It's obvious developers aren't listening, so why do we keep asking?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Noobnoob, Apr 19, 2022.

  1. Noobnoob Journeyman

    It's pretty obvious when it comes to time locked progression servers the developers have a plan in place that is supported by their bottom dollar and not the concerns of the community. I'm not saying this to stir the pot, I mean it is obvious. So many requests for more traditional servers, and what do we get, TLPs where they can make money off the subscription and item store, despite players voicing that they don't want these things, that what they want is a more authentic experience. I think at this point any requests are being dismissed in lieu of what the company thinks will make them money. The developers are obviously not players, they don't understand what playing a video game is about, rather they're business men and women, more interested in increasing the profit margin than they are increasing the enjoyment of their player base. I guess we'll only see a change when it affects retention and they realize "oh we can't treat our customers like drones? We actually have to provide things they want? Wow!"

    Anyways, my rant is over. This was all caused by the lackluster announcements regarding the next TLPs... truebox? Items from the Market allowed? What? Were you listening? I guess you were listening, just not to your player base, rather your graphs and charts.
    Brontus and HekkHekkHekk like this.
  2. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Yes, they are listening.

    There just have to be enough posters asking for the same thing with this idea or it has to be an idea interesting enough that the devs think it could work as a special ruleset.

    And you wrote a lot of words, yet you really said nothing.

    If you didn't like the TLP on offer then stump up your own suggestion & ask for what you want.

    Waffling about a "traditional" server is pointless unless you back it up with an example ruleset that you want and consider more "traditional".

    So, put your money where your mouth is, anyone can complain about someone else's idea, few have the backbone to offer their own idea up & accept it will be up to the forum users to say whether they like it or not, to support it or tear it down, to celebrate or ridicule it.
    I mean lots of TLP suggestions do get posted, and a lot of them fail basic common sense, like saying "no Krono" or " only 1 character slot".

    Vaniki wasn't my idea, though it was clearly heavily influenced by a TLP suggestion I made, but I don't take you calling it lacklustre personally, I would certainly enjoy taking a look at your idea & seeing if it's as amazing as you might think it is though.
    Aeonblade and Wyre Wintermute like this.
  3. asdfbot Lorekeeper


    So many requests for more traditional servers, and what do we get, TLPs where they can make money off the subscription and item store, despite players voicing that they don't want these things

    There will always be the store. DPG has to be able to turn a profit on TLP servers. My guess would be, the store brings in pretty good revenue just like the Bags before TLP launches.
  4. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Businesses making money!
    Good heavens!
    Whatever next?
    rangerous, Dythan and klanderso like this.
  5. JustAnotherOpinion Augur

    "There have to be enough posters with different IP addresses..."
  6. HekkHekkHekk Augur

    Reminds me of another frequent poster!
    wade_watts and Skuz like this.
  7. Tyvolus Journeyman

    Businesses making money, AND making their customers happy!

    /too EZ
    Skuz likes this.
  8. Noobnoob Journeyman

    Well Blizzard used to make ALOT of money on WoW, much more than what they're making now, which I know is still a lot, but my point is the reason they make so much less is that they stopped listening to their player base. Who can forget, "you think you want it." I'm not under any illusions, I know Darkpaw is owned by an investment firm, we can't expect them to put player satisfaction before profit, but I think my point is that they're out of touch with their player base or they just don't care. I don't see the population on these servers being very large, but that in part may be their goal. Reduce the amount of people who transfer to new TLPs in order to get them more invested on their current servers. Oh well, there's always Project 1999 to return to.
  9. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Also need to remember just because a player requests something doesn't mean it is a good idea or something the devs will agree with.
    Tarvas, Yinla, Haak and 1 other person like this.
  10. HekkHekkHekk Augur

    I see you're an xbox player. What's your favorite xbox game?
  11. Trox2010 Augur

    Except that is impossible; what ever will make you happy will make another 5+ customers unhappy. If they try to make everyone happy then they won't make any money, since everything will have to go back into keeping everyone happy. Plus they can't raise the prices any because that's just going to piss everyone off.

    Hmmm guess it's not \too EZ
    Zrender likes this.
  12. Metanis Bad Company

    I don't have a dog in this fight, but if they're making money from all this TLP nostalgia farming, then they must be burying it under the mattress because I sure don't see any evidence that they're spending it on the game.
  13. Gremin Augur

    You make them listen with your wallet.
  14. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Oh Really?

    we specifically have some openings at Darkpaw Games we want to highlight:

    EverQuest

    Associate Artist, Environment
    Associate Artist, Environment
    Associate Artist, Environment
    Yes, we really do need three.
    Associate Software Engineer
    Associate Technical Writer (Temp)
    Noobnoob likes this.
  15. Zrender Augur

    Yip. That and they finally ported the clients and servers to 64-bit which will open up loads of possibilities for improvements and make the dev's lives better. They also recently rolled out a new expansion and did a ton of tweaking and went above and beyond to let people get the free trade tlp they wanted in Mischief. Even though I'm not a big fan of free trade I freely admit that they hit the Mischief server out of the park. I feel like things have been moving along at a surprisingly good pace. Of course you can never please everyone.
    To the OP, I don't really see them removing the marketplace unless they charge more for that server. I think most of us want them to make money and understand that the future of EQ relies on it.
    chunky and Skuz like this.
  16. Go Take A Nap Augur

    Hell levels, 1 year unlocks, and corpse runs then?
  17. Metanis Bad Company

    Hiring some more bodies is a good thing. I'll concede that. But they've got a lot of catching up to do. Aren't you tired of their lack of attention to class balance issues, extreme raid lag, and a 5-year string of cookie cutter expansions?
  18. Noobnoob Journeyman

    Again, my point is that the game will never really grow to its full potential if they don't actually figure out what their players want. I think they're thinking outside the box, that's good, but only if people want what's outside the box. Most people who leave the vault will not want to live in the atomic wasteland, they'll return to the vault if they can, unless you make it worthwhile out there. People who play TLPs literally want "more of the same" because that's what a TLP is. I think that is the fundamental thing they're missing. Literally half of the servers they've released have been alternative servers with expansion releases, but not actually TLPs. I think harkening to Mangler is good for a lot of people, but the reality is that I think more people would've jumped on a no-boxing true to form TLP than they have the servers they decided on this year. I don't foresee this making them more money, but rather just maintaining the status quo, which if you can't figure out how to be successful is the next best thing.

    Case in point, at one time Everquest could've launched a Project 1999 type of server. They chose not to, claiming they didn't have the code, but I think the actual problem was that they didn't want to do the work. WoW did the work, they created their very own classic WoW, that did not utilize the current WoWs engine, and it singlehandedly brought them back to the top. Everquest could've done that, but they chose to save money, rather than do what fans actually wanted. Here they are trying their darndest to get more players, but they're only maintaining. That's the sad fact, they maintain, but never grow, because they don't know what the players want and when they do know, they're not willing to spend the money to provide it to players.
    Metanis likes this.
  19. Vicus Augur

    You are comparing Blizzard to Darkpaw games here. A company with 100x the pockets for money and pool of employees. When Blizzard creates a job opening, it gets filled asap. When Darkpaw games creates a job opening, well it's still there. Wow Classic is also 1 expansion. If Darkpaw did all that work you talk about and just ported a P99 type experience for just classic, that server would be dead after after everyone hit 50 and realized there isn't much to do. They would have to drop Classic-Velious to retain any players and still what would it give them? That would takes years of work with their staff.

    Or they can drop a new TLP, do 5% of the work and make 80% of the same profit. That is what small companies do compared to massive companies like Blizzard. Blizzard is big enough where they can have a massive sexual harassment case on multiple of their higher-ups and still survive and put out an expansion. If that happen to Darkpaw games, they are one major lawsuit from the whole thing falling apart.

    I personally think Vaniki hits a whole bunch of check marks. People wanted beastlord and zerkers at the start = Check. People wanted a real challenge again because current TLP are a joke. Guilds are killing every boss in one shot in 48 hours or less. You aren't clearing time at level 40. You aren't going to get into VT trying to kill Emp with level 40 tanks or even level 50 tanks. There is actual challenge with this expansion. I think the server might not do well because some people who have been saying they wanted a challenge might realize....not being a pushover sucks when ya wipe. Time will tell.
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  20. Trox2010 Augur

    Except most people don't want the full "Classic" experience; which is why P99 hasn't exploded in popularity despite being fully blessed by DBG. They came right out and said that they won't make a full Classic option because they don't want to maintain 2 separate server codes, and if they want that experience to head to P99 for that. If P99 was all of a sudden to explode in population then DPG might rethink their strategy of not offering Classic (same could probably be said for P99 Red).

    I would contend Daybreak is listening to their playerbase which is why we keep getting tweaked versions of the "Standard" TLPs (Mangler/Phinny clones with small adaptions made). Most of the tweaks are things the playerbase has asked for. It is also why we get "Non-Standard" rulesets almost every year now; these are ones that players have asked for, but haven't been proven as a working option yet. Just because they don't give everyone everything they ask for every year doesn't mean they aren't listening.

    And for the "No free trade they suck crowd"; I would bet that next years TLPs will include a Free Trade server, and chances are there won't be a "Standard" ruleset.


    Edit: Should also point out that the ONLY reason why there is a WoW Classic server (or any other MMOs Classic servers for that matter) is due to how massively successful Everquests TLPs have been.
    Zrender likes this.