Great video and conversation, I enjoyed it. I'm glad to hear that you guys will try to get mercs to have more exp while doing heroics, they seem to get almost none even when the adventure is finished. And I agree something needed to be done to stop the repeating of HA's , "mob generators" is exactly what some players were using them for. Thanks again !
Here's a thought How about you guys make a server that will never get nerfed, meaning all HS, Decaps, Beam kiting, all epics working, no pets nerfs. And just sit back and let players decide what game version they prefer to play? It is not impossible, don't you even want to know what players like? Your constant nerfs or game as it comes originally.
If they ever allowed themselves the liberty of forking the database for different servers, they actually could do this, and it would make for an interesting experiment. Forking the database would also allow them to do other interesting things, like making classic through trilogy eras on progression servers considerably more actually classic-like in execution (which to my mind is already a great reason for one or more database forks). I seem to recall that in the past Elidroth expressed resistance to forking the database, but I don't remember the details off hand.
All I know is every other patch I cant log in or get disconnected or freeze trying to get to random zones and it all started with TDS and techs at EQ cant seem to help me so I lose touch with friends and my guild because of what seems to be experiments with security or ports. Not much fun waiting for the next patch...
Thanks for posting the video, and answering many of the questions we had. Best of luck, as I know this game can continue to be fun and profitable for quite a few more years. It all depends on the direction taken.
Since they apparently use one database for live/test/beta (/boggle!!!) I can't see them splitting it now.
1. I do understand why they want people to do all HAs and not only one because it is easy. All yell for content and then when it is out they do one thing over and over. As a Dev I would ask myself why I even put work into the other content at all. So the idea with the daily HAs was a great one. 2. I also understand that the new content should give more reward and exp than the older ones. But how was this problem created? In my opionion the last two expansions gave "to much" experience, much to much. I do not know how many task rewards I simply had to delete (and I do not play every day) before zoning or just using an AA glyph on a random mossnake 004, so I did not have to delete it. I had dozens of exp glyphs, a ton of quests open for the last step. This was totaly over the line. Yes you can use them all for AA Glyphs during raids, but I consider they should be something special you use when situations in raids become very tricky, so a special thing for the extra work done on AAs and not using them just to be able to zone without loosing something or because you do not know what to do with all those AAs. So people received a bunch of experience and became used to it. And then TDS came out, with a restriction to the old content and as we all know human nature, volia here comes the drama. So the mistake is not TDS, you can level there easy enough, the mistake lies in the two last expansions, I always had to hurry up the expierence to get all my AAs done before a new expansion went live. But the last two years it looked differently. I had to delete instead of earning it. Now people consider the exp reduction as a nerf, I consider it more as a step back to normality. Now with the daily HAs you can get again a lot of AA exp within a short time frame, but at least you have to visit several different zones to get the reward and you have to finish them. Best regards Jojo (First character created 16th of April 1999)
Good video, I'm definitely a fan of a more casual video like this than some scripted presentation. I'd rather hear you guys talk about the game and what you want to do that present something any day.
Don't want instanced zones to be mob generators? Why not? Too much exp, are you nuts? Lets all go back to the Hill Giant days when everybody on the server was competing for the same Hill Giant... /ooc that's my camp you so and so... you KSed my Hill Giant. Then comes the train to get even. Talk about drama. That's only one of many examples of the over-competition due to the lack of areas to level characters effectively when there's no instanced zones. Want people to finish the instance and move onto other instanced zones? Make it increasing rewarding and FUN! Don't take it away after giving it to us. Why fight it and piss players off to the point they quit? Exp instanced zones for the win!
[/quote]The team is excited about what we have coming up in EverQuest. As always, we’re grateful for all of our players’ support![/quote] Can we say "lacking"
I also like being thanked for my 'patience'. When they think I'm being patient I'm actually playing someone else's game.
While the intent was to make the newer zones rewarding you, the opposite was actually done. Newer content is giving us the same rewards we are used to where old zones are now basically phased out. So you are telling me for the players that did not get the expansions for free and have been loyal to the game that all the money was for nothing and that content is no longer relevant. I have an idea of how you can continue with your goals but give us back our ability to even play with friends that are lower level. As it is now, if I were to go help a friend in House of Thule, sure maybe you don't want them to be getting power leveled where they aren't working but should they really have a reason NOT to group with me.... My proposed solution is this, Scale down our power when we zone into these zones. Scale us down to about the max level/abilities of the expansion the falls after the expansion we are in. This allows you to accomplish multiple things. For 1, we can group with lower levels or enjoy previous content or our favorite content. 2, it allows us to remain more powerful then when that expansion launched as we have been progressing. 3, it tips the scale and avoids overpowering - but really if I can destroy things in a zone that is why I have been working on my character. If you take that away I lose my incentive to work on my character as hard. 4, You can restore xp so that newer players can play with higher levels or recruited friends, etc. 5, Level caps have raised about every other expansion. So always looking at one expansion above will allow us to go back to zones where we can effectively solo (Typically the prior expansion) without being over the top. To be completely honest, I would rather not implement my solution had the game remained what it was before TDS, but I believe this is the most comprehensive and comparable solution where you can reach your developer goals, and the players can still enjoy old content. Currently, when you level from 100 to 101 it is like you are entering a new game, because hundreds of zones are now irrelevant.
I strongly agree with these statements. If there is something in-game that is severely out of balance then, of course, fix it. However, EQ has always been a game with a higher difficulty level than your average game so players will always seek out ways to make things easier on themselves. The problem is when devs try to eliminate these newly found methods that are not game-breaking (eg something like repeatedly doing the same HA over and over again). I understand that, as a developer, you want players to enjoy all content and move onto new content, but YOU created those conditions for the player. If you don't like players repeating the same HA over and over, take responsibility that you made one too easy, the risk/reward was out of balance, that you funneled players in one direction, and make the next expansion's content better in that regard so that it won't happen again. The issue that most frustrates me (and many others, I assume) is that this imbalance was obviously not all that serious to you or else you would not have waited nearly an entire year before changing them. If it was an exploit or game-breaking mechanic, it would have been changed immediately (as it should be). As evidenced by your year-long observation of the situation, it was not all that important .... so don't all of a sudden change it. That's like being an indian-giver and, let's be honest, who really likes an indian-giver?
Isn't taking responsibility for making a design error fixing that design error? You seem to contradict your own statement to be honest. I'm glad their willing to look back and fix things, maybe they got the fix wrong but that doesn't mean something shouldn't be addressed. As a player if I'm encouraged to skip 75% of the content just to rinse and repeat 25% of it of the expansion then I'm missing out on a *lot* and that should be addressed, I should be encouraged to experience a larger portion of the content. Most MMOs work this way, they use lockout timers etc, timers on bonuses (a huge fan of that, encourage positively instead of negatively, maybe give something an XP bonus once per day or week etc, this encourages people to try all things of that type). I just prefer the carrot vs the stick.
And, this hurts you how? People doing multiple HA's are paying the same as you. If that's what they want to do, how they have fun, it's no skin off your nose. You should be glad they are still paying their subscriptions so YOU can do what YOU want to do.
Yes, I am trying to make a distinction between design errors that need fixing and some errors that should just be left alone and learned from. The first paragraph of my post is really my attempt to encapsulate my point. If a developer designed an expansion such that the player base is only using 25% of the content then, in my humble opinion, that is a design error rather than a player issue. If the development team allows this design error to continue on for nearly a year, it's obviously not a huge issue so just leave it alone. I agree with you that timers with bonuses are a nice way to positively encourage content exploration and I do agree that it is more fun to play 100% of the content as opposed to just 25%. However, if the team is going to allow players to grind out 25% of the content for the duration of an entire expansion, just let it be.
^ Pretty much this. We greatly appreciate being offered a variety of things when it comes to entertainment, but leave the rest of it to us. Pink Floyd's Meddle is a great album, but I find myself enjoying tracks 3 and 6 much more frequently than any of the others. Nothing against it, or the band, or anything - not asking them to change the other tracks to better suit my liking, either. What I don't expect is for Roger Waters to come pounding on my door, yelling "Y U NO LIEK OTHER TRAX?!" and then altering my equipment so that I am forced to listen to the whole thing sequentially in order to get at the parts I really want to listen to. It was great the first couple times, and I appreciate the hard work it took and the experience of listening to it. So let me enjoy what I like about it, and maybe I'll pick up the next album when it comes out.
That whole statement made in the video was highlarryuss. This whole game is a mob generator. Oh look i killed a mob, oh look it respawned. So of course instanced missions are mob generators, literally. Raids, bigger monsters with a longer spawn time and better gear. The only way for HA's to not be a mob generator is to remove them. He should have said they did not want them to be the most efficient mob generators
Thanks for the link to the chat. The comments on the XP nerf are a bit, well, disturbing. As a game designer, where the players choose to level should not matter - they cannot level unless they bought the expansion, so you've made money on it already. The content will get consumed, as players look for new things to do, look to gain new items, etc. Consuming content on release should not be a goal that is forced - it should be compelling to do so on its own merits, but not via nerfs. Pushing players into the new content and purposely leaving older content is a very, very bad design. For one, you abandon and immediately devalue all the prior content and nothing kills a game faster than a lack of viable content. One expansion - with smalls zones to boot - vs countless other expansions? Yeah - that's a no brainer. Unless you are trying to conserve resources, there is no logic for this decision. But worse is, you are cutting off your nose to spite your face when it comes to heroic players. You have a potential revenue stream in someone purchasing a heroic player and possibly going all access, but then cut off their ability to find groups by making it detrimental for the current players to go to the old zones and group with them. A person trying out a 16 year old game is not going to fork over $35 for a heroic player and $40 for an expansion that character cannot even effectively participate in yet - it just will not happen. If the XP nerfs were reversed and what you evidently fear was to happen, that players would gravitate to the older content, then you at least have a chance of hooking a new subscriber with a heroic character - what you are doing now eliminates that from happening. Basically, there is no good argument for the XP nerf, least of all the reasoning given in the talk. Players will try new things and experience the content and even if they don't, as a business, you still made money off of it. Quite simply, it is a poor decision with worse reasoning. Oh, and if you want players to gravitate to certain content, don't tune the content to 'balance' one class. Classes should be balanced, period, but funny enough, nowhere was that mentioned in your talk. Some classes need addressing - heck, some have needed addressing since their incarnation - but yet only a few seem to garner much attention. Tuning TDS mobs around one class was not wise and as such, other classes issues have been exposed, which probably means the on-going class issues will continue to be neglected. MMOPRG devs should understand that the #1 concern of the players is what they identify with the most - their character. Class balance is not something to be swept under the rug, but should ALWAYS be at the forefront. The moment players don't care about their character, they don't care about your game, no matter what content is developed.
Observations/Impressions: 1. Prathun was cracking my up with his 'Gee Whillikers' motion he kept making with his left arm - check the video, hell of a nervous tic right there. 2. Windstalker: New Age Business Hippie - Don't cross her though, she'll bury you. 3. Roshen: Very Peppy, excited to be there. 4. Jen Chan: Competent, rather be working. 5. Kevin Lighty: Happy to be there. 6. Aristo: South Park has him covered: *not slammimg anyone - Pretty quick transition and nerves *have* to be frayed - thought I might try to lighten the mood a little bit.
