Increase Sales With Two Words

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Pawtato, May 10, 2020.

  1. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    But the current stuff is doable by you. And are in the same vein as epics. A long grinding process for a much better item. May not be the same but are definitely the spiritual successor.
  2. Gynek Lorekeeper

    First of all, if we ever end up with Epic Questlines in the future, I fully volunteer to write the entire Magician Epic Quest, to the extent I may be a little insulted if not.

    I bleed for Epics and have had a fierce hunger for over 15 years to help with the completion of the story of Trilith Magi`kot.

    That being said, I doubt entirely it will ever happen. But damn have I always been upset that story didn't necessarily go anywhere. I always wanted to fight him, a version of him that has adapted and grown with his elemental imprisonment. Maybe he found a way at last to achieve a focus of the elements far stronger than the Orb or Staff.

    That aside, how about instead 16 different raid bosses similar in difficulty to the 2.0 fights that reward Class Epics but require you to turn in all 4 fully evolved TBL items AND the fully evolved ToV earring?
    Duder likes this.
  3. Maedhros High King

    They lose subscribers for a ton of reasons, just like any other video game. One of the reasons people leave is because EQ has become very formulaic and has lacked any real impactful weapons and quests in years. It can feel very copy/paste with minor increases in stats and weapon damage from one year to the next but all the while just treading water. The last time we got something sort of in the ballpark of an epic, it fell very short with the class quested weapons from ROF. Those weapons became obsolete the very first tier of Call of the Forsaken.
    EQ epics are iconic, and QUEST is in the freakin name of the game.
    As far as losing customers if they increased prices, get real. If you only play 5 hours a week that's 260 hours a year. That costs .23 cents an hour of entertainment at the $60 per expansion rate. If you play more than 5 hours a week, as many, many do, then that cost per hour only gets lower. They could charge $200 per expansion and you would be hard pressed to find a better return on your per hour of entertainment fund.
    Yes I am well aware that there is a puny monthly cost, that for the sake of this conversation is irrelevant as we are not discussing any change to that.
    Koveras and Pawtato like this.
  4. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    You are welcome to your opinion no matter how wrong it is. :) no seriously we have different opinions on the matter. I think it will hurt daybreak you think it wont. You are not the first to say you will pay more for this feature or that feature. Daybreak doesn't tend to agree.

    A LOT of people box. That is a price increase per account and it comes due all at the same time for expansions.

    But trust me if Daybreak thinks they can make more money by doing it they will do it. There job is to make money.

    We can have different opinions but one thing is a fact and that is I would not pay more to get more epics. Short of daybreak taking a poll not sure how we will figure out what the majority of players think.

    A bit self involved to think that because you are willing to pay more that everyone should. At least in my opinon.

    The only things we can agree on as facts is that you want to pay more for epics to be done again and I don't want to pay more for epics to be done again.
  5. Pawtato Augur


    100% agree with you, how many people can tell me the name of any item in their inventory outside of the TBL chase items and ToV ear. I legitimately don't know where they waste their development time. You're not going to convince, it's taking a month to create new armor, spells, and augs. There's literally no thought behind it. The ToV TS ear is just a ramped up version of every other ear with a couple of different aug slots. Zero effort into giving it any unique click or aura.

    The itemization is so bad, the only options for experimenting with gear are changing around type 5's. Epic quests are important because as you said they're iconic, and people feel good displaying them on their character.

    Also, they're trying to charge people $250 for 2 copies of ToV, some different color hero's forge, some potions, and a click. What an incredible value add!
    Koveras likes this.
  6. Pawtato Augur


    Strong disagree, this company has no idea how to make money and lucked out making product that first to market.

    Their most successful idea is literally just re-releasing seasonal servers.
  7. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    The thing is that it doesn't matter what we think. It doesn't matter how much time it takes them to do things. It only matters what they consider profitable and can do. Being profitable means doing what players will like but they always have to make a profit at a certain level to do it.

    I have no doubt the Devs want to bring to us the best game then can. Sometimes I question their reasoning but not their overall intent. Thing is they are always going to do things that we like and don't like based upon being able to make the owner of the company the kind of profits he needs/wants.

    Whatever reason they give is really irrelevant although I don't see the need for them to lie. So if they say something takes a month it takes a month. If they say something would suck the life from an expansion to add thats the truth.

    Now the devs themselves could be lied to. You could have an owner or management swear up and down things are going well right up to the day they close a company down or sell it.

    I think its fine to discuss why we might thing something takes them a month but I don't really see any percentage in them lying to us.
    Sokki likes this.
  8. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    I must admit I do miss the quests that were for nothing more than an item, nothing to do with progression but something that I wanted, clickies, augs, illusions, stuff that had nothing to do with achievements. Stuff that didn't have to be done but players wanted to do them, not necessarily all of them as some where class/archtype restricted, but most. I'm not a fan of being lead and told I have to do x y z and it has to be done in that order! :rolleyes:

    The problem with epics is not all epics were created equally, some were out of date soon after they were released, others like, cleric, SK, Shaman, Bard, Necro ect continue to be used today. Some were easier than others, some were a major pain.

    Epic retelling, I think wizzies have one of the coolest quests, who wouldn't want to see the new Freeport go up in flames, I think Dzarn got the mood of the players right for that one. :)

    Weapon graphics themselves for epics would need to be something out of this world amazing or not take ornaments, such a waste making something look super cool only to have someone put an ornament in it. :rolleyes:
  9. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    I didnt say they have good ideas on making money I said that is their goal. Not the same thing. I don't think they do terribly though.

    Thing is EQ has a low population now. It makes a much bigger difference if they do anything that loses them part of that pie. They are at a stage where they have to try to keep as much of the pie as possible. With a much larger player population you have the option of picking paths that might lose you some players now but get you a lot of brand new players.

    If I said somewhere that they know the best way to make money with EQ then I apologize. I have no way of knowing that. Just said that is their goal and what they shoot for good company profits.

    No matter how much devs want to make a good game if there are no profits there is no game unless you go to emulators.
  10. Gherig Addicted since Aug 1st, 1998

    The Truth is ... Epics 3.0 will never bring anyone back to EQ that has lapsed the account for more then year. sure you might get a few, but you will never get enough new and return subs to justify the real cost of doing the work for 16 long, complicated, truly epic quests. Anything less then the a fore mentioned style of quest and you guys will be right back here complaining about that next.

    In the end, its not worth it for the company to invest the time and money into something that will never actually improve the game or sales. The few subs they lose by saying no pales in comparison to the cost of actually doing them for almost no return.
  11. Xyphen Maximum Augur

    I can't imagine the can of worms your devs would have to deal with if all of a sudden they had to balance the entire game around a moderate population of folks with multi-expansion-powerful weapons vs the standard vanilla gear casuals have access too.

    Let me make a projection of the new player complaints you'll unlock:
    • Casuals upset you made a raid-only expansion/implementation or raiders complaining the new epic quests are too easy
    • Folks with epics complaining new content is too easy
    • Folks without epics complaining new content is too hard
    • The literal pay-to-win aspect of the most powerful item locked behind expansion-level $ cost
    But good news! You don't need to itemize a weapon slot for a couple years.
    I get the appeal of new epics, but the intent behind wanting them is predominately nostalgic and anyone would be naive to think you could seamlessly plug the thrill of dial-up 9/19/2000 into 2021+.
    Celephane and Koryu like this.
  12. Keenween Elder

    Yes, i would buy it ....but.... only if the Epic is for casual/group gamer,s and raiders, not the same power ;) but similar, like the Epic weapons from EQ2 "there was a group and raid version"
  13. Nolrog Augur


    New epics but expansion with no raids. Still excited?
  14. Nadisia Augur

    Me, yes.
    But I don't raid anymore so ... :p

    [IMG]
  15. Pawtato Augur

    Like I replied to Ngreth, it would offer better value than ToV. What an absolute turd of an expansion.
  16. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    They wanna increase sales I have three words BIGGER TRADER BAGS. ok im done. had to make another account because the 100 limit is freaking silly I wanna be able to sell cheaper stuff collection items ect. Well least I got another account for overseer!

    Andarriel
  17. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    I mean whats up when you open a trader and it shows 200 slots? anyone have any idea its been like that for a long while now.

    Andarriel
  18. Sabrefist- Journeyman

    Personally I'd pay a ton for new stuff outside of copy/pasted gear and abilities. I'd pay $50+ just for a new epic quest alone. I understand there's a manpower constraint...but can't you hire more devs/artists/whatever? At least do a trial run of something like this and see if it's profitable?

    I'm not alone in feeling that Everquest is the best game I've ever played. I don't think another game could ever really draw me away; that said, with year after year of the same content slightly revamped, class imbalance, and lack of truly novel ideas and events, it does get a little stale at times.

    I bet you could return EQ to some semblance of its glory days with new innovators involved. Even if you don't draw in a ton of new players...I promise you haven't hit the bottom of the wallets of many of your customers. Food for thought.
  19. Zerker1231 Lorekeeper


    Add a reward for completing all the achs for future expansions that are class based. These can be class based and could easily just be epics doing all the achs in expansions takes WAY longer then any epic ever took.
  20. Xyphen Maximum Augur

    Every epic 1.0 -> 2.5 has required raids, so it's safe to assume a 3.0 would as well. Still interested in paying $40 for something you can't do?