Here is my labor of love for our hearing-impaired community. Sourced from Spotify. Dreamweaver: Hey everybody and welcome to Episode Seven, Kander's Candor. My name is Dreamweaver and I'm your Community Manager and this week, once again, I am here with Kyle "Kander" Vallee, our Creative Director for EQ2. I'm very clearly a little bit slow today for probably a lot of different reasons and I apologize for any weird pauses that will probably get edited out by our amazing Sound Designer. But besides that, I think we can dive right into the questions. We'll probably have some of our weird or silly things or you know, I'll say some words incorrectly. It usually is going to happen after I totally massacred some stuff last episode. So, let's get on with it. Kyle, are you... Kander: I just wanna...I just wanna say like, I've never corrected you on the pronounciation of my name. So... Dreamweaver: Is Vallee (sounds like Valley) not correct? Kander: It's not correct. Dreamweaver: Valley? Kander: It's Vuh-lee. Dreamweaver: Vuh-lee? Kander: Just so you know, it's French Canadian. I have some bad things to say about Qu- people from Quebec. Montreal, exactly. Dreamweaver: *laughs* Mmm, Yeah. I've, I watched Letterkenny. I know where this is, I know where... Kander: *laughs* Dreamweaver: Vuh-lee. You know what, I uh, I think I normally would apologize for this. But today I'm not sorry, so. Kander: Okay. That's alright. Dreamweaver: Today I'm not sorry. I'll be sorry tomorrow. Maybe, maybe thirty minutes later. Who knows at this point? Kander: Sorry, not sorry. Dreamweaver: Exactly. CharbrynEQ2 from the forums: With the recently released ability to buy the Epic 2.0 abilities for 0c on the Seru merchant at level 120, can it be possible to put the Awakened Abilites recipe book on that vendor to purchase with status, plat, expac currency or similarly priced at 0c if you're a crafter level 120, perhaps requiring the crafting timeline to be completed as well. Barring that, adding it to the Anchorage merchants, to be bought with chits? High amount even would be nice. I've been doing all the dailies that can drop this book and well, daily, no dice. With all the fragments we get now it'd be really nice to upgrade to my alts without having to commission. It's a lengthy process since you have to make every single tier. Kander: Right. So, it shouldn't be an issue to do that. It still requires, like, rares and epic spell components, and those are much easier to get now, so I don't...the only, the only reason that we would have any like, um, trepidation, about putting that on there is because it's just, everybody that has it now has 312 more recipes on them, so, *laughs* cause it's, the book is all of those spells. So everyone has to load up 312 more spells, but I don't think that's that bad, cause that's how many epic spell upgrades there are. But it's not major. I mean everything adds up, so we're always kind of careful, like what we, what we put where and, and why, just because you know, we're always trying to keep every-, performance up and all of that stuff. But that said, I don't think that that would be a problem. I don't, I think that we could probably do something with that. Dreamweaver: OK. This kind of might pertain to a later question, since that one was answered kind of quickly. Do you want to take a quick moment and explain to everyone listening why performance matters in this case. Like, what loading the spells is doing to performance, or at least kind of give the best estimation that you can give of that? Kander: Well, yeah, I mean, every time you do something on a character, you're loading up stuff, and, and the way that, like, over the years the way that we've made EQ2 run better is by not accessing anything until you access it. Because once upon a time, believe it or not, your characters just accessed that stuff all of the time, like your spell book, your recipe book, your, *laughs* like, like your bank, your shared bank, like...and so what we've done is we've gone through over the years and we've changed things to where, you know, you will never access any of this stuff until you access it, right? Like, it's not loaded on your character. It's not actually there, and then, you know, when you have 50,000 people online and they're all accessing their recipe books, that kind of stuff, it definitely bogged down the database. So that's why we're always, like, real careful about how much stuff we give people. We have done stuff in the past, and we're always trying to make performance better, but um, we have done stuff in the past, to like lower all the footprint of the characters and stuff like that, and it's something we're always looking at. Dreamweaver: Ok. Cool. Yeah. I just, I thought it might be helpful why we say things like that, so like possibly why adding an additional 312 spells to everybody's spell book might be a little bit taxing, possibly. Kander: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this is 312 recipes to your recipe book, and you're going to access them every time you open it. I mean, honestly, in the gist of things, it's not that bad though. Dreamweaver: Cool. Alright, next Chikkin says, "Thanks for these podcasts, and let me say, I can listen to you talking about stupid stuff for a long time/ thumbs up. More fun stuff, reminiscing, behind-the-scenes jokes and anecdotes would be awesome with your years of experience in this business. I'm sure you guys have tons of things to share." None of them are exciting. *Kander laughs* That was my commentary. *Both laugh* Alright there is... Kander: I could tell you some stories...curly hair... Dreamweaver: There is some that will probably get edited by our wonderful sound engineer, who's really nice and kind, uh...*Dreamweaver laughs* Um, Ch-, there is a question that Chikkin has after this. I just, I feel like these stories sometimes, I think we don't find them exciting in any way, shape, or form, maybe just cause we lived it. So maybe we will try and introduce some of these stories in every once in a while. Kander: Yeah, yeah. We lived it a hundred times... Dreamweaver: Yeah... Kander: *unintelligble* times...or a thousand times... Dreamweaver: Exactly. It might be more exciting to you guys that it is to us. But, um, we'll try and do more of that Chikkin, so thanks for that part. The question that they posed is, "Can you please implement some sort of class reset token. Class, like race token, or betray or tradeskill reset NPC, something that will allow their once-played characters to be converted to a class they actually now enjoy and will play. I, and many others, have toons we once tried and played, accumulated cool or non-tradeable, non-transferable items, houses, mounts... toons who now sit and gather dust. Hesitant to delete because of the hoard of items that would be deleted with them. And I realize this can cost DB cash, or Loyalty tokens, or whatever other means of payment, but please let us switch classes. /Plead." Kander: Well, uh Chikkin, with two K's... Dreamweaver: *laughs* Chikken with two K's... Kander: You basically just explained why we can't do that. That's part of it, is yes, you've have toons that have accumulated no-tradeable, non-transferrant house items, mount items, recipes, quests...we have come to the edge and talked about doing a class reset token many times, and basically, we would have to completely reset your character. Like, we would have to wipe all of the quests, and I don't think anyone wants that to happen, because I mean there are literally...so say you played, just as an example, as a shadowknight, and you did a lot of quests as a shadowknight, there are things there, like, if we let you switch to say, uh...you know, an inquisitor, that could totally ruin your day. So there's multiple reasons why we haven't done that, it's something.... Dreamweaver: That feels like, that feels like a big one. Kander: Just... Dreamweaver: It makes me physically uncomfortable to be like, alright you can class-switch, but you're going to lose everything. Kander: Yeah, I mean... Dreamweaver: *makes high-pitched Awwwwww* Kander: That would be, I mean, they'd keep all their items and all their houses and all their mounts and all their toons, but then like, what about the houses, items, mounts and toons that are linked to quests, and quests, you know that you had to have, had to have them on you, and all, the stuff that you saved becomes unusable because you don't have the quests anymore, and you can't have the quest because if we changed your class, then you could run into two or three thousand quests that you can't even do because you already did them, or... Dreamweaver: Yeah... Kander: So the...we have talked about this many times, we have, we have come to the edge of the precipice and said, 'how can we do this?' many times and it's always just a terrifying discussion. We're not just not doing it because we haven't thought about it. There's a lot of problems that could happen, and basically, I don't know. I mean, there might be some people who'd be okay with that, where they get to keep their, you know, their character name, and, and like their titles, and like all the items and stuff like that, but then they would lose, they would have to completely start over. Some people might be okay with that, but then, there mi- we might even have to, like, to wipe your recipe book. I don't even know, like... Dreamweaver: Oh God. Kander: Just sitting there thinking about the stuff that's connected and how things have been done for almost 16 years. It's quite terrifying, and... Dreamweaver: I'm, I'm scared. Kander: Yeah. That's the, that's the answer to that one. Dreamweaver: Well great! That- gonna be honest, I didn't- you sounded a lot more upbeat when you answered the beginning of that question. I din-, I, I did not see it going where it went and I'm just, I'm gonna keep going. I don't know where else to go from that. I'm, I'm genuinely frightened now. I feel like this is worse than seeing everyone's unorganized bag. Just... Kander: Right. It could be. Dreamweaver: Just, complete full wipes of quests that you would no longer have access to in a game called Everquest 2. Kander: Yeah, yeah, yeah, there's a-, I mean, and then you go into collection quests, like all those things... Dreamweaver: Oh no... Kander: Like, you wouldn't be able to re-do any of those, and there might be ones you need for quests, and class quests, Dreamweaver: And items you already have, I guess... Kander: Yeah, yeah, yeah, like there's just, there's, it's, it's a spider's web of horrors. And the only reason I was update- upbeat answering it was because I, I knew the answer. *Dreamweaver laughs* Cause I, I've been involved in those conversations numerous times. Dreamweaver: So many times. Alright. The next question comes from dirgenoobforreal. They would like to ask two questions. One: Can we talk a bit about the raig lad. Raig....Mmmmm! So many words that I can't say today. Just broken. I'm a broken... Kander: (says slowly) RAID LAG. Dreamweaver: Raid lag. What is causing it and when can we expect a fix? Kander: Yeah. Okay. Dreamweaver: I'll ask the second one after you tackle this. Kander: So, there's a lot of things that cause it. There's 24 people being in a zone, casting 2400, million, thousand, ba-jillion spells at once. There's a ton of things that cause it. What we are doing is we are going through and we're trying to give top priority to raids on nodes, so that we're trying to re-do our hierarchy of server nodes so that raids always get an empty node each time a raid is spun up so that we don't have raids on the same nodes as heroics, and especially public quests, and so we're going through and we're re-doing the node hierarchy right now. It's our top priority. In fact, it's being worked on as we're speaking. The problem is, is every year, we go through and we kinda do that. We launch the expansion. We go through and we make sure raids have their own nodes to go on, and stuff like that, and this year something happened...and we did do that. It wasn't like something we forgot to do or didn't do and I'm not even sure what happened, but it's like it got all grabbed and thrown into the same bucket again. We are working on that. I've even had people that have, that have told me they've noticed a difference since Friday. We're trying to get the public quests as far away from the raids as possible, because that's more than 24 people casting 11,000 million ba-jillion, 11 million, *Dreamweaver laughs* eleventy million spells at once in the same instance. Yeah, it's like, that's one of the big things, right, is raiders, we went through and we implemented, like, spells that take two or three seconds to cast or even longer, and charms that take two or three seconds to cast or even longer, and basically, this is an interesting look into, like, ascension spells, because ascension spells were designed to be, like, longer cast but worth casting, right? Like, they do a lot of damage but they take a long time to cast and we got all that stuff together and we did that, and the first expansion that we had ascension spells and charm changes and stuff, there were no lag complaints. It was amazing, because, you know, everyone's trying to do, like, burst DPS, so everybody's casting all their stuff as soon as you start, which is going to cause lag for sure, so there's that. We're trying to go through and make scripts and a lot of other stuff more efficient. We're constantly trying to make stuff better, so, but the big thing is hopefully, hopefully this week, people will start to see, well, hold on, I don't know when they're going to be listening to this? *Dreamweaver laughs* Dreamweaver: I mean, hopefully this week...depending on approvals... Kander: In the next...in the next... Dreamweaver: Depending on approvals, hopefully this week. Kander: Sure. In the next couple of weeks, you know, between, I wanna say, the fourth of May and the fifteenth of May, you should see definite improvements and... Dreamweaver: OK. Kander: We're not done. We're...we're, you know, it's, it's a big priority. Dreamweaver: Okay. The second part of dirgenoobforreal's question is, or the second question rather, "Will there ever be implemented a way to improve your character outside of raiding. The current meta is do heroics for a month and raid until the summer events. A way to improve your character outside of raiding would be welcome as the game is currently extremely top heavy, with raiding being the only way to improve your character." I, I, I feel like what they're saying here is they're looking for, I, I think this is similiar... Kander: Heroics that drop raid loot? Dreamweaver: Well, I mean...So, this has come up a couple different times in a couple different threads, and I think dirgenoobforreal has been part of some of these threads, and the comparison that they make very frequently is something like the mythic dungeons that WoW does. Someone used an example from another game, too. Kander: Yeah...We do all that stuff, and we did it all for a while, so... Dreamweaver: Maybe it was Destiny 2 or something like that? Well, no, I mean...I'm saying, they're comparing it to things that are active right now? Right? So, mythic dungeons from WoW, I think it was maybe Nightfall from Destiny 2? And then there may have been a third comparison, but I think what they're kind of saying is is there are people who can't pug raids or can't get in raids, or would prefer not to play with that many people and are looking for like, similar rewards for difficult content, like, what we did with the Diaku Corral, Herooooo--- Challenge. I think is what they're saying, but like in general, as part of everything we design. I think that's what the question means. Cause, kind of vague, so I'm like, putting together a bunch of different information from all over the forums, hoping that this is what you're talking about dirgenoobforreal, and if it's not, please clarify. Kander: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, so, we tried to do challenge heroics and stuff like that. We put those in with the expansion. We have been discussing the tier on that stuff, because basically, our T1 raids are hopefully designed to where players can pug them and play together and do raids with you know, relatively, just a lot of players. I mean you have to have some mix and match of tanks with healers, and *laughs*...like you're not going to go in and do it with 24 brigands probably. Ha Ha. And, but like, so we are, right now, we're looking at... Dreamweaver: 24 necromancers. Kander: Yes, yes. We're looking at the tier of stuff, because we feel like, we put all this work into the challenge heroics, and they're, they are challenging. They are more difficult than the T1 raids in most cases. Raids kind of ramp up at T2, right? This is completely on purpose that T1 raids are relatively easy. Because we want people to be able to, you know, we don't want to, like, limit raiders to, you know, just the top 20% of the game. So, these, these challenge heroics, the stuff in them isn't quite as exciting as it should have been. We're going to have, start having a lot of discussions about, especially with this expansion this year, about, you know, like if you're in a challenge heroic that requires six people who really know how to play and, and you know, to be successful, then perhaps that zone should be giving better loot than T1 raids. So...and that kind of stuff. We're in a very serious discussion right now about, like, how can we make stuff outside of raids more rewarding. I mean, and then going back to like, there's obviously quests, and collection quests, tradeskill stuff where we do put in stuff that you can improve your character outside of raiding. For a long time, we've always tried to make sure there was, at least one, close to Best-in-Slot, if not Best-in-Slot items and multiple playstyles, so that everyone kind of has a chance at that kind of stuff, and also, you know, everything isn't in raids. We are, we are looking at some stuff like that. We're talking about this year, with the expansion, about doing a little less heroic content, and maybe some more x2 zones, which are, you know, two groups of people. We've had x2's in the past, and they've been really popular. They just have to be itemized correctly and make it so that they are worth running, and, and, and, and people do like, you know, x2 content, so x2, or two-group content. We're looking at doing maybe, possibly, a little bit less heroic stuff and a bit more other stuff. So, we'll see. Yeah, I mean, when I say, a little bit less heroic stuff, we might omit one theme, so like, every year we do almost, I think we do 12 or 15 heroic dungeons, you know, so we might do nine, you know, or ten heroic dungeons this year, and maybe an x2 dungeon, and maybe a biiiiiig heroic dungeon. I know a lot of people ask for contested stuff. Contested stuff is a real problem. There are certain players who really like contested content, and then the majority of our players, you know, they find it frustrating, so...you know... Dreamweaver: Right. That makes sense. Kander: We did do Kael Contested, and I felt like the Kael Drakkel Contested last year came out real good. I think it was popular. I think people liked it. Dreamweaver: So it's, it's not off the table. Kander: No, no, no, no, no. Dreamweaver: It's just something we're looking strongly at. Kander: Yeah. That's not off the table at all. It's not off the table at all. So, but um, it's finding the right tiers to where everything feels like it's worth doing outside of raiding, right? And then, and then also, historically, raiders tend to get upset when they devote all their time to playing raids and the hardest content in the game, you know like, T2, T3, T4 raids, and there's stuff that they can't get, you know, that's Best-in-Slot from raids, but I kind of feel like, that's okay if it's a limited number of slots, right? We wouldn't want to make it so like, raiders who, you know, die-hard raiders, that all they want to do is raid with other people, which is basically what Everquest and Everquest 2 is about, you know, is raiding and stuff like that. We wouldn't want them to have to spend half their time doing other content things because they can't get all the stuff that they need to raid, and in raid zones. It's balancing the tiers, it's balancing the rewards to make it feel like it's worth doing. Time vs. reward, risk vs. reward, and all that stuff. Dreamweaver: Right. OK. Alright, and like I said, dirgenoobforreal, if that wasn't quite what you were asking, feel free to clarify, but hopefully that answers your question. Next question comes from FracasCrusher. "Damage numbers are pretty outlandish. Is EQ2 ever going to see a squash/revamp combat system?" Guessing that means a number squish, or...and a revamp/ or a revamp. Kander: Yeah...so other games have done stat squishes. Dreamweaver: To varying degrees of success. Kander: Right. We don't have any plan to do that. I think that it's part of what makes EQ2, you know, we're not...like, going back and changing a lot of things just isn't popular. A lot of players just don't like change. And as far as the numbers, we're not anywhere near to producing numbers that, you know, the game's going to go, "WHAAAAAAAT?!" You know? Dreamweaver: We haven't hit caps yet folks. Kander: Yeah, I mean it's, now raid mobs have trillions of hitpoints, and that could go on...*Dreamweaver laughs* for a long... Dreamweaver: That could... Kander: Long... Dreamweaver: We can go... Kander: Long time... Dreamweaver: We can go higher than trillions? Kander: Absolutely. Dreamweaver: Oh. Good Lord. Alright. Kander: So the people talk a lot about...*unintelligible* Dreamweaver: We're going to start doing scientific... Kander: Yeah, we... Dreamweaver: Scientific notation. Kander: Right. We did move numbers into the 64-bit thing, so we have...we have a lot of numbers to work with. So... Dreamweaver: OK. Kander: So there's no, there's no plan to do a stat squish. Dreamweaver: OK. Kander: And like you said, other games have done it with varying degrees of success. And... Dreamweaver: Yeah... Kander: At this point I don't think we want to do a major change like that. Dreamweaver: Sixteen years in, it's a pretty intense change. Especially if we've never done it before. Kander: Yeah. Dreamweaver: Alright. Final question for this episode, and before I get to the final question, here's, here's my question for the episode, because... Kander: OK Dreamweaver: It has to be...*Kander laughs* It has to happen at some point, so I've decided it's going to happen now. Kander: Alright. Dreamweaver: We've now been in a work-from-home/quarantine for, I, I, I think I've broken 65 days. I think I did the math correctly. What is the thing that you have been doing, besides playing video games, because we've already established that's basically what we're been doing anyways, what is the thing that you are doing to occupy your time. There's work, there's video games, what's the other thing? Kander: Oh, man. Uh...I spend a lot of time with my dogs. I have two very large German Shepherds who have a lot of energy, and want to do a lot of things, so I try to break once a day and go out and throw the ball around. These guys play very aggressive game of ball that is unlike any other dogs that you've seen play fetch. They like, they like high-speed, like, it's, it's almost like a combination between playing ball and um... Dreamweaver: Hunting? Kander: Trying to think of like, where's a game that they throw balls at very high velocity, like Jai alai? (Sorry if this is incorrect - I've never heard of it, and had to look it up! But I think this is what you meant. PS, I thought you said High Lie at first! LOL!) Dreamweaver: Jai alai?! Kander: Yeah, and then, you know, so I take them on walks every night. We wait until late and we go late when nobody's out, because, we just, there's too many... Dreamweaver: It's easier that way. Kander: Too many things that could cause...yeah, issues with my, my two shepherds, so...one of them has a very high prey-drive, and likes, likes cats... Dreamweaver: Oh, I couldn't tell with the sound of how they go after the ball! Kander: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Dreamweaver: Sounded totally normal! Kander: Yeah, so that's...that's probably, that and then I'm, I'm probably doing what everyone else is doing. I'm probably watching movies or trying to catch up on tv shows, or...at the very least, you know, I, we do try to stay a little active, and the dogs are good at helping me get my 10,000 steps in a day, you know, even though I'm at home. Dreamweaver: Alright. Alright, well, then, the, the final question is from forum user Aradar, and the question is, "Any chance you'll allow mounts to be used in all player housing?" Kander: Ah, well, the answer to all player housing is no. We could let-, we could allow them in some player housing. There are player houses that are completely, literally designed so that we don't want people flying in them. Letting you... Dreamweaver: That feels like that'd be a problem. Kander: Letting you run, I mean, there's already players that know how to like, pop out of the house and go outside of the geo and start building stuff on top of it. I mean that kind of thing, but as far as allowing mounts in all player housing, I don't think that will ever happen. I can tell you that every year, there's something we do that, you know, Art says, 'yeah, no mounts in here.' *Dreamweaver laughs* A lot of that is dictated by Art. When we went back and put flying in the game and we had to go through and re-do the tops of all the overland zones... Dreamweaver: Every single overland zone. Kander: Yeah. Put ceilings in all of them and put geo where there wasn't geo, and like, oh my God, what a nightmare, and so like... Dreamweaver: Every time that our, our director talks about that, you can just see him dying a little bit more inside... Kander: Mmmhmm. Dreamweaver: And it's, it's simultaneously horrifying and amazing. Like, it's just like you watch years fall off of his life. It's really sad, but also kind of impressive. Kander: I mean, it's on the list of things if I could go back and not do, I would go back and not do it, be-... Dreamweaver: Interesting.
Kander: Because I feel like, there's a lot of games who successfully haven't added flying mounts that the game's still fun and there's still awesome mounts and you can still travel quickly and da da da da da....but one of my major complaints about flying is, when you come into a brand new expansion zone, and you can fly, then it just, it makes everything feel small, right? And when you have to adventure through it on foot, and find everything and run around, and...we build these massive zones, like last year, the zones we built were just huge, and that was why we decided that, you know, for the first part of the expansion you couldn't fly. Eventually, we let you earn it, but as you're doing the Signature quests and as you're exploring and discovering new things, we didn't allow you to fly. So, and that, I, I will say that you could probably expect more of that in the future, because one of my least favorite complaints is we do what we do with what we've got, and people are like, 'How come you don't do more overland zones? How come everything's so small compared to Kunark?' And it's like, yeah...yeah...well... Dreamweaver: I mean, people, is the first...*unintelligible* Kander: Kunark didn't even have flying back then either, so you know, that's another thing, is those zones felt massive, until you could fly around them, and then they didn't feel that big anymore. But no one goes back, and goes, 'Oh, you know what? Jarsath Wastes doesn't feel that big as I thought it was, right, cause I can fly and I'm moving at 175 miles an hour instead of, you know, 75, so...yeah. Dreamweaver: I think, I think I've, at this point, with all the MMO's that I've ever played, at this point in my life, I think I've arrived at the philosophy, for all the ones that have introduced flying, that when a new expac drops, I don't wanna fly on my main character until after I've cleared all the stuff for that expac. Like, not like raiding, and everything like that but like, achievements or collections or whatever they're called, stripes, outfits. There's-, I mean, they're called so many different things at this point. It's really hard to keep track. But like, my very first character, I want to experience everything like, I want to still to be-, have my mount speed on the ground, like, I worked really hard for that. Like, if someone took my mount speed away, I would be kind of livid. But like, *laughs* but like, I just want to be able to use my ground mount and I want to explore it the first time, and then be able to unlock flying for all my other alts. Like I don't want to do that, like, and I don't want... Kander: You don't want to do that eight times. Dreamweaver: I don't want to do it eight times. I would, *Kander laughs* I would murder someone if I had to do it eight, or sixteen, or twelve, or you know, like however many alts I have, whatever game I'm playing... Kander: Yeah...right. Dreamweaver: But I would be so angry if I had to do it multiple times, but like that very first time, and I know there are players who don't like it, but like, it's one of those things cause, and especially not a lot of new MMO's are coming out anymore. It, it's really nice to feel that sense of exploration the first time when you're hitting those new areas, and I really do feel like being able to fly immediately kind of takes away from that. Personally. Kander: Yeah. Dreamweaver: Cause obviously. Also, also! This is a personal opinion guys. I'm the Community Manger. I just want to be very clear here. Kander: Right. Dreamweaver: I am not determining the policy of the games you play. Kander: Right, right, right. Dreamweaver: This is me, playing a lot of MMO's, and this is a personal opinion. Kander: Exactly, and I feel the same way. And I-, we di-, like this year, we did get a lot of compliments from people who were like, 'You know, having to go through this the first time, and not being able to fly, everything felt bigger. It felt more like I was exploring. It was more exciting to find things.' And then one of the things we did is, we spent a whole lot of time putting in more stuff, more content, that unlocks when you can fly. So now you can go back in the zones and fly and now there's quests and all kinds of stuff that you couldn't get to when you couldn't fly. That's kind of, I think, something that we want to continue doing on, at least in the next expansion. So when we go to the Light Side of the Moon, we have some pretty awesome overland zones, like Aurelian Coast was - it was pretty awesome. It was pretty, pretty cool, and we're trying to take that to the next level for the Dark Side of the Moon, so, you prob-, I can pretty much say, expect not being able to fly, you know, until you've completed a certain amount of content. Dreamweaver: Sure. Also, and I, I, I don't even know what we've talked about at this point, but surprise everybody! If we haven't already publicly said we're going to the Dark Side of the Moon! *Kander laughs* We're going to the Dark Side of the Moon! We may have already officially said it, but honestly, I don't remember. Kander: I think we did. I think Holly put it in one her... Dreamweaver: I think Holly put it in one of her Producer Letters, and you know, you think I probably should know since I edited all of them at least, so...who knows? But I think that is a great place to cut it off for this episode. Kander: We should...we should make it a habit of just completely, you know, giving something away in every podcast. Dreamweaver: No...please... Kander: Be like... Dreamweaver: Please no! Kander: Whoops! Dreamweaver: Our wonderful Sound Designer, who is an amazing person, and I really, really like, already suffers enough from this at-home recording that we're doing. So, adding additional edits is just going to tax them more. Kander: Which I'm going to say, has happened in the past. Dreamweaver: It has happened in the past, so I'd like to try to avoid it, and I think that is it for this episode. Kyle, thank you very much for answering questions, as always. I am Dreamweaver, your friendly neighborhood Community Manager. This is Kander's Candor. We'll see you in game!
Thank you so very much for the transcripts, Mercychalice! Your work of love for this game and the people here shows. Again, thank you!!!
I am still trying to understand why we are into episode 7 and tradeskills still haven't been discussed yet. I don't consider Overseer as tradeskills although a good bit of time was spent disucussing it. Im speaking of traditional tradeskills, finding spell books the classic way and recipes although discussed was really never addressed. I'll just speak for myself and ask that books be found like they used to be and advanced books, other than the spell books, have recipes that is better than solo gear but less than heroic gear. Forget shadowed gear it was a waste of your tiime and effort. Save yourself and me some anguish next round and return tradeskills to the original plan. I would like to know if we are going to continue down this path or I can expect a change next expansion.
They couldn't care less about tradeskills, most of my characters are sitting at level 100 in their tradeskills. Level 100+ is a mess in my opinion. I made the mistake of wasting my money on BOL, I wont be wasting my money again on the next expansion.
Only reason to do the tradeskill signature line (so far) really is if you raid, you need shadow prospecting for (at least) one of the raid encounters. Seriously.
I don't understand why they would even consider working on another expansion with all of the problems the game currently has across a broad spectrum. It's like building a new house on a rotten foundation. Personally, if I were in charge of the game, I would let customers know that we are taking this year to address all of the problems in the game rather than put out another expansion. We would streamline every thing from top to bottom to include, but not limited to bug fixes, itemization, class balance, crafting, etc. As a reward for every one's patience and understanding, perhaps offer a reduced subscription price for a limited time while this process is occurring, like $7.99/mo, and additionally, some really nice fluff items or something of that nature. Heck, what do I know?
Kander: Right. We don't have any plan to do that. I think that it's part of what makes EQ2, you know, we're not...like, going back and changing a lot of things just isn't popular. A lot of players just don't like change. And yet, in the BoL launch, TSing was turned upside down and in many people's opinion, still hasn't been fixed. With no disrespect meant, I find that statement odd in the context of what was rolled out. If you believe that to be the case (people don't like change), and I agree with that, then I'd like to hear an explanation if there's another podcast on how that actually happened because outside of the introduction of ascensions to the game, what happened to TSing this xpac was a major break from the past.
Imagine you got a dog. The dog looked nice enough, but soon you start to realise all is not well. You take him to the vet time after time, a few of his ailments get sorted out but more and more spring up. It's costing a fortune trying to keep him going and there seems no end to his problems, it's just bad breeding, nothing you can really do to improve the situation permanently. The time comes when, sadly, you've got to get yourself another dog, work on that one, do a better job checking the pedigree, train him up right, all of that. It'll be better this time. As for the old one, I'm afraid it's time to dig a hole, and take him down the end of the garden with the shotgun.
Since they're taking away flying, again, with the next expac, hopefully they will be some worthwhile reward from the line besides giving it back. This expac getting flying back was the only worthwhile reward from the sig line.
Since they are again taking away flying in the next expansion, I for one will not be buying it. I will wait another year and see what Kandor decides to ruin. I'm sure everyone that bought the $140.00 game was thrilled with the new mount they could not use until jumping thru hoops first. I really don't see crafting getting any better unless you consider overseers the go to thing. Overseers are worse than BoL turned out. I have been with the Everquest chain since 1999 and I never thought I would see the time I was looking at other games. There are no other games that even come close to what this game *was*, but they surely they can't cause the frustration and disappointment that this game has been the last few years.
My opinion is that there should be a separate "feedback" or "complaint" thread and let this transcript stand alone.
One of the problems I see is that the zones aren't all that large in terms of 'useable" landmass you can traverse. Unfortunately, they're packed with aggro mobs and you can't travel anywhere by foot without having to fight your way through. I can skip flying if you've got a travel system that works and I'm not slugging it out the entire way. Which means any quest starters will need to be reachable by foot, which was hardly the case in this xpac.
Am I the only one who is totally unimpressed by Kander and these podcasts? What purpose do they serve other than reminding people of what a broken game this is and what terrible game design went into it. Does he have a boss or someone he reports to? If so, whoever it is should tell him to get his act together, get off Discord, and stop ruining what was once the best MMO out there.
About twenty years ago, there was a "management practice" that was quite popular called "Management by Walking Around." Basically, the concept was you got out of your office and went around and talked to people, observed what was taking place--all with the intent of taking the temperature of what your department or company was doing depending on where you were in the hierarchy. While I applaud your thoughts, I'd point out that a capable "boss" would already be observing or reading these transcripts, the forums and sniffing out what's happening and acted on it. When you spend the 1st part of what is supposed to be an informational podcast about the state of the game, and the opening is spent about the correct pronunciation of your name, that just ain't it. If you're the boss and you haven't figured out that these podcasts aren't doing what they should be doing and in fact, are likely counter intuitive, you have a meeting and redirect the focus on what they should be talking about and that may include participating in them yourself as a "guest." I applaud Dream's concept of using the podcasts as a communication resource, but were I to be running the organization, I would have had a meeting with both Dream and Kander and discussed what my expectations would be for these. I'd also be checking in advance on the agenda for each one prior to its delivery to ensure it was delivering the information I wanted the player base to have until I was confident everyone was on the same page. And by now, I'd have had a meeting to discuss where I thought substantive changes in the format were needed. All that assumes you have someone in charge that has the skills and ability to make that happen. I'm not clear that is the case, nor am I suggesting they don't. What I am suggesting is that if someone is in charge who has a clear goal and isn't seeing these podcasts as a huge opportunity for communicating directly to the playerbase (read "paying customers), then it suggests the former is more likely the case than the latter.
Beyond the thread derail above. I will say people will pick out (and remember) the negative 10% even though 90% will be sensible to positive. Of the 90% in sensible to positive feedback, 80% will be misinterpreted or misconstrued. "Pundits" are unfairly picking out one quote from the other podcast (paraphrased concept: "overseer will become the new quests") as gospel. They distrust Kander from the get-go but criticize his comments as truth because of confirmation bias.
Call it what you want. I think there is good reason to distrust Kander since each expansion gets progressively worse and worse. Who's really in charge over there?
Please don't derail the thread if you'd like to comment on the podcast use another one that isn't mercychalice's transcripts. The post themselves where the podcast lives is good for that.
