SmokeJumper Tips Hand at E3: 25th Class, Expansion Strategy, Cross-Server Grouping
Massively.com is in Los Angeles covering this year’s E3 and spoke to Dave “SmokeJumper” Georgeson, Executive Producer of EQ1 and EQ2 about the future of EQ2. We have already heard some about the revamp of Freeport and Qeynos which will evolve these starting cities into full-fledged quest hubs that will drive character development from levels 1-90. The breaking news for today is that we can expect a 25th character class and the ability to group cross-server.
So what’s next for the game? Georgeson laughed when we asked this and said, “We’re going to start relying a lot less on expansion packs to create content for the game, and what we’re going to do is create lots and lots of content and put it out there on a quarterly basis for free.”
As we already learned in the last Producer’s Letter, Destiny of Velious will continue to be released/completed as free quarterly content updates rather than as a followup “part 2” expansion.
This means that the game’s next expansion will concentrate more on adding features to the game while the team will deliver the content through free updates. “People need new challenges on a regular basis,” he explained. He even speculated on a future model by which expansions are completely done away with, leaving players to purchase features on an individual basis.
Players frustrated with not being able to find groups will rejoice to hear that the EQII team is hard at work on a solution. “We have an idea of our own that will help people find groups without necessarily sticking to their server,” he teased. Georgeson said the devs would also love to do a “real” mentoring system compared to what they have right now.
He even let it slip that SOE will be adding a 25th class this year — but that was all he’d give us.
“I guarantee that we’ll put out more this year than any other year before,” Georgeson promised. “I guarantee it.” He added that we’ll be hearing more about the feature set for the upcoming expansion pack at Fan Faire in a few weeks.
Head to Massively to read more about EQ2’s 3D support and flying/jumping/gliding mounts news which was revealed today.
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Comments (36)
Claviarm
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25th class? Does not bode well. It will be outside the structure of all the other classes… how much you want to bet it will be outside other existing standards as well? Will they start at a higher level, like WoW’s death knights? How much you want to bet it will be a ‘prestige class’ that even the Live servers have to pay extra for?
As for cross server grouping, it’s good for dealing with population issues but bad for community, both in terms of getting to know people and making sure people don’t act like complete jerks.
My vision of the future of the game just turned very dim. :/
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Karith
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I BET you, it’s a station marketplace purchased class. lol
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Anaogi
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…the B word…?
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Erratic
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Most definitely a station cash class, and I’d wager it will be over powered in some manner compared to traditional classes.
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Claviarm
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SmokeJumper /is/ currently playing a beastlord on EQ1, I hear. That does make me wonder.
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Tarb
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I would not be suprised at all if its a SC class, but my bet is on Beastlord.
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kels
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I swear to god if this 25th class requires me to friggin buy it via the marketplace, i will scream. I’m all for the content updates though and I like the idea of more for just the sub price.
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Kruzzen
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“future model … leaving players to purchase features on an individual basis.”
This is why SJ was hired. To promote SC and the marketplace to do just this. We all knew it was coming, and here it is.
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ratzilla
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i don’t care for the sound of these ideas the game was great for alotta years . and now you wonna jest do away with many things like expansions and having a server full of players you know are good help . to cross server group with anybody and hope the group doesn’t fail . will have no idea if they know there class or have decent gear jest add um in and hope there not a problem . far as for a new class could care less but if you give a new class better than all the others time to close shop . might do that anyways at the rate this games going your driving me away .
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Lathain
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Cross server grouping is very very bad idea.
Will bring LOT more trouble (and exploit) and solve nothing.
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Lathain
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It’s clear SJ dont even know everquest… but who care when he ll have done everquest will be a piece of the past. (perhaps he ll even success to totaly remove it from mmorpg history…so lame)
Each time they announce something, i see the huge trouble comming, and it’s always patethic.
That remember a gouvernement that build law about thing they dont understand, they dont care… they break everything but hey. They are the boss ! If you want secure your computer use open office as firewall AND it will protect you from virus! … SJ is same with EQ.
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Lathain
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I bet marketplace beastlord class. He is so small.
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Stabs
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I remain optimistic. Hoping they come up with an original class for eq2. If its Beastlord…. look for me on livegamer.
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Inque
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Doing away with expansions is a bad idea. If the level cap is raised then you need an expansion worth of content to get the new levels / AA, not some half-assed quarterly content to constantly grind. Also Expansions bring much needed publicity, even it it’s only to ex-players.
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Feldon
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Lathain,
Don’t you ever get tired of hearing yourself bitch about EQ2?
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Striinger
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Agree with Feldon re: Lath. I literally LOL on the train home.
I read the expac retirement as a way for them to roll out new features as they can (and charge as they go). It results in more even (and higher) cash flow for SOE. Good business model improvement. I just wonder if content will get to a pay per level (I.e. You pay SC to pop a ‘premium’ dungeon instance that lasts a week and drops exclusive items…like the LoN loot card did.). I hope it doesn’t get there, but it looks possible with the untethering of instances from a single server.
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alawi
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I am impressed with what they have done with Vellious and the recent GU – the markeplace changes (new mounts, housing etc) are also brilliant and if EQ2 wants to follow the DDO Online marketplace model (where they sell classes and even ‘instances’) so be it – I think Smoke is the best thing to happen to EQ2 in a long time and the man listens and *delivers* the goods contentwise and also technically (new server upgrades – including my own server Splitpaw – coming soon).
If markeplace leads to new revenue this is a good thing and will keep EQ2 abreast for years to come. I’m all about choices, you don’t want to buy something, don’t.
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Trillia
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Hahaha
You can never get too much drama.. Oh wait, Grey’s Anatomy …. I guess you CAN get too much drama.
carry on.
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Techno
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Didn’t they try (and FAIL) small content updates with Adventure Packs? Also I can’t see anyone paying for another GU60; but bring on the beastlord class.
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Starseeker
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Mystery Class #25 – Beastlord. If you can make a class be a “premium class” for $20 SC, why not make it the most requested class of all time in eq2?
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Kruzzen
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I don’t mind getting rid of xpacs as I get tired of them every year. My biggest worry is the whole sc thing. Will they make it so it costs us more in the long run? That is the question.
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Trillia
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Isn’t beastlord a race, not a class ??
I’m sorry for my ignorence, I didn’t play EQ1 for very long, a few weeks at most.
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Tarb
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Beastlord = Class
Vah Shir = Race
They were released with Luclin in EQ1
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Claviarm
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I’m trying to stay positive about this announcement. I don’t know for sure yet that it will be terrible, though I keep wanting to assume it will be.
As for a new class, I can look at Freebloods as an example of a new race and I don’t worry so much. Personally, at least, I wouldn’t play a Freeblood even if they were free and I was choosing only for stats, which to me says they aren’t unbalanced. Maybe the new class will be fair also.
As for cross-server grouping, I don’t have to worry about that much because I play on Extended, which has only one server, and there’s no way they’re going to let us mix with Live. So it will be a non-feature for us, at least as things stand now. *shrug*
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Anaogi
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Tarb, you may be onto something. I’ve had suspicions about the next expansion for some time…Ages End, in the remnants of Luclin…?
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Tarb
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Maybe, we will see, I would love the next expansion or whatever its going to be from now on to be luclin. “in the grey no one can hear you scream”
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Necromancer
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Whatever the 25th class will be, we can be assured that it will only be accessible through Station Marketplace.
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B0lster
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So when will Sony start advertising their products? Gotta reclaim the player base after the “outtage” somehow.
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Sigtyr
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Smokejumper is a smart fellow and if you look at his posts on the forums he seems aware of what Eq2s problems are, personally I am not exited about a new class, but if they can bring about changes that brings old player back (their best bet from a sales point of view, it is always easiest to bring old customers back) the game may have a chance. It must get easier for new and returning player to reach the majority of the players at 90, it must be fun to get there and the content must support the fact that lots of players nowadays wants to play a couple of hours in a group, face a reasonable challenge and get rewarded for it. EQ2 once had that content. Smokejumper seems well aware that he has to adapt to the current competition, however it is debatable if the remaining players allows him to do so.
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Feldon
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Fixed it for you. 🙂
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alawi
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I think SoE dropping Station Pass from $29.95 to $19.95 is also a great move and will help retain or maybe invite some more players to sub to this model (extra character slots, games etc).
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Lylyth
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Smokejumper said
“However, I will say this one thing to sqaush the rumor. This is not introducing a “Marketplace Class” and this new class will not be sold for SC.
That’s it. That’s really all I’m going to post about this until Fan Faire. No more responses on this subject. Sorry, folks”
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Mixxit
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Great announcement! I hope it’s the beastlord class but if not i can’t wait to find out what it is!
As for the server merging, i really think this is an important issue being addressed, even for the EQ2X server (which I hope will be allowed to take part)
Alot of people have talked about the dungeon drop in features of WoW (which i’ve never tried) but the concept overall sounds good, even if they are not as good a player as the elitists
I think alot of the older players of EQ2 fail to recognise the large majority of the population that comes and (and often goes) due to the lack of players listed in LFG. I mean it’s peak time on EQ2X at the moment on a friday night and there is only two groups listed in LFG
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Sigtyr
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Well they need to sell their product again, and currently the demand for what they offer is not there as the EQ2 offer is not good enough. They can of course try to get their existing customer base to pay more, but that is an unlikely way to enough profitability. I came back after a year for this 45 day thing and I find both Naggy and AB much emptier than a year ago, and that is sad, but did I see anything that made me want to resub, no not really
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Kraft
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http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?&topic_id=501490
http://everquest2.com/news_archive_content.vm?month=042007&id=1114
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Feldon
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Kraft,
Yeah I saw that one already. 😉
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