Feldon Seccia Ravenloft, writing for The Tattered Notebook at Massively.com, posted the results of an interview with EQ2 Senior Producer Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson on the EQ2 Forums. In response, players expressed their opinion that the interviewers didn’t ask any hard questions.
The EQ2 Senior Producer had this to say:
I’ll be honest. I’m not one of those guys that creates a “mission statement”.
Online games are amorphous. We have two real purposes in life: a) To entertain as many people as we possibly can, and b) make some money along the way so that we can continue to create more entertainment.
How we do that changes on a regular basis as we push forward based on lots of things like: Public expectations; the industry changing around us; what constitutes entertainment (yes, that changes slowly, but steadily); and many other elements.
So for now, we’re doing three things:
- We’re developing the next big expansion (and a big update before that expansion comes out) so that we can keep new stuff rolling into the world of Norrath because new stuff is good entertainment. This includes new areas, new ways to play, new loot, balance changes and modifications to the current systems to make them more fun. NOTE: This is our primary focus at the moment and constitutes the bulk of our development resources and time.
- We’re working to make the game more easily entered by new folks so that we can keep the playerbase growing. Why? Because it’s really obvious to us that new folks bounce pretty hard because of the learning curve of our game, and without new folks coming in, the game will eventually stagnate…which would suck for all us, devs and players alike.
- We’re analyzing the “empty world” situation in the mid-level zones and thinking about possible solutions to revitalize all the fantastic content in this game and fill it with players so everyone’s not crowded into the end parts of the game.
Now…these directions are not permanent. We will always be staying flexible with our goals. And that’s why I will never issue a “mission statement”. But that’s what we’re focused on right now.
Fair enough?
Commentary
The suggestion that there is “a big update” before “the expansion comes out” further points to Velious (or part of Velious) arriving in November or December.
This expansion news is way to early and insane we just bought this expac not to long ago and you want us to buy another one well it better have WAYYYY!! more content another 10 lvls and better aa line and better abilities instead of the same old bullshit theres so much more to this expansion thats currently out just because a few hardcore raid guilds cleared all the content and bord themselves out dont mean the rest of us are not in progress.
It may seem early talking expansion now, but Sony and the EQ2 dev team have been putting out one expansion a year (approximately, Sentinel’s Fate was later than in previous years . . . I just hope that doesn’t mean February is the new expansion time . . . or worse a month or 3 after that).
Halas, although not “officially” part of the expansion, was supposed to come out in February as well . . . but came about more than 3 months later. If it takes them that long for a starting area, I’m sure it would take a year (or more) to work on a whole expansion. So there’s always a team working on “the next big thing.”
(I hate to compare BUT (and that’s a big but)) In the last 5 years WoW has had 3 expansions, Sentinel’s Fate is EQ2’s 6th (not to mention the three adventure packs plus numerous other “free” zones not connected with any expansion). I’d MUCH rather have more new content than less. It’s what keeps me interested and what keeps me coming back to EQ2. I LOVE exploring but without new content I’d get bored, the game would stagnate for me (I don’t even like doing the same instanced zones over and over) and I’d have quit long ago. I’m quite happy speculating and thinking about where I may be going because it gives me drive to continue playing the content now to prepare me for my new adventures.
mic-like it or not, the raiding guilds are the ones who play the most, clear the most content, and are the ones ultimately most vocal about changes they’d like to see. And, let’s face it, these high end guilds do know the game the best, so SOE is going to listen to them.
Why is this news too early? Everyone who’s paid attention knows that Velious is going to be the next expansion, everyone knows that new content=more satisfied players, and ultimately will lead to this game lasting longer. It’s not like he said ‘the next expansion is coming on such-and-such date, he simply said they’re developing a new expansion. Which, in all likelihood, they started right after SF launched.
I hope to god they don’t increase the level cap. Not because gaining 10 levels is hard, but because with those level increases comes an inherent number of changes to the rest of the game. Using their past expansions as a guide, it’s likely that the level cap will not increase.
It’s apparent you’re on the ‘anti-hardcore guild’ side of things which is fine, but there isn’t a guild who has finished all of SF’s content yet, so to suggest that this announcement is to appease these raiders is a fallacy.
Same old bullshit? I for one have found SF to be very entertaining, the continued rollout of new quests is nice (the box and chef quests were awesome), and all in all I’m quite pleased with the game.
I don’t understand where this so-called learning curve is needed to play EQ2. You are given pointers in the game itself when you start a toon, you have a butt ton of info you can read about the game… what stats mean, how to improve a toon a certain way, etc. And you can post questions in either chat, a forum, or just get yourself guilded (easy) and pester those new guild mates.
Having a Sr. Producer come in and state that they want to make the game “more easily entered” sort of concerns me. I mean, this game is not that hard, especially when a person only needs to put a small amount of effort into reading about it.
If this game is hard for new players, I suggest they have a look at EvE Online for comparison. There’s a real learning curve there!
Ray,
You are an established player. EQ2 needs to teach players how to play the game. Bringing up a harder game like EvE doesn’t give a reason NOT to teach players.
Players should reach level 50 knowing how to use all the abilities of their class in both solo and group settings. This is NOT happening for relatively new players.