Community Letter: A Note from Jennifer Chan

Congratulations to a challanging new positon within the Company. We expect good things you know? I have a few things on my own wishlist. Like many others I hope you focus on fixing existing issues before releasing new stuff. My main is a lvl 110 Carpenter templar. At the moment she is quite stuck trying to progress her tradeskilling. Please don't forget the tradeskillers and solo players. Could we please have some more "normal" looking houses/mansions with outside area? Also a couple of prestige portals like TT or Vale of Halfpint Delight would be smashing. Running through the gigantic portal places make me feel the opposite to claustrophobic! Decorators need to be seen and heard! Thank you!

Much Congratulations JChan and welcome! Someone with your devotion and experience with EQ is a blessing to the game and to us players. I have no doubt you’ll do a superb job! But I guess I should also add my deepest condolences for landing a position that puts you at the bullseye of the complaint target.

After reading the comments above, I apologize for adding my own concerns to the list, but since you’re the one to talk to, here goes. Like many here I started with EQ1 close to its beginning. But after years of play, I grew a tad disillusioned when developers* started catering to hard core raiders to the point that the words “casual player” were used as an insult and synonym for “incompetent player”. (Ironically, raiding guilds regularly poached our casual guild of “incompetent players” as soon they reached a high enough level.) Fortunately, just as I was ready to quit the game, two new games came out: WoW and EQII.

EQII released with the promise that it would offer at least half of its contents to casual players and that raids were limited to 24 players, not the 74-75 or more that had become necessary in EQ1. I was thrilled! But WoW went further. I soon heard that a soloist (then pretty much an EQ synonym for sociopath) could actually play the game and reach the highest level ALONE!!! THAT was unheard of!

So, I subscribed to both games.

Now WoW became such a hit that Blizzard had trouble keeping copies of the game on store shelves. Seems lots of other people liked casual play. But I soon found I just didn’t have enough time to devote to two games, I had to choose between them. I chose EQII.

Why? I liked the graphics a bit more than WoW’s but, more importantly, I LOVED the tradeskilling. Yes, even back in the days of the infamous WORTs (washes, oils, resins and tempers) I LOVED it. You could make neat things you could actually use!

Which brings me back to my worries about this game. Since many of my specific problems have been addressed above in more and better detail, I’ll simply summarize:

1) tradeskilling (the main reason I chose this game over WoW) now seems broken; and

2) casual players again seem to be ignored (the reason I left EQ1).

I haven’t bought the new expansion yet. I’m still thinking about it.

Your help in communicating our concerns to the rest of development staff and the decision makers would be most appreciated. We don’t need another expansion. We need the ones we have fixed. (Again, PLEASE put the levels back on harvests!)

*At a Las Vegas EQ1 convention the developers’ panel invited a room full of players to offer suggestions. All but one of those players were hard core raiders. The one casual invitee was Woody Hearn of GU Comics.

Does this not show what the majority of players in EQ2 are then? For the ease of math lets assume 100 players were the "room full" at this convention. 99 of them raiders, 1 non-raider. So as a business it doesn't make sense to offer 50% of our resources to 1% of the population.

The only objection I have to that is that there are entire guilds, like Crafting Critters, Pulse, probably more which tend to spend quite a bit when there are new crafting items in the DB marketplace. Items that haven't got a thing to do with raiding, like all the Frostfell presents, which you raiders probably didn't get. Personally I have alts who have the entire library of prestige houses, except for the Frostfell snowglobe, yes it's neat looking, but still to expensive. I'm also still listed as a silver member, thanks to RL I can't do more than an occasional Krono, and no I don't make near enough PL to buy it from the broker. So while I may be that 1% we're an important 1%, without which most of your fellow raiders wouldn't have places to rest. Places like my Guild Door Bar, still published after all these years, which still receives trophies on occasion. Who knows, maybe the next EQ festival will end up with more crafters than raiders.

You are absolutely correct!
So let them keep doing things the same as they have been the past say 5-6 years and see what kind of population they have then.
BoL is just the tip of the iceberg, the problems run much much deeper with the company as a whole.

How long ago was that Fan Faire? GUComics hasn't been updated since 2013 so I'm pretty sure Woody may not be playing in Norrath any longer. Just curious.

No it doesn't it just shows what the player base of EQ1 was like 10-15 years ago and a reflection on which players could make it to Fan Faire ( fyi at the time raiders were in the majority), I doubt that is the case for EQ2 now.

Las Vegas Nevada, October 18-21 2012 (1st SOE Live) according to https://archive.eq2wire.com/showthread.php?t=638339

Although that was the last Fan Faire I'm aware of that doesn't mean that there hasn't been interest. Almost every NOTD event since then someone brings it up. As to Woodys fate, I have no idea, it's possible they're still online somewhere, but that was 8 years ago, and it was under SOE, not DB, or DP. DP = Dark Paw. At the time I was not able to afford to go down there as I didn't have a job in RL, still spend too much time on this game.
{Big hint if you really need volunteers ask, I might answer.}

Sorry for the confusion my footnote caused. It was based on a very old message board post of Woody’s I read years ago. He was trying to make a point about the neglect of casual players.

It was my understanding from the post that, before the convention, certain players were invited to attend a developers’ panel. Woody was chosen because of the great popularity at the time of GU Comics. It wasn’t until later, at the actual panel discussion, that someone in the room asked for a show of hands on who had been to a certain new high-level raiding zone. All hands went up but Woody’s. He seems to have been the only casual player they had invited.

I read it as -they INVITED only raiders- to the suggestion panel, except for the one casual player, and that seems to be the case from her clarifying post. Not that there were only raiders there to begin with, but that the raiders were all they really wanted to hear from.

Well my two cents in this whole thing is I hear a class balance coming in April if this virus doesn’t take us all first lol, whoever is in charge of this set task might wanna check and double check what they put out cause I see this as a make or break kind of thing.

I don't care for class balance... one class will always be better at something that the other character classes. Otherwise why have classes ? One character shouldn't be trying to do everything.

Thank you, thank you, a thousand times thank you! For putting back the level information on harvests!

Welcome

Belated welcome aboard! I hope we'll all get along well!

But everyone skipped the most important question: what's the race of your char(s) and are you edible?

*hides in a corner real fast*

[цитата= "JChan, сообщение: 6600467, участник: 702970"] приветствую Норратцев,

Прежде чем мы погрузимся в мясо зверя, которое является моим первым общинным письмом, я должен сказать, что с большой честью и благодарностью был назначен следующим управляющим EverQuest and EverQuest II. я следую линии легенд передо мной, и я намерен привести пример и нести факел в меру своих возможностей.

Я с нетерпением жду, когда мы узнаем друг друга больше.До вступления в должность нынешнего руководителя студии Darkpaw Games я был техническим директором в течение последних 6 лет для EverQuest и EverQuest II, а до этого я был программистом для франшизы между 2008 и 2013 годами.

Я хочу заверить вас, что смена караула не означает изменения планов в EverQuest II. мы движемся полным ходом вперед на нашей Дорожной карте за год с большим количеством нового контента в магазине.

EverQuest собирается отпраздновать свой 21-й день рождения, и это честь быть благословленным любовью и преданностью, которые вы все имеете для франшизы, и с 21-м годом EverQuest, это означает, что Chronoportal придет, и у нас будет больше информации об этом в ближайшие несколько дней.

Команда планирует внести некоторые серьезные изменения в Overseer с предстоящим обновлением игры в апреле, включая компонент выравнивания и новый сезон, который добавит некоторые новые слои в Overseer.GU также будет включать в себя некоторые изменения баланса классов, о которых говорили в прошлом, и, несомненно, это будет хорошее время для укоренения!

Мы внесли несколько изменений за последние несколько месяцев (и больше сегодня с текущим обновлением), чтобы помочь с общей производительностью и стабильностью сервера, с большим планируемым на будущее.С новым расписанием исправлений и исправлениями производительности мы надеемся увидеть заметные изменения во время вашего игрового опыта.

Наконец, команда уже начала планировать расширение 17, и некоторые из идей, которые они готовили там, серьезно забавны, и я с нетерпением жду, чтобы поговорить о них, когда мы приблизимся к выпуску.

Теперь, есть еще несколько вещей, которые мы будем обсуждать в ближайшее время, как новый проект Dreamweaver готовит для вас, плюс несколько дополнительных сюрпризов, в том числе планы на сбор поклонников этим летом.

В целом, я очень рад за этот год и то, что мы запланировали для EverQuest II, что у нас есть в магазине для будущего франшизы, и я не могу дождаться, чтобы пройти эту дорогу со всеми вами.


ваш покорный слуга,

Дженнифер "Чань" Чан
Руководитель студии, Darkpaw Games

[/цитата]иЗдравствуйте!Без развития ПВП Вы ничего не сможете сделать.До тех пор пока сотрудники поддержки будут задвигать тему ПВП в самый низ популярности не бывает.Сейчас Вы теряете время и возможность набрать игроков.Дайте мне почту руководителя я напишу план развития игры без денежный затрат.

I'm amazed the author of this thread hasn't returned to comment.

I bet she has a lot going on right now.

Yep. Chasing after @ttobey and keeping him under control when @Dreamweaver is busy has gotta be a full-time job for the whole team!

she must be run off her feet, if she hasn't found a minute in the last month to return to this thread.