Forum Update — Friday March 13, 2015
From RadarX on the EQ2 Forums:
Attention Players!
We will be performing forum maintenance Friday, March 13. While we do not anticipate any downtime, you may notice your posting permissions have changed. After this maintenance is complete, you will need to have logged in to the game on the account you’re posting from in order to post or reply on the forums.
If you have logged into the game and are unable to post, you may need to log out of the forums and back in again. If you still are unable to post, please contact your Community Manager.
Players were understandably confused about the details and reasoning for this change and took to the EQ2 forums to ask questions and express concerns. First, this change does not require you to be constantly logged into EQ2 to use the forums, or even on the same day. From RadarX:
You don’t have to be logged in to the game to use the forums, you just have to have logged into the game somewhat recently (Months and Months ago). If someone hasn’t ever played EverQuest 2 and is posting here, I’m not sure what to say besides “We’ll miss you! Please play EverQuest 2!”
Dulcenia expressed the problem with this unilateral change:
Sometimes players post here to ask a bit about the game before deciding they want to download it. Sometimes they need help because the launcher or something is blowing up on them, and they CAN’T log in until they get that figured out. There are some legitimate questions we get here from players who have not yet (or cannot yet) log in to the game.
Malleria added:
Maybe you don’t read these forums very often, but you’ll notice a lot of threads pop up (mostly in the new players section, but also in the class forums and general gameplay) along the lines of “Thinking of playing EQ2, I have some questions” and “Thinking of returning, has anything changed?”. Every single one of those threads is a potential new or returning player, which means a potential new or returning source of income for Daybreak. And this change is basically turning them away at the door.
But but, they can get information on the game elsewhere!
Well, no, actually they can’t. There’s an awful lack of information about EQ2 out there on the net. What is there is almost always outdated. Even Everquest2.com, the OFFICIAL website of the game, has a woeful lack of information about the game. Everquest2.com doesn’t even acknowledge the existence of the channeler class
.Forums are basically the best place to get information about the game.
There are more comments opposing and in favor of the change.
As for the primary reason for the change? RadarX added:
…a large portion of my motivation for doing this was to help curb some of the annoying spam.
Trackback from your site.
Comments (24)
Nauralea
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I’m very sad they deleted your post on the thread 🙁
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Feldon
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If anyone wants to read it:
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mithreal
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Well said.
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Nauralea
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Like I said in a post that was removed, very disappointed to see what I view as a well written post like that taken down.
And also that I had experienced issues with relogging back in over there and found the error it issued unhelpful to the situation.
I’ve personally decided to take a step back again, I had tried to step up thinking posting on the forums about recent changes would be helpful to voice an opinion but I feel like all I’m doing is upsetting myself for no good reason. I don’t see a reason for me to want to log in the forums anymore so I’m just not gonna do it. I realize that means a form of acceptance for how things are going to be, but I have seen nothing that shows me that what is going on is something we have a voice in. It’s been merely announcements of changes that will happen. So the way I see it if I like it or not that’s just how things are, opinions and arguments don’t matter. It was very deluded of me to ever think otherwise, so I’ll save everyone a lot of stupid letters on their screen 🙂 Just keep the head down and hope by some fluke they do something that changes my game play for the better.
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TheSauce
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THAT was deleted from the forums??? Yeah pretty low times for EQ2 community and customer service. RadarX seems pretty dickish…
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Katz
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Well. I think I’m done with their forums. The attitude has changed drastically. I feel like I am in hostile territory there now. I used to feel welcome there, now not so much.
I just hope this doesn’t discourage potential new players. I always tried to help out answering questions there. From the other comments I’ve read here, I guess at least some of us will leave.
Honestly, I think they are deliberately trying to rid themselves of anyone who uses forums so they don’t have to have them anymore.
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Stylish
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Let us carry this logic forward to a clothing business…
I own a clothing store but I will not answer questions about my products to anyone that has not bought something in the last 2 months.
How silly and counterproductive.
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mithreal
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I missed Feldon’s deleted post on the forum. Wouldn’t mind reading it here. I find it more than a little disconcerting that they would delete something Feldon wrote. We’ve heard about others getting angry and being banned and having their posts deleted. I think I can safely say I will never log into the official forums already having some idea of how things are undone there.
If the mood is negative there, deleting posts is supposed to improve morale?
DGC owns the forum and has the right to do what it wants with it. Perhaps they should subtract loyalty tokens for every critical post? =)
I get the weird feeling that player accounts will be purged at some point based on posts there. It won’t happen to a Feldon but will happen to others. I know, probably just crazy talk, but that’s the feeling I get.
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Archangel
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“I get the weird feeling that player accounts will be purged at some point based on posts there.”
That punitive action does occur at other sites*, unrelated to EverQuest or games, and is likely what DBG (Sunset) intends to do.
* cable, telephone, online sales, etal, and worse.**
** https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/amazon-boots-small-business-after-customer-review-fiasco/
http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2014/1119/Can-you-get-sued-for-leaving-a-bad-review-on-Trip-Advisor-or-Yelp-video
http://www.forbes.com/sites/investopedia/2013/01/25/can-you-be-sued-if-you-give-a-bad-review-on-yelp/
/*
“Wouldn’t we all be better off if feedback from some customers were ignored? That is the one big idea I expect to start spreading in 2015.”
“Some companies have always maintained confidential lists of customers who have been banned for bad behavior.”
Big Idea 2015: Why Companies Should Fire Bad Customers
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Rebelde
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“Originally posted by RadarX:
forum activity makes up approx 1% of the player base”
And they want 0 forum activity so they can close the forums and don’t expend money to migrate them.
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mithreal
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I think this is correct, at least about getting it down to zero. I don’t think they want forums any more. They may also feel obligated to boot people they would rather not? Maybe?
DGC is not a mature and/or stable enough company to take angry criticism, so, it is probably better if they do not run a forum. Look at responses from Smed. Can hardly call him mature and anything but inviting criticism. How long ago was Smed’s life threatened and how many of these login attacks are because he keeps insulting the idiots doing them? It’s one thing for us to insult the idiots attacking the game. It’s quite another when the ceo eggs them on.
Some people will eventually go to those forums, voice an angry, maybe even bitter opinion and get banned from the game entirely? How is that good for us? They leave but go and tell others how they were treated by DGC and even more people stay away from games we enjoy and want to have others play and support?
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JACP
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It looks, to me (YMMV), that EQ2 is being aimed away from a community-based game and onto being an “appliance” game. You know, they don’t want fan fics or tons of lore. They want a CoD-style experience…log in, swat a few dozen mobs, get out…and pay that monthly sub.
I have no doubt EQ2 will be going on for several more years to come. I’m just feeling more and more like it won’t be anything I would want to be part of.
Man, I hope I am SO very wrong….
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milliebii
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It is interesting that Forum changes are also happening to EQ Not!
https://forums.station.sony.com/everquestnext/index.php?threads/forum-changes-updated-march-12.1189/
“We will not have a Lore or General Discussion subforum at this time. Previous threads from those subforms have been moved to the EQN Forum Archive (Temporary). This temporary archive is available as read-only. You can save or copy posts from here if you desire. We plan to remove this archive in early April 2015. Please save/copy/transfer any posts you’d like by March 31, 2015. ”
Something seems to be in the works. It will be interesting to see exactly what.
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Malleria
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It’s amusing to me that they’re apparently now trying to launch EQNext without a lore emphasis. They canned their lore dev, now removing the forum. It’s important for people to know WHY they’re doing things. WHY things are the way they are. Too many games are, as another poster said above, log in and kill faceless bad guys and log out again. That’s NOT what we want out of an RPG.
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Lateana
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Did y’all notice the consolidation of the support forums? I just noticed today.
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Alacus
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Me and my wife had it again, and quit EQ2, this game just doesn’t seem to be for us any more. Might change in the future but the current direction this game is going, we will be lucky if anything is left of it in a years time. the main thing we are getting frustrated with is stat balancing. having to reforge and finding the perfect gear or you suck. reforging and stat caps are confusing for an unexperienced player and puts us off grouping. I want to tank but can’t hold aggro or survive because I have no Idea what I am doing and do not have weeks to spend reading outdated information about my class and does not help that the MMO community in general is pretty hostile. just my 2 cents from a player who has played on and off since TSO. posting this here as it will no doubt be deleted and result in me being banned also Feldon has done alot of good work trying to keep the community informed
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Feldon
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But… I just added Tooltips with stat caps to EQ2U! Also we’re working on or own forums.
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Alacus
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That’s great feldon, and goes towards making things easier for people, it’s a shame that DBG and Smed in peticular are so incompetent and have taken the SOE players for granted for so long, I am at the point where it is now infuriating me that more content ends up on the shop than the expansion you paid for
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Aeriel
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Tooltips!!! 😀 Thanks Feldon
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Nolus
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Thank you so much! Trying to figure out hard and soft caps etc etc drives me nuts! That helps a lot!
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Betony
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Ooooo, thank you Feldon! Tooltips will help a ton. Forums will too!
Virtual pizza and drink of choice to you!!!!!
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GriffonLady
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Well, at least we don’t have to listen to people that log into forums just to tell us they quit playing the game months ago, then continue to complain about things happening now. >.> That has always been a pet peeve of mine.
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Striinger
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@Alacus
If the stat grind gets to be too much, maybe Dragon’s Armory can help. It’s handy to figure out where you can spare some stays to the reforger.
As for hostile MMO players, you will want to avoid PS2 and MOBA games like league of legends.
Finally, the community is definitely littered with a higher ratio of assholes than it used to have, but they are loud, not the majority. Find someone you think is better than you and ask them a couple of question with answers you can action. Rinse and repeat.
Ask a good tank (with or without a bit of sincere flattery) “My hate mod is 100 and people still do aggro from me every shot. Any suggestion on where I should start to work in that?” will almost always get sage advice for you to work on. Whining in general chat, “why can’t I hold aggro?!” Will almost certainly draw trolls from their bridges to taunt you with, “Because you suck? ”
Also, try to find a guild that will help you figure stuff out (not meaning they’ll give you lots of loot and drag you through zones to hear you up, but actually teach you stuff)
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Pipsissiwa
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I just keep /facepalming decisions these days.
It is honestly starting to feel like they are looking for an excuse to shut down EQ2 by making everything less and less accessible, fun and friendly, and damaging to community. They seem to be deliberately trying to create a hostile player-base which is usually the death knell for a game. it’s as if they don’t really want anyone playing the game.
That or they are genuinely trying to make things better and are completely and utterly incompetent . TBH, that’s very, very possible.
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