EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

Yeah, and we are talking about some seriously basic level of entry effort to jump in to that competition. That would no longer require you being that guy setting up your own leveled up ebolt or mage army at the spawn point to be the one walking away with the kill/loot.

Big picture that isn't good for business, or the higher expectation of success models driving the people to make that type of extended effort in the first place.

Very easy fix - release two servers- one with exactly what the Devs want in Oakwynd so they save face and get to test their social experiment and the other a 2.0 Mischief with no FTE and random loot fixed so loot does not drop from easy mobs versus the hard bosses meant to be killed. Let people choose which one they want to play on. This fits the "experimental road map" and makes everyone happy.

If the Devs are hesitant in having another server as a choice alongside FTE then they have their answer already

What about an opt in setting. Would obviously need some modifications to work. Would add complexities of have two different way at the same time.

The devs are not stupid, they know that everybody would pick Mischief 2.0. It is not hard to get what players want, just read the forums and every other post is "Mischief / free trade plz".

But players are a bit like children. If you let a child pick between spinach and candies, guess what they would pick. It would always be candies. But the real question is: What is good for the long term health of the child (or the game for that matter)? Is EQ really better as a random loot/ free trade game? Or is this just something which "tastes good" and provides instant gratification, but will be harmful in the long run?

Personally I think Mischief is a bit like candies. It was a really cool idea for a TLP and I think it is something which they can and should do again in the future. But it is not something you should expect from every other TLP. There are other ideas worth exploring and the evolving bonuses of Oakwynd are a good candidate.

And again I ask why the "Alternative" has to be Free Trade. Free Trade is not the only possible alternative ruleset. There have been some cool suggestions that don't even involve Free Trade. People are making an agenda out of this.

They said in the letter that the mobs walk back to their initial spawn point and THEN reset. Walking back only occurs after they lose all agro so that is what will happen in all the cases, FD, death of the player, zoning of the player, memblur being successful etc. The reset doesn't happen until they get back to the initial spawn location which is also how it works in WoW. This part is what prevents trains from affecting others.

Free trade has been the most popular Live server and the most popular TLP server over time. The universe has been telling DPG what they need to do to improve their game yet they refuse to listen.

The old saying is true, "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink".

People are making an agenda out of it because it's the type of TLP they want to play on.

I don't think it's anything more than that.

A lot of people that play on Mischief want a redo after the plat dupe early in Classic. Additionally, a lot of people that played on other servers want a fresh start because they weren't able to when Mischief/Thornblade dropped.

Removing ALL powerleveling just to stop RMT PL people will really hurt anyone who misses the initial leveling wave.

I do understand that in a perfect world people instead of raid logging would keep making alts and level traditionally until mercs come out,but i dont see that happening.

Ive played on Agnarr and Mischief and i have helped(for free) at least 30 different people boost their chars up so they could join my guilds raids.

With the elimation of all PL outside of 2001 style PL of get buffs and go kill single mobs. I think this FTE basically locks out a large portion of late comers to the server since leveling largely dies off pretty quickly.

Please reconsider FTE. Even if we get stuck with the uninspiring legacy ruleset stuff. Put FTE in the same file as account to account transfers never to be seen again(rip 2018)

It's pretty simple if the TLP is about making a profit they will go with a Mischief 2.0 clone...If it's about testing lame duck features like FTE and weird Legacy perks they'll stick with what they've announced. At this point it's up to the player base to show them what they want by voting with their wallets when the server is released.

Of course it's an agenda. Do you even know what that word means, or are you just using it as a buzzword?

just imagain all the petitions you are about to get from anybody who feels wronged or slighted on the FTE thing.
1000's daily.. all will need to be investaged and awnsered..

Yes, I know what the word means. But in this specific instance the agenda makes no sense unless the agenda is more kronofarming and profiting off early era stockpiling allowed by a Free Trade format. There are plenty of other rulesets that have been suggested but for some reason the "Alternative" always has to be Free Trade.

I would really love legacy bonuses on live servers (not all of us box, heh)

Exactly this. Ive been in similar situations with my core group of friends and guild members that dont have much time.

Surprised there hasn't been an update yet. Guess that comes tomorrow. I doubt we go into the weekend without a 'We hear you...' with some ruleset changes.

The overwhelming feedback for Free trade/random loot and to remove FTE seem to be the biggest things. Will be interesting if they don't address both.

I think ideal case would be:

Two servers

* 1 free trade/random loot
* 1 regular yelinak clone

The legacy bonuses could go on both, they might make AOC lockouts per character instead of account to make that slightly less silly. Or at least give you a headstart into the next expansion instead of no bonus.

Maybe give one of the servers a Kunark start to differentiate the two a little more.

Killing off FTE before it's even released, especially after they've probably spent a bunch of time on it and are likely quite proud of it will be a tough one. Maybe they'll still serve that up but only in some of the early zones at first to 'gather feedback'.

Will be fascinating to see where this goes.

Tomorrow is the weekend and I doubt we hear anything. They have a lot more questions to answer for than making the decision to change exp rates to appease the angry crowd.

I play on FV as my main server. I would rather see everything that's tradable on FV but not on other Live servers be Heirloom instead on a "Legacy theme" server. There are a few (very few) items that should always remain No Trade (such as the Epics) but for the rest, Heirloom instead of No Trade would be good. Like the Legacy bonuses, it would have the potential to encourage single boxing.

Re. Legacy bonuses, these will also be helpful when the races and classes unlock with later expansions. Level up something and switch to another of a preferred race/class would be a lot easier. However, I do think the bonus should be permanent rather than zero out with a level increase.

This isn't an easy fix and it isn't how proper A/B testing is done. You can't just setup two different rulesets against each other because there are several different variables that could be the reason for players playing one over the other. It's clear, IMO, that FTE is the real "experiment" with this year's TLP, so if you wanted to do multiple servers you would simply do a copy/paste on all other ruleset items and then have FTE enabled on one and disabled on the other. However, as I've talked about previously, this isn't really a good test of player sentiment either because there's an entire contingent of the player base that wouldn't even experience FTE, thereby their opinion on FTE is purely speculative and based only in their out-of-game anecdotes.

Truly, the best option to "test" FTE is for DPG/DBG to ensure there's a proper "rollback" mechanism for Oakwynd if things go horribly wrong. Whether that's a full disabling of FTE after Classic, moving FTE to only be certain high-level targets, or something else entirely would be up to how much they want to invest in acceptance testing for this feature.