September 2017 Producer’s Letter: It’s Expansion Season

You people need anti-depressants. You're harshing my mellow, man!

The game is how many year's old and how many of us still enjoy playing it? why don't the bad apples learn to relax.. Have faith. Recycling is great for the world... even digital zones... been done for years already and not many complained. its still new content, mobs, loot... game is fun. enough said.!

Here's the thing with recycling - a consumer is frequently paid for their effort.

Consumers of media are rarely asked to pay for the same material twice, as it tends to rile up the natives.

No company gets a free pass to my money, they have to earn it. That's their job.

If you've seen a movie or watched pay television in the last 10 years, you most likely paid for recycled content.

Major false equivalence.

Its the thing of the future.. in corp amercia =\ Recycle old, make new again. Look at all the tv shows, movies as mentioned by Dude, and bout everything else.. even car's are recycled now, they take the old models, change a feature some times and call it a 2018 or so on but exactly same as previous year.

That some people are willing to pay for bad actions is the reason businesses continue to do bad actions. It's not any more complicated than that.

Every time this company does something that is obviously not right or not up to standards (which seem to have been continuously slipping for a few years now) and people not only defend their actions but continue to support them with their wallets the message received is not that they should do better, but rather that they don't have to. At least, not as long as there are enough gullible customers willing to put feels before reals and throw good money after bad.

I don't personally care much about individuals here. I really couldn't care less if people get upset because the naughty guy said some meanie words on the forums. We aren't friends and I don't feel obliged to lie for the benefit of strangers. I do care that another version of Norrath, one that I've been playing off and on since launch, seems to be lethargically sliding into darkness and so many people are cheering it on. This bothers me greatly.

KA raid and heroic zones happened. Then they came up with expert raid and heroic zones. Ninety percent of the loot drops go to alts or salvaged. None of the weapons are needed. Any jewelry that is under 1000 pot never goes to a raid main. We're just in there for armor pieces and a few 1000+ pot items as upgrades. We might get a raid mount, but nearly everyone has and they'll start going to alt armies and grats to the person who gets the highest /random.

I would really like to see some of the bugs that were introduced with the last few expansions get FIXED before another new expansion or even mini expansion gets added.

Seriously...now the frigging FLYING MOUNTS are galloping in place when they should be walking. The patrolling wraithguards in Freeport look ridiculous. Daybreak needs to fix ALL mounts so that they walk when they are supposed to.

Next..how about fixing the loading so we don't fall through elevated tiles and such when logging out and back in. That bug happened when the Alter of Malice was introduced, and while it was a bit unstable it was crashing people out.. the THerm on AB was open that day, and characters were getting crashed out of the game, coming back and drowning as they were cought by surprise by that bug, we quickly figured out to just warn the newer arrivals to /house if they came back after crashing.

New material with this expansion? Suggestion... Vah Shir alt appearance for Karrens. And give us the choices of Lion,like what would have been in EQ next sans the Scoobie doo look, .... and Solid back or solid white colorizations too.

It would definitely be necessary first to eliminate all errors before they bring the new addon now they have the opportunity or possibility, but if you look at Discord looks like a dev named Chrol over laughs that the servers are not go or bugs in the game must be wondering if these people are still portable for the company. Personally, I find it a shame when a dev stands up and laughs at us.

Whether the team is small or big plays no question there are also Big Small Companies who can not even cry around but have to do their job because of this, the ladies of Daybreak also get no less money. What I want to say is simply the performance for which we all pay does not agree with this where we get.

I have rather the feeling the new addon will again be a kind of rip-off at the end customer and that makes me then sceptically skeptical continue to play eq2 and then it will synonymous time after 12 years look around for another game.
With the team around Kander, there will be no more improvements, and many ideas will also depend on other deviants at Kander. The question must also be why the team does not enlarge, funds are already available the revenues are not small perhaps also straight people with this Dev team to work, not in vain many people have also gone because it did not fit in the end.

And what is urgently needed is a support which also helps and does not respond to questions or answers these with a stupid response and the tickets does not help here anyone. There are many construction sites the EQ2 has and the takeover is worse and worse with Daybreak.

I feel like we're stuck in some vicious cycle right now. I imagine the devs beeing called upon to come up with more 'creative' ways to let players spend more and more real time money.

Of course nobody knows for sure, but what I really, I mean really dreading is the recent idea to follow the spell progression like it's now with the ascension spells. Going from journeyman to adept to expert to master to grandmaster with who knows what abysmal droprates of the ingrediences needed to craft the spells, so that some people will use DBC for sure to upgrade them.

I can only speak for myself of course but I won't do that. So if my sages, juwelers and alchemists can't *easily* craft these spells for my alt army, because the droprate is like for ascensions and I not spending DBC on upgrades, my two raiding characters won't be raiding anymore, I guess. Which is the only thread keeping me in this game, because my glowing passion for the Everquest franchise is almost gone.

And here we are in our vicious cycle again, maybe there are people like me who just won't carry these design decisions anymore, leave the game, the devs need to find more 'creative' ways to make up for that, more people leave...
And yes, it is really strange that there are still people who immediately jump at the opportunity to cheer anything on muttered by a game developer. Not only here, in all games - never understood that really.

Exactly - there hasn't been a new concept/idea in years, TV the same thing!

Basically, it also happens in every single game developed.

Once you log in (mmo or sgl player) and kill your first mob, it's duplicate content from then on.

The only differences are shiny new skins/animations and a few alternative attributes.

Once a script is applied it alters the mobs actions a bit but the basic skin remains that of similar mobs.

Trying to keep an MMO interesting for decades is no small task - I don't see a lot of the complainers taking on the task themselves actually.

There is always something to do in EQ 2 that a player has not done - I don't believe there is a single player in game that has done everything there is to do in this game.

The new xpac may be reconstituting old content but that is what happens in our daily lives to just about everything we do, watch, see and experience!

I really don't consider anything that SOE or DBC has done as game breaking bad. I'm still here..right? I don't have a lot of expectations for video games except to keep going and not sunset and provide me with a bit fun in my spare time

Beyond that, I'm pretty much okay with every game out there. I simply don't care or sweat the small stuff...cause...It doesn't matter. IT IS A GAME...not the end of the world as we know it if DBC changes this or that.

I thought Caith was the producer? Did she change avatar name or is this a new producer?

Also surprised the game has a producer at all at this point.

I'm pretty sure Caith is not a she.

Tuesday the hype was real for me for PoP. It's not taken long at all for it to be stamped right out though...

1. The Eeyoring is beyond ridiculous any more - in game, forums, discord - all of it. If you are THAT unhappy - LEAVE. Seriously, just go. Don't come back to tell us how we're all fools - just leave.

- "Here is a buff up to level 30 Potency!"
- "UGH!!!! I ALREADY HAVE THAAAAAAAT."
- "Here is a buff up to 35 Potency!"
- "UUUGGGGHHHHH, THIS IS MORE WOOOOORK."
- "Okay, here is-"
- "I'M BOOOOORED. There's nothing to do!!!" *waits 3 minutes* "There's too much to doooooo!"

With this type of feedback, it's no wonder several of the devs just don't bother responding anymore. I wouldn't either! Maybe it's the age of the game, maybe it's the "passion" of the players, maybe it's just summer blues - whatever, it's exhausting, and it just keeps getting worse.

2. I main a dps class. What I am keeping a close eye on is how Daybreak approaches AGRO management. If what I saw last night is any indication, it may be time to start shopping alternatives.

Expert Gorious. My agro goes: 28...29...30..100-DEAD. No in between, no chance to do anything. I get a rez, and IMMEDIATELY get spanked back down.

The tanks are ready to walk because they are tired of their abilities not working as advertised. Rescue is not rescuing. Snaps are not snapping - not with people pumping out more and more and more DPS.

The DPSers are angry - cause it's no fun when you have a link + 3 dehate adorns on and you cast one spell after waiting for the mob's health to go down by a full 5% and BAM YOU'RE DEAD from IMMEDIATE 100% agro.

Then it degrades into "the dps'ers are responsible for their agro" VS "the tanks aren't keeping agro." Which gets us nowhere at all. DPSers can't manage their agro if it jumps from near nothing to 100 with nothing in between.

Rumor is that ascensions will go up to 14 next expac along with level increase and abilities upgrades in general. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE give us the tools to manage our agro - both as a DPS to control it and as a TANK to maintain it! Without some love there, the frustration is just going to continue to get worse.

I'm looking forward to seeing what the next expansion will bring - but it's a weird feeling this being the first time I want to see what's in it before I automatically buy it.

This is where I'm at, too. I was expecting the producer's letter to contain some actual information about the expansion, but basically it was an announcement to tell us about a coming announcement.

A much lengthier version the original false equivalence.

A simple explanation of why it is one:

If I go to a new movie, I can be reasonably certain that when I sit down I will be watching new material - not a ten year old movie with a new title and credits. If the latter happened, I would ask for my money back, and inform friends of the chicanery.

When I purchase a game, either single player or persistent world, I do so with the understanding that it's unlikely to change daily to be fresh and new - that's what expansions are for, or the part 2, part 3 etc.

There are remakes of old movies, reruns of old TV shows, reprints of classic books, even bands will remix/remaster old songs - but none of these are presented as 'new' and you know exactly what you're purchasing.

That is not the same thing as approximately fifty percent literally previous content, forty percent recycled/reskinned content, and ten percent content resembling new being promoted as an all new expansion - especially when the pre-release presentation contains almost no actual information and relies primarily on nostalgia/habit for sales.

If you're satisfied with the reuse design, that's your prerogative, however a lot of folks aren't and those lack of sales will affect your game - food for thought.

Just like it's the prerogative of others to expect new content and not be dismissed as complainers by those who have much lower expectations.


TL;DR: Reduce, Reuse, Recyle =/= New, no matter what spin you put on it.


(Nope, I don't get paid to come up with new content. It's not my job to do so. It is the job of those I give money to. I do, however, help run a couple of RP venues as well as run mini RP modules (d&d style) for my friends)

Not true - if this is what you think happens when you go to a movie you are mistaken.

EVERY movie made in the past 10 years has not been original material - it has all been remade/rehashed from previous movies.

Feel free to name a single unique/original content movie you've seen...

Last I checked, Caith has dangly bits.