Summit Report, September 2005
by Loral on October 03, 2005
Still groggy from a late-night level 50 Lost Dungeon hunt and a later-night scramble to pack up my books, notebooks, and fancy fountain pens, I woke up Thursday morning and began my trek west to the steel towers of SOE and all the worlds held within.
I had the advantage at this summit of knowing or at least recognizing most of the other EQ community representatives from previous summits and fan faires and rode the bus to the hotel with Samanna of the Spirit Realm.
Thursday night we met with Rashere, Brenlo, Kytherea, and Ashlanne for dinner. Most of our discussions revolved around Gemdiver's pre-Summit State of the Game article where he accidentally dubbed the term "Age of Rashere". We had a lot of fun with that. We discussed monster missions, mission progression in Depths, Everquest's past, and the future.
We learned at the dinner that the Depths of Darkhollow expansion was the number two best selling PC game during the week of its release behind the latest Sims expansion. The dev team was very excited and proud of this news.
Friday was mainly a day of recreation. We visited San Diego's excellent yet hilly zoo. Friday evening we met with the SOE developers for dinner and challenges of Dance Dance Revolution and Street Fighter 2 (I still owe Prathun a rematch after our 1 to 1 ending scores but at least I pwn3d Zajeer). My ideas of tying Dance Dance Revolution to the Overlord Mata Muram encounter continues to fall on deaf ears (Overlord Mata Muram says "You! Cleric 01246, DANCE!").
Saturday morning after breakfast we headed to SOE for our day of official discussions. It was here I began to blanket the lands with my twenty two printed copies of "Loral's Evil Agenda". Knowing some would no doubt be destroyed in horrible ways, I made sure to bring many extra copies. Little did I know that lord Brenlo would go so far as to literally eat one on the bus ride to SOE.
Our first meeting brought up the topic of EQ's marketing. With the recent release of Escape to Norrath, SOE began a new way to market EQ. There were a lot of suggestions and feedback on the release and availability of Depths of Darkhollow. Whatever people thought about the clockwork boar, a lot of people in the room bought the box just for that rather than download it.
While Escape to Norrath offers an excellent window into EQ, the 300 meg download can be heavy. Some of us suggested that SOE offer this on CDs like AOL does, no doubt a costly proposal, or as a bundle with PC-Gamer.
Our second session was titled "Everquest, level 1 to Uber" and focused on player progression from the lowest levels of the game to the highest. I mentioned improving the 20 to 50 game on my Evil Agenda and suggested that SOE consider more progressive missions and quests for these levels to show mid-level players the benefits we see in expansions like Dragons and Depths. Armor and class weapon quests do a lot to drive players to fun content but currently most players buy weapons in the bazaar.
I also brought up reevaluating the costs of LDON items, especially below level 65. Zajeer explained his intention to look at these points and make sure that players are no longer leveling faster than they can buy items in LDON.
Rashere began a discussion about SOE's interest in reducing downtime, especially with combat endurance. Right now EQ doesn't have an in-combat and out-of-combat state system to ensure that players are no longer locked in combat. Such a system would let players regenerate hitpoints, mana, and endurance faster than when they are in combat. Use of a monster's agro list can help but it isn't the ideal solution.
We discussed one topic in which I have been interested for some time, the identification of player power at level 70. Frodlin, the warrior corrispondant and an excellent debate partner of mine, joked about an Everquest 2 style "Level 70 double up arrow", an idea I liked a lot. With alternate abilities and gear now far more powerful than ever before, an in-game identifier of player power would help SOE properly tune encounters.
Gemdiver had my third favorite quote of the weekend when he asked "Since there are two other wizards here, I will stay away from wizard problems, but what is the state of class re-envisioning things like druid stances and rogue vs. wizard dps." Even when he's trying he can't let go of wizard issues. The answer was that about 70% of the outlined re-envisioning took place so far with good results and other things, like the druid stances, take a bit more time to program in.
Our third meeting discussed Depths of Darkhollow. Craig Knapp mentioned Gemdiver's recent "State of the Game" paraphrasing "Depths of Darkhollow could be the greatest EQ expansion if the loot didn't suck." Gemdiver's actual quote wasn't quite this strong: "If Zajeer and SOE upgrade the DoDH mission drops to a Qvic level of gear, they will have pulled off the greatest expansion this great game has ever seen."
Depths loot quickly became a hot topic. Zajeer, the item designer, explained that loot was based on drops from previous zones of comparable difficulty including Noble's Causeway, Muramite Proving Grounds, and Riftseekers. Loot on Monster Missions was much harder to gauge since monster mission difficulty is independent from character power.
Zajeer and the other designers have seen the complaints about the loot quality in Depths. Zajeer himself plans to spend the next couple of weeks looking at the difficulty of missions and the loot dropping within to make sure the risk vs. the reward is appropriate.
I suggested a few things on this topic including a set of class or archetype armor built for level 70 single-group hunters or perhaps more evolving items so that while the first item drop may not be excellent, it could grow into something quite nice. On the topic of class armors, Zajeer was apprehensive saying that he received a lot of negative feedback on previous class armor sets (I believe he was talking about high-end raiding armor feedback, not group armor). On the topic of evolving items, he gave me my second favorite quote of the trip: "That's not too bad of an idea."
I look forward to Zajeer's rebalance of Depths loot over the next couple of weeks.
The topics of progression for shrouds and evolving items both came up. Rytan stated that shroud progression was slower than he had intended. Evolving item progression is about where Zajeer intended it but it is important to note that evolving items only progress when mobs are killed solo or in a group. Quests, task experience, mission rewarded experience, and raids do not give experience to evolving items.
The last official discussion of the day was an open discussion. Craig Knapp began the discussion by asking about Everquest's current death system. Currently EQ handles death much different than competing MMOs and while many of the designers feel that death continues to erode into a meaningless disadvantage in EQ, the topic is still hotly debated internally.
There are many ways death can be handled. Everyone agreed that death still requires some penalty but it is likewise clear that those facing the stiffest death penalties are those in the middle of the game, not at the end. High-end hunters have the easiest time finding resurrections, regaining experience, and recovering equipment. Those in the middle often do not have anyone who can help them and if they find a cleric able to res at their level, they recover significantly less experience than those with 96% resurrections available.
Cheating and Macroquest came up during this discussion as well. Grumbuk, the assistant lead programmer on Everquest, has worked hard to defeat many of the cheats and exploits found in EQ. He described his philosophy on cheating, saying that EQ has no desire to lose business based on false detection of a non-cheating player and that the strongest countermeasures for cheats and exploits are when the cheater knows what SOE does but still cannot defeat it. It is clear that the EQ programmers pay a lot of attention to cheats and exploits and are developing both systems and techniques for dealing with this problem.
A lot of the information gleaned from this summit came from the spaces in-between the official events. Here are some interesting bits:
This weekend was the first time I had heard discussion about the Demi-Plane of Blood, the final raid zone in Depths of Darkhollow. Prathun told me a little of the types of challenges faced in this new raid zone and they sound like an excellent departure from standard statistical-based raids and more like some of the things we saw in MPG trials and with Mata Muram himself.
I heard about a few monster missions I haven't yet experienced or heard of including a recreation of the release of the Green Mist in Overthere.
The EQ mouse pointer will soon be based on the windows mouse. This means you can simply mouse out of an EQ window instead of the strange "SHIFT ALT R" mouse release. This may also speed up mouse precision quite a bit in game since the mouse and the framerate of the display will be independent.
Now we come to the most interesting bit of information I heard at the Summit. SOE will release a new audio queue system added to test soon and to live soon after. This audio system lets players assign audio clips to chat window events. For example, if I receive a tell, I can get a little chime. However, this system is far more flexible than simple tell chimes. Players can base audio samples to any string of text displayed in any chat window. For example, if one receives a tell from his or her guild leader, he or she will hear a different chime. If a particular item comes up in the auction channel that one has been waiting for he or she can hear a cash register. If a cleric's turn comes up in the CH rotation, the cleric can hear a bell ring.
The sound system will be completely skinnable with new sounds and allows you to assign these sounds to any string of text that comes up in any of your chat boxes. Add a big boom to critical blasts or hear a warning bell when a Conviction fades.
The ten million dollar "Loral's Evil Agenda - Submit To It" campaign worked quite well. I saw copies of the evil agenda floating all over the place. At one surrealistic moment, someone folded one into a paper airplane, threw it across a resteraunt, and nearly put out the eye of an unsuspecting Moorgard, the first and most excellent Mobhunter writer, a couple of tables away. What a strange chain of events that would have been.
For each Evil Agenda burned in the hotel fire pits, I saw another read by developers during some infrequent downtime.
This was a difficult time for a Summit. The Everquest developers currently spend their time fixing issues that come up in Depths of Darkhollow. The expansion is too new to say for sure what SOE needs to fix, although we certainly had suggestions. It is too early to say whether monster missions will remain popular although I suspect they will as long as SOE releases new ones. It is far too early for SOE to say anything about any future expansion.
However, this summit stood as a perfect point for developers and summit attendees to step back and look at the whole game. Discussions on the death penalty, mid-level content, LDON point costs, and reducing downtime are all important to the health of this game. The benefit, however, comes not when we talk but when we begin to see SOE implement changes based on this feedback. Sometimes these changes take a while, but we have seen some of the best changes to Everquest within the last year and I see no sign of that slowing down.
I have met the SOE developers a few times in the past at fan faires and community summits. It never ceases to amaze me how hard they work and how enthusiastic they are about their game. These are not 9 to 5 employees. They work all the time. They put in ten to twelve hour days every day of the week. They know their product very well. Some of them are no doubt stubborn but they believe in what they do. They rarely cave under the pressure of biased criticism and if you want to convince them, you have to bring both data and show them how a change helps the entire game. These developers love their game.
It was especially a pleasure to meet the other community reps again and I will leave you with a variety of other summit reports and pictures:
EQ Vault: Report 1
EQ Vault: Report 2
EQ Vault: Report 3
EQ Vault: Final report
Boanerges's Report
Samanna's Report
Pic. (left to right) Gemdiver of Caster's Realm, me, and Rashere the lead designer watching Merloc and Glorianna play Dance Dance.
Nolrog's Tons o' Pics.
Nolrog's Pics in a Flickr Set
I will link more reports as I receive them. Please send a comment if you find one I haven't linked yet.
I thank SOE for the opportunity and the excellent event.
Loral Ciriclight
3 October 2005
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Annon on October 3, 2005 05:01 PM
"We found out this weekend that Depths of Darkhollow was the number two best selling game behind the latest Sim City expansion, a great achievement for the tenth expansion of a six year old game. The developers were obviously proud of their achievement"
Interesting comment...how many copies did the expansion sell vs the over 3 million copies of WoW that have sold. I find this a bit of a stretch to say the least.
Comment Posted by: anon on October 3, 2005 05:07 PM
Qvic level gear might be a little overboard but at least EP quality so that you can gear up people easier than trying to get into PoFire.
Face it, while missions are fun, they are very simple. I also am not liking the AA farming going on playing a level 20 orc or fairy. Pretty weak if you ask me.
Comment Posted by: bleh on October 3, 2005 05:16 PM
somewhere between elemental and qvic is a good spot, with good/midrange focii up to lvl 70.
Level 70 equipment, regardless of calibre, should not be getting level 65/67/68 effects.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 3, 2005 05:27 PM
IMO, the point of Gemdiver's state of EQ was not so much that the loot from DOD sucked, but that the loot sucked AND the challenge was disproportionately high.
Simply boosting the loot is not going to do a damn thing for casuals who cannot handle 2k hitting names when trying to get their new spells or discs.
Unless you get pushed through the progressions by way overgeared players, very few people that can complete the missions will get any thing they can actually use. Simply improving the loot that drops is the wrong solution... it just reinforces progression being strictly for ubers.
Any feedback on new models?
Comment Posted by: Gloriana on October 3, 2005 05:45 PM
What the heck? Only 2 pictures posted so far of the whole event - one from Boanerges and that one of me and Merloc on the DDR machine (which EVERYONE is cross posting!!) More pics!
Seriously, great write up and great to see you again, Loral.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 3, 2005 06:21 PM
It looks like I accidently posted this too early, there were some typos and some inconsistancies that I have now fixed.
As for the best selling game, I verified this on Gamespot's best selling games from September 11th to September 18th. No doubt the total copies of Warcraft are very high, but for that week, Depths outsold Warcraft.
Here's the data:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/games/top10games.mspx
http://biz.gamedaily.com/features.asp?article_id=10663
http://www.ggmania.com/?smsid=19820
The source is the NPD Group, a software entertainment sales marketing group.
Comment Posted by: Redhenna on October 3, 2005 06:22 PM
"Interesting comment...how many copies did the expansion sell vs the over 3 million copies of WoW that have sold."
Ummm...who cares? The only reason to compare the two would be some E-genitalia measureing contest, which has zero to do with quality of product, only popularity.
As long as the EQ dev team continue to work to improve EQ, provide fresh new content, and work with the EQ community, then EQ will continue to be a viable, enjoyable game for many of us. This community summit provides evidence that SoE is dedicated to do all 3.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on October 3, 2005 06:39 PM
Loral,
Did they even discuss TEST SERVER at all??? We Test players asked to be represented and SOE said no. WTF?? They said no!! The Test Server is dismal and disfunctional. We have less then 200 people at primtime, NO ONE IS FLAGGED PAST QVIC!!! Tier 3 DoN hasnt been accessed. Not one single MPG raid can be killed. Its not lack of skill at all. Its lack of bodies. We raid 54 man content with 25 people and sometimes wint, most of the time lose.
What are they going to do about Test Server population and to make it a viable testing platform to give you live guys better patches??
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 3, 2005 06:45 PM
Please don't cross post.
I heard nothing about the test server and I am far too uninformed on the issue to take it to them. You might consider discussing it on the EQ Live test server forums.
From what I understand, Stormhammer is probably the biggest problem server these days. At least you're not paying $30 a month to play.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 3, 2005 07:32 PM
Loral, as a followup to my other post...
Do you actually feel that anything of value was accomplished at the summit? (Other than you guys getting to come to SD (without stopping by my house, thank god! :P ), and getting to see the zoo and drink some)
Virtually nothing coming out of the summit seems new (Grumbuk's tool potentially being an exception), and pretty much all of the dev action items I have seen were already thnigs they said they would look into within the last few weeks on the dev boards.
Meanwhile, much of the response to pointed questions by some of the representatives seems to be either vague 'we'll do something about that maybe' or definite 'no' answers.
So, socialization aside, do you think anything really got accomplished this time around? While a number of people labelled the original summit as strictly being a PR deal... this latest summit seems far more egregious.
It is entirely possible that I am just getting the wrong vibe from all of the reports, which is why I am posing the question. :)
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 3, 2005 07:53 PM
It is a tough time to have a summit. SOE just released a new expansion and and the developers spend most of their time fixing up the issues that come up like Zajeer's reward rebalancing. SOE isn't ready to say anything at all about any future expansion - it often takes three months before that info comes out - so this summit was mostly based on our feedback to them.
I think sitting with a whole lot of EQ players and developers is worth while. They heard our complaints from our own lips. They ran ideas off of us and got feedback. We learned a few bits of news but now isn't the best time to squeeze them for information on the future.
If you've ever read any previous summit report or developer chat you know that they don't ever put anything in stone until it is released or on test. They learned well from previous mistakes, not everything comes out like you originally plan it. This means the best we can hope for is acknowledgement that they hear our feedback. If we don't see something happening, we ask again.
I plan to add a paragraph about this to the report, it is a question worth discussing.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 3, 2005 09:41 PM
Thanks for the update. :-)
I do think that, in addition to the fact that a new expansion just came out, there's the fact that the last fan faire / summit feels like it was only a few months ago.
Additionally, with expansions coming as fast as they are these days, I'm not sure there is really any breadth of time where the devs are not either patching the recently released expansion, or hard at work on the next one.
The concept of a live team and an expansion team definitely seems to have gone away, because the 'live team' basically ceases to exist for the ~8 months a year that expansions are high priority.
Some of my reaction is also explained purely as a result of my own bias. I constantly see updates and commentary on whatever the end-game zone is, or whatever the end-game raids are... but I'm not a raider, and I am therefore not interested in that data. I'm much more interested in a lessening of the gap between raider and casual, improvements to the 20-60 game, (despite my main being lvl 70), and single-group progression that is actually doable by single-group casuals.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 3, 2005 10:16 PM
I found out tonight that minutes after our meeting, Zajeer went back and made cloudy potions (the sold invis potions) stackable. This is a huge change for those classes that cannot normally invis. I myself carried ten of them in a 10 slot bag for years. It sounds small but its a huge change for a lot of people.
This is a good example of how a summit can help lead to change. For years we talked about this on boards but when we discussed it face to face, the topics became clear and a decision was made. Expect this change to go live soon.
Also, as part of my deal in being able to discuss this change, I must now admit to you one fact:
Zajeer just barely lost to me in street fighter. I was one light punch away from totally losing that match.
Comment Posted by: Kwill on October 3, 2005 10:34 PM
Loral, you did a fantastic job writing up the summitt. I really enjoyed meeting you -- for those who don't know Loral is just as articulate in person as in his prose!
I agree, the devs love the game and like talking to all of us about whatever issues we bring to the table.
Kwill
Comment Posted by: Tuco on October 3, 2005 10:59 PM
mmm... can I ask a question. What does god need with a starship? no wait wrong forum.
Seriously Loral, a few questions:
(1) What is the point of having a summit if you think ""but now isn't the best time to squeeze them for information on the future."" ??? /boggle. Thats what a summit is for. If now wasnt a good time to have a summit maybe, just a guess on my part- they should have had it when you guys could have covered some of the issues that have been flaming up the EQLive boards. I mean you guys didnt cover anything thats near the top 3-5 hot topics on the boards.
(2) I am surprised that test does not have a rep. That doesnt make any sense at all. Just a guess....But I would think SOE would be interested in how patching goes on Test before being pushed to Live, yet you kinda slap his question down with a just be happy your not paying more to test our game for us. What is that about?
Loral I keep coming back to your site because I keep hoping you make a few 'call it like I see it' reports. I want your site to be one of my favs, but damn,it just reminds me of Press up-dates from the White House- Legit questions will be answered with....
a)distain
b)open ended "its being looked into"
c)why do you hate america? (insert SOE)
all with that slightly vailed 'your just to stupid' so heres another cookie,I mean sounds? and a mouse pointer? I am not even pulling 50% bug free on my mission's for pet's sak. I have to say in the last 3 years, this is BY FAR the buggy'ist game product I've bought. Its right up there with Morrowind.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on October 4, 2005 05:50 AM
Thanks for the feedback, Loral.
"Players can base audio samples to any string of text displayed in any chat window."
This goes with more Mata style fight I guess. Hi, eqwatcher.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 4, 2005 07:23 AM
"What is the point of having a summit if you think ""but now isn't the best time to squeeze them for information on the future."" ??? /boggle. Thats what a summit is for."
I came back with a few bits of information on the future but a good part of a summit is for us to give our feedback to them and to sit with the devs and talk about some larger issues of the game (itemization, death penalty, point systems, monster missions). We accomplished both.
"I mean you guys didnt cover anything thats near the top 3-5 hot topics on the boards."
Like what?
"I am surprised that test does not have a rep."
None of the servers had a "rep". Personally, I think the state of Stormhammer is worse than the state of Test because they are paying $30 a month for a server with 1/10th the population.
Comment Posted by: Boanerges on October 4, 2005 10:04 AM
Loral won't represent Test server because Brenlo paid him not to. I saw it! We were all at the zoo when it happened!
There are no pictures because Brenlo ate them :(
I do promise my pics are coming soon, Glori ;)
Seriously tho... Test is fairly well represented to devs. Summit is just one avenue of communication to them. Furthermore, not everyone gets invited to every Summit. I haven't been and there are people on the Summit boards who haven't been to even one. Last but not least Summits are usually set up specifically by devs who want community feedback on certain topics.
I seriously doubt the devs are oblivious to the problems on Test (I mean you guys got double exp and full vet rewards before Legends).
As for the #2 game comment... it's probably a monthly thing (go to any EB Games or Gamestop and you can see the list for yourself) so I can't say I'm surprised at DoD being #2 for the month. WoW slipping in new boxed sales isn't exactly surprising since there's only so many who still want to start up a new account.
Anyways, nice writeup Loral and definitely good news on the invis potion front.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on October 4, 2005 11:17 AM
>> None of the servers had a "rep". Personally, I think the state of Stormhammer is worse than the state of Test because they are paying $30 a month for a server with 1/10th the population. <<
Loral, that comment just proves how little youa re qualified to make comments about this game sometimes. Stormhammer, although in bad shape, affects JUST the Stormhammer customers.
TEST on the other hand affectsw EVERY single paying customer in the game, EVERY one of them. The lack of people on the server, the inability to progress further beyond 3 year old expansions produces a BAD patch for every single player in this game, every one of them. Result is tens of thousand of custoners are recieving and inferior product from patch to patch, not what they and you are paying for.
Test population has presented to SOE that they should simply combine Stormhammer and Test Server into one server, Stormhammer. Then reduce the costs of Stormhammer to the same costs as all other servers in the game. They can then operate a Test Server with BETA like functionality that allows players to /copy at will from live servers to test patches and content on a need basis. Similar to what nearly all other games do today.
As for the GM staff on Stormhammer, they can either return to the normal GM pool or be rotated into QA positions, lord knows SOE needs alot more QA then they currently have.
Test Server being healthy in the big picture far more important then the health of one failed, overpriced experimental server the obviously has failed.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 4, 2005 12:20 PM
And while we're on the subject of the test server...
...did they say anything about new models?
/duck
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 4, 2005 12:22 PM
Oh, incidentally, the whole #2 thing was that the EQ expansion was the second best selling game for the week in which it launched. Not terribly surprising, given that I think most peeople who still play EQ bought it, and, unlike 'regular' games, people tend to buy the expansions on the very first day they are available.
A sell-through of ~300-400k is going to make a sizable impression on the sales charts. I have no doubt the expansion will fall several places (or out of the top 10 entirely) in the next reported week.
One thing of interest (to me anyway), was that the EQ expansion ranked higher in sales than the EQ2 expansion for that week. Hmmmmmmmmm.
Comment Posted by: robert on October 4, 2005 04:07 PM
Yes, I'm sure SOE is going to waste money to put new player characters in a game with a still declining population. Do you think Smedley cares about EQ? He wasn't even at the summit.
Comment Posted by: VorAbaddon on October 4, 2005 06:06 PM
''Yes, I'm sure SOE is going to waste money to put new player characters in a game with a still declining population. Do you think Smedley cares about EQ? He wasn't even at the summit.''
Becuase it isn't an issue of the Global Memory Files size. Nah, can't be, has to be mean old SOE not caring again.
Comment Posted by: Tuco on October 4, 2005 09:02 PM
Thanks Aethen, that was my point. The Test server is a reflection of how EQlive servers are doing plain and simple.
I didnt see one ref to a solid date for more class updates/balancing, and lets face facts there are 2 maybe 3 classes seriously out of wack. Anyone who says that shouldnt be the #1 problem SOE' is working on should have to play a zerker from 1-50 as a troll so you get that sweet XP penalty for the nerfed player regen/sweet class skills combo. Class revision 70% done? ya tell that to the zerkers
death penalty? can you show me anywhere on the web where people are screaming for a change to the % of penalty? can you link just ONE 3 pager from EQforums for this?
point systems? sure LDoN points need tweaking of coarse. People are STILL not going to do them, the XP is pathetic. Thats the reason the why its hard for the casters to get groups for their spells. Again something everyone knows except the people makeing the changes it seems.
Player models? I wont even mention the quote from a year ago and honestly dont care if they change them or not. I wont mention that new models would only increase the current model file size, not make the Global file asplode. Its just a huge man power undertaking, and you guys think SOE could pull it off? please, I belive in the 'keep it simple stupid' moto. Wait till you see what happens to your system performance when those sounds are tied to in-game commands.
lets see what else is burning up the EQforums. Oh there is the HUGE fact I cant seem to do the my spell lvl 69 arc. That arc is sooooo *&^&^% over-powered I really would like to take a BIG swing at the dev who produced that gem.
All-n-all, Absolutly clueless. clueless,clueless,clueless. I really wonder what game people are playing at SOE, and Loral- I wish you wouldnt value SOE's table crumbs > then giving a fare shake on these reviews.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 4, 2005 09:28 PM
Congrats, Tuco! You win the much coveted "I want to comment on so many parts of your post that I am actually going to quote it and reply" award...
"I didnt see one ref to a solid date for more class updates/balancing, and lets face facts there are 2 maybe 3 classes seriously out of wack. Anyone who says that shouldnt be the #1 problem SOE' is working on should have to play a zerker from 1-50 as a troll so you get that sweet XP penalty for the nerfed player regen/sweet class skills combo. Class revision 70% done? ya tell that to the zerkers"
I have taken a zerker from 1-59 in the last few months. It was a blast and I really like their useful skills. I'm looking forward now to amassing some aas to crank up my damage. Not sure why you think the class is broken... they fixed our war cries (lowered end cost) so that they are actually usable, and boosted stacking of all ammo, so we now don't need 10 bags of axes.
"death penalty? can you show me anywhere on the web where people are screaming for a change to the % of penalty? can you link just ONE 3 pager from EQforums for this?"
Agree with you here, but the point is they are looking for things that might make the game more fun for NEW players as well as veterans... and new players won't have posted on the boards because... they aren't playing yet.
"point systems? sure LDoN points need tweaking of coarse. People are STILL not going to do them, the XP is pathetic. Thats the reason the why its hard for the casters to get groups for their spells. Again something everyone knows except the people makeing the changes it seems."
You are way off base here. The main reason that people don't do LDoNs in my experience, particularly from 20-50 (before DoN is available), is because the point accumulation is so slow that you're not able to actually get anything. I took a paladin from 30-55 entirely via LDoN (xp was just fine at those levels btw), and didn't end up with enough points to buy a single item of any value. That's the problem.
"Player models? I wont even mention the quote from a year ago and honestly dont care if they change them or not. I wont mention that new models would only increase the current model file size, not make the Global file asplode. Its just a huge man power undertaking, and you guys think SOE could pull it off? please, I belive in the 'keep it simple stupid' moto. Wait till you see what happens to your system performance when those sounds are tied to in-game commands."
Uhm, new player models would replace the current sets of player models (old and Luclin) because SOE has stated that maintaining multiple sets was a mistake. That clears up space in the global file right there. Secondly, the luclin models are HUGELY unoptimized, meaning they are singlehandedly hurting performance AND clogging up the global memory file. New models, as evidenced by mob models created by the current team could (1) look better, (2) perform better, (3) free up space in the global memory file for new illusions, new races, etc., and (4) help attract new players to EQ by putting it on an even footing with the current competition. Why is this a bad thing?
"lets see what else is burning up the EQforums. Oh there is the HUGE fact I cant seem to do the my spell lvl 69 arc. That arc is sooooo *&^&^% over-powered I really would like to take a BIG swing at the dev who produced that gem."
Agreed. All of the DoD missions are tuned as if everyone in the game were in post-Time raiding guilds. While pieces of the expansion are a lot of fun, the progression missions are pointless. Even those who CAN do them will only ever do them once, which gives DoD a very short shelf life for anyone not doing monster missions or raids.
Just my thoughts..
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 4, 2005 11:52 PM
"Agreed. All of the DoD missions are tuned as if everyone in the game were in post-Time raiding guilds. While pieces of the expansion are a lot of fun, the progression missions are pointless. Even those who CAN do them will only ever do them once, which gives DoD a very short shelf life for anyone not doing monster missions or raids."
That was a big part of our discussions and Zajeer said he would look at both the difficulty and the rewards of the DOD non-monster missions.
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on October 5, 2005 04:57 AM
2 things I didn't see mentionned but:
a) the access to raid content is a logistical failure. See invis mobs at zone ins or levitating with 1 frame per second towards a full raid will only anger people. A lot. This is way dumber than most of the stupid things done during GoD.
b) demi-plane of blood access should NOT be a non instanced mob.
They are multiplying frictions, tedium and anger out of completely unnecessary situations relative to progression or difficulty. It it's dumb, CHANGE IT.
Comment Posted by: Tuco on October 5, 2005 08:34 AM
Your right I forgot they have two model sets in the global file, well I'll try not to think why they wont rework them for fear of my head asploding. On the ldons? you can rework the points all you want,your not going to get anyone doing them 55+ the xp is so bad its amazing.
"That was a big part of our discussions and Zajeer said he would look at both the difficulty and the rewards of the DOD non-monster missions"
Thats great,just in time for the DoD release, no wait a second. Hey can you ask zajeer if we (people who bought the expansion for new spells) can have our F'ing $$ back while we wait to get this un'fubared.
Of coarse I could understand how this slipped through the cracks in ALPHA,BETA,OPEN BETA TESTING since it takes the huge parsing #'s of ONE TIME to see its joke. I mean I could see how nobody noticed that spell arc mob hitting for 3.4k, when I'm tanking for my xp groups I dont even look up at the screen unless I see 5k quads..................
But dont worry, all this good debate and the pathetic MMO SOE puts on the shelf can kiss it goodbye when D&D online and a few others hit the market this winter/first quarter of 06'. SOE and the people who cheer them like seals? just keep laughing it up about patches while you cash my $$, you think SOE is going to be buying drinks at next years summit on EQ2/SWG profits?
Comment Posted by: Anthas on October 5, 2005 08:58 AM
Well, I see many compaints about how bad is the loot in the DoDH missions but don't see any about the fact you can be added in the last second to the task and get the loot and the flag even without getting to the instance, that has saved a lot of work in the process of flag guilds for DS btw. These trials aren't comparable to MPG trials in challenge or difficulty and as such can't have similar loot. I think it should be a way that allows groups to get qvic level items? yes but no with these trials, I haven't seen any mission yet that makes me feel the excitation of the first times I did Arcana or Ingenuity, but that's what DoDH lacks, the way to get the reward, not only the reward.
Comment Posted by: Tuppet on October 5, 2005 10:37 AM
"you can rework the points all you want,your not going to get anyone doing them 55+ the xp is so bad its amazing."
don't forget that starting at level 51, the amount of mobs you need to kill are a little more than twice the amount you needed to level during 46-50. the problem compounds during 55-59 (THE HELL LEVELS), where you need approximately four times(!) the number of mobs (than 46-50).
it would seem to me that the perspective of gaining exp is sooo slow because the amount of exp necessary to ding 55-59 is much larger than previous levels.
so is ldon exp bad during those levels? compared to other zones, yes. but to say the amount of exp it gives during those levels is diminished, i beleive, is incorrect.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 5, 2005 11:58 AM
"But dont worry, all this good debate and the pathetic MMO SOE puts on the shelf can kiss it goodbye when D&D online and a few others hit the market this winter/first quarter of 06'."
Can I have your stuff?
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 5, 2005 12:55 PM
"On the ldons? you can rework the points all you want,your not going to get anyone doing them 55+ the xp is so bad its amazing."
Well, remember... the whole point is they want the LDoNs to fill in at the 20-50 game... so xp at 55+ is really immaterial. If they rework the points, then, through 20-30 levels of LDoNs, people can get to their 50s, get the points they need to buy the LDoN stuff they want, and then move on to DoN or non-instanced content.
Comment Posted by: Quaras on October 5, 2005 04:18 PM
Was there any word on specific timing for the druid stances?
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on October 6, 2005 12:53 AM
"Thats great,just in time for the DoD release, no wait a second. Hey can you ask zajeer if we (people who bought the expansion for new spells) can have our F'ing $$ back while we wait to get this un'fubared."
Right, because spells are the only reason anyone bought the expansion. It's not like we also got new zones and amazing new features like the spirit shroud and monster missions.
/sarcasm on
And tuning something after release? Wow! That's never happened in an MMO before.
/sarcasm off
If that's what irks you in a game, well, maybe MMOs aren't for you. I highly doubt the other games which you seem so sure are going to destroy EQ (just like EQII and WoW, right?) are going to be free of these problems.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 6, 2005 05:05 AM
"Right, because spells are the only reason anyone bought the expansion. It's not like we also got new zones and amazing new features like the spirit shroud and monster missions."
In fairness, spirit shrouds are largely useless to most of the player base (outside of using the gob rogue to do the exploration quest) that does not have newbie friends or enjoy playing underpowered characters. That was quickly apparent, even in Beta.
And while monster missions are certainly fun... they broke the xp rewards and calculations for most of them in their haste to nerf the shadowmane quest... something which remains unfixed. A 45 minute mission that nets a lvl 59 character 4% of a level...? Yeah, think I will pass.
I do think that DoD may end up having the shortest shelf life of any expansion since LoY... other than the progression missions (whose problems are well documented), what do non-raiders really have to strive for?
I expect most people will head back to grinding in OoW, working up to MPG trials, or over to DoN, which actually rewards doing a mission (yes, even the Creator) more than once.
I like the zone art in DoD. The exploration task was neat, albeit bugged (yes, I did it all before they fixed Slipgear... and continue to wait for my aug to actually gain its boosts). The lore is pretty cool, and monster missions are fun, or will be once the rewards are fixed again.
But I highly doubt I will ever do an xp camp there (why bother, when difficulty has increased yet again, for the same old rewards), and I know that, if I someday am actually capable of doing any of the progression tasks, I will only do them once.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 6, 2005 11:01 AM
"I didnt see one ref to a solid date for more class updates/balancing..."
This just in. It appears that pigs do, in fact, fly.
http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=testing&message.id=6336#M6336
Keisa
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 6, 2005 12:48 PM
"This just in. It appears that pigs do, in fact, fly."
Thank god for the change... maybe now, people will actualy play clerics, since, prior to this change, everone knows they sucked and were totally useless.
/sarcasm off :P
Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 6, 2005 01:31 PM
Now I understand. When you asked for class balancing, you meant you wanted changes that benefit you personally, not the game in general. That's not balance. That's greed.
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 6, 2005 01:57 PM
"In fairness, spirit shrouds are largely useless to most of the player base"
May I see some statistics and sources on that?
(Sorry, it irks me when I see statistical assumptions made without real evidence.)
The shrouds will, in the long run, probably not appear as useful as monster missions but they definitely have a place and I can see using those for a long time to come. They aren't about statistical power, they are about hunting with lower level friends on old-world content. They are not as useful at switching to a needed archetype as we had hoped but such is life. Too powerful and we'd all be goblin rogues all the time.
Monster missions will live as long as they continue to add new ones. I earn 1 aa per completed monster mission plus a shot at some loot (usually less powerful than I have but not always). I can do these with any of my friends regardless of class and level. That's a huge improvement.
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 6, 2005 02:09 PM
I just got word that the new audio queue system is up on Test. Go check it out!
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 6, 2005 04:22 PM
"In fairness, spirit shrouds are largely useless to most of the player base"
May I see some statistics and sources on that?
(Sorry, it irks me when I see statistical assumptions made without real evidence.)"
This is why I used two qualifiers... "largely" and "most." While EQ does not release statistics on new subscriptions anymore, I do believe most people will agree that the vast majority of EQ players have played for a long time. Given that, as we both accept, the most common use for spirit shrouds would be to be able to play with lower level friends, this immediately reduces the pool of users to those who HAVE lower level friends. Add in the fact that, as the devs have stated, shrouds are not intended to scale in power like players do 50+, and you are further shrinking the pool of available users. Finally, cut out all of those people who have high level characters and would rather PL their friends...
I don't think I am off base in saying that the main draw of the shrouds right now is the novelty factor, and that, once that factor wears off, shroud usage will shrink to the particular subset of users described above.
Now, granted, this is just my opinion. Neither of us have access to the statistics to back up our stances, but I am, in general, very careful to offer blanket statements as fact.
Perhaps the revamp of LDoN point accumulation will offer a new reason to use shrouds? (Since you cannot PL in an LDoN, if the point gain were improved sufficiently, people might shroud down to join their friends in an LDoN and gain adventure points, thereby removing the third conditional above)
"Monster missions will live as long as they continue to add new ones. I earn 1 aa per completed monster mission plus a shot at some loot (usually less powerful than I have but not always). I can do these with any of my friends regardless of class and level. That's a huge improvement."
I like monster missions, as I pointed out in my post. XP gain for them IS screwed up right now though, and will be until Rashere's fixes go live (presumably in the next patch). You can scan the official boards for his posts on the matter last week, if you want. Other than that, I have no issue with monster missions, and have (I believe) been largely consistent in saying that they are one of my favorite parts of the expansion.
"Now I understand. When you asked for class balancing, you meant you wanted changes that benefit you personally, not the game in general. That's not balance. That's greed."
Are we reduced to insults now? That was fast. As a player with a bard, these changes actually DO affect me, which means your allegations are entirely spurious. Oh well. I was offering what I felt to be a humorous comment in regards to a class that, while not so fun to play, is almost universally regarded as a required fixture for all raid content. If your sense of humor is on vacation, or my sense of humor is skewed, I most humbly apologize. :P
Comment Posted by: Loral on October 6, 2005 06:23 PM
"This is why I used two qualifiers... "largely" and "most.""
"Most" isn't a qualifier, its a statistic representing more than 50% of the total body of players. We don't know what most EQ players think or feel or find useful. We couldn't even really guess who 50% of players are. They don't post, they may not play that much.
It is much more useful for us to talk about what WE think and what WE experience instead of assuming we know what the vast majority of EQ players thinks or doesn't think. We can't know that.
"I do believe most people will agree that the vast majority of EQ players have played for a long time."
Vast majority makes it sound like significantly more than 50% but again, we don't know that.
"the most common use for spirit shrouds would be to be able to play with lower level friends"
That's a good assumption but we don't know.
"Add in the fact that, as the devs have stated, shrouds are not intended to scale in power like players do 50+, and you are further shrinking the pool of available users. Finally, cut out all of those people who have high level characters and would rather PL their friends..."
I'm not really following here.
Shrouds are less useful than my previous assumption that people would be able to switch archetypes for both grouping and maybe even raiding at level 65+. That's not really true. You can probably shroud on lower power content at 65+ if you aren't a core class but my guess is that unless you're a non-required class, you're almost always better off playing a main.
However, this brings up an interesting idea.
+++++ New Mobhunter Contest!!! +++++
Defeat the Creator with six level 70 spirit shrouded characters and win a free brand new copy of God of War for the PS2.
Send me a screenshot of six shouded level 70 players who have defeated the Creator. You will need to show your inventory screen (so I can see it was level 70), the dead creator corpse, and all six players shrouded into creatures of some sort. Email this screenshot along with a description of your shrouds and of the battle to loral@loralciriclight.com.
The first person to send me proof that they defeated a level 70 Creator mission with six shrouded players wins a prize - a FREE BRAND NEW unopened copy of God of War for PS2 (or another prize if you already have that).
So gather up your friends and go kill the creator with some goblins and bears and things.
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 6, 2005 08:25 PM
FYI, as expected, DoD (and EQ2's DoF) dropped off of the top 10 list of bestselling games for the week of the 9/24:
http://www.gamecloud.com/article.php?article_id=1788
Nonetheless, making #2 for the initial week of release was very impressive.
-----------------------------------------------
As for the rest of our discussion... if it will make you happier, then by all means replace "most" from my original statement with "all of the people I have spoken to in-game and most of the people I have seen on message boards, casual or otherwise."
In the utter absence of empirical data from SOE, all we will ever have to go on is anecdotal evidence. Barring some of the usual message board hyperbole, I would take it as an assumption that all postings represent the poster's opinion or suppositions regarding the subject.
Anyway, I think four posts on the subject is quite sufficient. :)
Comment Posted by: Jarethsun on October 7, 2005 01:03 AM
Nice bro. I really wish I could have made the sessions this time, but as my wedding has been scheduled for Oct 1 for some time now I didnt get an invite. Hope to be there for the next one and hear some of your interesting stories.
BTW, I still cant believe you're a high elf. Yeuck!
Comment Posted by: xsi on October 7, 2005 03:01 AM
"Nice bro. I really wish I could have made the sessions this time, but as my wedding has been scheduled for Oct 1 for some time now I didnt get an invite. Hope to be there for the next one and hear some of your interesting stories."
My condole... err, I mean congratulations! Marriage is a good thing. :)
Which begs a question... as a bard (the bard correspondent, no less), did you do all your own music at the wedding? :)
Seriously, congratulations on your nuptials!
Comment Posted by: Redcloud on October 7, 2005 08:42 AM
Boosting a specific class after a summit which is NOT SUPPOSED TO DEAL WITH CLASS BALANCE because many aren't represented, is bullshit. Nothing more, nothing else. Mind you, I'm happy for bards and clerics. But it's BS nonetheless.
Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 7, 2005 09:50 AM
Redcloud,
So, what you are saying is that a conference that is used by developers to improve the game should not be used to improve the game for any specific set of players and therefore only changes that benefit everyone should be considered.
Why is it that no matter who gets any benefit from improvements to the game, there are always those that will complain? Why is it that the players of this game have become so acidic that they begrudge any gain for anyone other than themselves? Can't someone be glad that others got a beneficial tweak?
Keisa
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on October 7, 2005 03:31 PM
Keisa,
People will never be happy. We're greedy and only want dev time to be spent on us. No.
There will always be complaints anytime a change is made. I think this is at least partially because those who like the change are off playing, while the people who don't like it are complaining at the forums. I don't see why someone would be opposed to the changes to bard and cleric AC, unless they're jealous of dev time or something dumb. I dunno.
Redcloud,
So, for how long after the summit are they not allowed to make class changes? This probably isn't even from the summit. Zajeer just said he was looking at the way AC works over the cap for clerics and realized it wasn't working the way it was supposed to. Does this deal with class balance? I suppose you could say it does. Does this mean it's bullshit, because the summit didn't have to do with class balance? No, because this change had nothing to do with the summit.
Jarethsun,
You just can't handle how awesome High Elves are.
Anyone who cares about spirit shrouds,
Spirit shrouds are good for more than just novelty and playing with newbie friends. I'll play a shroud just to get a proverbial change of scenery. I love my mage. A lot. However, some days I log on and think "I want to do something else today." Back in the old days I'd have to play an alt. Now I just have to say "Hail, Shroudmaster [whoever]."
Also, they're good if, for any reason, you need to farm critters that are otherwise green to you. I needed some spider silk, so I turned into a level 25 earth elemental and went to say "hello" to the spiders in East Karanas. They were dark blue in my shroud form, so I got at least some xp, which, while not very significant, was still greater than nothing. When I need to farm bone chips again for Cabilis faction, I'll probably tear up Kurn's as a level 15 again.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on October 7, 2005 07:48 PM
We just lost another SEVEN long term lvl 70 players on Test Server this week. At this rate the 200 ppl left will be 100 by Christmas.
To you subscribers on Live Servers.... We cant test your product anymore, I am truely sorry. We can no longer field a raid force strong enough to even kill named raid mobs in RCOD. I am very very sorry, we let you guys down. SOE has abandoned us.
Please think of our appologies the next major patch that goes haywire.
Aethn signing off for the last time. I am done.......
Comment Posted by: Quesci on October 8, 2005 02:53 PM
"I needed some spider silk, so I turned into a level 25 earth elemental and went to say "hello" to the spiders in East Karanas. They were dark blue in my shroud form, so I got at least some xp, which, while not very significant, was still greater than nothing. When I need to farm bone chips again for Cabilis faction, I'll probably tear up Kurn's as a level 15 again."
OK, this was also my first impression when I learned that you could shroud down and get experience on your main while farming for tradeskill drops. Then I learned that there was no modifier of the experience gained. Sure, those spiders were blue instead of green. But they still only have the experience from a level 25 mob which is totally insignificant to a level 70 player.
As a level 25 shroud it will take you much longer to kill level 20 spiders, compared to how fast your main could kill them. In the time it takes to farm 100 silks on your shroud, you could farm 100 silks with your main and then go kill a single blue mob and have more experience gain.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on October 8, 2005 10:00 PM
Aethn wrote : We just lost another SEVEN long term lvl 70 players on Test Server this week. At this rate the 200 ppl left will be 100 by Christmas.
Think about this the next time people from test server go onto the forums to flame a developer for wanting to introduce copyed players to test server..
Test server play says "Oh noz! copied players will ruin the server, the economy, everything, they will kick little puppys because they are mean!"
...
a couple references to Test server forum to prove my point..
Tallenor wrote: Or, you could make a character on Test, level him/her up by playing there, and actually contribute to the server instead of making it a playground for when the production servers are down.
The Test server is our home and we take pride in it and the people that live there.
Taralynn Wrote:
Feh another poster (the OP) who thinks they know what's best for Test server despite not playing there.
..
if anything the test server is killing itself. until people realize the purpose of the test server is to TEST and not turn it into a full blown production server nothing will ever be fully tested there. and bugs in the high end game will still occur on a regular basis.
Comment Posted by: Aethn on October 8, 2005 10:49 PM
For the record, I was100% for copies/transfers. I even asked for /testbuff 46 and remove no drop tags. Most of the server feels exactly the same way I do about those things.
Nearly every single negative comment on those threads came from:
a) Primal Brood, an insignificant non-helpful guild that would ratehr farm 4 year old content then see the server progress, or
b) people who no longer play on Test or have never played on Test.
SOE DEV Team never listend to the actual people on the server, they just read that thread and did nothing. Most if not nearly all of us on Test wouldhave welcomed any copy or transfer with open arm. The minority always wins with SOE, Primal Broods "Not in my backyard" attitude is why you paying customers get lousy patches.
Comment Posted by: Tuco on October 9, 2005 02:55 AM
"""And tuning something after release? Wow! That's never happened in an MMO before."""
Thats what were calling all these bugs that go live now, "tuning" ? WOW -thats a republican like spin I'm impressed.
Would be nice if people could stop blindly defending/attacking SOE for a second and give a honest opion about some things.
These HUGE,SMACK YOU IN THE FACE,COULDNT HAVE MISSED IT IF YOU HAD TESTED IT ONCE type of bugs (ie spell arc mobs,WW mission XP, almost half of the mission rewards going poof after zoning, the dod charm all fubared, wont even mention loot) are BS plain and simple.
All the changes talked about at the summit? sure they sound nice, but were not done with the class balancing (their words,not mine) so WTF? lets get to it and finish it. I would trade the New UI+New sounds for a fix to MOB pathing/warping any day of the week.
Test server needs some serious reworking. Anyone that thinks other wise has never logg'd on it. Just checking a NPC fix out in FV was a nightmare due to the fact I couldnt get my lvl 25 toon out there without help and there was nobody to get help from (think there were like 25? on at the time).
All these lastest changes to improve the newbie game play, who do they think is going to start playing? My buddy I talked into playing because I was having a blast with the 34$ expansion I shelled out thats kinda finished?
Wondering why there are more people playing through old content in WoW then people playing EQ1/EQ2 combined now? its still FUN to play. Its made/patched by people who play it and it shows. The DoD expansion? and over all changes/patches in general? I seriously wonder how many die hard EQ players are involved. I am tired of SOE's rhetoric, and I'm pretty sure alot of other people are as well.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on October 9, 2005 05:50 AM
Aethn wrote:
For the record, I was100% for copies/transfers. I even asked for /testbuff 46 and remove no drop tags. Most of the server feels exactly the same way I do about those things.
...
I never actually knew most of that .. thank you for filling me in. :) hopefully test server can get the developers to run a poll for test. asking test if they want copies allowed or not.
I certainly would get all your friends on test and every guild on test you can to /feedback the fact that you want copys to be allowed and you want test server to be used for the purposes of testing..
and if that fails perhaps they would listen if you offered better alternatives to permanent copys
such as
*Testing weekends? .. once every month they could turn on a feature at character creation (Create Predefined toon).. it would create a developer defined toon that would be deleted by the server after the weekend is over., the developers would define where these new players start on the server and what stuff they test.
Its too late to think of anything else at the moment. but I think that with the right balance perhaps you could pursuade the developers to implement some ideas that would be good for the test community and in turn bring a more stable patching envrioment to the production servers.
Comment Posted by: Griff on October 9, 2005 09:18 AM
I would love to see new PC Models. I understand the time problem that Sony faces with this. So how about an interesting solution.
Make player models skinable in the global file or move them to a different file. I would bet that within 2 months there would be several hundred new, sleaker, less memory intesive PC models. I'm thinking it could be done kind of like how characters in the SIMs can be skined. Granted my Half-Elf might not be the same as yours, but game enjoyment would go up. Possibly the ability to change player models while playing (would be nice to be able to go to low mode for raids without reloading).
Another option could be a contest. Maybe offer a year free subsription for winning the best PC model? Would be a very cheap way for Sony to improve the quality of the game and keep players interested on a 'different' level.
Look at the number of UIs out there. EQ has tons of very talented players who would LOVE to improve the game that we LOVE to play.
Comment Posted by: Oapra on October 9, 2005 03:37 PM
I would of liked to ask the developers how they feel about spending all that time creating zones that no one uses. The DoD zones have reached a new high of uselessness. Sure, they look good but they are completely useless to exp in. Uneven ground, mobs too tightly packed in, areas spread too far to camp. Who exactly would want to play there? Answer: no one. Apart from a new macro foragers, I've seen people try a few mobs and port out.
Such a waste.
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on October 9, 2005 04:45 PM
Oapra,
Your assumption is incorrect. The things you describe as major downsides are exactly what makes fighting in Darkhollow fun for some people. Don't make blanket statements.
Comment Posted by: Striken on October 10, 2005 02:30 PM
Why do they "need" a summit to fix an issue that has been ingame for 3+ years? I mean, if they didnt hear 3 years of "Hey, can you make invis potions stack" why would you give THAT credit to the fricken summit?
You guys rationalizing and putting a smiling face on everything SOE does is utter crap.
Its not a "good thing that came about from the summit" its something long overdue that just happend to happen right after the summit! HUA
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