It's not yet too late to save the live servers ......

Try Star Wars Galaxies and your opinion on the last statement will change LOL. But seriously if you wanna play let me know I need some peeps to play with I only have low level toons and play on Skyfire!

to NurmYokai,

not so , the developers program to require a minimum number for a given stat, for example 50k potency for teir1 dungeons.

the players then take that number and inflate it on the "if some is good a lot is better " premise and suddenly you need 60k potency to be invited to group , 2 weeks after that its 70k.. and I've seen in postings here, the numbers 75k and 80k for potency , and while those numbers may indeed be needed for the higher dungeon tiers. very shortly in player opinion they become the stat requirement for ALL tiers, if you want to group .

or the hot topic stat: resolve.. the developers posted the hard numbers for each tier and said in multiple places , more resolve over requirement wont effect anything for that tier .. it only progress's you towards the next tier. yet I see players touting how much over the tier cap they have in resolve in the belief that more has to be better .

I stand by my statements , a good part of the grinding un-fun brick-wall of requirements is a player opinion based sliding target for stats, fueled by a frantic plat farming play style

MC gear is now cheap, but it wasn't when we returned last fall, from circa TOV era, so had a lot of catch up to do, but we still made lots of plat once we managed to catch up, enough to buy lots of Kronos.

You're probably right that "that geared people who may not want to group with a person in MC gear is a different issue."

And so a new player has not even a chance of catching up, because even returning players have a hard time being group viable.

And so this game will die unless something changes.

It’s not only the players who don’t want to group with returning ones. I mean now u can easily carry at least one guy in your group, but it’s also the lack of things to do that kill the game.
Right now u just need to do weeklies once a month for the celestial quest. No other real reason.
They removed the grind of PoP .. which is good. Coz pop had other issues (favor fixed groups ...), but since they didn’t add anything else on the side, no reason to play. Unless u like the repeatable missions.
Signature quests are too easy and done too fast, no HQ, PQs don’t give anything worthwhile, heroic either, almost no quests in the different overland zones and i could go on.

This xpac felt empty. And that’s in big part what kills the game, how empty it is and how hard it it to gear up.

Yea. I expect the next expansion to have x10 stat inflation solely to keep the grind going. It's lazy. They could have mitigated that with good story telling. Only they laid those employees off.

Grand Thief Auto 5 managed a bit of storytelling and has so far made $6 billion.

Ever read a Red Sonja story/comic? She was created in 1973, but you don't see her raiding gods every issue using over the top gear and weapons.

What has this 40+ year old franchise been up to recently?
Ok maybe a little.
Red Sonja Volume 4

Back to square one. And loving it.

Storytelling.

LOL

You told someone that the players make the rules, not the developers.

1. /anything the developers have or have not done, but from player inflation of the stat requirements/

But /stat requirements/ are based on what the developers put down first.
Then you re-interate that same stance to another poster, by saying

1. /developers program to require a minimum number/
2. /players then take that number/

But again you're making a cart-before-the-horse argument. While actually writing that it's developers then players.

The real kicker? Show me where the developers put any minimum potency required for Tier 1 Heroics, in the official release notes. You are assuming it's 50K potency. How do you know the developers didn't design things this way?

1. sub-45K you got to be kidding
2. 50K to kill a name in a hour
3. 55K to kill a name in 30 minutes
4. 60K to kill a name in 15 minutes
5. ...

You don't need 65K+ but it helps.

Every expansion players take best guesses at what is the level of difficulty developers programmed into encounters. Players don't hard code the numbers. Developers do.

Developers are responsible for the stat inflation.

I'm looking at the various announcement for gaming """platforms""" ... Apple, Google, ad naus and thinking 'meh tech-wise but they are opportunities for Daybreak to advertise, market themselves.

Then .... I .... read .... this ...

Everquest come to the Epic store?
Today
https://www.pcgamesn.com/everquest/everquest-epic-games-store

• "Holly Longdale, said that while partnerships with major platforms is a possibility, "we don't need their help."
• "Steam ... I hate to be BLEEP, but I don't want to give them our money. We don't need to, our players come to us"
• "Longdale's barb wasn't just aimed at Steam, however, as she also says that "as for all the other services that are firing up [...] I just don't want to give anybody our money, frankly. Because we don't need their help."
• "When asked by a PR representative from Daybreak Game Company if that might include a launch on the Epic store, Longdale said "well, BLEEP it, yeah."
• "There are, of course, issues with opening up such an old game to massive new markets. Longdale says that "we have to be mindful of how much we can support. We can support four times as many players as we used to on a per-server-basis, but there's an investment there in terms of people and hardware."

Just freaking advertise already! Talk about sitting on your kiester and hoping Opperknockety tunes twice...

https://variety.com/2019/gaming/fea...st-must-honor-past-embrace-future-1203169740/

my seemingly lost point is that the developers seem to take a lot of heat for what players choose to do.

the dev's supply the bat, ball, gloves, uniforms and the playing field.. what the players do with it all and each other is really up to us as a player base .
the dev's only have indirect control and some times we surprise them with the "we didn't know they'd play it like That!" quotient.

I am perfectly aware of cause and effect and the order those fall in . I am also aware that few things happen for just one cause when humans are involved.

She's been making the rounds with these talking points lately.

Sure sounds to me like she's happy to focus on marketing EQ1, focusing on a small number of customers (mostly targeting former customers) who want to experience/re-experience the nostalgia of playing an old, classic title.

She flat out said in that last bullet, "We're fine with our current infrastructure. We're not going to be investing in more people and hardware."

Note the last paragraph:

"Either way, Longdale says that “what I really want to do is challenge people. If you’re a real gamer and want to experience the OG from 20 years ago, come and play our game and see if you survive.”"

The "save the live servers" to keep current players hooked is a nice goal. Presuming this thread doesn't get quashed by the powers that be.

Why bring up advertising/marketing at all? An influx of new players will also "save the live servers," by bring in new perspectives. And revenue. Increased revenue could bring an increase in staffing, which could increase content and bug fixes; quality of game play improvements.

AND give incentive for the creation of an EverQuest III.

This is why there's a paucity of advertising/marketing:

"I just don't want to give anybody our money, frankly. Because we don't need their help."

Holly Longdale, Executive Producer EverQuest Franchise

Just to be clear, Holly Longdale does not only speak for EverQuest but the entire EverQuest franchise. When she doesn't want to "give anybody our money" it's not just about EverQuest, but the entire franchise.

SOE Introduces New EverQuest II Producer

Feb 2nd 2012

http://eq2.zam.com/story.html?story=28929

"we've brought Holly Longdale back to SOE to take over the Producer position for EQII."

Producer's Letter: 20 Years of Norrath

01-25-2019

https://www.everquest2.com/news/eq2-20-years-producers-letter-january-2019?locale=de_DE

"Holly "Windstalker" Longdale

Executive Producer"

No advertising or self marketing means these people will know about EverQuest and EverQuest II:

• Current players and ex-players.
• Players and ex-players who tell other people; word of mouth.
• Article writers, many who are ex-players.
• The curious.

Maybe this is fine. If Daybreak could get back a large fraction of ex-players everything would be 'hunky dory.' Presuming the various issues with the live servers, which caused many of them to leave, are fixed.

But consider this tale of two battle royale games. H1Z1 was one of the first BR (Battle Royale) games. With little to no advertising, the game did well. Enough to offer $1 million prize pools. Not anymore.

Ever hear of the well advertised EA BR game Apex Legends?

'Apex Legends' Just Hit 10 Million Players In 72 Hours, Beating Fortnite's Record

Feb 8, 2019

https://www.forbes.com/sites/insert...-hours-beating-fortnites-record/#f3b41085687b

Apex Legends passes 50 million players in a month

March 4, 2019

https://venturebeat.com/2019/03/04/apex-legends-passes-50-million-players-in-a-month/

Apex Legends made record breaking revenue in its first month

https://www.dexerto.com/apex-legend...breaking-revenue-profit-fortnite-money-474448

"$90 million"

"Fortnite has generated more than $300 million in a single month"

Hear about the constantly advertised Fortnite?

Amazing what ADVERTISING and MARKETING can do for a game. And bug fixes too.

Note to my above post, you can see the writing on the wall, really.

Check out the servers: https://www.daybreakgames.com/status#eq

(1:19 pm mst, Saturday, March 30).
EQ1: 26 servers, 17 at status = "Medium or greater"
EQ2: 12 servers, 6 at status = "Medium or greater" (Kaladim is the only server with a high load status).

My recent "come back" email pitched Kaladim and Nagafen - an appeal to former customers who want to re-experience the old game (i.e. they are not even trying to use new content as a carrot).

The ship has probably sailed. EQ1 can indeed probably keep chugging along with the old schoolers for some time yet, and the next innovation of the Everquest franchise will likely be the Nantg mobile game.

EQ2? As long as the cash shop remains profitable, it might stick around for a while longer. We'll see.

EQ3NextNext? Doubtful.

In all the stuff Longdale has been putting out to the public, she references EQ and the "World of Everquest". Ican find zero mentions of EQ2, and any references to anything in the future are decidedly vague and non-committal. Heck, she even framed it this way in this year's EQ2 Producer's Letter: "The World of Everquest has a bright future..."

Not saying EQ2 is gonna die this year or anything, but I'm getting the sneaking suspicion that when the dust settles, we're gonna have EQ + Mobile.

Just have to wait and see.

I still don't understand why they don't put the game on PS4. I can't speak to the technical challenges in putting it on a console, but most of the game, quests, zones, design, etc... is already there, so it should be a lower up-front investment. They just need to streamline and consolidate abilities like they did in EQOA and they would have an even better game than that one was.

Why do people think throwing money at advertising will help when the issue is the game itself? The live servers have extremely lackluster content, a lot of mechanics that are broken and almost nothing to log in for just 4 months after expansion launched.

People only log in to raid already. Throwing bucks at adversiting is the last thing they should throw money at.

I own a PS4, but rarely play it, except for games I can't play anywhere else, like Horizon Zero Dawn (), which has the best story ever in a game (and I've read the majority of Hugo and Nebula award books, and the story is better than many of those), and completed it, despite it being an action game, which is not my preferred genre. Because of the story, and great music

So I'm struggling with how the fact that EQ2's 100 hotkeys, which aren't enough, could be implemented on a console?

EQ2, prior to the last expansion, has the best content I've ever played in an MMO. And I've played the original EQ since beta, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Star Wars Galaxy, Dark Ages of Camelot, WoW, Earth and Beyond, Horizons, City of Heroes, Lord of the Rings Online, Final Fantasy 11 and 14, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rift, Tera, DC Universe Online, Eve Online, The Secret World (and Legends) plus brief forays into Ultima Online, Vanguard, Black Desert Online, Guild Wars, Neverwinter, Wildstar.

I've always felt that EQ2 was throwing a great party that no one attended. Part of that is due to the icon EQ is, and hence people going to EQ when feeling nostalgic, but EQ still makes my eye twitch. Plus EQ2 was released at the same time as WoW, and many of us who were recovering EQ addicts then SWG addicts, decided to jump ship to WoW (not surprising, since our EQ guild was formed from our Diablo guild).

So it wasn't until 2006, when I tired of WoW's variation of "kill 10 rats" by killing "40 rats with a 25% drop rate for the part you needed to complete the quest", which makes killing 10 rats sound a lot more fun.

And fell in love with EQ2. Because it made crafting useful, perfectly balanced between soloing and grouping rewards, the housing, and later, the guild halls. Crafters who could level independently of adventure level. The broker system, which generously gave me space to test the market at no cost, and at no cost to buyer either, if he/she choose to buy from my house. A plethora of zones to level in. Guilds who could accept all players regardless of faction. The most quests I could carry at one time of any MMO. Heritage quests to remember the original EQ by, and most importantly, helped me to level up my guild. Being able to level my guild through crafting faster than adventuring. Guild halls which made it easy to level crafting through the sharing of resources, and unrivaled in any MMO I've played.

As I said, EQ2 is the best MMO ever (and still is), but set back due to poor timing (releasing at the same time as WoW) and the fact that when first released, had a lot more of the EQ style tedium than it did when I tired of WoW and decided to try EQ2.

Fast forward 12 years, and I come back to EQ2 as I always have and always will as long as it exists, several months prior to the release of Chaos Descending, and had such a blast playing the content new to me since TOV, when I last played. So I talked my husband into returning, and he had fun too. The fun continued until I completed the Chaos Descending solo signature line, thanks to so much help provided by posters on this forum for returning players.

We had all crafters at max level, fairly wealthy by then considering we hadn't played since TOV.

But with zero interest in the crafting part beyond that. Go back to where I said "because it made crafting useful, perfectly balanced between soloing and grouping rewards", which I didn't see existing at the time (over-balanced in favor of crafting)

Then I received an e-mail from Anarchy Online, advertising it's first version of TLE, 4 days before getting the e-mail about the Kaladim server.

So I joined AO's new server instead, although more seriously old school than EQ2 (or maybe because of it). However, having played Stormhold, it wasn't clear to me what was different this time.

Aye.

This was/is on Daybreak's list of things to do. As was a PS4 EverQuest Next. Too lazy to look up the references.

I did play the EverQuest Online Adventures on the PS2.

https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-2/everquest-online-adventures

Opinion - At least a subset of EverQuest or EverQuest II on the PS4 (or PS5) is doable.

Although should that come about, a handful will complain that PS4 boxers should be banned.

Unfortunately some in Daybreak have a habit of saying they'll do something, and it gets delayed or shelved.

"Why do people think," a handful anyway, they are mutually exclusive? Because they are not. Like fixing up a house AND having the money to pay the bills (utilities, mortgage, etc.). That's logical, not fallacious.

It's 'all well and good' to fix the bugs. Which Daybreak Employees Are Being Paid And Should Be Doing Consistently.

It's not 'all well and good' when you have a great game, but few if any (who do not play it) do not know about it.

Daybreak went the little to no advertising route with H1Z1. And to repeat:

I sure hope it's everquest 2, their newest freaking release to the series and not the old one haha

Just

SWG Pre-CU cannot be compared to any other MMO because it is the best game ever.

Not for crafters, when they were changing resource nodes every other day or so (as opposed to the promised once a week or so), making the harvesters we placed the day before useless, and so requiring us to check them daily (I had a list of them to check daily to see if they were still sitting on a useful node), factories that required large amounts of resources, but often didn't work, and when they did, required identical resources to be useful, but since they changed the resources frequently, it was hard to find identical resources (Master Architect, so all I needed was basic stuff to be identical to use the factory), and while juggling those issues, getting tells from people who wanted to know what a banana chair looked like (since furniture was basically the only thing I could sell on the market, since the buildings I could make which included guild halls exceeded the maximum price allowed on the market, and it was hard to find a community building area where mobs did not attack you in your house.

YMMV, if you were not a crafter, especially if you were not an architect who needed huge amounts of identical resources, and could care less about resources that had great stats for weapons.

With this month's news about NantG, that seems more ifffy now. Emphasis in bold.

Z1 Battle Royale dropped by new developer, returns to Daybreak Games
April 8 2019
https://www.pcgamer.com/z1-battle-royale-dropped-by-new-developer-returns-to-daybreak-games/

• "The H1Z1 saga has taken yet another bizarre, confusing twist, as developer NantG Mobile has announced that it is giving up on the newly-renamed Z1 Battle Royale and returning it to original developer Daybreak Games."
• "Despite the team's determination and commitment to revive Z1BR's player base with our recent Season 3 launch update, we soon realized that the road is still paved with many challenges that preclude us from long-term success, including the confusion it caused by having both NantG Mobile and Daybreak managing the same game under separate brands," NantG announced on Steam."
• "Based on these events and the current state of the game, NantG Mobile will focus on its core mission of developing mobile games moving forward, and we have refocused our team toward this vision."
• "An estimated 13 employees were laid off by NantG as a result of the decision to drop the game, according to Gamasutra, nearly all of whom had been working on Z1 Battle Royale. The bulk of those employees came over to NantG from Daybreak to work on the game, but will only be given severance for their time at NantG, which one former employee said means that some of them will lose out on "upwards of 18 years worth of seniority."

Report: 13 devs laid off from NantG as Z1 Battle Royale handed back to Daybreak
April 20, 2019
https://www.gamasutra.com/view/news..._Z1_Battle_Royale_handed_back_to_Daybreak.php

• "NantG Mobile itself has only been up and running since late last year and is the result of a joint venture between H1Z1 and Everquest dev Daybreak Game Company and NantWorks."
• "13 people lost their jobs as a result of the Z1 Battle Royale handoff, meaning roughly half the studio was let go this week."
• "it was not a surprise to any of the team that the product was likely at the end of its profitability, assurances had been made that our jobs were in no way tied to the success or failure of the project."
• "the bulk of the NantG team, outside of management and four others, was composed of developers that transitioned from Daybreak for the new NantG Mobile joint venture."

Daybreak's Steam comments here:

• https://steamcommunity.com/games/433850/announcements/detail/2563019799774416379
• https://steamcommunity.com/app/433850/allnews/#scrollTop=0
  • "As we've stated since the transition, our number one goal is to maintain Z1BR game service while we evaluate the steps required to continue supporting the game."

Takeaways:

• "half the studio was let go" "upwards of 18 years worth of seniority"
  • Daybreak didn't take these previous employees back. Daybreak hurting that much for money? Is this why there are price gouges increases of various services and items?
  • Imagine if this talent had been loaned to EverQuest II and EverQuest instead.
    • Revitalizing and improving the games, leading to increased revenue from new customers?
      • There are bugs and things that go back years, and remain unresolved. Tells a lot about the company top priorities; it's not customer satisfaction.
    • Work on an EverQuest & EverQuest II successor?
• Think about the remaining half of NantG that is working on EverQuest mobile and other mobile games.
  • If you were in their shoes what would you be thinking?
    • Freshening up the old resume and sending them out to headhunters? Because Daybreak won't have your back?
• If NantG comes to the conclusion that EverQuest Mobile will "preclude us from long-term success," will NantG cut it's losses further and ditch/hand-over EverQuest mobile? Remind you of the story just before EverQuest Next folded?
  • If that happens, imagine the EverQuest, and possibly EverQuest II understaffing problems.
• NantG handed back the project to Daybreak. Heaping more work on the appropriate, and likely understaffed developer team.
• Isn't about time that the Daybreak manager who made these decisions, be transferred to NantG? And given the same promises as the developers. It's not like bleeding money and losing resources is a career builder. It's amazing what the figurative incentive of life or death can do to motivate a person.

Disturbing. What's more disturbing is this business is not unexpected, and tolerated by some.