Future Content: A Letter from Director of Development Dave Georgeson

Please no - not ANOTHER thread about the starter isles. This topic comes around with monotonous regularity and the last one that someone started recently is still running on the general gameplay forum. Please feel free to continue there if you wish.

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2...ggestion-bring-back-old-starter-zones.542207/

The phrase "flogging a dead horse" comes to mind.

Well, thank you for that link. But my whole point is, let's use this thread for any other ideas, and discuss the noob islands in the thread Beagley was so kind as to supply a link to. Thanx Beagley!

Just wondering...are all threads that may be unpopular with some people, even though they were started on this forum regarding development projects, relegated to some alternate forum?
Seems to me that people have expressed whatever they feel is important to the consideration of the game developers
in this forum.
Perhaps a list of appropriate topics for this forum should be listed so that no one accidentally makes the mistake of
bringing up something that they feel is appropriate for the developers to consider, but which offends those who do not
feel the need for that particular area of development to be discussed here.
That should clarify what is or is not appropriate for this particular forum.

it's too late to bring back what is gone now, so don't bother trying to argue about it.

I like what you want to do SOE. Sounds good, I love exploring and I am mostly a SOLO player due to time... One thing I don't like, is having to craft for my spell upgrades, I'd rather go to a trainer and buy/ train for them.... too time consuming to keep them up to date, makes it hard for me. I made a lvl 85 char.... and I hate the fact I have to grind crafting up to her lvl for the dang spell upgrades.... takes forever, and I get bored crafting that long to get them there, SO NOW MY LVL 95 CHAR HAS CRAPPY SPELLS.. I LOVE CRAFTING always did, JUST DONT LIKE CRAFTING FOR MY SPELL UPGRADES. Wish you would give option to go to the trainer and get them upgraded there. or anything else.

That's sad.
I had hoped there would be another World Event during which characters could do
quests to get the self travel portals...I think they were the druid and wizard portals.
The last event that I did to get them, I had to do a collection in Eastern Wastes or
some place around the wizard spire area there.
If what is gone is gone forever, I guess I'm not going to get a chance to get any of
the self-portals for any of my new characters in the future.
I was really looking forward to another World Event to get those, but what is past
is past....it can't be brought back.
Seems a bit unfair in a way...future players can never have a shot at getting them.

I'm just going to throw it out there, but your organizational structure, combined with your delivery system and game mechanics just does not work in creating an exceptional game.

For instance, the current 4 updates a year seems as to there is absolutely no long term planning as far as how these updates/mini expansions effect previous "current tier" content. It very much appears that you release an expansion, retroactively discover what is missing try and make a quick fix (3 month mini xpac) which then break other facets of the game such as gear progression or even class balance.

This xpac was a little different since gear progression was bad from the begining. Hardcore raiding still using either CoE raid or Heroic Jewelry in every slot is a joke. Nevertheless, you released 3 new zones which have slightly better gear than the previous heroics, which were slightly better riad content anyways. At the begining of this do you not have some kind of organizational flowchart outlining where stuff is suppose to fit in the end? These types of failures frustrate players. It took you months to add in purchasable red gems, even though it was an obvious flaw pointed out even in beta. Beating a dead horse, but killing mobs for the first time and just muting the gear is just disgusting.

You are going to run into the same problem when you try and add some solo content. I personally feel there is already plenty with all the advanced solo zones, but from solo questlines there are none. The solo quest playerbase does not play for combat, they play for storyline and ease. Many will still complain and you will feel obligated to give them something nice, which then ruins everyone elses progression and should have been planned months ago.

Furthermore, updating old zones...talk about lazy. I already played that content, I'm not going to pay to play it again. I went through the revamped zones 1 time and was like wow did this before, done. Its good for a nostalgic day and its over. If people want nostalgia make a progression server and save yourself tons of time.

The new MO encounter is a cure as fast as the lag will allow you. I mean seriously. The adds don't even do anything, but they are there for a reason that I can only assume is to fake difficulty through latency.

You wanted to make new procs that were fun and exciting....they are cumbersome and mostly useless.

And this is the crux of your problem. Understand your hardware, understand mechanics, understand your playerbase is diverse, and understand how your 1 month, 3 month, 1 year plans fit together.

I remember the original starter zones and there was what..maybe a whole 10 quests from start to finish....a crafting area...a banker...etc....other than "nostalgia" for those zones they were no better than the current starter zones....a..if a player is truly a new player then they can't miss what they never had - right?....also...the game is seriously dumbed down from game play at launch....quest helpers, feathers over NPC heads, map helpers, etc....you know longer have to fear death because there is no shard/body to recover and if you group you do not share debt XP.....newbie weapons and gear is 100% more powerful than back in launch days....also...leveling is super easy too.

Revamping old zones was done in the past too...RE and NEK castle were the done....one of the hardest instance dungeons for its time and level was RE....plus the collection in there was pretty sweet.....I think revamping older content is good....but there needs still to be a healthy balance of old/new

runnyeye wasn't a cut and paste version of the original, it was a short cutout of the same zone with the same mob skins but outside of that it was completely different than the original runnyeye. the current zones have no real time spent into making them challenging or fun.

RE was an example of how to do it right, not these "fabled" zones.

the current iterations are where the majority of the discontent comes from. the boring grind from ToV and the lacking updates in the form of these C+P zones. all it is doing is giving people the impression that there is a serious lacking support for the game behind the scenes or that the game is sinking.

lol what? no contested mobs? it sucks when everything is instanced. boring as ____. you trippin bluhd.

This!!! dont push an update every week that is rushed and incomplete adding more bugs to the game. It would be nice to have the ability to update every week but make it come out when its ready not just its another week we have to give them something even if its broken type of deal

I agree with not pushing new content until at least the worst of the current bugs are fixed.
Content just to make the game feel "bigger" is not a fix for anything. It doesn't "fool" players
unless they are only into having More Bigger and Uber, and that is all they care about...bragging
rights regarding their conquests and the uberness of their gear.
The glitches tend to either frustrate or anger players, often both...especially when they have
been reported repeatedly, and the problems are still occurring.
Sometimes, innovation backfires.

It's kind of like having a car that stalls out when you are on the Freeway every time you
are on the hill and hit mile marker 37 on the way to work.
The car sputters and coughs and finally It stops dead, and you are stuck with having to
try to get it moving to avoid other accidents while irate drivers take the time to pump their
fist at you and yell suggestions on what to do with yourself.
You take this expensive, handsome model of car to the dealer...tell them it stalls out all the time
on the hill on your way to work as you approach Mile Marker 37...not every day, but often enough
that it is a real problem for you.
The mechanic at the gas station didn't know what to do to fix it (you asked him first), and even
if he did, you would lose your warranty if anyone outside of the dealership worked on your car.
The dealer says, sure...leave it here over the week, and it will be fine when you return.
You have a co-worker pick you up on their way to work for a week, but they have to go out of
their way to do it, so you are paying for their gas to recompense them.
In a week you return for your car, and as soon as you step out of the cab, there it is looking
all bright and shiny with a new front grille and new model bumpers and snazzy hubcaps.
You pay for the repairs and get in your car and head for work.
As you approach mile marker 37 on the hill, your car shudders and then begins to stall.
It's nice that your car looks really great and has some new stuff, but what you really needed was
a car that worked like it should.
You can imagine what you would be considering saying to the dealer's mechanics, and if this
happened on a regular basis and every time you took it in for some repairs they put in a new
rear view mirror, or changed the housing for the headlamps, or did some other cosmetic change
and gave you some special coupons for more things you could add to your vehicle, but didn't fix
the actual problems until you demanded it on the spot, eventually, you would be thinking that
maybe you need to just get a Volvo.

I know that to keep a game dynamic and growing, developers may feel that they need to frequently
add content since some players have already jumped in and completed new content almost as soon
as it is released.
If there are problems, however, it is better to resolve them than to just add something new and shiny.
Any player who demands new content now, or they will leave maybe should just do so, so that those
who want the game to function properly will be the ones giving advice to the developers, and if the
glitches are fixed, the game will work better, more players will be satisfied, and the player base will
not suffer greatly because a few moved on to other games. The game reputation of, "It really works
well and has a lot of content!" will be more of a draw to new players, and retention should be higher.
If there are too many glitches that are never fixed and they cause a lot of frustration, some players
just quietly move on to another game without any rants to explain their sudden absence.
Changing or adding things to make something "feel newer" is not the best thing to do.
There is an old saying..."If it ain't broke, don't fix it." On the flip side of that is the understood
reasoning of, "If it's broke, fix it before you paint it up to look real purty."

I just want to clarify what I meant with revamping those zones: they should remain low -level zones however graphically they could benefit from a revamp meaning staying the same but looking better (more polygons).
In addition, have the golden path lead to those zones as well or add a great story-line. I wouldn't mind chrono back to those low levels with a higher level toon and do some new quests there. They can even be world-event related or other.
Now Nektulos could benefit from more than just a graphical enhancement though. The zone is ugly if you ask me. Don't remove the spooky aspect, make it even scarier I would say. But good-looking scary with a terribly scary storyline, if you catch my drift

Today is February 14th, and the weekly update/monthly update announcement was on January 31st. What is/was the effective date for this to start? Also, if it has started; then what exactly was the weekly update(s)?

I remember reading something about what the updates were supposed to be. One was Erollisi Day, an annual event that didn't even get much in the way of love this year. There was one new reward (a different color of flower on the topiary hedge) and one recipe book which included maybe four new models and various recolors of two of them. And that annoying thing where they change the regular quest to get the title into an "Achievement". I don't really think that should have counted as a big weekly event if for no other reason than most of it existed already and they didn't have to put much effort into it. Another was the "Collection Achievement" thing. Does anybody care about achievements to start with? (Personally, I don't consider anything I do in a computer game to be an "achievement". It's not like I am really accomplishing anything that matters.) And even if you care about achievements is that really worthy of being considered worth being a whole weekly update? A third item on the list was releasing the Oakmyst Forest Prestige Home. Given that it has been available to tour for quite some time now it seems like a stretch to include that on the list. How many prestige homes have been released just because they made money? Finally are some changes for PvP. I suppose if there is something big there it should count, even if I don't give a hoot about PvP. So out of the four things they listed as the big weekly things only one seems like it should really count. So Vasc, there you go - What was listed as February weekly updates.

Note: I found where these were listed - Post #216 in this thread by Holly Longdale, EQ2 Senior Producer.

I really liked the live event updates leading up to TSO back in the day. It would be nice to have scaleable new content throughout Norrath that ties in with the story and makes it fun to level alts.

please dont forget to fix bugs and broken mechanics when pushing in new content in a high frequency

I will be kinda frank here (though my name isn't Frank).

I understand the need to make and give content to those who are level 95. And I'm certain the raiders, though a small minority, are always clamoring for things to do.

But I am asking you guys ... do not forget about the lower and middle levels of the games.

You have so many quests that are never done anymore. Zones no one ever visits anymore. Heck, if it was me, I would cut all that stuff out and just make things streamlined (since that is all the games feel like anymore). I played the Hero's Journey in EQ and the Golden Path in EQ2. You know how fast I leveled and so much I missed? It stunk.

One could argue that I could have skipped that and do other things, but you have to understand, the games are now made for new players to follow these paths. At least in EQ you get mails that talk about other zones each level. But people don't really go to them anyway. And I really think this ruins the entire premise of these games at creation, which was exploration, adventure, and grouping.

I will always try to do the events that come out, but it can be difficult, mainly with RL restraints.

It is just a shame to see so much of the game completely ... wasted. And sitting there.

Thanks for reading.

First week's update is beyond disappointing. Touting the Oakmyst forest prestige home as part of your new weekly update plan is ridiculous. You've been promising it for months. Insta-betrayal is just as silly. Your system isn't set up for regular and easy changes between classes, so it's just a convenience to save 20min one time. Players have been asking for the betrayal quest lines to be revamped and made relevant again, not dismissed entirely because you couldn't think of anything else. Very bad show SOE, shame on you.