Loral's Evil Agenda, Spring 2006
by Loral on April 01, 2006
With every SOE Fan Faire and every Everquest Community Summit, it is important to take a look over the entirety of the game to see what areas currently need the most attention. This season we look at the five issues facing Everquest after the release of Prophecy of Ro. Let us begin our recommendations to SOE's Everquest development team.
Add New Player Models.
With the release of more and more new massive online RPGs, the EQ models continue to look clunky and dated. Half-finished animations, strange clipping issues, and poor performance plague the Luclin models. Senior executives at SOE should consider allocating the money needed to build new player models in Everquest. With the excellent look of new zones and creatures since Omens of War, new player models would give an entirely fresh look to Everquest.
Rebuild Plane of Knowledge.
Since the release of Planes of Power, the Plane of Knowledge continues to act as a hub for players of all levels and play-styles. The layout and graphics of the Plane of Knowledge do not show Everquest's best face, nor does it include features to help players find groups. A rebuilt Plane of Knowledge with new quests, missions, monster missions, new graphic enhancements, and a layout designed for performance would help players find groups faster and begin having fun. While every other city should represent their original races and cultures, New Tanaan should be the city of the adventurers.
Add Quests and Missions for level 20 to 60.
Since Dragons of Norrath, new quests and missions have helped high level players focus on instanced group adventures with one to two hour goals. However, little has been done to enhance the mid-level game using these new tools and techniques. SOE should reevaluate the entire game from level 20 to 60 focusing on a clearer progression path, offering progressive rewards, and helping new players feel the same sense of adventure they felt in the tutorial and high level players feel in the Dragons of Norrath, Depths of Darkhollow, and Prophecy of Ro missions. Use newly discovered storytelling and gameplay techniques to make the game as good at level 20 as it is for level 70.
Add cross-server missions, monster missions, and pickup-raids.
A cross-server grouping feature would help Everquest capitalize on the vast number of players across all servers. Players could go to a set location in Norrath, such as a new tavern in the rebuilt Plane of Knowledge, and find players seeking groups on other servers. Groups would be transported to a mission, monster mission, or even a small 18 to 24 person raid instance. By disabling player to player trading, economies would remain unaffected. Players would go from a few dozen LFG players to a few hundred.
Remove Equipment Loss on Death.
With recent MMOs avoiding full equipment loss on death, it no longer makes sense for Everquest to hang on to this archaic practice. Equipment loss on death does not make the game any more difficult but instead creates the perception of great loss for new and inexperienced players. Further, bugs still threaten players' equipment as corpses disappear in crashed instances or under the world, forcing a player to wait until customer service representatives can reimburse his or her equipment. Replace equipment loss on death with a new "death effect" that reduces movement to 75% until the player receives a resurrection or 15 minutes pass. This evens out the detriment to character death for players at all levels. Removing this outdated feature also fulfills the longstanding request for a "loot all" button and removes exploits based on leaving equipment on corpses.
A Few Other Good Ideas.
- Add large experience rewards for doing missions the first time to reinforce a variety of missions.
- Help close the equipment and damage output gap between non-raiders and raiders in relation to single-group content.
- Add more instanced rewarding content between Creator and monster missions and MPG Trial, DODH missions, and POR missions.
- Add more three-person or non-ideal group instances.
In its seventh year, Everquest continues to show its strength compared to all massive online games. SOE can reinforce this strength by adding new player models, rebuilding the Plane of Knowledge, reworking the content for level 20 to 60, adding cross-server content, and removing equipment loss on death. These changes will help Everquest continue to be competitive, challenging, and fun.
Loral Ciriclight
1 April 2006
loral@loralciriclight.com
Comment Posted by: Wolfkinder on April 2, 2006 01:53 PM
1. Luclin model upgrade definitely in need just because of the way the old models cause lag.
2. Plane of Knowledge, I still don't see anything wrong with it. Graphics aren't that old to me, plus a rebuild could cause lag problems.
3. 20 to 60 using new methods. Excellent idea. MMs are okay, but give us something we can actually run our own character through.
4. Cross-server. Wow. Maybe I've missed it in other threads, but this idea seems to be long overdue. With instancing, seems easy enough to create one or two servers that are just used for this. Of course, it could bite people in the butt. Those wanting to do non-instanced things on their own server may find it has become a "ghost town" server due to everyone gathering on Instanced Server A & B to do MMs and Creator missions.
5. Ummmmm....if I understand the way you're presenting the death idea, it's a bad one. The last thing I want when I pop back is to have my character experience a 'death effect' that limits movement. There are times when I'm popping back after dying and jumping back into the action or in a precarious area where I need my speed:)
Good stuff overall though. Big fan of the alternate stuff you wrote too. In fact, felt they should have been a bit higher on your list, but that's me.....
--Wolfkinder
Comment Posted by: CONCERNED1 on April 2, 2006 02:42 PM
EQ is a "uber" raiding guild game. 25-30 anguish geared toons can take down targets that 60 potime geared people can not just becuase of the gear.the "devs" or development team is people in "uber" guilds. so they basically make content for themselves and their guilds. you talk about eq being strong? at the most it has had 560k subscribers. newer games such as wow or guild wars have subscribers in the millions. why is that? i played eq for almost two years.i was on the druzzil ro server. the top guild on there was europa. i knew people in that guild at the time and they would tell me that people in the guild would get a freind from outside the game to come in and they would power level them up and drag them to end game raid zones and gear them up in less then a matter of weeks.i wonder do all the struggling casuals know about that and how they would feel. would it be incentive for them to put more time in eq? is it fair? my freinds that still play eq tell me that fabled is going on and that decent gear drops off monsters that require "uber" guilds to kill. are these some of the reasons millions of people chose to play other games? do you really think they gonna redo all of eq and cater it to casuals? have you played vanguard at the current stage of beta? i can tell you its going to be interesting to see what impact it has on the market. say you play eq for ten years and put all your free time into it and get the best character ever in eq and then it closes and your character is deleted....what then? since eq is everquest....can it ever be won?
Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on April 2, 2006 06:46 PM
The cross server Tavern is an interesting idea but I feel it will force people to go there to get groups, it will be similar to the HHK MM at it's height. It may force you to go to the tavern to find a quick group and then you are forced to do the same set of missions over and over again.
New models and pet models would be great. The current death setup doesn't worry me, although I wouldn't want to replace it with a 15 min runspeed penalty.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 2, 2006 09:29 PM
Wolfkinder wrote: 2. Plane of Knowledge, I still don't see anything wrong with it. Graphics aren't that old to me, plus a rebuild could cause lag problems.
if they make the zone the right way and are carefull about how many polys you see at the same time it would greatly reduce lag. right now I get almost no visual lag in Ruins of Takish hiz in Prophecy expansion. but the other zones are causing distress for my computer every day as they dont load properly/have too many polys in some parts/insert other problems here.
but a rework of Knowledge could easily go both ways.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on April 2, 2006 09:43 PM
1. YES! If EQ is to survive it needs this.
2. Yes. Since they've watered EQ down into "Quest from the alternate dimensions!" then this is necessary.
3. Seriously, and not just in the "old world" Velious and Kunark and Luclin for up to 40-50ish and then in upper 50's and early 60's feed the progression towards gates... Also YKESHA MISSIONS!!! Have the devs even played WoW? I mean... come on, it's easy to see that people love direction. Now not forced direction but if you want to have a few shiny golden paths to take through winding storylines and such then there should be a bunch of them dead ending at certain levels where you go off and pick up another and follow it through..... Flesh out those story lines in those now dead zones to be innovative.. Truly have your character become a hero.
4. NO. NO. NO. First, I don't see how this would be remotely possible with the way the hardware is set up, second, if they would go this route the only viable route to go with this would be changing the way EQ worked into more of the way the Guild Wars servers worked and then there would be a bunch of instances of everything always running..... Just.. no.
5. Yes and no, have players always spawn with all equipment but leave the exp penalties and a blank corpse that lasts the 2 hours or whatever it is to be ressurected. Heck, if you want to further tone down death to be more in line with the newer generation of MMO's put in a new npc in the guild lobby that for a scaling fee topping off at say 300pp at level 51 to do a 90% res on a corpse you summoned to help drain more plat from the economy.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 2, 2006 09:48 PM
Loral Wrote: Players could go to a set location in Norrath, such as a new tavern in the rebuilt Plane of Knowledge, and find players seeking groups on other servers. Groups would be transported to a mission, monster mission, or even a small 18 to 24 person raid instance. By disabling player to player trading, economies would remain unaffected. Players would go from a few dozen LFG players to a few hundred.
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if they did this they would also need to create new rules for distrubuting loot.
forced roll system(everyone is forced a silent roll, winner gets loot and is notified, no one else can loot that mob)
a fair loot system(trash mobs get divided up equally between group notifying the person as they come up to loot, named are force roll)
Comment Posted by: Loral on April 2, 2006 10:16 PM
"a fair loot system"
The mission could offer a cash reward at the end instead of cash drops inside.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 2, 2006 10:41 PM
Loral wrote:The mission could offer a cash reward at the end instead of cash drops inside.
the only problem I see with this is the fact that I personally like not just cash drops but tradeskill drops. having no tradeskill drops in a instance would turn me off and the required amount of cash to compensate me would have to be somewhere around 500 plat per Hour long mission.
Comment Posted by: Richard Hinson on April 3, 2006 06:04 AM
Re: New PLayer Models;
Past due needed. Promised by Smedley years ago, wussed out on later by the whole EQ staff. Even if they say they will put it out I wouldn't expect it to be available outside another 30 dollar expansion, and I wouldn't believe it was for real till the expansion had been out a month and SOE hadn't disabled or nerfed them.
Re: Rebuild Plane of Knowledge;
I can't see the value of this. If anything SOE needs to stop sending people to PoK from the tutorial and instead send them to their home cities. PoK is an immersion killer, always has been. It should mean something to be a Troll. Those home cities need to be Rebuilt though, badly. While they're at it, what's with still having pre-Luclin NPC models in Freeport post-re-make?
Re: Add Quests and Missions for level 20 to 60;
This is the silliest idea I've seen in years. 20-60 has all the content you could ask for in the form of LDoN and DoN. The problem is that LDoN Risk-vs.-Reward-vs.-Time is screwed up. SOE has as much adimitted that they need to revist LDoN and re-tune the cost of gear and the amount of points per mission. If they just did what they said they needed to do this would be a dead issue. What's lacking is as always SOE follow through on known bugs/issues.
Re: Add cross-server missions, monster missions, and pickup-raids.;
Great idea, but one we prolly will never see in EQ. Closest we'll see is continuing server mergers as the community shrinks ever further.
Re: Remove Equipment Loss on Death;
Death no longer has penalty for anyone in a raiding guild or other wise in the "ubber" camp. It's about time they just got rid of death penalties entirely. Fact is it's a big enough pain in the ass to get back to where ever you where fighting. The exp loss, gear loss, etc., etc., just no longer serves a purpose other than to dishearten the few people that are really new and lower level in the game. The fact that it is so trival an issue to the higher ups just lends more credance to the have vs. have-not camp way of thinking.
Re: Add large experience rewards for doing missions the first time to reinforce a variety of missions.
This is a stellar idea, but one I doubt SOE has the technology to do at hand. They'd basically have to create a character flag to indicate every mission. If they could/would do that, then they could have limited the number of times a player could do an MM a day and resolved like 50% of the issues with MM's.
Re: Help close the equipment and damage output gap between non-raiders and raiders in relation to single-group content.
The only reason this is an issue is the ever increasing speed with which the gap between the non-raider and the raid guild requirements widens. There was a time when if you got to max level and had a few AA's you could get entry into 90% of the "raid" guilds on a server. Now you need 10k hp or mana, and to have apparently solo'd the flags/keys/signets for 80% of the content plus have all your tomes/spells, and let's not forget some 200 AA's. This point here is gear is only about 20% of the issues stopping people who are not currently "raiders" from ever being able to become "raiders".
Re: Add more instanced rewarding content between Creator and monster missions and MPG Trial, DODH missions, and POR missions.
This one I have to disagree on. There's tons of content in the game already in this range. The problem is a huge amount of it is un-payable, or is has such a huge time sink for no apparent reward that even if you personally want to do it, your odds of finding 5 other people who do is nil.
Re: Add more three-person or non-ideal group instances.
It would definately be a boon of there was at least one three or even two person mission available at every task/adventure/mission giver.
All that said, Loral, what if anything on your list is something your willing to get verbal and fight for? Cause if your not willing to fight for it. Why does it even matter that you put the list together?
Comment Posted by: Skuz on April 3, 2006 08:55 AM
Quote:"All that said, Loral, what if anything on your list is something your willing to get verbal and fight for? Cause if your not willing to fight for it. Why does it even matter that you put the list together?"
Could ask that same question of the whole community's individual members, & is not Loral "being" verbal by setting up this "evil agenda", I'm not a fan of Loral's per say, but I do think he stands up for what he believes in & is a genuine spokeperson for a segment of the community, & tries to be for the majority.
I still see the debate of WoW vs EQ being argued purely by numbers, I think that's an unfair comparison, EQ doesn't have to be the highest subscriber based game to be a viable MMO, it does need to increase the influx of new players however to keep the game from stagnating completely, & I think the ideas Loral cites would deinitely be a move in the right direction to encourage new players, WoW user base is mostly people new to MMO's, a lot of them prior players of blizzards other products such as starcraft, warcraft, & diablo...all of which had very popular receptions in the mainstream gaming market.
Personally I think that a visual overhaul that new player models would bring, unifying (& tuning risk vs reward vs time issues in the process)the mission, task, quest, monster mission, & expedition systems, revamping & speeding up the 20-65 game (adding achievable solo content at these levels, I would add puzzle solving quests to solo play, as a mechanism to reward for example,alongside regular tecniques) would all act to draw people into everquest, but they aren't going to stay long if theres nobody around at their level to group up & play with or if theres no solo content to work thru till they reach levels where there are people.
Content in number of zones & sqare metres & items etc is EQ's crowning glory, it's raiding game is arguably the most polished (even with its bugs)& complex in the marketplace, but it does need something to act as a "draw" to new players, the gap between a starting player & the top end raid geared 1000aa+ guys is immense, & should be, but the way to attain such greatness should be a smooth highly entertaining route with variety & challenge, all those things currently exist but need to be knitted together better & the systems to do so are already in existence within the game.
It just needs a lot of work to get all the parts of the game to connect with the others rather than at the moment each expansion almost feels like a game of its own, the parts should mesh together seamlessly to make the game feel more "as one".
As far as cross-server content goes, thats an interesting idea, pro's are more grouping possibilities, cons could be less people on your native server to find to group with, it really depends heavily on the way the technology would enable this & how it was implimented....instanced versions of entire zones that everyone on all servers could access sounds like a great idea for example but the technology side of implimenting that could be prohibitively expensive, during the double xp periods the currently exiting instance servers were delivering very poor performance due to the workload of so many in instanced content.
If they go with instanced group missions cross server, it could kill off old zones completely, its already nigh on impossible to get a group going at sub 65 levels, so it may be that for the 20-65 game cross server grouping in instances in this way will be the only way to find enough similarly levelled players to group with.
Cross server raiding etc & other complex events/situations I think are just beyond the currently existing technology EQ uses or could afford to use, unless they invent something to facillitate it.
Overall Loral good article, I do think the gap between raiders & non raiders in power levels needs to be looked at, personally i think that "Hard" should be just that in a mission, giving people at the highest geared end a challenge, then "medium" for people geared up on mid tier & "easy" for those on the lower end gear, smoothing progression now you could do it this way or by unifying the prior expansions alltogether much better & retuning them, the grouping player could gear up in say for example LDoN gear,(roughly pre-ep pop ornate level) trade that in for points to put towards DoN gear,(slightly upgraded) trade that in for points towards...you get the idea. the gear available for earned points could scale through expansions but use the same points system, obviously rvr comes into play on how many points u earn in each mission, ldon being easier could have less points than a difficult don mission, but you have the option.
Then there is the other "loot reward" system as seen in dodh, this too could be expanded & improved upon & spread thru a few expansions to enable smoother progression, finally there is the "old school" loot reward system revisited by PoR, locked away in a zone accessed only by missions it would take a tank geared in stuff better than which drops in ToB to complete, if there is a major flaw in PoR it was having a locked zone that was harder to enter than dsk, by the time most guilds can be bothered to enter tob they will have probably been in in tacvi or anguish & the gear in ToB will be all but obsolete, ToB should in my opinion have been attainable by Elemental geared to Time geared people, the gear there is not significantly more powerful than Qvic gear, Qvic-geared being the people that it was aimed at.
Comment Posted by: Glormane on April 3, 2006 09:27 AM
1. Nah I can live without new models, its an aesthetic, and doesn’t effect game play, except when we have a hideous amount of down time patching, lag increases, and need to upgrade our hard and software ( I was out of action when the new direct x was introduced for weeks)
2. Rebuild Pok. Hmmm, SoE are updating old zones but at the rate they are going PoK will not be rebuilt for years, I’ve no problem with PoK. If you can think of something that reduces lag and zoning times then sure.
3. Something is still needed to encourage new play and players to the game, with a gap in the mid level game this is prevented. However, the Onus of EQ is to progress so its understandable why development is not being poured in their, heres my possible solutions.
(i) Most expensive would be to develop a new solo dungeon system that players could enter if they did not have a group. Zones would be geared to class and lvl and number of players in the group. Say with only 1-3 players named in the zones will be disabled, but general tasks (mobs to kill, npc to rescue (npc’s would act like pets not like drunken edjits running off), answer riddles etc etc). A reward has to be available here and better rewards should be available to fuller groups. I’d favour a choosable reward at the end of each mission so the mission can be redone for New items and things wont rot. Again the better items would be given for fuller groups.
(ii) Solo play is possible up to about mid 20’s by all classes. Reduce damage done and agro radius’ of mobs up to 60. Remove the ability to summon from mobs below 60. Up the xp levels for the 20-60. Like it or lump it people will be solo a lot in those levels.
(iii) Remove the restriction on 3 people to get a LdoN. Allow them to be done solo (with some ideas from number (i) & (ii) lower damage increase xp etc).
4. This to me would depend on how it was implemented. If it is done like MM’s then it would stagnate the server, having people plugged into repetitive missions that do not develop multiple areas of character development.
5. No need to change the death rez thing, but a ‘loot all’ button would be a godsend.
Comment Posted by: bleh on April 3, 2006 11:50 AM
New models - YES
new pok - HELL NO
new low/mid level quests - SURE
cross-server instances - maybe
new death mechanic - HELL NO the LAST thing I want to be is freaking snared for 15 minutes every time I die.
Comment Posted by: Meteoric on April 3, 2006 01:24 PM
I would be happy to pay for an "overhaul" expansion where no new content was added, but existing stuff was revamped. Character models would be top of that list (customisable so we could greater tailor our appearance; allow people to choose height, build, skin colour), different types of visible armour so we can once again see a progression through appearance (Dyes killed this somewhat. Remember when purple clerics were uber, with their Hate pieces?), better animations. Visible cloaks. Oh, and pointy hats for wizards.
Comment Posted by: Simkine on April 3, 2006 01:25 PM
The old models were great, really just needed a few more faces. The Velious textures were great. The Luclin models, not so great. The lack of visible differentiation on these models, bad. The animations on these models, shameful.
My biggest beef with the models, and EQ2 has it now too, is that you look different depending on who sees you. If EQ ever got a model revamp, I'd want them to gut the other two. What you see is what you get.
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on April 3, 2006 01:45 PM
Oh right, I realized what this game NEEDS. Fix Lost Dungeons of Norrath. GREATLY increase the points rewarded in LDoN and make it worth it from level 20 up until 70. Add in some new rewards from 65-70 that are more similar to OoW and DoN items on a similar difficulty.
Seriously, if there is one expansion right now that is COMPLETELY and TOTALLY unused it is Lost Dungeons, what was once one of the coolest expansions is now trash.
Please, Loral, beg for this much needed FIX.
Comment Posted by: Tuppet on April 3, 2006 01:48 PM
no doubt, everquest needs changes to keep up - as time goes on, other companies/games are evolving to compensate for previous games' shortcomings.
my biggest issues:
- DOWNTIME.
as a caster, waiting for mana after death is about 15-20 minutes downtime minimum. you typically have to rebuff afterwards thus creating MORE downtime, so now we are approaching 30 minutes. there's also a chance that you do not have an optimal group - so during your second time around, you will missing a buff or two; i.e. clarity potion instead of c6 or lacking shammy buffs.
this is an issue for melees also but instead of regenning mana, they need to wait for endurance.
(I don't know what EQ can do about this since the core of the game is already in place; tick-based, no out-of-combat system)
- REPLAYABILITY.
EQ doesn't have much to offer as far as replayability; this entails, main-switching and 'mission content'.
main-switching involves (another) long, arduous exp grind. up to 55 isn't too bad but hell levels suck the joy out of playing and a intangible 'pressure' sets in because your exp bar isn't moving, or is it?! omgz.
assuming you get past the exp: you will still need gear, aa's, and flags. I don't want to get into the details but let's just say, it's a lot of work.
my question here would be, is this just a natural part of MMORPG mudflation? I've been told that in WoW, you can max your toon very quickly when compared to everquest. I googled this information as a rough figure: 20 days on average to level a character to 60 in WoW. (from http://blogs.parc.com/playon/archives/2005/07/leveling_time.html)
can the same be said about everquest? no.
will WoW, or any other game, have the same problem once the game releases more content? /shrug
let's talk about mission-content replayability;
LDoN - fell off the face of the planet. i see ZERO replayability here. the risk vs reward is so poor that I have seen no interest in these in the last few months.
the newer DoN, DoDH, PoR missions are great.. assuming you got into a group once the expansion was released!! ok - i'm exaggerating (a lot) but there is little incentive to get others to join you if they've already completed the mission, meaning they will only get exp and no loot reward.
i think the newer DoDH missions were a FANTASTIC idea to give the entire group a loot instead of just rolling on a single item found in a chest: oh the humuliation when a BST-only item drops and you have six people all standing there with their jaw agape because they fought and won a mission only to be rewarded by destroying an item that no one could use...
at least in the newer missions, the chest is not the primary incentive - it's been bumped to secondary or even tertiary reward. we now have missions 'arcs' that lead to either spells or zone flags coupled with a one-time only loot/gear reward. last but not least, the exp received during the mission. the rank of the incentive depends upon the player but at least there are MORE THAN ONE incentive to get people to group together.
----
my main interest in EQ is to PROGRESS MY TOON. give me the resources to keep this going. there needs to be a mix of solo content, small group content (for those times when a CLR/TANK/SLOWER is unavailable), 1-group content, small-raids, large raids.
lastly, don't go overboard on timesinks. yes, we know that EQ is subscription-based and you run a business. but realize that the game is HUGE!! the amount of content available is staggering.
I want to be able to progress my toon in a reasonable manner, not waste my time doing the same content ad-nauseum.
my latest gripe is with the Dain Monster-Missions, where you need 3 missions to complete the aug but only ONE piece of the aug drops per mission.
so at the minimum, I need to do each mission 6 times - because each person of the group wants theirs too. fine - sounds easy. but as the night wears on, people need to log and new people come in - who want their loot also. so you have to keep doing these missions until you finally (win) recieve your loot??! and then it's rinse/repeat for the next two missions in the series. /puke
SOE has stated that they do not want people using MM's to advance their toons, it's only for a fun distraction. fine - then let us complete these side-missions in a reasonable manner: increase the drop rate on one or more missions. if the mission is easy, drop 1-2. if the mission is harder, drop more - so that we don't have to keep doing these missions and let us get back to our MAIN character.
take that idea and apply it throughout the game. if everything is evergrind then i don't have fun ( please realize that i don't want free either). just be more aware of what content people are doing and why they are/not doing them again.
Comment Posted by: xsi on April 3, 2006 02:09 PM
For the first time that I can remember, I actually agree with every point on the agenda.
The subjects nearest and dearest to my heart will come as no surprise to those who know me... new player models and 3-person content. A rebuilt PoK (which was something SOE said they were doing as part of the whole new tutorial server launch last year) and redo of quest content from 20-60 are close behind though.
The only one I'm not gaga for is the removal of equipment loss on death... but only because, with shadowhaven, permanent equipment loss has been removed for good, so I'm not sure how much of a problem this is anymore.
If SOE could actually address the points in the agenda, it would go a long way to keeping my wife and I subscribed.
Comment Posted by: xsi on April 3, 2006 02:37 PM
Because I like hearing myself speak... some # by # responses.
New PLayer Models:
I've been a huge proponent of new models practically from the first moment the luclin monstrosities were unleashed. As a casual player, one of the biggest carrots for me to keep playing is to make my avatar look cool. With the advent of Luclin models, we actually LOST distinctiveness (no Velious textures) for our characters. Add in the unfinished animations, (yes, 2hb still uses the 2hp animation), horribly unoptimized models, and general aesthetic concerns, and the luclin models were a horrible occurrence. However, we should not have to continue playing with ~100 poly models from 1999. Expansions like DoN, DoD and PoR have demonstrated that the SOE art team can make good models... now they need to do the same with character models. The three watchwords here need to be: aesthetics, variation, and optimization. Models should be artistically appealing. They should have a huge # of different armour sets and textures. And they should run somewhere in between the original models and the luclin models, in terms of performance. While I know some people don't care about the aesthetics of their character, this remains my single biggest issue as an EQ player.
New PoK:
If SOE insists on pushing everyone to PoK after the tutorial, then the zone absolutely needs to be redesigned. In particular, the idea of a tavern, as cited in (4) would be nice. You could even attach the boost to hp regen/mana regen that exists in our guild hall pools to draw more people there, even if the cross-server code never went into play.
20 to 60 quest content:
The key here in my opinion is chained quests. By this, I mean storylines that span multiple quests. It stops being an xp grind if you are following a thread from start to conclusion, and doing so allows SOE to actually create novel-like structures within the game, complete with prologues, climaxes, and conclusions. This is something a lot of other games seem to be getting right (even D&D online), and something EQ would benefit from. By all means, leave the ad hoc content in place, but create quest-drive storylines to give people reasons to progress as well.
Cross-server grouping:
Pretty cool idea, if they could make it work. The loot issue seems to be something of a sticking point, but perhaps combining it with a point-buy system (and a 'reward' system for doing different quests/adventures rather than grinding) would make actual loot less of a requirement. The idea of a tavern in PoK for this seems very cool.
Death System tweaks:
Again, I have no real issue with the current death system, but it wouldn't bother me if they changed it. I know SOE feels it's a deterrent to new players.
Larger XP rewards for first-time missions:
I'm fine with this. I do tend to grind some missions, particularly because my wife and I have a 3 person group (with a monk tanking) that cannot do too many missions, but as long as the xp rewards did not degrade additionally past the second time (ie. you just don't get the first-time reward), that would be fine. I also think they could 'wipe the slate clean' after a few weeks of not doing a particular mission if you wanted to be less draconian.
Casual vs. Raider equipment/damage output gap:
This does seem necessary... I just don't know how they will do it. My experiences in beta were pretty horrible... the existence of beta forums allowed me, for the first time, to see the truly hardcore crowd telling the developers that content was not hard enough... that things needed to hit harder, etc. You have a relatively small but very vocal subsection of the populace driving a lot of the content creation and balancing, and that just doesn't seem right.
More content between DoN/MMs and MPG/DoD/etc.
I agree here too. I think it's pretty difficult to gear up entirely via DoN and be able to jump directly into MPG trials/DoD. Once you can handle MPG trials, then you've really ascended to a new tier of adventuring, and DoD/PoR progression is not totally out of sight. Having said all of that, my group makeup certainly makes things harder than it would be for 6 person groups with a real tank, so take my comments with a grain of salt.
3 person content:
Yes please. This and the cross-server questing idea would help make LFG far less of an issue, and, personally, would make my playtime a lot more enjoyable. As with the 20-60 path, I'd like to see more progressive storyline quests for the 65+ half-group, to allow smaller groups to enjoy doing more than bottom feeding.
Comment Posted by: xsi on April 3, 2006 02:41 PM
Oh, one last thing...
If they do redo PoK, the guild lobby should absolutely be part of it. It makes no sense to have it as a separate zone, in my opinion.
Comment Posted by: clok on April 3, 2006 04:31 PM
EQ was the king, no doubt about it. But as a (still) paying customer who never plays I cant see many of these changes doing much for "NEW" customers. The changes will keep the old player base, but heck after 7 years, if they are still here, will they ever leave? The reason to play EQ nowdays is to get the next expansion and the loot it provides, see the next "hard" encounter or flagging process and then RAID the crap out of it. New players who have played almost any of the "new" MMORPG's wont hang around that long. EQ suffers one HUGE problem, and there is no simple remedy, no way to fix it without starting over (oh ya, they tried that, EQ2, and from what I see on subscriber numbers, they didnt fix it right). EQ's problem is it PENALIZES people who cant play 24/7, It penalizes people who play certian percieved useless classes (who wants to start over when they reach 60 becuase your just not that usefull in a group?). Well, I may be wording that wrong, the game doesnt penelize the player, the player base does. The guild/raid system was its death. Guilds who could zerg destroyed high level content, no longer could 30 average equiped players attack a dragon (I was with EQ in the old, old days when only 2 dragons where end-game content). Furor (was that his name?) and FoH had so many numbers that all content was trivial to them, and soon (how I have no idea) the world listened to them, a guild required this equipment, that equipment, this strategy to win.... Becuase if FoH where not haveing fun, and encounter where to easy, then the 99.99999% of EQ where not haveing fun either. Bad news, tune the game for those .001% that where at endgame and "didnt have anythinbg to do". Eq stuck it tail between its leggs and made stuff for them to do, forgetting about Bugs, balance, etc. Once that road was taken, there was (and is) no turning back. While 1% of the population had nothing to do the other 99% where all panicing becuase in 6 months-2 years they would be in the same boat (many never made it into the UBER guilds) and many have never seen any of this content. Whats wrong with Content that any fair groups with average Equipment can do? Whats wrong with a few zones that Solo's can grind some average exp in? Would it have broke the game? I dont think so, but its to late now. makeing a broken or flawed system better looking doenst fix the problems deep down.
Now with all that said I'm sure many will think I hate EQ, to be honest far from it, to this day I would prefer playing it over most any of the current crop of Online games. But I dont, I cant. I dont have any equipment that will get me into a "uber guild". Oh friends have said they would help me out, PL me , take me on raids and give me drops. That would get me from point a to point z, but correct me if I'm wrong, the point of a game is to play it, not skip the part in the middle and just say "I win", I got to the End, I got to fight the Boss of this Expansion.
I will never foreget the awe of my first Hill giant in the Commons, of in RO, the trails of dead bodies in oasis when Lockjaw would come out to play. When Humans couldnt see at night, when a corpse run was horrible, you made sure you really tired dang hard not to die. You ran from fights you couldnt win. The anticapation of getting a new spell or skill, and the exctiment of a dangerous run to get said item and run back and test it.
None of this is in the game anymore, travel has be trivialized, Why? becuas ethe high end guys cant run 10 minutes to get to a Instance, or cant wait for a port. The joy of a good group, the horrer of a bad one. The last minute heal, the last minute mez to save somebody, it ment something, you saved the group time, you "did something great" even if it was just in a game world.. its all gone. All the game is about now is the guys who have been playing since day one, you just dangle another carrot, i brighter, longer, bigger one... you just dangle it an inch fartehr away and watch um stretch to get it while the new players all cant even see it, and never will.
Clok
Comment Posted by: Loral on April 3, 2006 04:31 PM
"All that said, Loral, what if anything on your list is something your willing to get verbal and fight for? "
I have been and will be willing to discuss all of the items I brought up with SOE at the summit and fan faire. I'm not sure I like the term "fight for" but I believe everything I wrote and will speak to all of it.
"my biggest issues:
- DOWNTIME."
Good one, Tuppet, and I am sad I didn't have this in the agenda. I will write it down separately and talk about it at the Summit. I will also add it to the paper copy of my evil agenda. Downtime is a big problem and something that EQ2 and WOW have solved. EQ needs to solve it too.
I'm not sure I agree with you about replayability. I may not go back to LDON but I played the hell out of that expansion. There's no lack of content so why go back and replay old stuff? I think events (missions, adventures, zone hunting, whatever) all need a reason to do it once (a one-time reward or an experience boost) and a reason to go back (random loot).
"permanent equipment loss has been removed for good"
People still lose gear due to bugs. These bugs wouldn't exist if gear never left you when you died. Also, new players don't really understand shadowrest or the DON corpse vendor. All they know is that they died in Crushbone and they can't fight their way back to get it.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 3, 2006 05:19 PM
Loral Wrote:Good one, Tuppet, and I am sad I didn't have this in the agenda. I will write it down separately and talk about it at the Summit. I will also add it to the paper copy of my evil agenda. Downtime is a big problem and something that EQ2 and WOW have solved. EQ needs to solve it too.
-----------------------
should also note to the EQ developers that EQ2 has a fully functioning Mana stone just to give them the hint that getting better mana regen during battles should not be as taboo as it is.
Comment Posted by: Tuppet on April 3, 2006 06:44 PM
"I'm not sure I agree with you about replayability. I may not go back to LDON but I played the hell out of that expansion. There's no lack of content so why go back and replay old stuff? I think events (missions, adventures, zone hunting, whatever) all need a reason to do it once (a one-time reward or an experience boost) and a reason to go back (random loot)."
not going to press that issue. I'll just leave with, it's a tad frustrating to get help on older content because it lacks a decent form of reward for others to join you: "No Thanks. I've already done and I need now".
I agree with you on needing one-time and successive rewards.
Comment Posted by: Tuppet on April 3, 2006 06:45 PM
oops...
sentence above should read:
"No Thanks. I've already done X and I need Y now ".
Comment Posted by: sunshadow on April 3, 2006 06:58 PM
Three person content always appears in the game but is nerfed ASAP. The reason is thet with 6 people a 3 person challange is easy, so people flock to it and when flocking happens, in comes the nerf bat. A number of the original MM's could be done with 3, however they have been nerfed and "twicked" and now none are. What need to happen is for those missions 3 people get 100% xp, 4 people get 80%, 5 70% and 6 60%. Or some similar formula this stops the content being abused.
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on April 4, 2006 12:18 AM
"I would be happy to pay for an "overhaul" expansion where no new content was added, but existing stuff was revamped. Character models would be top of that list (customisable so we could greater tailor our appearance; allow people to choose height, build, skin colour), different types of visible armour so we can once again see a progression through appearance (Dyes killed this somewhat. Remember when purple clerics were uber, with their Hate pieces?), better animations. Visible cloaks. Oh, and pointy hats for wizards."
I think this would be nice too, but I'm sure a ton of people would scream and call the expansion garbage. Just look at what happened with Ykesha. It had a number of great features, but to this day people still complain about the lack of zones (even if they were great zones for the intended levels).
Comment Posted by: Tuppet on April 4, 2006 12:32 AM
new player models? sure but it's been shot down every time it's been brought up.
not sure if I buy the rebuild of pok. i understand what you are proposing but do you think that it would be worth the effort?
quests from 20 - 60. hmm. perhaps 40 - 60? how many quests could you do that give you a decent reward that will last? perhaps either evolving items or ones with recommended stats so that you can grow into it?? i would worry about people outgrowing their rewards too quickly because the levels from 20-40 are pretty quick. obviously not all about loot but it was the first thing that came to mind. overall, i think this would be a strong step in the right direction.
cross-server stuffs? fantastic. would do a lot in creating groups but wouldn't that also hurt your own server in some ways??
equipment loss on death. haha - my gripe was with clicking 30 slots every time i died. at first, it's just part of the game but after playing over a period of time... what's the point?? WTB AA where all i have to do is click once!! loot all plz =)
losing equipment is a very big penalty in-game, let alone if it was lost due to something out-of-game, i.e. a bug or zone crashing.
we already have shadowrest and the guild lobby to help retrieve lost corpses. it seems the evil agenda wants to do away with equipment loss but what will happen to bind points or corpses if new "death effect" materializes?
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on April 4, 2006 03:55 AM
"Three person content always appears in the game but is nerfed ASAP. The reason is thet with 6 people a 3 person challange is easy, so people flock to it and when flocking happens, in comes the nerf bat. A number of the original MM's could be done with 3, however they have been nerfed and "twicked" and now none are. What need to happen is for those missions 3 people get 100% xp, 4 people get 80%, 5 70% and 6 60%. Or some similar formula this stops the content being abused."
This isn't entirely true. The Freemind Cipher in Undershore has 2 missions flagged as "1/2 group mission," Rememberance and Way of the Freemind that are doable with 3 (though yes, pretty trivial with 6). There are also some other MMs that are possible to do with 3. A Griffin's Plight shouldnt' be hard with 3 (it's almost soloable if you're a good kiter) and I've done Kejekan Trials with 3. There may even be others I haven't tried yet.
Comment Posted by: Teremar on April 4, 2006 03:38 PM
I'm glad to see some discussion of changing the death penalty in EQ, but I'd have to vote against it being a 15 minute movement penalty.
No one likes CRs, but at least doing a CR is more or less playing the game. A 25% movement penalty would be enough to make a lot of people sit it out in PoK (most likely AFK). Soloists who depend on movement (and what proportion of those who don't get rezzes are soloing?) would be completely crippled.
Death needs to have negative consequencs, but they shouldn't prevent you from playing the game. That doesn't mean they can't be harsh--permadeath would be extremely harsh yet you'd still be back to playing the game with your new character in moments--but the consequences should affect progression, not fun.
I'm not even a fan of WoW's death penalty for this reason. In WoW when you die you become an ghost, invulnerable but incapable of affecting the world, and then have to run back to your body to revive. Piece of cake, right? Yeah, so easy that running back is boring as anything. It's not playing the game. If I'm somewhere like Tanaris (a big desert with few obstacles) I'll head the right direction then alt-tab out and read something for a while. In most zones I can't do that, so it becomes one of those activities that require attention but no thought. Not fun.
I've always thought EQ's CRs were a problem, especially for those who can't plan their lives around the game. By all means get rid of them. But the replacement should be something players will try hard to avoid, but not prevent them from having fun playing the game.
Comment Posted by: Ogulbuk on April 4, 2006 05:45 PM
On death penalties:
I’m playing EQ2 now again after a while. They removed the soul shard corpse run thing and also removed almost all the experience debt.
I basically just got back and was thinking death was no too trivial. This was until I did my first dungeon crawl. We kept dying and I was thinking how trivial it was. Resurrections were also sometimes even usable mid combat.
This was until suddenly: armor broke down and we were all naked. Sure the armor was easily fixable with very little coin cost, but that meant leaving the dungeon, and other than quest accomplished tasks, it meant abandoning our dungeon progress.
Basically, this meant game over, we lost.
Right now, for a group, xp loss in EQ is not a big issue; death means only downtime, but a true risk is not there. The current death penalties only adds frustration for the inexperienced player. A system very much like the one in EQ2 would help a lot. Replacing the xp loss and the corpse run for armor deterioration would add a true challenge as repetitive death will actually mean you wont be able to progress further, while alleviating the current annoyances of death. BTW, I am not proposing permanent loss of anything, just for armor/equipment to become unusable until fixed for small amounts of money. Who knows, maybe even for free as a guildhall feature.
Comment Posted by: Jyve on April 4, 2006 10:57 PM
Cross server grouping was something asked for many a year ago. First, transfers weren't possible. Official answer was that it'd never happen as it was far too technical an issue. Then they charged money for it and found a way. I'd of still said casual temp server hopping for grouping would be difficult to implement until I saw how MM's had been done, you leave your toon behind and transfer to a new server.
There's a different between going into an LFG pool to do MM's from different servers, and being able to roam around a different server.
Cross server MM's I'd hope should be viable todo. One day, I'd not mind the ability to hail an npc in PoK (or bug a wizzy), pay a decent fee, and be translocated across to another server to group with long transfered friends. Even if it was some sort of Ghost mode where I can't loot/buy gear (though the dangers of this are readily apparent, and would need to be tested to bits to stop the hackers). Being able to hop across servers to see old friend, blast through some missions (the obvious one would be something like Creator, rewards are dropped onto cursor/inventory, no server economic impact) would be the dream, but I'd settle for less. Course, if that WAS put in, the next logical conclusion, seeing as they're unique, would be cross server guilds. But for now, I'll settle for x-server MM's.
Ghosted hopping across for a 24 hour period would be a decent way for poeple to dip their toes about transfering to a new server, give them chance to learn the lay of the land. Also,lets be honest, one day, there'll be another round of server mergers, knowing people on other servers will only help reduce the problems encountered last time around.
Comment Posted by: kevdogg on April 5, 2006 02:30 AM
i like the cross server idea the most but not for mms but real groups=p
lfg i think is one of the main problems with eq right now and would help bigtime especialy at higher levels
Comment Posted by: Kanas on April 5, 2006 03:45 AM
I dont see why they dont do another server merger to fix the lfg problems. I see nothing wrong with them as long as you pair servers up that would compliment each other, i.e. high population with low population. Also, its looking like the specialty servers are dieing and they should be the next ones to be merged. On my server (maelin starpyre), its hard to find a group if you play an alt under 60. Everyone is level 70 and even when I'm playing my main, groups cant ever find enough clerics and slowers.
Comment Posted by: anon on April 5, 2006 06:15 AM
But according to SOE, only 3% of players are 70%. Where are the otehr 97% hiding?
I'm not in agreement that cross-server groups to a instance, especially a MM, is a solution. They should be making ways to get the server communities to mingle. Lots of people are too chicken to ask or create a group and stand around lonely. That needs to change first.
Comment Posted by: Bim on April 5, 2006 11:14 AM
The EQ representation that only 3% of players are level 70 is completely wrong. They count every single character, used or not, current or not. So an individual who plays their level 70 main 99.9% of the time, but has 5 level 3 alts, would count as 83% level 1-10 and 17% level 70. Similar problems with people who quit long ago.
Comment Posted by: Tondef on April 5, 2006 11:35 AM
1. Character Models: I would love to see character skinning as they implemented in EQ2. If they mad the characters into a wireframe with animations, I would be extreamly surprised if the community didn't jump at the opportunity to create skins for these models. Look at the UI community now. If they will give us a way to give back to the game other than just paying our $12/month we will.
2. PoK: Could use an upgrade. As expansions have come out they have moved the center of gravity left and right over and over. Nexus, PoK, Abysmal Sea, now Freeport. I wish that they would pick one and pick one method of getting around. As we have the Spires, PoK Books, and Magus'. And for PETES SAKE teach all the Magus' all the port spells, including one to the Guild Lobby. Just plane silly that to get to Natimbi that we have to go through Nedaria's Landing. Likewise that the PoK Priest of Discord is in a totally different area from the other ports (books and Magus).
3. 20-60. Yes Yes YES. Either they need to have some content or just let us create level 60 toons. I would also love if faction in citys helped again. Look at Fable. Be the hero.
4. Cross server missions: Way cool idea. With the spread of instanced zones really they could probably combine all the servers at some point as only the oldest content is not instanced.
5. Death, yup needs a revamp. But I'm not sure how your suggestion would effect raids and groups. When you die do you just respawn where you died (could be bad for pullers). If not how will you get back to the instanced or regular zone from your bind without making a timesink with the 15 min snare?
6. My issue::Raids. Need some new ideas for raid content. Many raid targets have trash mobs that are just as hard as the target which is goofy. Also lots of targets are just plain unforgiving. One person dies and the raid wipes. There should be a chance to recover from a mistake, lag, or LD without requireing a reset. Maybe instead of making a raid mob just a gazillion HP, 45 min long fight, while watching for Death Touch debuffs to click/hail something...maybe something like PoT progression where you raid smaller targets to get parts (for the raid not individual) to create some seige machine or bane item to allow the raid to kill/capture/banish the raid target. Maybe the content developers need a required fiction reading list so that they can get some ideas. This is the basis of most fiction, not giant zerg-fest but watch the buffs.
Comment Posted by: anon on April 5, 2006 12:30 PM
To Bim: I was being facetious, throwing SOE's spin back at them. I fully know all about trying to play EQ at any level under 65 and finding a single player not being powerleveled or a TS alt to group with.
Comment Posted by: erz on April 5, 2006 07:02 PM
1. Model Upgrade - Now is the time, I'd like to see greater customization with them. With that said, I want functionality and use over lag-saturated fluff models.
2. I see no reason to upgrade Plane of Knowledge - it's more than fine as is. As bad as lag can be at times, imagine it with Freeport style design and 250 people in it. This is a case of simple is better.
3. 20-60 level method: Irrelevant to me, I can't bring any new blood to this game given their addiction to WoW. In my mind, EQ simply needs to embrace the fact the game doesn't start till you hit 70. They had a chance, long ago, to prevent this and chose to go down this route.
4. Cross-server grouping. Won't be my thing but I see no reason not to do this - I don't group with normal groups outside of my guild.
5. I'd settle instead for a loot all function. I'm not a fan of items appearing on your respawn.
-- I'd still like to see some sort of badge/merit system. Gear has turned very much into a WoW approach where you can no longer judge where a person has been by their gear. A 'badge' system listing missions, tasks, arcs, raids, accomplishments, etc would be a novel but interesting way to build your progression. As others have said in previous posts, more awards for completion of arcs/expansions/etc.
In closing, EQ is what it is, changing it radically at this point would be a mistake.
Comment Posted by: Armarant on April 5, 2006 08:35 PM
Erz wrote:3. 20-60 level method: Irrelevant to me, I can't bring any new blood to this game given their addiction to WoW. In my mind, EQ simply needs to embrace the fact the game doesn't start till you hit 70. They had a chance, long ago, to prevent this and chose to go down this route.
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All I have to say is your being a little too self-absorbed when you say just because you cant get anyone you know to join the game that no one is joining EQ.
I think that EQ can easily devote their talents to makeing content for every level and makeing it good considering the fact that the majority of people never see all the level 70 content they make anyway since they consider alot of it to be bad RVR.. :
Comment Posted by: Bloodypeaceful on April 5, 2006 10:56 PM
A requirement I would like to see is for them to stop instancing group content. Groups should be dynamic and instancing is killing that. As soon as you start an instance you are locked in for a set amount of time. Yes, I know you can change group members but it's painfulland can jepodised a mission time limit so few people do it.
When I log in, the first thig I look at is whats my Guildies doing. What I see is 40% bazaar, 40% instance zones, so really straight up I know I will only get a chance of grouping with 20% of my guild. Whereas without instancing that would rise to 60% as people will rarely leave an instance group to help a guildie or to set up a guild/friends group because they would then be blacklisted by those people they abandoned. Outside instances people joining and leaving a group is a matter of course and has few conseqences besides a bit of downtime.
Comment Posted by: Maitreya on April 5, 2006 11:06 PM
I've met half a dozen or so real newbies (like people who had joined within the past week) over the past couple of weeks just asking in the NewPlayers channel on my server, and quite a few more who had only been playing for a month or two, so don't say new people aren't coming to the game.
Comment Posted by: Sunshadow on April 5, 2006 11:19 PM
I have been think over the last few days, Is Everquest ready for multi-classing?
My thoughts are yes.
Imagine if you would your level 70 cleric being now able to level up as a Mage, you would have invis, pets and a DS. I envisage it would work such that if at 70 you decide to add Mage as an extra class, you would retain all the original abilities but you also act as a lvl 0 mage. To get to level 1 mage you would neen to earn the equivilent to a lvl 71 amount of XP and you would have to earn it off mobs that where not green to your level 70. This basically extends the possible amount of levels up to 140 without really forcing new content difficulty into the game.
If someone wanted to multiclass from level 1 then the XP can be split similar to AA but to achieve a level increase requires an amount of XP equal to the sum of your levels.
My personal feeling would be to add this as an AA option to restrict the powerleveling abuse.
Options would of course be restricted by Race. but with Gear if it usable by one class the you can wear it however "recommended and required" would still be enforced.
Would this breath new life into the game or be a useless as LDON. Discuss!!
Comment Posted by: Aarkan on April 5, 2006 11:22 PM
"There's no lack of content so why go back and replay old stuff?" - Loral
Come on, I cannot belive you said that. Some of the best single group casual gaming content is COMPLETELY 100% trash now. You cannot give me any reason to make a full $30 expansion totally obsolete. People still play in the classic zones, kunark, velious, luclin, ykesha, pop... and everything else except for LDoN. THAT IS A PROBLEM.
Comment Posted by: Gillighan on April 8, 2006 12:41 AM
As a high end EQ1 raider and a casual EQ2 player, most of these comments strike me as slightly funny. New graphics, re-modeled zones, solo / small group content, new death penalties, choice of loot after quests, cash awards at the end, and almost all of the rest of the stuff listed here (other than cross-server groups) are all a part of EQ2. Yet almost all EQ1 players dog EQ2, saying it terrible, it's a travesty of EverQuest, and whatever else. If EQ2 has all these things that people want so badly, why does it have a relatively lower (although growing) surscriber base?
In my opinion, EQ2 was so focused on fixing the problems of EQ1 and adding what people wanted from EQ1, that it lost "it". That something about the game that kept you coming back to log on whenever you had the chance. Almost everybody that has played EverQuest for any extended period of time has memories of acheivments, memories of moments when you felt like the king of the world, albeit a digital one. Maybe it was when your group killed Emporer Crush for the first time, or the first time that you saved a hostage from a LDoN mission in the Mistmoore Catacombs, or the first time you stood toe to toe with a dragon. The point is that EverQuest has never been about having the prettiest graphics or the easiest solo path to the level cap. EverQuest has always been about experiencing a fantasy world, living things that you could otherwise only dream of, seeing places and worlds that are beyond words - And sharing all of this with your friends and comrades online.
I'm not saying that EQ doesn't have places it can improve, don't get me wrong. But what is going to captivate newcomers to the game? Easier corpse runs? Or those breathtaking moments and memories that keep us coming back after years and years of terrible corpse runs and outdated graphics?
I agree completely with everything that Loral has listed on the Agenda, I think they're all great ideas, but when facilitating the leveling process, don't lose sight of the ultimate goal of everyone playing - To have fun. Every player has fun in different way in EverQuest, but very few people enjoy a good 6 hour solo grind to the next level. We need new players to feel the sense of adventure, awe, and really fear that we felt when we were exploring a zone that we knew was a little too high level for us. We need them to feel a genuine sense of self-accomplishment with whatever path they chose for progressing in the game, because that alone will keep them coming back to the game.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License. Email Mike at mike@mikeshea.net for more questions or comments.