Utnayan
I Love Utnayan he’s awesome
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SOE Becomes Daybreak / Russian shutdown
- Thread starter Laerazi_sl
- Start date
Agraza
Registered Hutt
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Yea, I'm not really happy with mercs either, but it would take a lot to get away from them, and so very many of the loyal customers of EQ seem to prefer soloing with their OP pets. All these people that claim they dislike WoW because it lacks community, and then they 3box+3mercs in EQ all day. In WoW I experienced a lot more forced community, and often enjoyed it. I think if you could scale mercenary salaries to player power such that the rich demi-gods had to fork over exorbitant fees to use them it could help discourage everyone from being a goddamn hermit. My brother said in EQ2 they actually get a cut of loot somehow, so there is some dynamism to their costs there. They more accurately reflect being a player replacement when you don't get 100% of the split every time.
Need to always be designing your content to maximize throwing people together so it makes sense to buddy up while also diffusing conflicts over the tightly shared resources. Instances and phasing can play a part, but they gradually make the game feel more like a lobby than a world if you use them in every situation. A primitive idea I had a long time ago was making hardcore environments with black reaver style mobs so we're not fighting over spawns as much as we just keep repopping our own shit, yet we're under pressure because there is no one respite unless we evac. There are plenty of more elegant alternatives, but I thought the black reaver's behavior was very under-utilized when the concept was introduced. Put rewarding difficult areas behind fast repop crawls and you necessitate good teamwork just to keep from having to start over.
zzeris
King Turd of Shit Hill
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I
A lot of EQs draw has always been the OP stuff that could be done by poor programming and testing. I'm not sure I've had many more fun times than with my early bard. Being able to wipe areas that took groups felt pretty good. Quad kiting, fear-kiting, etc were all fun. Not conducive to groups but fun.
KCXIV
Molten Core Raider
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i went back n played with a friend for a bit, he was a 100 necro i was like a 80 something, and i would just sit there while his pet would murder everything and i would just collect free exp. it was insane. then when he would get bored he would just kite the entire fucking zone and the exp even moved faster. lol I didnt see any groups really, just like 2 people (2boxing probably) and their merc's leveling up. I trhink i stopped at level 95ish recently. shit was boring kiting. i dont have the patience for it anymore.
Because they make no profit on box and expansion sales and web advertising, right?
Do you think the content is worth paying 40 for an expansion and 180 per year? I personally do not. Do they still shut the servers down all day Tuesday? That model is why we have ten years of bad diku clones, in my opinion. 5 dollars in cost, 175 in profit..Good for them. Bad for us.
Xaxius
Lord Nagafen Raider
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radditsu
Silver Knight of the Realm
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yeah...its prob some gateway 2000 sitting in a broom closet. you are right
I'm not sure which stream you're referring to, but none of us EQ are coasting. We're well aware of the mountain of work ahead of us, and we're digging in for the long haul. Simple as that. None of us have given up.
Hateyou
Not Great, Not Terrible
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I've been through a nasty merger/acquisition, it's rough. Seeing people get canned, wondering if you're next, morale tanking, uncertainty, etc. Good luck man, staying positive is the only way to go IMO.
but, but this is my peer reviewed MMO science....Correlation does not imply causation.
My world is all about the conjecture, my man.
Warmuth
Molten Core Raider
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Theyre discussing the right thing to do with exp nerfs? There's nothing to discuss, remove the shit. JFC this is why people get fed up. It will in no way effect the amount of time it takes to level 105, no one levels to 105 in the expansion anyway. It will, however, stop pissing people off.
Muligan
Trakanon Raider
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I'll tell you the truth Elidroth, I hope so. I don't want to be negative but I also don't want to be unrealistic either. I'm glad you're staying positive and I hope everything works out for you and the remaining team but we need to see that these teams are willing address real problems. I'm glad to hear a progression server is in the works, that's a step in the right direction but the EQ2 stream was very disappointing.
I guess they should be happy those two games still have passionate (paying) fans. I don't think there really is any cost justification on doing anything big with those games due to their age and marketshare. The best thing to do is take the pulse of the community and make all the change most of the players want done. Especially that bloat thing. Might actually bring back a person or two to try it out. Might make a buck out of it.
Is it possible to shed some light on the 'new progression servers' for EQ1/EQ2 that were mentioned in the stream? I'm curious as to what extent and what expansions they are going to.
If you guys were to make a PoP or Velious ending TLP server I am sure more than 'just a few' people would play it. Even if it had the revamped zones, SC shops and such with specific timeline items removed, it'd still be immensely popular (as in, I'd probably play it.)
Nothing short of nuking all 21 expansions and starting over with new shit will bring me back to EQ1, as far as im concerned that game stopped at the end of PoP.
21 expansions, do you know how fucking ridiculous that sounds? Do you know how fucking intimidating and off-putting that sounds?
Having that much content sounds good on paper but in reality, it's the equivalent of being a paraplegic looking up at Mount Everest knowing it's going to be a pain in the dick getting to the top and only when I get to the top I *might* have some fun. The reality is I am most likely going to quit long before I hit lvl 100 and never try that shit again. The only way any of it is even used/seen is for people to pretend the other 17 expansions never happened and its still 1999-2004 again.
Hope that rings in your ears when you're at your next meeting Elidroth because if the only thing you plan to do is add more shit on that shit sandwich you've made, well, its gonna be shit.
21 expansions, do you know how fucking ridiculous that sounds? Do you know how fucking intimidating and off-putting that sounds?
Having that much content sounds good on paper but in reality, it's the equivalent of being a paraplegic looking up at Mount Everest knowing it's going to be a pain in the dick getting to the top and only when I get to the top I *might* have some fun. The reality is I am most likely going to quit long before I hit lvl 100 and never try that shit again. The only way any of it is even used/seen is for people to pretend the other 17 expansions never happened and its still 1999-2004 again.
Hope that rings in your ears when you're at your next meeting Elidroth because if the only thing you plan to do is add more shit on that shit sandwich you've made, well, its gonna be shit.
To be honest if Daybreak were to make new progression servers that stopped at Velious or PoP and did an 'Oldschool RuneScape' style of updates that'd be super cool. It's worked for Jagex when RuneScape brought back servers with a codebase from 2007 and started adding on newer features and security updates to it, based on community polling ingame.
Paying players vote ingame to determine the future of the game. In EQ terms, these features ranged from 'Should we add the Bazaar into the game in East Commonlands?', to 'Should we add in pre-nerf or post-nerf manastones as drops?', etc.
If Daybreak were to do this, I guarantee they'd see a resurgence in EQ subscriptions based on customer loyalty alone.
As a result of making these 'oldschool' servers, Jagex has 21k CCU playing that version of the game. And they are all paying customers. Think about that.
Oh, and might I mention that this 'Oldschool RuneScape' was made primarily to get customers back from people that moved on to private and/or emulated servers of RuneScape that would have cost their company money otherwise. And guess what? By doing that, they got all their customers back, and 'classic' RuneScape servers barely have any population anymore.
McCheese
SW: Sean, CW: Crone, GW: Wizardhawk
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Isn't this what they do with EQ? Create a gimmicky idea for an expansion, release everything half-assed, then forget it and move on to the next. Working as intended!
I'd like to see EQ shut down just so Asheron's Call can claim final victory.