You wrote us a letter, so I'm writing you one back. You claimed to be interested in communication and community feedback, which I'm extremely grateful to hear. Might as well get this rolling. I'll start by asking a few questions, then providing my own feedback as well as suggestions to players in adding their own. 1. Do you currently play Everquest? If not, when was the last time you played? 2. What do you personally see as problems with Everquest that you'd like to fix? 3. What does Everquest not currently have that you'd like implemented? I'm going to go ahead and get my own personal DREAM wish for this game out of the way: a complete remake. A new client with modern graphics and engine that keeps the design of the world and lore while keeping the old school mechanics, gameplay, and socialization of Everquest. Starts in Classic, if the Classic remake is a success then it just follows the expansion timeline, no reason to remake the entire game if the remake fails. Old client/servers still exist and are separate. Remake uses all new servers. Makes pure melees more involved from the start. *Ahem,* now that that's out of the way. Here's my feedback regarding the current game. 1. On live, the new/returning player experience can be rough. There is an insanely massive world to explore with thousands of lines of text to read, and there are so many systems to learn. All the while, you're thrown into a 22 year old economy with nary a copper. Also, in an old game like this, it feels like a large majority of the world and zones no longer mean anything. That makes players want to get to the higher levels quicker, where 99% of the playerbase is. But currently that journey is long and lonely. Unfortunately I don't have much of a suggestion for this other than making leveling more streamlined/easier/quicker (one benefit of leveling faster is that you get to higher valued vendor trash items quicker, which helps you economy-wise) . One big change I think could help though is making high level buffs apply their lower level version to lower level players instead of no buff at all. 2. I would love to see the in-game map remade into something that wasn't created in mspaint.exe. In addition, there is really no reason for almost every NPC to be marked on the map, the Find feature works just fine. 3. A sale price history of items in the Bazaar, that shows how much the item has sold for in the past. I would prefer just a straight up regular MMO auction house, but old games like this tend to make a lot of money on player's mule accounts so I see why that's unlikely. 4. Lesser played classes should be looked at (other players can probably better confirm which ones those are), why that is, and what can be done to fix them. 5. Revival of Guides, whom have the ability to temporarily take away players' chat channel access. The the Community, what are some of your biggest complaints and suggestions for Everquest?
TBH a complete overhaul of the game or remake is probably not on the menu. It would cost millions of dollars with no gaurentee of people to play it other than the player base we have going on now. Plus getting the thousands of quests and items done on the staffing they have now would be impossible. We got an expansion this year and it seemed rather unfinished (I gave them a pass because of COVID and losing holly longdale)
While I would like to see a lot of the things the OP mentioned, I thinik honestly I would want to see better xpacs come out. CoV is kind of "meh" to me, and while I do appreciate the devs coming out with an xpac considering everything 2020 tossed at them, I am hoping that EG7 will infuse DPG with some more cash flow to get us back to having great expansions that are new, such as a possible trip to Drinal.
I have to say, remake everuest:reloaded would be my dream too... But since wishes aren't actually fishes.... Fix broken quests... Seriously, EQ devs did a massive pass on old unfinished quests and left broken ones laying around - a lot of them in the new player experience. Stop rushing expacs.... Releasing an expac on a tight year schedule is obviously outside of the current dev team's technical abilities, otherwise we wouldn't have broken or unfinished expansions and the dev team asking the player base to help them write up the lore to explain how all these things in the new expansion somehow fit into the world - the old 6 month unlock schedule was watered down to once per year, in good part because 6 month rushed expacs were buggy and imbalanced and half-completed. Slow it down again if the dev team can't release a quality product on the current schedule.
I think the sale price history thing in the bazaar is a waste of resources and doesn't solve any problems the way you think it does. I've played other MMO's with history functionality and it's too easily abused. High level rich players always sell to each other to contort the value of items to what they want them to be.
Right, I've played games like that too, but the usefulness of the feature outweighs the small handful of people who abuse it. And not having a history doesn't prevent it either.
DEBUFf LIMIT on boss / mob , it is crazy , with some raids who is a DPS check , and we got dot's and debuffs to not land because they are limited by a number they can have on them....................
There are more important things they need to look at before bring in anything new. Lag Login issues Wizzy DPS Class balance Broken Quests/Raids/Achievements HA rebalance (especially TBM) Overseer fixes (Uncompletable quests, AA as a reward, Older TS rewards) UI Improvements, including the raid window crashes Advance loot crashes Making sure that annual content works correctly before being released for a short time I'm sure there are more but that would be my top 10
Afaik, this was the actual plan many years ago, and the reason we got the zone revamps. Most of the revamps were quite good imho. we even had a player model revamp in sight(one of the new human models are present near small bank in pok). Sadly, they dropped the idea, because they decided that not hurting the current players nostalgia-feelings, were more important than attracting new players with competitive graphics. I can't say I agree with their decision.
Every NPC being marked on the map is not a native function and is probably your Brewall or... 3rd party software. Guards - seize this man.
Clarification here. The find feature works 'just fine' in nice flat zones. Now try using it in a complex, multi level zone and actually try to follow the path. Watch that shiny ribbon vanish into the floor, through a wall, into the ceiling, etc. What would be useful would be more levels we can use for details, notes, etc. Also, let us show other things on the map, e.g. The raid leader, marked assists, the guild banner, campfires, maybe even the currently tracked target or marked NPCs.
Honestly, I've enjoyed ToV/CoV. It would be nice if they had been a little more fleshed out with Thurgadin being included, or a more lively camp in WW. Most of the things that drive me nuts about modern EQ are the quality of life things that would be nice to see included. 1. Functioning find feature. 2. Automated 'go to here' function. 3. In game loot/aug database. Maybe a feature that would show you stats with different gear loadouts. 4. A 'go to group' function like a fellowship. It's hard enough to find groups, I've had people turn down groups with me because it's too far out/hard to get too. I understand the feel of everquest being vast, but it should be easy to meet up. 5. Good solo content for every class. Engage the community/ask for volunteers to help write the lore for the expansion. Many people would be ecstatic to see their little quote or story appear in an expansion. Even as a droppable note. This would not only free up developer time to work on other work, but would help the world feel more vibrant.
I read his letter and watched his video and what I got out of it is that trying to tell him these things is a waste of time. He said games that have their own team already (all Daybreak games except for H1Z1) will be handled by the team already there. What EG7 will do is talk to the team already running EQ and ask them what they need. So, your feedback needs to go to Jennifer "JChan" Chan - Executive Producer, EQ & EQ2 as well as maybe a few others at Darkpaw. From EG7's website at https://www.enadglobal7.com/: Does that sound like the CEO of that company has the time to spend on one game? Not to me. He's got the time to go, "Ok, what does Daybreak and Darkpaw need to do better? So, team already in charge of EQ, what do you need to meet our expectations of annual sales?" Yes, he's a gamer who played EQ decades ago. Yes, he does care about games. But how many games do you think EG7 is running? I did not see him go on about how EQ is his favorite and he will be putting aside all the many many other games he has to deal with to go into the weeds to make EQ better. Nor would I expect him to.
Can't believe I forgot one of my most wanted features: new race/class combos! I know that the game originally designed its race/class combos mostly around deities, but is that still applicable in the current lore?
Then we need to either continue this thread or start a new one with what needs to be done, so that JChan can hear it from the players, so they can turn around and hand a list to EG7 saying, "These are our priorities." For instance, fix the lag issue. This is probably the #1 complaint. Fix wizards. Some want class balance. Others want better quality xpacs. Lets give them our ideas so they can sit down and draw up a plan to give to EG7. If enough of us speak up about what we want, then maybe it will happen. Don't assume DPG knows what we want from just the few of us that post with any frequency on the boards. Get people involved, and DPG may listen and go to EG7 with what is really needed.
A most excellent job calling yourself out for using something you really shouldn't be using, nor admit to using on a public forum run by Daybreak!
Fix the lag. My list is done. The graphics in this game don't look stupidly cartoonish like in WoW I do admit that. I would say the graphics/npc/monster models of the past few expansions are great, keep it up. In no other game do i feel as grounded and part of the world as i do in EQ. A lot of games have come and pass and none stuck like this one.
I would be surprised if the team has not already given EG7 their list of priorities with cost-benefit analysis. I seriously doubt JChan is going to turn to the player base to generate a list of must do things to keep the game functioning.
