Changes with the February Update: Developer Updates

guess ill be retiring after 15 years of play time seems Sony is in it for the money and not us customers, sad eq was the best game out there now its going to

Unofficially the 17th give or take a day due to holiday

I did some thinking this weekend.
Noticing that there are over 2,000 replies to this issue, I think there might be a deeper issue.
Why the reason for such adamant resistence to Sony actually giving subscribers something for free, namely several thousand AA's? I believe there is a real reason for such resistence.
When I read, "if Sony does this, I have been playing EQ for Years, and I am going to stop playing EQ." At first, I stopped and asked myself, why? Then I realized the answer is obvious.
Well there is a good reason why certain people will make multiple messages in protest, and then stop playing EQ.
This group of people are the people who sell "powerleveling services". They sell powerleveling in the game for plat, up to 100,000 per hour, and for money in real life.

If Sony gives several thousand AA's away for free, this will mean that powerleveling services will lose either millions of plat in game, or hundreds of dollars in real life money. Plus, hundreds of poor inocent people in China will lose their livelihood, as these powerleveling services, who employ them, stop playing EQ. So, there is a real economic reason for the resistence to Sony granting free AA's to players of EQ. Yes, indeed hundreds of people who offer powerleveling services may indeed cancel their EQ accounts.
Now it all makes sense.

us customers asked for this change. Just because you disagree (which you didnt even state what you disagreed with by the way so we're left to guess) does not make you right. There must ALWAYS be catchup.. and even you probably benefitted from it one time or another via exp boosts.. PoK books, exp potions, you name it. Games get easier over time, that is life, you cannot ask people to be years and years behind modern content, does not work and that is just elitist.

If you're mad that you can't pull an entire zone any more, then no freakin comment to that.

i seriously dont think I've seen ONE post, NOT ONE, that begs for the continued grind be left to 'catch up'. Lack of end game content / variety is a totally different subject.

I have however seen tons offer loads of different IN GAME (with or without $$ value attached) options offered to make 'catch up' both easier and truer to the 'everquest journey'

Its the lack of care / imagination / vision / want / willing by devs to implement this catch up VIA the games existing mechanics that irks.

If i quit for 5 years and come back, this type of 'catch up' will simply mean there will all ways be 3 years of that time away where the game experiences becomes obsolete in the fact it offers no rewards later examinations wont offer better - a player who would never have experienced it even in passing.

Yeah thats cool ---- but it makes each expansion a 'new game' where what went before it has no use other than nostalgia. $40+ subs needs to be offering a lot more than of recent years cookie cutter expansions

Its NOT OLD CONTENT to players 'catching up' if they have never done it (flag accounts on quest arcs to open aa to alts). Even at its most simple implementation of running into a previous expansions zone and as an example handing an npc a flask of water to unlock all of PoP AA on all characters created on that account (if opted in at creation).

Go hail the 5 (only 1 in newer expansions... watered down as far as possible?!) spell vendors for an expansions levels and 'say i seek knowledge' to unlock that levels AA is a pointless, boring quest but far more game involvement that logging on , ding!

Its the lack of any feeling of 'game' associated with the change that does not bode well for their vision of the future

1) they will still sell powerleveing from 85 to 100
2) the changes just make it more 'elitist' to be able to pl so will cost more to players
3) the hard core pl'ers do it for real life $$ (and allowed to continue by sony for years) and these changes wont stop them

Tarrin,

I think that we will just have to disagree on whether the auto grant is the way to go or not. There is really only debating points where no real hard data can be obtained from our access.

Ryneis

I'm sorry did you forget the AA's were optional? That people that want to play the old AA grind are welcome to take that journey. This is for people that don't want that option. The people who want to be closer to the more active part of the game.

People are mad because they had to grind out the AA's and newer people would get them free. Thus my original statement about purchasing expansions. Options are better for everyone.

think...

its not closer to the action at all to be given aa.

action = the game

giving aa is taking away from the game not ADDING to the game

This is the misunderstanding thats taking place, all these changes do not affect the ability to pull said zone, only kill the pull as they have, this will not prevent this server lag from starting again under a new way to do so.

While there is a lot of posts stating I will cancel my account if x does/does not take place it to is misunderstood.

It is paying customers stating that they are no longer going to financially support the employed (SOE) under this venue of actions. With Free to Play, they will still be able to continue playing.

Personally after shutting down my account(s) and looking at something else for entertainment, there may be a gain for SOE to focus more on the short term new peeps than the old core base...
^^^ does not make sense I'm sure but will explain ^^^
New-Person X enters game, wants to catch up, and starts buying stuff out of the Station Cash Store, Gains a Mid Level toon, several purchases take place at once that will be greater than the long term customer that has about everything and no need to purchase items.

So about any suggestion here that will see change results will need:
1. Show $$$ Support to their company
2. Assist in the Issues presented in the first Thread
3. Be worded in a manor that the Moderators do not take offense to.
4. Present the least amount of work/time for Dev/Coders to be able to implement
5. Can appease approx 80% of the base (its never possible to reach 100%)

A Lot of the posts here cause the players to turn upon one another and get sidetracked, maybe find 1 or 2 posts you like and move with adding vocal support (if it meets the above requirements) and there is a slight chance something will come from it.

But there were a heck of a lot more players then - almost any zone you went to had quite a few players in it - And unless coding is done very badly then it should not matter if it is an instanced zone or a normal zone - Only the total number of mobs moving at any specific time in game should count against CPU load - and back then we were running on their "old" hardware - which has apparently been upgraded on a regular basis.

I still would like to know a solution to the overwhelming amount of AA's a person has to get if they are coming back to the game or new. This is a solo game untill level 85..... there are no groups running around, so seeing 4000+AA's on top of leveling and not knowing how or where to go.... then having to compete with those Power leveling alts... can be frustrated. The bonus to AA exp didnt help.. and neither would just reducing the cost of those older AA's. Doing that would be no different then getting them Free. People still have to level their character. Currently you can not buy a high level character... you have to level yourself.

Everyone who screams this is horrible and will ruin the game.... can you please give us an example of what exactly it will do to make the game no longer enjoyable for YOU? If you think it cheapens the game for returning or new players... well you are not one of them so how do you know? You think this is not fair because you worked hard to get what you have, well so is having to tackle the burden of AA's as a new or returning player or as a casual. If this DIRECTLY affects you in some negative way, please let us know... so far I agree with others... this is a long overdue fix to the problems that exist.

No

I know others have parsed before, but I did it anyway. An even con A restless skeleton in DH during 1:45, total hits: 354. 800 hits doesn't even cut it against 3 mobs. 5 mobs would be equivalent to ~1800 hits. Please revise the hit counter on Lich Sting.

And I am a paying customer that will benefit from this change and keep playing EQ. Every single change causes people to quit and causes people to return either directly or indirectly.

Fact is 95% of us are veterans of some sort, we all did years of grinding.. It's just silly to make returning players (no, hardly anyone is "new") to do years of catch-up grinding. Just because somebody kept playing EQ for a decade and a half does not mean we should all be forced to as well just to catch up. And as I mentioned, the same people complaining are the ones that benefited from easier EQ and they magically kept their mouth shut when it benefitted them.

Just because a vocal minority keeps posting that this will "hurt SOE" does not mean they are right. More people want AA changes than do not, polls have indicated this.

And to say that this will not stop people from pulling entire zones it ridiculousness. I can all but guarantee lag is reduced significantly after these changes, why would you think otherwise? Nothing is psychically stopping people from driving 100MPH down a 70MPH highway, but that doesnt mean they will do that just because they can. Im not going to pull 100 mobs if there is less incentive to. I am not going to try to beam on my 2 level 96 mages if there is less incentive to, not that I ever did before.

I dont agree with there even being an old core "base," everbody I know has quit EQ a dozen times. When I return to EQ each time, I am not getting the chance to experience end game, its catching up process followed by me quitting, returning to catch up, quitting, I havent even been max level in a decades time. In any other game, I can reach max level and actually experience what other people are experiencing, not having to fiddle in some empty zone with my box and merc army.

If you would like practical solutions then please simply refer to a lot of the thread that has gone before - many solutions (lots with no coding costs) have been put forward. A very simple example that I liked was just to make every AA branch below underfoot 1/1/1 etc.

That gives me some interesting ideas...

Realizing that stuff is already in motion and that such changes are likely far too late to implement but I'll say it anyway.

Make the old expansion AA's questable. It would involve putting a quest NPC in the most difficult zone of each expansion and allowing a quest that would prove that the character had conquered that expansion. One per expansion to unlock the appropriate AA group. Would make the AA grant ever so much more interesting and would give folks a reason to go visit some old zones for a while.

Because grinding out 4k AA doesn't take months without being PLed by an alt. Because returning to the game at 65-85 sitting in the same zones you left with for months to catch up doesn't make people want to leave again.

Do you not think they are getting this feedback? Do you think they are going to sit here listening to people complain and not change it if it was the majority complaining?

Old zones are dead. Go level up and see how many people are leveling without alts helping them. Imagine coming into a game and nobody being around to group with. Imagine sitting at the same level working on AAs for months with very few people around. Get them through the dead content and get them hooked on current content and gear improvement. Hook them on the part of the game that is getting the updates and the special events.

I'm not a powerleveller. I have a 100 mage with almost 5k AA's and I couldn't even begin to tell you how to beam kite. I'm not quitting, I'm just a little miffed that they're dumbing down EQ again and making it more like everything else out there

This thread has gone completely off the rails, now even piestro is answering questions about maps, here, when we should be talking about the backend problem with mob pathing calculations.
As someone previously mentioned this is backward thinking, you cant fix the backend by making changes to the frontend (the client).
Why not just nerf character movement if that's the case?, problem solved, no one can pull any mobs then...
I am the only one out of 2k posters that actually posted a code concept for fixing the pathing problem, and I get no comment on it? If the concept is flawed, at least say so, or maybe you actually didn't want us to bring solutions, cause this isn't at all about server load?