Future Content: A Letter from Director of Development Dave Georgeson

Discussion in 'News and Announcements' started by RadarX, Jan 31, 2014.

  1. Uwkete-of-Crushbone Well-Known Member

    We do have the /sitchair command now; what I want is a /liedown (the word is "lie," people, not "lay"; it's a perfectly good English word, there's not a thing wrong with it) command, so we don't have to drag in our Monk/Bruiser alts or buddies to test the length of a bed we're re-sizing. ;->

    Uwk
    Belenos likes this.
  2. Oberrill New Member

    It is nice to see that a lot of time is still being spent developing EQ2. Having said that I agree with some others that fixing what is broken is more important than adding new content. Yesterday I completed two quests in Zek that did not work properly. One stopped updating at one point so I had no idea what needed to be done next. Information on ZAM that was almost a decade old told me what needed to be done so I was able to finish.
    The other one worked fine until the end. I did not receive my reward. It was supposed to be "shining in the grass", but after about 15 minutes of searching well beyond the druid ring, it just was not there. A search of ZAM told me what the reward would have been. I would have sold it anyway, but wasting time looking for what is not there is unpleasant.
    For me, endgame content is least important.
    Of course you should do what will make the most people happy. You guys probably have a better idea of what that is than I do.
    Keep it coming. This is the best MMO I have played. I plan on playing it until it dies or I die.
  3. Oberrill New Member

    Indeed. Lie, not lay. I hear the improper use of these words almost every time I hear either of the words. I do not understand the difficulty of understanding the proper usage of lie and lay.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone and Belenos like this.
  4. Avahlynn Well-Known Member

    I, too, would like to lie down. I'd also like the sitchair command to work a bit better so one need not inch and step, go back, try again, etc, before actually sitting and not hovering mid air over the chair.
  5. Borke New Member

    Here is my suggestion for new content. There is a fair amount of stuff for the crafters, but you can play the whole game without even touching these skills. Make the crafted gear worth making, but make it harder to make and introduce a level of skill and strategy. The crafting has no jeopardy and at times just be a grind. Whilst questing and fighting named bosses and some mobs you need to adopt different strategies for each. How about doing this for crafting? The closest we come to this is having to commission other crafters to make stuff you can't (which is a pain in the ***, rather than fun). Revamp the crafting and introduce different skills that have different effects, you then have to work out which skills you need to employ to make a specific item, the same way you use different spells and CAs for different mobs. Skills can be learnt from the factions and NPCs through the tradeskill quest lines. Give us daily quests to make sub-components that we can sell on the broker for those who don't want to grind.

    The main improvement should be the gear / recipes you get as a top level crafter should should equal or be better than those that can be picked up in dungeons or raids. But to keep them scarce, the materials should be hard to come by, either rare drops from bosses or ultra rare from gathering in dangerous areas. You could also craft the ultra rare materials through long or complicated sub-component recipes, where a fail would destroy your progress.

    For example a Vesspyr Battle mace needs Vesspyr Iron, some weird Drconian crystals and refined fuels. I can either get the iron and crystals from named drops, or I can refine Iron, then add steel clusters to make Norrath steel, then combine with Feysteel that has been alloyed with Cobalt cluster to make Norrathian Bluefey steel etc... several sub elements from lower tiers are combined to make a new element that can either be brokered or used to make the next step. A failure at any step results in the total destruction of the ingredients, this introduces the jeopardy and the complexity makes sure they are not churned out too easily. You could even introduce curing and cooling time to the sub-component recipes to make sure that the masterpiece crafted gear takes time to create and can't just be farmed out. Refined fuels also let you add complexity to crafting. Buy an existing fuel, then using an appropriate station, combine with gathered materials to make new fuels, the jeopardy comes when you get it wrong and it explodes, killing you, damaging your tools / gear and incurring an XP debt or proficiency debt.

    You could also add more tools that can be made from quested recipes that allow you to build specific rare gear, which are also hard to make. But you have to remember hard should mean requires skill or judgement in choice of tools, crafting buffs and using the best skills for the recipe, not the ability to sit there for 5 minutes just bashing 6, 5, 4 with the occasional 2 when something goes wrong.

    To keep the very top level gear that crafters make rare, then make it no-value and heirloom only.

    I have even more ideas on how the crafting part of the game could be improved without really needing to alter the mechanics if any of the Devs are interested. (Sorry about the length of the post)
    Feara likes this.
  6. Paradox New Member

    New or updated epic weapons!!!! Epic weapons, or Epic weapons, or new or updated Epic weapons, or Epic weapons. A quest to update our Epic weapons. See where I'm going here. ;)
  7. Paradox New Member

    Oh yeah and btw you killed all of the previous 95 gear with ToV. almost no one would spend money on the previous 95 gear when they can just go to ToV and spend a day or two and get the new quested stuff. Any ideas there? Oh and Epic weapons, or quests to update Epic weapons. or Epic weapons. lol sorry. ;)
  8. Carynn Well-Known Member

    For someone who has never played end-content or raid, content should be broad enough for all play styles. Please don't take away things again, like you did with the content in the underground and within FP and Q and the starter islands. Simply because you "think" people aren't playing these zones doesn't mean it's true. That being said, adding the option to purchase level 85 heroic characters for those who do want to skip that content was a good idea, as was adding mercs so that those who prefer to solo or play with a partner can participate in content not available to them previously.

    Overall, I would rather have weekly small bug fixes, monthly big bug fixes, refinement of current quests to fix bugs and remove badly designed steps (e.g. Tupta faction purchase item for White Dragonscale Cloak), and Quarterly world event/lore related content added to the game that perhaps leads up to the yearly xpac. A new round of quests for every holiday would be a good idea, too.
    Bibbs, Feara and Uwkete-of-Crushbone like this.
  9. Rainmare Well-Known Member

    The problem is that's how it originally was. all the crafters were interdependent, and the crafted stuff was pretty comparabled to dungeon drops. and most of the playerbase despised it. they considered subcombines 'tedious' and 'wasted time' and didn't want to deal with other people to get components for thier own combines. (Armor needed padding from tailors, metal from the armorsmith, temper from an alchemist, for example) The Forge used to be the #1 player killer from failed reactions.

    People didn't like it. and crafting became what it is today. and had it not been for Domino, we wouldn't even have 80% of the TS quests that are in the game now.
  10. Kellean New Member

    just read the "great news" from mr georgeson....
    as we all know soe ,it may be to late to change something for the better..
    why i am so pessimistic ?

    the devs of eq2 were so blinded by their creation the void story ,that they didnt see ,that the game lost player after player.

    after the real good expansions kunark and faywder we thought that the moores expansion was just a not so good expansion . because soe startet with the recycling of dungeons for groups and raids. what we didnt knew ,was that every expansion after that it was getting worst.

    i thought coe was the top of everything....all dungeons the same for solo ,group and raid...the hunt for obol and ghosts to upgrade armor and stats on raidarmor that devided the game into raidgroups and normal playergroups...

    but i was wrong i must admit ... tov made it to the top easy ... now you have the same like you had in coe , but only a tiny offdungeons zone with just one real questline.. to make it worst ,you can ,at least from advanced zones,only loot things for the class you are playing the dungeon (not to mention, that you only can loot some armorparts in a special zone)..great things for all the twinkers)

    now again ,why i am so pessimistic ?

    some weeks after tov release my friendlist is almost empty,many guildmates arent on anymore,and i know that it happened to other guilds too.

    maybe the devs will change the speed of some things ,but what is it good for ,if u run faster or longer ,if you are on the wrong track ?

    the only thing thats left for me ,ist to beg to the soe devs ...

    please make content thats beside raids and heavy scripted heroics . you showed before that you can do it.
    make us to play more hours,because we loose our sence for time .

    i played some mmorpg over the years beside eq2 ,and no game had a packet over all like eq2 ,but they had some real nice ideas ,and some parts were a lot mor fun to play . so just take a look at those games ,and make eq2 a game again.
    Arnamentia likes this.
  11. Morilina New Member

    with the a goddess risen event it seemed like we were going to be getting a new deity (goddess) to worship and nothing ever changed. many of us were hoping that it was Erollisi Marr. please give us her as a new worship-able deity. myself and some others have been holding off getting a deity for some chars because we keep looking for her to be opened.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  12. Haloek Member

    As someone who like lvling Chars I would like to see some new lower lvl stuff as well perhaps in the next xpac? I am seeing a trend emerge COE you added BL Class but no new 1-90 zones to play through. The same thing for Channeler with TOV. I don't know if anyone else agrees with me but I feel like I am not even really playing a new class without new zones. Every new race they added they added new zones for lower lvls why not classes too.
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.
  13. Belenos Well-Known Member

    1. Agreed! This is especially important for those of us who consider ourselves "explorers" first.

    2, 3, 4. Agreed!

    5. So very true! This needs some attention badly! I went through 3 (5 hour each) tracking scrolls camping for Matri, by logging in and searching the entire continent multiple times each day for a week, morning, noon, night, middle of the night, you name it. Nada. I finally decided "Hey, this isn't fun anymore" and just gave up. Now I find out that people know, and sell for plat!!, the approximate spawn times and true locations (incorrect information given to fan sites? on purpose maybe?). Well, this is starting to sound like a real bit of dirty business to me! I have seen people post that they have the elite merc on their main and on alts too--continuing to camp the mob for all alts. Seriously?? Now I know how they are able to do this!

    6, 7 Agreed!

    8. Must strongly disagree here! I am a Founder and 7-year (from Day One) veteran of Vanguard, and while the Vanguard crafting system has good points, it has bad points too! Let me explain:

    Coming here from Vanguard, I tried the crafting and at first said "Real-time crafting turns! No, no, no!!" In Vanguard, crafting is turn-based, and there is no time limit on your next turn. If you want to take the first turn, then go eat dinner, you can come back and take your second turn just as if you never left. The old forge will wait patiently for you. But one thing I noticed as I struggled along with the real-time system, was that it was exciting! Not being familiar with all the counters, I was scrambling around like mad, trying to counter correctly, actually paying attention. As I learned more, and got better at the process, I felt a sense of accomplishment at now being able to craft something with a sense of confidence that I would be successful. The only thing Vanguard crafting has that is comparable would be the "complications" that pop up, dictated entirely by the RNG, and for which you can do very little--even if you counter it correctly, you will still be penalized. If the RNG is going badly for you, no matter what you do, you will fail the combine entirely. Getting back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-back complications leaves you sitting there with all your action points bled away, with nothing you can do but quit the combine. You're all done now, sorry old chap, better LUCK next time! Sure it is rare, but when it happens, it is demoralizing as Hades.

    Sure there are good things about Vanguard's crafting system--but the system they use for "complications" is the devil. No thank you!!

    9, 10. Agree mostly, but be very careful with the old zones. Some of us DO still use them! I ran Butcherblock one time and hated the zone. I have no intention to ever level another toon there! In contrast< I really like Nek and Thundering Steppes, (edit: and Enchanted Lands!) and level all my alts there. I just finished leveling my Coercer from 20-31 in Nek last night. In Nek, I can complete Lore and Legend quests for golems, elementals, treants, goblins, ghosts, shadowed men, giants, (probably forgetting more) plus learn Krombal (giant), goblin, shade, fayspeak (again, probably forgetting more) languages, and I can do this while leveling 20-30ish at a good pace. I love Nek--Nektulos is awesome! Please be very gentle with older zones!

    Finally, revamping older dungeons is great AS LONG AS IT DOES NOT MAKE THE LOW-LEVEL VERSION DISAPPEAR FOREVER! It makes me sad when a low-level dungeon disappears forever! If you need a good example of what happens, look no further than Vi'Rak dungeon in Vanguard. What was an awesome 35-level group dungeon was revamped to a max level dungeon, with a few ultra-rare drops. It was camped for a while till max-level players got the drops, then became a waste-land, never used, forgotten. Leveling dungeons have far more replay value than max-level dungeons which will be farmed-then-forgotten. Make revamped dungeons a different instance, with the original dungeon preserved, and all is well!
  14. Taffeta Member

    I know some people might roll their eyes at this, but what I would LOVE is a nice, CHEERFUL new zone with the next expansion. The last few we've had were beautiful zones and all, but they were also very gloomy, with a kind of negative, sinister bent to them. For me anyway, it's actually depressing being in them too long, which is part of the reason I have largely avoided doing the new content so far. I know that goes along with the whole storyline, but that's also part of the problem. It's SO negative. I'm sick of beating back the forces of darkness ALL THE TIME. I want more positive, fun, upbeat questlines that aren't all "kill kill kill!! Evil evil evil!!!! Why can't we get a little happiness and lightheartedness back into the game? I want a new zone that's actually a joy to be in, not another one with depressing music and thick, muted color trees and jungle everywhere you look. I'd really love another desert zone like Sinking Sands, or maybe something similar to Lesser Faydark. Something sunny and warm. It would be SOOO nice for a change.
    ramblinrod, Bibbs, Gilasil and 5 others like this.
  15. Ainaree Well-Known Member

    I am very concerned that such an aggressive update schedule combined with the demand to work on the next expansion is too much for the cannibalized developer team we have. Not only will these guys have to think each week what to innovate, but get it done, and probably have a dozen or so other things to do on any given day.

    A producer's letter with this sort of ambition really should come with the message that they're hiring on some new people, or stealing folks from all the newly cancelled games.
    Feldon, Feara and Uwkete-of-Crushbone like this.
  16. Rhapsodic1 Active Member

    Raid mobs have been changed drastically since release. First wing.. complete joke. 2nd wing was completely broken when first gained access, and some mobs still are. You released labs, MO, 3 princes without achievements. Labs is what.. a pre AS raid zone?, 3 princes is broken because you can bypass most of the script, MO is a lag fest. Avatars are a joke. Draazak is a joke because its not even contested. Why do you have it in public area anyway? In my personal opinion you can do more with less. Do no push more content on us that is going to be broken on release. Take the time, or delay content if needed, but make sure it actually works.
  17. Abasinolanam Active Member

    I echo the concern of quality delivered on such an ambitious schedule. How about instead you develop an online feature request system where people can go suggest features and vote up/down on them, and when a feature gets a determined number of thumbs up, you commit to giving it your full attention for the next possible deployment? It's easy to be discouraged when we have a good idea and we don't really know if it's something others wants, and putting it on /feedback gives us no feedback on how the idea is taken. Also, a voting system will show you people for and against features, instead of only hearing from the people that hate what you're doing. I, for one, didn't see a problem with the system you were doing with content spread out through the year.
  18. Rhodris EQ2Wire Ninja

    I'd be on board for this. I never, ever go to Kunzar Jungle, the Feerrott, or Loping Plains - way too gloomy - and Lavastorm is the absolute worst place ever. Sinking Sands is my favourite zone, along with Sundered Frontier and Tenebrous Tangle. Why? They are all light and bright. One of the reasons I gave up raiding was because of the dark, depressing dungeons.

    Talking about crafting sub-combines, my alchemist made a STACK of plat (back when it was pretty difficult to get hold of) by making pristine inks and quills for sages.... :D
  19. bedford New Member

    I am glad to see that SmokeJumper has not forgotten us. It's a shame he couldn't post here himself but a copy/paste is better than nothing and a sure indication the EQ2 is headed in the right direction again.

    I thought his Battlegrounds, Dungeon Finder, Design your own Dungeon, Stationcash and Free to Play were really Cool.

    If we can just get that sort of thing on a monthly basis then the servers will be full again in no time. I heard that voxels will be the next big thing, maybe we could have some of those?
  20. Alenna Well-Known Member

    I would love to see another big bug fix on that monthly updates of yours it would go a lot into Customer satsifacion
    Uwkete-of-Crushbone likes this.