Total inflation between 2011 and now has been 5.8%. Meanwhile the number of zones in expansions has declined 33%. Or by only 25%, if you want to look at what was released for COTF over the course of a year. The decline in expansion content over the last few years is outpacing the rate of inflation fivefold or more. There are certainly market drivers in that EQ sells less xpacs - and thus has less money for developing expansions- as the player base continues to dwindle. Inflation isn't significant as one of those drivers, though.
The state of the game right now is better than it has been in months. People have a reason to log on. If they are doing it in the new expansion, then they will have a reason for a long time. In my guild we have had more new and returning players than those that have left. If you dont like the slow grind in TDS, you can do it in COTF. I have had a lot of fun leveling slowly, grouping with new people, completeing HA's and getting people some coins to help them gear up to be more productive in TDS. I wish I had more time to play, Life takes its tolls and takes time away, but that just means that the expansion will last me longer, which, when I look at it, is a great thing. I feel this is the first expansion in a long time I am not in any rush to level, or complete, since I have a whole year with not much else to do. I have completed pretty much all rof, and most of cotf. I have done the partison quests in Tempest Temple, still need to do the mission. I enjoyed the quests so far, and am waiting for the congestion to die down and a few things to get fixed in CES before going there. I always anticipate some headaches when an expansion is first released, its only 2 weeks old! As for Kelefane, man you really need to keep your conspiracy theories on EGN. We all know there are problems, there will always be problems, but as long as they are getting addressed in some fashion, then the game is still healthy. As stated before, some people still enjoy the game, for some of us its not just how fast we can level and get loot, its about the friends we make along the way. If it were just for pure solo gear enjoyment, I would play something more like diablo that has a faster instant gratification level. I play EQ for the social aspect of the game, and the fact that I can have fun doing something that I like while talking. The reason I still play is the friends that I have made over the last 12 or so years.
Heh, no doubt the Devs make the same amount of money they did last year. No doubt Sony's share of healthcare cost have remain static as well. No doubt Sony has generated the same amount of revenues they did last year as well. No doubt their electric bill has remained the same as well...
http://www.uo.com/ If you want to be wrong for 5 or so fewer years switch to posting on the Ultima Online forums about sunset. UO last expansion: Sep 2009 EQ last expansion: Oct 2014 (or technically Nov, woo hoo today is launch day) UO 2nd last expansion: Aug 2005 # of EQ expansions since that date incl TDS: 12 At some point your 0/15ish track record of guessing it's the last expansion that started around GoD will be correct. Around 5 years after UO sunsets would be a reasonable guess for when EQ sunsets even if this is the last expansion so the earliest realistic sunset announcement would be something like "EverQuest opened to the public on March 16th, 1999 and will be closing on March 16th, 2019, it's been a great 20 years and I have a lot of people to thank..."
Total compensation (including wages and health care costs) for workers in the US has averaged under 2% a year for the last three years, with nominal wages being about 6% higher now than they were three years ago. If SOE's per person compensation for the EQ development team have risen to such an extent that they have had to get rid of a third of their developers . . . their compensation costs seem to be rising well above average. (More power to the devs, though, if they have gotten such increases! ) Which doesn't really sound like an "inflation" thing. A declining subscriber base isn't 'inflation.' * * * I agree with your point that SOE simply doesn't have the resources to make expansions like HOT, VOA, or ROF - and ROF's scale was only possibe because they took away what should have been part of COTF's development cycle to add the third and fourth tiers.) It costs the same to make an expansion whether it sells 10,000 copies, 25,000, or 200,000. It just makes sense that as the number of copies sold had trended from the high end closer to (presumably) the middle of that number - that expac sales haven't supported the same number of developers - so we have seen reductions in new content as development staff has had to be cut. [And to be fair to the developers, COTF is a better benchmark of what they can put out in a year. TDS has been seriously shorted with the transition back from staggered release to single release. I could handle a smaller x-pac like TDS on the assumption that the next one would be on the scale of COTF or larger. It's not the size of the expansion that I don't like - though I am sure the high end folks are be pretty frustrated with the limited content - as much as several of SOE's design decisions over the last year just making me really question the direction of the game.] It's just a pet peeve of mine - remembering with candy bars cost 10 cents - when recent reductions in content are pawned off as being a result of inflation. Inflation has been relatively flat the last five years or so - lower than any other five year period in the last 20-30 years, and *way* lower than it was 35-45 years ago. Having spent a lot more time planning and managing project budgets, etc. over the last 20 years than I would have liked, it just sets something off in me. Not necessarily something rational. So sorry I ragged on you - consider it part of my crazy side.
I don't agree with you here, because you have to look at all their earnings from EQ, which includes marketplace as well. There was no marketplace 6-7 years ago, and there was no f2p either. So that has actually generated probably more revenue for them since they moved to that type of business model compared to what their revenue was like before those 2 changes. Even with a smaller customer base, they have probably generated more revenue because of those 2 things alone. Now to add to that Player Studio items have generated significant revenue even though its tied to Marketplace that is no cost to SOE, as all the cost in development is on the player, which is exactly what Landmark is, and the environment of EQN will be also. So all the development time for those things is the player. That would all be a "hired" artist doing all that work, which they don't have to pay off anymore, pretty *** lucrative and shady, because while the player gets royalties of 40%, that is no cost maintenance attached to it for SOE so they are winning more than the player who invented the items. So if you compound all those things, they are probably still making quite abit a year, while at the same time cutting resources. I'm sure they are making less and less each year, but compared to the amount of resources they are putting into EQ that proportion is far less, even with a dying user base.
So, I guess the 'update' is the recent patch on test? Good to know that feedback given after TDS launch wasn't considered significant for this 'solution' decided on before TDS launched. Apparently 'Sense Heading' isn't where developers try to get a sense from the player base about how to implement something, but rather a place where players can try to get a 'sense' of where the devs are going to push the game, regardless of customer feedback. I apologize for what undoubtedly sounds like a somewhat acerbic post - it is *not* directed at you. You've always been good at feedback and explaining why you did and didn't do something. Even if we might disagree, we can at least see/understand your logic. I'd appreciate it if you could relay to some of your comrades, however, that several of their customers - including this one who has spent much of his career in systems analysis, campaign design, identification of second and third order effects, and process improvement - are just going /boggle at some of these design decisions coming out.
the negativity seems to be coming from the same few ppl about the same few (really stupid) things. 1) boo, xp got nerfed! (how long have ppl been max level already?) 2) I can't solo/molo! (it's going back to its roots? and you're complaining that the game used to be so much better...) 3) they're nerfing my class seriously, you're even going to complain about them balancing their game? you don't want to know what it'd look like w/o the balance, they've done it forever and will always do it. do a forum search on, "the sky is falling" and see how many threads ppl have said things like, "eq is going to sunset b4 long." the smarter ppl then reply comparing you to the likes of conspiracy theorists, rofl. thanks for the laughs guys, even you admit that the art is actually beautiful and all you want to do is complain and naysay. I wish I had a char that has been through the whole game so I could play TDS and see it for myself....
Sunsets are so pretty and they come back every night! Why in the world would anybody compare the death of something with a sunset? :S Can we get a bleakness check over here on isle 7? I think we have someone registering too high and they're spilling over into my fun! The sun goes down but it always comes right back up again! When a cowboy rides off into the sunset its because hes gotta find a place to sleep cuz he needs to get up early in the morning to do more riding! Thats what they do! They ride! Hold on a sec lemme think of something to say relevant to the thread so this doesn't get blasted. What was the topic again? Oh yea, Why I did not buy the Darkened Sea expansion. Well I didn't buy TDS based off player reviews of the expansion, I may or may not purchase it just so I can hang out with a friend in the new content but I really haven't made up my mind yet because when I ask in /gu chat the only response I can get to the question "Is it worth buying?" is "If you want to progress, yea." "Well what if I want to have fun? What's fun about it?" ".........." "Ok! Thanks for helping me with my decision!" That's why I can't bring myself to buy TDS at the moment, I'm not going to threaten SOE with my money withholdings cuz I really doubt they're reading this anyways, but to be honest, outside of just being able to hang out with one friend in new content, that isn't really fun, I'm just as content chatting from the guild lobby while they do the not fun stuff. I'm really tired of hearing about all the ways it's not fun too. Why would I pay for not fun! Its a game its supposed to be fun.
No, the (maybe silent) majority suffers from tiny content like 5 raids for a full years expansion. We are now at L105 with 4k hp/mana copycat items, the fluctuation taking out 95% of this world in usefulness, and what for?
Why did I buy the expansion? Roxxie must evolve. Her knowledge has reached the limits of this expansion and she must evolve. What she requires of Sony, good sir, is the answer to her question, "Is there nothing more"? What more is there than level 100 and 10,000 AA? Other zones. Higher levels of being. The existence of which cannot be proven logically. Therefore, Roxxie is incapable of believing in them. What she needs in order to evolve... is a Sony quality. A capacity to leap beyond logic. And purchasing the expansion might accomplish that. So this lonely Cleric wants to level to 105, Is that possible? Let's find out.
I can only say if I currently had the extra $40 to spend on this expansion it would only to be to lvl and raid with my guild. However I currently do not have/nor care that I do not have those extra funds atm, other than missing the few raids this expansion has to be with my guild on raids. I am sure after the new year I will buy the expansion but it definitely is not for the copy/pasted spells/AA and lack of raid content.....that is all.
I didn't make the TDS purchase on any of my accounts because of the lack of progressive content. The way the expansion is designed is extremely linear and unfriendly to the casual gamer. On top of that, the developers have thrown in all these artificial speed bumps to slow down one's ability to progress in either the content or level because they know this is not truly a full expansion. This is an expansion that will provide up to 3 months of content at best. It hasn't even been a week since the general release of the expansion, and people are already getting partisan & mercenary achievements in T1 & T2. Good for them, but then what? When they finish up T3, they get to wait another year for something that is more thoughtful. The art department however did an immaculate job. 5 stars on zone design and artwork, everything else though.... well, I find it hard to believe that it took all this time to only come up with a small handful of quests, missions, and raids. As always - I speak with my wallet. I know some people in raid guilds were "required" to buy the expansion - and I think if it weren't for set requirements by the higher end raid guilds, TDS would have had far less sales.
