EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

I

tend to agree here

Putting time into a voluntary and democratic community management system so we could vote in and vote out enforcers would improve things more than any rules set, gotta give players the ability to take action and suspend or ban the bad guys who make the server terrible. I'm not asking for automation or something without a few checks and balances here. People should be able to appeal and bad enforcers should be easy to remove. Not continually make mistakes and get away with it. The truth is everything is exploitable and abuseable. We can't change that. We can only make tools and give people options to make it easier to fix mistakes or at least acknowledge and affirm them. This leans much more heavily into the community owns the server. Not just leasing time to visit the server.

Also give people the tools to do what they want outside of disrupting the game. So if ppl want to AoE PL give them some system to do it that doesn't disrupt other players. One of the major problems with life is we allow and tolerate people who monopolize and are disruptive too much to any degree, some of that behavior is good and beneficial, not when it's based in greed and desperation. Which is where it is at most of the time for the "kronolords". And RMT'ers. --- Krono and farming it isn't even a bad thing. It's how people do it and how people make it a priority above the community. For personal gain only. Because they no longer care about the game, just abusing a feature that is sometimes beneficial, sometimes extremely harmful when abused. They hurt themselves too. It's spiritually empty behavior. I have probably gone to far...

What is the 70% npc respawn? At first I thought it would be lockout timers but it seems to mention NPCS. Does this mean everythings respawn timer is 30% lower? Would this break many raid events? I'm thinking of the final fight in SS in the house of thule expansion for starters. The two gargoyles in the revamped Hole are gonna be awfully yummy exp too.

giving players the power to suspend other players is a bad idea. to put it mildly.

lol wut!?!? I cut the quote off for brevities sake. Talking about reading compression when you comprehended nothing I wrote. My god you chuds are hilarious. You said it seems like a good solution. A good solution to what!!?!? it’s solving an imaginary issue. Get it now? I’m replying to that part of your post. Not the entire post. Specifically where you said it seems like a good solution. A good solution to what? There is nothing to solve. Get it?

In general it's a terrible idea and wow did this horribly by automating most of their /reporting features for bad behavior. Having vetted, mature super users invested in the health of the server who have the tools to make the server a good wholesome place to play for everyone is a good thing. It's how GMs / and operators run their own servers outside of live. And it works very well in several different communities. It goes back to time immemorial when Quake was a major thing. And multiplayer games where new and hosted by generous benefactors. The same could work again while still leaving the property and keys in daybreaks hands.

Given the way it is worded, and all the perks are worded, it would mean everything spawns ~30% faster.
Instead of something taking 18 minutes to respawn, it will respawn in 12.6 minutes.

Group chat conversation with group of former EQ players:
P1 - /shares link to announcement
P2 - is it mischief?
P1 - no, new engagement mechanism and some expac bonuses
P3 - sounds lame
P2 - yeah, no thanks
P4 - this sucks, another swing and a miss
P5 - maybe next year
P6 - maybe D4?

FTE is potentially the worst thing about this proposed ruleset. However, just removing it won't make the server great and interesting, it is just all bad.

FTE is just potentially what will kill it the fastest.

If FTE were implemented perfectly... you'd simply never notice it and forget it was even there.
Most likely however, it's implementation will not be perfect because EverQuest is an aging fermented pot of spaghetti code, and it will either be a constant annoyance, or worse yet, an actively exploitable feature to worsen the very situation it hoped to address.
very high risk, very little reward.

The players want Mischief 2.0.

Give your base what it wants.

Everything that could be said about Encounter Locking has been said. So I'll just talk about the other aspects of the server.

1. Legacy Characters is very meh. I never level characters on the same account because AOC lockout timers are account wide and characters on the same account cannot be logged in at the same time to group with each other. So there's no point leveling on the same account. I'll just create a new account and level a character on that one instead of the same account. Also, with EXP modifiers and AA EXP modifiers listed separately, how does that work? Do both of those bonuses apply to AA exp? When I'm max level and get 10% account-wide exp bonus, and then i switch to 100% AA exp, do I only have 125% AA exp or do I have 135% AA exp (the 25% bonus from Shadows of Luclin expansion + the 10% for having a max level character)?

A couple additional changes that would just make sense for Legacy Characters would be

• Change AoC timers to be set per character instead of per account
• and/or, if you're not willing to add free trade to the server, then at least make all No Trade items heirloom so items can be passed down to Legacy characters.

2. Some of the expansion evolving changes seem like cop outs.

• The Shadows of Luclin - AA EXP Modifier 125%
• Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Alternate Currency Modifier - 150%
• Gates of Discord - Tribute Donation Modifier - 200%
• Depths of Darkhollow - Evolving Item EXP Modifier - 150%
• Rain of Fear - Collection Spawn Time Modifier - 75%
• Call of the Forsaken - Mercenary AA EXP Modifier - 200%
• The Burning Lands - Luck Modifier - 125%

All of these things just don't exist before the expansion they are tied to. There is virtually no difference between these bonuses being applied at these expansions vs these are just the base bonuses of the server at launch. THere's nothing really "evolving" during these expansion releases, because there was never a time that you had 100% AA EXP, and then you moved up to 125% AA EXP, you just always have 125% AA EXP whenever AAs are available, and that actually doesn't change until House of Thule, not Shadows of Luclin.
3. The Planes of Power coin drop bonus is very very under whelming. Why isn't coin drop just included in loot drops? Coin is loot. This could be changed to something like 150% Loot bonus, in between the Kunark and TSS loot bonuses. Or something more interesting like at PoP no trade items become heirloom or tradeable, or change item required levels to recommended levels, or anything better than coin drops.

Not to mention that the coin change will cause massive plat inflation come Planes of Power. My suggestion is to move everything you have into krono before this drops.

I'd also like clarification on the loot thing. how do we get 25% more loot? do each mobs have a new loot table that has a 25% chance to pull from? are Mithril Two Handers now Mithril Two and a half handers?

• The Ruins of Kunark - Loot Modifier - 125

thats been good practice on every TLP anyway. Kronos only ever increase in plat value, this just changes by how much, but also helps with the plat sinks that come with elemental armor and Gates of DIscord molds.

Any account with access to tools like this should be completely restricted from trading krono. Then I am willing to begin talking about community tools being given to players.

Feedback on Oakwynd: The longer I consider it, the more excited I get for the server. I'm still on the fence about encounter locking, but the evolving ruleset looks great.

There is no easy way to put this - this server has no appeal whatsoever.

FTE - this has been covered ad nauseum. It changes KSing into tag griefing, overall making things worse.

Max level Alt XP boost - when people play alts, they tend to power level them to play with the current max level. As such, a small XP boost doesn't mean much. With FTE's adverse affects to PLing, there's going to be even fewer alts. No one is grouping at those levels to grind away an alt, even with an XP boost. With no beastlords and berserkers at launch, those classes will be seldom seen.

Coin Drop Modifier - will just inflate bazaar prices; has zero effect.

Evolving Item EXP Modifier - no one uses these, thus is meaningless.

Faction Modifier - loses what it adds if FTE means you cannot tag mobs for faction.

Tribute Donation Modifier
Tribute Use Reduction - tribute is incredibly easy to get, thus little value.

Collection Spawn Time Modifier - never heard anyone complain about collectible spawn times, ever.

Luck Modifier - very late in the game for a TLP and therefore not a carrot to chase after.

Chance to Increase Skills Modifier (includes Tradeskills) - skills themselves are easy. Tradeskills is a small, niche attraction that once done, is done.

Alternate Currency Modifier - some value, but no real desired effect until late game, thus not a TLP attraction.

Lowered spawn timers on all NPCs
EXP Modifier
AA EXP Modifier
Loot Modifier
Rare Spawn Modifier
Mercenary AA EXP Modifier
- all of these serve to move through 'the grind' faster but players already get very bored with the expansion unlock schedule as it is. Players are already often 'done' with the content weeks or months before the next expansion and are then stuck waiting on the next unlock. Unless unlocks are sped up, these 'features' have little meaning.

As an aside, it is a good marketing practice to build hype and anticipation in your product, but if your product fails to meet expecations on announcement (especially repeatedly), then your consumer base loses interest, not just in the hyped product, but in all of it. Vaniki & Yelinak are colssal failures and this server is more DoA than Vaniki was. The TLP announcements are reaching a critical point where before long, when an announcement is made, no one will care - that's not good for a business.

This whole server idea is depressing.

FTE is the worst as it appears to be written.


If you don't want it to be a DPS race anymore implement a loot lock on the FTE, IF they can do 20% damage. This way we can still assist other players, and mobs can still have their active aggro system, both are core to EQ. Watching a train walk back to their spawns smiling and waving to other groups is the kind of garbage you see on other games your player base chooses not to play despite the shiny graphics and QOL gains of decades over EQ.

Account linking for tradeskill depots too please.

You can't be serious that stopping that specific account from receiving krono would do ANYTHING to what you are trying to prevent...

I had a dream last night that an EQ dev replied to us giving us some indication that they are at least listening too us, then I woke up and back to reality