Producer's Letter: Progression Server, April Update, and Beyond

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by Windstalker, Apr 17, 2015.

  1. Elricvonclief Augur

    A post answering some of the questions in this thread would be much appreciated.

    Even one with generalities, stating what the intentions at this time are, would relieve a lot of the anxiety.
  2. Corwyhn Lionheart Guild Leader, Lions of the Heart

    Generally you would think that if they could give answers that would ease anxiety it would be a no brainer to do so. On the other hand maybe they just figure since they can't guarantee much of anything they will say will actually happen that the better choice is to say as little as possible.
  3. Roshen Brand Manager

    The short reply to this from Windstalker's post: "it will allow us to deliver content to you more often as well as respond to an ever-changing player base."

    To break this down a little bit... why as a company should we wait until once a year to do push a large content release like an expansion to players?

    With that question in mind, we wanted to shift to a model under which players would get new content more frequently. As a game developer we can incorporate both player feedback and activity into our design decisions more immediately.

    Our intention is to continue to develop EverQuest content for players, and deliver it to them. We're changing from expansions to campaigns because we want to deliver the type of content that players would expect from an expansion to players more frequently, but in smaller packages. In our two campaign releases each year, we plan to release about the same amount of content as we normally would in one annual expansion.
    Battleaxe and Zujilli like this.
  4. Ferry-Tunare Augur


    How much do you normally release in one annual expansion?
  5. sojero One hit wonder

    Roshen,

    first, thank you for the replies, they are helpful and I am sorry that you are the face that has to take the brunt of our "frustration". I like the idelology that you (Daybreak) is trying to show with this, we all love the idea that you would react to us in methods that would make the game better for us and more reactive to a changing playerbase. The issue with that is, history has a bad habit of painting these statements in a bad light. Anytime the player base brings up issues like this, its a crap shoot if the development crew responds, reacts, or even is in the building, take Eli's post about rampage abilites as a prime example, lets start a post to show we are here for the players, then drop it for a long time, and the stagnate melee dps because we cant figure it out, and don't stagnate caster dps, and you get what we have now, a bunch of irritated melee dps players, and with that, people leaving the game.


    You really need a ruler for this, something we can judge on, because people look at past expansions and see huge ones like PoP or RoF, and small ones like LoY and TDS, if they are going to be like TDS but broken over a year, well, you got 1 more year and a lot of people, both groupers and raiders alike are gonna see the painting on the wall, and they will sub for 1-2 months, beat everything and gear up, then unsub till they next campaign comes out, which will save them money, and lose Daybreak money, least that is how I will probably go.

    But again, thank you for what you do.
    Koggar.Bertoxxulous and Zujilli like this.
  6. Kellaer Augur

    I'd like to know the approximate definition of an expansion as well. John Smedley responded to me on the reddit thread that people have quoted a bunch "I've just seen the content update plan for EQ. We heard the players loud and clear that they want a bigger expansion next time, and they'll get it. We'll be making EQ and EQ 2 expansions for a long time to come."

    That was said during CotF, and with TDS, that wasn't the case. I am curious what the rough definition of an expansion is now, since things have obviously changed with the acquisition and rebranding.
  7. Baeddon Elder

    tl;dr Small xpac releases suck, Smed was fired and is null and void, LoN MP items can be awesome, prog servers suck.

    First off, keep EQ2 and EQNext off EQ. If I wanted to play EQ2 or EQNext, I'd play EQ2 and EQNext. The expansion drips instead of expansion drops were almost universally loathed. Learn from Smed's mishaps. Don't repeat that cancer.

    Second, Smed is gone. Anything Smed said in the past at this point is null and void. Quoting something about the fact that we are certainly getting expansions is pointless. Also, he didn't lie. Things changed. He was sacked. The new team is entitled to go in any direction they wish regardless of what the old team said/did/wanted. I'm hoping that the team reads these 12 or 13 pages or so of feedback and realises they're about to do something completely stupid. But then again, the RoF xp nerf... oh nevermind.

    Add me to one of the cranky people sick and tired of hearing about progressive servers. Get some college interns to work on them for free and then open up 15 of them, but keep the paid staff focused on proper Everquest. Or let people in the community maintain the prog servers, there are certainly players with the software programming skills who can do it. I'm not saying it's a waste of dev resources, but I'm saying given how little of that resource is left, you would really have to wonder if you can afford it or not. (Granted, they did a poll and seem to have made their decision from that data.)

    LoN loot cards will be brilliant so long as the junk is removed. My heart breaks for those people selling loot cards for $100 a pop on the black market. Honestly, I shed a tear. However will the world move on?Sarcasm done, as others have said, make the ornaments type 20 (especially the consumed ones), get rid of the junk loots (paintings, potions, the like), and I will be absolutely all over this. I hope you don't shut down the LoN server if in fact you can afford the resources to keep it running; LoN is actually a decent game in and of itself.

    I'm digging the epic 1.0 changes. Very cool. Wish you could do something about older stuff like Solteris 3 or DoDH sisters raid (ok, "like what?" you ask. Valid question I don't have an answer to) to make them a bit more manageable. But then again, I complained about the prog servers for distracting from needed new content, so I concede being a hypocrite on this one.

    PLEASE reconsider your idea on campaign releases if indeed they are replacing expansions. I like Holly quite a bit but I think she's living too much in the EQ2 universe at the cost of the EQ universe. Again, please read the many comments urging you to reconsider and please please PLEASE take that advice.
    Geroblue likes this.
  8. Reht The Dude abides...

    From a pure zone & raid perspective:

    Underfoot (12/09) - 13 zones - 19 raids
    House of Thule (10/10) - 13 zones - 18 raids
    Veil of Alaris (11/11) - 12 zones - 14 raids
    Rain of Fear (11/12) - 9 zones - 13 raids
    Call of the Forsaken (10/13) - 7 zones - 11 raids
    The Darkened Sea (10/14) - 8 zones - 7 raids
  9. Iila Augur

    So next one should have around 7 zones and 6 raids?
    Yinla, Axxius and Reht like this.
  10. Hayzeus Augur

    @ Roshen - the theme of these questions has (on at least some of these pages) been which expansion you're comparing two campaigns worth of content? I think the general consensus is that we already (despite some bickering amongst ourselves) understand that the two campaigns will be replacing the usual annual expansion... BUT...

    Will the two campaigns = a small substandard expansion like TDS or CoTF
    or
    Will the two campaigns = an appropriately sized expanion like RoF - VoA - HoT

    there's a world of difference in between those two, and it would be good to have a measuring stick here.
    Zujilli and Yinla like this.
  11. Hayzeus Augur

    Did I miss something? I didn't know Smeds was fired. Isn't he still President of DBG?
    Iila likes this.
  12. Reht The Dude abides...

    He is mistaken unless it happened within the last couple of days.
  13. Reht The Dude abides...

    I certainly hope not, but who knows........oh wait i am sure they do by now.
  14. Baeddon Elder


    LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. You're killing me, Smalls. You keep using this phrase "player feedback" but it does not mean what you think it means. Player feedback has been systematically ignored. Smed was guilty of it (then reversed the policy on Smed Brand Campaign 1.0 Expansion Packs, far too late), the new team is guilty of it (XP nerf for 101+ is still there, CotH HA lockouts are still there, etc etc etc.

    No, Roshen, I don't believe you for one moment.
    Xeladom and Iila like this.
  15. Pinecone Journeyman

    Looks like he still is the president of Daybreak Game Company as of a few seconds ago according to his Twitter profile.

    [IMG]
  16. Silv Augur

    Well, aren't you a generous person :p

    Seriously though... you (people in charge) need to give some type of definition or clarity to "same amount of content you'd expect in an expansion". TDS was a full expansion and it did NOT deliver the amount of content we expected or were even told we were getting. So, there's that. That is what everyone wants to know.
  17. Baeddon Elder

    I was mistaken. Smed was not sacked. My apologies. Perhaps he should be? But I typed incorrect information and I got this one wrong. Sorry all.
  18. Reht The Dude abides...

    Personally, it would go a lot further with me and i would be a lot more understanding if they came out and said "hey guys, here's the roadmap; it's the best we can do, please bare with us as we try to come up new strategies to do more with less in the future." That's not going to happen though.
    Elricvonclief and Silv like this.
  19. Agrippa Augur

    @Baeddon: Well played, sir! I had already called a few friends to tell the good news, though.
  20. Iila Augur

    Maybe part of TDS? 2 zones
    gnomemtn Gnome Memorial Mountain
    lceanium Lceanium

    Fits thematically with the Kunark and EQ2 lore idea. 8 zones
    korsha Kor'Sha Laboratory
    gorowyn Gorowyn
    scorchedwoods Scorched Woods
    charasisb The Howling Stones
    drogab The Temple of Droga
    exaltedb Sul Vius: Demiplane of Decay
    cosul Crypt of Sul
    exalted Sul Vius: Demiplane of Life

    Don't have the additional name for the client to display, might be another 2. Could be one-time use zones for missions/raids, who knows.
    frontiermtnsb
    codecayb

    Past examples mean we might not see all the zones listed in the .exe, but we won't see more. So this list (plus the two rof zones) is the best case scenario right now.
    Pinecone likes this.