Magelo has been around a while. It's $30 for 3 accounts per year and on Christmas special it's 15 months for $30. Add a premium EQ add on for $1/mo that automatically syncs character data when they camp, and make that data accessible from a simple smart phone app. Include the augmentation charts and etc like Magelo does so we can play with setting up our characters and armor, look at ACH and quests, (setting goals) while offline from EQ. Make it free to opt in to displaying character name and stats, but no accessible information like armor, augs, bank, etc unless subbed into the premium. I don't understand why a 3rd party has been profiting so long off of a feature that seems so easy for DPG to out-do.
EQ players was indeed dropped, it cost too much to maintain, develop & run, I can't see them ever resurrecting the idea either. There was an API being coded to give 3rd party sites a means to access accurate EQ item & spell information along with character loadouts for any players not opted out but even though the project was around 80% complete it was canned after the sole coder working on it left the company.
I don't understand how Magelo can be in business but DPG can't make money on it when for them it would just be a checkbox when subbing but Magelo needs site traffic?
I can. For the person running Magelo it's a side-gig, nobody has to pay him a wage to run it so the site is all profit aside from hosting costs certificates & domain name costs and aside from monthly updates to make it work with patches the development he does is very little, it's been over 3 years since he was supposedly working on making the ac formula on his site work more like the one in game does. For Darkpaw to do it they need to pay a developer to run it and then charge a cost to players that covers development & running costs and perhaps what they would need to charge would not be competitive with what Magelo charges. you would think they could do a better job than Magelo does but maybe they can't. I guess what you are really looking for is a cheaper alternative to Magelo?
No. I said $1/month which is $12/yr and for my 3 accounts thats $36 so an increase in 20%. What I want is to be able to interact with EverQuest via my phone while offline. I'd like to be able to, in some downtime but away from my computer, look over my augs and add to my /notes which syncs back the other way in game. Etc. While you are right about developers, DPG wouldn't have to spend time updating a formula for AC. They have it. They have all the Data. It's just an issue of making the data available. (Edit: Christmas special is 15 months so $45 for DPG sub which is a 50% cost increase, but if it included a phone app and /note integration, then it would be worth the extra costs.)
I can see where you are coming from but I don't think the product would justify the cost to create & there's no guarantee enough players would use it to make it pay for itself, the vast majority of players haven't used Magelo or even EQ Players ever as they simply had no interest, sure if it was Free (supported through advert revenue perhaps) it might see more use it but even at the low price of free a whole bunch of players wouldn't even use it then.
Its great at inventory control for me. Instantly searchable across all of my inventories at once. And SIMPLE to use.
I constantly use their item database to find out the best drop rates for tradeskill items. And you don't need a paid account to use it! Another handy feature for hunter was their zone maps which had the locs of npc kills. It helped you determine if you were killing in the correct area. But I let my subscription lapse after encountering too many character sync issues.
I disagree. Unlike magelo, a DPG supported system would just simply have a checkbox on your subscription page of $1/mo for advanced features. That gives them a captive audience. Players who pay would be able to see their armor, aug charts and bank items while offline. Players who don't pay but don't opt out would have their name, stats and guild rankings on the charts. Players who opt out would not be listed publicly. The thing about the costs is that I think very big picture. Not only does it pull whatever revenue magelo is taking back to DPG, but it would create a platform for other options. Allowing Overseer quests to be completed from your phone would keep you active with the game while away. It could expand the overseer usage to offline use, increasing the opportunity for overseer revenues. People would still be limited on max quests, and have to log into to claim their character rewards keeping people logging in daily, but they would fiddle around with Overseer mid-day and use more playtime for grouping. I don't read the overseer lore, but if I could access it outside of my playtimes, I'd use that read a book time to read EQ lore. Things like phone apps have to start somewhere, and Magelo features and overseer is the place to start that. Expanding the universal chat service, game e-mail system and LFG (with play time listings) to the phone app are all things that could be developed, but wont be, if it's not started somewhere that generates revenue. I use it for the augmentation charts. Say you are stacking +STA or +DEX, you just sort by and grab the weakest aug. It is very useful when new expansions launch to quickly optimize gear. Metanis gave some inventory management reasons. I always though Magelo was a competition of which I had no interest in, but someone told me about the aug charts, so I gave them a shot, and it turns out being able to access your character from a browser is pretty great.
They tried this before with the EQ Players service, I highly doubt they have gained an appetite for doing this after that experience failed dismally.
Various oil companies have been benefiting from the truck GM sold me (very minor benefit, since I can't actually travel anywhere right now, but lets ignore 2020). I'm sure they could buy gas stations but why would they? I'd like darkpaw to do what they do best which is creating content for everquest. If a 3rd party site is good at displaying epeen rankings, great.
EQPlayers was shut down back in the Sony days when they were looking for money to put into the money pit that was EQ Next. The issue with EQ Players was more regarding the fact that EQ (which today would be the primary source for revenue from it (as EQ 2 has fewer active and subscribed users) does not support the API that EQ Players used. At the time the file system for EQ was still flat, so the updated ones might work, but I have my doubts since they changed them with making it easier for the Devs in mind and not compatibility with that 15 year old API that hasn't been really been messed with actively in about 7 years. EQ Players offered a lot that Magelo cannot for free. If they had been able to realize the full use of the API for EQ, then everyone (Magelo included) would have actively used the API. But the API was never even fully realized within EQ2 which was made with the use of such an API in mind. EQ Players was actually very successful. Even in its limited form available on EQ it was popular and many people dropped Magelo in favor of EQPlayers. It was only when EQ Next became the black hole that it was, sucking up all non-primary money & resources from the other EQ games, did it get shut down. Further, if EQ had been capable of being linked to the API then EQ Players would have easily supplanted Magelo or at the very least became the core of Magelo as well as allowing anyone who wanted to create their own competitor to Magelo.
I don't recall considering it as successful myself, the EQ Players service was buggy as hell and was down altogether for long stretches of time, one reason it was dropped were the problems around keeping it operational & squashing all the bugs in it, eventually it stopped working altogether and then it just disappeared after a month or more of it being said they were working in it There was an API as you said, was being worked on after the EQplayers service was stopped that was as much as 80% complete but they completely dropped development on it after the coder working on it left the company, but yes had that been finished it would have meant accurate information would have been available to Magelo & any other service connecting to it.
