EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Accendo, Apr 5, 2023.

  1. code-zero Augur

    The more I think the more I think FTE is to put training to bed once and for all. Too many people complaining seem to think that training is just part of the game and thus 'acceptable' and that indicates a problem to me
  2. taliefer Augur


    is this real? I been away from EQ a bit. I asssume CRC means something like Community Resource council, in order to get player feedback?

    but then they shroud it in mystery? what is the point?
  3. Tappin Augur

    We have been given enough information about FTE to make a decision whether or not this change is necessary for EQ. The original post is filled with several red flags, there's literally no point to any finer details. The only thing I want to know is who thought this change was necessary and why isn't on the Test server first?
  4. Cildar Journeyman

    1. I think the locking change won't make a huge difference but I will be happy that necros can't just lock down camps. It will make speed more important than that "dots count all at once" thing. Pet attack in particular will be pretty fast. But later Jylls spells will be good too.

    2. I think free trade would be a really welcome change. It makes gearing alts so much easier and this server seems to have alt leveling in mind. I loved the Mischief Tunnel. It was one of the best ever.

    3. I genuinely love the evolving server thing. I like that each expansion has a small change and each alt makes the next easier to level.

    4. I absolutely loved Mischief's random loot but I could see how you would save that for a "best of" server next year on the 25th.

    Overall, I am excited and thank you for doing the work to give us something new. Maybe just add free trade.
    Magneress likes this.
  5. Koshk Augur

    Yes, I was being serious. Minus the part about the gnomes, of course. Obviously they don't allow gnomes, except as side dishes for ogres. ;)

    Here is everything I know about the mysterious Community Resource Council (written by Accendo in January of 2022):
    That's it. To the best of my knowledge, there's never been a player outreach, survey, or public attempt at collecting feedback. Perhaps that is intentional? Maybe the concept is DPG expects the CRC members to discretely and quietly take notes about what they see/hear, and occasionally write reports about it?

    We don't know.
    taliefer likes this.
  6. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Sure, and they have already said they are going to provide a response to the feedback.
  7. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    We have been given a couple sentences about it and they are working on releasing more information in response to the feedback they have been given. Most of what I have seen about it is pure speculation.
    Rijacki likes this.
  8. AethDW Elder

    It’s not a secret. They have blue names on the EQ discord server.
    taliefer likes this.
  9. taliefer Augur


    ah. thanks.
  10. Tappin Augur

    They plan on locking encounters, what more information do we need to know? I've played enough so called 'live services' to understand we don't want to go down this rabbit hole.

    They are trying to take away what makes EQ unique and fun to play and they didn't engage the bulk of the players? Instead they're attempt to back door it in through TLP (they skipping proper testing). It's poop and you know it.
  11. kliqIMB Elder

    I'm not sure that anyone can say whether it was a good or bad call at this stage of proceedings; though I don't think that player perception of good/bad will actually matter in the end. What will matter is from a development perspective that it was the right call, which, only DPG/DBG will be able to answer for themselves. We'll probably see if things panned out the way they wanted with the state of future announcements.

    Before, I address the why/why not I wanted to address your middle point of testing this on TLP vs. Test/Beta. I think the answer to this is fairly simple. DPG/DBG had stated previously that their intent with this year's TLP was to experiment with something that could potentially be implemented in Live in the future. After seeing all of the pieces of the ruleset laid out, I think it's a safe bet that FTE is the feature they were referring to mostly like; albeit, Legacy Character's could also have a place in Live.

    So why would they want to perform this feature test on TLP vs. Beta/Test? Player count. They're far more likely to attract a more diverse player set, from more player demographics, on a shiny new TLP than they are dumping it into the Beta/Test servers. This change will fundamentally alter the way in which players engage with EQ in a meaningful way. There is exactly zero chance that DPG/DBG don't understand the gravity of that. They want to be able to thoroughly stress test, receive feedback, observe player behavior changes, observe game systems (ie: economy) changes, etc. in a server that would most closely emulate a high population server in Live. IMO, DPG/DBG know that this change isn't something they can afford to "get wrong", so to speak, and as such are trying to calibrate with as much information as possible to be able to make a proper decision on whether this hits the entirety of the playerbase.

    This is also why, as I stated in some previous posts, actually offering a second TLP that's just Oakwynd minus FTE isn't actually an ideal solution. From DPG/DBG's perspective, this is a change they'll have considered heavily. They know that there's going to be a certain contingent of the player base that isn't happy with it. So, having an "opt-out" server doesn't actually allow them to do proper user research on the feature. If everyone can just opt out of FTE, that doesn't give them any data on how players actually interface with the change. You might ask, "Well, if they know so many people will just opt-out, that's a sign that they shouldn't implement it at all." To which I'd disagree. There are so many factors that go in to massive changes like these from the development side of things that players simply aren't and will never be privy to. Sometimes, developers have information that's pushing them in a certain direction that might seem counter-intuitive to players, but they know their destination. In these cases, they need as much discrete data as possible to be able to make the best decision possible.

    Now, as for your questions are why a "better" (which I'll touch on later) announcement wasn't pushed through, I find them all to be heavily cynical. It's super unlikely that DPG/DBG completely didn't anticipate the blowback that FTE would have. It does happen occasionally where a dev just doesn't a proper calibration on how something means to an audience (a good recent example is the update that Jagex did to Fairy Ring animations that got a LOT of heat for not really fitting into the world), but for a game that's 25 years old and the core feature they are changing is something that exists in the sequel... yeah, I'd be willing to be Krono they knew it was coming.

    Then the other options. It wasn't important enough. They're making it up as they go. They don't have to answer to us. All very "us vs. them" in terms of phrasing, and all—IMO—missing the mark. Now, this is getting into heavily speculative territory here, but knowing a little about these types of things work / decisions get made, I think this is all a tactical decision by DPG/DBG. I find it most likely that they have FTE fully baked, but have a number of variations / iterations / deviations / branches what have you also prepared for final implementation. So rather than write-up a 3,000 in-depth breakdown of the FTE system and all of its various nuances, they drop the basic principles and then; they watch, they gather information, they analyze player sentiment. Sure, there's a pretty good chance that the vehemence that this has been pushed back with was under-anticipated, but I think they always knew they needed to get a pulse before making any hard decisions about feature-specific minutiae.

    What this allows them to do is see if any of their various iterations addresses most of the concerns the community has about the implementation of the feature and, after taking the weekend to synthesize everything, they're able to do a more in-depth write up with a finer lens and more nuance. Now, I spent seven years playing Destiny 1/2, so I'm used to both 5,000 word treatises on why they're changing the mats your guns use to upgrade, and three paragraphs about removing an entire planet. There's no exact science to all of this. But I think that DPG/DBG will have a reply to a lot of the often cited concerns as well as a more thorough breakdown for the "hows" and the "whys". (Granted, my somewhat brief anecdotal experiences I've seen from the community is that DPG/DBG tend to be a little tighter lipped than other MMO teams, but since I haven't experienced it first-hand, I'll just be cautiously optimistic.)

    But to end all this, I think saying that flak is "deserved" and "appropriate" is a somewhat misguided attitude to have, insofar as "flak" generally having a more aggressive/negative tone to it. The fact that two paragraphs have spawned 100+ pages of forum threads is interesting because everyone is merely commenting on the idea of the proposed feature. The only criticism that can really be levied is whether or not you like the way it sounds or how you think it will feel. There's nothing really concrete to talk about in terms of how it will affect the average player experience because... well... the average player hasn't experienced it. :D
    CootieQueen, Rijacki and Magneress like this.
  12. kizant Augur

    People in the CRC are allowed to make it public that they're members. I've been in it for a few months now. I sent in an app when they asked for them last year and it took till early beta before they actually invited new people.

    As far as FTE goes.. it's not something I heard anything about beforehand. However, I obviously can't speak for everyone. So, who knows. I'll also say that CRC hasn't been very formal to this point and they are still trying to figure out how to make it useful. Like everything else it's a work in-progress and hopefully it will be more helpful going forward. I'm also fairly sure that most members avoid posting anything about it out of an abundance of caution. Better to say nothing than accidentally say something you're not allowed to and get in trouble. However, I do think more communication is needed or we'll just be another group for players to be annoyed by.

    That said, my opinion has always been that FTE doesn't belong in EQ. However, I am open to being convinced otherwise, as I assume most of us are. But without details it is hard not to assume the worst so I definitely get where everyone is coming from. Also, from what I've seen over the years, any time an issue ends up getting 30+ page threads, the devs do take the feedback seriously and I suspect they'll be discussing this issue quite a bit. The feedback isn't likely to get ignored.
    Koshk likes this.
  13. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    Sure, but what exactly are they considering as an encounter? What exactly needs to be done to trigger it? Is it agro? Damage? A set amount of agro or damage? There are details that we are missing and they might also include more of the reasoning behind it as well.
  14. Tappin Augur

    It doesn't matter how the implement it - It's unacceptable. The only question that remain are the various 'why'.

    Taking away a freedom we have had since launch without a logical valid reason why isn't something you just do without first properly engaging the bulk of the players (this isn't a smart move).

    This concept already failed in EQ2, why bother bringing it to this game.
  15. Koshk Augur

    Thanks for the insight, kizant. If searching for "blue names" on the Discord server is the only way of learning about the CRC, perhaps Accendo could kindly update his FAQ, and indicate this. Otherwise, that's some rather tribal knowledge that many forum users won't uncover.

    Last I'd heard from Accendo, the official Discord server was just "a place for players to chat". With no other purpose. No official announcements were posted there. We were told to go look at the forums for everything. It's one of the reasons I stopped logging in to that Discord. It was a useless place, unless you wanted a good meme or twenty.

    If the CRC is looking for inspiration, I'm sure there are plenty of organizations with charters and information they could model against. Maybe some of the larger open source software projects, for example.

    Staying incognito will probably keep you out of trouble. But I think the general expectation is that the CRC is out there, fighting the good fight, trying to represent the players. Sounds like the reality is a bit less...ideal.
  16. Bickle New Member

    I don't mind FTE if its absence is one of the main reasons new people won't play EQ. It's probably one of several big changes that will need to be made to the game to make it appealing to a younger set of gamers. The potential downside of this is EQ may stop feeling like EQ, to those of us who have been playing a very long time. Hopefully they will share their reasoning and write a comprehensive FAQ that addresses the concerns expressed here.
  17. Tappin Augur

    How old is this game? The outdated graphics engine and broken UI is more of a road block than a restrictive gameplay design. By your logic, EQ2 should have at similar size player base as WoW.

    This games isn't going to appeal to many younger players no matter how hard anyone tries.
    Jontrann likes this.
  18. Go Take A Nap Augur

    You are right, ive tried desperately to get my kids to play and it comes down to graphics for them and the slow pace doesnt not lend well to the youtube generation of instant gratification
    Metanis likes this.
  19. Bickle New Member

    Yea, like I said: it's probably one of several big changes that will need to be made. Who knows why they're testing it though as they haven't told us yet.
  20. Tappin Augur

    How many years without FTE has this game survived? This game isn't going to sunset without it. We don't need it at all.