Encouraging Players to Play in New Content ASAP

Pwne -
Raiders make up less than 10% of the game's population. I'd expect done with everything players less than 1% at this point. The hardest of the hardcore always run out of challenges early, The game can't be designed around them. It has to be designed around more average players.

What to do -
Max level, Max AA, Max stored, max untaken achievement rewards
Merc/Partisans
Merc 2nd round
Hunter
Collections
special mission achievements (no dying, etc.)
old achievements
make more pp
get any ungotten TS trophies
fill your bank with highest purity augs
fill your bank with best elemental orbs
full end tier every active raider
best augs
best augs every active raider, every applicant, every returnee
every PoWar, Hardcore Heritage, etc. clickie for everyone
every melee with 17% overhaste
Circle of X for all

Done all that?
Pickup raids
alts
friends, strangers, and roustabout raids
talent show

I literally have never run out of things I felt were worth doing. But I'll admit given that I actually enjoy playing the game my threshold for what is worth doing is a lot lower than it is for sme others. I've seen a couple of times people disappear the first time we beat the lastevent i the expansion. Their priviledge although I'll admit anyone not willing to help out the rest of the guild when their needs are satisfied isn't someone I'm enthusiastic in seeing return. That's my priviledge.

Lol this has nothing to do with Orc1 camps and Moss snakes...

Lets be realistic, noone is asking to camp nameds in Epicenter and get TDS gear. Anyone who has 1/4th of a brain understands that you have to climb the ladder to progress your character enough to be viable in current content.

Here is the solution:

Make players WANT to go there, instead of encouraging to leave where they are.

Next expac should be all Static zones. No heroic adventures, merc or partisan tasks. They are silly.

All gear is acquired via quests or killing nameds. Want people to play the newest expac, they can help their friends camp a named for a BP like the good ol' days. Yeah people will complain and grief, too bad, get over it. That will put value on the loot imo. Not everyone can have everything every time, even in video games.

No one is going to change his mind but hopefully the devs can see the light before its to late, if its not already.

One way hurts no one and keeps more subs by catering to many playstyles. The other way aligns with BB's view of EQ but chases away people who don't want to conform to his or the devs box that says you can play this way only following these merc, partisian and zone paths we laid out for you to follow. One way worked for 10 years. The other way has bled members in some form since it started around SoD. Its gutted low, mid and finally in the last few years the high end guilds.

The games old and there are many reasons that people stop playing but a lot of hands were forced or pushed just enough with all the dumb that forcing people to do certain things certain ways out of nowhere brings. You can't force people to the current expansion exclusively. You especially can't force people to the current expansion when it cuts their available content by limiting them to just a few zones. New expansions do not have the staying power to keep people happily playing for more then a few months outside of a few hours here to there to raid or group. Unless you go back to TSS type expansions and even then its dumb to just erase prior stuff when it can be in addition to all the great of a giant expansion. With it only going away because it hurts the designers feelings or because BB gets upset when he hears "let them raid tower" if there is a newer expansion out that he can't quite cut it in yet.

Encouraging me to go into Caverns is like trying to encourage me to join ISIS (okay, maybe not that extreme); but still... That place as gorgeous as it is, is relentless and frustrating.

Thats the point he and devs keep missing. They say you have this and this and this to do so everyone has lots to consume so go play here all is well. When in reality this person won't play in this zone or tier because its to much for them. This person doesn't have the playtime or friends or guild to get him through this task, mission or whatever so hes stuck in 3 zones that frankly suck in size and replay. But rather then him having his big fish in little pond time back in older content he now eventually at times just stops playing out of boredom. This guy hates TS and achievements so they do nothing for him. This girl thinks hunter is a waste outside of the named she and her friends need. These people simply want to play with friends working on the same things at the same time and not have one friend miss a few days due to illness and then suddenly be so far behind that he can't play with them in the same zones or work on the same tasks until he individually gets the missed stuff done. Because some mechanic blocks them from going back to help him like some tasks do.

The premise of this post is wrong, there is no need to encourage folks to play in the new expansion. For the health of the game it should be about getting people to buy the new expansion. The way this expansion was handled instead of encouraging purchase of a level increasing expansion, which is almost always an easy sell, they alienated folks right off the bat with nerfs to prior years expansions experience for anyone who bought the new expansion and leveled. Who would think this was a good idea? On top of that they messed up the calculation for how experience is handled when playing with other lower level toons and reading some of the posts they still don't seem to have it right.

Why couldn't they just cap HA levels at 100, raise the experience required to go from 101 to 105 by a large amount to compensate for any perceived exp problem in older expansions, then made the mobs in the new expansion give better exp? The only thing that we as players would have seen is that HAs for older expansions cap at the older expansion max level. A lot less uproar would have ensued, all the fallout for experience for aa, mercs, high levels with low level toons in tow would have been avoided.

The new expansion would have been better experience right off the bat than old expansions for those comfortable in pushing through content, people less comfortable could still have played with alts, guildies in earlier expansions without the mess that calculating experience has become. Eventually as level increased by the slower leveling folks they would have naturally moved into the new expansion.

Want people to play in the next new expansion? First, get them to buy it...

have tiered instances based on gear level or progression flags for that expac so the content is hard for raid people and groupers at the same time without having to strike a middle ground. have open zones be targetted to gear level of what would be appropriate for that zone IE tier 1, 2, raid etc

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest:_Gates_of_Discord
"John Smedley, President of Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) has described the release of this expansion as 'SOE's worst mistake in five years'."

One way didn't work for 10 years. It bled more than the usual number of players because 0 guilds succeeded before the next expansion instead of the usual 10.

"A SOE game developer confirmed that SOE designed Gates of Discord with level 70 in mind, but SOE did not include the planned tier cap increase from 65.This management mistake ensured that several critical points of the expansion were unbeatable by most players at that time, both for single groups and raids."

I'd include quotes from all kinds of sources indicating just how devestating overtuned exclusive content and not having success in the current expansion is to players and to the publisher but anyone can find them easily.

SoD included some raids that could be done by midtier raids. It allowed (IMO) RoI which had been moving rapidly through content without having looong periods to farm the endgame to fully gear up and Machin Shin which had been trailing in the progression 3-4 months to catch up with the leaders. Thanks in part to SoD (and their leadership and the perseverance of members through a long darker night) these guilds broke through and become serverwide 1&2 for mostly ever since.

That sir is what more than 10 guilds succeeds does. It creates a more level playing field where being behind is not a permanent disadvantage.

Some players liked those who were behind to be at a permanent disadvantage. They didn't want a more level playing field competition.

I believe Elidroth eventually commented in a thread about overtuned UF content that players who are excluded feel excluded . Absor (IIRC) stated that unfortunately some of the most overtuned UF content was his.

Yep my previous guild disintegrated as a result of UF being overtuned coupled with us doing content with 46ish instead of 54 for years - couldn't get away with that in UF. Yep SOE finally came to its senses and realized "GoD is just fine" and "Let them raid tower" were both recipes for disaster.

But we weren't talking about Jurassic Park EQ.

I'm fine right now. However I'm concerned that RoF and CToF have created a demands an endless experience pinata culture. When a healthy EQ demands players aren't strewn across 15 years of content with level 105's being told raid group content if you can't handle Fippy!! and progress should still demand more than pwning level 100 content with level 105 characters.

1. will mean nothing unless they make rank 1 spells better than the previous expansions rank 3's, 4 months on and lack of foci and spell drops means I am still using my old rank 3 spells. Might be better to put rank 1 on spell vendors for pp and rank 2s on currency vendors.

2. no thanks, all it takes is a set of mobs being camped and it blocks others progression, as will a broken quest, problems will occur as to what you ask for for the other levels (I hope we will always have more than 5 zones), that said after the ROF nerf, I NEVER want to see another level increase ever again. If they want to nerf exp for me leveling on mobs the same level I'm killing, forget it I don't want to level.

3. stop with the level overlap and increase level from the first zone, you want me in the first new zone it has to be more exp and more of a challenge than the last expansions end zone. Also first zones need to be large to handle all the players. Shards Landing was good at handling 150+ players, I'd like to see Tempest Temple handle half of that. All I'm saying is thank goodness for HAs when I did my first few days in TDS, made my progression a lot easier as a lot were still in the last expansion.

4. stop with the linear progression, do it per tier as it was done previously, not per zone. Go back to the House of Thule model. Let me make some decisions as to where I would like to go next. Stop dictating to me where I have to go!

5. fix the sharks and the turtles, better still get rid of the fighting in the water.

6. stop with the annoying layouts, Echo Caverns, Degmar and Arx Mentis are a navigational nightmare, it all looks the same!

7. Give us more dinosaurs!

8. Give us dinosaur raids! Throw in a few lizards and birds for variation.

9. Give us dragons!

10. Give us more dragons!

Because what we REALLY need in 2015 is another reason to limit who will buy new expansions.

Levels tied to quests, you bet...anyone that doesn't think they have time or the support group DON'T buy we don't need you.

Same with spells, can't get 'em too bad we don't need you either.

All EQ needs to survive and prosper are Battleaxe and his ilk playing on into the future.

And before you say make friends and find time look back on all the threads where universally people say i never invite strangers, they all suck (that's ok we don't need them either)

When EQ finally goes on (and it will) it will be noted that it died from the bottom up, not the top down.

Per the title of the thread I don't think there is a need to get everyone playing the latest expansion asap. I think the need is to get as many as possible to BUY the latest expansion asap. Daybreak needs to show profits and to show the expansions are worth producing. I don't think all the things done since the advent of TDS have been helping TDS sales based on the many negative comments I have seen.

Good job pointing that benefit to post a hoot about how it I argued against Last Blood augments allowing people to be very much so we all had been DH HA for months at all.

That (or something very like that) older content more content arrives. And they are about what's popular. I didn't agree 100% that many people from moving on to get further along in a game you can't concede basic premise like a level 105 before yesterday. Could have a serverwide 1st T-shirt nor even across multiple expansions, best gear.

Old Man McKensie missions needed to reduce expenses/make a lot of content when the rest of years. I like DH HA the rewards scaled then they should be profitable and not reined in long in long favored those HA's in the opportunity to reduce expenses/make a player rejects a discussion with someone who objected to grind to support a new content is one of HA's.

So here is my final response after thinking about it. One caveat, as some others have already said I see no reason to get people to 'play the expansion ASAP' as much as to get them to 'buy the expansion ASAP.'

As we see with this contest going on to 'name that zone', there is a TON of content. Why are we telling people ok there are umpteen dozen zones.. but we only want you to play in the top level content of the newest expansion...Rather we need to say, this expansion is attractive to ANYONE in ANY ZONE.

How do we do that?

1. Content. The content has to be good, well designed, and big enough for end game guilds to have something to do for a year. Stagnating content by making it more difficult, giving it more HP, and reducing the exp gains is not the way to make it last a year. it's a way to make people say 'screw that.' That includes raid AND group content. Enough of both to keep raiders at least busy in farm mode for a year (some guilds will never be busy for a year, they'll rip through it no matter what you put out there.) So design it for the vast majority of people, not just the elite, not just the super casual.

2. Some sort of incentive for all level ranges. Content does not just mean 'new zones.' Things like the mount key ring could be very attractive, especially if you did them for charms, clicky items, etc. You could create an entire expansion that everyone would want by creating new things that only expansion owners get. Levels are not the only reward, nor should AA be it.. but give everyone of every level a reason to want that expansion.

3. Make it profitable to go back and help people in other expansions. Why? Because if my cousin/nephew/niece/work buddy wants to start playing at level one, and experience the game.. I should want to go back and group with them.. it should be rewarding in some way. Shrouds were a great idea.. but their implementation fell flat. Make them worth using, or make it to where we can take our character as is, 'shroud' down to a level X version of it with a limit on the hp/ac/stat caps for each level range and play with them while earning some AA. No I'm not asking for the best experience in the game.. no I don't want to go back to level 10 and get the same xp at orc1 as you do in Arx Mentis swarming. But encouraging grouping in a MMORPG is very important to it's longevity.... we should WANT to group with others.

4. Find some way to increase group bonuses. Right now it's almost more efficient to use mercs than to use players who aren't very skilled. Yeah in a perfect world, we'd gather around a campfire singing kumbaya while holding hands, and take anyone into our group no matter how much they sucked and continue to get 1 aa every 2 days while ressing them every 5 minutes.. out of love and kindness.. But online games are not a perfect world and though we may strive to attain perfection, none of us are prefect either. So give us a way to do this, to take in a person who is not so good and do better than a mercenary. No I'm not asking for mercs to be nerfed, I want them to be right where they are.. but give me a reason to group with Mr. I just dinged 105 on my warrior and don't really know how to play yet.. because I shouldn't have to hold his hand and teach him his class.

5. Again, encourage grouping... the campfire system is a start, but it's so limited in it's ways. Sure, the answer I often hear from the player base is "use your guild flag." That's great for raiders who only group with their own guild. But what about Mr. 105 warrior again, who is LFG in the guild lobby waiting to get a group. Make some sort of system that will allow me to set down a 'campfire' to invite guests to . My fellowship is full. If I remove someone to add a guest, it's 10 hours before I can add that person back. So if they log in before 10 hours is up? Well they're hoofing it to wherever we are going, even if we are already there. Yes travel is tons easier than it was years ago.. but guess what, people don't have as much time as they had back then either. In the early 2000s I could sit for 8 hours playing a game.. even if you 13 in 2000, you'd be too old and responsible to waste 3 hours a day running around.

So yeah, that's my answer.. encourage grouping, encourage interaction.

GoD and UF were overtuned, one because of a scrapped level increase and the other too drastic of a swing tuning wise after SoD was far to easy. It put subpar guilds verse challenging content exclusively and most failed. There is a happy middle ground like was generally seen in the 10 years prior. Including a million quotes regarding overtuned content or all content being tuned to elite players only does nothing to discredit the model of content for all via multiple expansions. End game of the current expansion being exclusive is good not bad, entry and mid level content being exclusive is bad and not good. There is a vast difference between those two ideas. Paired without total gear resets and focus decay.

ROI had great success back then and yes it allowed them to jump up to current. But don't fool yourself that they were the best guild then and were just behind the times due to poor tuning which held them back due to farming. ROI was a very motivated guild at the time when the game changed and didn't waiver for quite some time when other guilds did. Which has drawn in the best of the best from every server turning them into the dominate monster they have been. They are the sum of the best of the best from every server at this point and for the past 5 or more years, not some guild held back by poor expansion models that artificially held them back just waiting to blossom. Other guilds dying from all the changes has made ROI the elite home that it currently is. This is not a knock on ROI by any means but other guilds and servers downfalls has paved the way to many of their most amazing players coming about. I realize this is not completely accurate and a bit of a generalization but do you really believe the top 10% of players from every server flocking to one or two homes on a single server now is good for the game? They were driven there in many cases from the failure of other guilds adapting to forced content.

Most of the guilds that folded in UF did so because they were left with 1 or 2 raids or zones to play in for a year. Either they just barely beat them and couldn't get any further or simply face smashed against them. With SoD having been stripped out from under them first because everyone was geared to the teeth in it because it was so easy and second because of focus decay and gear resets making it so it wasn't worthwhile if you weren't. You were better off sluming in ooc of harder zones for rots or getting TA's. Thats why so many lived in OMM tasks, they had nothing left for themselves to do.

Please be tolerant while I post a half-baked approach:
A European country once wanted to encourage hitchiking, offering rides, and providing some security for hikers and drivers. They sold a book of serial numbered coupons (probably recorded the identity of the purchaser) to hitchhikers. The hitchhikers would make their need known and make a number of coupon/s offer. A driver would accept the coupons and provide a ride. When a driver amassed enough coupons he could turn them in for a reward (out of a catalog book?).

If this was done for EQ and some players wanted to get in on this. They could create alts at specific levels with appropriate mercs. Acquire the special currency by offering help. Transfer that currency to any toon they wanted to have it. Buy the (unavailable by any other means) trinket they wanted to buy (or use it to buy help when they wanted help).

Doesn't necessarily involve pp or large amounts of it. Modest amounts of Help currency could for example be gained from a relatively easy daily task reward that those not wanting the item or help needn't do.

If you merely move that currency from several toons you own to another the recipient can buy the item but the givers are further away from that item (or help) by the amount they gave. Whatever the full price is you've paid all of it.

If you help out others you are closer to buying the item (or help) depending on how much help you've provided.

Yeah it would take a fair amount of thought to get all this right but it could potentially get the offer and need for help out of the RL money -> Krono -> pp system where those wanting help may not have a lot of pp and into a help barter system where the reward is tightly coupled to how much you are helping.

We need zones like Chardok, Seb., and Howling Stones. Those were fun zones. These "quest" zones in all the expansion lately get old quick. Seb. was the place to be for a couple of years.

Seb,
Howling Stones
Karnor's
Chardok

Fun, challenging zones that didn't need to make you go from one side of the zone to do a silly kill quest. I haven't seen a single zone in the last three expansions that compare.

I don't mind new expansion being "the most attractive" place to get exp or loot. I haven't done all the stuff of RoF and still will, I don't like that I get basically 0exp for it. Why does old stuff got to be 0 for new stuff to be attractive. I don't get that.

New content should always have the best gear, experience, and overall risks and rewards over older content. For most of Everquest's life, this has always been the case and it's been enough to draw players to the newer content. Yet there were many reasons to go back to older content for things we or our friends may have missed and we could normally get *some* experience while doing so. I don't know why this had to change. I don't like many factors of the TDS expansion, but I'd much prefer to be in it than older content with any of my level appropriate characters. I think the carrots are already in place. Now they need to stop beating the hell out of us with the sticks.

Well - I've been away a while - a year, maybe two.

Here's the thing - there's one main reason I am sitting and installing EQ again: Because there are a 1000+ other MMO's now that have some linear leveling path on rails that I must follow if I'm to level and play the game. But EQ always stood out, to me, as a 'free roam' - go where you want, do what you want kind of game.

That's why I am considering playing EQ again, well the community rocks too.. IMO.

Most other MMOs make you feel like you are in a tunnel with one core linear method to level. I'll buy the new expansion(s) if I can get into EQ again, but if I feel like I have no options - well, there are other MMOs with newer graphics that also give me no options.

So EQ really needs to provide options, an open path to leveling - choices. You know - a big open field and forest to roam, not a mouse maze with a good path or two maybe.

While I'm sure I will play new content, group, maybe raid - I'll also want to just go solo/merc grind mindlessly at times. Sometimes I don't like doing a lot of questing because I have a job that requires focus, attention, juggling many things at once - you know... sometimes I really just want to get some mindless fun in. Not have to think about quests or any of that.

One of my favorite things about 'old EQ' - was finding an object; then trying to figure out what it's for - using it to start a quest. That was neat - because you would get oddities that sparked your curiosity. Those items that led to quests - were found by grinding. The more rare ones, being the coolest.

It was FAR more fun that talking to 'X NPC' and then doing menial task after task - to be quite honest.

To me finding some item and then trying to find it's place in the world, or it's purpose was much more of an immersive/realistic experience than a bunch of NPC's standing around giving quests.