Everquest & It's Role In The Future

I see so many people questioning various aspects of this game, their fears its "going down-hill" and the dev team doesn't care about player input any longer, among other things including recent "nerfs" to classes that were actually not a nerf at all.

I want to make my point here and now, that we, as a community of this amazing game, need to realize that no other game out there has the community relations, inputs, and various other developer to player interactions as Everquest does. That in itself speaks amazing volumes about the bonds that we have created, not just between devs and players, but between the players themselves. I have met some AMAZING people in my 11 years of playing EQ, both near to me, and far away. This kind of bond is not easily severed. And Everquest, being the medium that allowed for all these intricate relationship bonding from across this beautiful planet to coalesce, will never die. Getting a little side tracked here but my main point is that we need to stop pointing fingers at individuals, thinking that they were somehow on a vendetta to destroy you or your class... that's absolutely preposterous. Changes happen in this world around us every day, we adapt (without barely blinking an eye) and move on like nothing ever happened. The same reciprocates into this game (or in theory it should). If there are changes to how your spells work, and they left you negatively impacted comparing from how it worked before... the solution to this is not to start e-wars with every dev or wiki-creator you can because you somehow feel it was a personal attack against you. Lets play thru this like a true EQ player, adjust accordingly for whatever changes were made to class balancing... and dominate new content releases non-the-less. We play to have fun, and we also play by THEIR (devs, gms) rules, so when the rules change slightly for the betterment of the whole... it needs to be welcomed with open arms.

Anyways I've rambled enough and had a few beers so I hope this makes sense to most. Case-in-point, I want to see everybody enjoying logging into their character, going out there with their groups of friends and dominating the content presented (quite linear, easily understandable) with everything that you had, even if it might be slightly less than before.

I love this game, and will continue to love it until the day I take my last breath and want to send out my vibes to the certain individuals who think finger pointing, name calling and troll posting will accomplish anything at all. If I wanted that I'd turn cable news tv and listen to our congress rabble itself into f**king Wonderland.

Shiea of Hellfire Club

If you're referring to the necromancer nerf, well, I'd say that you might need to familiarize yourself with the story a bit closer.

Might be met with a closed pocketbook.

Again, I recommend familiarizing yourself with the story, especially before your own finger pointing.

EQ is not really special when it comes to relationships. I have met just as many great long lasting friends in other games as EQ, and there are certainly other games that have the same dev/player and customer relations/player relationships. Some even better.

It is role?

You know what I mean lol

I think SOE does care about customer feedback and solicits it frequently. However they have the advantage of many perspectives whereas most board posters here have a smaller view. Balance issues are the most difficult things they tackle, nobody likes losing capability and many difficulties in the game are seen by the players as something their class lacks, which isn't the intent. EverQuest has been an MMO that encourages player interactions to solve challenges. Making one class more powerful simply creates more situations where others aren't needed to get things done. That leaves people out and eventually drives them away from the game out of boredom.

Its a game, its supposed to be fun. Developer efforts to remove tedium while creating things that require challenge and skill are appreciated.

CotF has not had the smoothest launch as far as endearing itself to the buyer, between the rather undistinguished good stuff (Its there, just not anything spectacular) and the rather upsetting to some bad stuff(nerfs). That is probably a big part of it.

Its not even a question of instant gratification or whatever. Most people when they shell out some dough for an expac expect to enjoy some advancement in addition to whatever gimmicks are employed to set the expac apart from the other (and thus entice people to buy it). This one requires a bit of a leap of faith in that the cold bowl of soup for an appetizer is going to be followed up by something tasty and filling. Time will tell. Change management is difficult, as most people hate change. Considering that many EQ players have not changed their EQ habits much in the past 15 years, its a safe bet that EQ players are even more change adverse than most people.

While there can be legitimate concerns that "the game is going downhill", "devs have ruined my class", "content is too hard" or "too easy", etc., a lot of what gets posted is posturing, citing corner cases, or taking extreme positions to jockey for or to maintain an advantage or preference.

There's a lot of temptation not to mention advantage and to complain about limitations. There is also a lot of concern about how well you as a player is doing and lack of concern (or even happiness) that another is doing poorly. My triumphs are even more impressive when others fail - hopefully as badly as possible. (In a PvE game with clear advantages for cooperative play this mindset is extremely amusing).

Devs have to wade into this swampland of legitimate complaint, complaining about necessary adjustments, and sometimes even players hiding what they know are imbalanced advantage bordering on exploitation and try to create game integrity, balance, and fun.

It's hard to create a console game that smoothly presents fair challenge and methods by which it can be overcome. Something like EQ - well I can see why Abashi and other members of the initial team were known for flat out saying "No." and giving the appearance that player input was not wanted - EQ had "The Vision" and that was enough.

There it is

BB, don't even try to blame the players here. That's just a purely ridiculous insinuation. CotF could very well turn out to be great, but the way its is being marketed is just sketchy at best. No expansion pack should launch with people paying money to be downgraded and then promised something better at a date to be determined. If anything, it doesn't inspire confidence but on the bright side....if they are going to open the expac up with a kick in the junk for some, than what follows better be mind blowing good and we as players should hold the devs to that. That is talking as someone who has played EQ a very long time and is used to a certain degree of abuse here and there. I have no idea what a new player might think, however.

Langya, strangely enough as I cleaned up my post above I realized that is exactly what I was doing.

The fact is EQ is pretty darned impressive. The players - well a lot of them are sketchy beyond belief. I say this as someone who has played EQ a lot for a very long time.

You cook, you clean up after yourself. You spawn 6 adds, you don't evac and leave them for the next group to deal with - but in EQ people do, a lot of them do.

People who play EQ are still just people. Put them in their cars or on the Internet and you can turn the most enlightened Human being into a donkey.

All,

Agree with OP as far as they are communicating and trying to make changes to the better which is greatly appreciated.


Thank you EQ staff for your work,

Rykear

Nice post, Shiea.

This new expansion feels like a cardboard box. As we go along, the expansions are getting more and more minimalistic and meanwhile, the community is getting smaller and smaller because of boredom and overall game direction. As someone else mentions, this game is centered around casuals now. Everything is easy mode. There is no real sense of accomplishment anymore.

Winning at EQ these days, is like winning in the Special Olympics. Raids are like shooting fish in a barrel. There is nothing to brag about anymore. Unless you like to brag about taking candy away from a baby when it comes to this game and its overall content.

Raids are getting so easy that 54 Monkeys randomly pressing buttons could beat them.

Great post Shiea, and I agree.

We've played this game for years, made many friends, and become distraught when something we've enjoyed for so long changes in a manner we disagree with.

Thank you Developers for all you do. While we will not agree on everything, we DO appreciate the time and effort you've put into this game.

To address those who feel the need to vent about the EZ Mode state of the game:

Raids might be at a jump the shark point. Can only imagine how difficult it can be to design a raid that is unique as well as a greater challenge than anything that has come before it. That is while actually making it beatable by a decent amount of people. If all raids were designed to challenge the hardcore, than it would be only the elite few that gets to enjoy them. Granted the elite few would love nothing more than the boasting that comes with all that, but there isn't the player base to pour a huge amount of resources into a raid that only ROI, MS and IL might actually get to see. If you uber types can actually bring in more players to subsidize the leveling of raiding you want, than sure. Lets all have something that is impossible for most and mights of bashing heads against the wall for the few. That or make raids that can be purchased separately from the core game as LDC so that it can aid with the resources to create them.

it is going down hill. we cant even get a teirs worth at lauch. one. damn. teir. i dont blame the dev, im sure they have passion for the game, but i do see the end coming. its a slow burn where they milk dev after dev away and we end up getting less and less till it is all gone.

Yes but this is only the start of the expansion, just as RoF worked we get more later. I'd rather pay $40 now and be done with it so I can close that aspect of my budget out, and have something more to look forward to in the future while knowing that I don't have to pay any more money for it.

Raids in this game are all but done. The writing is on the wall. There just isn't a bright future going forward with the raiding game in EQ. Less and less resources and originality are being put into the raid game and its showing. There is nothing original about the raids anymore. They just sloppily throw something together and call it a raid. Its easy mode to top it off. So I would say "jumped the shark and missed"

Gone are the good ole days when beating raids actually mattered and it felt like a real accomplishment. Shooting fish in a barrel isn't exactly something to brag about.

So they might as well just go ahead and take EQ down the path of being purely 100% group game and do away with raids. You can already see those tendencies seeping into the game over the past two or so expansions. So why not just do it?