Feldon In a thread from a returning player who demanded a flying mount before he’d commit to coming back to EQ2 as a full-time player, SmokeJumper posited a rather interesting thought regarding flying mounts, Velious content, and the fact that both require level 86+. What would you think about being able to start a character at level 90?
Read on…
Hey folks, the OPs comment about not wanting to level up to play in Velious and get a cool mount is a reasonable discussion. At the risk of laying foundation for a flamewar here, I’d like to propose an idea to you and see how you feel about it.
Ready? Try not to judge until you’ve read it all. It’s definitely going to make a few of you think about wearing a troll costume, but if so, please keep in mind that this is just an idea. It’s a discussion. That’s all. I am serious that I’m asking for feedback.
A few points first:
- We like Velious a lot and plan to release content for it for a long time. That’s level 90 content and there’s lots of it coming. We’ll be adding other multi-level content also (Freeport/Qeynos and others) but there’s still a lot of level 90 content coming.
- Flying mounts are intended to stay as a level 90 perk. (We have other plans that will be announced soon that will make that seem like a good idea. Trust me for now.
- We’re looking at ways to boost popualation for EQII Live. (A new form of the free trial and other ideas.)
So, to be honest, winback campaigns work well for us. Millions of people have played this game and remember it fondly. When we tell them about something new, they come back to check it out and a lot of them stay. Many people have subbed 2, 3, 4 or more times during the time EQII has been running.
So…without further ado…here’s the idea.
What would you think about a winback campaign that lets people return to the game, and if they purchase DoV while playing during that winback period, they also get a level 90 character of their choice? (Assume mastercraft-level kit, modest AA amounts, and a modest coin amount.)
Okay…have you stopped reading yet because you’re too angry to think? If not, there’s just a bit more.
Pros: Lets the returning players play in the new cool content and have access to flying, as they desire, so that they get what had made the game attractive enough for them to want to return in the first place. That could help bring back lots of old friends to stay for a while and be good for the game.
Cons: Probably makes some current players feel cheated because “they earned their lvl 90 (months of work) and these returning players just get one handed to them. Doesn’t seem fair.” (Completely understandable reaction.) Players might not want a bunch of new level 90s mixed in with current communities. (But fresh blood at that level might actually be a cool thing, the players returning are *not* raw newbs, and the returning players still have to itemize and get a bunch of AAs to “catch up” with current folks.)
That’s about as far as I’ve considered the idea. So what do you think? I guess there’s two kinds of answers: 1) Do you think this would strengthen the game’s community or not, and 2) Your personal feelings/reactions to the idea.
Again, it’s an *idea*.Thanks, in advance, for the feedback!
EQ2Wire Commentary
Do you think SmokeJumper has touched the third rail of EQ2 by suggesting skipping the ‘entire game’ (to some players) to get straight to 90? Or do you think that “it’s about time” for such an option for returning veteran players? After all, it has been proven time and time again that with some perseverence, as well as some assistance from guildies and/or the right use of potions and dungeons, level 1-90 can be achieved in just a few days (albeit with AAs in the high double digits).
Again, this is a thinking-out-loud idea, not any kind of definitive plan that’s just around the corner, ready to be implemented.
Also a few players have put forward the cynical suggestion that SmokeJumper is just presenting an idea so unpalatable as insta-leveling to 90, in the context of flying mounts being a special benefit of being level 86+, that players bring up the suggestion of flying mounts at lower levels instead. We have believed since beta that flying mounts would eventually be offered at lower levels (possibly at lower speeds) on the StationCash Marketplace, but now we’re uncertain what the plan is. Considering the transformative (but not totally disruptive) effect on the game by introducing flying mounts at all level ranges, we don’t see any impediment to flying mounts at lower levels. Obviously this is conjecture on the part of players but it’s an interesting theory considering the EQ2X marketing bait and switch.
it’s a joke ?
At last i can reconize them a constant effort for push all loyal customer to leave.
Customer who play to eq since start, more 10 year.
It’s lame but totaly in line with everything done since the begining of the end.
And it’s so … no word for say what. Everything was already said so many time end of EQ and such more. But i m sure that will happen because people like me are so bored to see so dumb decision. We ll just end leaving soon or later this is not a game anymore. What kind of rpg remove stats from the game, even level ? Not a good one.
What would you think about a winback campaign that lets people return to the game, and if they purchase DoV while playing during that winback period, they also get a level 90 character of their choice? (Assume mastercraft-level kit, modest AA amounts, and a modest coin amount.)
No..No…HELL NO! (Did I mention NO!?!?!)
Not only is SJ right on the money with the “Probably makes some current players feel cheated…” comment, but personally, I don’t want ton of n00b level 90 players running around with no idea how to play their toons, trying to “explore” the new content.
If you guys go through with this idea, move them all to a n00b server to play for 3 months, then when they’re used to playing and can be productive in a group/raid, then they can come over to a real server.
I think it’s a terrible idea unless you keep the noobs on their own servers, like Liftik suggested. I don’t want noobs running loose at level 90, where they can do so much damage to the group/guild/game. We’d be overrun with kids who don’t have the maturity to level a toon from start to 90, and these instant 90 toons would not have the plat to upgrade their spells or equipment. A better idea would be to provide better drops at the low levels so that new players can get decent gear just through guesting. Quest rewards through level 20 do provide fairly decent equipment, so why can’t level 20-30 quests do the same thing? I was just in Sebilis on my level 78 conjurer, and the drops were mostly things I couldn’t use, or were really bad compared to my mastercrafted gear. Why not improve drops, have them specific for whatever class is doing the quest, and eliminate the stupid trash mob drops that bring no more than a few copper at the merchant? But PLEASE (I implore you) no insta-90’s. NOT A GOOD IDEA.
So they decided to kill off EQ2… The new content is no joke, not for a bunch of idiots that just claimed their free level 90 toons. This has to be the most ridiculous thing i have ever seen Smokey post. We have tolerated a lot of BS in the past, but this will trump all of it. The kids wanna fly, make a level 30 flying mount. Address the problem, dont create new ones. If this were to ever go live, that would be the day i switch to wow, to go play a challenging game.
It wouldn’t bother me in general, except that I suspect some of those ‘return’ accounts would belong to farmers. I think it wouldn’t work though — I know that my mains are at 85 — and the last time I got them to 80/80 when that was the cap I got bored and stopped playing them. It would appeal most to raiders, and how many people come to EQ2 specifically for raiding, really?
I’ve read it, thought it over, came to same conclusion as before. If any new player can pop in and be 90, I’d have to say NO! However if it’s someone who already had a character level 70 or higher (because they worked for it) sure they can get a few free levels. They still know how to play their class I hope.
EQ2 has already been dumbed down enough. We don’t need newbs coming in, skipping past everything, and becoming our raiding buddies. If they skip all that content they wont know how to play and will be like leroy jenkins getting the rest of us killed. There will form a new type of prejudice against raiding / grouping with n00b buffed players. Doing this may bring back players, but at a risk of losing a titanic amount of current players would leave to another game that looks more promising.
Is it just me or lately is this and other games like it trying to cater to the ADD crowd who have short attention spans? To me this is what’s ruining RPGs for the rest of us. Every since WoW came out and started advertising to bring in all walks of life, we’ve been plagued with our own type of eternal September. Sorry to rant like this lol.
I love the idea I would bail on The Bazzaar server in a heartbeat and go to a populated server and start raiding again. Only reason I havn’t re-rolled is I just dont want to level another toon. Awsome, Awsome Awsome Idea. And for anybody that don’t like me because I am on The Bazaar server, I started there not having any idea what it meant.
Smokejumper has stated this system won’t be implemented as described.
I’m hoping that his comments actually do lead to some kind of worthwhile promotional deal being implemented though. They have been horrible at luring old players back.
Typical knee jerk reactions from EQers.
@Jartal
Definitely agree, Smokejumper puts out a legitimate question and clearly says that there are no plans to implement this and we get the above page of vitriol and bile.
The yes, no, hell no, hell yes answers are great, the personal attacks on him for even asking the question just depress me. Because if these people stopped writing down their knee jerk responses then you will realise he is pondering a serious problem.
There are a few people who really do play games like EQ2, and play the long game. Over time the game has been made simpler and faster to level, but then they add in more levels, more AA and also more things that we HAVE to do to be seriously competitive (like Epic weapons -> Epic repercussions).
If we allow people to start at 90 would it be healthier for the long term future of the game then having them have to progress through 90 levels of content to get there?
My feeling is that simply creating a 90 on its own without any other changes would be wrong and detrimental to the game since it reduces the gameplay value of alts.
But if the rest of the game changed enough it could be made to work, my dream way forward for EQ2 would be this
We get shader 3.0 (maybe even 5.0, tesselation etc), fur shaders, multi core optimisations – 6 to 12 months of work for ~10-20 programmers (a new game needs 120 or so for 2 years min).
A new expansion is launched, a big world event happens where we can escape through a portal to X (500?) years into the future, but we arrive there Terminator style with little or no possessions. Housing etc though might lay dormant.
New players join in at the version of the content in the future, over time our players all progress onto this new EQ2Next game seamlessly. The New game is advertised as a new game too, to keep the progression for current players maybe we can arrive there before new players are invited in, everyone loves to be first.
That’s a far out idea, but I think it could create a new world reusing most of the art assets of the old world. Over time we would have reworked continents added in (seamless lands where possible), but with so much artwork reused we could have this game produced for a fraction of the effort.
Second idea though would be to have a way to create new players at a higher level – maybe 50 with 80 AA, or 70 with 100 AA, that’s as far a compromise I’d like to see. But really if they are going to do that it would be healthier for the game to reduce the max level downto 30, minus 60 levels from all of us and adjust the content – its the same difference!
It is a serious problem though he discusses – A ex-EQ1 player I spoke to at Fanfaire illustrated it perfectly, EQ1 for them has too many AA to earn now to make it worthwhile to play for them, if they could jump in somewhere higher up they probably would.
Just read this in the thread
“No intention exists to turn EQII into “easy mode”. (I know many of you will point to the stat consolidation at this comment, but secondary stats are coming back. The design team has a mechanics list that’s two years long already of things to improve for fun factor, and possibly make more intuitive, but not to simplify for “easy mode” reasons. There is no intention to dumb down EQII.)”
Secondary stats returning – awesome 😀 Its something that definitely could be improved in EQ2, the current system works but seeing more detail/depth to it would be great.
Sony has never deleted anything. If your returning to the game, and you didn’t sell your account, then you should have a character to pick back up.
How about instead of giving people level 90 toons we add the ability to mentor up? We have Chronomages. We have the mentoring system…why not up instead of down?
No freebies.
Kyrmyn: For the same reason that mentored down characters are overpowered, mentored up characters would be underpowered quite severely. They wouldn’t be useful in a group and wouldn’t be able to solo well at all.
Now, if they fixed mentoring to scale more properly before implementing such a feature, that might work. Champions Online allows mentoring in either direction, and while it does raise the question of what the point of gaining levels is if you can do any content at any level, it’s nice to always be able to join your friends no matter what they’re doing.
One they implement the winback described, the next thing (and probably the real reason for his idea) will be SC level 90 buy-an-alt scheme.
No thanks!
If I recruit a friend, do I get T2 raid gear with that 90?
What can be said that most haven’t realized about the twilight of EQ2?
On second thought, maybe something should be said:
This is the kind of thinking that puts the penguins in with the tigers at the zoo thinking, “Hey, think of the people who’ll come to see the show!” Yeah, it”ll sell tickets, but it’ll be short and bloody – the penguins won’t have much fun, and the tigers will be sated only for a moment.
This doesn’t bother me at all I could care less but if it means my friends that haven’t played the game in a few years can come back and run an instance with me or do PQ with me then sure that;s totally fine!
at 90 that is because they all don’t want to return because they don’t want to level there players up they just want to hit dungeons with me and some others
and this game isn’t so easy try pulling the gd damn piece of s**t HARD MODE Statue of Rallos Zek Named and do a Flawless victory on it as well that fight sucks!
Having an option to start a new character at level cap would be great; Guild Wars has been doing it for years. On the creation screen, choose Adventurer or Raider. If you go for Raider, you’re level 90 with an appropriate set of spells and kit. You spawn at a place which has travel to all the raid dungeons. You may go to one of those, or to your guild hall, nowhere else. You won’t have to level your character and you won’t get in the way of adventurers questing in the rest of the world.
Lol, really? Time for Rift people!
I think it is an excellent idea and if it was introduced me and my wife might come back to EQ2. When you are behind the leveling curve you are playing a boring game with inane quests of no challenge whatsoever and nowadays without proper rewards too, there are no groups, no raids and no instances worth doing because IF you are really lucky and find people to actually group with you get mentored 90s that burn through the contents, or decked out alts that get irritated if you want to understand the instance of do not know the scripts already.
On top of that you are supposed to grind AP so that your character are not too weak at level 90, and so on. We are tired of playing a game where there is nothing fun to do, you can not do the epic quest as the standard reply is “level to 90 and solo it” and you can not get groups for the group parts of it without begging for hours.
We wanted to play that game that people talk about here and in other places, with grouping and challenging content, that game seems fun, but every time we come close the bar gets raised so we have to slog through even more unfun stuff. Getting a toon to 90 would allow us to experience that game that we have subbed to for years.
We where grinding through TSO when we quit, we are playing Rift now and maybe people like us never should have bothered with EQ2.
Sigtyr & Marycath AB server.
It’s a somewhat half-baked idea, which isn’t surprising at this stage. There’s the core of something in there, though.
How about something akin to a permanent version of the Testcopy server instead? A permanent Live server on which winback players (or any purchaser of DOV) could create a character at level 90 and onto which characters could be copied from other Live servers. Returnees and new players who wanted to start right at the top could do so. If they had friends still playing, those friends could copy over to play with them, help them learn the ropes etc.
Transfers off the Start-at-90 server could be allowed after, say, 3 months, but that waiting period could possibly be waived by sponsorship from an existing guild on another Live server, thereby allowing returnees to established guilds to play with friends almost immediately but preventing an uncontrolled influx of total novice level 90s.
If they’re as keen on Velious as they say, maybe they should have launched it as a standalone game, not tacked it on to EQ2 though. It’s risking the tail wagging the dog, the way it’s going.
Why 90 and not 86?
We got about a third through SF before we threw in the towel.
For the people believing its all a conspiracy to get more SC in your missing the point.
Its instead posing the fundmantal question of why have levels, and how to grow and sell a level based game without the end game eventually being too far away to join in on.
On other threads the devs have already talked about how they realise they could go the whole hog and just remove levels from the game leaving it AA based. In some ways that could be a better game, but without levels I see old content would be irrelevant in gear (whereas now we use it at least for a short while).
One thing I am thinking about though is that whatever this system is it should not hurt the core game, so if they did allow one character slot to be boosted to X level for the game then it should be one only. I could see the long term playability being harmed badly if they just allowed us to instant 90 alts on a regular basis.
One other thing, on flying mounts its very clear that they have a plan for them and have done so for some time (they’re not just shooting from the hip).
I still cannot believe that they will resist the lure to put them on the marketplace, but it does seem like this isn’t going to happen anytime soon.
I would be open to allowing someone to create a immediate level 90 character. So long has they already have 1 or maybe 2 level 90’s. Or maybe go with a 2 for 1. For every 2 level 90’s you can create a 90 level character. After your first 2 your auto 90’s are included in the count. So you create and play 2 characters to 90 get the 3rd 90 free, work a 4th to 90 and get the 5th one free. It would help Sony sell character slots in the process. :-p
OK, I have one level 90 … I haven’t unsubbed, ever. How about giving me another level 90, so I don’t have to grind thru the levels again? But only if I quit, I guess. I don’t understand why loyal players wouldn’t get more perks than people who just want to come back for flying mounts. But I forget, loyal players don’t bring in more income.
As to noob players running around, who cares? If they are soloing, doesn’t impact your game. If they did anything like this, implement some kind of gear score rating, like that other game has, so you can’t cheat the system — if you have a good gear score, then you have paid your dues because you only get a good GS by running dungeons. Then just don’t group with the noobs.
It’s interesting to see some of the people in support of this idea justify it by saying how much they hate playing the game.
Should we ruin the game for those who like it as it is in order to please those who don’t? In other words, chase subscribers the game doesn’t have at the expense of those it does? Isn’t that the strategy that has been decried so many times in the past?
Back in the days of table top gaming with pencil, paper and dice, there was more than one occasion where players wanted to roll-up high level alts in order to play what passed for high level content in whatever module or self written scenario that was being presented by the GM (remember GM’s? They hid behind their screens with the stacks of game books next to their pizza slice and Coke).
For an experienced player that knows all the ins-and-outs of how to play this is not such a hard transition. For a player that had not experienced any game content above level 20 (level 20 used to be a coveted level back in those distant days) It often led to a state of what passed for culture shock in the realm of table top gaming. A suddenly powerful character with no knowledge of what to do with this power.
It’s not impossible for anyone to comeback and play with the perk of starting out with a level 90 toon, but they should tread carefully until they become accustomed to their new power. To quote Stan-the-Man Lee in “Spider-Man” – “With great power comes great responsibility.”
A year ago I would have said “Hell no” but now…not so much
Start at level 90 is a bad idea. That is making fun on all who spend months leveling their toons.
I suggest you make a speed limited, and time limited flying mount(12-24 hour use) kinda like the reward from the mushroom/moonlight event going on every month from 20-21. Maybe a flying mount with 10 uses of 24 hours or so. It would make the game more fun and faster to play at all levels.
SOE did a similar thing with Jedi in SWG back at NGE.
Everyone could be a Jedi over night. Completely making fun of the players, which used 6-9 months grinding Jedi.
To level a toon is a natural part of all MMO’s. That part must not be too fast, nor too slow. And i think it is ok as it is.
Getting people to Velious faster, only takes a little power leveling from friends or guilds. Permanent 100 % Vitality would be an option too i think.
People could level faster doing quests too, and they would not have to wait a week, every time they run out of vitality.
The result of that was…that everyone, including me, left SWG.
Start at level 90 is a bad idea. That is making fun on all who spend months leveling their toons.
I suggest you make a speed limited, and time limited flying mount(12-24 hour use) kinda like the reward from the mushroom/moonlight event going on every month from 20-21. Maybe a flying mount with 10 uses of 24 hours or so. It would make the game more fun and faster to play at all levels.
SOE did a similar thing with Jedi in SWG back at NGE.
Everyone could be a Jedi over night. Completely making fun of the players, which used 6-9 months grinding Jedi.
The result of that was…that everyone, including me, left SWG.
To level a toon is a natural part of all MMO’s. That part must not be too fast, nor too slow. And i think it is ok as it is.
Getting people to Velious faster, only takes a little power leveling from friends or guilds. Permanent 100 % Vitality would be an option too i think.
People could level faster doing quests too, and they would not have to wait a week, every time they run out of vitality.
I’d come back if they put the Isle’s of refuge back in.
Just saying…
I never made it pas level 50 in WoW, but I have a friend who *still* plays the game and he has these bind-on-account items that level up with him. Gear and a mount. So he just blows through the quests, stopping to smell the roses where he wishes, and otherwise doesn’t have to worry about upgrades. Mount sprouts wings at the appropriate time, too.
Maybe something like this would help, especially if you didn’t have to be a super-duper-death raider to even get a whiff of one dropping.
Now, back to the idea at hand I say try it on the EQ2X servers and see if it ruins the game or not. If it does, oops, keep it out of normal sub. If it doesn’t, consider rolling it out.
Two big questions here:
* How do you grow the max level of EQ2 without putting the max level beyond the reach of new players?
* How do you get new/more players into the game?
Would giving _returning_ players _one_ max level (or level 86) really matter much? No aa’s, no money, no important quests pre-done. For that matter, give every new player a bare-bones level 86.
The biggest effort today really are the aa’s, and getting 300 aa’s from 0 would mean revisting a lot old content.
We _must_ draw new blood to the game to keep it alive and keep a reasonable rate of new content coming. Keeping the game ‘pure’ is worthless if it does not have enough players to keep existing and updating. People are leaving the game every day.. and I suspect there is a constant (but maybe small) decline in player numbers.
@camelotcrusade:
SJ introduced this idea specifically as a way to help Live server population. Moreover, there’s little need for people to skip the low levels on Extended since we have plenty of players who aren’t at end-game, and a ‘winback’ program isn’t nearly as important for a newish service like Extended.
(Also there’s the fact that he only brought this up on the Live forums and not the Extended one, but I don’t think there’s too much meaning there–Extended forums are excluded from almost all developer discussions.)
I hate to break it to you, but I don’t think EQ2X is where SJ wants to put this thing.
The only thing that will truly bring back more people to the game is for SOE to sell EQ2 to another company.
That seems to be the universal problem people have with EQ2. Not so much the game as SOE.
I personally hope this doesn’t happen, I’m just throwing it out there like SJ did.
I personally think, soe caters to much to people that dont care about the game, and kinda tend to ignor the reasons that they left in the 1st place. Lag, failed PVP, making the game so easy to pl. I have 11 level 90s… and bored out of my mind. Mostly wishing we raided 7 days a week, my guild mates and I are doing stupid stuff like farming plats, doing old raid zones, why? This expansion hasnt been out very long, and yet there isnt gear to farm, there tends to be one item per instance, that is replaced with raid gear 🙁 from easy mode raids. So nothing to do tbh. PQs to farm the shards for faction, done, and nothing left now but to wait for new stuff to hit. Sadly other than the flying mounts most of my guildies and myself are dieing of boredom, and making level 70 twinks for pvp when gl 60 hits… due to the fact of unbalanced classes in the game… thus prepairing for the possible failure of live 60.
So my answer to give them something for nothing would be a simple no. They will be bored so fast they would just use the free 30 days then quit again. And soe will spend months of programing time to impliment the FREE 90 toons, and thus leave us with our 90s sat without a thing to do… more time to pay for sitting in the guild hall. No thank u.
Instead work on giving us something worth continueing to pay for… cuz tbh lots of us are really growing bore. I LOVE EQ2… but seems it needs a face lift.
Did not DAoC let you make a higher then starting toon later on?
Not just no, h— no. Leveling up helps you learn the game and make the friends and connections you need to make the game worthwhile. All this will do is unleash a bunch of clueless 90s with gear they didn’t do anything to earn into the mix with (at least somewhat) experienced 90s who may or may not have gear the equal of the ubern00bs. When you just give to one person something others have worked hard to earn, the results are never, ever good, for anyone.
This may be, without qualification or reservations, the absolute worst idea in the history of EQII.
[Reposted verbatim on the boards.]
As someone that has just returned I would hate to have logged in and found myself at level cap, if they want to do things to make life easier then boost quest and kill xp pay outs at lower levels and scale them back as you near cap.
Ok when dov came out i was level 80 cause i stopped playing when sf came out started back month or 2 before dov didnt get the sf pack waited till dov came out then ran sf leveled to 86 then went to dov it took me less than 1 week to do wtf if they are returning players they can play and LEVEL toons like the rest of us did and do to give peeps everything they want they learn nothing like i have showed all 3 of my kids why give everything for nothing or is this game all about how much money soe can make??????????? why not keep the game like it is everyone earns something for the time they play just my 2 cents i know its not a millino dollars a year yet i do have 3 accounts and pay them every month so i know 60 us dallors isnt alot to soe yet to most it might be
To respond to the haters of this idea,
the main points i have been reading that people are using to dismiss this idea is that these 90’s will be total noobs when SJ said this was a winback campaign so for account to be eligible they would of had to play before, most likely at 80, thats when this game started going downhill, so they would/should know most things about the their class.
Then the debate about this isnt fair, i have subbed for 6 years+, why do they get a free toon blah blah blah, they wouldnt be invited back and given raid gear, they would still have to do the faction grinds and instances/PQ to get a capable toon, and honestly for players who have been subbed for so long how hard is it for you to level a a toon from 1-90 now, all faction adorns are heirloom, gear is heirloom, you would still have the advantage over them as Faction/Gear > 1-90 Leveling time wise.
This is why SoE screws so much shit up, im starting to not blame them, everyone screams listen to the feedback and its pretty crap feedback half the time.
Another point, why would anyone complain about increasing the population of this game. The only problems associated with a large population are contested spawns and lag, there is almost no contested content anyway, especially when multiple zones exist and yes, i agree they need to improve their servers to handle the population but i heard AB is pretty sweet right now and that has the highest population so if every server had its hardware upgraded they could handle the returning population.
I’d like the idea. I think it’s great and might get me to playing Eq2 once again, basically haven’t in two years. Catch up all the leveling? What a bore. Go forward, Smokejumper!
Greets and happy Easter!
Dan.
I hate to sound like a old fart but back in my day it took months to get to level 10 and it made me feel like i accomplished something. EQ and EQ2 are the first and only MMORPGs i managed to get a max level toon in. That was back when it was hard to do. If this decision happens, I’ll feel extremely gypped doing all of that for nothing. The EQ franchise has seen much better days. I think this idea will make WoW a slightly more challenging game then EQ2 because you still have to level up in WoW… Lately I’ve pretty much moved to fallen earth and will be getting rift next month. Anything that doesn’t hand me things for free.
i think if you would give a 90 toon with a griffing that is good for only two weeks trial would be nice. this way they experience the end game content for two weeks and encourage them to create a toon and lvl it up to 90.. at the end of the two week trial period the toon goes away and they have the option to purchase the game and start a new toon
Okay, the goal is to have former players returning to EQ2. I am not totally against it, since in my view I didn’t feel I “earned” my 90 levels, rather I totally enjoyed levelling up.
I’d say:
1) Let them have a lvl 85 toon instead of 90 (so there’s still work to be done).
2) The prerequisite for this is to have already a min. lvl 40 toon at the time the player left the game.
In doing so it’ll prevent from having total noobs coming into play and us having to raid with unskilled players.
And this is also a benefit for those returning players, as I don’t think we would make them a favor in handing them a brand new lvl 90 toon they will have no clue how to play with (=> will lead to frustration). It’s like giving a F1 car to someone who doesn’t have a driver’s licence.
I just looked at the comments on the main forums I am happily surprised of the number of people thaqt thinks it is a good idea in some form!
I think this is a bad idea all around . Leveling your toon from the start helps you learn your toon and experiment with the aa’s . It isnt that hard to level a toon to 90 these days , and this is to promote quiters to come back not knowing how to play there toons. Might backfire and cause more loyal subs to leave but ehh. This goes thru guess it pays to quit.
I’m really torn about this idea because, being a day-one veteran, I would feel a bit cheated by their lack of effort. However, I guess this really comes down to the question of how this game is supposed to be enjoyed?
For some, like myself, it is the challenge of reaching a goal through hard-fought victories. Discovering the strats for mobs, being able to guide friends through quests or dungeons without using Google, and immersing myself in the Lore. But even I am guilty of boosting an Alt through 90 levels in two weeks just to try something new. Obviously I don’t know how to play that healer nearly as well as my 7-year old Bruiser but I’ll go back and travel the old roads and quests to figure it out.
For others it is simply a place to go to interact with people and spend some time with friends. For these folks, especially if they are returning players, zapping to lvl 90 makes sense so that they can play with their old friends in game and get right to the new stuff. Notice I said “new stuff” and not “good stuff.” We veterans know that there is so much content and lore in this game that, if given the chance to come back, those people may go back and visit the old content. They will have to if they want to get any where near 300 AA. Will they ever know the joy of corpse runs or the pain of mob camping? Maybe not but is that really a bad thing?
When it comes down to it, if this idea brings old players back, it could be good. And, if you group with an “old school noob” (OSN) (my term, just made it up, copy-wright, and all that :P) and don’t like it, don’t group with them again. OR, if they’re interested, teach them how things have changed and make them a valuable addition to our ranks.
I personally like the challenges this game has given us over the years but not all players want that. Do I think less of them? If they can’t or don’t want to learn to play then yes. If they show some interest in becoming useful in a group or raid, I’ll give them a chance.
Anything that brings new blood into the end game would be a good thing. The game is dieing a slow death as it is and if letting people skip the 1-89 grind brings people back than they should go for it. I want more people on the servers and if that takes free leveling than so be it.
Finding new guildies on GUK is almost impossible these days and there are a number of “high end” raiding guilds from last expansion that can’t get 18 people together to raid anymore. More server merges won’t help as it just combines more partial guilds together and drives more people away from the game. We need new players and quickly.
Years ago I took a break shortly after EoF came out. I returned during a free access promotion for inactive accounts mid RoK. What got me back into the game was re-getting to know my character as I leveled up to 80. Not suddenly being 90.
BUT I wouldn’t have a problem with a skip straight to 80 option (limit 1 char per account) – 90 levels can seem daunting (not to those who know the game of course) and all the new content is post level 80
This is an interesting idea and It will no doubt lure some of those players back into the EQ2 web. I also feel that if the community does not welcome these returning players, that the results of the gesture will not last.
I think it might be a good idea to offer the level 90 character to those who have been loyal to EQ2. The veterans and/or those that have supported EQ2 through the good the bad and the ugly.
So my opinion is go with it, but, take care of the loyal and steadfast as well.
I dont have a problem with letting peeps come in at 90. I feel if this works and more people come in, it is a win win situation. More peeps in the game means more funding for the eq2 team which means a better gaming experience.
My first thought is that every “thought” SmokeJumper floats past us becomes our reality no matter how far fetched, or how many promises have been made in the past that this abomination will never happen (remember real money transactions?). This could be very bad for the game if implemented as-is … just allowing people who have an existing level 20 toon, “buy in” and get a level 90 toon.
Now if old toons were moved to a rejuvination server, and made to play from level 85 to 90, before being dumped back on the general populous at least they MIGHT know which button to mash to auto attack, they might have a chance to buy some decent spell upgrades, maybe from there they could ever buy stuff off the server that they choose to go to … but NOT be allowed to sell stuff to that server to keep the farmers away … at least for a little while.
One thing for sure … if they are looking at this, then they are giving it SERIOUS consideration. The server populations are DOWN and they have done consolidations … more are coming to be sure if the populations do not come back. This is coming FOR SURE if the populations do not come springing back (and they are not going to that is why they are trying to bring back old players in the first place and this may not be so bad … at least they are old players and have SOME knowledge about the game).
So if we accept that this IS going to happen and do our best to help make some suggestions as to how it would make a minimal impact on the existing servers … maybe we could lighten the blow to ourselves. No matter how much I don’t like this … what they come up with will be worse than if we just thumb our collective noses at it and moon the whole process … remember EQ2 For Dummies … I mean EQ2 Extended ?
Look, I would be willing to bet EQ2 has lost more “loyal” customers through the years then they have added through these promotions. I am all for anything that brings more people to the game, because that equals revenue that can go into the current version of game or EQNext. The flaw is most of these people left for a reason and I am guessing boredom or lack of end game content is one of them. Don’t we always see population influx with new content then dies out?
SOE needs creating thinking. There is a ton on old fun content that many have only touched bits and pieces for whatever reason. They would be better served in keeping people engaged—hook’em and keep’em. How about instead of pure emphasis of new end line 90 content, you find a way to make old content relevant again outside of chrono for fun, alts or AA? Make it part of the storyline with xpacs that your toon must go back to relive old content and it could be the transition to how your old toon makes it into something new, if that is EQNext. It should be challenging, like an on-going Epic HQ. I think that would also drive populations back to where these other people quit. Yes, there should always be new content but this could exponentially increase content and put less emphasis starting at 90—only to quit all over again for the same reasons— and focus more on where they left off. Just an idea, but I think more creative ideas and less negative talk could go a long way with a game we are all clearly passionate about.
Well I look at the comments on the official forums and I guess I may not come back even if SOE does something like this. I think that most of us quit because we where tired of the Soloquest 2 and we want to play this challenging game with grouping and current content with other people. Constructing something to keep us apart from where the game is is not going to bring anybody back. Face it there will be very few new skilled people at 90/250 in the future because there are almost no new or returning players. Advertising will not bring people back if people like me that has played EQ2 since late 2006 will not come back because the game is not fun then new players will be even less inclined.
Eq2 live is dying, SJ is obviously very aware of that, the attitude of some of the population of Live is only making the problem worse.
I love all these arguments that this will help staunch the loss of the player base. Especially when things like this are contributing to said losses to begin with.
Apparently, focus on what the game does well isn’t on Smokeblower & Company’s list of options. Bodes ill, doesn’t it?
If the customer that left had a “max” level character at the time that they left the game, be it 50, 60, 70, or 80, I feel it would be ok for that character only to come back as a max level character. I would not give them more than 125 AA to start with. As far a gear is concerned, they could buy it off of the broker or link up with “old” friends and get hooked up so to speak. This would build a small client base for a short time for the Tradeskiller’s.
I can understand real life getting in the way and having to leave the game for an indefinate period. If they are the type of player that “Rage Quit” they will not be back for long imo.
Back when 50 and 60 were the cap, it took a lot of playing, questing, and serious grouping to get to max level. When level 70 became the cap, it got much easier to max out your character and so you tended to max out another and so on. The group necessity disappeared to get to max level.
Just my opinions…..
@Grimmond
“The server populations are DOWN and they have done consolidations”
I’ve not seen any evidence of that in EQ2, On my server (Splitpaw) I can see 5 great divides still at 9pm, there were people asking for merges before, to me they merged two viable populations into one and now this one server cannot handle it. When SF launched I saw 7 Sundered frontier instances at launch, at launch with DoV I saw 15 instances going with the merged server.
This isn’t desperation talk, but instead some blue sky thinking as to where to take the game. I might be able to stomache ex-max level players being boosted up, but I’m not really sure its the real solution.
My guess is the Blizzard crew sat down and thought this exact same problem through with WoW, there they took the Cataclysm option to revamp the whole world, that clearly is another way to try and keep the game viable. But to me at least it doesn’t seem to have really been all that successful with WoW (perhaps because they didn’t provide much high level content is my guess).
EQ2 isn’t suffering the population problems mid SF had, or that Rift is suffering now (60% of their population is on 10 servers according to some gold sellers). But we also cannot just do the same thing over and over again and expect EQ2 to be viable forever, EQ1 effectively did that and they’re not growing (although they’re not dead either which probably is due to their former huge size).
I don’t see a problem here. It’s not like EQ2 isn’t already full of noobs to begin with. EQ2 has to have one of the most elitist snobish noob player base in an mmo.
I think if you maintained a subscription for at least 1 year and then left the game for 6 months or longer and return then yes level 90 is fine. It will allow you to rejoin the game and play again quickly
There are certain things in the game where you would have to go back to lower content anyways. Languages, “to speak as a dragon” and ” Words of Magic” comes to mind, are required for certain HQs, Signatures and Epics. Master/Sinister strikes anyone?
We talk about Lvl90 and AA’s aal the time. But whay about class”skills” e.g. “ranged” for my ranger. As it stands now you would have a lvl90 char with lvl1 skills as they were never used before? Enchater with Lvl1 “Subjugation” skill, have fun with mezzes in DoV Inis.
A lvl90 would have to go back for the mentioned reasons that you rather give him 200-400% AA/Lvl Potions.
MURFALAD ? You don’t think server populations are down ? SoE has done server consolidations. I am on Crushbone, and we just got Innathule added to us. Inny was so bleak that they could not find groups at night. A dozen servers are “no more”, they have had their remaining members poured onto other servers. As for numbers and zone copies … When SF launched we had 14 SF’s, just before DoV launched there were nights when there were three people in SF 1. When DoV launched there were 15 GD’s night after night, now that zone is 5 at the most … I know, peeps have spread out, but you have to admit that the population moves on after the excitement is over … some never come back. That is just the way it is.
@ Grimmond
I agree with your comments, but it was Lucan D’Lere that merged with Crushbone (I was from Lucan).
In regards to a free level 90…I support it. Give it to players who had active accounts (not new accounts), as these people have played the game before, and should have some competence in how an MMO works (they were a player). So they won’t hit the top parse list right away, but they wont be joining any top end guild raids anyways, so for that, get some new (old) people back to the game.
Hey, do you suppose that this is SJ’s way of admitting that the wide-sweeping changes that went live with Velious really pooched the rest of the game?
Saw this on the live forums; it’s worth repeating:
“[I]t’s pointless to try to build your business on a gimmick when you aren’t doing the fundamentals well.”
Awesome quote Daker.
@Grimmond Nope, I’m honestly not seeing it on Splitpaw, we’re still seeing 5 GD’s late into the night and the lag is just too much. A couple of months out from the expansions players have spread out more which I guess is where the 9 or so GD’s worth of players are, and really the thought of another server merge would probably have the practical response from me of taking a break from the game since its barely playable as it is right now on Splitpaw.
I’m seeing UI lag of 2-8s, at times the broker is so slow and unresponsive that it takes 40-60s to recognise an added item, zoning is bordering on painful and especially in Ascent where its a lottery whether people come back after the turn around, just today we had a very slow group since the healer was struggling to keep up due to lag. I’m sure right now that the poor performance is putting off a chunk of players as someone like myself (a big fan of EQ2) is finding it annoying.
Doubling the load right now would be like trying to pour another pint in a full pint glass, in fact I wonder if this has happened on other servers such as Guk where after the merge there were threads complaining about performance.
@Daker
And I totally agree, its a great thread where he poses the question about the free 90’s, but the problem he is trying to solve is bigger then just getting people to the 90 content.
They do need to fix the low level gear so its appealing, running a hard 60 raid/dungeon should give tasty gear, even if they added a DF for 60 dungeons right now I doubt it would have much use due to the itemisation. Although right now I’m wondering if they should take the opportunity to just remove levels from the game full stop, since fixing the low level content was what WoW did (or tried to), to me its left the game still feeling unsatisfactory there.
They need to invest some of the earnings into the hardware, and not EQNext or some other PS3 game.
They need to invest serious time into the engine, and not just patching 6 year old code, Eve shows how it is done. Over there they announced shader 1 and 2 are dead and just moved on with something modern and good looking. This bit is definitely in Smedley’s hands though, I’m sure if Smokejumper and co had the resources they’d be doing it today.
Its not that I don’t like EQ2, I love the game, but its frustrating when they have so many core things left undone, I don’t blame Smokejumper on this either since I’m honestly amazed at the amount and quality of content his team have put out, especially when you compare dev team sizes to say blizzard (where DoV has much more to do for high levels then Cata did – hardcore friends there quit it after less then a month).
To me its a real problem for SOE though, I see new MMO after new MMO being developed when for a fraction of the cost they could fix all the above in EQ2 for their current customers.
Wow, all I can say is what is SJ smoking. An i-win button that huge. No thanks.
Just give somebody a level 90 character get them into raid and have them ask hey what does this button do.
I’m sorry I think its a horrible idea. What about those of us who been playing the game since it started. I got 5 level 90’s, All of them done up the hard way that kind of thing just invalidates the hard work that anybody does getting to 90.
All I have to say that is not something i would like to see in my game. Sorry SJ but I think you lost your mind.
Just when I started to start getting tired of the lag, at least there is some good news
“I don’t have the ETA yet, but we are making the purchases and we’ll get the hardware replaced on the most populated servers that have not yet been upgraded (Guk, Everfrost, Unrest, Butcherblock, Permafrost, Oasis, and Splitpaw).”
Update my previous moan, and with serious money being spent I think it does put EQ2’s future and the debate on how to proceed (which is what this “what if free 90” thing is all about.
If you can buy a level 90 character on EQ2X I really don’t give a damn.
But if they make so you can buy a lvl 90 character on a normal server then I’m gone.
@Isest Time and time again I hear mmo players refer to thier time spent in game as (hard work). I do my hard work at my actual real life job. When I log in to a game it’s for some fun not work, just saying.
What if all content was level-less.
What if a solo/ duo/trio/group/or raid could be put together and go do ANY solo/ duo/trio/group/or raid content … no mentoring … no grey’d out content. Just go do anything in the game … and the game scaled the content to match you … and then made the rewards appropriate for your average level (using level to mean AA’s, total points, levels etc … however the game measured a character).
All that old content would be do-able again, for decent rewards. Players of level 20ish could go to Zek and get rewards they could use and players at level 90 could go to Zek and get gear they could use.
Something like THAT would keep me in the game, but it looks like I am going to put some time into Star Trek On-line. I’ve been with the EQ franchise since Beta 1 of EQ1… maybe I just need a break. Thanks guys.
@Grimmond: What if I could do any content at any level? Personally, I think that would make EQ2 feel like Champions Online does for me: There’s no point to advancing because nothing would change. EQ2 would be reduced from an endeavor to a diversion.
There’s nothing inherently wrong with that more casual sort of game, but it’s not what EQ2 has been historically and it’s not what I play for. If things were to suddenly shift that way, I’d have a different game on my hands and I’d have to seriously re-evaluate whether I wanted to stay.
@CLAVIARM – True, but I meant keeping challenging contant challenging, raids as raids and solo content as solo content.
Was just thinking off the top of my head. I agree that new content needs to be challenging, but old content … raids and group content should be able to be redone or done if missed as meaningful content.
I was not meaning that a raid of level 10 players should be able to assault Roen Theer … but a raid of lvl 90 should be able to go back to Crushbone keep, do some content and have a fun afternoon.
You know, that’s an interesting idea. Since EQ2 with Velious moved away from the intelligent, hand-made feel that created the interesting items, abilities, and interactions that characterized it in the past, why not purse that further and simply mathematize and dynamically scale older instances for higher-level players? These newly created level 90’s who have never seen TSO and SF content would have a greater range of places to go and sights to see. Sum up the item level of the party’s gear, add in the total number of AA points, subtract if there isn’t one tank, one healer, and four DPS in the group, and Bang! you’ve got the scaling factor for the mobs’ difficulty and a number to plug into the Velious spreadsheet for loot quality.
This is a great idea. People get so jealous in this game. I want more players (not whiners) on the server. And let’s be honest, there are some people that have played their class 5 years and still can’t do it. If you are a good player, you’ll be good, regardless of time. Sure, there won’t be as much polish on these so called “newbs”. But if the person is a skilled gamer, they will catch on quickly. And let’s be honest, I can get to level 60 in a night, and reach 90 in a week or two. You really think that skipping straight to 90 is much different? Anything to populate the game and get the market more visitors is fine by me.
Half the people that feel “cheated” spent 2 weeks getting at least one of their level 90’s, the other half thinks that good gear should only belong to them and no one else. Get real guys, get over your programmer generated armor and necklaces and let people play the game and enjoy it. And by the way, I’ve been playing for 6 years, have 8 level 90’s, and have enjoyed the game every step of the way. I’ve done everything, raiding, soloing, grouping, guilds, the works.
There are things that have remained constant the whole way through: People complain, people overreact, and people don’t want others to do well. If you don’t like what EQ2 is doing, I’d be more than happy to see you leave and see people that want to actually just play a GAME come along. I don’t care if they’ve been playing 1 day or 7 years, as long as they don’t complain and whine.
if this is done I quit EQ2…
I think this would be a good idea but i would also say that the returning players should be limited to certain classes for there level 90 choice.I think if they get a free ride then we as a community want something back.There choices should limited to healers troubadour or bard coercer or illusionist.I think that allowing them these classes only!!! would bring an aid to the end game.These classes are not good farmers and the people getting free 90s even if they were the worst players bring some help to the Loyal base at 90.If you give them Classes that can farm they get to lower the economy ruin all parts of the game for lower level players.I say this as a warning do not allow them to have farming toons only the ones i have mentioned if you do you do i would leave the game for sure.If you think allowing people all classes for doing nothing only money return for the company is a good idea ok we have to be realistic but also the game only survives because we pay our hard earned cash every month.If people are leaving while you bring in people not loyal then you backing the wrong horse.Give the returning players a taste but not of all the classes that would just be naive and also counter productive for both player base and soe financially.
The biggest thing that put me off EQ2 was lack of groups. I quit my max level (80 at the time with 4x L80 crafters) to play the ‘Other’ MMO, had lots of fun. Came back to give DoV a try but still seeing the lack of groups, something like the dungeon finder would be excellent for those without a strong guild.
Let me say that from my experience in raiding, social and low level fun guilds on several servers over the past 6 years (and 5 years of EQ1 before that), I’ve not seen very many people leave because the grinding is too monotonous…although it IS monotonous and everyone knows it. However it’s that tedious effort that gives you pause about leaving the game, you become invested in the toon.
What I’m talking about is the actual behavior I SEE, as opposed to an analysis of some aspect of the game…the two are not the same thing, people say a lot of things and have ways of justifying and analyzing things.
How they act though is often quite different.
So from personal observation of behavior (including myself several times), I’ve seen people leave when they reach the top level, from there it’s when they consider themselves well geared, and have achieved a lot.
In other words, it seem to me that people stay when they’re striving, and leave when they think they’ve achieved and get bored (or start alts, in which case it starts all over again, with a much shorter cycle since they know the shortcuts).
I predict based on what I’ve observed:
– Shorten the path considerably to 90 and many will actually leave the game sooner.
– Make new content, and many will stay hooked on the progression.
Also, in the price vs volume tug of war, I’d keep EQ2 subscribed even if I had no or little intention to play, if it was like say… netflix… $8 a month, heck that’s a lot less than $15 (marketeers call this price point).
Being able to buy the tablet to save you time in To Speak as a Dragon…good idea. Being able to get more xp bonus as you add lvl 90 toons to your account…great idea. Being able to start another toon at lvl 90…bad idea if the goal is to keep people interested in the game (regardless of what they say /wink).
@Smokejumper,
>>> I didnt get to this on time…sorry for the late comment.
“thanks for the idea.
I mean trying to get some feedback from the players * about some serious thoughts.
as a EQ series player of 12 years,been doing the SOE 2 step for a long time .
If you were to promise maybe lvl 80 and drop some hell levels in between ( 80-90) sure. at least make them work for it.
maybe a little lvl 80 content leading up to the hill climb to 90?
* at least that way they can learn what to do as far as where to go and how to nav the game again ~ *
other wise its like giving a loaded gun to child.
please dont put a bunch of lvl 90’s up ridicule and nerdrage outburst.It might destroy their future out look.”
” maybe a a 2nd type of flying mount? that isnt near as good as the Griff? ”
at lower levels * that might still work….
dunno * good luck with everything!
I like the idea of bringing people back to the game, however I dont like the idea of insta-noob-90s or insta-alt-90s. So I think it should be limited to 1 character per account.
– What about some sort of entrance test to get to level 90?
– Another idea what if you allowed the Mentoring up as mentioned before, only make it so you can only mentor up a certain number of levels (like maybe 10 or so)?
As for the entrance test, I was thinking making it like a Solo Instance with certain fights you have to be able to beat in order to complete the instance.
Have at least one test for every class, and every 10 levels.
So at level 10 you are beating fights that a player at level 10 should be able to complete.
Rinse and Repeat for every tier..
This way people end up at what ever level their skill level permits.
Feel free to comment on this idea.
Why play the game at all if you can just start at the end?
Seems the real problem is people being bored with the game at max level and now the mechanics are so messed up you can solo even level 90 instances. I have come back recently and noticed these problems.
1. Mentoring leaves the higher level player so powerful that the people they are helping get no enjoyment from the game.
2. There are too many AA and Levels or at least we have enough. Why dont new expansions focus on giving players more to do at the already existing levels and keep the game playable at all levels.
3. Marketing for the game is poor so everyone knows about WoW but you mention everquest and they are like huh?
I have a very powerful level 90 toon with very near maxed AA I log in everyday and wonder what to do that i will enjoy. I always end up running through some Heroic zone Solo or with 1 or 2 friends grinding AA for what?
Make more Heroic type quests that are similar to the Epic and require interation with other players other than combat and make the rewards for doing quests aplicable to game play. Who cares if you have a million quests if the time I spend doing them is not fun because i just do them for the little bit of XP.
So the answer is not do we let them come back at 90 just to leave again it is to keep us involved in gameplay.
Just my 2 cents and i guess it is worth as much as anyones.