Guys, let's give it a break here on attacking the devs. So many people are in here throwing statements like this around. No one at SOE sat there and decided they were going to ruin EQ for everyone. It's just not the case. Have some bad decisions been made? Probably, yes. But the last thing any group of developers wants to do is actually kill a game. So let's stop acting like they were actually having conversations about how to piss people off, shall we?
No. When you realize how many times we have been screwed over in the past 2 years just to inflate profits so they can sell the company... No, you are Wrong. I am willing to give them yet ANOTHER chance. Though honestly i don't know why. If they want my trust they have to earn it now. Sick of the BS
How many times we've been screwed over? No one is forcing you to buy their game, or their expansions. No one is forcing you to play a game full of mechanics you don't like. No one is forcing you to do anything in this regard. If you don't like how the developers are doing things, speak with your wallet, and stop paying for it. Every game like this has the ability to measure all sorts of metrics, be it how many subs they gained or lost, how many people are playing in each zone, how many people are using certain features, etc. Feedback is helpful, and it's a good measuring stick, to a point. They have a bunch of other tools at their disposal to figure things out, though. If they see that the majority of their players are avoiding something, or playing a certain way, or NOT playing a certain way, they know. Coming into conversations like this and talking to the devs like they are misbehaving children doesn't do anyone any good. Be mature, make a mature decision about where you want your money to go. If things have changed to the point of making things as miserable as you make them sound, then there is one sure-fire way to make sure they know you're dissatisfied. And fyi: talking to them like this does nothing but put people on the defensive, which makes them less willing to listen to you.
Your kidding me Dzarn is gone??????? Dzarn was the best thing to happen to EQ in recent years. Elegist got too?
I don't think anyone is attacking the Devs (responding to a post further above). Things like nerfs and bringing out expansions in this form & with the same high cost are management decisions, not Dev work. I still have respect for the people who put work into that stone old code, but i don't have respect for how the game was managed and sold in recent years. That's a key difference right there, and hey it's the internets b$tching is all over the place anyway the Devs know that.
While liking your post on the whole, I disagree completely with this part. It's just simply wrong. Anyone playing EQ right now knows that the vast majority of the active players are veteran players. I'd say it's highly likely that an even higher percentage of paying players are veteran players than the percentage of active players. And not just veterans of the last few expansions, but veterans back to classic EQ. That is, unless I'm having some bizarre and statistically unlikely experience where virtually every toon I meet in the game is just one of several alts and ultimately all of them belong to someone who has been playing for a decade or more. The people playing the game right now are the very same people who have been griping for years about the dumbing down of the game and haven't moved on to other games because other games are too dumbed down for their tastes and because they're in love with the lore/art/feel of EQ. My experience so far supports this to the point where I feel safe assuming you're likely one of them. Meanwhile, the vast majority of the short attention span crowd that wanted everything with the original game "fixed" so it was easier for them and hailed every simplification and blending of all player content and every superficial change as positive are all gone. What's left is a split community of players who generally either fall into the camp of "Make it like it was!" or the camp of "Please don't give up, anything you make will keep us here as long as you keep the game going because I don't know what I'd do without EQ." You said it. The player base is too small. But it's not too small for significant change. It's too small not to make significant changes. No one playing this game stuck around this long because of simplifications. They stuck around because they were hooked by the magic the game was initially and the hopes and promise for what it could be and the charm some of the new content introduced over the years brought. And no one completely new to EQ is going to be brought to EQ by any future simplifications to the game, and they certainly aren't drawn in droves to the game now. Change is necessary. But if change has to come, why not use the freaking lore that is the very basis for what makes the game unique and keeps the players who are still here as a guideline for the changes? Why not go in the direction of erasing the genericization of game content for once? If you consider why veteran players are still here, it seems far more likely to create new interest in the game than it does to drive people off. Look, no rational player or developer can be under the delusion that the status quo isn't going to cause the eventual death of EQ. Fundamental changes are needed. The kinds of changes I'm proposing are fundamental changes and they don't require the creation of new content. The differences between races and factions matter because they create variety of gameplay and that's something that is distinctly lacking in the game today versus earlier incarnations of the game, as you yourself pretty much admitted to. Variety retains interest. It increases replay value. As for how much work it would be - What about the work they've been doing? There's far more work involved in creating new content than there is in changing animosity values or stat caps. Especially when it comes to gimmicky whiner candy like "key rings to change my armor (mounts/pet/familiar/etc) appearance quicker" - which relates to updated graphics changes and interface, whereas the changes I'm talking about are numerical stat/value changes. See my response to Max (just below) for more. 1) No, they aren't, or we wouldn't be having this discussion. I mean, if that was the case, then what is the point of anything else in your post. You could just end the conversation there. "It's already in the game." But it's not, as you pretty much admitt by arguing against such content later in this very same post. 2) Cultural armor is one example. There are a few others like some of the weapons dropped by giants only being usable for Barbarians, Ogres, Trolls, and Iksar (Iksar doesn't make sense to me, but at least it's better than gnomes and halflings picking them up and wielding them). But these are the exceptions in the game now. And they aren't comparable to the new beefed-up, make-it-easier-to-power-level generic armor. 3) Aside from the generic Defiant/Combatants/Adept armors, what common drops are dropping in the majority of the zones in the game that current EQ players are using with regularity? See my response to #5). 4) So...? 5) The vast majority of the loot drops throughout the vast majority of the zones of the game aside from the generic armor sets isn't used anyway. So what if Troll armor drops and you're a Halfling. What do you do with loot you can't use now? Sell it for crying out loud. And why would they make it so that loot dropped disproportionately in favor of the least popular race in the game? 6) I've played almost exclusively in the old zones. The generics drop everywhere. When is the last time you actually played in the old zones that you would make such an unqualified claim? Try the Commonlands, No. Ro, Faydark, or Butcherblock sometime and tell me again about how generics don't drop there. Heck, it starts right off the bat with the tutorial and never stops from there on. 7) The fact that you can craft sized gear doesn't have any bearing on the fact that it simply doesn't make sense that Ogres, Humans, Dwarves, and Gnomes can all wear the same generic armor and wield many of the same weapons from the tutorial on. In fact, every remnant of the old game relating to race specific armor shows that at least at some point there were people creating content for the game who understood this logical issue and tried to deal with it appropriately - reflecting poorly on those who dumbed it down for the whiners in my frank opinion. 8) Explain to me why a warrior *couldn't* wear a robe if he wanted to? You're not even fully grasping what I said. I said put severe penalties on armor/clothing that doesn't fit the class it's most appropriate for. In other words, if a warrior wanted to don a robe he could, but in doing so would take severe hits to AC, DEF, and Charisma - the logic being that it's obviously too awkward to be functional for that class. But the idea that a warrior couldn't or wouldn't or couldn't don leather or chainmail is asinine. There should be a scale of what is ideal and what is not as far as the functionality of the armor/clothes according to class, and appropriate penalties applied to wearing items that are innappropriate for that class. 9) Ornaments, what? 10) No, the idea would be that the stats for the gear would make sense for the first time in a long time. The status quo doesn't make sense. 11) The amount of coding would involve changing numerical values on content that already exists. The ammount of coding involved in creating new content is far more intensive. And I don't see how it could possibly be a bad idea when the death of the game is an eventuality with the status quo way of doing things as it is. And as far as EQ players being up in arms over it - Who? The veterans who are teetering on whether or not they'll quit with every single change that comes anyway? Like they haven't been spoon fed really bad ideas that are still around already. 12) Oh, you've seen it? Name a single comparable example of a game that was even marginally successful at any point that reversed a trend of genericizing content with continued updates and crashed and burned after doing so. Just one. It doesn't even have to be an MMO. Please, by all means. I'll wait months for you to find an example if necessary. You can message me two years from now if you finally find one. 13) At least we can agree on one thing. Final notes in this response (For the devs reading this thread): There is already a platform for race-specific armor to be made available to every race for every level with reasonable availability - And that is the newbie armor quests in each starting city. Why can't that armor be improved every 10 or so levels? Chuck the generic armors or give them some other designation and either make quests (Which need involve nothing more than a single NPC, a collection box, and some text if it's soooo much work) or make it a crafting ordeal. For an example of crafting, just make smiths have lvl 20, lvl 30, lvl 40, etc. Human Plate Armor upgrade molds and instructions/recipes available. As for Ogres, Trolls, and Iksar - They have tough hides. They don't need much in the way of armor. Give them inherent AC/Def/Resistance values. Have Trolls get a super high regeneration rate - You know, like Trolls do in classic fantasy lore. Iksar could have a high disease or poison or heat resistance because of their scales or inherent physiology. Be creative. There are tons of things you could do with these races that would make sense according to the lore - as opposed to asking players to shut down their brains and accept that they can somehow just go ahead and wear the same generic armor as everyone else. Or worse, wearing the same rings on their fingers that halflings and gnomes wear. If you give enough creative content to each race and class, the vast majority of players who have stuck around for everything else are going to stick around for these changes. And maybe, just maybe, you'll spark new interest in the game because you're actually doing something fundamentally significant with the game. I'd say there's a much better chance of bringing back old players and bringing in new players with such changes than there would be to just add a new zones with the same old cut and paste system the development team has genericized the game down to over the years - you know, the same system that has been bleeding players and market share for a long time now. Again, consider using the lore as a guideline (as the basis) for creative content instead of a hurdle.
You know Holly I think you have now posted more on these boards then the last two executive producers we have had put together, thank you for that.
I've not seen any actual hard confirmation of this, so if someone can give a source I'd appreciate it. I know Dzarn's twitter has a sad message on it regarding the day the layoffs happened, but it isn't directly clear from that message whether he himself was laid off or not.
no one is forcing me to play. Are you even listening to yourself??? The nerf made a lot of silver accounts (no pay) and a lot of of people quit because of it. And Now you say to quit if we don't like it? how many more subs does EQ have to lose before you realize how stupid your reply is? Be Mature? Like the Dev's were when they destroy this game? Like the Dev's are when they refuse to even reply in Beta about spells that the player base were asked to test? You say it makes the Dev's less willing to listen. That is pretty hard when they are not listening at all to the player base. It is the Dev's NOT Listening that got us into this mess in the first place. You might want to do a little history reading about what the Dev's have Not listened to us about. Then maybe, just maybe, you might start to understand the problem here.
Yep. Beyond anything else, he got things done. And that's what they need. People that can get content done and things fixed. They don't need some of the kind of people they kept, that seem to do squat beyond "administrative" stuff like thinking up ways to make the game less enjoyable to play. Let me give an example. A long time ago, someone asked if LoN illusion items could be made heirloom. Ngreth replied that he was open to it, but it would take quite a bit of time to find every item involved. 30 minutes later I posted a full list with item IDs. No response at that point, another dev later made all the LoN stuff heirloom years later. Something that took me 30 minutes to figure out was relegated to a serious time investment task by one of the leading devs at the time. THAT is a problem. Its not that out of the ordinary. Anyone that has worked in big companies knows this. Half your management team can barely turn on their PC and spend most of their time whining about how hard it is to keep up with all their work, while 20% of the management team does 80% of the work without whining, without having problems getting it done. They need more doers, and less "don't have the time to do that" people. I mean, other than artwork and code projects, which they presumably have a certain amount of time/tokens allowed for outsourcing to those departments, most everything they do should be able to be knocked out fast other than things like pathing and some AI decisions. You have hundreds of mob models you can reuse. You can make spells and abilities. You can set NPC abilities and parameters. Spend less time coming up with reams of lore based text and just get down to business. Is it really necessary to create a task that gives some huge backstory about why you need to kill 10 mobs then go around and talk to 3 other NPCs before you go after to kill 10 more? "The lions are bothering my livestock, can you help me out and eliminate some?" Pop up quest to kill 20 lions in zone X. BOOM. Done, how hard is that? Simplify naming if its causing everything to be so darn slow. The time spent naming Arx items was a waste of time. How long do you think it came up to name something like "Longsword of Execration" versus something like "Festinata Lemmai"? Is that a necessary use of dev time? Or why do we need to come up with new names for the exact same spell +15%? You already do it for procs, why not for spells? ranks 4,5,6,7,8,9 etc?
Apparently, more than already has happened. The devs have the numbers and they say, it's good. As a customer especially of this game, you have one method of getting heard and that is with your wallet. If you quit and say "who's with me fellas!" and turn around and see nobody else, well you were truly in the minority. If you keep paying and complaining on a web site, who is going to win? At this point it is clear they are not budging from the design. No use arguing on a forum about it. Nothing said here has any impact. Money talks. I feel right now Holly has no choice but to go with the status quo because she would end up alienating her workers and cause workplace resentment. They only thing that would make her force her experts to back out the changes would be a report showing dramatic revenue loss.
Thank you for listening, Holly, and for continuing to read and post. Your willingness to do so is the best thing I've seen come out of EQ in the last two years. It's taken me a week to pull my thoughts together to answer the questions, "Why do you play EQ?" and "What would you like to see for the game's future?" My son introduced me to EQ in 1999. I've subscribed continuously on two accounts since March 2000, and I've purchased all expansions on my main account up until TDS, which I still have not purchased for that account. The things I love about EQ that keep me coming back are the DING when I level, the fanfare when I ping an AA, the sense of accomplishment when we win a difficult encounter (group or raid), the feeling of making my character more powerful when I equip a gear upgrade. My toons are my hobby, and I love them. I'd like to see my hobby continue and for Daybreak put enough of the revenue from EQ subscriptions back into the successful game you have and quit wasting it on R&D for new games that may or may not ever see success - or even the light of day. I'd like to see you never again give your players a reason to refuse to continue our subscriptions or buy a new expansion. Offering TDS with its built-in nerfs and tiny, constrained content for full expansion price was worse than a business mistake. It was an insult to your paying customers. Things I would like to see so the game (and my hobby, of course) can continue in robust health: Reverse the nerfs for experience, pitiful spell drop rate, "focus AAs" that actually decrease INT caster power vs. the environment due to some obscure mechanism of calculating spell crits from spell damage vs. spell crits from damage attributed to the AA focus, and outrageous mob HPs in TDS. You've already heard it many times on these boards. Just do it. Please. Assign your dev/coding teams to games they would enjoy playing. You're personally on the right track by creating an EQ toon and logging in. With experience playing the game, you can understand how and why players (your paying customers) feel the way we do when the team once again wields the nerf bat and flattens one class or another. The devs need to feel it, too. They can't do that if their only thought is, "Ick! I couldn't stand to play this game!" Review all the nerfs over the last couple of years and ask if they were really necessary. Death Bloom nerf? Why? My wizard regens mana better than my necro does. Swift dot nerf on raid bosses? Was this really overpowered? My necro can manage maybe 50% of the dps a wizard does on a five minute raid burn, and that's assuming the necro stacks 20 dots and burns everything I own, including robe clicks, AA pets, and a glyph. And yes, the necro has the 2.5 epic. Was I on raids where, due to game mechanics that affected PCs but not pets, a mage pet tanked a raid mob? Yes, I was. Did my (necro) pet tank raid mobs? Nope. My pet, being proportionally weaker to begin with, was hit far harder with the raid focus nerf than mage pets even though my pet wasn't part of the problem. There are many more examples of the blatant pointlessness of the nerfs players have been handed over the years, but I think I'll quit listing them now. Risk vs. reward is way out of whack. The one-size-fits-all solution to the perceived pet tanking issue meant that your raid pet focus was essentially equal to a two expansions old group pet focus. So ... why raid? I can level, but as an INT caster my rk1 spells from the new expansion and levels I've gained is exactly the same as the rk3 spells from five levels lower. When I first saw that, I thought it must be a coding error. Blunders like this mean your players ask themselves, "Why level?" And if you're not going to level, why buy the expansion? There's so much room for improvement that almost anything you can do for the community and the game will help. I just hope you see fit to do enough to salvage the mess that's been created through poor business and game decisions. Circling back to the beginning, I won't be entrusting another fifteen years of my life to a hobby overseen by a company that isn't willing to pay attention to customer feedback. I can't justify paying the fees and putting in the time to build something I adore only to watch a poor management decision (or a string of them) come in and destroy it with a swing of the nerf bat. Please fix that, and thank you for listening!
Would it be possible to see the return of Veteran Rewards? 15th and 16th Veteran Reward for this anniversary? It should be fairly straightforward to implement a novel spell effect (like the many trade-skill effects) and apply it through the AA system. It would be a good sign and provide an immediate boost.
I'm glad everyone is talking, but I also think a lot of people are forgetting a lot of roles shifted very recently. It's really hard to point a finger right now, with the team going through such a transition. As per the responses to my message, they completely ignored my points and went back to rant. I understand your frustration, and hey I'm all for fresh ideas too, but if it's just a plain waste of time bad idea, I'm gonna be honest with you and tell you it is. One of the biggest issues you have to consider in the case of allowing warriors to wear cloth is the calculations for penalty stats and a brand new to the class player trying to figure out how to milk that extra agility on an enchanter robe rather than being concerned with the armor class or other important stats. ie:all the heroic characters being made. Models would have to be designed for trolls, ogres etc for gear, and this would probably mean all new wire frames on top of the coding. This is all time many of the player base would rather be spent on fixing existing bugs, tweaking raid encounters, adding more useful content, or I'm just gonna say it again: not entirely wasting time. I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just saying it's not one of the primary concerns most of the player base seems to have. 25 items out of thousands does not make for a valid argument for there being racial restrictions on more gear - in fact in my argument against your idea, I mentioned them. Too many items like this would stifle the economy, and undoubtedly over-stuff the bags of people who are already complaining that 36 slot bags aren't enough. Now me saying I don't like that particular idea doesn't mean I don't like any idea you might have, I just think that's not a good use of resources for any major part of the player base. By all means, more ideas! If nothing else your idea had some originality to it.
This, too, was among the many things I liked about Dzarn. Indeed. I have never encountered anyone who, if I asked them, thought giving literally-copy-pasted-but-with-bigger-numbers spells "unique" names was a good idea. Naming things in the legitimate interest of lore flavor is one thing, and generally speaking I am okay with that. But naming things "kinda-lore-ish-ly," when the thing being named is in reality just being cookie-cuttered from a generic spreadsheet progression that was established multiple expansion packs ago, pretty much kills any creative-lore-ish feel that the naming was going for in the first place. At that point I really would rather see "Fireball lv.105" or "Fireball XVIII" or whatever. It's more honest, and it makes individual tiers of the spell easier to talk about with precision without using a lot of words. It also gives a more direct nod to there being stronger variants of the same basic spell formula available for discovery, rather than trying to somehow make it out like each spell in a line is actually unique in nature.
In terms of spell naming, I can go either way. There some spells which I think would benefit from the flair of lore names. But the standard ones like buffs, definitely not. I do love the cleric nuke names for example, and the spells we have named/started by players. But buffs and some others I'd be more than fine if it was just a number.
