Good use of Dev time? Personas vs. real improvements!

That's insulting to think it would last until Feb lol

Wishing something was around 20 years ago shouldnt really effect your enjoyment now. You are mistaken that it only represents fun if you can lvl it to 125. You personally seem to enjoy the game at max level, but there are a lot of people that just enjoy leveling. And this could be useful/fun for them to just have various levels of personas.

One of my big disappointments in pre-purchasing LS was not seeing Beta forums, just so we could get a better idea of what this feature really is and what to test about it. I logged onto Beta, saw I need to buy a token to test and logged out, kind of disappointed.

Up to a point, you aren't going to get too many Environment artists doing AA revamps during overtime.

While the team are all far more multi-skilled than dev team members have been in the past there are limits to how many different things a person can do within their skill-set.

Seems interesting. I hate not playing a paladin though, so meh from me.

Personally, because I enjoy raiding on other classes, and my main impediment to doing so (beyond time constraints) is the significant work required to get the "extras" (evo items, type 7/8/5 augs, banestrike, luminous restless ice, bifold, rod of dark rites, vanquisher augs, all the misc. clickies I have, etc.). If I want to push performance on a new class, not having those discourage me from playing an alt.

I fully appreciate that is a niche use that applies to a small subset of people. But tons of people have rolled alts for one reason or another over the years, including very casual players, and personas will support many of their reasons for doing so. It's also certainly not just RoI that runs out of content before the next expansion launches. Some obvious use cases for personas:

• A solo/single account player that plays a class that is not adept to completing content can swap to a different class that solos better and progress their main (in terms of flags/achievements/currency/items/etc., not XP)
• A group that is missing a key role can have a player swap and, again if it's something that provides flags/achievements/currency/items/etc., that player can still progress their main despite swapping to something the group needs.
• A boxer can change their group composition depending on the content without having to acquire the extra bells and whistles for a new character.
• A raider whose guild is missing an important class/role can swap without missing credit on their main.
• Anyone who wants to main change (solo/group/raid player) can avoid repeating a bunch of extra work.

Will people who already have alts suddenly delete them in favor of personas? No. Will everyone rush to level their personas as soon as LS launches? No. But even those with existing alts will probably find themselves with a need or desire for a new alt in the future, and personas give a good alternative with clear advantages over the current system depending on your particular use case. FFXIV is a very different game than EQ, but its job swapping system is heavily utilized by all kinds of players, including the most casual.

All of the above obviously depends on implementation; I'm fully aware that the reality may not live up to people's aspirations, but the concept is a solid one IMO.

I am a causal player and I definitely like the system. To those worried about "dev time vs PLAYER wants". I don't think there was a mass cry for TS depot. We have went DECADES without it. We would have continued to play decades even without it.

Is the game even a little better because of Tradeskill depot? Definitely 100%

This isn't very new. I don't know why the OP feels or posts like this is a "new" thing. Going back to AAs, Charm slots, Power sources, shrouds, monster missions, evolving items, the list goes on. I don't feel as if it has hindered EQ. We are one of the longest running games with probably the most content updates for MMO's out there.

Some work out some don't its a simple as that. Some continue to get development love, and others get put as a dead feature. The devs won't know until they try and I would MUCH rather have devs attempt something with the game then just blanket make the same thing a billion times.

If they didn't things like Tradeskill depot would never have existed imo.

Maps was once a "new feature* like this.

Imagine life with multiple binders full of paper hand drawn maps at this point.

Looking at them now. Two overly full binders with maps and notes. Anyway, the in-game mapping function was the greatest and in a few cases the worst for me. I found myself relying on them a bit too much at times and I tended to not look at the environment. Kind of like using a GPS to get to places instead of noticing the scenery in RL.

But still, it is the greatest!

I could have said New Year's Eve, but RNG on named...

And I am not mistaken that the only fun part is 125. There are some who enjoy the 1-125 game, and good for them. I am not one of those people. And my 20 year wish is mostly because if it was around 20 years ago, I would not have a 120 alt on my main account- I would have a 120 persona. And for me personally, it is hard for me to spend time on a persona and neglect my 20 year alt- I only have so much time. Just a bummer for people like me who would have been very interested in this 20 years ago, but maybe not so much today (pending implementation of course)

Agree 100%. AP could be a real banger.

All this speculation is fun. I am personally in favor of anything that keeps the game going.

BUT..

The key word here boys and girls is "IF"... IF it gets implemented. My initial thoughts here is not to use it, I like two classes in the game and that is it, I enjoy Zerking and I enjoy being a Bard. I have 4 other alts that I use to further those 2 classes I enjoy. It will please me to see others enjoy it, and if it brings new life back to the game even better. Right now from what I gather it is a hot mess so its a possible long road from here to there.

Good luck Team Persona.

Yeah I think a lot of folks will like it but I am not very likely to use it. I could be wrong but I don't think I will.

I would much rather they just let flags/achievements/tradeskills be shared across all toons per server per account rather than implement a completely new system to do just that. I've already spent the time leveling the alts...I really don't relish the idea of basically having to do it all over again via a gimmick system.

Most is outsourced, Daybreak hires time.

This is exactly how I feel. I and many others have worked very hard to formulate actionable feedback and suggestions and then Darkpaw introduces a feature that nobody ever asked for. Quite frankly, it's mind boggling.

What's the point of having discussion forums when the concerns of the players are largely ignored?

It goes without saying that the continued loyalty and happiness of EverQuest players should be Darkpaw's top priority. A big part of achieving a high level of customer satisfaction is listening to your customers and exuding an attitude of responsiveness. I would say more but anything harsher than that can get you in trouble here.

Exactly. That's all most people have ever asked for regarding flags and keys. it's not complicated and it doesn't require a new "feature" to sell an expansion.

In the video game industry when they need all hands on deck they called it a strike team. Everyone drops what they are doing and focuses on getting a serious problem fixed.

Unfortunately with all the things coming out in beta (raids, missions, merc/parts, TS, etc) it would be really hard to initiate a strike team to take care of this.

I would have been happy with an NPC to delevel me, while keeping my same gear and restricting A.

As someone who has 14 chars on her account, I'm interested in the route they are going with this instead of adding more char slots.

Exactly and let's not forget that Darkpaw staffing levels are at historic lows. It's funny how Enad Global 7 always brags that EQ is their flagship IP but they never mention to investors that you could fit the entire Darkpaw dev team into a Volkswagen.