Could the Everquest franchise survive a great reset?

Discussion in 'The Veterans' Lounge' started by Cronar, Apr 5, 2022.

  1. Cronar Elder

    Could Eq1 and for that matter Eq2 survive getting totally reset?
    By reset i mean a clean relaunch of the existing games, but with certain fundamental changes made.

    1. No more pure free to play. Change the current structure to allow a level 1-20 free trial but after that a paid subscription must be maintained.
    2. No more krono. Existing krono turned into time on account, or for lifetime subs be turned into daybreak cash.
    3. Mold the game into a master server with unlimited zone copies. One pve and one pvp server.
    4. New naming rules. Characters could be made with a first and last name, or any combination of characters to X limit of characters. Same could be done with guilds.
    5. Eq1 specific, the game would be tuned so that overland zones would be more akin to eq2 style of difficulty. Interior/dungeon zones would have solo/advanced solo/group/raid versions of each.


    All of the above, combined with actual fixes for economy busting situations that seem to plague these games and the ability for more people to play more of the game without it being turned into a job might actually bring the game into the 21st century. Or it could kill it.

    Do you think that the franchise of both games could survive a reset?

    My personal opinion is that it absolutely would, because more people would come play a better game with a true fresh start than any combination of tle servers ever could generate.
    The only ones that *might* ALTf4 and never come back would be the true sweats who concern themselves with e and domination of pixels.

    Thoughts?

    *edit to add*
    Most importantly, the above would remove the need for people to play more than one account at a time to succeed at the game, and would remove the need for people to break rules and automate thing.
    KarmaKitty and Sobmre like this.
  2. zleski Augur

    That's not a "reset;" that is a re-engineering of the game and marketing. So your editorializing aside, the answer is "maybe." If your changes are imposed the answer is also "maybe."
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare likes this.
  3. Sobmre Augur

    i like 1-4

    5 not so much
  4. HowDidIEndUpBackHere Elder

    Krono will never go away and until it does this game is just a big ol' RMT fiesta.

    Not that it bothers me.
  5. Svann2 The Magnificent

    If you launch new-eq by itself its questionable if new-eq would make it.
    If you cancel old-eq to launch new-eq then you are advocating coercing people to play it your way.
    In any case, not gonna happen.
    Skuz likes this.
  6. Yinla Ye Ol' Dragon

    What is EQ2 difficulty?

    I got bored with eq2 at level 20. So I'm guessing I'd be bored with EQ if it went the same way.

    Personally
    1 & 2 wouldn't effect me.
    3 depends if they can fix the lag. But with only 2 servers you are loosing all the TLPs and the Euro server
    4 not bothered.

    Changes don't bother me too much as long as I keep my name and don't have to level, AA and gear up again.

    No way am I starting from scratch and losing 21 years of progression.
    Skuz and zleski like this.
  7. Waring_McMarrin Augur

    1. Hard to say but there appears to be a lot of free to play players out there that also have a subscribed account. This could hit them hard and cause them to leave the game.

    2. Can't be done at this point as krono are sold with the purpose of being traded and are used for more games then just EQ1/EQ2. If they ever tried something like this there would likely be lawsuits filed quickly after this for them violating the terms of the contract that is with the sale of krono.

    3. Unlikely to ever happen for many reasons. The first and most obvious being that each server is limited to how many players can be active on it at any given time and lag increases when it gets closer to the cap. Unless they find a way to revamp the code to fix that it can never happen. The second reason is there would be a nightmare with names and who got to keep them after the servers got merged into a single server and I don't see them wanting to go through that. Third is they would likely get rid of the PvP server due to the fact that it has such a low population and seems to be barely hanging on.


    4.If you could have characters with the same first name but different last names this would just cause a lot of confusion and would likely take a lot of work to change on the backend.

    5. This would be a design decision by the team and sounds like a lot of work for a small team.

    While you call them fixes I don't see them that way as I don't think things like free to play, krono or multiple servers are a problem. And I don't see how this changes anyone's need or desire to multibox,.
    Hobitses and Celephane like this.
  8. Cronar Elder

    Eq2 was initially designed to truly support multiple playstyles in comparison to eq1. It makes the game much more accessible than eq1 does by far. It also makes it so that you don't need to play more than one account/character in order to do good.

    Mega servers can work. As for no international server, well, you really shouldn't need to separate them, unless languages are a concern.

    What i am talking about is a reset, which means the old goes away and makes room for the new. The game(s) will never truly thrive unless they are cut free from what holds them back.
    I understand the hesitation to lose so much history, i do. I am a day one player myself.
  9. Dre. Altoholic

    Seems to me what would suit you best is some type of private server toolkit.
    People can hit that on their first night. I'm open to changing the F2P model, but this is too restrictive.

    Honestly, kronos are probably a better solution than all the illegitimate plat sellers. Not sure what your motivation is here.

    I like this idea.

    I'd just as soon they disable PvP entirely, forever. Clearly it is not a priority whatsoever.

    This sounds more like a pet peeve than anything constructive.

    Not sure what you mean by this.
    I like this idea.
    Skuz likes this.
  10. Cronar Elder


    Part of why i wrote the post in the first place is the situation with automation and cheating that has the game in an uproar. If the game gets tuned to a place where the need to cheat would be removed, then the game would hopefully be better.
    Krono only replaced chinese gold sellers as rmt. It changed the face of the rmt, but it is still rmt, which leads people to cheat.

    Getting rid of free to play and making the game doable by a single character should remove the majority of the cheating going on.
    If they can get rid of cheating, the overall game is a million times better.


    As for PvP, there are plenty of folks who love the style and want it represented. I am not one of them, but i can see a place for it.



    The naming rules change i proposed is not a pet peeve. It is a way to make it that more people over a longer period of time can name characters closer to what they actually want instead of the undecipherable garbage that the name randomizer spews out.
    It is just a quality of life change, that i think more people would enjoy over those who would not.
  11. HowDidIEndUpBackHere Elder

    Cheating and RMT always has and always will exist in games. The difference is that the krono is $$ for the owners directly whereas plat and item selling was cutting out the middle man. The krono will never leave just on the financial gain of the middle man (whoever runs/owns this game). If anything they could be looking at what accounts are trading kronos regularly and hit them based on IP (if that is a thing EQ does?).

    I get that people use F2P characters as bots. They are fast to PL/gear/set up and they cost almost nothing. I'd be down for removing F2P as a model but I'm also one of the few that don't mind paying $300+ a month for subscriptions for my EQ and WoW accounts.


    There is no quick fix to your two points. The game is just the way it is. If grouping wasn't so miserable to do on most servers people wouldn't box.
  12. Vumad Cape Wearer


    A quick google search and you will see MQ1 was created in 2002. I wont post any links to anything related due to forum rules but it's easy to find the history of the development of the program.

    Way way back before anything you are proposing to change existed. Server populations were high. Krono was long from existing. Mercs did not exist. Groups were easy to come by. I started in 2004 and found a very busy Qeynos and Blackburrow. I only ever remember seeing one boxer early on and boxing remained extremely rare for a long time in EQs life cycle.

    From 2003... I've linked this article about EQs economy many times before. It is a good article. It talks about the platinum to USD conversion rates in the 3rd party market. Not condoning the 3rd party market. Simply providing a timeline on how far back 3rd party RMT has existed.
    https://flatrock.org.nz/topics/info_and_tech/game_theories.htm


    It probably wouldn't survive. People would probably quit in the masses. I have been playing with the same people since 2004-5. This isn't just a game. People's avatars are part of who they are. You aren't just talking about rolling things over into a new client. You are talking about sunsetting the game and relaunching a new one, but with no meaningful updates. You are talking about wiping out people's identities for the sake of trying to address cheating that most of the 'cheating' has no meaningful impact on those people. It's like dropping a nuke on a city because you don't like a few of the buildings.

    1) They don't need to do anything to the game to change this rule.
    2) Doesn't fix 3rd party RMT. Existed way longer than Krono. DBC is not a sub for a lifetime sub.
    3) That's fine, but server mergers don't require a game reset. Cross server play like WoW implemented is probably better.
    4) You're getting too specific in details of a bad solution.
    5) If people wanted EQ1 to be like EQ2, they would play EQ2. We have all access and can play anytime we want, yet choose not to. Making a game we play more like a game we don't play is a bad idea.

    Your post is like many others. The solutions don't address the actual problems.




    Here's my solution....

    A TLP with a new game engine. Remaster the game and launch it one expansion at a time, accessed via a dashboard like blizzard uses. Keep all the lore, quests etc. Then you don't need writers of lore, itemization, tuning and etc. Just some graphic artists and etc.

    Hire active players with high play times and give them computers with the software to record videos of cheating which is then forwarded to admin to review.

    Addresses your concerns without impacting current players.
    Skuz likes this.
  13. CatsPaws No response to your post cause your on ignore

    Huh? You can make last name at level 20. But I guarantee I am not inviting sdkjlfjkasdkjfisaoduufovu jones to my group. I have hard enough time with I and l in groups.
  14. code-zero Augur

    So basically you want to trash characters who were created in late '99 ~early '00? Just erase them all?

    I get the TLP recycler mindset exists that has no loyalty or real connection to anything in the game but you aren't going to make a viable game by depending on those people to commit.

    So no, trashing the experience of the committed players will not lead to long term survival
    Skuz likes this.
  15. minimind The Village Idiot

    I think the company and the next version of EQ would survive as described, but it wouldn't necessarily bring everyone along to the new version. There would be "melt" and I think the amount of initial melt could be predicted with a decent amount of confidence, but the eventual melt (3-month, 6-month) would be very unpredictable.

    I know that I'm personally invested in EQ, so if they killed "EQ" as we know it today and launched a replacement product, I would absolutely play and hope to see many of the same players with whom I've played over the years. I would probably give the game ~6 months and participate providing as much feedback as possible to make sure it's an enjoyable experience... but I wouldn't keep playing beyond that if I wasn't having fun.

    And this is kind of the problem. They know that EQ in its current form maintains X number of regular players and $Y/year in revenue. Moreover, if they create another "EQNext", they have the opportunity to grow the EQ audience to a net increase... but that's by no means guaranteed. Stable profits are very attractive to small businesses. Conversely, investors are less attracted to stability than the potential for increased profits.
  16. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    :rolleyes:

    EQ2 was a new EQ, never really caught on like the original did.

    Your post has some wild assumptions that have nothing to support their validity, which amounts to a lot of wishful thinking.

    I also get the impression you don't care about long time players with max level characters or end game raiders, some things you say even hint at you being hostile to them, the most dedicated players EQ has.

    If you want a casual EQ, well there is EQ 2 for that.

    I think Darkpaw know their customers well enough by now that this idea, even if tabled, would get laughed out of the room by the entire team.
    I also suspect that were the madness to grip them all & the idea went ahead they'd lose a lot more than they would gain by doing this.

    Revamped EQ has a lot of potential to capture lapsed players but also to appeal to a younger audience with the right approach.
    If they decide not to actively go after new players with EQ they can always craft a new EQ game aimed at a younger audience which has something to offer new players EQ currently does not.
    Xianzu_Monk_Tunare and code-zero like this.
  17. Leex Pewpewer

    1. FTP doesn't hurt anyone and is a great tool, a lot of people will level a character up as high as FTP will go and then sub, to take advantage of being able to group with higher level characters. The idea of cutting FTP off at Lv.20, will more than likely be detrimental to EQ"s bottom line.

    2. I think Krono is a great tool for EQ to earn additional income. You only see it from one side, which is a bit limited. In order for those krono to be in game, they at some point, were purchased, which nets EQ additional funds. Additionally, flipping lifetime membership would be the definition of a bait and switch, which is illegal. Again, both seem detrimental to EQ's/Daybreak ( w.e they want to be called ).

    3. I actually like this idea however, I don't believe their hardware could handle the load. Once again, becoming detrimental to EQ.

    4. This isn't a bad idea. It might be a bit strange at first, but I think people would enjoy this.

    5. Outside of this causing additional work for the dev's, this might be a cool experiment.


    The issue of, the game being ball busting, is also why a lot of people still play this game. Time invested equals to a reward you can't get anywhere else. If you want to login for 20 minutes and get a lot done, EQ is not your game, never has been and never will be. As for doing a fresh reset and deleting everyone's characters, I think there are very few who would be open to this, on live. That thought process is more TLP related.

    You have people who log in after years of inactivity and start up on their Lv50 something character, instead of creating a HC, or starting fresh, because of the memories, and time invested in their character. Most max level characters, raiders, etc, would be extremely adverse to this idea.


    All in all, it was a creative post, which I feel lacks thought. I'm not trying to be rude but, you don't seem to understand Everquest at it's core.

    Do I think EQ would survive a full reset? No. Everquest's live servers are different from TLP. On a TLP, you know what you're getting into. You know the characters you're making will at some point no longer be worth playing, and you are more likely to jump to a new TLP when it comes out. You cannot apply that to live.
  18. Dre. Altoholic

    There's a few interesting things when it comes to automation in EQ. Some use boxing/scripting as a replacement for the challenge the game doesn't provide in gameplay. Others, to optimize character performance. There's also those who use it to expand on what they can do without help from other players.

    Classically, RPG's tend to favor the player's choices and time invested in a character over what I'll just call the player's "manual dexterity" when it comes to character performance. EQ has drifted to favor the latter over time. I'm not sure this has been what's best for the game, but here we are.

    At this point I think EQ is more likely to embrace automation than a fundamental rebalance of combat from the ground-up. Though it wouldn't be hard to develop a track of content intended to be soloable. Players have been asking for this for a very long time.

    Ultimately if players have the abilitiy to trade... anything... there will be many who will see this as a game in itself. Even if you get rid of trading entirely, you'll have those who play this (they'll just sell accounts/characters/services instead)
    I suspect this is more difficult than you think from a coding perspective.
    Skuz likes this.
  19. Windance Augur

    I play on live because I have put time into my character and I have been gaming/raiding with the same set of people for years.

    I have zero interest in TLP's or a 'great reset'. If that happened I'd probably move on to other games.
  20. Andarriel Everquest player since 2000

    Reason i never went to eq2 was because i got way to much invested into my characters and yea on the zero interest in TLP'S 1000% you can never truely live the past.