The biggest problem the player base of Everquest has at this time is very simple. We don't know how your spending the money that we pay to play Everquest. We love Everquest, and some of us would do everything we can to help DBG keep it going strong. What I'm offering is very simple: Put information on the products in the marketplace that clearly state how much of the money spent on them, goes toward the development and upkeep of Everquest. Most of us don't care about any of your other games, so give us ways to support Everquest alone. Special items that the proceeds only go toward Everquest would be a great first step. Even if what I've proposed above isn't possible, something has to change, and soon.
Why would you knowing how they spend their money benefit you as a player? Would you stop playing if they spent little to nothing on EQ? How is that going to help them??? (not trying to be rude or mean here, but how do you think this helps them, or you??)
how exactly will this change anything other than taking more resources to produce something that most likely wont produce a profit? Will players really be more likely to spend more money if they see where that money goes? Further if the company wants to create a new product and pull resources from all of their products to help fund this new product they would have to spend even more time and resources to update things. In the end I don't see how or why any company should disclose this information. This isn't a government project where funds spent need to be disclosed or some non profit that needs to prove things to the people. All they need to be concerned with making a profit and providing a product people are willing to pay for.
Using "we and "us" in no way speaks for the entirety of the playerbase. I absolutely hate when people post such sweeping words to reinforce their rants. You don't speak for me. And stop posting while drunk.
Agree! except for the posting while drunk thing, that's the best time to post.... especially if its related to work. but I digress. this is, by a long shot, NOT the biggest problem...
The people who make those decisions don't look at these forums. Do you have any idea how much was spent on the various versions of just Everquest Next over the years?
What they could do... maybe... and be in the spirit of the original poster's idea is something like crowdfunding: -Offer a scaling heroic adventure instance of an older zone (Pre LDoN) let's say Crystal Caverns to have an example. You make a $5 marketplace purchase as a preorder and once they have 2000? preorders they create the zone. Said zones would have a LDoN tuned gear era (can be sold on Agnarr), somewhere TSS, and then fit it in once or twice in the modern 95+ game (era setting on HA impacts the XP at highest levels iirc). Said zones would also automatically bundle into the next expac release. You pay to get it early (so the top tier of it could be geared ahead of current content... that would sell), and/or to get it on progression. Maybe they could dev cycle 2 of these in a year ahead of the expacs (that they are included in anyways) and maybe this means expacs have a couple more zones, while progression gets a fun carrot starting at an era when "as it was" is far less important than "make this funner so I keep playing". Now a cynic would say they use this model but don't put more zones in an expac, so a bunch of us pay early for 1-2 zones + the expac. Well, if it keeps the game running...
The guys tries to figure out a way for him to more effectively give DBG and its EQ development team more resources and gets utterly trashed by the community. Well done! LOL. Nice community!
Good intent with a bad thought process usually does get laughed at in all forums whether it be professional, gaming or anything really. When someone comes up with an idea and presents it to their respective community without actually thinking about the logic behind said idea its better to stop said idea where it stands before it gains any potential momentum. Personally I like to take the approach of just showing what potential flaws I see in something and leaving it at that but at the end of the day this is not a professional forum with our employee signature attached to it so users should realize that anything they post might result in less than "professional" responses. Again good intent but a horrible idea imo.
I'll just say that just because less than a dozen players decide something is "bad thought process"......it doesn't mean it actually is. Personally, I'd consider buying certain items with my $$ if I were assured the majority of the proceeds were directly assigned to EQ development. It baffles me that the ability to comprehend this simple thought process is so elusive to the haters in this thread. It's OMG humorous to me!
It baffles me that you cant see the potential issues with a company doing this. For starters will the man hours needed to initiate and keep this updated actually produce a profit? Secondly any potential legal issues that might come if they decide to divert funds from one resource to another without accurately updating things seems like a potential risk not worth taking. You now also add a new headache when considering starting new projects within your company in terms of not only having to deal with investors and stockholders but now you also have to worry about customer input when you want to start a new project using your "customers money". Also it has been stated that EQ and EQII do share some resources so how do you accurately disperse funds for these things? I am also sure all of their titles share some resources to an extent so now you bring about even more micromanagement all for the sake of maybe having a couple of players spending a few more dollars? Someone suggested a "GoFundMe" idea which I think would be the most realistic suggestion. Players or developers come up with idea xyz and if the company feels the idea might work they do presales with a counter showing how many purchases are needed to make said idea go into development. Once said counter hits its target development starts and both sides get what they want. The company is guaranteed at least to break even and hopefully turn a profit and the customers get what they invested in.
OP: Hey guys! I have some extra resources I'd like to funnel into your game. The Reply: I'm here at 3 am to masquerade behind a veil of "professionalism" to ridicule you for attempting to infuse some cash into the game I play way too much. /shrug Carry on
It's like politicians saying, "vote for this bond. 100% of the taxes raised with go to X". Then, once passed, they divert general fund money that would have gone to X to Y and X is no better off than before. It should not matter how much of the budget goes to EQ. If they make a product you enjoy, subscribe and enjoy it. So long as it brings in enough revenue to justify continual investment, it will live on. The thing with EQ is that it is not a growing product. They're not going to over invest in something which won't increase company revenue. So long as it's not an opportunity cost or drag, they will keep it going and use any profit to fund things which will improve the long term prospects of growth. That's business.
And this is the very reason why people leave the remarks that they do. Even after some people show potential flaws in a thought process allowing for the person who presented an idea time to think critically about these things and either come up with a solution or show that these potential issues are in fact formed from their own flawed thought process people get defensive allowing the emotional part of the brain to overtake the logical. While you are busy pointing fingers at the community for not being constructive in their responses its simply because some people are tired of trying to debate logic with illogical people and would rather just jump to insults instead. There is no logical reason for the majority of a community to object to an idea that would benefit them unless in fact that idea was flawed which this one obviously is.
