Everquest

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=136398

Rytan (Main EQ designer) had to back down on the decision for raids to go from 54 to 42.

The decision was to help the many struggling guilds out who don't have the needed players anymore to raid.

But a select few high end guilds have a lot of control in EQ and are omnipresent in the forums.

They refused to participate in beta, threatened with cancellations, and demanded a reversal of this decision that could have saved many guilds.

Ultimately they won. Another blow to EQ which will undoubtedly lead to guilds disbanding, thanks to a few high enders who got their way.

The thing that strikes me about this is the whole conflict is between two camps of raiders.  I guess small groupers don't even come into the picture anymore in EQ.  But that's not too suprising.

A long time ago I used to argue on the EQ boards that there needed to be end-game progression for six person groups.  Single group play, the play that MADE the dang game a hit, needed to be an ongoing thing and not simply be replaced by raiding.  I don't think any of the devs ever even bothered to acknowledge that that might be an issue.

So what is EQ now?  A releatively small remnant of raiders clinging to the game and bickering with each other while everyone else has moved on?  I don't think it had to turn out that way.  People had such strong attachments to the game that I really think a huge chunk of the lost population would still be playing if they hadn't been essentially forced out by being left with the choice between an unbearable playstyle or nothing.

Raiders used to be vastly in the minority in EQ.  Now they probably are the majority because everyone else left.

I have not corroborated anything, and I did not click the link.

I will say, immediately, is that the "EQ-raider" was the original death of EQ.  EQ is emerging, and starting to breath some life to it, not because of raiders - but casual groupers.

Many of these people have a psychological need to feel "superior" to people.  We had a guy on Combine last night from Fires of Heaven guild go on and on in the general chat about how guilds need to pay him 2 million plat for him to join their guild.  It is not even funny.  Not even pathetic.  Just... unbelievable a human being in real life types those things.

The point being the EQ zerg raid guild, these hackers and cheats and gold buyers (my biggest buyers were Legacy of Steel on Nameless) have ruined the game, left the game, and continue to harm the game. 

Why?  My theory is that some decision makers are members of these guilds, get some sort of psychological thing from being in a zerg (often hacker) guild.   It is not business logic. It is psychologic. 

Edit:  Briefly, yes, the groupers were the majority in EQ.  Somehow, from a business perspective, "developers" joined these zerg guilds.  And they were able to take the most brilliant MMORPG ever created and let it stoop, become a raid monster.  It was the fox taking control of the henhouse.  I want the intellectual and creative developers back.  The focus on groupers.  The community guilds.  And these people are still a sizable, probably even a majority right now, of EQ's population.  EQ has been able to ride the back of the group gameplay for a long time while satisfying the lust of computer dorks (raiders).

Maybe we should just stop subscribing to SOE until we, the majority, groupers have a voice again?

You can have a deeper MMORPG experience with casual grouping.  EQ did have that, I think it has it now, but these raiders have just overwhelming influence; and their ideas are good for them, bad for business, and awful for community guilds and groupers.

Originally posted by declaredemer

 

Why?  My theory is that some decision makers are members of these guilds, get some sort of psychological thing from being in a zerg (often hacker) guild.   It is not business logic. It is psychologic. 

 

It is I think.

I found it all weird how it happened.

Those guilds are just a small part of the EQ total. There must be some sort of leverage these high end players have over the decision making process.

You mentioned fires of heaven, the original FoH that left for WoW used to have a big impact and connection with many developers. I disliked that.

I think it's psychologic.

Originally posted by Waterlily

Those guilds are just a small part of the EQ total. There must be some sort of leverage these high end players have over the decision making process.

I think it's psychologic.

Let's never underestimate "internet people."  If a lot of zerg guilds were to disband, their members would follow, for their psychologic reasons, the decisions of the "Guild Leader." 

These people would create a ripple effect in which it would be "cool" to disband, end subscription.

Having a brilliant game held hostage to these people must be as taxing as it is trying. 

I don't know about developers, but I do know a lot of T2 and T3 GMs are in those guilds and most certainly abuse their powers to get away with some under the counter scrupulous acts.

There has been one eyewitnessed occassion of a T3 GM banning people who caught him hacking. Even altered the in-game logs to get them banned. Even after SOE realized the logs were altered from withing the company server domain due to fingerprints, they still didn't unban the innocent person involved.

SOE used to be reputable, atleast to some degree, but now, they are one of the worst companies on the planet. Screwing over every good MMO they ever had and buying out all the crappy ones they can.

Yes, I still play SWG, but I don't know for how long. I'm just waiting for WAR to come out. Mythic Entertainment is a company I know I can currently trust. SOE will eventually spread their finances out too far and their mighty EQ throne will collapse in on itself.

Uber guilds want to zerg to achieve goals. The more participants, the more there are for zerging. They couldn't achieve a goal without employing lame tactics such as zerging if their lives depended on it.

Raiders suck.

It is also possible that perhaps people that were playing a game for 8 years that had a certain amount of people used for raiding in a game that is aimed at raiding, might not want things to change suddenly. The amount didn't seem too bad to me though, but I can understand why some people don't want things to change.

If I still played EQ and was in the guild I was in, I probably wouldn't have minded the changes since we did well, but barely had enough.  These kind of things can be disatrous if implement far into a game's life.

I know the WoW 40 to 24 was horrible. I quit just before, but I know my old guild broke up as many others did and it was the best on its server. I remember friends afterwards told me the new inacrnations of the guilds just didnt measure up.

I can see both points.  What they should do is just provide content for raids of  54 and some for half that number with good, but obviously lesser rewards than the 54 man.

Incorrect, rofl......I dislike SOE, let me get that out of the way, but they make their money back within the 2 quarter or sooner of game release.  EVERY single MMO they have released or acquired is still up and running, even Matrix online.   So they aren't going to spread anything out anywhere, except their reach, heh and more titles, I think like 6 titles upcoming.  It is sad, because they don't care beyond those time frames really, they pay attention only to their larger player bases.  It is also obvious they are biased as well to the ones they do pay attention to.

  For this crap to change, people need to boycot them straight up.  Meh, my 2 cents

SirLorn