EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

My summary of the arguments against are as follows:

1: I wanted another Free Trade and/or Random Loot Server
b: I'm fine with the DPS race
>: I like trains! CHOOOCHHOOOO!!! erm, no....this won't stop trains in fact it'll make it even easier to train...trains everywhere...TRAINS

Nobody has really showed up defending FTE really just argued with the fairly bad arguments against.

Me: "I'm not sure how it'll make training easier"
Them: "Don't you ever get sick from licking the Devs boots after they've been trampling the dreams of clean livin' right thinkin' TLP Players? "

And there you have it

The AA system was bloated well before auto grant came along and it only grants AA's from 4 expansions back. As it only grants from 4 expansions back it has no impact on people gaining current AA and it is a system that people are free to not use.

That being said it is a system that people came to like after they got a chance to play around with it and it is possible the same could be said for FTE.

But the real point is that the FTE is not the largest thread in EQ history as there are larger ones on this forum and the retired ones as well.

WIth less than a month till Oakwynd Launches I'm surprised they haven't got FTE on test yet. Live patch is due to be tested in 9 days time, live patch is due 17th May.

Unless they are going to add FTE for just a week after the live patch has been done, they are going to be risking sending FTE to live servers in the live patch if they leave it much longer.

From what I saw this is scheduled to hit the test server this week with the upcoming test patch.

I've read everything in the Dev post tracker and I've seen nothing further about Oakwynd. Nothing about it going test nor any further answers to the many questions players have asked since the FAQ.

In the most current thread, first post.
Oakwynd Information and FAQ | EverQuest Forums (daybreakgames.com)
Q: Will the Encounter Locking be on the Test Server before it goes to live?
A: Yes, we are planning on enabling Encounter Locking on the Test Server in the May Test Server update. The feature will be turned off on the Test Server once Oakwynd launches.

As per the FAQ, they'll put it on Test next week. So, it'll have about 2 weeks of testing before the server goes live.

Also, the new UI is supposed to go to Live this month, which means it'll probably be pushed to Test first...so they'll be testing that in addition to the FTE mechanic.

I think Test is gonna be a fustercluck of epic proportions this month.

The new UI has been pushed to test already but you are not forced to use it as the existing UI is not being disabled at this time.

Guess I miss that, I knew they said they were going to put it on test, but I don't recall ever seeing when.

I've not been on test since they put the UI stuff on there, it isn't something I want to get involved with, my UI is fine as it is. If they want to force this new stuff on us, there better not be anything the user has to do.

If you use a custom UI you will just need to download the updated version when the full UI system is released and ready. If you use the default UI you shouldn't have to do anything.

Yea I absolutely detested the encounter system in EQ2, I can't quite put my thumb on it but it made the game feel more "plastic". I mean the fact that the engine is so old limits what developers can focus on, if your sole focus is the final 10% you are gonna lose the other 90% of your players by never giving them cool stuff on updates. Instead of a constant focus on new zones, why not pull a cataclysm and rework the old favorites since you have the classic servers available for anyone that wants the old school zones/strolling down memory lane.

Kind of like when they added high levels to mistmoore and such, but like actually implement it in a more interesting way that engages more players across the server.


War breaks out in Kithicor Forest or GFD/LFD and the once pristine forest is now a war ravaged wasteland with only the oldest trees of Kelethin surviving, many of the platforms have fallen to the floor as the fires melted the iron securing them to the trees. The Crushbone Orcs have laid siege to the gates of Felwithe, forcing the high elves to dig a tunnel to the dwarven kingdom of Kaladim as their only means of retreat. The land appears to have undergone a great upheavel with a strange blue light emanating from a lake that has appeared near the Spires Of Luclin. Earthquakes are becoming increasingly frequent throughout the forest, soldiers coming back from the frontlines are giving uncomfirmed reports that all the fighting has awoken something deep beneath the old forest floor, older than the foundations of world itself in a time before the gods knew existed...

Put a new dungeon under the lake or maybe whatever magical creator god creature appeared blasted open an old forgotten cave in the NW corner of GFD where the zone is pretty much empty. Move the wood elves into Felwithe and combine their starting areas leaving Kelethin to be in the hotzone of new content.


Then dispense phat lutes. Collect subscriptions. ???. Success!

Stuff like that is what would bring me back to ANY game, thoughtful content that doesn't cater to just end game. One thing cataclysm got completely wrong was they either reworked a zone or changed its level range entirely, but they didn't intermix the level ranges so end game players and noobs never crossed paths/certain sections of the game would appear more barren after short periods of time post launch because all the long time players (bulk of your population) is in a completely different zone separated from all the noob zones. Granted they didn't want to overload the starting areas because the interest was so great the zones got crowded quickly, but they didn't mix these two groups at all and so the reception to cata was it was cool but the buzz died down quickly as there wasn't a great deal of underlying novelty added. Mostly just a facelift and some number tweaks and new art assets, no new interactions within the system/design/game meta. No added depth to the player experience.

So GFD would still be a noob zone, but there's also a giant war between the orcs and elves, and hell maybe the brownies join in too just because, which means you'll see the majority of a servers population in and around this zone in the case of EQ as it presently sits (not with full pops/new players/new game). New players seeing full zones if super important to the experience whether anyone admits it or not, even if a player is solo they still want to see a world brimming with life. Not a barren themepark museum of old zones.


Nerfs to anyone's playstyle is baaaad and means there wasn't enough play-testing prior to release.

Who is gonna pay for those old content revamps if they don't feature as new expansion zones?

Very few TLP players are buying expansions, unless they also play live, so if you take the developers away from making expansions then you just lost Darkpaw a big chunk of their annual income, so how do you fill that gap?

As much as I would love to see old zone revamps & new zones added to old content the dev team are barely putting out a 6-8 zone expansion lately, something that is 25-30% the size expansions used to be, so how could anyone expect all these revamps & new content in old expansions without resorting to having NO expansion while that is done & yet nobody is going to pay for it I really cannot understand.

^ This. Also look into how store-bought items work like making purchased mounts account bound. This would entice people to migrate off their current servers and at least try to fully invest in a new experience V.S feeling stuck because all of their progression is tied to one server.