Transcript: Kander's Candor Episode 6 - It all sorta blends.

Discussion in 'Podcasts and Other Media' started by Mercychalice, May 2, 2020.

  1. Mercychalice Well-Known Member

    Here is my labor of love for our hearing-impaired community. Sourced from Spotify.

    Dreamweaver: Hey everyone! This is Episode 6 of Kander's Candor. Welcome. I'm Dreamweaver, your friendly neighborhood Community Manager, and I'm here once again with Kyle "Kander" Vallee, our Creative Director. I just wanna take a quick moment at the beginning of this week's podcast and really, really just thank forum-user Mercychalice. They have been putting up transcripts for our hard-of-hearing and deaf listeners to read on the forums, and they are not only incredibly good at doing those transcripts very, very quickly, but getting them up in a just really timely manner and a bunch of other things. So if you see Mercychalice on the forums, and I don't know if they use Discord, but if you see them on Discord, please be sure to thank them for the time that they're spending on this. One, it's really cool because it's something that I wanted to do but don't quite have time to at this point, and it's just really great for our entire community to hopefully be able to engage with this content, and Mercychalice is a big part of that, so I just wanted to say a huge thank you for that, for taking your time to do that, for spending the time on it, and we're gonna get right into the questions this week, because we have quite a few. The first set is from forum-user and Discord-user Rippit. It's TLE specific. Rippit, for the first part of the question, would love to know the thought process behind removing what can easily be classified as the most nostalgic or defining part of the game, set bonuses. So, Kyle?

    Kander: Yeah, set bonuses are a weird kind of creature. They're, they-, I lump them in with stuff that was implemented quickly back in the day. You know, a lot of things happened in EQ2 because things happened elsewhere and someone went, "We outta do set bonuses." And so, one, set bonuses are really hard to deal with. They're very hard to work with. Two, they're completely unbalanced, and, and, so, there's a bunch of different lines of thinking, but I'll, I'll try to go through all of them, is A) already TLE players are so powerful, it's a massive effort for us to make content that's even a challenge for them and these set bonuses, like especially, I wanna, I wanna point out like, Expansion 3, Expansion 4, some of them are really unbalanced. Some of them are really powerful. So A) to balance the content with these set bonuses in game is, is very difficult and basically what you're doing is is you're, you're, you're setting up the people. If you're balancing for the set bonuses, then the people that don't have the set bonuses don't have a chance as, as you know. It's a snowball's chance in Hell of beating this stuff, and A) the balancing them and working with them is so time-consuming. Back in the day, I think I did some of the set bonuses for a specific expansion. I can't remember which one, but it took me weeks to do, and so, they're hard to work with. The ones that we, that we took out are just completely over-powered. Going into Kunark, those ones we, we've talked about putting in the, you know, the character bonus, bonuses that are basically the set bonuses that got moved to everyone's character because that was another thing, is set bonuses were so horrible and terrible, we eventually moved them to where everyone had them on their, you know, on their character, so that they didn't have to get them and, but, to do that for Kunark, it would have to be totally re-balanced. So, at this point, I'm not saying no. We'll look at it. We have discussed putting in, you know, the, the character spells and stuff that resemble the set balances, but basically, we took all the, all the set bonuses out up to level 100, and that was about where we stopped using them. So, that's the...
    Dreamweaver: OK.
    Kander: The short answer.

    Dreamweaver: Well, th- it kinda leads into Rippit's second question, which is an add-on to the question above about asking whether they'll see set bonuses return in the most crucial expansions, such as ROK and even more, TSO. So you kinda answered that question as well?

    Kander: Well, I mean, yeah. I, I do-, I don't wanna say no, but at the same time, it's, it's all about how much time we have and what we're working on. We decided that looking through all of those set bonuses from all the way up to Velious, they were extremely over-powered, especially for TLE. I mean, when they were on live, people would go back and just disintegrate the whole content, and you know, they we-, it didn't really matter that they were over-powered. Everybody just, you know? And tha-, that's another thing that's like, you know, all that stuff's that's in there...that, that, that power isn't necessary. Players are already at a point with the current itemization that making anything to stand up to them is just incredibly difficult. It takes hours and hours of, you know, I mean, literally to get it perfect. Like, well a good example is the Avatars, you know. Gninja went on and, and held those Avatars with players and got, got DPS numbers, and health numbers, and all these things and spent hours, HOURS, trying to get those balanced to where they were actually a challenge. And that is literally what we would have to do with every single mob, and with the set bonuses, it just literally compounds everything, right? It's not like back, it's not like back in the day where mobs didn't even have buff packages. You know what I mean? Up until Kunark, I mean, we started using buff packages in Kunark, but it was just hitpoints and stuff like that and you didn't have situations the people who had two, three set bonuses were literally 40, 50% more powerful than the people who didn't have them, so they're really super cool in theory, getting that extra bonus because you put together the sets, but also, we stopped using set bonuses because of that. We, we literally stopped using them because players did not want to upgrade items, so we would put set bonuses on jewelry like we did in, in Velious with Plane of War items and, and Drunder items and when we go to a new expansion, they don't want to take them off because they don't want to lose their set bonuses, so we ended up, at that time - I remember, because I did it. We ended up putting in all these extra pieces of jewelry into the set bonuses so that they could have the set bonuses on basically anything they got, which is just completely absurd in the idea of making new content, and, and having people, you know, upgrade their items, and a lot of that stuff is what led to Expansion 10, where we made a massive jump in power. I think we, I think we literally jumped up like 40% in power so that, literally the items that were dropping and the items you were getting from quests and heroics made anything, even the set bonuses, just look insignificant and honestly, what we should have done, is we should have gone back and had one person work on set bonuses for, you know, a couple months, and fix those. But at the same time, we truly believe that they're, they're not a good idea for progression and they're not a good idea for moving from expansion to expansion. So, and, and I think saying that they're a massive part of the nostalgia, I don't, I don't, I don't agree with that. I understand why they're saying it, but yeah. I mean, there, there isn't anything in Everquest 2 that we don't do just because we're lazy, where it's like, "Ah, we're just not gonna do that." We put in insane hours to, to keep the game, you know, running and try to keep people happy, and we WANT to do things. We WANT to make everybody happy, but it's, it's a matter of just, it's time, it's... I hope I, I hope I gave, you know, a good answer on that and a lot of reasons.

    Dreamweaver: Okay. Yeah, I mean, that's, I feel like that's definitely a pretty, pretty encompassing explanation, definitely on, on why we've removed those things and what our concerns are and like, that we're still considering maybe bringing some back in some way, shape, or form. That's a pretty descriptive answer. The final part of Rippit's question is, "Will we continue to see additional content for TLE, such as Avatars. I think this is a great addition for the TLV -E, however, to make this more successful and engaging/fun for the community, the loot should be top tier and, in their opinion, properly itemized. A defining mage weapon, for example, should not have scout stats.

    Kander: Yeah, so I'm gonna answer that question in multiple, multiple parts. We stopped doing Avatars and stuff like that because of that. We felt that it wasn't good game play to have the best-in-slot items on a contested mob that guilds could essentially lock down permanently, which they did. Let me tell you, back in the day, there was guilds like Meplusultra, who had a call list at any time of day or night, and they locked down those Avatars, even after they didn't need the items, just so other guilds would never see the items. In our opinion, that's just really bad gameplay. So that was where we started moving to where expansion bosses and zone bosses had the best-in-slot loot in raids and upper tiers and stuff like that and we went away from constested mobs, which essentially, I mean even on Kaladim, are content for one guild, and so they have all the best items. No one else ever gets them or sees them. The reason that we agreed to put in some of the Avatars is, yeah, they are kinda nostalgic, and we made them spawn quicker, hoping that peop- hoping that more guilds would have a chance at them. But that's really not the case. There's still one guild monopolizing the Avatars on Kaladim. To answer the question, will we be doing more? Probably not. I think that we put in, I think we have, how many do we have in now? 5 or 6?

    Dreamweaver: Uh....5? I believe?
    Kander: Yeah, so for the, for, for the current expansion, we-, we put them in for EOF because there's no raid content for mid-content. So on TLE you have, you have your regular, your season of that expansion, and then we have mid-content, so for instance, EOF is gonna be, er, you know, Kaladim's gonna be getting Shard of Fear and Unrest here, next week. And there was no raid content, so we put in, we put in those because we wanted...
    Dreamweaver: the Avatars?

    Kander: Yeah. We put those in because we wanted the raiders to have something to do and we wanted them to create a little excitement, you know what I mean? And the overall experience with it was not, not anything that we enjoyed, so we probably will not be putting in any further Avatars, but Ruins of Kunark and the next few expansions have raid content in the mid-content I believe. Putting hours and hours in for content that only one guild sees is just not a good use of our time when we barely have enough time as it is to do all of the stuff we have to do for live, for TLEs, for, we're, we're about to start working on Expansion 17 full time, so we do have, you know, a big GU planned for August, but we'll be working on expansion stuff. And trying to keep the TLE, you know, running, and we, like, for Unrest and for Shard of Fear, we did do balance passes on that stuff. We're not just tossing it out there and watching it, you know, vaporize, so, and we'll continue to support Kaladim and support, you know, the expansions that are coming with balance passes. We feel like, for Kunark, a better use of our time would be spending a good amount of time in Veeshan's Peak, which is like the premier raid for that expansion, and making sure...

    Dreamweaver: Hmm mmmm...
    Kander: Making sure, making sure that the, I forget how many raid mobs are in that zone...it's like 25 raid mobs...it's not that many, but it's a lot, are balanced and there's some good fights in there, and, and stuff like that, and then we might also look at like, Venril Sathir and a couple other bosses that we feel, you know, nostalgically, were kind of tough. But we feel like our time is better spent doing a serious pass on Veeshan's Peak. So that is the, the answer there.

    Dreamweaver: Ok. Alright. I think that's really all the, the, the extent of, of Rippit's questions. I do think, though, bringing up mid-tier, something that has been asked in the Discord quite a bit, are we still doing Hunter's for, the, the mid-tiers?

    Kander: So, we, I believe, we planned out and actually made stuff for Hunter's Quests all the way up until Velious.
    Dreamweaver: Oh!
    Kander: And, and Kunark was the first Hunter's tier, so it will absolutely have Hunter's tier for mid-content.
    Dreamweaver: Ok.

    Kander: So, the, the Hunter's tier for EOF, I'm not 100% sure on. I can't sit here and say, you know, it's absolutely going in, but we'll, we'll, we'll definitely check into it. But we did, we do have a plan to make Hunter's items for, for each expansion, so, and I know, I know for a fact that Kunark's there because we did that on Fallen Gate, or, not Fallen Gate, yeah, well whatever the last TLE was before Kaladim...
    Dreamweaver: Fallen Gate.
    Kander: Yeah, so that's actually been implented already, so that one's ready to go.

    Dreamweaver: Alright. Awesome. Ok. So, the next set of questions comes from forum-user Aradar. The very first one, there's a little bit of commentary before it, so I'll read that first and then we'll go into that itself. Also, thanks Rippit, for those questions. Hopefully, at least some of your questions were answered, but thanks for submitting them. Aradar asks, "Is there any cooperation with the EQ1 team when it comes to sharing good features? Here are two major things I would like to see implented in EQ2 that are available in EQ1. One, the option to filter spell effects to my spells only, group spells, my spells, and the NPC, etc. It's a better option than the current EQ2 one, and two, can we have the EQ1 loot system please? It's such a great feature in that game to have the game remember if you want to greed, need, or never loot an item again?

    Kander: Yeah, um..so..
    Dreamweaver: I mean, the fair- first question is pretty simple though, right?
    Kander: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes!
    Dreamweaver: There's definitely cooperation between the two teams.
    Kander: Absolutely. We...
    Dreamweaver: They talk to each other.

    Kander: Yeah, we work together. We plan expansions together. We do all sorts of stuff together. We also have a very, and this is not my answer, but just so that people are clear, we have a very fine understanding of what is good for EQ and what is good for EQ2, so there's like a lot of stuff we do in EQ2 that will never go to Everquest, you know. So, we- Everquest is th-, is our crown jewel and we do everything to protect it. So you- there's a lot of stuff that we do in EQ2, not because we don't love and cherish EQ2, but EQ2 has a different community and a different audience and a different, you know, ther- overall playstyle, everything. So there are some things that we've done in EQ2 that people like that we wouldn't put into EQ, but that said, I don't see any reason why we couldn't do that stuff. I think those are actually really good ideas. I'll, I'm gonna, I'm typing it out in an email right now, and we'll, we'll discuss it. We'll see if that's that something we could do. I love the idea of being able to have just your spells on and not anybody else's spells. I can't think of whether or not that would be, you know, an impossibility, because EQ2. EQ2 is so different in the different, you know, code channels and different ways, but I actually really like that idea, and the other one, they have a little bit more robust, yeah, loot system, which I would love to see in EQ2. So the answer is yes, we do communicate. Yes, we do actually look at things that EQ do, and consider them for Everquest 2, and those are both really good ideas, so we'll, we'll definitely look into doing that. That's not a "yes, we're doing it, absolutely" to be clear, but that is a "yes, we'll look into it".

    Dreamweaver: Awesome. Well, that, that one was pretty simple. I ca- *laughs*. Thank you for your suggestions Aradar. The third one, since, since it looks like we still have a little bit of time within the time frame I'm trying to stick for for everybody so they don't just listen to you and I talk for, probably way too long, forum-user Replay asks, they would like to know if there's any plans to expand on the guild hall amenities and the rewards for guild levels past 100 or whatever the level is that stopped giving amenity slots, and they have one more portion of their question after that.

    Kander: That, that's a really good question. I think at a certain point, we just kind of ran out of ideas and so we stopped implementing, like, different amenities past 100 because we just didn't, we couldn't think anything that went, that we would go "oh they would really like that or this would be really cool or..." and since then we have added a lot of stuff, since guild level 100. So what I'm gonna say is, is if anybody has any really good ideas, feel free to PM me on Discord or on the forums. A lot of people also have my email. I'm not afraid of, you know, giving out my email, if you have my email - I'm not gonna give it out here, but... *both laugh*

    Dreamweaver: I'm not gonna put it on the internet for just anyone to listen to, but I'll put it on Discord. (I believe
    sarcasm was inflected here...but it might just be out there ;) )

    Kander: Right, right right. But a lot of people do know my- if you have some really, really good ideas for guild amenities past 100, I would love to hear about them.
    Dreamweaver: Yeah, I, I would also say if you don't wanna do those in a message, using kind of like, a tag, on your thread on the forums that says feedback in front of it, kind of in brackets also isn't a bad way and I can pass those along to Kyle as well.
    Kander: Yeah, so...
    Dreamweaver: That's another good way to give us that feedback.
    Kander: So the major answer is I would love to hear everybody's ideas for guild hall amenities because we've, what are we? I think guilds are at, like, level 250 or 300 or something like that?
    Dreamweaver: Something like that. Yeah, it's something like that is the cap.
  2. Mercychalice Well-Known Member

    Kander: And we'll...what we started doing is putting in the buff banners, you know. You got a better buff banner at each tier, which is, you know, a cool amenity, but we haven't added anything since, I wanna say, the initial implementation of guild halls. So it's been a while, and totally honest here, we just haven't thought about it, and I know at one point, we just kind of ran out of ideas. So feel free to send your guild hall amenity ideas to me, to Dreamweaver, post them on the forums with the feedback tag, whatever it takes. But yes, I would, I'd love to hear your ideas.

    Dreamweaver: OK. Awesome. The next part of their question says, "Also, I for one, loved the Arena areas, specifically not the Battlegrounds, but the PVP areas, like in Maj'Dul, etc. We held guild free-for-alls and last-man-standing challenges and sometimes just hung out for a change of game pace. Is there any way to introduce these back into the game, knowing that they can't have Battlegrounds back." They finish it with "Being a 20-year veteran of EQ and EQ2, I always look forward to Veteran Rewards and I was disappointed to see them done away with, can these be brought back?" And I feel like we kind of already answered that to an extent.
    Kander: We did...

    Dreamweaver: For that portion of their question. I feel like, I feel like, well that was kind of one long question there. We've-, the Arena, the Arena portion I think we can answer, but the Veteran Rewards I think we've kind of already addressed. The way they were and Kyle, obviously, correct me if I am wrong in my understanding of when we've talked about this, but the way they were implemented was kind of one of those things where the implementation of them wasn't quite what we wanted and that's why we've moved to the Loyalty Vendor. You weren't required to log in for the Veteran Rewards. It was just one of those things that gauged the age of your account. So it meant you didn't have to be playing the game to actually receive that reward, so someone could have, you know, made their account in Year One, and just come back this year and gotten a bunch of things that someone who's been playing, you know, dedicated to playing every day for the past five years, wouldn't get.

    Kander: Right. Exactly. It was, it was not a super well-implemented system. We believed that, I mean, when you have players, you know, we've been around for 15 years, and you have some players that who played, you know, for the last 10 years, but they had to wait five years to get the first 5 years of Loy-, you know, of...
    Dreamweaver: Veteran's Rewards.
    Kander: Veteran Rewards and stuff like that. So it wasn't a good system. I think we've put most of them on the Loyalty Merchant now. Like I said, we try to do something special every year now for our, for our Anniversary, which is essentially what the Veteran Rewards were, and we make those available to everyone.

    Dreamweaver: Right. Yeah. Alright, so moving back to the, the previous part of the question.
    Kander: To the Arena.
    Dreamweaver: How do we feel about Arenas?

    Kander: Well, so, they're talking, I think, specifically about the Arena in Maj'Dul, which was this crazy system where you played, you know, as alternate characters, and it was PVP, and you had spells, and that was another implementation of something that wasn't implemen-, implemented fantastically and it basically degraded to where it, basically...
    Dreamweaver: Became unplayable or?

    Kander: Yeah, it became, it became literally unplayable, so, and our numbers, which we have, you know - I know it's hard to believe - but we have numbers on use, and like how many players use a zone. Like we know exactly how many people used, you know, the Blinding yesterday, right? Like how many people zoned into it, how many people logged into it, how many people just went in and went to another zone. So we know, and the numbers for that feature were never good. It wasn't popular. It goes into my answer of I think people think it was cooler than it actually was. There's a lot of that stuff. *laughs*

    Dreamweaver: I mean I know, I know for sure, I am definitely guilty of doing that until someone shows me old content sometimes, where I'm like "This was such a cool thing you guys! You should bring it back!" and someone's like, "Here's how it was..." I'm like "Wow, yeah, I don't, I don't think I remembered those parts. Nevermind..."

    Kander: Right. Yeah. It had all these issues with, you know, people getting stuck. People, like, being stuck in the zone. Like, all kinds of weird stuff. So that specific feature, like the Arena, was not actually that popular. It wasn't used very widely by the majority of the player base. It would be, to re-implement it, it would be a lot of work, for basically gambling that anyone would use it. That's not saying like, if we did and it was really awesome that people wouldn't use it, but at this point, it's not on our radar, and we don't have any...

    Dreamweaver: It kinda goes back to the scope thing that we talked about last episode.
    Kander: Right.
    Dreamweaver: I mean, I know there's a lot of things that if we had the time, resources, people or any number of...
    Kander: Yes...
    Dreamweaver: Other things that go into it, we probably at least would try to do some restructure or fixed version of...
    Kander: Right.
    Dreamweaver: But we have to like, you know, we have to sit in a meeting and go, "OK, we have these parameters, what can we do within these parameters?"

    Kander: Right. There's only 'X' amount of designers that can ac-, actually implement things. I mean, the major, the major thing every year is producing content. We try to produce, you know, new content. I saw a question also in there that someone was asking about 'why aren't there always new quests?' Well, you know, we have collection quests and missions, and the Overseer system, and all that stuff was actually put in so that we could implement quest-like type things quickly and with very little work, whereas quests are actually the most time-consuming and difficult thing to do in Everquest 2. Kaitheel, Nathan McCall (Apologies if I spelled your name incorrectly.) is a wizard and he spends two-thirds of his year implementing quests, and that's, that's literally the, the scope of how many quests we can put into Everquest 2 a year. And I don't peop- I don't know if people remember, if with Plane of Magic, with expansion, I think 15, we put in a bunch of extra quests, and a bunch, we had three areas that were giving out quests, and there was a lot more quests than usual, and we actually got more complaints than we did, you know, compliments or "hey, this is awesome" because we're spreading all of our resources out on more quests which aren't as high quality or aren't as entertaining or don't have a really cool storyline instead of what we would rather do, is, you know, focus our time on making a Signature line that's really entertaining and really cool, and you know, stuff like that, and then of course, we put in side quests and other things like that, but the current amount of quests that we produce a year is about, like, what we can do. So, I mean that's, I know that's a weird answer to what you, you were talking about, but like, all that stuff kind of wraps up into we, we literally have to pick and choose what we can do. We have to pick and choose how much time we can spend doing it. We have a new and imp-, a new, new apprentice guy for mechanics, so we are actually trying to add people to the team so that we can do more, and you know, the Upper Management is supporting us on that, so yeah....whew!

    Dreamweaver: *laughs* Yep. There you go. There's the answers. *laughs* If any of you are still listening at this point in the podcast, which I hope you are, we have our fun question of the week, and this one comes with a little bit of commentary, Kyle.
    Kander: Oh boy...

    Dreamweaver: Uh, no no no, uh, commentary to frame the question: So last time we recorded a podcast, it was about 45, 50 degrees outside, and pouring rain, for multiple hours straight. Today, recording our podcast, at least where I'm at, I don't know how warm it is where you are, but it is 97 degrees, humid, and there's not a cloud in the sky. I'm assuming it's at least a little similar where you're at right now?

    Kander: Yeah, it's like, in the nineties, and it's so hot that my dogs won't go outside.
    Dreamweaver: Yeah.
    Kander: They're just like, "Nope!" *Dreamweaver laughs*
    Dreamweaver: They just like, they like, poke their noses out the door, pull it back in....
    Kander: They're like, "We wanna, we wanna lay on the couch where it's cool."
    Dreamweaver: They're like, "I'm out, but thanks!"
    Kander: I have a leather couch, and lea- you know how leather stays nice and cool?
    Dreamweaver: Right....
    Kander: So, and it's like, yes, we let our dogs on the couch. I mean, it's a very durable, very awesome couch. But they- that's where they want to be. They want to be on the, either on the cool tile or on the cool couch, right? Open up the door to let them out, and they're just like, "Nope!" They went out, did their business and came back in. They're just like "nope", whereas my dogs always want to be outside, so yeah, it's hot today.

    Dreamweaver: And my dog is doing the exact same thing. He is just trying to find whatever tile that is possible for him to lay on. He's completely avoiding all the carpet that is in my apartment. But here's the question. What is your favorite summer past time?

    Kander: My favorite summer past time is...
    Dreamweaver: Cause we're like...almost in the summer...
    Kander: Is gaming.
    Dreamweaver: Is gaming? *Dreamweaver laughs* I mean, I guess mine is too, if I'm realistic about it.

    Kander: I prefer, I prefer to be indoors in the air conditioning, playing video games. That's my favorite summertime past time. I'm a musician, so like, even back in the day, like, I spent my summers inside playing music, and playing with bands, and, and, and you know, *laughs* so, I've never, I've never been one of those people that wants to go out and do stuff during the summer. I actually prefer, like, winter, like in Minnesota. That's when I want to go outside and do snowmobiling or ice-fishing or...I don't ski, cause I'm not coordinated. But I have done ice-skating and some other stuff like that but as far as summertime, nope. Nope.

    Dreamweaver: Nope. Mmm mmm. *laughs* Well, I mean, hey! The whole point of this is about being honest, so I'm glad that we're honest about being able to stay inside, and just play video games.
    Kander: Painfully honest, right? This is, this is the, this is the job I've chosen...

    Dreamweaver: I mean, awkwardly honest. I don't know. Sometimes, sometimes painfully honest, awkwardly honest. It all kind of blends together in one giant soup.
    Kander: Yes. Yes. Yes.
    Dreamweaver: Alright.
    Kander: It's totally crazy though, cause like, last week, it was still kind of raining and cold and like, just like
    yesterday...
    Dreamweaver: Yesterday, 90+ for like the next 15 days now. So, welcome to southern California everybody. We're definitely going to experience a drought again.
    Kander: That's, that's kind of what happens, is, is here in southern California, is, you know, you- you, you typically don't get a lot of winter weather.
    Dreamweaver: Yep.
    Kander: You know when it rains, it does rain, but I joke with people about living in climate control because, you know, southern California, especially San Diego, is like, 90% of the time, it's like between 70 and 80 and sunny, and *laughs* and during the summer it does get hot, but it doesn't get like that hot, like it doesn't get, like, Arizona hot, like Phoenix, the ninth-ring-of-Hell-hot. But it gets, you know...

    Dreamweaver: I mean, it gets, I don't know if you've been to El Cajon recently (Apologies if this is spelled wrong or is the wrong place, I'm not a CA native!) but we hit 110 last summer, so I'm just saying...
    Kander: Yeah, but I mean....
    Dreamweaver: That was not great.
    Kander: It's usually like, one or two days out of a, you know, a month, that it gets that hot.
    Dreamweaver: That is, that is true. I used to live somewhere in California, that we'll just say is somewhere towards the middle of California, that it used to get, like, 115+ for like, a week, week-and-a-half straight, at least one month out of the year during the summer. Sometimes you'd see that in like, June, July, August, and if you got unlucky, September.
    Kander: Yeah....

    Dreamweaver: I don't miss that, man. That was...that was one of those times where like, you as a human being, stepped outside and were like, "Nope, can't survive here."
    Kander: Yeah...
    Dreamweaver: I am not in.

    Kander: So it's, it's 90 degrees here where I am, and it's supposed to be 90 tomorrow and Sunday, and then it's supposed to cool down into the low 80s and then possibly 70s, so what tha-, which is where it usually is.
    Dreamweaver: Right.
    Kander: Even for us, May is usually pretty mild.
    Dreamweaver: Right. This is...
    Kander: It's rare that...
    Dreamweaver: This is kind of a warm May.
    Kander: Yeah, yeah.

    Dreamweaver: Well, I guess warm April. We're still in April. Oh my God. Guys. I don't-, I'm gonna be honest. Keeping the days and months accurate right now, they're becoming difficult for me.
    Kander: Yeah. I, I...I get up, you know, since we're working from home now for the past, I don't wanna say how long...
    Dreamweaver: It's been a while.
    Kander: Cause I don't know...
    Dreamweaver: I think it's been some sort of length of time.
    Kander: I wake up on Saturdays and go upstairs to go to work, and I'm like, "Oh, it's Saturday."
    Dreamweaver: Right.
    Kander: There's no one here for me to talk to.
    Dreamweaver: I logged in on a Sunday, I think...I-, I think it was two weeks ago, because my brain thought it was Monday...
    Kander: Exactly.

    Dreamweaver: And like I got ready. *Kander laughs* Like, I got up on time, I was ready to go, and I'm sitting there, and I'm looking at the calendar, and I'm like, there's no way I don't have a meeting today. That makes no sense, and I had to text somebody and be like, "Hey, what time is today's meeting?" and they responded like, two hours later, and they go, "No, it's Sunday. Please..." I was like "Oh, no! I don't know what days are anymore!" *Big sigh* Well, with that awkward note, I think we're done with this week's episode. *Both laugh*

    Kander: It's a good, a good segway to being, to being done.
    Dreamweaver: I mean, if nothing else, we're at least consistent.
    Kander: Yes, exactly. Cause, cause we could just spend hours just talking about stupid stuff.
    Dreamweaver: We really could. Yeah. We definitely could. There's a reason this podcast isn't Kyle and Dreamweaver spend hours talking about stupid stuff, mostly because no one would listen and no one would get a kick out it except the two of us, so, thank you everybody for listening this week, once again. I'm Dreamweaver, your Community Manager. I'm here with Kyle "Kander" Vallee, our Creative Director, and we'll see you in game!


    *Special note: You guys made me blush! You're very welcome! I'm super glad these are helpful for folks! Enjoy!
  3. dirgenoobforreal Well-Known Member

    People do not hate a lot of quests. People absolutely hated PoP questing for two reasons.

    1) You had to do the same quests several times for some dumb faction.
    2) You destroyed grouping as a viable way of leveling instead by lowering combat XP and increasing XP required to level by thousand folds if not million.

    This is still the case, you gotta do the repeatable quests in PoP so many times to level up to CD content where questing again becomes tolerable.

    Just my hot take after listening in on the episode.
    AOE1, Tyger, Mermut and 5 others like this.
  4. Breanna Well-Known Member

    HA I said the same thing in the other thread. It wasn't the questing I love lots of quest. It was the monotonous grinding over and over again.
    AOE1, Frada, Mermut and 2 others like this.
  5. Zylara Well-Known Member

    ZOMG Questing is what EQ2 is all about, but like the others have said repeated grinding over and over is just so monotonous and boring, repeatables are fine if they are NOT necessary to a questline etc, that way you can choose to do them or not BUT if doing repeatables give us sumthing to make it worth our while as well cause the plat aint worth it. Long timelines get monotonous as well give us back lots of side quests, ones that will take ya diff places, kill diff mobs, search out hidden quests (i miss those) and give us back heritage quests, there are soooo many places/mobs in BoL that could have been used better (yes i understand problems and times didnt help).
    As for Guild Hall amenities somewhere we can put tinkered items like Portable Desks etc would be great, i know many would like a reforger as well (me personally not so much), maybe even a clothing depot for all those pieces that we get that are appearance more than actual armour (and obviously that are fully tradeable), make it so we can put those house plants in our gh's if we want to (i always forget to go home for it hehe) .... there are sooo many things that if you actually thought about it that w/o breaking the game could be implemented
    Mermut and Breanna like this.
  6. dorotea Well-Known Member

    Questing is good - doing the same quest over and over for faction is ...less good.

    Questing is good - getting essentially no experience whatsoever from killing things is …..less good.

    Questing is good - forcing everyone leveling-up to do PoP only because ToT and KA give essentially no experience is oh so very far indeed from being good. There was some very good content there. Let the players decide where they want to go don't make one set of content totally useless and other content at the same level range mandatory.
    Tyger, Frada, Quillyne and 3 others like this.
  7. Ryder Haggard New Member

    [Suggestion] - Guild Hall Amenity - Guest Log Book. Would be nice to see who entered the guild hall as a guest (if anyone). Ability for them to add comments as extra bonus.

    If this is not the right place for this post apologies.
    Mercychalice, Breanna and Zylara like this.
  8. Arclite Well-Known Member

    Spot on!

    I definitely fall under the category of a player who does not see quests as a fun thing to do and see it as a roadblock to progress and for that reason I just do not understand that why PoP and CD still have xp tied to the quests. Keep that as it so people who want to level up experiencing the content then let them but absolutely no reason now to stop people levellling up as they see fit and that means bringing overpowered friends to power level through.

    I am sorry but quests are ok when you run them first time on your main character but the level of patience required to sit through the entire questlines over and over again on alts is mindnumbing busy work, especially when most are either repeatabled in the case of PoP or just simple fetch quests. By all means quests has its place in the game, more so, when there is an item waiting for you at the end but levelling should be kept as it was -- free for all, level up as you see fit.
  9. Kittik Well-Known Member

    Kandor: Itemization is hard. Players are OP. /cry

    My stupid idea: Mobs health x2. Mobs damage output x2 = players are no longer OP.
  10. CSP84 Well-Known Member

    When talking about quests we need to talk about long(er) questlines. I would rather have an oldschool like signature questline than the short new ones and 30+ additional solo quests. HQs and/or smaller Signature ones ( An Ugly Bounty /Rok comes to mind) that take sometime to progress through. Knowing about the small team have them released new questlines every so often.

    Kander says repeatedly that the Overseer Missions are there to replace real content (Quests), i would like to see a Poll whether player see it similar. From what i see on this forum and on my server it doesn't seem to be the case. No matter if casual, Solo or High End Player /Raider they all want real content instated of Overseer Missions.
    Breanna and Kittik like this.
  11. Bhayar Well-Known Member

    Let's be honest here. Overseer Missions are similar to Dumbfire Pets. You really don't have to do anything. If someone thinks Overseer quests are going to replace real content, you've completely lost touch with the game. Why? Anyone with an IQ of more than 50 could answer. There's a reason the acronym MMOG was invented to describe games like EQ (both versions), WoW, DAOC, etc. and here's a hint: it has to do with the letter "O." Anyone who thinks designing a system where players basically log in, pick quests (check the boxes) and then can log out for hours, come back and check the missions for loot, rinse and repeat ad infinitum is deluding themselves. How long do you think players will stay for that system. Players come to MMOGs to interact with other players. Sure, we all like to solo now and then and enjoy the quiet time. But ultimately, it's about player interaction.
    And don't get me started on OS loot. Most of it's drivel and really not worth the time and when you think about the time required to do them, that's saying something. Loot drops from these should augment rewards you can get through questing in game. You know, use them to see that needed loot that doesn't drop because the loot tables are completely fubared when paired with an RNG would be a good example. Here we are--almost SIX MONTHS into the xpac and there are still recipe books and patterns that a number of the players I know haven't even seen yet, including me. And that's with almost 10 active toons that have been through the sig lines, yada, yada, yada. By accident, some of these items should have dropped by now.
    Dude, Mercychalice, Rhodris and 5 others like this.
  12. Breanna Well-Known Member

    Agree Bhayar and I miss also killing mobs and having chest drops, so you could get your tradeskill books or Adept spells, and sometimes even have a big chest drop and get a master spell or a nice fabeled item. But gone are the days of that happening too. Is that hard to do? Does that require a time sink from the devs?
    Dude, AOE1, Frada and 5 others like this.
  13. Mermut Well-Known Member

    Simply doubling mobs damage output won't work, since there are already hits that are 1-shotting people and heals and wards have been essentially capped for 3 expacs now.
    Breanna likes this.
  14. Koda_boy New Member

  15. dreamweaver Well-Known Member

    123
    Schmetterling and Breanna like this.
  16. Schmetterling Well-Known Member

    there are those repeatable quests in Sinking Sands where you get a little surprise item after doing so or so many repeats.
    Maybe adding some rewards makes it more fun to do the same thing over and over .
    Breanna likes this.
  17. Schmetterling Well-Known Member

    I wonder , now that we also get a video to watch , how difficult is it to put in subtitles ?
    Or if that is to hard , how about a sign language person , who could be added in a little window to the side .
    Breanna likes this.
  18. AOE1 Well-Known Member


    That chance for a chest drop with a master or a fables item in it was huge and made adventuring really worth while. I agree. Those days were actually fun and I never felt like I was grinding just for the sake of killing time. I know I won't see any recipe books for making expert spells higher than maybe 111 so I gave up on that part. Even the overseers seem stuck with potions of 1000 names for basically very little difference in what they did or harvest that we have plants, pony's and quest we can do repeatedly for. If you are going to have potions it might be nice if you stuck with one or two names for the same thing? Just a suggestion.
    Rosyposy likes this.
  19. Mercychalice Well-Known Member

    ^^^This. Right here. Yes.
    Siren likes this.
  20. Laughing Owl Active Member

    1) Guild Amenities:
    a) Armor / Weapon Depots: Dump gear into for other to be able to pull out (instead of build bank slots)
    b) 'Annex' facility basically linkable second guild hall, to allow reducing some item count and make Guild Halls more stable for player.
    c) Guild Accension trainer
    d) Crafting Guildmaster (to switch/chose classes)
    e) Purchasble Buff: Mug of fulfillment style (food/drink duration), reasonable duration run speed, utility abilty (water breathing etc..(think honestly anything that might be done with potion/totem but reusable just nor portable)
    f) 'Increase 'status levels' (everyone, Friend, member, Trustee, Officer, Leader) or so for a bit more option on controls
    g)Quartermaster (or what ever you want to call) that allows bank style access to depots. (so beter control on who can withdraw/use or even set 'daily' limits. (so you can take 3 shinies out a day, not either can't get, or steal them all)
    h) Guild hall amenity that reduces cool down on Call to Guild (or provides a second ability on seperate cool down).
    i) A 'Pull to guild' portal, that could pull a group member TO they guild hall. for ease of first access and/or if Call is on cooldown
    j) Depot Manager: AN amenity that allow 'bog options' style permission on depots, so You could limit a Potion/totem depot to just potions, etc....
    K) A Familiar Wild quest giver for guild
    l) A travel item seller for guild. (still requires you to have them unlocked, but could buy the various travel baubles in one place)


    Other thing for consideration:

    1) Better guild management.
    Longer log and/or way to export log
    Able to ban (from guild) an account if there was problem, while can't stop a brand new account, with name changes, and/or ease of creating a new character, there are certainly some 'players' you dont want in guild not just characters.
    Be nice if depots had log, like bank, of who put in, took out, etc... so contributions and/or abuse were visible.
    'filtering' on roster so I could look for 'Denmum' and find Denmum, ant charcter with comment 'Alt of denum' etc...
    2) A consensual 'Account:friend' would be nice. /friend account soandso ... Soandso then gets prompted that myname wants to add you as account friend Accept/Decline) if accept works just like friend, but ANY character on account will be announced.