Community Letter: A Note from Jennifer Chan

Hello and best of luck. Make Norrath Great Again!

Hi and welcome to the hot seat! Very much looking forward to seeing what comes next. It's been a fun ride these last two decades - long may that countinue.

Hail and well met, Jchan. I know you can't lay out the internal strategic goal/vision for the franchise, so thank you for the introduction and updates.

Some suggestions moving forward:

• Improved communication - whether it's a bi-weekly update from @Dreamweaver timed to coincide with server downtime (when folks visit the forums with nothing else to do), or a Dev update from Gninja/Kaitheel, it would help calm things down.
• As part of improved communication, capture a roll-up of comments made on Discord by Red/Purple names. Dreamweaver does his best, but when Kander or Caith make a comment on Discord that never officially makes its way to the forums, it only creates additional confusion and angst. Copy/pasting by self-anointed "white knights" is not a substitute for this.
• Implement a bug tracker, and keep it updated. With the reduction in CS staff that tells players to "seek help from other players or submit a /bug report," there are often pages of submitted bugs that have no identified status associated. If a bug is tagged as planned, in-progress, or even noted as not a bug, we'll at least have some idea of what's getting worked on.
• Respond to the reports from Test. Like the one over the weekend about the infuser charging plat when used through the UI... that still made it to Live.

I'm sure there's other great ideas out there in the community. Most of mine deal with communication and organization - hopefully improvements there will translate to an increase in player quality of life.
Best of luck in your new role and I look forward to seeing what improvements are soon to come!
P.S. - Get @ttobey under control, I think he nicked the gin from Holly's drawer!!

Welcome, Jennifer!

So nice to see some specifics so customers know what they can expect going forward - Thank You!

Wish you much success!

P.S. Yet ANOTHER leveling system? I realize this has probably been in the works for awhile, but there are far too many of these cursed things already - just say "no"

So with all this "hype" of greatness and great things to come. Please excuse my ... reluctance in being as excited as i perhaps should be.

Lets instead look at the current state of the GAME itself, where for the last 4 months we been crippled by server issue, game issues related to BoL, we are 1/4th of the way through the current expansion and so far raids are still not working as intended, every new update brings new issues with old issues not ever being touched nor fixed.

I hate being the pessimist but i think its about time we see some action instead of promises...

Im still waiting for something beyond words, hype and empty promisses.

Regards

Welcome to the front JChan!

Suggestion:
As already said above, it would be great to know what exactly is being prioritized or worked on, since we only get to know once we read the patch notes and this leads to frustrations.

Also, we can be vocal but it's because we LOVE Norrath!

Best wishes!
Sharann

I don't find this reassuring at all if the current state of the game was part of that plan, unless the current road map is a dead end.

Welcome to EQ2 Queen of Tatertots

Welcome! I see the note about a leveling component to Overseer, Tread carefully there DPG. Your leveling of everything from mercs to mounts to now cumulative mercs ..familiars. You can and will take it too far at this point. I don't know how much money you are making from the cash shop from these ventures but I play your game and I talk to people who do. You're losing subs with this approach and if the cash shop folks can keep this game afloat then by all means, carry on. If you rely on subs then its time to talk a more critical look at this approach.

Nice to "meet" you! I'm glad to see that someone is taking the reigns who has been involved with EQ/EQ2 for as long as you have. Someone's who has put that much time into this franchise will treat it with love and respect and that's the best we can hope for. Now... about that wallpaper behind you on that photo... I can haz? ;-)
But seriously, it's great to see that there are plans in the works. Of course with Holly's departure the whispers started up (again). Thanks for hopping in and letting us know a little of what's happening behind the scenes.
Welcome!

I hope to see good things in EQ2's future during your tenure.

Welcome.

I hope part of your plans is to put the crafting levels back on harvested materials, and to put crafting back to the way it was before BoL.

Pretty sure at the moment they are absolutely relying on hardcore raider whales who keep the boat afloat by buying everything there is to be leveled on day #1 for that little advantage in getting world firsts. Fine, whatever, if it helps to keep the game alive, I don't care about that. I'm perfectly happy being in the #10 raidforce on my server.

What I do care about is that there are always layers upon layers of systems being created that don't add depth but only complexity. Have to adorn this, infuse that, increase the planar level, reforge and don't forget to do it again when you get the next drop. Life was simpler in the early days: show up with a repaired set of equiment, replace an item when you get a better drop and you're ready to go.

But that's a problem for the designers to solve, not for the studio head. Welcome to your new role, JChan!

Welcome and good luck with all of us. Sig I just had to quote your post because I was thinking the same exact thing

Welcome. I hope you give some thought to:

1. Making crafting useful again. The consensus that most crafts are now irrelevant because the quest rewards are as good as crafted items is probably a fairly accurate opinion.

2. Simplifying. Numbers in the billions is just mind-boggling. So many different ways to deconstruct items for differing things and so many differing statistics with similar goals (some current some outdated) is just horribly confusing to new and returning players.

Please reduce the sheer number of attributes and ways of doing almost the same thing. I know I will get flamed with "go back to WoW" but even though I prefer a complex game to a simple game it has become overwhelming to a lot of your target audience.

3. If there are plans for an EQ3 why not say something as you just mentioned a new expansion. If there are no such plans, ditto. Some of us want an EQ3 some of us want the resources devoted solely to the current games and some of us encourage discussions with VR (the Pantheon company as you know) now that you are no longer Daybreak. But all three camps would appreciate information.

I wish you success in your new position!

As to the thought of a new expansion, that is nerve-wracking. It feels like the current expansion is still in beta with things broken, things changing constantly. It's been a rough few months. I'm still enjoying myself but this feels like the dark ages of EQ2.

And you're not alone. I don't know many people who think the current crafting situation introduced with BoL is anything but a major fail on so many different levels. There hasn't been a shred of information on why someone thought this would be a good idea, much less why it's gotten this far. You have a tough job ahead of you, Ms. Chan, there's no doubt about it and this is only one of the issues.

One of the things any courageous leader can do is recognize when something simply isn't working and begin an effort to get it corrected. I was once asked by an incoming VP that I knew years before when we were both working the field. She asked me for an opinion about working in a corporate environment and this was the advice I shared with her:

"There's a lot of people whose careers are tied up in processes. Processes are great because they can do a lot. The one thing you need to think about as a VP is this: does the process serve the people or are the people serving the process."

I think there's a question on many minds whether this isn't occurring right now. Does this game in its current iteration serve the customers or are the customers here to serve the game? I leave you with that question to ponder.

Best of luck in your new position and I wish you nothing but success.

While I bid welcome, I'm also hesitant of this this. There's on going issues with the game as stated above, people are frustrated with no results in getting things fixed or addressed from players. Due to the fact that things in BoL are making the game bad again, I for one ceased my subscription and play for free since most of my toons are 110 to 120 anyways. I'm doing more decorating that actual game play. One of the things that I really hate is the fact that the crafting took a dive when the new expac launched with no regards to the non-raiding players. People who don't raid are dependent to the master crafted armor, weapons and jewelry. Those items have less qualities than the trash armor that drops from NPC's or rewards from the sig line. It's VERY disappointing.

"The GU will also include some class balance changes" this bothers me Alot .I have worked for years on these characters and this sounds like a nerf situation.Also the current state of crafting is not worth the bother ,again the hours spent leveling and obtaining upgrades mean nothing.And the fact that there are only solo or heroic instances is a big problem.we need instances where 3 or 4 can play without going in heroics.i have 3 friends and family i want to play with but can't .i really hope that the people who are "fixing" the game will listen to those who play. ok rant over ,congrats on your new position

Welcome here and Good Luck!
A lot of work is waiting you...