Producer's Letter: Coming Right Up!

Absolutely yes. :-/

With the right guild, it can be fun to group, but for the most part, I detest raids and power-leveling, and will never willingly do PvP unless it's for defense (my main in WoW, who'd vowed as part of his backstory to never enter the Battle Grounds, still got the first, bottom-most rank in PvP combat just defending The Crossroads). I've picked up oodles of tips and tricks for soloing all on my own, and even resented the whole "merc" idea, as if we were incompetent to do this on our own without sharing all the loot and XP with an NPC (don't even get me started on the "starting at level 85, with everything done FOR you up to that point, is really super-peachy-keenoreeties! Take it from official us!1!!" idea. Me, I like to play the game, not have it play in front of me, but that's my 2cp [and nope, I don't like many cut-scenes. Enough of that, already, especially if you expect us to get in a huge fight right afterwards. It sucks, o Powers That Be]. Yes, I played a Deathknight in WoW, but it was fairly well-done there [started at 60 or 65 when we had a level cap of like 80 to 85, so we had a good long run], and I had already started with other characters from 1st on up, so I knew what I was doing, and what the game world [and STORY, gasp!] was like).

If we get to truly "play our way!1!!!" like we've been promised, that's my way. Solo. ;->

Uwk
who will help out guildies and whatnot when they request it, but resent people assuming I need/want to power level when I'm happy where I'm at (and still not bothering to buy any expansion from AoD on, since there's not much point for my under-85th toons) ;->

Quick additional question about the start-at-85 bit: if you start there, and the level cap is 95, won't that make people more apt to leave a game they've only spent 10 levels in (15, if it goes to 100)? I can just about guarantee that if it's offered on F2P, people might take 2 weeks instead of 1 to go from 85->level cap, then leave 'cause they're boooooorrred. This is going to get and keep new customers? Are they trying to kill off EQ2? :-/

Oh, yes, absolutely. /nod

Well, except for having to spend beau coup silver back in the day for silly boat rides; that added up at lower levels. ;->

But I do miss the starting tutorial island; most of my 38 toons started that way. And having access quests to get to places, as long as the transport after that was free, could be pretty fun.

Uwk
who doesn't remember corpse shards, since play for Uwk started with a dedicated group of buddies already around...2006? (which included a Healer/Rezzer ;->)

Except for tiny fact that the amount of ACTIVE 1-85 population is intensely dwarfed by the level 95 ACTIVE population. Kind of important in a massively multiplayer game.

The basics can be learned in a matter of hours by anyone who is trying. Faster if they played any other MMO ever.

No just more people playing with other people in a MMO. And people get LOL NEWB'd out of groups now. There is no huge learning curve here, either you are good or you aren't and it will be apparent within a few days if not hours. Everyone likes to think leveling from 1 to cap has this immense learning benefit but that hasn't been true in MMO's for about 8 years if not more.

I'm just generally amazed by how many people are objecting to more potential players of the appropriate (populated) level to play with. 'But some of them will be bad!' Considering some of them are bad now it really doesn't make a difference.

If this is done properly, the following things will be done:
a) Contested Kael will be added to the dungeon finder window. That zone would be a great starting heroic zone for heroic characters. Even unlock teleporter access maybe so people can go in and move around the zone if multiple groups.
b) Newly started toons need atleast DoV Heroic gear. Probably the stuff around the 5% Pot/CB level. They need to have enough crit chance for all DoV heroic zones. Nobody will want to go through all of DoV as a requirement. (Yes people will enjoy it, but don't make it a requirement).

Make these true, players can start at 85. They can solo in GD if they want, or they can dungeon group and go to Kael. From there, 85-90 is quick enough, 90-95 in Skyshrine, You could potentially be from 85-95 within a day if you got good groups etc, and Kael/Skyshrine as a certain extent to learn a classes abilities.

Contested Kael is min 90 right now. And I think that's probably where you want it if we're doing heroic chars. Otherwise they're just gonna xp grind 85-95 in Kael them Skyshrine and likely aren't going to learn anything about their class or group play. Nothing wrong with having them run some SF zones like Library and Conservatory to get used to game mechanics, their class/role, and group play.

Kael is 85, I just did 85-90 with a toon in there...

Oh...thought last time I tried it I couldn't zone in lower than 90. Though can't remember how long ago that was. Well, then there's really not a ton of difference between heroic chars to 85 and heroic chars to 95. Just a couple hours of xp grind groups where you learn nothing.

Kael has:
Mobs with AE's the require curing
Mobs that memwipe
DPS Checks (to some extent)
Mobs with Scripts (If you do them at correct level).

I see this teaching a player more about most classes at end game than doing the DoV solo questline, and realising that you could /merc attack /afk your way through the quest line. Otherwise all that happens, is people hit 95 or whatever, go to do a HE group, or an AoA raid etc, and have no clue at all.
Giving people the opportunity to be thrown in at the deep end is sometimes a lot easier way to teach people. Especially, as a lot of heroic characters, will be long term players anyway who have a general clue.

I miss the days of the Down Below, killing the Rat Queen. Low levels use to be fun when there was so much content you had to go through. Now you have to choose to go through it and you level too quickly. This is Everquest, not rush-to-max-levelquest. It has been a sad sign the past few expansions that the devs have given up. We want content to make the game fun, screw making things easy, this isn't WOW and that is why we play dammit.

Reaching level 85 is not a "hard-earned accomplishment". Not in 2013. There are so many ways to hit level cap just by grinding dungeons or even entirely inside Dungeon Maker zones. Leveling 1-85 can be done with zero effort, just patience, so let's not call it an accomplishment.

If you told me you:

• Completed all the Chains of Eternity zones
• Did all the Skyshrine zones
• Completed all 400 quests in Kunark
• Cleared Veeshan's Peak with 4 players.
• many other examples

I see those as accomplishments of endurance or skill or both.

Most of the abilities you use at level 95 aren't available at level 1 or 20 or even 50. With Prestige, endline AAs, or just spells you get late in the game, the game changes quite a bit for each class. Look at your character at level 50, and then compare to at level 95. Also, 1-80 content is now so easy, there is no need to use all your abilities. You just use the 2-3 typical attacks and bam the mobs are dead.

Ok, here's a totally unscientific chart...

• The players on the left are perfectly happy to play EQ2 solo and no matter what SOE does, they will continue to play solo.

• The players in the center are grouping or raiding, either duoing, in small groups, in large groups, or raiding. These players have a level 85+ character and are enjoying the game.

• The players on the right are forced to solo to 85 before they can group. Some are leveling an alt. Some are new players to the game. To them, level 1-85 is a roadblock between them and playing with friends.

The two groups on the left and center are happy and aren't looking to leave EQ2. The group on the right is frustrated and more likely to move on to another game.

Yes, of course there are exceptions and on very large servers like Antonia Bayle and Freeport, there is some grouping at 20-70, but this is the exception not the rule and should not dictate how other servers are setup. And again, I have made it abundantly clear that there are steps the EQ2 team could do to make 1-90 relevant, with enough difficulty to keep people from falling asleep, and rewards that are useful at level 90 so that the time spent leveling doesn't feel like a waste of time.

EQ2 has 9 years of fantastic content, but the only reason to play it is to read quest and NPC dialogue. That's not compelling enough when facing off against the avalanche of dynamic, interactive media and games which have become available in the last decade.

Oh

I am a social player who enjoys the stories and dialogue on some quests because they are well written stories. I couldn't care less if the lore matches or if it has anything to do with EQ1.

I have watched crafting be systematically demolish in favor of end game because someone seems to be under the delusion that end game is why people play MMOs. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I have had more friends and acquaintances leave out of frustration waiting for bug fixes, nerf rage and promised changes that get left in the dust by end game priorities. The housing is one thing that has kept me from leaving all these years. This really is the best game on the market that has something for everyone but seems to be narrowing it's focus to a niche and getting other play-styles to keep wandering to other games in hope of finding that remembered camaraderie of years gone by. Nerf loses many, they might learn to add instead of taking away all the time.

Unmonitored level chat costs the game more new players than anything else, from my perspective.

/shrug

That chart groups all newbies soloing out of necessity.

A true new player I would think "enjoys the journey" whatever it is. I certainly did and I didn't group a lot leveling up my first toon in 2009/10, for the same reasons as today.

It's repetitiveness that causes boredom and it's being social by grouping/raiding that makes that repetitiveness easier to do.

Feldon a couple of things. Coming just from me of course.

I have played since about 4 months after launch. Solo'd, grouped, and raided both casual and hardcore. I am looking at leaving EQ2 due to the fact that there is no skill needed any more. Back when I first started it was not an easysauce game. I remember doing "These boots are made for walking" without mounts, without fast travel. It was a challenge and it was an accomplishment to get it done. There is no accomplishment anymore. I have PL'd alts from 1-95/320 in a weekend. I don't need to do any of the quests except the ones for Epic and ER. Other than that questing is obsolete (which is why so many were upset about the huge sig quest for CoE). I feel that the game and development is now on auto pilot and SOE is just looking to make the last bit of cash they can before EQN comes out

I know I am being redundant here, but I guess I am in mourning for what was and not what is. I wish SOE had listened to its dedicated veteran player base over the years and not removed elements from the original core game that made so many of us passionate about it and wanting to keep playing it. By removing some of the more challenging aspects of the game to attract a new type of player all they accomplished was having that new player point their finger and laugh saying the game was way to easy and therefore, said player didn't stick around for the duration.

Why did people group in all zones in the beginning?
1) Heroic mobs roamed the overland zones like Antonica. You had to group back then in order to do quests successfully.
2) Traveling was much more challenging. We didn't have global travel bells, call of the veteran, or an enormous array of fast mounts. It was rare you saw someone with a horse because they were expensive. In fact, I don't remember eq maps being around then nor did they have the shaded areas etc you see on the in game map now.
3) If you died you had to go back and get your shard. If you didn't then you didn't not recover your full abilities. If you died in the middle of some heroic mobs, that could be a challenge.
4) There wasn't a marketplace where you could buy potions, travel scrolls etc.
5) There were no repair kits, so if you raided you had to have 2 sets of gear with you.
6) There were no xp potions, recruit a friend bonuses etc.
7) We didn't have mercenaries.

I am sure I have missed some things, but you get the idea. Before all these changes people wanted to group together. You had to and I made friends with people I didn't know beforehand and it was so much fun. The whole reason for an mmporg is to group and help each other. I just feel that by trying to remove the learning curve from the game, they just took away the challenges and goals that were born from those challenges. The very audience they were trying to reach came and went so fast it would make your head spin. Guess SOE will never learn. I am feeling nostalgic, but I know that if they had stayed true to the core elements of the game we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. Instead, we would be playing it and having a great time.

Feldon,
Your assumption that the soloing veteran players on the far left will stick with EQ2 regardless, is the same costly mistake that SOE seems to be making, which is the same costly mistake that some cell phone companies make. To assume that you can neglect and/or disregard maintaining a good product/ service for your existing customers for the sake of attracting what you *hope* will be many new customers, is a foolish gamble.
To borrow from Poor Richards Almanac,
A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
OR to put it in Norrathian
The silver in your hand is worth more than you'll earn from playing that Gigglegibber Goblin slot machine game.

Agreed.

Mizgamer,
You are not just being nostalgic. You have described well what made EQ2 so successful in its first five years. Instead of trying to do what every other MMO was doing, they made a challenging, immersing experience. It was tough, but it was worth it. People were willing to endure the toughness because they weren't worried about their gear getting nerfed.
Change can be good, but it's not always good just because it's change.
Just because a tree remains a tree, doesn't mean its not changing and growing. Not everything has to be tranformed into something drastically different to improve.
In my more than 40 years experience in the work force, drastic change is the hallmark and method of new managers trying to build their own reputation rather than actually improve the product.

I agree with some of the grumbling about the changes, but as a dedicated soloer, I like the options available to us now with overland travel ("city" mounts from New Halas, Kelethin, Neriak, Gorowyn) and the World Travel Bell, although strangely enough, I would've preferred keeping the access quests and just having those areas "show up" on the Bell travel map once you did them.

Yes, horses were expensive; they still are, buying them from the mount shop. And mounts way back when sucked, frankly; paying plat or 100s of gold plus 1000s of status was a bit much for a 25->40% travel speed increase.

Call of the Veteran only really applies if you're a Veteran of X years (6? 7?) so that doesn't necessarily apply to everyone. I don't remember shards, I remember being resurrected by my cleric buddies, or going to a rez point and having to slog back to where we'd been (shards sound like from EQ1, or very early EQ2).

I, too, am leery of all the Marketplace functional items...seems like we're sliding down the slippery slope of pay-to-win, and I've never liked the concept of mercs; I can actually leave my house without needing others to hold my hand, whatever my class (I just have to change tactics for a mage as opposed to a fighter, for instance), and I LIKE that ability...you must've had the gods' own blessings on you for pickup groups, Miz (it seems there's been a shift in the demographic of PUGs these days; they lost a metric tonne of paying accounts over the disaster that was Pro7 [important questions with way too long with no answers], and they're desperate to make up the numbers again, including appealing to Other Game players...and not just WoW). Personally, I often find myself soloing, as one signature put it, for the same reasons I don't go grocery shopping with children. ;->

Some changes, I think, are for the better; don't tell me anyone misses the days of sub-combines and killer crafting stations. ;->

What dismays me is the things that got "fixed" that didn't need it (the AA restructuring nowadays is a disaster to the point it's hard to tell when it's actually buggy, for example), and the things that need it, don't get it (how long have we been waiting for ______ [fill in the blank] to get fixed, but everyone's ignoring our pleas about it?), but it could very well be that everyone's opinion on those will differ. /shrug

Uwk

I understand some of the peoples concerns, I really do.
but really it's no different than it is now. some people are awful at 95. And It's not a "powerlevel" excuse. some people could powerlevel a toon in 2 hours and play it greatly better than someone that took 8 years to get a toon to 95. I never understood why people think length=better.
Soe is talking about trying to get more people here in the game. I know people are like "but stormhold has soooo much lore and storyline!" well than, go do it yourself. the fact remains that if you add up all the people that are actively doing 1-85 (lets even go 1-90). than it probably doesn't even come close to the amount of active people in the 95 ring. This game is all about max level nowadays, what you do at max level is up to you, but you most likely won't find anyone else to do stuff with in the lowbies

And why is it that all that is left is a few 95 and there is no growth ? Think about it lol read your own words. People spent 8 years building a toon to 95 and still are no better than those powerleveling. Maybe just maybe getting to 95 isn't where people are going for years and years. There are some that like that level and being the best they can be as an adventurer but the world was filled with those who weren't going there and gave up and left. That is where you groups are, that is where the fun is the shared experience of learning and helping each other together. That can be done at any level.