Producer’s Letter: New Fabled, Ethereal Items, Server Stuff and MORE!

Ditto on all--except I don't have a step-son But I've got a friend who loves grouping, but is an infrequent player, and can't get a group because they inspect his gear and won't take him. He's plat-rich, so he buys the best on the broker, but it's not good enough.

The main reason I solo is because I have terrible eyesight and am on pain meds, so I often can't walk and chew gum at the same time. People in groups get so frustrated with me for many reasons, for example, I take so long to decide on loot because the text is so damn small, then I have to remember which toon I'm playing ATM and which stats I need. I can't play with people without a mic because I can't play and read group say at the same time. A guild I used to be in knew that they'd have to explain a boss mob's strat to me each time, because I wouldn't remember, no matter how many times I had helped kill him. (I switched pain meds and at least my memory isn't that bad any more.)

Also, I only want to play in first person (I like to feel like I'm killing the mobs, not controlling a puppet who kills the mobs), and that means I usually can't see adds. I've actually been kicked out of groups for refusing to play third person! Mercs were a lifesaver for me, so I can play at my own speed, without worrying about frustrating and disappointing other players.

Oops, I just meant to say ditto and share my friend's gear experience. But now that I've typed all that I don't want to delete it

LOVE the map toggling idea.

For me, I'm still the one running my toon in third person (I'll literally barf if I have to play in first person for too long; I can't handle the motion sickness [which I never get in RL; go fig] :-/), but I often get frustrated with the cameraman over my shoulder... ;->

I just hope nothing in this Letter is set in stone (like the Pro7 deal? heh...), because I certainly haven't seen anything of this on the Test or Beta servers to try out yet. :-/

Uwk

First off, I'd like to thank you, Roshen, for this update info. The new home with decor set sounds fantastic, but as usual, I don't really see anything here for the casual solo player. I don't know why we keep getting written off (you guys were doing great there adding solo content for a very short period of time), and I wish someone would actually code an mmo specifically with us in mind, because I get so tired of the same ol' same ol'. The house decorating system would have to be fabulous though, or they would be totally wasting their time.

I'm not interested in heroics or raiding, so these new time locked servers are of no interest to me, whatsoever. I've come to the conclusion that DBG really isn't interested in reaching out to the casual solo players of this game, and that's really disappointing. All you have to do is look at some of the homes I have decorated (not just PlayerStudio, but SC based furniture as well, though much of it has yet to even be placed as decor) to know that I have spent substantial amounts of real money to support this game. I am not just some run of the mill random player who complains but doesn't step up to the plate when it comes time to supporting a game I love, yet I feel, time and again, as if I've been slighted because my play style seems to be inconsequential to those developing the game.

It's been a while since I've spent any real money on the game, other than AllAccess on my primary account...I even went so far as to cancel my AllAccess sub on my secondary account, because I really don't have a good feeling about the direction this game has been headed as of recent changes. This announcement does not give me any new incentive to reinstate AllAccess on my secondary account, nor to invest any more real money in the game, and I just want you to know that is simply because of the lack of new casual solo content, and I am still not interested in the new campaign method of introducing new content. I would like to suggest that your team start looking at introducing new casual solo content as well. You really are writing off a much larger player base than you realize by ignoring us and our play style, but I am not holding my breath in hopes for this new content that probably won't be forthcoming. I don't consider Agnostic dungeons as casual solo content, because they still require grouping. Make them soloable, then you'll make my day! :/

I want to comment on this as well. I can't reiterate this enough...I have said it time and time again, yet here you are again...trying to give us incentives to group. I do not generally group with anyone, no matter what incentives you offer. Please stop trying to force a play style on those of us casual solo players who simply do not wish to play your way. It's not my style, never will be, and nothing you do will ever make it my way to play. :/

Edit:

I've read through this entire thread and am glad to see I am not alone in feeling the way I do. I have 'liked' each post that I feel in some way represents my own feelings on this topic, and I encourage anyone and everyone else to do the same, especially if you don't want to take the time to post your own feelings on the subject.

Are you first going to fix the existing server populations before you further dilute the player-base by launching progression servers?

............................................................................................................................

What you describe underscores my point regarding those who prefer to solo, and not group.
Sometimes, there are valid reasons (other than anti-social tendencies) why people prefer to play solo.

I don't use Mercs, so...I'm an odd-ball there. I like playing my own game, but I have no trouble seeing everything around me,
so I don't need mercs, especially on a Beastlord. I have warders who "watch my back" and I watch theirs.

Separate servers for those who want progression and content that requires grouping to succeed would be better than trying to cram all of the players on a server into the same mold.
I solo. I rarely group. I haven't raided since EQ...and I had the best RL ever in the raid guild I was in. There will never be another RL like him. If he had said, "Run into Ssraeshza Temple naked...NOW!," we would have all ditched our gear and run in bare-handed. He was a great leader and we trusted him. We failed raids until we got the hang of each and conquered them.
I'm done with that.
There are several reasons for my choice, but the important thing is that regardless of how I, you, or anyone else plays, we all Paid to play, and we should get our money's worth, just as those who prefer to group and do dungeon runs together and raid together should have the opportunity to live the dreams they paid for.

Join the club, Zoo; I don't molo either. I just have to be careful about my targets when I'm playing squishy cloth-wearers. ;->

And in many ways, yeah, it's all about the people involved; hell, I've quit places in Real Life (RL = Raid Leader confused me, lol) where I couldn't stand working with the people. It was very distracting. :-/

Now, I have been lucky with PUGs and just meeting folks in the wee hours, but I've also been burned (even by a regular group) and had RLs that were complete and utter jerks. I, for one, don't feel the need to have five other folks, or even a merc, "holding my hand" to go out and about (maybe if I were on Nagafen...), but I can also understand if others want to socialize, and work well together as a team, with teammates. But the game will not go down in flames and perish if soloers get more love; the soloers who don't feel the need to group will be here after the lack of people drive the groupers to AB or elsewhere.

I guess what's distressing me about this is that they seem to be adding more options while taking away others we already had and liked.

Uwk

So in other words, we get the same server rules that we already have. Just locked at a certain point in time. I was hoping for the kind of server where we had the starter isles back, that we could go to freeport once again do those hood quest, have our housing back in the hood, and have old freeport back the way it was before somebody decided to change it. Forgive me for saying this, but there was a lot of good old content that was removed, and the new freeport, well folks use it for a hub for housing, I hardly see anybody unless it is a the banker in east freeport.

Completely agree with all of this. I want the Old Isle of Refuge, Old Freeport & Qeynos back w/ the burbs, & all those heroic overland nasties.

One big thing I hated about the old days was a quest series that was solo but ended with Heroics. I had so many unfinished quests. Some I finished with either guildies or PUGs but not when I wanted to finish them; I was on someone else's time.

The event that pretty much killed grouping for me was when I was on the Test server and we were invited to get shinys in a special place, and people were complaining of node stealing, and it finally dawned that they were referring to me; yet when I saw a shiny there was no one around. Talked with a person who was leading this event, and it seems my computer was lagging and I was actually behind what was going on. So when I saw no one there, there actually was someone. Because I could not trust my computer to show me "real" time, I couldn't trust myself any more in groups. I certainly didn't want to be the one causing all the trouble, and if it was doing this in groups; perhaps during raids when timing was gawdawful important, I was screwing up there, too.

So now I solo most of the time; I don't even like to use mercs unless I absolute have to. To me mercs make us all "pet classes"; just my opinion.

I am very accepting that I won't have raid gear and other uber items unless they are items my crafters can make. I even have enjoyed that some dungeons were tiered so solos, molos, duos, and threesomes could play. Some of my friends/guildies know why I don't group as much as I would like, and so are more forgiving and flexible.

Another thing that I hated were DPS meters and when the whole raid was playing for the meter, not necessairly their role.

Anyway, I'm getting all soapboxie, and I have to say punishing solo, molo and duo by precluding them from obtaining collections, finishing up questlines will not help to bring people closer together to group, it will just cause frustration and resentment upon a segment of your game.

Put my name in for a SF server!

It's impossible to get everyone to follow SF equipment restrictions in a progression guild on normal servers.

''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''''
umm...MOLO isn't in my "dictionary"....looked it up, but didn't "get" it...needed a simple, common language definition /sigh....

"I guess what's distressing me about this is that they seem to be adding more options while taking away others we already had and liked. "
AGREE with you there....

New and shiny isn't necessarily better than Serviceable, Dependable, and Satisfactory.

I guess I got so into the "group" thought I forgot about other points about the new server.

The EQ2 of early launch was strictly PvE, so being true to old EQ2 would mean no PvP. So I'm glad that they will be on separate servers. If you want to be authenic you would also have to have the old Isle of Refuge and the villages off the main cities of Qeynos and Freeport; to do so without them would not appeal to the player base that yearns for those experiences again.

I think a real effort of the development team would have to try to replicate as closely as possible those places and quests and teaching moments or it just won't draw the population you are hoping to get. Then *I know this will be unpopular* if you have 2 of these type servers you will further thin out your population by PvE vs PvP; or even those who will not even make a toon for these servers because they are content with their current server and don't care to start over.

Bringing up character slots...will a new slot be given with the advent of the new servers? or will people have to purchase a new character slot(s)?

absolutely! i would love more than anything to see the vanilla game! back with all the subburb quests, old qeynos and freeport, back when we lost spirit shards when you died, isle of refuge, starting off as a fighter and doing your class quests, getting killed by trade skilling, those were the days!

They are going to. They're shown in the livestream.

This is incredibly disappointing to me. Basically you're taking an already overwhelmingly underpopulated game and opening more servers. What about those of us who couldn't care less about a 'progression' server? I guess our regular servers will be even bigger ghost towns. So much for all the GROUP content you want us to do.

I'm not sure why anyone thought removing the green fog was a good idea. Some of us don't want to wander around or have to consult a website to find what we need. And let's face it, the quests already in the game are severely lacking on direction. Like others have mentioned, if this is going to be an included feature, allow the player to toggle it on or off.

I played this game when it was released, and while nostalgia about it is nice, the reality of it going back to that type of play would not be. All I have to do is log into EQ1 and see that. I have fond memories and remember great times, but when I try to play it now, I'm extremely underwhelmed.

They need to merge the existing servers up, or give us some sort of transfer tolken so we can move to a busy server, otherwise I do see that some servers will go poof after this.

Holly has already addressed this: Daybreak is working hard on cross-server LFG/dungeon stuff to alleviate population difficulties first. It would be better for the sake of character names and guild names to at least try this method first before doing server merges.

I am not sure whether I misunderstood Roshen's post or if everyone here just didn't read it, but what I read it sounds like no current game mechanics would be changing and the only thing that would be locked is the content. Which is a HORRIBLE idea. You can't legitimately progression raid old content with all the mechanics changes over the years. Even if your toon is completely naked (with the exception of vendor bought white weapons) with no AAs and apprentice spells, your level 50 toon on live will still do more dps than old level 50 toons at game launch. I feel like everyone is overestimating the difficulty of PvE content back then too. The hard part back then was figuring out and executing strats. If they somehow just set up a server that was literally day 7 of an expansion release with no changes to the game. Raid content up through rok with the exception of maybe DMP and MMIS will likely be completed in the first day or two of a guild having 24 level capped players.

That being said, I'd still have fun, if the servers were set to be how it actually was back then. The only things I can think of that I'd want to keep is the addition of the NBG loot system instead of just having lotto/leader only, and I guess in game voice chat/guild finder window wouldn't hurt. Bring back tradeskill subcomponents and slower xp gain!~ A lot of the fun of launch content (for me anyway) was leveling with groups through stormhold, rov, runnyeye, cazic, permafrost (I wasnt cap before release), etc. The LFG window would be pretty legit too if people actually learned to use it.

Sure would like to hear more about these "time locked Expansion Servers"!
i love new servers... i love starting new toons... How might this work...?