Future Content: A Letter from Director of Development Dave Georgeson

27 existing and 5 extra slots on one my one and only account which is a gold account

Here's my Wish List:

It's a huge game, but too much of it has become a ghost town. Revitalize what so many people loved.

1. Bring back Noobie Islands. Revamp and update them, and let people choose a Burb again.

2. Bring back the suburbs (hometowns). Give them their own quests, faction, unique housing, and faction merchants.

3. Guild halls are BORING and need variety. The higher the level, the more choices there should be.

4. Rush to end game is becoming meaningless and tedious. It feels like grind instead of achievement.

5. Revamp old zones with new quests, lore, and relevant loot drops.

6. Make certain quests, named npc's etc. only relevant if you are NOT mentored in any way.

7. Make some loot drops from each revamped tier the kind that can grow with you, but NO mentoring to get it.

8. Can we finally sell decorated houses please?

9. Give crafters challenges that require dedication, with rewards comparable to raiding requirements.

10. Let us change the walls/floors etc. in more housing.

I like the idea of having the expansion mean something more. I am a fan of the 'collector's edition' expansion sets for that little extra.

But make sure your deliverables are quality. If the weekly/monthly deliverables become too hard to maintain the quality, cut them back!. I would much rather see something come out every other week or so and be excellent then have something come out and then the notice of xyz character is out of commission or this zone or dungeon is not available right now.

EverQuest has ALWAYS been top quality.

We love content. We love making suggestions. We love this game.

Thanks

I am very hopeful that this will be an exciting change.
I have faith in you guys....You Can Do It!

/grabs pom poms

Honestly, I'd prefer to keep things as they are. Call me pessimistic, but I don't believe the proposed changes will give the players any real benefit. As others have pointed out, our dev team is already struggling, and forcing them to focus on these regular updates only takes attention away from more long term goals. We'll end up with a lot of small things no one really cares about at the expense of a robust expansion. At least the way we're going now we get fairly polished and decently sized updates every few months. If the size and quality of expansions and content in general is under fire then shift to a 3-updates per year schedule instead of 4. Preserve the large updates, they're much better than regular tiny ones.

This just doesn't get my blood pumping. I'm sorry. Bug fixes should happen all the time. Holidays we get already. Short adventures? What does that even mean? To me that suggests something like a single short quest, likely with dubious reward. Color me unimpressed.

This content at least could go either way. A new dungeon every month? Yea, ok, might be decent even though they won't have any new zones, no new models, probably no new scripts on the encounters, yea.... (and not to nitpick, but this latest round of fableds was 3 heroic instances, 3 raids and a contested heroic. 7 > 3). A series of quests? Yea, ok, that'd be fun. But the players are gonna have a very different opinion of what a series of quests entails than what SOE does. I'd expect at the minimum a series similar in size to the CoE sig line, or the vesspyr isles quests (all of them). Even those, which you consider to be huge amounts of quests, take a day or less to actually finish. Besides the fact I doubt you'll be capable of delivering that much content on a monthly basis, there'd be no time to test it! World events? Those would be great, we need more of those! But they need to be on an enormous scale. Portal activation events come to mind. Can you really plan and implement something like that within a month? I don't see it happening. And again, a 'world event' that we blow through in a few hours and done, well, it's just not a months worth of content is it?

The question becomes, then, will future expansions have the size, complexity and scope of previous ones? Will we get a RoK every year? Or will we still be seeing a CoE/ToV style expansion despite losing a huge amount of content during the year? What do YOU (SOE) consider an acceptable expansion. You've been extremely proud of CoE and ToV (and so you should be), but if you consider those to be acceptable expansions what reason do we have to trust you'll make them bigger and better in the future?

Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, this is another issue that needs more details. If you were to show us even a rough outline, or a brainstorm by the team to give us an idea of the scope of these weekly and monthly updates it'd be a lot easier for us to give feedback. If, as you say, the producers have detailed schedules for the coming months, give us examples, with real details. Without details all we can do is trust your ideas are the same as our ideas.


PS, you demo'd a new zone builder at SOE live that was supposed to make zone creation fast and easy. Stop telling us how hard it is to make zones and get this new tech implemented.

Love just about all these suggestions (I miss the suburbs too! 'Tis hard to work up hate against your former neighbors/friends, even if you're a "bad guy"), but as far as "crafting challenges," put those in the quests, not in the stations (sub-combines forced people to hope and pray someone else was playing at the same time; not always possible with some servers and schedules ["Where you can play OUR way--or the highway!"]. If they're brought back, let them be something we can buy from NPCs or make ourselves). :-/

But if the quests are cranked up, make the rewards comparable (free Rares for T4 as well, anyone [FEYSTEEL!!!!!]? They stopped that just when they were getting EXTREMELY difficult to find on our own, then eased up with later Tiers. Why the hate against T4?) in stuff and xp. :-/

Uwk

Another horizontal expansion plz.

Here's a suggestion on the regularly scheduled bug fixes idea: how about fixing the stupid "Looking for login server #1--whoops, kicking your butt out to the desktop" bug that's been plaguing us for how long? :-/

Uwk

Fully gemmed potent gear is about the same as the RAID energized gear and it is from the QUESTS in the heroic zones. RAIDERS are farming heroics for DPS sets and gems to make them sparkling and overcharged. Oh and some of the best in game procs dropping in the new SoS Fabled.....

Not to be too contrary but anyone can be just as geared as a mid tiered raider fairly easier. I would say etymas and the time sink they require would be the only obstacle but pickup raids are in current raid zones and crafting the gems cuts down on the number of etymas... I mean if you are looking for ToV weapons and mystical gear maybe you are SoL but no guild is exactly in full mystical.....

"progression" of gear is pretty nonexistent until you get pretty high up. Heroic dungeons can get your crappies geared alt ready to raid in a week? even with low playtime! Ask for some links of best available in heroics in channels!

I like the idea of having more done for all aspects of the game. The past year so much has been added to the game, that the expansion packs almost seemed to be an after thought to mark the beginning of a new year. It pleases me to see an effort will be given to make the expansion packs something great to look forward to again. The main thing I have been think about over the past 2 years is this though... Why has SOE moved away from releasing the games out on DVDs? I am sure there are important reasons for doing so, but many people out here in the real world have slow internet connections. Many of these big updates can take up to several hours to a full day + especially the expansion packs. This can hurt the little people out here that are stuck with internet providers that put limit caps on down loads. And we all know that adds BIG penalty fees for going over the limits. Just hoping someday SOE can bring back expansion pack DVDs. Aside from this point I just had to post. SOE is a great gaming company!! I have played many online games for the past 15 years, but I keep coming back to SOE- EQII So, please do not forget the little people out here. Keep up the exciting great work on the games. My family and I are looking forward to EQ Next as well!!

So alot of posts stating what they would want added/changed, and i totally understand that. Alot of the requests, concerns and suggestions are valid and would be GREAT additions. However teamsize prohibits things like re-itemization of older zones, making old content challenging etc.So alas i do not see that happening

I like the idea, and as someone already mentioned - in fact i think it was mentioned many times - this is a return to days of future past as this reminds alot of how it used to be.
As someone mentioned, but ill echo it as well, the only thing that can worry me is the size of the team vs. making sure that the content that hits the live servers is actually working, tested and bug free (i work w. computers i know ... )

Here is what i wish, Wish, WISH they would focus on the 1st month for the weekly updates.
Bug fixes, mechanics adjustments and BUG FIXES.

Since the change of everything Stats wise - i call it stats inflation - that came with ToV we still have buffs etc that did NOT get changed. Ie.
Buffs that pre switch of MA/DPS gave MA still gives MA etc.
Buffs that buffs a stat that WILL at this time be at least at softcap for that stat
Class Temp buffs that falls under the same category.
Epic class buffs/effects that due to the inflation of stats is ... useless (due to the low amount that was good at lvl 80 pre TSO)

The reason i think its important to fix the above is that alot of these buffs/temps from what i can see with the classes i play are abilities that used to be somewhat class defining and gave that class an edge/distinct feel... which are now rather MEH.

Mechanics ... things like the high end instances relying on Focus damage and Ticking damage, and still having the issue (which is like OLD as dirt) that reactive heals do NOT trigger from those kind of damages AT ALL, mind you changing them to JUST do that wont solve the issue so its a larger ... thinking that needs done .. like perhaps up charges with 30% And trigger of focus/dots/ticking damage.
Like tanking in the high end instances basically comes down to cycling death prevents, which leaves certain tank classes shining and others ... lacking (rumor, i dont tank at that level)
There is a lot more of this in the class forums

Supposedly Shamans are in a slump with their wards as well.
I know there is alot more and some of this is posted on the individual class forums, i ALSO know - from reading the priest forums - that people just feel ignored and have stopped even posting concerns etc. due to lack of responsiveness from devs.

Hopefully the Raid Council announced by Kander will change some of these things, HOWEVER .. it being a raid council i fear it might be top heavy so to speak.
Perhaps since we ARE in a throwback mode right now we could add in class reps again ? or ... heaven forbid, class devs who visits the forums and keeps in touch with the people experiencing the content etc.

... this got alot more long winded than i wanted it to.

I like the tendency of using old overlands as much as possible...

I would ask that as you age the old dungeons, you still leave the original dungeons in place for new players who are leveling up their characters as well. Would be sad to see that content removed so they can't also experience it.

I would ask that you maybe also make some of the older raid dungeons into solo dungeons for those of us who like to solo. Seeing as that older raid gear is no longer viable to end game raiders, don't see why you couldn't make that happen. Honestly, I wouldn't even care if you removed that old raiding gear for the solo dungeons, if that's an issue for people since they did work hard to achieve that gear. I just want to be able to run through the content, as I play the game to have fun, not for the loots.

I actually like the fluff, so if you were to put more housing items as rewards and less gear, that would make me happy, though I know not everyone feels the same as I do.

Things I don't care about? Junk that clutters my bank/inventory like fireworks, illusions, potions that really have no use, petamorph wands, etc. If these things can be sold to a merchant, that's great...everything I get that's sellable gets sold for coin, with exception of house deco and anything that can be transmuted.

I love new mounts, but really, can only use one at a time anyways, so I can take them or leave them...doesn't really matter, though the fact that they can be turned into house deco does make them highly desirable as well. I actually prefer wings as mounts the best, due to visibility issues. The less I have blocking my screen, the better.

Cloaks are awesome! I keep all my cloaks, with intentions of eventually displaying them all on mannequins in a future house deco job. Some people collect stamps, some collect bottle caps...I collect cloaks, lol.

Please oh please use 1 of the weeks to fix the BG's!!! 48 people unable to attack each other then getting locked for 5 minutes because you all get booted for inactivity is a waste of 30 minutes! I refuse to participate in Ganak anymore for fear of this!

There is actually a reason they have removed this particular command from every SOE game that may have ever had it. It was used inappropriately by kids playing their games, and is not likely to ever be made available to use again. This is one thing I can totally understand on SOE's behalf.

i was honestly wondering if thre are plans for a progression server or servers in eq2 like they have done in eq1?

I would like to see 2x raid zones. The little guilds seem to be forgotten. It seems to me it would be easy to knock down a 4x to 2x with a copy and tweak. Then again, I do not write the code so???

I would like to echo the sentiment that I hope that this means we can also get more low to mid level content as well. Been playing this game for years and years and have never had a character at max level at any point. My highest toon is the level 85 conj I created when we could create a lvl 85 for free and I've barely played it and it''s still at 85.

People would be surprised how many people love and play the low-mid level game. Show us some love please.

All I have to say is KUDOS on the direction.

But personal pet peeve is no OFFICIAL response past the initial post...Makes me feel like the user thoughts and comments are not really being received and noted.

In fact I stop reading any forum posts where you (SOE) has started the thread and then never bother to respond to user comments.

How about reworking the low and mid-level game? I honestly find doing that stuff more fun and rewarding than the inane grind towards the mythical "end-game" junk. The story lines have been good, don't get me wrong, but most of the time when I'm on my main, I get bored with it within an hour, and switch to play something else.