Encouraging Players to Play in New Content ASAP

Dude you sound like a broken record. Get off this "best way to exp in the game" thing. People just expect exp in older zones to be reasonable and follow a similar drop off curve as it has all through Everquests history. LET PEOPLE PLAY IN OLDER ZONES IF THEY WANT TO. Sheesh. Get over it already. Not everyone wants to play in the most current expansion. Let them play in older stuff while you do whatever you want.

We get it, you keep saying the same thing over and over again.

Quite frankly, I'm not willing to give them my yearly $40 for less and less content. ~Mills~ is pretty spot on, you want people to play in new content? Give them something worth playing in. Hell, not only are you giving them half the content they expect for a $40 expansion, you're still spacing it out over 4-8 months. I have no interest in playing rent a zone, the content per expansion is not worth the money to me. It also makes me not willing to subscribe.

You want people to play in new content? Give the developers the resources to make new content so they can stop with these kind of expansions. It's rather funny you slam OMM and LDON and the like, when the HA fad is nothing but a content band-aid for not having the people to do real content.

Now I'm going to have to finish my TDS progression to see these underground sugar caves. Thanks, egregious.

Now we know why Columbus Nova bought out SOE. They're built on top of the world's largest underground sugar cave complex.

It worked out well for Homer J...First you get the sugar...!

This whole thread is pointless (and not just because BB is green-monster-under-a-bridge'ing everyone). The same cronies destroying EQ were brought over into this newly branded company so why would we expect anything to change?

When I have more time to properly respond Battle, I will. I just wanted to address the one statement you tend to use a lot. You use the Smedley/GoD comment a lot. That is only an opinion from his viewpoint in terms of business. I have seen numerous times though of people claiming to like GoD. I will agree it is a minority of the community that liked it, but in those people's opinions it was a success. They enjoyed it though so to you or Smedley in their eyes you are both wrong. Now if you want to argue from a monetary stand you probably have legs to stand on but you are trying to stand on the legs of your opinions as if it's a law or fact. I thought UF was great. I even enjoyed Alaris but all the other expansions I thought were horrible. That is only my opinion though and I won't claim my opinion as a fact. I pretty much already know you're going to respond, stating your opinions as facts but the reality is it's only your opinion.

I will even go one better for you. In my opinion EQ changed with Luclin, and in my opinion it was for the worse. Guess what it is still my opinion that caused me to leave EQ for a long time.

Encouraging people to play in new content is easy, make it compelling and rewarding.
This is a leisure entertainment activity, it needs to be fun. You can't (in the long term) "force" anyone to do what you want by punishment.

What they should have done differently is tried and true.
1. Make the amount of experience required to level from 101-105 MUCH higher.
2. Make the Zone Experience Modifiers in TDS MUCH higher.
3. Provide significant experience rewards for doing the progression tasks.

All of these things were done in the past. They don't provide weird corner cases when you're trying to group with people below L101 etc.

In addition, probably in an attempt to provide longevity to the expansion, they made the drop rates for T3 armor and RK II spells so low that they provided a very strong disincentive to play at all. I haven't cancelled any of my subscriptions yet, but after doing progression a couple of weeks and then spending a couple more weeks getting very few armor or spell drops, I completely quit playing any of my box accounts and only play my main during raid time.

As time goes by, I feel less and less inclined to log in and resume the Sisyphean task of gearing my box accounts and just do other entertainment activities instead.

With the new changes in management, and an unknown (to me) location in the development cycle for the next expansion, I thought now may be a good time to bring up things that I particularly like about certain expansions and just to voice a few of my personal preferences too.

1. I like HA, LDoN, and DoN style missions. I prefer ones where it is “go and kill stuff,” instead of heavily scripted zones. Heck, just kill 60 mob kill tasks, is fine enough for me. I love the currency rewards. I like them being reasonable experience that allows me to do more general grouping while still working toward my own goals (augs /gear). I would prefer these be set up more as “hubs” to encourage more /ooc and general grouping. Part of the success with Grimbles was that most groups could tackle them. If more of the NPC’s were nearby without having to zone multiple times I think we would have seen a little more variety in usage. (For instance, if the EWK port in and NPC’s were near the dragon, seeing people gather at the dragon for grouping probably would have been more intuitive). I like tradable currency too, for either trading to lower end alts, helping gear up friends or selling in the bazaar.

2.I like a reasonable amount of “entry level,” raids. Something tuned for 18-36 but can hold the normal (or even the old 72 man raids lol). Yes, I know 1-2 groups of ROI style players could still stomp all over these. But the revamped ToV was a huge success in my opinion. The little Crushbone throw back was fun. The scripts don’t need to be involved or complicated. Heck, the trash clear is clearly nostalgic. It can just be pretty much any “old” zone with all the named spawned as a high HP mob with 1 or 2 specials and a bunch of yellow con trash. More effort is put into complicated group named mobs these days. I don’t think that is necessary. Karnors Castle, City of Mist, Veksar, The Hive, The Steeps, Ruins of Illsalin, Wall of Slaughter, I mean honestly, they could do Greater Fay named beefed up would be great. Could be 100% group gear with the rares/augs/spells as possible drops and give the same HA currency, and it would still be successful.

3. I like (and hate) tradeskill quests, and large quest arcs. I like the parrot/hand augs, the iksar illusion masks, purity augments, alaran tear that result from doing quests. I in general dislike quests for the sake of quests for a checkmark…… These need to give the unique clicks of the expansion, be items that have some longevity. Things like the evolving shoulders/helm, dain shawl aug, items that are going to be desired/useful in 2 years still. We don’t need a ton, but 1 aug and 1 piece of gear each expansion would be good.

4. I like a few zones and missions that are a bit of a crazy challenge. The AH and ToR missions are good examples. Zones where you need solid pulling/CC or overly strong tank/healer in order to continually succeed. No, I don’t think they should go totally overboard, it can just be the majority of the top end zones, but somewhere to go with a good group for a little extra exp/reward. I do think the entry area for each top end zone should be doable with “average,” and support 2 or 3 groups. I also don’t want for them to be “required,” progression. I ultimately have to along enough lesser skilled folks that having to do it repeatedly isn't fun.

5. I like big zones. I don’t mind a little “empty” space. I like to avoid having other groups right on top of me, where if I cast an AE I could possibly tag another group’s mobs, or have their wipe chain to me. Having poachers/derv camps a little separated was fun. Mind you, groups these days can kill 20-60 mobs in a 30 minute time period depending on mob hp’s, so “camps” need to be pretty big, though not necessarily dense. Honestly the last few expansions have been pretty decent in my opinion other than just not being big enough and having quest mobs everywhere so other groups are always coming through my group so they can finish a quest. There need to be a few places for kiting and other alternative play options. A few areas distinctly friendly for soloing.

6. I love dungeon crawls. However with missions/instances/HA they just need to have some that are easier and some that are harder. Business as usual.

7. I do like some good challenging raids. I can survive with what we have been getting the last few expansions (as long as they do some entry level raids for fill), I just hate ones where 1 person failing can wipe the raid. I don’t find that fun. Business as usual, though having another 15 normal raids each expansion would be nice still lol.

8. I want some city zones, and a couple places where faction matters (has real play options - like an extra banker who likes you but not required).

1. The easiest and most efficient way to encourage casual players to play in TDS is remove all flags required to zone, except for Arx Mentis.

Hot zone exp mod is attractive, however what is most important is that you will have better chance to find group there.
If a level 100-105 casual player can play only 1 hour on weekday, DH HA is fastest and maybe only place for LFG.

TDS linear progression cost casual players more time not only for progression itself, but also for finding group after flagged.
For some players, TDS would be 3 zones expansion with level 105 Gribble.
If designers ignore casual players and discourage grouping, their expansion will be ignored by the players.


2. Add porting item for all edition as limited time offer like CotF merc slot bonus so that people can form group in TDS faster.

3. Add Daily TDS progression bonus exp/currency Quest NPC.

4. Make pre-CotF exp penalty a bit weaker and linear. Remove all kill exp penalty for Alaran Tear.


In short, encourage grouping, make it easier and faster, without limiting playstyles.

So the Daybreak layoffs have begun, want to keep tooting their horn?

Dave Georgeson. Unreal. The dude was certainly a good face for EQN/Landmark.

Anybody from Everquest?

It's business. The first thing you do when you come on a job is get rid of slack. Prove your authority and that you mean 'business.' It happens with every management change. You get rid of those who got comfortable who aren't actually working... and are visible. Why? Because then the others who are visible get busy.. cause they know they can be next. It's a shame really, but most business are driven by fear.

I don't know about you, but I can't pretend to have first hand knowledge of who's working and who's not inside that company. I do certainly know there are at least 3 people now who aren't working and are looking for employment elsewhere to provide for their families.

Not a judgement on a person, a judgement on the actions. Going off the press release they are 'clearing out anyone who is not profitable.' I don't know him, I've never met him; but the company seems to think he's not worth what he's making.

1) Make the new content exciting enough for players to want to go there, *don't* punish them into doing it, that's a crutch for bad design

2) Do things to encourage more players coming back to and starting EQ in general, a higher population means more people in all content to some extent. Things that help newbies get started, making the game easier to get into, more engaging for players used to other MMOs etc. Those aren't things I really want or need but in all honesty EQ needs if it wants new players.

They said nice happy words in their press release announcing they were taking over SOE.

Don't fall for corporate speak please, I know most people here are smarter than that.

Quite a few more than 3 now.

Looks like Aristo is still here
https://twitter.com/AristoEQ/status/565626244373696513

Looks like they are just restaffing /shrug.
Hopefully they put in place competent, talented and motivated people to fill all those shoes.