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EverQuest: Dev Chat Log
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
On Tuesday, the folks from EverQuest dropped by our chat room to talk a little bit about their game and to answer questions from MMORPG.com members.
MMORPG_Taera: Greetings and welcome to MMORPG.com's Live Chat on irc.coldfront.net! I'm your host, MMORPG.com's community manager Laura Taera Genender. Joining us today is the EverQuest team!
MMORPG_Taera: Our guests will do their best to answer as many questions as possible, but due to limited time and a high volume of inquiries, they may not be able to answer every single one. Users are limited to one question at a time , and you will be notified if your question is rejected or discarded.
MMORPG_Taera: To submit a question please /msg MMORPGBot yourquestionhere
MMORPG_Taera: Now it's time for introductions! Feel free to start sending your questions to MMORPGBot while our guests introduce themselves!
[EQ]Merloc: Hello, I'm Keith Turkowski, I work on items, game systems, and content.
[EQ]Ngreth: Hello! I am Adam Ngreth Bell. Game designer specializing in Tradeskills.
[EQ]Rytan: Hi, I’m Ryan Barker the recently promoted Lead Designer.
[EQ]Nodyin: Hi everyone. I am David Ford, I work on the AA system and do various raids and quests.
[EQ]Elidroth: Afternoon all.. my name is Doug Cronkhite.. and I create stuff that kills you.
[EQ]Maddoc: Hey everyone, I'm Jason Mash, I work on game systems and content.
[EQ]Prathun: Afternoon everyone. I'm Jonathan Caraker, the designer responsible for the spells system.
[EQ]Zatozia: Hey all! I’m Lydia “Zatozia the Torturess” Pope, Community Relations Manager for EverQuest. I sit in a dungeon all day working on website features and causing my eyes to bleed by reading the forums all day long.
Read it all here.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
I laughed at the part where they talked about trying to attract old players back to the game. They won't have a chance in hell of doing that untill they figure out why we left in the first place.
Oh well. The EQ I loved died a long time ago. I doubt if these guys have any clue why it was such a big hit in it's beginning days.
I know. I recently tried the EtN trial (expansion, whatever you call it) and the graphics were horrible, there were some basic bugs (I had a Kick button that didn't work), shadows were laughable....it was pretty sad.
The format of these chats is pretty weird. There are long pauses in between questions, and their answers were instant; seems like they see the Q and respond, then it goes into the public channel or something. It's too bad it isn't faster or more focused discussion oriented so you can get some good info out of it. Also I didn't get to ask my most important question: They should being back Project M!
:P
They refused to address the poor lower level to mid level experience when they talk about trying to attract new and older players. People will not stick around if there is no one to group with since this is a grouping game. People will not stick around if they can't afford items due to a screw up economy. People will not stick around when the focus is clearly on the higher levels and raiding. People won't stick around when they start feeling they are playing in an empty world where only small corners have players and they are high level players. People won't try the game if the graphics are to outdated (though other things can overcome this).
They really can't fix the issue unless they actually acknowledge what the true problem is and stop dancing around hoping it will correct itself. I don't see that happening though.
Look at how long it took them to admit how wrong they were in regards to the NGE and Star Wars Galaxies. Even then they didn't want to fully admit it was their fault the game's population went down the drain. They'll never admit the real problems with EQ1 either.
I found it amusing how they claimed they were trying to fix the cleric situation. Umm, its almost 10 years down the road guys. To fix that you'd turn the game upside down, and we all know you're just blowing smoke. In fact, this entire log seemed to be one big smoke-up-your-butt-now-shut-up session.
Yea, I'm bitter that these devs decided to listen to a very small minority of raiders, and promptly that ruined EQ. Oh, how is that new progression server coming along that was supposed to be announced after the release of SoF? I stopped believing these guys a long time ago.
Effect is spot on; they basically need to redesign basic fundamentals of the game, bringing it up to speed and improving it, before any old or new people will seriously consider it. They seem comfortable with limping along though, so that's what's going to continue. I wish it was more fun, I would love to go back to EQ, but the bar is too high now to revert that far, for me.
Bah, same old same old. There were so many problems with EQ that were never fixed even after, what is it now, 8-9 years (?) after everyone sounded out about them so long ago before there was even a PoK. I remember reading one log back in like 2002/03 where the devs said that Rng's couldn't have an autofire button/ability. Took like 3 years before someone externally (I think) wrote out the program fix for them to incorporate into the whole mess that EQ had become.
Attracting the old timers back ? I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon. Mind you, I do love the raiding and also the soloing but it's infinitely true that after you hit 70 there's nothing to do but raid. And when you have a heavy work load and family obligations in RL, 6 hour raids tend to be a low priority at the end of a work day. I actually stayed back for a year after my raiding hours were severely curtailed and found that there's just so many times that you can solo dragons before you get bored with the whole thing. And thank you very much SoE but I'm not willing to buy a new expansion pack from you every couple months.
With that being said, yes I would like to come back to EQ but, SoE...can you actually do anything to give me a reason ?
I like how non-specific they are.
'we're planning on opening a new progression server sometime in the future'
They said this last year.
'We have considerable incentive to bring back old new players'
Which are?
Actually, thinking about it IF they do do the new progression server, it would be that.
Don't expect any major changes to EQ, it is in strictly maintenance mode. You can tell from their answers they have been told to maintain the status quo. Any new player would be crazy to attempt to play this game.
They chose the path of favoring the large raiding guilds and they will not divert from that. SOE has given up on EQ.
Sadly that does seem to be the case.
The secret weapon that made EQ irresistable: terrain based open strategy......... why?
People couldnt get enough of the various ways to dispatch their enemies while using the very length and width of the game world as their "sandbox". If you didnt want to take the old d&d Group(tm) approach you could in fact have multiple variations of fighting styles/tactics that was up to the player in question rather than a specific run of the mill "pull-stand n fight--timing" type of tactic. EQ has apparently opted to standardize end game fighting while throwing in a few curves scripted by the MOBS and/or puzzle interaction (reminicent of dungeon master interaction). This is all well and fine but it would make better sense to maintain a growth of this 'terrain based open strategy' inconjunction with standard d&d group cloning.
How about combining both, example....
a zone where activating certain trees that do the healing and feeding it at certain intervals with certain drinks. Certain drinks can alter the tree so that perhaps if there is a healer in the group but no slower then giving it a different type of drink would allow it to slow at a given radius.
That is just an example and is intended to show that innovation based from the original eq mindset can really add spice to my once loved game. I noted that most of the devs remarks hinted towards a rigid paradgm which explains their lack of innovative thinking but more or less adhering to --core-- outline. Stop thinking core and start thinking door. Dont be so focused on trying to get everyone on board to become a fraction to a collective then perhaps you might get better at brainstorming....150!