Feldon From EQ2Talk.com:
Episode #44 – Wind Power
recorded on Apr 14EQ2 Talk is excited to bring you Holly “Windstalker” Longdale, EverQuest 2 Producer. We asked her some of the burning questions about mechanics, dungeon finder, the in-game polls, and EQ2 Players. She also gives us a closer look at what the team has in store for players in GU63, offers some insight into the 2-level increase, explains a bit about prestige abilities, and talks about the team’s goals looking ahead.
We’ve listened to Episode #44 and here are a few gems:
- We may get some more detailed information on the breakouts for certain In-Game Poll questions, but providing detailed numbers on some of the questions would possibly provide information to competitors. We may see a future poll with more detailed questions about StationCash “power” items breaking out the use of power items in groups vs. raids.
- Only your FIRST poll entry on your account “counts”. The number of character alts you have does not determine how many “votes” you get.
- More Public Quests are coming.
- “Providing a Tradeskill experience that is end-to-end in any content that we release that could be done by a low level is not realistic for this release. But we’re certainly not going to ignore that in the future.“
Editor’s Note: This is something we would have never heard during Domino’s tenure as EQ2 Tradeskill dev, especially considering the Fortress of Drunder tradeskill quest line.
- “I think there may have been an impression or sentiment that the EQ2 development team had gone away from paying any real attention to tradeskillers. We just want to say that at this time, with GU63 and moving forward, that is emphatically not the case.“
Editor’s Note: 6 quests and 2 non-coachable TS Apprentices does not make a “Tradeskill Timeline”.
- Prestige Classes were a misnomer, a slip-up during the webcast. “We don’t want to give the impression that we’re creating another class, subclasses, or anything of that nature. At least not in the immediate future. Our future is based on Prestige Points and Abilities.”
- There will be an expansion later this year, although there’s still a lot of discussion about what form it will take.
There is plenty more to be heard especially in the second half of the program.
Download EQ2Talk Episode #44
EQ2Talk Episode #43
Also in case you missed it, I highly recommend listening to EQ2Talk Episode #43. Dellmon and Aliscious switch places and we get a fantastic “Dellmon Angle” which delves into some of the more controversial issues of “Selling Loot Rights“, “Instant 90“, putting Dungeon Finder to bed, and whether SOE is really living up to its proclaimed philosophy of “We’re gamers too.” If you appreciate constructive criticism, this is a great episode to download.
Umm only your first vote counts, is that not contrary to what piestro had said. They need to get on the same page of that thought chain. We certainly are receiving mixed answers on that and the thread that asked about it. I am confused because that’s not the answers we got in the threads complaining about the polls.
Just personally, any system that allows you to create characters to get more votes is not a system that should be allowed to continue. A person with 24 characters shouldn’t get 24 votes. It would be nice if we got the same information though.
Yes feldon I think it needs to be one vote per account I remember getting in the fray on the first poll. I hope that Windstalker is right on that, however I got to say it is not what sj, or piestro said in the prior rounds of the polls, and almost sounds like the right hand not talking to the left hand.
Yes, but since I have more accounts, I get more votes than you!
Its a shame they don’t really deliver the poll once / customer.
And do FTP accounts get polls?
I’m more concerned with the idea that there will be a second expansion this year.(I’m counting gu 63 as an expansion, because it’s the other half of velious) We will get the Qeynos gu during summer/fall, and we can guess at a chrismas expansion. So will there be another huge gap in content between gu63 and this new expansion? This of course assumes that there will be no max level grouping content for the qeynos update.
Although, smokejumper did mention that “expansions” would be feature rich, not content rich. So if we don’t get new content at chrismas, will it be a whole year without new content? (I’m playing devil’s advocate here, but still am I stretching things too far?)
Atan wrote And do FTP accounts get polls?
Yes we do.
@Rocky:
the fact that they’re wasting a GU on qeynos speaks volumes to me on how little the care about making content that will be played and re-played. We can look forward to likely one real content upgrade sometime in sept/oct.
Probably 3 heroic zones sharing the same art, and one raid zone sharing the same art.
Holly was really all over the place on the expansion question. She suggested that it wouldn’t be a features expansion like AoD.
Can only hope she sticks to her word AoD was a real mess
Prestige Classes weren’t a slip of the tongue, huh? lol Okay Feldon =p
In terms of expansion, they should just keep going the way it’s always been: give us a unique paying expansion, once a year, with “massive” content and new lands to explore (I mean MORE overland zones, à la Rise of Kunark), new dungeons to discover, new stories to take part in, eventually new spells, new levels, new AA …, and then some extra content and features in the GU all over the year. This was the time everyone was happy. This was the time I’d have recommended EQ2 to all my friends. Unfortunately, this time has passed by, but I’m hoping they’ll revert their mind!
I really think they’re covering for the epic foulup that was the Velious development cycle, though I’ll never be able to prove it–they wanted all this stuff in at release (except maybe AoD), but found as deadline loomed they weren’t even close to being able to execute properly, so they shoved what they had out the door and tried to cover themselves with AoD later. Velious seemed, I don’t know, incomplete at launch…and the dribble of content since only reinforces that feeling as time goes on.
Oh well, I guess it’s time to start the Wild Mass Guessing about the next x-pac in the tubes. I’m going in with the name “The New Age” (since Age’s End is supposed to wrap up in Skyshrine…)
“•There will be an expansion later this year, although there’s still a lot of discussion about what form it will take.”
$40 for new mounts and houses again!! Go SoE. Where do I pre-order?
I mean seriously, you are talking expansion..THIS YEAR…and you have no real direction? Makes me all tingly and excited. I think I need a towel.
10,000 Sony employees laid off and EQ2 is still stuck with this amount of incompetence. /sigh
Personally I don’t think they will get away with 2 “features” expansions in a row, it was very hard to justify buying a single collectors edition without content I am not sure I would do it twice in a row.
Every vote could have counted initially, but since it’s just data in a table, it’s not terribly difficult to change the query to only count the first submission from an account/login. So, the old info and new could both be correct. When all is said and done, it’s an *opinion* poll, not a decision poll; it’s more an indicator of WHEN the best time to make a change might be as opposed to IF a change might happen. SJ has said…they have the ‘real’ data about what people ARE doing and the poll is to see what people THINK they are doing. If you’re using SC by buying cards from someone using plat then you’re still a cash-store supporter, even if someone else is sponsoring your habit. Stating that you have never EVER bought station cash is a matter of semantics.
With Sony cutting unprofitable sections like mad, I can’t blame SOE for doing what brings the most money through the door. Whether it’s sustainable over years or not is irrelevant: they have to dodge the axe through the end of this year before next year (and beyond) is possible.
I assume them not knowing what form the expansion is going to take is them deciding whether or not to include content in the expansion. If they actually don’t know what they plan to do, with an expansion that releases in less than 9 months, that is just plain sad.
A little bit about Windstalker.
Last Online: 03/19/2012 14:57:08
Number of messages posted: [10] Messages posted by Windstalker
Created topics: [3] Topics created by Windstalker
I just love how she has the nerve to take a stab at Domino.
What about the itemization dev whoever the hell that is now?
Of course there is the continued march towards power items on the marketplace.
The discussion as to what form the expansion will take this year is no doubt about a money grab this fall after the continued incompetence in itemization, an entire GU that disappeared off the radar. The only interest she has is to allocate the absolute bare minimum amount of manpower needed to fix all that is broken and designing polls that ask about power items until they can get one tuned to their liking and put the stuff in there.
Lempo,
She didn’t take a dig at Domino. I have moved my comments out into a separate “Editor’s Note” blurb so as to avoid confusion.
I just think it’s disingenuous for her to say that they can’t add “end-to-end” tradeskill content that’s runs alongside heroic content when Domino did exactly that in Kunark, Sentinel’s Fate, and Destiny of Velious.
I don’t care if the content comes in expansions or game updates. As long as $15 a month plus $40 a year gets us enough solo, heroic, and raid content to last more than a couple of months. Last year we got double-dipped for two $40 expansions ($60 each if you got the CE) and not a lot to show for it.
They literally decided what to put into Age of Discovery one month before Fan Faire. They decided on Tradeskill Apprentices the week prior. It does not remotely surprise me that expansion plans are still up in the air.
And Holly strongly hinted that the next expansion may be content-based. If this is true, it didn’t take long for SmokeJumper’s mantra of “buying features not content” didn’t last long. Again, this all reeks of buyer’s remorse on the team’s part. They should have just had Destiny of Velious part 2 pre-order in December and release in March 2012.
Frankly, I am the plant in little shop of horrors screaming “Feed Me, Seymore!”
I do however want my quality meals (bigger content(Kunark) along with the scruffy snacks (AOD).
Also, when can I fly my griffon from Luclin piece to Luclin piece?
Why do people keep wasting time interviewing her? She brings nothing to the table.
I havent played EQ2 in about a month or so, but what is this? “We may see a future poll with more detailed questions about StationCash “power” items breaking out the use of power items in groups vs. raids.”
What are power items? Are they finally going to start selling regualr equipment in the SC store?
“More Public Quests are coming.” Weren’t we promised this over 6 months ago?
Taka,
Heartily agree. I would love a “Legacy of Luclin” expansion or similar. A lot of my favourite EQ1 zones were on Luclin and I’d love to see them revisited post-cataclysm.
Only your FIRST poll entry on your account “counts”. The number of character alts you have does not determine how many “votes” you get.
Then why don’t the others evaporate when one is returned? Or why don’t they put it on the launcher so they don’t have to keep breaking the mail?