reduction of level-gain.

Comment Posted by: Loral on July 11, 2005 02:24 PM

There are two intersting articles about Everquest floating about. One is in IEEE Spectrum, a technology journal, called "Engineering Everquest".

http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/WEBONLY/publicfeature/jul05/0705eq.html

It's a bit of a fluff piece mostly describing the game we all already know but there are some interseting bits like how SOE switched to blade servers and how they handle instanced content.

The second article talks about Virtual Sweatshops in The Guardian. It's also a big hacky but it has some interesting bits:

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,1436411,00.html

Any time I read about stuff like this I am reminded of Cory Doctorow's short story, "Anda's Game". It's the Animal Farm of Massive Online Game in-game sales:

http://www.mikeshea.net/articles/001292.html

So there's your reading list for the day =)

Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on July 12, 2005 06:27 PM

Having played the tutorial a couple of times now with different classes I am finding the lack of Mana regen an issue. I mean tanks can go spam Rytan to get health pumped back up but I have yet to find out how to do similar with mana. On my Wizard last night it was heaps faster for me to just jump in the pit and die than try and meditate my mana back. With zero repocusions now on deaths until level 10 it just took way less time.

Comment Posted by: Redcloud on July 13, 2005 08:08 AM

Funny to see the bugs of 6 years ago reappear as features for newbies P)

Comment Posted by: BloodyMouse on July 14, 2005 02:15 AM

Well newbs can also create a full set of eight characters. You then rotate between them. As long as you take more than 60 minutes to rotate back to the first character, you have no need to med or bind wounds :) Just watch out for that bug where your client crashes after so many switches (or maybe they fixed that in the latest patch).

Comment Posted by: Keisa on July 14, 2005 10:35 AM

Why bother to log in another character when dieing a is faster and easier way to reset your character?

Comment Posted by: StinkyMouse on July 14, 2005 10:47 AM

Death only works to level 10.

Comment Posted by: Climatic on July 15, 2005 11:04 AM

Hiya guys, been reading these forums for a long time now, this is my FIRST post here. Played Eq for a cool 6 years, i was 13 at the time i started. The game was awesome, it was intresting the community was killer. But yes i am GLAD to see SOE make the starting point PoK now. Just had to say how glad i was to see this site is still up and fighting hard,I'm now playing in EQ2 name is Munk on the Oasis server (lvl 50 monk) give me a yell. Well guys take care keep on wirting and i will keep on reading daily.

`KnOw YoUr RoOts` ::~::~::~EQ~::~::~::

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