Smedley speaks on the future of MMO's

I can totally see what you are saying here. As a college athlete, most of my friends enjoy sports games...playing them over and over without much actual depth going in. It really is a matter of interest, but generally things are steering towards console.

One thing is common throughout today is a lot of people like head-to-head things instead of player vs environment campaigns. Unfortunately, the EQ2 Devs did absolutely nothing to revive the best MMO PvP game out there and effectively pushed away its younger population. These days you really struggle to see a complete game, and as someone who plays both console and did for a long time play EQ2, there are different times for different things, yet you can get far more depth out of a computer game like EQ2.

They need to go back to what this game was built on, though. Most changes in development have been for the worse.

You do know that EQ2 started out a PvE game and that PvP was "added" later which unbalanced the classes and there have been balancing issues ever since. My wish would be that we went back to EQ2's roots of being a PvE game.

EverWinter is now on console and PC so I know it can be done. I agree more work should have been put into PvP and I don't understand why they didn't. I, personally, prefer PvE but that's just me. I believe that if a player wants to play PvP they should have that option. We can only hope DBG will realize that and give these gamers what they want.

He is wrong in thinking a MMORPG can not deliver that. You can have a WoW or EQ style MMORPG that is digestible in smaller chunks that is just as massive and just as interesting.

Thanks Gninja for the link and update! For those who prefer not to visit third-party sites, here is what J. Smedley said:

I've read some of the threads about my comments in that interview. I wanted to clarify what I was talking about. I was asked in the interview about what things we're doing differently for our new games going forward and that's when I said we're focused on shorter session times because not many people have the time anymore to spend on a 4 hour raid.
Don't mistake that comment for me not believing in raiding or knowing that there are a ton of people that play MMOs that still absolutely love to do it! We also plan on continuing to support EQ, and EQ2 for the very long haul and providing exactly the kind of cool content our players have expected. None of that is changing.
However, when we're choosing what new games to make we're focused on games with shorter average session lengths. Why? Because that's the way the gaming world has evolved and we need to adapt. That's precisely why we aimed so high on Everquest Next. We know we needed to change our aim on these games. We can't just expect our users to want to grind through an epic 8 hour raid encounter or treat these games like it's a second job. We need to make sure our games are just as fun in smaller time increments.
That's the entirety of what I was talking about. It's not a comment on today's games. It's a comment on today's reality and where we are aiming at least some of our games.
We remain majorly committed to producing great content for our EQ and EQ2 players for a long time to come, and rest assured there is going to be plenty of content for EQN players as well including raids and all the stuff players have come to know and love in these games.
Smed

While I believe having content that lets one accomplish something in 45 minutes of play is a good thing, I would say that EQII already has this. I can give as an example my latest project: Maj'Dul questing with my alt, as I had never completed this content before. If I have only an hour or less to play, I can easily complete one or two parts of the questline and check them off as done at the end of the session. For example, doing Court of the Coin: Maimun's Gifts and then probably finish Court of the Coin: Running the Business as well. Am I going to be able to acquire an epic weapon in 45 minutes? No, and I do not think I should. Neither do I think that all content should be locked behind grouping or long time-sinks. I actually despise content with no meaning other than to slow players down--if I look at it and see it has no value or purpose other than to slow players down, it irks me and I do not want to do it at all. You want to make a quest last longer, fine--tell me to go kill a few of something, but quests like the griffon quest, where you have to wait a day for no reason at all, before doing the next step just pi** me off to no end. The RNG is a never-ending source of frustration, and I believe anything that can be done without it should be done without it. An example: You want me to collect 25 Croc skins, and you have them dropping from crocs at approximately 1 in 3, but the RNG will mess with you, and the little blue words "You didn't find any quest items" just infuriate a player. You want me to have to kill 75 crocs to get the skins, then fine, make them drop 100% and tell me to get 75! There are ways to make the game a bit better, a bit more friendly, but it doesn't need an overall--just a few tweaks here and there would go a long way to relieving frustration. Sorry for the weird font and run-on paragraph, but cutting-and -pasting from Reddit seems to have made the forums lose their mind--won't even allow a new paragraph!

Quote: "We also -----> plan <----- on continuing to support EQ, and EQ2 for the very long haul"

Weasel-word and out-clause detected.

Thank you for posting this here because I would of never seen it on Reddit.

Smedley ~ However, when we're choosing what new games to make we're focused on games with shorter average session lengths. Why? Because that's the way the gaming world has evolved and we need to adapt. That's precisely why we aimed so high on Everquest Next. We know we needed to change our aim on these games. We can't just expect our users to want to grind through an epic 8 hour raid encounter or treat these games like it's a second job. We need to make sure our games are just as fun in smaller time increments.

Feara ~ First, thank you for commenting (wish it was on your own forums). Second, I totally get what your saying and I agree. Why can you not apply this concept in EQ2? Many, many EQ2 players work and we have needed this concept applied to this game for a very long time, years... if I might add.

Again, so out of touch, how many of us at all raid for 4 hours at a time? How many of us really ever did?

He speaks in extremes to again paint the picture he wants to see.

There are quite a few gamers that are interested in 15-60min pieces of MMORPG engagement to play as they can during the week. These same players are also willing to commit 90-150 mins occasionally (couple times a week) for raiding providing the rewards and the play experiences are worth it.

I agree with Smed that there aren't many people that want to raid 4 hour blocks 7 days a week. There NEVER was a player base that did or wanted to do this. Not unless I go back to 1991 MUDS. Most of the raid forces I'm aware of raid in 2-3 hour blocks, more of them closer to the 2 hour marker. And they tend to raid on average 3 nights a week with attendance values closer to 60-75%. Meaning your players even in a WoW based MMORPG are only raiding 4-9 hours a week in more digestible session times than 4 hours.

I can look at what session times WoW based MMORPG players are playing, and they are not at all different than session times of battle arena games like LoL, Dota2, WoT. The key here is fantasy MMORPGs have been slow to adopt changes that more easily catapult players into these quick session times and instead have focused on horrible solo content that is extremely repetitive (kill 10 rats, now kill 10 more rats). If you instead focused on the tools, content, and functionality that delivered experience like LADs do, but was available for a lot more dungeons including current tier, a fantasy MMORPG can have much larger appeal. The issue is, these trends were evident years ago, and this franchise has failed to deliver on them.

So naturally my question is, why hasn't the EQ franchises done a better job of also aligning to these session times? Why wasn't a cross server dungeon finder that has the features to truely work made a priority 3 years ago? The only answer I could imagine to that is cause LEADERSHIP didn't make it a priority.

And sorry, not really responding to you or asking you those questions Gninja, my comments are more directed at your link

Also, thanks for sharring it, I really tried to do the reddit thing, but it is just too annoying to try to have or follow a _conversation_, but sure it is maybe better at having a battle of ideas.

While I don't speak for Smed... If you aren't raiding for 4+ hours a night then this comment didn't apply to you in the first place and no need to read into it as much as you did.

I really don't get your drift here. Everything Smedley said applies to us. What the Company does and does not do will effect everyone of its players. We have a lot invested here Gninja.

I was only referring to the comment about Atan not playing for hours a session. It in no way was saying that everyone was like Atan. I personally don't like to play as a barbarian

I think the point of all this is that we are still here and we are still making content that this game's players want us to make... That goes for crafting, raiding, soloing, X2 content, shinies, all the things players have come to love about EverQuest II. We are committed to keeping this game going and continuing to release new content.

TL;DR We <3 you guys!

I know I enjoyed 1-2 hour raids quite reasonably before I took my Hiatus. I still read the Forums, help people out, produce stuff for Player Studio and Keep tabs on Landmark and Next. There is a crowd for huge-time raiding, those are your 16-22 year olds mostly. The 23-30 crowd are shorter timespans due to newly started careers or jobhunting and having to deal with becoming a real-adult so to speak.

Smedly realizes this and while I do not advocate many of his choices in fact I personally don't like him and most of his decisions. Realize that he is leading a company, at the end of the day he needs to compromise a solution that both makes players reasonably happy AND keeps the company running AND turns a profit for continued growth and development of new IP's.

Everquest Next if you've kept up is working on a world that constantly changes, meaning every 1-2 hours something new can happen naturally. Meaning you don't have to play for long long sessions of 4+ hours to see something new and have a new experience. Can they deliver? Well based on Landmark... it's coming slowly along but Landmark is very, clunky right now. My biggest grip is that it's crafting feels like Warframe in that it's not very intuitive to the player and the only way to find out is reading the absolutely massive Help Menu.

If Smed want's shorter play sessions his games need to read very clearly. As to you Gninja, keep up the good work. For my own reasons I enjoyed the work through DoV and ToV that you and the raid developers did so thank you. Some of my long standing EQ2 Memories are Drunder related.

Edit: I miss Gnobrin though.

It's more when he makes those comments as part of a justification for how 'the days of a wow style MMORPG are gone'. And clearly the EQ franchise falls into this category.

Then he uses extremes to describe what a WoW style MMORPG ever was. This coupled with the lack of leadership drive to have better shaped the EQ franchises to deliver on the play times he is describing, Sets off my hypocrisy meter.

There is still a significant market for a WoW style MMORPG, it just needs to deliver engaging content in the time commitments players are looking to commit. And lets be honest EQ Next isn't that, it is something else entirely.

I frequently play WoT, cause I know I can get into a multiplayer experience that I can make last for 15-45 minutes and it will take me less than 2 minutes after logging on to begin that experience. I'd honestly much rather play EQ2 instead, but if I'm going to only have 30-45 minutes tops to play, I can't have a multiplayer experience. I'd be lucky to have formed a full group in that time, much less completed a simple zone. And that is largely because the game hasn't been provided the updates to deliver on that. I know something is coming Soon(tm), but lets be honest that is at least 3 years late to the party.

If you really think that, there is no hope for EQ2. $15 zones and duck mounts are not what this game's players want! The list is endless of GREAT things that have been taken out of the game over the years with nothing to replace them.

Whoa....what's wrong with Duck mounts???

Can you give examples?

Speak for yourself. Additional content and cool-looking mounts are EXACTLY what i want. If you tell me that EQ2 will provide an additional campaign and an additional mount every month for the next 2 years, you're pretty much guaranteed to have me continue playing. (yes, at $15 a month).

At the moment my major disappoint is that there aren't MORE campaigns. Because this one had only an easy raid zone and not enough to keep me going until end of year. MORE would be better.

Speaking of not enough til end of the year are the fabled zones just extra content to be added in between the campaigns?

I find this defense of Smedley particularly interesting. He didn't comment anywhere that he meant the 4 hour per night raider. Is it you that's reading into his comments?

For a long time EQ2 and other MMOs have been adding short session content, which I enjoy, along with the option to raid, etc. This is nothing new.

What I don't like is the attempt to BS us.

@GrunEQ: The addition of PVP never unbalanced the game - pvp mechanics have NEVER been a deciding factor in balancing any of the classes. PVE considerations have always come first and those of us that lived on the PVP servers since this option went live have always had to understand how combat arts and spells work in both the pvp/e environment. See the little check mark on your spell/CA descriptor.

Pvp/e was a godsend in its early days (KOS through Kunark). Late TSO and SF changes killed the pvp/e game. EQ2 had the best pvp/e game going for several years when they pretty much turned on the ability for us to kill each other and fight the environment and just left us alone. Mistakes were made with crit mit, pvp/e gear separation (causing people to choose pvp OR pve instead of both), token value and then the introduction of pvp-lite (BGs) which really just tipped the ship as well as the mindless number of instances and excessive speed/travel options that just killed our glorious open world of mayhem.