Why so secret on ZEMs?

I mean the "Great, they nerfed the fun again." is pretty common amongst all MMO devs these days, to be fair. Fun isn't profitable. Fun doesn't keep you playing. The addiction does. The addiction fades if we let you get to max level and max gear faster.

Considering what DBG clearly views the average shelf life of a TLP to be... I wish they'd just let us have fun. They're going to try and tempt us to play the same thing over and over again every 1-2 years anyways, and never experience the content beyond what we all remember in the early 2000s.

My venom towards DBG (and SOE before them, and Verant before them, it's not exactly personal) is relatively high, but I suspect you're asking the wrong guy. People who make this decision are on the money side. He's not going to be at liberty to discuss that, or worst, might lie.

But follow the money. For example what if DBG had arrangements with these websites who we can't discuss who do the RMT thing, and get a cut (these websites operate on subscription). What if they had arrangements with people who make those programs we can't use and get a cut. What if they could sell more xp pots? What if they could sell subs for longer before people drop them and/or more krono?

Follow the money, take wild guesses.

Who told you we were getting increases?

Here are the patch notes saying nothing about increases:
- Many original EverQuest zones have had their experience modifier adjusted for balance reasons and/or to encourage variety in leveling.

I liked this post because of this paragraph. Ngreth is generally one of the good guys and gets a lot of hate because he's on here and talks. Unfortunately (and I am to blame for this as well) the messenger tends to get shot.

The rest of your post is rampant speculation and kinda silly. Is it impossible? No of course not, but it's also really silly. Could Microsoft have contracts with assassins? Sure. Easily. They make plenty of money to do it. Do they? Lol.

Yea I'm sure he's not going to be at liberty to say, but he was the one who answered earlier so I just directed my question to him. You're right though, follow the money.

Can you prove they're not? Doesn't all of their actions seem like they're designed to maximize profit from aftermarket sales?

The distillate thing, isn't that just another way to get us to buy marketplace clarity pots, which only sell well in early classic? Have you ever even considered using one once you have an enchanter box?

Every aspect of this game, from the moment it was launched, appears to be more about aftermarket sales than it is about selling subs and expansions. From the horribly slow XP, the rationing of content that has been created and paid for long ago. To marketplaces, and open word limited spawn camps that are easily held by small groups of institutional players.

I guess the question would be why WOULDN'T they make money this way, and just use subs as a paywall to keep out the riff-raff?

If there is no money there is no game.

The live server playerbase has done a very good job between subscriptions, in-game transactions & buying expacs to keep EQ rolling, but I'm not convinced on its own that would have been enough to give us the last 4 years of development.

Progression exists because it is one of the best monetizations of existing work ever invented to resell a product. You can probably make a convincing argument that progression is a big reason EQ is still developing overall.

EQ was a pioneer and leader in mmo-gaming. Many games that followed purposely followed or strayed from EQ design elements.

What things has it been first/leader on since LDoN? (I'm sure there are some, but there's lots of newer but already gone games that did fresh things in that time too). The really obvious one to me is offering niche ruleset servers that replay the game's "golden age".

When current giants of gaming reverse their years-old stance that they wouldn't do progression and are now developing a separate progression build of their game, you know the EQ team that pushed the progression agenda has been vindicated.

I know that for me, if they lowered the ZEM in any zones by even 1%, I will cancel all my accounts, cancel all your accounts, burn down the servers, and blow up the Earth. Because I can handle playing on a server with 50% of the exp rate of Agnarr, but not if the ZEM in Unrest is 5% instead of 7%.

Science! You forgot Science Ngreth.

You'll find me at Paw if I am playing. Love me some gnoll lariats for pets! I mean I know I'll have make a whole 20 minute run, Egads! SK is such an awesome leveling zone with a couple neutral vendors, one of which you can't even ruin the faction with.

The devs are not saying what the ZEMs are because they set them on a randomizer. Daily, the script runs and sets the ZEM for original zones between .8 and 1.5. Therefore, camping at your "awesome camp" may be the worse xp camp tomorrow. #DevGoals

That would actually be a neat idea for a race event server.

Start at classic and unlock immediately when bosses are downed, randomize all ZEMs every X hours, race to 100!

If this was about money, the devs would/should focus on stuff like better/more cosmetics rather than just try and slow the game down. That makes no sense from a business perspective to try and do.

EQ Players are typically in our 30-40's by now, if not more, we have tons of money to spend because we are all adults and have been for awhile. What we don't have it tons of time to enjoy the "classic" experience with. Especially not on an accelerated TLP.

So please stop with these silly XP roadblocks. People go to Unrest and the Guks because of drops as much as mob density and ZEMs.

So if you want us to space out more, you will need to redefine the entire drop table for classic. (which we all know are not going to happen) - just hitting things with the nerf bat and give us lame answers like "Exploration" is just insulting to me as an adult. I can handle the truth, even if I likely don't agree with it, but can you handle providing it?

Also if in some zones will be more than 10ppl this result lowering ZEM for 50% so ppl will need to change zone and go to unpopular empty zone to have 50% more exp

Oooh...dynamically lowering the ZEM of a popular zone! I think you are making the devs drool now!

Sarcasm at its finest

Inc 50% exp pots on Coirnav!!!

Better quit commonlands is down 5%
Nek Forest is down around 3 - 4%
Most newbie zones didn't change.
Good news blackburrow is the same zem

LoL ... I'm still going to level up multiple alts/boxes on Coirnav because bad experience or not, Everquest is what I do more than anything else in my free time. I'd be willing to bet that the same people complaining on the forums about experience modifiers will too.

I'm 6 boxing a team since I've realized I always quit mid luclin on any server I play on anyhow.

I don't know the makeup yet but I'm thinking an entire human team.