Producer's Letter: Coming Right Up!

EQ2 is fully fleshed out at every stage under 86. Once you hit DoV things start to get a bit shaky and lore gets a bit sketchy. I love the lower levels for the lore and the fun finding things.

I loved the low levels before they "revamped" the itemization and made it extremely difficult to have fun grouping for that content (or even trio'ing it). But even so, that doesn't mean that new players should be required to play it. It's very different from end game grouping and raiding, and some players who are not fans of solo leveling are bound to like grouping/raiding at end game. By allowing players the option to get to end game more quickly, they broaden their potential audience. Instead of only hooking players who enjoy solo leveling, they will also have a chance to hook players who enjoy grouping and/or raiding (but not solo leveling).

But it's a solo game now at those levels. Hoping people get hooked on the mmo while playing by themselves for a month or so is a big risk if you're looking to convert a new player to a long-term one.

Worked for me. Then again EQ1 had already taught me that guilds and raids in EQ were undesireable things to be avoided at all costs unless you enjoyed many CR, deleveling and feeling like you were nothing more than an ant in a swarm.

Well, you gain about 5 lvls nowadays just by walking from the place you enter the game to any other high lvl zone to watch for an avatar - you had to do stuff for about half an hour to get this far back the day. Just sayin..

Sounds like someone has been making alts to watch for avatar pops.

On this particular issue I agree with you wholeheartedly Dulcenia. In my opinion, all the expansions pre-DOV are like playing an entirely different game. Any one that plays through the lower level content without power leveling can see how much love and attention was given to those zones. I for one miss the starter islands, access quests to ride the boat to zones like Everfrost, heroic mobs roaming overland zones like Antonica (remember people killing the scarecrows to level?), and how terrified my healer was running through Nek Forest and knowing if I died I had to go back and get my shard. Sigh, those were the days.

Nothing unexpected in this letter to the players.

I think we all hoped that it would not go like this, but realistically you can't just snap your fingers as a producer and put an expansion out. Due to reasons beyond the producers control this is what we get. It is not the first time, and probably not the last that it will happen.

In regards to the current situation I really wish their was a way for these developers and staff to communicate to its playerbase in an open way; to let us know what is going on past the traditional letters from Smed, and insert producer name for this expansion here.

I think if we as players were more in the loop things would be much more positive over all. Convincing a company to actually do that though... Well good luck.

I can't think of any mmo that I have played that has found a way to deal with new players, or low level players feeling alone in old content.

I think Twyxx nailed it in regards to that gripe, it is not fast leveling from 85-95 for a new person, but they will be in semi relevant content, and will be playing with non new players as well. They will get a few weeks to a month learning to play. I know that I spend a considerable time in ss, and seb helping players to learn their classes and grouping with them mentored down.

Call me whatever you want, but when GU68 comes out I won't be grouping with newly created level 85s. Be realistictic...

From the sounds of it (avoiding guilds and raids since eq1) you don't play with anyone else as it is. That's cool you like your solo game but not everyone, especially in a multi-player game, wants that playstyle.

What is within the producer's control is communication. And this isn't good enough.

QFT. I know stuff happens, and I know their are things we will not be able to change. But to have open lines of communication, not just prefab statements would make these situations a lot better.

I know that at SOE Live the DEVs and Holly made a BIG deal out of their commitment to open communication AND transparency so I for one am fully committed to helping to hold their feet to the fire making sure that is going to happen.

Apart from just the HC issue there is a ton of new things coming with this expac and I can't wait to experience it. Heck I just might FINALLY be able to pull my Wizzy off of the shelf, dust him off and be able to actually do something with him now that they are going to get rid of the spell weapon stat garbage. Not to mention the new stat system sounded really good overall...

I guess all that to say that I have played eq2 since the very early days and minor hiccups or bumps in the road just don't bother me all that much because I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. First person shooters come and go no matter how much eye candy or WoW factors they try to put into them... consoles pop up and then sit on the shelf and gather dust (short attention span players) but my pc and I continue to play and socialize in Norrath. Everyone needs to breathe a little and relax because no oversimplified console ready solo - molo piece of junk is going to replace the level of sophistication and difficulty that has been EQ2 and this expac looks really good.

eq - eq2 was never hard. the only thing that made it appear hard was 200% time sinc requirements.
the game is 10+++ years old. showing its age to a large degree.
get out with your "it used to be harder, now its easy" mentality.
the game was never hard. it just took longer to do everything.
if I was going to live to be 300, I would say bring it on. but ive already wasted 10 years of my life to video games.
that honestly.. will be most likely deleted the moment sony decides they are done with the cash cow.
SWG. sell out. they didnt even offer to give players a copy of thier data and the server files.
that was the least they could have done as a thank you, for 10 years of life investment.
cash cow.

anyways. lets not pretend like getting to 85 is hard. it can be done in under a day with a good friends help.
regardless, the novelty of leveling up for 2 years is over.

breath a little fresh life into the game, add a little chaos into the mix.
PVP in cities and 277 AAs at any level made the game fun again.

Heh, well I imagine it largely will depend on the player behind the character as to how awful they are, much like many of the level 85-90s you see running around anywhere today.

Even back in EQ1 there were well-played Ebay characters, you'd never know they'd bought the character unless they told you and then there were the people who actually leveled up & still didn't know what they were doing.

I am about to burst some peoples bubbles in their denial about this game, but here it goes.
This game hasn't be "real" for the lower levels in quite a few years. you only ever really understand if you were there. but as someone who doesn't "powerlevel" atleast not by means of paying someone or using a 95 mentored, just soloing content all the way to about the mid 80s. You are lucky to run into Anyone in those lower places. the game doesn't start until atleast 90 (BGs) and even than the game is getting less and less

I find this post extremely humorous because that is implying that you Already group with 85s, be realistic yourself I bet you don't group with anyone below 95 unless it's a guildie/someone you knows alt

Just like Sony to make things hard to find anything that you are looking for. In can't even find the correct thread to post anything because there are no open threads to ask a question. A valid question like if someone has been playing for awhile and goes out to buy a new computer where in the heck can anyone find the place to download the launchpad to sign into the game on the new computer. If you go to the launchpad website it only gives you l;inks to download other useless programs but not one link to download the launchpad. If you Google the launchpad there are thousands of sites that have links or forums to fix launchpad errors so obviously this program has some errors. Why can't sony just put a link on their main website that says to download the station launcher to play the game? Oh that would be just too easy and make too much common sense for sony.

I think that instead, unless they shorten the ugly grind from 90-95, you're going to see a lot of 90-91-92 characters belonging to people who started at 85 and quit due to boredom.

People still won't be grouping, however.

Its not hard at all. Right on the EQ2 homepage (accessable by clicking 'home' at the top of these forums), you can access the download. Very large button, says "PLAY FREE". That should just be the launchpad & everything else downloads from the launchpad (or that is how it worked for me the last time I reinstalled). It is unfortunately the streaming client though.

You can also access the Support from the homepage (button right at the top) and search the Knowlege base for the EQ2 launchpad and you get a full list of all the launchers for SOE games.

Meh, not sure about that, but then I very rarely group anyway (and yes, I do think it's possible, even with coercers [except for maybe the Nights of the Dead hedge maze center]; you just have to pick your targets carefully), and don't have AoD, so no mercs. ;->

I suppose I can understand why folks would want some sort of grouping help after 85-90; from what I hear, it's an intolerable slog trying to get to 95, like the difficulty goes up exponentially beyond a certain point...I suppose it's to keep people from going from 1st straight through to 95th in under a week (just remember: "IF YOU'RE BORED, YOU'RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION."). :-/

Uwk
really, really fed up with most of the PUGs that haven't been with buddies and/or guildies :-/