EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

Last year you had Vanikii server with a decently cool idea, but it was soon abandoned by you guys and failed miserably. Is there not a single raider that plays your own game working there? Vanikii could have been helped greatly with earlier AA's. This server was NOT A CHALLENGE SERVER, it was miserable, some of your achievements for rewards were mathematically impossible (Cragbeast Queen for example). But the simple fact that ONLY enchanters with charm pets could do ANY group content, and warriors had to tank content 3+ expansions back because they lacked the required tanking AA (Combat Agility/Stability) or Glyphs to even survive longer than a few seconds.

Instead of working to improve your prior TLP servers and getting feedback from people who are not ultra mega casual and actually play a ton buy lots of exp potions, expansions, large bags, multiple accounts and the like you abandon the concepts after a couple weeks to a month and wait for NEXT years TLP to release something as boring as this new server.

Please, I beg of you, hire someone who actively raids current expansion content on these TLP servers, there is a GIANT disconnect between the company and the players.

DPG needs to offer a second server with what people have actually been asking for which is FV rules, random loot, and possibly a kunark launch.

The legacy idea would be something very awesome if it could be applied to boxed accounts versus alts.

I'm not saying that people don't play alts on the same account, but anecdotally, if someone wants to play another character, they're going to spool up another account (a positive for DPG) and do it that way.

With boxing becoming a necessity, maybe it's time to entertain ideas around incentivizing people who sub multiple accounts. Create a way to link those accounts and apply the Legacy benefits to characters across them.

Just some food for thought.

Considering you ditched personal loot in EQ2 with less negative feedback should give an indication on where the compass points with this TLP decision. It's really concerning that the perception from many people is 'how detached the development team is from the population'.

The main takeaway for me is at least I know my characters on Mischief are gonna get played another year.

The ruleset for this server seems to be a solution trying to find a problem, while not realizing its almost certainly going to cause a swath of unintended nonsense.

I dont really know why we needed, or who was asking for, a p99'esque ruleset server. I can think of roughly thirteen-thousand-ish things that are higher up on my priority list than "stopping powerleveling" , especially if it comes with "enabling even dumber griefing".

Its like someone looked at what WoW did with gray-flagging mobs in 2005 and asked "how do we do that but worse in every way imaginable"? XP groups bringing a box or two out of group to fire castles to AA faster or more efficiently (and did so when that was new content even...)? CANT HAVE THAT! NO BAD STOP!

It feels like another 'interesting premise, wrong idea' in a string of those.

Here's just a few of the many, many unintended consequences of Encounter Locking:

Tagging Kael mobs for faction = no longer a thing

Monk PLing = no longer a thing

Dragging mobs out of the entrance in PoF (or wherever) to clear for your raid/group = no longer a thing

Helping any level 1 noob getting attacked in EC tuns = no longer a thing

Please listen to your player base:

• People want to box. Why incentivize a single account. You guys lose subscriptions.
• Add Free Trade. This is something everyone's been asking for in every forum post regarding the TLP. It's a huge disappointment this hasn't been included in the ruleset.

I won't Lie. If todays announcement said the new TLP would use the Firiona Vie rule set (free trade -relaxed truebox) or even the Mischief rule set, (randomizes loot) I would have renewed my subscription, purchased 10+ Krono and cleared my work schedule for the first week of launch.

But with the encounter locking rule I'm a little hesitant. I may consume a Krono to jump in and make a character and try it out, but I'm most defiantly not ecstatic about it. I can see so many ways this rule can be used to exploit and how easy it can be for greedy players to take the server for hostage.

Really hope the devs read these comments.
The last lot of TLPs were disappointing, and this is just as bad.
1. The legacy % bonuses are way too low
2. Locking mobs is going to be a disaster
3. We all just want a new Mischief Clone, maybe with ALL/ALL

For later expansions we'll have all those compounding bonuses and... 12 week unlocks? You've shortened the amount of time it will take to complete everything but still given us a massive amount of time to do it. For later expansions especially, shorter unlocks seem like a necessity.

Hiring someone specifically just because they play and raid on the TLP's could go bad in so many ways. A lot of TLP players have a lot of really bad ideas when it comes to TLP's. You'd end up just getting a TLP that person wanted, not necessarily what most people want. I also think it's mostly irrelevant if a person at DBG actively raids on TLP's. The overwhelming majority of raiders are just followers and only understand their specific role/job in a raid or group, often times not even really understanding that. The vast majority of raiders don't really have any understanding of how the overall mechanics of the raid their on even works. If DBG had an employee that actively played and raided on the TLP's, the chances that it would also be someone who understands the game and raiding enough to any level where they could even start to explain everything going on in a raid, would be very very slim.

correct. quit experimenting with OUR game. I like that you are trying to come up with new ideas, but test this stuff out on a different server, not our 1 tlp we get per year. I realize some people mayb love this idea. Good for them. The 1-2 trolls trying to push this garbage through have been on every forum. Think about what this will do to the game. There has to be another way to curve the powerleveling. I personally do not care about what another man does if it does not effect me. You can put people on ignore in general chat. Powerlevelers usually use zones that are expansions behind. Complain all you want, but this is going to screw up what everquest is. And I also have fun using EC tunnel in classic. Some people find it annoying, but imagine not doing it at all. The bazaar is for naught, or am I reading this all wrong?

Pfft, EQ has been beta-testing stuff on paid for live servers for 24 years

Guess they missed the ball two years in a row good thing D4 is coming out not long after.

Server could be ok .. FTE needs to go, opens up pandoras box for griefers locking down stuff such as gimblox, hasten, ancient cyclops, pained soul etc

You need to stay on Vaniki

bingo

Ummm everyone is on an even playing field cause you can grab the mob with crappy dps now? Yeah you make a good point... instead of a dps race its a first engage race. Is that better then a dps race? I dunno.

If encounter locking does away with camp stealing its closer to the EQ I remember from 1999. Mostly. There were always idiots. And back then SOE enforced camps in the group game. As a guide back then we did CS work and a lot of it was standing invis by a camp after someone petitioned about problems with it being respected. We'd add our notes and pass it up to the GM from what I recall. Raids were a wild west back then though from what I remember.

Encounter Locking can only increase camp stealing.

A camp means you claim the mob because you are sitting near its spawn, whether or not you were the first to tag it.

With Encounter Locking, you will have people running around with clickies insta tagging mobs that wouldn't have been considered in their "camp".

By the way, this isn't even close to being the worst problem with encounter locking.