This crossed my mind and I thought I'd throw it out there for reactions... Moving forward, developers spend their time tweaking and enhancing the existing EQ quests / zones / environment, preferably starting in classic and moving forward so the upcoming TLP server(s) could benefit from changes as they are implemented. I'm NOT talking about zone revamps such as North Ro. I'm talking about optimizing EQ for today's environment. Change respawn timers, implement new quests with rewards appropriate for the era, modify loot tables and quest rewards, tweak mob difficulty, etc. I'd love to see the "worthless" AAs replaced with new AAs that add unique functionality. Perhaps even introduce new raid content or modify old raid content for the realities of the EQ population and availability (introduction of raids designed for 18-24 people rather than 54-72). Basically, use what we've learned over the last 15 years to improve existing content. These activities would be the primary focus of the EQ staff. The tradeoff would be that no new expansions would be produced. The EQ development team simply does not have the bandwidth to constantly create new content that satisfies the player base and captures their attention for more than a month. The idea would be to supplement the existing 15 years of content to deliver a fun user experience. To make the content relevant and sustainable, it would require an eventual migration of the player base to TLP or other special ruleset servers. It would also require a more frequent TLP server launch schedule or even expansion-locked servers. When I think about the long term future of EQ, I see a whole bunch of problems. For me, these problems originate at the server select screen. You get a PVP, a TLP (Vulak is no longer populated), a roleplaying server, and thirteen near-identical live servers. Only the TLP option truly takes advantage of the existing wealth of content. I think this should shift over time. Anyways, it isn't a particularly well thought out idea. It certainly would need to be adjusted and doesn't suit everyone. I thought I'd toss it around to see what others thought.
Would be great. I don't think you really need to modify the way the combat or classes work. Really just modernize the hell out of the graphics. Who cares if its a slower paced game compared to modern MMORPGs - which are watered down wow clones which is an EQ clone. After EQnext fails they'll have the ability to use developers to make such a graphics engine. Until then, I doubt it. I agree with you that when you begin to do something like that (graphics engine upgrade) on an old project with limited resources (eq1), then you will also have to cease new content creation. That's fine. Just make the game have a competitive graphics engine for 2015. Don't change anything else.
Great ideas in theory, but probably unworkable for a few reasons: First off: The EQ players tend towards traditionalists, maybe not one-hundred percent, but it's pretty easy to see a lot of the playerbase reacts negatively towards sudden change, positive or negative. The free-to-play change turned the forums into a river of flame for a while, and people still groan about it to this day, despite that likely being one of the biggest revenue boosts for EQ over the past few years (can't say anything for certain since SoE is/was so tight-lipped about their profits). The 101+ nerf has far exceeded this in terms of outcry. Any talk of reducing spawn timers on epic-mobs, creating instanced zones for the like, upgrading/downgrading/adding/removing mercs, etc causes an uproar. Suddenly making sweeping changes to mob-timers, xp-rates, stats, AA's, mob-difficulty, etc would create a stream of complaints the like of which we have never seen before. A sad fact about EQ is that it has largely reduced its core to mostly staunch traditionalists, and any sweeping changes to bring in new blood will likely alienate those traditionalists. It's a risky gamble, to say the least, which brings me to the second point... EQ is run by a corporation for profit. Corporations tend to be very risk-averse. EQ, as it is, is probably seen as 'safe', if small. A creaking old game with a small but fanatical playerbase that generates some small profit for minimal expenses. Instituting massive changes that risk alienating this playerbase for an influx of new customers that is still very theoretical, is scary. No conservative company is going to risk the relatively small but reliable cash-cow that is EQ on that sort of gamble. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it" and all that. Not saying I agree with that view, but from someone looking purely at the numbers, expenses to maintain the game/servers, staff costs, and revenue brought in from the small playerbase, keeping things as-is (and cutting half the staff) probably looks like the best financial bet on paper. Finally, and this is a smaller point, changing things from the bottom-up would take waaay too long for too little pay-off. EQ is a very top-heavy game, the majority of the playerbase is in the last twenty or so levels of content, with the rest busily steamrolling through the lower levels to join the dwindling crowd. Re-vamping content for levels 1-60 would go fairly unnoticed simply because almost no-one's there. It'd be far better to start re-tuning from the top down. Again, I'm not against the ideas, I think they're both great and needed. I just don't think they're ever going to happen with the game being run the way it is and the playerbase being what it is. Personally I'd love nothing more than to see Daybreak release the code for EQ and let the playerbase make their own.
The minute Daybreak stops making new expansions, a huge chunk of their live population will vanish. The current live population vastly outnumbers the progression server population, even right after a new server launch. This would be a very bad idea for the future of eq.
Open source Everquest is an interesting idea. I wonder if they could develop a business model for something like that.
It took me a second to figure out WTF that pie chart is of, with the #/21 being the number of available expansions on the servers. There's no further information to back up your assertion. So I'm going to arbitrarily say 'NO'. My reasoning? Why simple. Going by your pie chart (which seems overly arbitrary) it would be Daybreak shooting themselves in the foot to devote all resources to two(?) unannounced servers, which by your pie chart would only be ~10% of the total servers. Leaving the other ~90% of servers to wither away.
They did make huge tweaks back when they put in the long achievement chains starting in TSS and on, believe that was around when the game went f2p
That wasn't clear to me as a reader. As such Poe's Law applies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
I'm not a game developer, but in my dream world I would do this: 1. Change the name of EQNext and tie it more closely to Landmark than it already is. I would market it as a separate dimension to EQ, really expand on the sand-boxiness of it and heavily target the Minecraft/Terracraft/etc audiences. 2. Leave the current state of EQ alone, but still develop content for it. No change in what they are doing now with EQ, except that it's future would now serve as more of a testing grounds for everything created for "EQNext". 3. Create a "new" game, EQNext using the exact same design as EQ now - this could eliminate the majority development for trying to figure out things like lore, races, classes, zones, etc. 4. Either use a new engine like Forgelight/Cry/Unreal or develop a brand new and superior MMO engine. 5. Create new graphics, but still adhere to the general spirit of the old graphics. In other words, ogres still look like the ogres we remember, just with more detail and smoothness. 6. Update the interface, but still allow it to be highly customizable by third parties and users. 7. Create a new interface for existing quests that aren't tracked and then incorporate quests that are already tracked (ie: tutorial quests). 8. Update exp rewards for current quests. 9. Change group exp to a percentage and not a flat cap. 10. Find a way (lore) to add the "new" classes to the game, the "new" races may be pushing it, but is entirely possible to add them too. 11. Re-tune mobs, casters and melee - so the game is challenging again. 12. Put the game together and only release "Classic" as the base game in the current F2P model. 13. Follow up expansions are the same ones from the original EQ and can be added as DLC content, which could be free to all access subscribers and bought by F2P. Like I said, I'm not a game designer. I have no idea how feasible these ideas even are. So this is just what I would do in my perfect, little dream world.
What's wrong with boxing? If you don't like doing it, don't, no one's holding a gun to your head and demanding you box. If other people want to, more power to them, and more paying subs to EQ.
1. eqnext bleeh... 2. fine enough, stop it where it is and focus ressources on the relaunch (just open a progression server while we wait) 3. drop the eqnext name...call it something like EverQuest Classic ;-) 4. build a new one so they have their own 5. yeah new models/graphics but keep the IDEA of the old models (old gargoyles not those new ugly ones) old trolls, old ogres farting and all. Keep OLD layout of freeport but shine it up, new freeport is horrible to navigate. 6. update? heck no, trash the old one, build a new proper streamlined intuitive one 7. not sure if to keep the quest helper or to go old school where you kinda had to KNOW what you worked on... it had it's charm... but keep the highlighted text to click on, trying to figure out which mispelled phrase to say was horrible. 8. update both exp rewards (some way up, others way down) and loot rewards, many of the old quest was just junk even back in original and go away from cookie cutter armor sets each expansion have few uber armor sets but make them rare and good and then let rest be mix n match where people have to chose WHAT stats they want. 9. uhm? not sure what you mean with this. mobs gave a variable amount of exp, only cap I remember was on TLP with 2% cap even if you soloed/grouped which benefited groupers WAY more... in the old days necros benefitted from killing RED mobs... because they could but the exp was "massive" by that days standard but they used all their mana on it too... using all your mana for 2% exp is just WRONG when a group can chew red mobs and get 2% x6 and kill way faster. 10. put in the classes... let the races wait for their own relaunched expansions. 11. agreed... new spells every 4 levels again please, those powerboosts feelt GREAT and it slowed down just before another powerboost making it feel even greater when you got it... hell levels too please at like 40 50 60 70 80 etc. and not stupid easy levels like going from 60 to 61... 12. agreed 13. make the expansions DLC for all, so all pay for the expansion even f2p, so f2p can slowly upgrade if they wish or they can keep playing the game they have, make each NEW expansion require the previous one so people don't just go from original at lvl 50 to lvl 80 by buying 1 expansion... make them cheaper over time but like $20 to begin with for subscribers and $40 for f2p
can only agree, the boxers contribute MORE then the non-boxers by paying a HIGHER price to play the same game as the non-boxers.
