The reason more people (myself included) didn't jump all over you for these two questions is because you're new here. These very questions have been asked (and answered) ad-nausium since well before CotF release. To quote agent Mulder: "The Answers Are Out There" -R
What I would like to know is: Is this the last true update we can expect for the expansion? If not, how much more can we realistically expect? (GIVE DETIALS PLEASE) If you know we hate the broken up micro content why do you keep making it in this fashion? (Will this completely change in the next expansion cycle? I know productions like this take a lot of planning but when can we expect a change?) Others have made entire threads on what we want, ill just summarize my general thoughts. For tier 1 I considered the current content a decent tier 1 for an expansion. It is accessible and allows people to catch up; also it has great xp hot spots. As tier 1 I like it but it’s just too little as a standalone product. Tier 1 should not be the focus of an entire expansion! Now tier 2 seems abysmally small and it seems doubtful that any further tiers can be made before the next “expansion.” I simply cannot believe the more limited content of late is not a result of anything but a depleted or cannibalized EQ team. You need to show your biggest games some love or your customers will move on. If EQ is going to suffer this limited content from here on at the very least let us know…
Honestly. After what I saw in beta Keep your "content update" to yourself please. All I see is a bunch of power reduction and nerfs. I don't see any worthwhile content in here that gets me excited. I see me and my friends getting considerably weaker. And less content then what's currently on live
What do I want from the rest of CotF? Real content instead of worthless drivel. Clearly defined tiers with separate zones to play in rather than T1a and T1b. The way I see it, we're roughly 7 months or so into the expansion and actually only have 1 actual tier with mostly worthless spells and AA's. What would I like to see from the new expansion? A discounted price to make up for the over-inflated price that we paid for CotF. I'd like to see an end of making player characters weaker while powering up the mobs to insane levels. I'd like to see a clear definition of class abilities again rather than the almost complete blending of classes that's been called "class balancing". I'd like to see a complete expansion that's got difficult enough content to keep hardcore players happy yet simple enough content to keep the casual players interested. If mercs are here to stay, I'd like to be able to designate some of my XP to go to my merc AA's even if my merc isn't out like we used to do with leader XP. Most of all, I'd like to feel like we, the players, ARE actually being heard rather than getting lips service while being mostly ignored. You've asked repeatedly what we want so, I'll repeat... 1. We want EverQUEST back with actual progression rather than a few scattered "Heroic Adventures" that bore us to tears while we repeat them ad nauseam. 2. We want the nerf bat put through the shredder. 3. We want clearly defined classes and abilities. 4. We want useful spells and AA's. 5. We want each class to be able to fulfill thier specific duties. 6. We want complete content. 7. We want true honesty. 8. We want to be heard and acknowledged. 9. We want to enjoy playing EQ again. 10. We want to bring in new and returning players. 11. We want to keep supporting Sony Online Entertainment 12. We DON'T want to feel like we don't matter. 13. We DON'T want to feel ripped off or betrayed. 14. We DON'T want to feel embarrassed to invite others to play because EQ seems to be becoming a watered down version of WoW or any other MMORPG. 15. We DON'T want to feel like you're trying to slowly phase out the game that a lot of us have played and loved for well over a decade. EQ was at it's highest player base when... 1. Class roles were clearly defined 2. Each class could actually fulfill thier specific duties 3. Class-specific roles and abilities were mostly innate rather than requiring 10 billion hotkeys and better than perfect timing 4. There was enough content to keep folks interested and engaged whether they were hardcore players, casual players or anywhere in between. 5. The Nerf Bat was a very rare sight, rather than constantly swinging at random. In short (too late, I know), we want to enjoy EQ again. EQ has lasted this long because it WASN'T like every other game on the market. Please don't drive us away. Please put down the Nerf Bat, stop watering down class abilities and honestly listen to the player base.
Mercs have been in EQ since 2008, and no dev has ever hinted at the possibility of their removal. Wrong. EQ was at its highest player base when: 1. It was new. 2. It was revolutionary. 3. It had no competition.
I think you'll find the majority of players here are running into the same issue. The expansion cost just as much as every other expansion, but the content has been sub-par when compared to every other expansion out there by far (in amount, difficulty, intrigue, and almost every other way possible). We have four zones, two of which are useless and blocked off aside from requesting HA's. We're getting one more, with no defined timeline of what is to come or what is planned. I think we all feel a little betrayed at the notion of paying for something that wasn't clearly defined and that fails to meet almost every player's expectations. We had faith that SOE would deliver something on-par with HoThule, VoA, or even RoF. Unfortunately, that isn't the case. I understand the EQ Dev team is getting tight, but the cost hasn't nearly been justified by the sheer lack of content that we're seeing here (from a consumer perspective). The partisans are a joke (so easily completed, no time required), the group events are a joke in length and complexity, the HA's are a small linear path of clearing mobs just to see parts of zones you didn't put effort into unlocking and populating in the normal version. I've had every group achievement, as well as every raid achievement, in CoTF done for some time. Our guild is now at the point of finishing the remaining RoF achievements simply to entertain ourselves. That shouldn't be the case seven months into an expansion release - the last should be well behind us, and we should be fully enveloped in the new. Most of us box or have multiple accounts - we've dropped hundreds upon hundreds of dollars in expansions and subscriptions, only to not have any idea what we've paid for and so far been summarily disappointed with the entire Dev team at this time. So, transparency would be nice. Give us a timeline of content releases (subject to change). Let us know how many zones, tiers, and raids you have planned to finish out the expansion. This would go a long way with the EQ community. I wouldn't dare purchase the next expansion if it was released in the circumstances that we have seen with CoTF (zero information and a leap of faith.) If you want to stop the outrage, just give us some information about the next six months. Is that really so hard? We plan on releasing X number of zones to finish this out, with X number of raids. Here are the few details we know. Its fairly simple.
What do I expect? If we are thinking tiers, 4 tiers of difficulty, from the accessible in tier 1 to small group content in tier 2 to full including mers tier 3 to content that challenges a full group on attentive players like in powar. As for raiding unless raids are designed to challenge a full raid of decent players I see no place for it WE DO NOT PLAY EQ TO FUND EQNEXT. Assign some proper resources to this game and stop focusing on catering to multi boxers. First few tiers should be box able, but upper tiers should not be easy for half the group being one person while the rest of the group are mercs (who are chronic under performers)
I can't be truly honest & speak my mind because I'd get banned or at the very least told my posts aren't constructive (nothing new there, the mods seem to hate me & my brutally honest posts) but suffice it to say I am very, very unhappy with SOE corporate especially Smed & all the other members of management. I will not play any other SOE game now or in the future & I highly doubt any other current EQ player is foaming at the mouth to play EQ Next or H1Z1 or any other SOE game based on how you treat your one true success & the best game SOE ever made. I'm embarrassed to be an EQ player lately with all the nonsense that has gone on & once my gold time runs out, it's highly unlikely I'll renew it. I feel like this is constructive & on topic but I'm sure SOE MOD-02 will disagree & remove it regardless.
I wonder if SOE thinks that by strangling Everquest that it will get us to move on to their newer games like EQN, H1Z1, or PS2. Maybe for some. But I would wager more of us are playing Everquest because it is Everquest, not because it is just another MMORPG to play. If Everquest was to go away or to spiral downwards endlessly, I don't see myself switching to one of those before mentioned games, I just won't play MMOGs anymore. I bet the same is true for many people.
I got a reply from Dave Georgeson on Twitter, the director of the Everquest franchise. Disclaimer: I hate twitter because of the 140 character limit and I'm not good at condensing sentences that short, it makes me feel like a caveman typing. https://twitter.com/EdrickEQ/status/464321788751519744 @DaveGeorgeson In "Future Content for EQ" you ask "But what do you think?" We hate it. Want ex-paks, not 1 zone releases. We feel forgotten. @EdrickEQ we are doing a full expansion this year. Plus all the other stuff. What is it you're missing? @DaveGeorgeson Missing information. Anything that would inspire confidence. All we know now is 1 new zone Thanks for the reply Mr. G. The guy is crazy pumped (in a good way) about Landmark, and I know he's passionate about it, so maybe this is something we can do to get answers since the boards here are just lacking of them. I know he's focused on Landmark, but if we can (politely, please) converse with him on twitter we might get some news that would answer questions. I like his response because he's actually answering a question instead of ignoring or dodging it. It feels... strange.
Delivering good quality on the last exp pack in a cycle is really going to be too little too late. The goodnesss should have been delivered at latest by the tower of rot release, and by goodness I mean increased number of raids, increased zones and more AA. The power reduction feels like more preparation to sell us new AA that put our power back to where it was. EQ is in a destructive cycle right now, and I am glad to be using up my coin for subscriptions rather than paying real money again which to be honest I am now unlikely to do. I promised myself if this expansion did not delivery it would be my last and well.... I stopped playing about 2 months ago due to boredom.
Here is the rub, and it might sound like I am sticking up for Sony here but more like I am putting the players on blast a bit: When you say "costs as much as any other expansion" are you meaning through out the lifespan of the game? Lets say Velious or Kunark cost 40 dollars all that time ago. In today's dollars, accounting for the usual inflation...those expacs should be 100 dollars or so. Maybe more because energy costs have outpaced normal inflation. Granted, technology has yielded some savings and they don't have to press CD's or retail boxes along with all that shipping, so perhaps 70 dollars might be about right. So when people say they are not getting their money's worth...well. That can be debated. If we want a huge expansion of the size of past ones, then we need to pay what it actually costs to develop it and I doubt the players are willing. I can hear the grumbles now: "I'm not paying 100 dollars for an add on to a 15 year old game...blah blah cry whine piss moan etc". I think we get just about all we are willing to pay for although the challenge is a bit lacking. Everyone is so used to the price point remaining the same and for the most part it has, only we get less for our money. That is why they try to nickle and dime us every where else, which would be fine if the money went just towards EQ. Most people probably would say it doesn't. It just goes in the big pot of money for the development of all games, and perhaps a few rounds of golf, some trips to Vegas, some pub crawls...etc....
This is what actually concerns me more than anything else. To have the audacity to "bundle nerfs" in the same patch that is releasing content that is under heavy fire already - says one of two things to me. A) No one really has the PR skills to begin to "grok" why this "bundling" is just a plain "bad idea". or B) They do understand, and our feelings really are that insignificant to them. ( I agree that it's easier logistically to bundle "nerfs" that are ready, with "content" that's ready. But the easier way, doesn't always equal the smart way to to things. -Rat (shakes head and walks away muttering)
I know quite a few people who feel the same way, myself included. I decided i would give COTF a shot hoping that they would right the ship, but it appears we are going to get more of the same. Frankly SOE, I no longer have any fatih that you will deliver a true larger content expansion following this one. I rarely use the word regret in EQ because the vast majority of my time and experiences in EQ and with SOE have been favorable, at least up through VOA. However, I absolutely regret buying COTF for four accounts, I should have been smarter and just got it for my main acount, but that's on me and I have learned my lesson. I will stick it out through the end of this expansion because of my friends and guildmates, but understand it's not because you are providing any content worthy of sticking around to play.
