Actually my casual guild has had many who used to raid and decided to go casual when they came back so I don't think every ex raider wants raiding again. And yeah this is not the game for you if two month of catchup is too much for you. Two months is nothing really (in my opinion) as a casual player. Hard core raiders will say it should only take you a few weeks I suspect. While grinding regular exp has been nerfed big time by increasing the amount needed to level in the last few expansions those expansions also have very high first time exp rewards for completing the misssions. So.... show the right raid guild you are a top notch player and maybe they will pull you through some stuff to soak up exp.... or possibly ask why you aren't able to do it yourself. Very few Everquest guilds are filled up with 14 year olds. 30-80 year olds mainly regardless of guild. Now are we all adults or are we a bunch of 14 year olds? As to why a casual guild should be spending time getting you back into raiding I don't know. Unless you are talking about joining a casual raid guild to raid with them and not move on as soon as they help you out. And that would be the reason a lot of casual guilds do not invest a lot of time in returning raiders who want to raid... they get what they want then they leave to raid. Just saying.
DING DING DING we have a winner this is the objective state and facts of the game If you want a lot of quality raiders to come back to the game, time to drop the ego and ALLOW the developers to create a playable game for people to solo to CATCH UP. Becuase guess what it is cool and all that you got to level up when expansions were current and there were people to group with and you got your box's leveld up and you have a set group of friends to do stuff with. Returning players dont and wont. So knock it off with the ego if you want this game to stay alive and you want to actually have full fun raids and servers that dont need to be merged until theres nothing left. This bazaar behavior of elite players gatekeeping other elite players from returning to the game because of, pride/ego/whatever it is needs to stop and you need to grow up if this is you.
Thank you between both this is the dialogue i was seeking. I admit i have my box group and i keep essentially to myself (still playing catch up). I also have toons in most level ranges for grouping and helping others but there is no one it seems to help. just more high levels running a new mule through the same old races.
I don't think there is a dearth of low-level zones. I am sure that many already existing zones don't see a single character enter them for days or weeks on end. If anything, a consolidation of zones ala Ro / Oasis, The Commonlands, and Freeport would be in order.
Your conjecture is that there's just a line of "quality raiders" just chomping at the bit to get back into the game, but are dissuaded by the amount of play it will take to get back up to speed? And that there are so many of these that we are doing a disservice to the game by not making it easier to return? I'll go ahead and call BS on that. I'll never understand why people come to the boards to say "If only THIS would happen, we'd be flooded with players and the game will be better than ever!", using only their personal anecdotal evidence as proof. And what do you mean to ALLOW the developers to create anything? We don't have any say in that. In fact, in many ways, a lot of the things the playerbase asks for is either ignored, tossed aside, told can't be done, or just outright told it's not going to happen. Even though we'd like to think they take at the very least the constructive criticism to heart, the devs make the game they want to make. Getting from 110-120 is pretty dang easy now doing the questline and doing a bit of grinding and overseer on the side. But you seem to be hung up on people that want to return (from no determined length of absence mind you) that were once "quality raiders" that won't be able to raid upon instant return to the game. Does it not make sense to relearn how to play, research new playing strategies, and take a look at any new spells and abilities that weren't around when they stopped playing? Why not join a casual guild make some friends, do some quests, level up, get comfortable to the point that you feel ready to return to raiding and then app to the raid guild of your choice? Heck, my guild has a casual wing and returnee players that come back from time to time are frequently taken through the progression in order to level up quickly by other like-minded players, or by established players on their alts. I know this, because I did it. Elite players don't care about gatekeeping people from coming back to the game, that's a construct that you've created in your own paradigm. Every player I know is fine with more people playing, and we don't care if it's easier for people to catch up at all, that's where you're missing the point. We're just saying, it's not rocket surgery, the devs have already somewhat done what you ask, you just have to you know...do it. No one should expect to log into EQ after a prolonged absence and be ready to be a full-time raider again within a week.
Elite players don't need a crutch to return to the game. Unless you mean very lazy elite players or well more average players that don't plan on boxing much or at all. Start over on a new TLP server and you will have folks to group with as you catch up. This helps the lesser skilled players get back into the game because they have folks helping them out. TLP server eventually become live servers at some point and get mergers. Seems to me the solution is already out there.
Yup, TLPs continue to grow their share of revenue while Live continues to shrink. You’re looking at a future of mini-expansions for Live as TLPs continue to prove a better source of revenue for very little investment. Both Corwhyn and Bitene are blind, and continue to promote a situation on Live where people don’t return.
A new class could be nice but on the other side it would make class balance more complicated and about 50k equippable items would had to be adjusted. Some of those got implemented into the shroud monster system and others could be simulated by illusions. The shroud system is a great idea but it does just not work well so it should be revamped instead. I don't think that EQ does need new real races as the game basically is to old for that. Humanoid animal races like Vah Shir and Guktan are already controversial and do polarize the community. The Iksar were the only good addition imo. Drakkin were a rather weak creation as they are way to similiar to the human race and do look like emos. A new race should not be a monster race like mermen or vampires (which is more a curse than a race) or an extincted race like the Elddar which would exclude about everything. Coldain would be an open option but do we really want a nearly extincted race to be around in masses ? It is hard to find a good choice, centaurs could be interesting as they are civilized and part of original EQ and not monsters. An expansion based on the Karanas with the centaur as a new player race could be interesting. Could be hard to find enough class choices tho: WAR, RNG, DRU, BRD, SHM ? The god Karana could be also embedded.
Last I checked Coldain are just the dwarves that lived in the Velious area and they are no different then other dwarves. I see a complaint about Drakin being too similar to Human but Coldain are Dwarves that live in a certain area. Also what is controversial about Vah Shir and Frogloks? (Guktan is not the playable race) As for the shroud system that is just a template that your character uses and they chose to pick monsters and give them various AA to use.
Very true. Some people are willing to do unpleasant things in order to succeed in a video game. Others prefer to simply enjoy the time they play. I don't think that's what the thread is asking. Rather, a fix for problem of our expansion-by-expansion model increasingly punishing those left behind by diminishing grouping options, across an increasing divide, with a requirement to group because that's what content requires in its day.
Ok, I don't disagree with your statement. I see a lot of the same sentiment, and it's definitely understandable, however, I don't see a lot of viable solutions being suggested. They are making HC's start at 100, much closer to current max level. The emphasis on quest xp yielding big rewards 110+, I feel is a better solution to helping people catch up. That's a bit of a philosophical difference as I know some disagree. Personally I think that finding a solid group to go through the quests one time is far easier than trying to find groups over and over again to grind xp. Both of these approaches require grouping for the most part. Sure, some classes can solo somewhat effectively, but getting the quests done and maximizing xp that route will be your most efficient path. That's where I'm confused. I feel like these types of changes are more towards what's being asked for. Could they make more changes? Sure. However I would like to hear what people would like to see in addition to these changes. I feel like there needs to be a decent balance between making content accessible and making it be sufficiently challenging so that someone doesn't just click a button and they're max level/max AA.
I dunno. I think you are succumbing to a common fallacy. That of thinking more people in the world think like you and want the same things you do than there really are. DBG are not idiots. They are professionals with 22 years experience with this game. They have that wealth of data and statistics that show exactly what players want, at least in the macro that makes sense to pursue from a business perspective. And what those statistics have shown is there are basically two types of players in EQ. Those who have a main top level character and other toons/accounts in support of that character and those who want the start all over with a new character experience. Like it or not, the reality is that the live servers cater to the former and TLPs cater to the latter. It just does not make sense from a economic investment viewpoint to gamble time and resources on an attempt to woo new or returning players back for a fresh start experience on the live servers. I for one completely disagree with your rehashed content sentiment. Have I been a bit disappointed with some of the aspects of the latest expansions? Sure I think we all have in one way or another. But I far prefer revisiting my old favorite zones to see whats taken place in teh hundreds of years in game times that have passed since EQ launched. New expacs that create all new areas and all new races etc begin to strain the bounds of credulity for me. I keep thinking, wth were all these places all the eons Norrath has been around? Theres such a thing as going too broad.
EQ is very much in the category of bad business decisions, and it’s just a fact. They routinely make poor decisions. As a general point don’t confuse existence with competence. Establish businesses can very often times drive themselves into failure (pick your choice of can’t fail blue chip stock).
"Viable" could be subject to interpretation, but there's certainly no shortage of ideas. Just in this thread... 75-100 expansion Incentives for guild play Server merges Cross-server gameplay Character "time warp" High lvl rewards for old content Alt retirement -> Main reward Shroud/Monster missions Level-cap /picks Feeding mains from alts AoC as tribute vendor for raid gear 75-120 solo exp path/gearing path Trickle-down high lvl QOL to lower levels Fix low level/melee class balance issues 'Squire' reverse-shroud Rotating hot zones Zone consolidation Other things I've seen over the years Expand LDON/DoN/HA scaling and rewards Remove level requirements for getting group exp Autogranted gear as you level up Newbie server Dungeon finder/party-maker Automatic exp bonus if X levels behind cap Prestige/free account changes Many many more, I could keep going but you get the idea Know what we haven't seen? Management talking about it, or any development effort to address this issue.
Most companies have to pay people to brainstorm these kinds of ideas. Here they're given for free, and shrugged off. Pretty mindblowing.
There's lots of great ideas, but my feeling is that the dev cost wouldn't be justified. All of these ideas would help, but I'm not sure there is enough of a potential audience to pay back the cost of development. And it not only would it have to pay for it self, it would have to make up for the lost profit of the money makers they'd have to put on the back burner in order to get the dev resources, like developing expansions and TLPs. One easy thing would be to up the ZEM in the lower level zones so that all under-100 zones are hot zones. I'm sure the idea of hot zones to encourage grouping was good at the time, but these days the hot zones are pretty much just as deserted as any other under-100 level zone. I'm not sure there's much difference is in having someone solo in deserted hot zone X instead of them soloing in deserted random regular zone Y. By having all zones have HZ ZEM, someone could have fun exploring the whole world and make quick exp progress. This change would be relatively low effort from a dev standpoint and would greatly help people get to the 100+ levels where the rest of the population is.
Did you ever think that maybe the feasibility of many/most/all of these ideas is the reason we don't hear anything from "management"? Or that the playerbase doesn't want to take no for an answer? If the devs had to respond to every single suggestion to "fix" the game, they would have to have a dev whose sole purpose was responding to the forums with why or why not something was even possible, let alone something that falls in line with their vision for the game. For every "good" suggestion, I'm certain there are other players that can shoot down the ideas because of various reasons. As an example, in response to the first suggestion on your list, since it's already been announced that Heroic Characters are going to start at 100 in the near future, why would it make sense to spend any dev time on creating additional content for 75-100? I think many players, the ones that have stuck around and continued to play, would be put out by devs spending time on something like that, in the hopes that it may attract a handful of players rather than spending their time creating new content and/or fixing current issues like lag and bugs. I think everyone has ideas about how to save/improve the game, but the reality of the situation is most of them are either not able to be done, not cost effective for the benefit vs. the work, or are not in line with what the devs want to do with the game. Would it be nice if they responded to every idea posited? Sure, but I'd rather they fix the lag than worry about responding to every 2 bit idea that Joe Forum Poster puts on these boards.
Before a re-entry expansion the game needs to: UI revamp <OTW> Character model/animation revamp Then they can bother with thinking because otherwise people will turn away because the terrible UI or the terrible character models. No, most people don't think going from GW2/ESO/WoW/FF14 to Classic or SoL models looks "Charming or good". In the dream world that that all happened and they bothered: I would love a revamp that follows the current model of leveling through quests similar to ToV. A nice touch would be to add scripted boss missions similar to what we have now with currency rewards. Not requiring 6 people or anything but balanced around 2-3 players - Something some friends or couples can do leveling up. Just to spice it up and show people that the entire game isn't standing in front of a mob and hitting "Q" and AFK while a merc kills it for you.
There are a few ways they could do it. leveling to level 100 is pretty straight forward and can in most part be done moloing with a merc. Most returnies I've spoken to recently have been level 105+ Later this year we get level 100 mercs so this seems a good point to start from. Suggestion Next expansion everyone gets a free level 100 heroic 1st zone (also hub zone) has content level 100 - 115. It can be done if the zone is large enough, just look at the likes of Blighfire Moor. The zone has a higher zem than normal and can be used to catch up to the previous expansions last level. The zem doesn't work on chars level 116+ so the rest of the expansion has to be explored as this should be a level expansion and players shouldn't just level in the first zone. Also we don't want max level chars hogging all the mobs because it is the best zone to level to 120. We have also seen players asking for new playable races - Add 1 - 2 at the same time (all 16 classes), unlocked if you purchase the expansion, unlocker purchasable in the market place if you don't after the expansion has been released and have the expansion unlocked by a later purchase. This race is only playable from level 100+. This way limited older gear will need to be adjusted to accomodate the addition. Cannot use a potion to change to this race. This will hopefully enourage more players to start a char at level 100 to give those catching up more players to group with.
No need to wait for an expansion since we are getting level 100 Heroic Characters coming in Sept. I would assume the level 100 mercs go along with them Free or not is the question
