"What happened to my question: 'Yes or no. Do you plan to stop hating enchanters?'"

Secrets of Faydwer Q&A Answers

by Loral on October 24, 2007

Below are the answers to the reader-submitted questions I received in my last article.

Except where noted, the answers came from Travis "Rashere" McGeathy, EverQuest Lead Designer

Is there any intent to change the rate at which characters earn experience or AA experience?

There are two areas concerning experience where we are looking at making changes.

First, we’re going to smooth out the bonus experience you get for killing a creature close to your level. Currently, when you kill a creature that is dark blue to you, you get double the creature’s base experience. If you kill a creature that is even one level below dark blue, you just get the base experience. We’re going to change it so that you continue to get double experience at dark blue, but the bonus will slowly fall away as the NPC gets further below dark blue instead of going away immediately. This will be happening in the near future.

Second, I’m looking at smoothing out the experience requirements from level 51 to 60 so it’s a more gradual transition from the easier experience levels prior to level 51.

What will the flagging system be like in Secrets of Faydwer?

There are two different flagging systems in Secrets of Faydwer, the single group flags and the raid flags.

The two most powerful "dungeons" in the game, Meldrath’s Mansion and Crystallos, require players to complete a single-group quest in order to gain access to those zones.

For raiders, there is a progression of raids that they will need to defeat, similar to previous expansions. They will fight their way through raids in the base zones, then take on Meldrath in his mansion, and, finally, confront Kerafyrm in Crystallos. Each area gets progressively more difficult. The majority of this is pure raid completion flagging, but you’ll obviously need access to Meldrath’s Mansion and Crystallos as well through the access quest before you can take on the raids in those zones.

After the release of Secrets of Faydwer, will SOE open up or reduce the flagging restrictions for older content? If so, when?

We have no plans to change entry requirements for old content. The content was built with those requirements in mind and we want people to experience the content flow as it was designed. As the game advances and characters become more powerful, it naturally becomes easier to meet these requirements.

What is the plan for new player models?

We don’t have any definite timeframe for releasing new player models. Right now, we’re doing iterations on the new human based on player feedback. Once that’s done, we’ll get the new versions up on test server so people can see them. The plan is to continue to do these feedback cycles until we are happy with the state of the models, at which point they’ll be released to live servers.

Does Secrets of Faydwer include any improved solo hunting areas or solo quests?

EverQuest is a group-based game, so we don’t specifically design content for soloing. Instead, the ability to solo happens naturally due to player abilities and power progression. That being said, there are several areas in the new expansion that beta players have had a lot of success soloing. Also, the majority of quests in the expansion are available as a solo player, though you may require help to finish them if you’re taking on content that is difficult for you.

Can you describe any changes to tradeskills or quests? In particular, high-end tradeskills required raid-level drops to grow; will there be any new ways for tradeskillers to reach high-end rewards without raiding?

Ngreth: Jewelry Making will be undergoing a redesign. Jewelers will make base items that can have a gem inserted. The Jewelry making skill will be required to cut the gem. The metal that the base item is made of will affect how much of the gem’s power is focused and given to the player wearing the ring. This system will allow players to customize their jewelry to fit their needs.

Existing trade skill quests have not been altered.

Raid level rewards will continue to require participation in raids. This is a paradigm that is not likely to change. That said, certain trade skill quests with large time investments may give rewards near to raid level rewards.

With this expansion a new long trade skill quest will be introduced. This quest does not require raiding in any part of it, but will be a significant time investment. Additionally, it is in some rather difficult zones and is likely to require grouping in order to complete the quest. One of the zones this quest uses definitely requires a minimum three person group. This reward item will be a piece of jewelry that can fit in finger, ear, wrist, neck, or face slot. Additionally it will have at least two versions: a melee focused version and a caster focused version. I have hope that it may even have some attraction to raiders to fill an odd slot they may need to upgrade.

How will the content in Secrets of Faydwer be balanced against level and AAs? What amounts of AAs are players expected to have at what levels?

The first tier is approximately the same as The Buried Sea, so is balanced against that. For the second tier, the first real jump in power, we did a query of all the players in EQ and found that the majority of players have less than 500 AAs. We then created testing character that are in top-end casual-level gear (full praetorian armor, basically) and gave them 500 AAs to use. These characters were used as the tuning point for the second tier of zones. From there, the following tiers are based off the equipment you get in the previous expansion tiers and we kept the 500 AAs the same.

Is there an attempt to bring new players into EQ with Secrets of Faydwer or will that be left to future expansions?

Secrets of Faydwer is built mainly for high level characters, but the actual box for the game is all-inclusive so a new player coming into the game can pick up the expansion and have everything EQ has ever released immediately! The SoF all-in-one pack is scheduled to be available at participating retail stores and via digital download on November 13th and will include original EQ and all previous EQ expansions.

What changes are you making to the general philosophy of itemization in Secrets, if any? Will the item power jumps be significant? How many tiers will it include? What gear and power level is required to acquire the lowest tier? Part 2: How will SOE address changes to itemization after the release?

With the shift to one expansion per year, we’re returning to the old itemization paradigm used up to around Planes of Power where player power rose significantly with each expansion. This allows the expansion to have multiple tiers of difficulty to progress through even for top end casual characters.

With SoF, there are essentially 4 tiers of difficulty and, correspondingly, 4 tiers of items. The expansion starts at around the same difficulty as the easier mission instances in Katta Castrum (Atiiki missions, for instance) and the rewards are similar. This provides an entry point for players who haven’t completed TBS. From there, content and items scales upwards over the tiers with each tier built to be a challenge for players who have geared up in the previous tier.

Post-launch changes will be addressed as they always have been. We keep a close eye on the live game at all times and make adjustments as needed.

Is there any attempt in Secrets of Faydwer to increase gear rewards for high-end players in single groups?

Definitely- One of the things that the longer expansion cycle allows us to do is have larger increases in player power over a single expansion, so both group players and raid players have significant improvements to look forward to. We’re also making some shifts to bring certain aspects of group gear (such as AC) closer to raid level gear. This is being done to facilitate the ability for non-raid players to successfully group with raid level players.

Will there be any new content released between expansions?

We haven’t locked down our post-expansion plans at this point, but our goal is to add more live content over the course of the year leading up to the next expected expansion in the fall of 2008. We would like to address adding new events, quests, missions, and potentially even zone revamps, new raids, and a supplemental release of AAs.

Are there any new monster missions in Secrets of Faydwer? If not, is there any plan to add any in the future?

Secrets of Faydwer does not include new monster missions although we certainly plan to use them again in the future- they just didn’t fit into our plans for this expansion.

Post a new message.

Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on October 25, 2007 08:59 PM

Call me a cynic, as I certainly am one, but doesn't 500 AA's seem like an odd pick for "tuning" of a whole expansion?

I mean, there's a pretty steep personal power difference between 50, to 450. That's a huge fuzzy area, where the Dev's could mean that "Tier 1" is no AA's, or "Tier 1" is 300 AA's. They do know that there's a real difference in what a 300 AA Tank can withstand as compared to a 0 AA tank, right?

Sorry. I mean it's nice that for once they gave any numbers at all. But there's a huge grey area there that my gut says SoF is yet another expansion where hobbiest players will get little to no use.

Add to this is SOE's apparent blind side to the fact that you just don't see 50 man raids into PoP for "flagging" anymore. So the "it was designed for x, y, z," just doesn't fit.

People can play and propsper in the zones past the flag events, it's the flag events themselves that are the dead weight.

Comment Posted by: Gronn on October 26, 2007 05:02 AM

No new monster missions for a year? Stick a fork in them.

Comment Posted by: Aarkan on October 26, 2007 08:29 PM

There's no other way to put it at this point, EverQuest no longer has a future.

Comment Posted by: rosesarered on October 28, 2007 12:06 AM

I guess you noticed that SOE has ignored every request long time, faithful players made?

Comment Posted by: rosesarered on October 28, 2007 12:09 AM

Why worry about new MM when all the old ones, which were a lot of fun and a great for a short play times, have been nerfed outta extintion?

Comment Posted by: skuz bukit on October 28, 2007 07:57 AM

What becomes glaringly obvious is the focus, at least for SoF is firmly in the "player retention" ball-park, however it's still missing the mark in that respect.

Also, what a lot of the more vocal players are in fact calling for is stagnation, dress it up any way you like but that's the bottom line, for the casual players I hear a lot from it's as if they see AA as a millstone round their neck, & in many ways they are right, trying to get from 0-1500+ aa is an extremely daunting task on the face of it, fact is though that all of the core abilities are covered in the 500-750 range.

If SoE think they can keep EQ going without fresh blood they are mistaken, fresh players into the game not only supply the lower guilds, but they impact the whole game's health, bring fresh perspectives & opinions & enrich the community in general.

Not looking at ways to enhance soloing, taking into account both the age of the game & the severe lack of other players to form those groups which the game is designed around, is nearsighted at best, & destructive at worst.

If soloing is not an option from a design standpoint then the game needs to have a significant boost in numbers of lower level players, make the game free up to a number of levels below whatever the current cap is & with certain other restrictions is a good suggestion put forth by many, invite people in for free, then once they decide they enjoy the game enough to subscribe they get the higher content opened to them.

Comment Posted by: Gronn on October 28, 2007 12:11 PM

It's obvious that SOE's given up on the casual and hobbyist players in favor of the raiders. It's also probably the right decision given the current state of the game and the resources they still have to maintain it.

Meanwhile, WoW continues to surprise and delight me. The Brewfest and Hallow's End events were a blast. WoW armory (free service, take that EQplayers) has a nifty equipment upgrade search feature. Now they've introduced a $10 character name change service. Here's a company that actually listens to its customers. Now before the WoW bashers weigh in, I have and still do play both games.

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on October 29, 2007 12:36 AM

AND ... have you checked out the continuing idiot HOT ZONES choices ?? .... Like anyone can find a group there or even get there?

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on October 29, 2007 12:38 PM

No real surprises here, some good stuff, some not so good, nothing surprising.

The changes to exp sound like a minor, but good thing. If the raid flagging is based around raiding, and no stupid group quests scrubbing and picking up, and having to travel 4 zones every 15 minutes, it should be good. While I don't think there would be anything wrong with removing flags from older zones, it does not bother me if there is, so I am kinda indifferent. Sounds like they are trying to do new player models right. Hopefully when human models are done, the rest follow faster. The answer to the solo question is disapointing in a way. I personally think that soloable mobs should be avoided until soloing is fixed, so that all classes can solo(which should be a top priority). Tradeskill question makes sense, and I hope there are a couple quests where nonraid tradeskillers can quest for items near raid quality.

Like Ghost of Zek, I find the 500 AA comment odd. I hate this whole idea of tuning a whole expansion around any averages. If some one with less than 500 AA's need not apply to SoF, and players with over 1k AA's are overpowered for SoF group content...well, that is a rather large number of players without content tuned to them. This cannot lead to anything good for retaining players. Content should start lower, and end higher.

No new effort to gain new players for EQ is not surprising. I am convinced that SoE has decided that any money spent on bringing in new players is wasted money(ie, it will cost more than it will make).

The itemization question disapoints me alot. The level of mudflation for this expansion is going to be unprecedented(500 + hp gear for nonraiders), Merloc has shown no talent for designing or balancing items, and with items from the last two expansions still not fixed(though weapon itemization really brought raiders and nonraiders together in their disgust), all this suggests that SoF is going to have a ton of item issues. On the other hand, I really liked the comment about high end group items, where they are actually going to boost AC for groupers(and about time).

The one thing that puzzles me is the extreme reaction to no monster missions. While monster missions can be fun, they should not be a method of progressing your character(you should play your character to advance it, not play another), and the devs have not shown an ability to balance these missions to make them fun and worth doing, while not being an effective progression method.

Rosesarered, what hot zone is it you are talking about? I actually looked, and the new zones, coming next patch, are not listed anywhere, and the old list(which is 6 months old now) looks pretty reasonable.

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on October 29, 2007 03:00 PM

Dragon Necropolis for one.

Comment Posted by: Barnesape on October 29, 2007 04:29 PM

"The level of mudflation for this expansion is going to be unprecedented(500 + hp gear for nonraiders), Merloc has shown no talent for designing or balancing items,". Where did this estimate come from?

Comment Posted by: xsi on October 29, 2007 06:31 PM

What is the plan for new player models?

--------------------

Please don't blow smoke up our butts. There has not been a new iteration of these models pushed to test in ~6-7 months. That hardly sounds like something that is in process to me.

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on October 29, 2007 09:21 PM

Rosesarered, DN can be reached in 10 minutes easily by anyone who can exp there, nothing wrong with that. I like that a great, underused zone like DN got some hotzone lovin.

Barnesape, the 500 hp thing came from a dev chat, and is confirmed.

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on October 30, 2007 12:09 AM

Underused is the KEY word and if you can reach there without help .... well ..... (not to even go into the faction thingie)... good luck finding a group there

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on October 30, 2007 12:13 AM

And the really cool thing about the latest expansion is:

Everytime I log on I get an "opportunity" to buy the latest expansion (after patching, of course) ... but the SOE store is out of order so I can't buy it.

DUH

Comment Posted by: RosesAreRed on October 30, 2007 12:55 AM

Sorry Redhenna .... you must be in some SOE induced trance

Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on October 30, 2007 02:03 AM

I just read a really well done thread on the SOE forums (call me a masochist, but yes I still do drop by them and read every once in a while).

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=121355

The research is well founded it seems and while there's no attempt on the authors part to make one wild claim or another, it does allow people to draw conclusions on the state of the health of the game as a whole and sheds light on the server population issues.

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on October 30, 2007 03:07 AM

I am not quite sure how stating the fact that DN is not difficult to get to by anyone 55 + who wants to group there(10 minutes from guild hall to DN, maybe less) means I am in any kind of trance. if you want the bonus exp of a hotzone, and are unwilling to run a whole ten minutes, the problem is on your end, not SoEs. DN is one of the best zones SoE has ever done, and doing something to encourage people to do there is nothing but a positive.

By the way, there is zero, none, nada facton needed to reach DN. Some people will complain about anything, and somehow, these tend to be the least informed people. There are no shortage of problems in EQ(itemization, especially nonraid weaponry, bugs that have not been fixed in years, poor at best balancing of content, lack of new players, and so on, and so forth), but the choice of hotzones is not one of them.

Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 30, 2007 11:46 AM

It is not that difficult to get to DN. If you have a guild hall, you can port to Cobalt Scar, then run through Siren's Grotto and Western Waste. If you do not have a guild hall, the path would be POK > Great Divide > Plane of Mischief > CS > SG > WW > DN. Neither path requires any faction.

None of that matters anymore, because DN isn't a hotzone anymore.

Keisa

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on October 30, 2007 12:44 PM

I had to look, and sure enouhg, as of today, hotzone list is:
Level 20 The Castle of Mistmoore
Level 25 The Permafrost Caverns
Level 30 Trakanon's Teeth
Level 35 The Warsliks Woods
Level 40 The Dawnshroud Peaks
Level 45 Velketor's Labyrinth
Level 50 The Deep
Level 55 The Temple of Droga
Level 60 Nobles' Causeway
Level 65 The Halls of Honor

Not a bad list, though a couple oddities.

Comment Posted by: Aarkan on October 30, 2007 01:03 PM

I don't think anything has changed since http://mobhunter.com/001495.html and I don't think it's going to. Which is unfortunate because I agree DN was a fun zone and so are all those others listed but nobody is going to go there and the few who do will just sit around like Loral. Same thing with all the new expansion content, have fun getting a group for DoD, Ro, TSS, TBS, or the upcoming SoF.

Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 30, 2007 04:01 PM

"Same thing with all the new expansion content, have fun getting a group for DoD, Ro, TSS, TBS, or the upcoming SoF."

Thanks, I will. In fact, I've grouped in all those expansions inside the last week.

Keisa

Comment Posted by: xsi on October 30, 2007 05:14 PM

FWIW, my group and I went to DN when it was a hotzone to try and xp there, and it was a tremendous pain in the ass. Not just the getting there part, which was easy enough, since I could lesser succor across Siren's grotto rather than swimming through the seahorses, but the actual xp there.

The best place to xp with a small group used to be the phase spiders... but SOE added mobs for the 1.5 bard epic that can be a huge pain to skirt around, when you take into account the spiders and the dracolich trap. Zoning in and having camps of very very red (and aggro) mobs is just dumb.

It and Dranik's Scar were both, imo, bad hotspots, though the latter was at least feasible if you could snag the three rat/bat caves for xping, and thus avoid all the OoW aliens and their procs.

Of the new hotzones, I think the Deep is a bit small, but passable. Noble's Causeway is ok for those who don't mind the OoW aliens, and Droga and HoH are great.

Comment Posted by: Aarkan on October 30, 2007 07:29 PM

Keisa, were you PUGing as a player leveling up or are you hundreds of AA's and raid geared in a guild group? I'm talking about a new or returning player going through playing it as an MMO is meant to be played.

Though if you're having fun I'm very happy you are, I deeply love EverQuest I just wish I could still play it.

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on October 30, 2007 08:10 PM

Aarkan, what does "playing it as an MMO is meant to be played" mean? Played the way you think it should? Played how? If keisa is having fun, is that not exactly as an MMO is meant to be played? Why are people so insistant on telling others how they should play EQ?

Comment Posted by: Dind of Inny on October 31, 2007 01:13 AM

heh, i actually walked into SoF thinking it'd suck, and that my EQ days were behind me; however reading through a few articles and reviews, i'm peaked.

"both group players and raid players have significant improvements"
"supplemental release of AAs"
"4 tiers of difficulty"

as well as dungeon innovations such as

"shooting lethal flames"
"Boulders come flying down the tunnels"

i thought TBS sucked, the orum armor was way too easy to get and after a matter of DAYS the bulk of the ENTIRE EXPANSION short of Solteris raiding was done and over with for me.

FOUR TIERS of something similar appeals to me, the idea of a real challenge again in group content, as well as new gear to supplement the guild to help progress on current content in a casual fashion. Those of you balking at the lack of casual content aren't thinking about the raid content that's going to be opened up, certain raids wont take as many people to complete, in cases where the guild had near enough they'll now have more than enough steamrolling through giving people some progress and some ease while challenging them thoroughly in the group content.

im looking forward to this shit hah.
not to mention the AA's! been max for a few months and how boring the game as been hah; not worth playing yer main once yer out of aa's to grind sans raid content really imo. at least when you have all the top groupable content. for me, my style of play, and my character, this expansion brings new life and challenge to the game again, and i'll be able to adventure out with old group mates and tackle these new tiers and should have fun running through the prog.

Comment Posted by: Dind of Inny on October 31, 2007 01:24 AM

s'pose i'll take a stab at the lfg deal. fact is servers are smaller than they used to be and player pops aren't quite that high; so sometimes you have to get creative to get a group going as soon as you log in; for me, it's about networking. ( heh, who'd have thought in a social game. ) any decent players i come across, i /friend. i form autojoin channels to help form groups among these decent players that also have similar laid back and fun personalities as my own; i was disappointed when the fellowship feature was so limited in size but in the long run it makes sense with the camp fire feature being more powerful than the guild banner when used right. but i've always been a social player, chatting away well more about the content than about anything, but i've always been a vocal player. i know for others, friends of mine even, grouping is more difficult, these are players who tend not to socialize as much outside of a smallish group, and more or less go so far as tossing their lfg tag up and waiting for the group to pick them up; these days you've got to be an enterprising individual, check the tab, invite who you can, and form what ever ends up being the case; group setups in reality are remarkably flexible for even the most cutting edge group content ( leaving out solteris flagging crap, but you wouldn't bother with it unless you were raiding or insanely pining for that crap ring ;p ). bottom line, i rarely have problems getting groups, and when i do, i bank on my guild for some invites. check yourself, if untagged you could be hurting your chances. also, make liberal use of your 100 slot friend list. that's all i can say really, barring making a few bots hah, but personally i hate botting and always group with single played chars.

Comment Posted by: xsi on October 31, 2007 04:45 AM

"im looking forward to this shit hah. "

From the sounds of it, you're definitely the sort of person they made SoF for. Maxed aas and clearly a hardcore player.

I hope you have fun.

Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 31, 2007 11:59 AM

"Keisa, were you PUGing as a player leveling up or are you hundreds of AA's and raid geared in a guild group? I'm talking about a new or returning player going through playing it as an MMO is meant to be played."

For the record, I'm probably what you'd call a mid level raider. I do have hundreds of AAs and am raid geared.

For DODh, I was there to help a new guildie get access to DKP. I helped him with three of his four access quests.

For POR, I was there helping friends kill stuff in Arcstone so they could complete quests from Relic.

TSS is pretty much a standard hunting ground. I have been doing some quests I haven't finished up and working on getting my cleric to ally so she can get better armor and be prepared to work on the tradeskill quests for SOF when it is released.

For TBS, we hunted primarily in Ashengate, but also went to Vergalid to get an AC aug for a tank in the guild.

Now, I don't know about you, but I consider all of those as examples of playing it as an MMO is meant to be played. Perhaps you have some other limited view of MMOs.

Each and every day, when I log in, I have plans for things I want to do. I invite people in order to form a group and see what they want to do. If no one has anything special, I have a whole slew of tasks, quests, tradeskill goals, events I haven't tried yet, etc. just waiting for a willing group to help me with them.

When I feel like it and have time to myself, I work on tradeskills or solo tasks or try to solo some mob I have never succeeded at soloing before.

I play with guildies. I play with my friends and their guildies. Rarely, because I seldom ever have to look, I play in a pick up group.

I hope this answered your question.

Rodger

Comment Posted by: Aarkan on October 31, 2007 03:32 PM

Exactly, it's impossible for me as a level 62 guildless ranger with 3 AA's and still using my epic weapon to progress. I can't find a group, a guild that does new content doesn't want me and guilds for older content and leveling players don't exist. I'm glad you have a guild and hundreds of AA's but think of what it would take for me to get to level 75-80 and 500+ AA's. It shouldn't take 3-5 years to be able to play the newest content, or any content.

Comment Posted by: Keisa on October 31, 2007 04:14 PM

With all due respect, I find it hard to believe that you cannot find a guild with people that play around your level. Are you saying that on your server, there isn't a single guild that accepts level 62 players?

Likewise, given my experiences recently leveling a zerker to level 54 (granted it's not 62), I fond that if I went to the HOT zones to hunt, I was often invited to group with people I didn't know (and I wasn't even trying to get groups).

In my experience, there are people who have no difficulties getting groups whenever they want them, and there are those people who seem to lack the capabilities to get a group. A person who left my guild complained that one of the reasons he quit was that he could never get a group. That was at the end of a week when I personally grouped him twice. There are times when I am doing something other than grouping and I will hear three people in guild looking for groups at the same time. When I get done with what I am doing, I invite the three of them and catch others when they log in. In a previous guild where we formed no less than six groups at a time during non raid days, there were those people who complained that they could never find a group.

Keisa

Comment Posted by: Dind of Inny on October 31, 2007 04:49 PM

xfer to the nameless, we've got a ton of casual guilds working on content like PoP prog and leveling up new characters

Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on November 1, 2007 01:31 AM

As I'm not longer a subscriber to EQ, or any SOE title for that matter, I try to stop myself from wading hip deap into matters when the conversation turns heated. That said I still have truely fond memories and lasting friendships that where formed in EQ in the early years, so I find myself in a somewhat rare moment where I think I need to weigh in and agree with something Redhenna said.

Redhenna said "There are no shortage of problems in EQ(itemization, especially nonraid weaponry, bugs that have not been fixed in years, poor at best balancing of content, lack of new players, and so on, and so forth), but the choice of hotzones is not one of them."

Key to me is that SOE is yet again making a great deal about the "shiney new" offering and is yet again using smoke and mirrors to distract the remaining user base from the exact issues Redhenna notes.

Over the years I've come to believe that to a certain extent some of the developers have come to foster and egg on resentments between "casual", "hobbiest", and "raider" players. I think it is in SOE's political best interest to have these groups attack each other rather than band together and to demand real, serious, and tangible change and reform.

Its not that SOE wouldn't respond to such demands if they where well organized. I remind long term players of the player boycout organized by Woody Hern of GUComics fame. SOE will respond. But they don't need to, not so long as there are people who will lash out and beat down people who bring up rational discourse with the use of terms like casual and raider.

At the end of the day, all of you/we are players, sharing an interactive world that we pay to access as a paid and provided for at profit service.

Just my 2cp worth of point of view, but people/players would be best served by uniting thier voice in discontent on the topics they truely are in agreement on.

Comment Posted by: Loothur on November 2, 2007 10:40 AM

This is precisely why I do not play ONE MMORPG EXCLUSIVELY anymore. I play Everquest, Vanguard, and WoW depending on how I feel that month. All three are different. All three are fun. All three are relatively inexpensive entertainment. If one pisses me off that month, I go to one of the others.

Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on November 3, 2007 04:38 AM

And now, for something completely different....

http://www.ea.com/simpsons/neverquest/

Comment Posted by: Dind of Inny on November 3, 2007 02:36 PM

somehow I ended up at that simpsons site; surprised the brand-name & tv show are still around

Comment Posted by: Redhenna on November 5, 2007 03:32 PM

Ghost of Zek, I do think that "shiny new" is important for EQ. While getting new players into EQ is important, even more important is keeping old players playing. New content, new levels, new AA's, new raids, new items, all are important to keep that interest going in the current playerbase to my mind. This is not to suggest that other issues are not important, they are, but "shiny new" is a major, imprtant thing that EQ does need.

I agree that the playerbase does have to come together, to get old issues fixed. Things like the "west bug", that has been around for years, and is only now being seriously worked on...well, that is not acceptable. Unfortunately, even when the players mostly do come together(see nonraid weaponry, that even raiders such as myself see as being totally messed up), seemingly little to nothing is done, and certainly not in a timely fashion.

I have said before, and will say again, the animosity between different playstyles(and different classes), while probably inevitable to an extent, tends to breed an environment that is not conducive to getting changes that are overall important to the game made. I think there is room in EQ for many playstyles, from the most casual, to the most hardcore, and I think SoE should work to foster all those playstyles better.

This brings us full circle back to your initial comment, about the 500 AA's as tuning for SoF. Rashere is I am sure right in thinking that this number is best for the largest chunk of the playerbase. The problem with it is that those players well under that AA mark are going to feel left out, and those well over it are going to feel unchallenged outside of raids(if they do raid), if not at first, then in the long run. That strikes me as unhealthy for the longterm health of EQ. There should be at least some content aimed at level 75 to 80, low to no AA, with bazaar level gear, so they can feel like there is a reason to go to the new expansion. There should also be some cutting edge, super hard group content, aimed at those with top gear, max AA's. There should be content for all the spectrum in between. One year expansion cycle means there needs to be alot of content, and people should be busy, and challenged, for that whole year.

Like you, I no longer play EQ, though for different reasons. There was, at my midlevel raid level, no group content that was even modestly challenging(TSS, post D=FC/AG nerf), I had the AA's, had the tradeskills done, and could not care less how much wealth I accumulated ingame(which is something that kept some friends playing...one recently donated 10 million plat to a player run event, and she still has plenty to spare). I know a number of other players who left at about the same timeframe, for similar reasons. I worry that with an expansion tunes arounf 500 AA's, that before the year is out, alot more will hit that point, and drift away.

Comment Posted by: Ghost of Zek on November 5, 2007 08:44 PM

Redhenna, I just wanted to tell you, that was really well said. /salute

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