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EverQuest II - Dear Devs Part Two
MMORPG.com's Adele Caelia recently submitted some questions from EverQuest II players to the game's developers. Today, we present three more of the company's answers. Remember to check back next week for more.
To whom this may concern-
As boasted on the website:
"EverQuest® II is the next generation of massively multiplayer gaming, a huge online world where friends have come together for adventure and community. Featuring breathtaking graphics and vast, beautiful and dangerous game world to explore, EverQuest II sets the standard for graphical realism as players are immersed in the game’s exciting locales and mysterious lands."
The people of Norrath could say [on] one accord that the 'final frontier' of discovery is the castle resting in Qeynos itself!
For years, this grand palace has been just an addition to the landscape of the towns around Qeynos and as [of] yet lacked any significant function! With the release of The Rise of Kunark came many fun and exciting [elements] to expand game play; level cap raises for adventurers and guilds alike, [and] new raid zones, with adventure zones for the less hardcore players. [Along] with all this whisperings of guildhalls, a centralized place where a guild can craft, relax from a day of adventure and gear up for the next quest! But where is the implementation of this grand idea?
Dear devs, the castle!! If the castle were to be opened it would offer the space and the zone capacity needed for such a task. As far as actual development I think Adele Caelia of Kithicor has a wonderful idea which she has posted on her blog at http://adelecaelia.wordpress.com/2008/03/20/i-had-an-EQII-dream-guild-halls/#more-155
Happy questing, and many master chests to all!!
-Narkah Isnot'Forsale
Monk of Valor
Narkah,
Thanks for the input! We think that you will be quite intrigued and excited when we reveal our goals for the Guild Halls.
Dear Devs,
I have enjoyed your game for the past four years, and have many fond memories from the beginning. I recall the knight who used to stand in front of the castle and tell us that we were not yet good enough to enter the castle. We all assumed this would come later, but it did not. Finally after years went by the knight just vanished. What happened to him? Were the gates attacked and he killed in an epic battle? Did he retire? Perhaps he was sent out on a quest for the queen herself! My question is if he will one day return to open the doors of the castle to the most prominent citizens of Qeynos? Perhaps we will have to endure a quest to save him and bring him back safely and he will reward us by allowing us entrance? Another question I have is about the fun spells. A long time ago every 10 levels players received a spell that did nothing really but create a little immersion and fun. I think the players really enjoyed these spells. Is there a chance that these might one day return? Also after spending all the years in Norrath my legs are very tired and I don’t even know how I have made it so long without a chair to sit upon. Might we one day have the ability to sit in the chairs throughout Norrath?
Thanks,
Gavins
Gavins,
There are a lot of untold stories, and unused spaces left in Norrath which are still on the huge list of things we want to do. Often it is just a matter of finding the necessary amount of time, and fitting it into a schedule to make these things happen. The castle in Qeynos has long been on our list of things we’d love to expand on, and it wouldn’t surprise me in any way if that appears at sometime in the future.
As for chairs, there would be quite a bit of work involved to make that happen. We discussed it a month or two before launch, but haven’t been able to find the time to implement it yet, what with all of the different animations necessary, new chairs and sofas, and figuring out how to make a ogre fit into a gnome’s chair. I’m not going to say it is impossible, but it’s not near the top of the list.
Dear EQII Developers
With the fast-approaching game update 44 on the horizon, we're receiving a number of excellent changes to Everquest II, including upgrades [to] items in Veeshan's Peak, fixed ammunition, fixed mount actions (regarding water and climbable walls, which may seem small but I've been waiting for this for years!), and fixed melee hit rates (possibly the best change!).
Given the fact that our voices seem to be heard, finally, I must ask...is there any hope of seeing epic weapons balanced? I'm a Brigand, and [I] am very disappointed with the mythical version of our epic. I don't have it yet, but I'm not really that concerned, since it's obviously sub-par to many mythical epics. I know other epics have similar issues as well, such as Swashbuckler and Defiler weapons. There's a massive thread on EQIIFlames (I know there's been some issues between EQIIFlames and the official EQII site, but it's there.) [that] has a detailed list of ideas which the Brigand community would like to see implemented on our Mythical weapon.
Let's face the facts here; haste mods aren't useful at all in raid situations (and these are obviously weapons intended for raiding), as it's far too easy to reach the hard cap on haste. As well, the +30% damage mod to our back attacks is less than desirable, as it only pertains to 4 Combat Arts (Not CAs tag’s with "Flanking or behind..."). And of course, the 10% increase for debuffs, also not very good, as a target's mitigation hard cap of 200% can easily be reached.
I'll wrap this up soon, as I know you guys have plenty to do, but I implore you to read into the suggestions for changes to our epic weapons and at least take them under serious consideration. I'm starting to regain some faith in the development team, now that many issues put forth by the player base have been addressed. I only hope that this is a continuing trend. It's not that our weapon is bad, per se; it's just sub-par to most of the other weapons. Oh, and I'm certainly not asking for other mythical weapons to be nerfed, they're fine, we just want ours (and others) upgrades to fall in line with the better mythical weapons out there.
Sincerely,
Varuna - Brigand of Mistmoore
Varuna,
I certainly appreciate your comments, and yes, we’re certainly continuing to evaluate the epic weapons. We’ve also read the feedback, in multiple venues, and are continuing to process that feedback along with what we’re seeing in game through our various data gathering mechanisms. The one thing we’re trying to be careful about is knee-jerk reactions, which usually just end up making us look like jerks, without any knees involved. But we’re aware that some portion of the population out there is looking for different things, and we’ll consider everything we can before we decide if we’re ready to make any significant changes.
Id gladly give up my teleport spell on my Dirge for a healing spell... call it song of renewal or something.. I dont care... just make Bards not suck at soloing. >.<
Things seemed to be heading in the right direction with communications with the community, but I don't know anymore, seems like they are back sliding with the stupid double talk about what they are going to do and not do again. Sorry, I don't like to be negative, but I feel strongly about this, as it is, one of the big reasons I decided to stop playing EQ II and take my money elsewhere.
Lts drop the roleplaying geekyness for a minute and get the real story..
The NPC that was at the castle was removed so players like you would stop asking when the castle would finally be open to players. The reason the castle isn't and probably will never be open to players is that there is no profit from revamping zones as old as Qeynos. Very few players are going to want to enter a castle to see what lies within when they are busy trying to raid or gain adventure levels in the end game tier....
Why would SOE waste their money by paying one of the 3 developers left to create a new zone inside of the castle or graphics for the inside if it's not open as a new zone?
Have none of you seen that SOE does NOTHING for any of their games that won't bring more money to their bottom line? LoN is a prime example...it's nothing but a HUGE money grab.....
It just seems like more double talk honestly.
So in other words:
Dear devs, in 4 years you havent added content that exists in practically every other mmorpg out there, things like SITTING IN A CHAIR (its a f..... interactive emote ffs)????
If something like SITTING IN A CHAIR requires a LOT OF WORK from the devs...... i dont know what else to expect from this game really.
How about Epic weapons??? Look..... you have 3 trees where you can SPEC and yet you are PIGEON-HOLED to 1 TYPE OF WEAPON regarding EPICS............. WELL DONE!!!!!
Not only 2 handed weapons are left completely aside for classes like Zerkers, Guardians and the like.... the epic version of some weapons is compared widely to dildos on steroids.
WTG Devs!!!!! You are the most un-creative team for the last 2 years!!!!
EQ2 Exodus? Offering free playing to players until July WONT SOLVE YOUR LACK OF INTEREST IN THE PLAYER-BASE
SHOW VALID CHANGES FOR A CHANGE IF YOU WANT TO KEEP INTEREST IN PEOPLE!!!!
Expansions are not the solution, polishing and reforming the OLD WORLD IS!!!! Fixing BROKEN SPECS since launch is!!! Adding really interesting items to the game Is!!!! Adding mini PvP arenas and PvP Scenarios with real PvP rewards is!!!
And BTW the years passed, the technology evolved and guess what...... the game still runs bad thanks to one of the lousiest game engines that ever existed..................... once again........... WTG DEVS!!!!!!
I wonder where all that 4year money went.............. Blue-Ray in PS3 development? Even that was a let down..........
I really feel EQ2 is going down the drain and get even more sad speaking as a 99 EQ1 player and EQ2 player since launch to know that this might really be the end of Everquest.
Bring back Beastlords! I loved my Beastlord in EQ and would love to have one in EQII. Also my Illusionist in EQ was much cooler than the illusionists in EQII. Also add more mounts. Whatever happened to those lizard mounts the Iksars had? There's all kinds of mounts in Vanguard. It would be neat if we had loads of mounts to pick from in EQII. More clothing options would be great. I'd love a Duststinger mount! And of course more races and zones are always welcome. An underwater race (or two) and new underwater zones would be great. I'd also like to see a "new" race that more closely resembles the old Erudites. And give characters more facial expressions. Humans and Half-Elves always look like they're mad or pouting. More fun pets that follow you around would also be, well, fun. ; ) Faedrakes would be nice for one. I love the Fae and Arasai, but a winged race that could actually take to the sky and really fly would also be awesome!
How awesome isnt this?
I've dug up some old trial account and given it to a friend so he can play with me :D
I left the game because of these BS answers from the eq2 devs. My favorite class in EQ2 was gimped, like some of the other 24 classes in EQ2. The problem is, they put too many classes with out balancing them all. They claim diversity but when raiding pigeonholes you into 6 classes whats the point? Its 4 years later and those classes still have not been fixed. God forbid the class you like to play isn't good enough for high end raiding or sucks in groups. You'll have nothing to do at high end. I was hoping Rise of Kunark would be awesome, what with the epics, returning favorite zones and such. Then it comes out, epics are not even in the game yet, there is not one single heritage quest (come on, where is the greenmist katana from classic eq) and when the epics finally did come out, most of them sucked. For instance, the guardians have an uber epic but crusaders, who need help, have a gimp weapon. The high end group instances were very uninspiring, TONs of gear was nerfed 3 months after the expansion, making all that work to get those items useless. The only way you could level at a decent pace was to do thousands of stupid solo quests. Dungeon XP was very bad, but the 3 years before then, dungeon xp was decent. Why change it all of a sudden? The high end raid gear is badly itemized for the most part. The contested mobs are just rehashes of the same mobs from the last expansion.They are out of touch with the players playing EQ2. Good riddance, I left 4 months ago and I haven't missed it!
Dear Devs,
Remove all instancing from your game, both hard instancing and soft, on demand instancing, so we have a real MMOG.
Add a significant battle loss penalty, aka death penalty, of experience loss, so the gameworld becomes something to respect and fear, zerging as a valid tactic disappears, and caution, planning, and exploration become important again.
Remove any instant travel opportunities which were created for convenience while minimizing the world and trivializing realistic travel times and thus immersion.
Immediately fire that despicable Smedley so your company can begin anew and garnish some respect and maybe I will play your product again.
Sounds like youd rather be punished for not being able to kill the 50 bears for their paws... go back to EQ1 if thats what you want... and Im not trying to sound trollish here. EQ2 was made for the casual gamer.
Heh, you can't sit in chairs in EQ2? I guess I've taken that for granted for all these years in SWG... ;)
Someone's angsty. That's not the kind of game EverQuest 2 is Redwood. Not all of us have the time devotion for a "hardcore" version of the game. No matter how good or bad that idea would be.
I know, its ridiculous... and theres no sleep emote either... and not only that... Sarnak and Fae/Arasai dont even sit, they kneel... so we get two kneels instead of one. How utterly lazy.
heh, so this would make you jealous then?
and possibly this too?
I'm surprised they can't just do what SOE does with SWG. All characters resize to the same size when they sit in a chair, but it's rather hard to notice unless you actually look at it for a bit. For instance, a super huge Wookiee can sit down in the same chair that tiny a Bothan can sit in.
what a bunch of useless nonsense they answerd like usual they never answer anything that is important like why do they add nothing new for months and months except increased bag slots blabla sigh this game is going straight to hell
Like I said in the first "Dear Devs" the SOE crew doesnt answer questions, they respond to them.
I'm sorry, but EQ2 is not a cutting edge next generation MMO any longer. They appear to be stuck 4 years in the past with that claim. Yes, EQ2 was great for it's time. It got better and better up to the EOF expansion. Then it started to look and feel it's age once LOTRO was released. AOC only adds to this.
EQ2 will level out with a small hardcore fan base mainly in to raiding if SOE doesn't invest to update the client/engine to make use of today's hardware. The current engine can't reach any higher since it's limited by the fact it's heavily CPU bound since some graphics in the game are by design assigned to CPU instead of the GPU. Shadows being one of them. All that power in today's GPU's left unused by the EQ2's engine. Not good when the engine can't make use of dual/quad core CPU's.
SOE need to bring EQ2 graphics on par with LOTRO. I use LOTRO as a benchmark, because no matter if you love it or hate it, it did set the standards for jaw dropping graphics in a High fantasy MMO. In my opinion anyway. Time to start an EQ3 SOE, or a EQ type prequel. Remember Aion will be giving you a good run for your money later this year in regards to subs.
eq2 never updates there game beside doing some maded up stupid events where you get some cloak or hat or whatever and then increased bag slots or whatever on every single update i just canceld my account my self no point in playing if they arent gonna update it with real content
$oE is very well known for having a flagship game, updating it to their specs, and letting all the other games they run die. They do not listen to customers, they do not fix things the community deams necessary to fix, they fix what they WANT to 'fix' (that's corporatese for 'nerf,' how many 'fixes' buffed characters in their games over the years?), and nothing else.
They are working on their new game, The Agency, and that will probably become the 'flagship game' for them, and all the others will rot and fade out. They did this to EQ when SWG came out, SWG when EQ2 came out, and they're going to do it to EQ2, and have already STARTED doing it to EQ2, because The Agency is coming out. When The Agency comes out, it will be the same steamroller approach to customer service as every other game they have; fix only things they see wrong with it, and give the standard spin tactics to the community concerns you see here. Take the easiest problems, that do NOT show there's anything wrong with the game, and address them as if there's nothing else wrong in their world.
Why does this surprise anybody still?