Feldon 
If you listened to our EQ2Wire Podcast with Kander or have been reading EQ2’s Update Notes lately, you know that last year’s “Weekly Updates” are out and bigger less frequent updates are back in. The “weekly feature” idea ended up being a drain on the dev team and we might have gotten an even bigger expansion were it not for the requisite deadlines of such a schedule. We’re glad to see this idea go away and to see the dev team able to once again release things on a schedule that maximizes their capability to give us great content.
This year, most weeks will see just a few fixes, but then we’ll have a few bigger updates to look forward to. In development this year before the expansion:
- Entirely new level 100 Dungeon in Solo, Adv Solo, Heroic, and Raid versions — likely target is early Spring
- Public Quests — new level 95-100 PQs and eventually PQs in most overland zones
- Deity Revamp — worship more than one deity, quest revamp, new deities (Erollisi Marr!), etc.
- Database Update — Cross-server dungeon finder
- Fabled dungeons — Faydwer?
- and maybe more!
By the way, the Database Update is kind of a big deal. It’s not just about Cross-Server Dungeon Finder. If you haven’t already read it, check out this press release “Sony Online Entertainment Replaces Oracle with EnterpriseDB” which talks about how SOE is in the process of migrating all of its games away from the grossly overpriced Oracle to EnterpriseDB. Of course if everything goes absolutely perfectly, after months of hard work by programmers, players won’t really notice anything except maybe more reliable operations. This is the kind of thing that makes programmers cry.
One of the things that such a migration would allow is for EQ2 character data to be completely abstracted. What does this mean? Well what if you could just zone to any Server you wanted and play with friends anywhere you wanted? This is how Landmark works now. SOE hasn’t yet promised anything on this subject, and it might take a lot of arm-twisting of Finance to get rid of the highly lucrative Server Transfer Tokens which still run $25 a pop, but the new tech would certainly allow it.
Here are some comments from Kander:
We are currently in the process of major data base changes. These will most likely take months of time. We are discussing options for server changes in the future. Our hope is to provide across server dungeons and grouping with these changes.
I know we have said we have no plans for server merges in the future, but we are now discussing options. Ultimately, we would love for it to not even matter what server you are on and always have access to large amounts of players.
After all the drama of the last 2 server mergers, I’m hoping they manage to make the “not even matter what server you are on and always have access to large amounts of players” bit happens. I’ve lost friends in both server mergers simply because they lost their names. :\ Sure, it was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, but still, it’d be nice not to have to watch that happen again.
As a 100% believer in Server Pride and Server Identity I can only see this as a Very Bad Thing. Megaservers on GW2 destroyed server communities. There are far worse things for MMOs than low populations.
Care to elaborate?
Server merges are undesirable.
Megaservers are apaprently undesireable.
So what should they do?
It was not megaservers that destroyed communities in GW2, it was the fact that the heroic type instances in GW2 were so brutal that nobody wanted to do them that killed things. who wants to play a game where the only thing you do is overland. While overland is tons of fun in GW2 it is not enough to keep enough people interested.
do not forget GW 2 also broke the nymber one rule in MMO’s they didn’t use the holy trinity 6 dps woth a single heal also made some of those dungeons nearly impossible
I don’t think any amount of server merging or worldwide grouping is going to make 1 new instance exciting, after nerfing the (expansion’s) launch instances into dirt. Well, it’s 1 more than last expansion I guess. Technically an improvement!
Open Source DB.. what could possibly go wrong. 😯
Might want to research EnterpriseDB.
1 new instance is a bit lackluster.
I am a bit confused – reading this article about EnerpriseDB you linked it is written there that the change will happen in 2009?
FreeRealms and Planetside 2 launched on EnterpriseDB. Landmark/EQNext are on it. EQ2 is next.
Although the technology is nice (and stable) I imagine the compelling argument was the much lower cost of ownership. Oracle is anything but cheap.
I would still love to see a character model revamp. Wish they could take some of the new game tech and revive some life into things here. I know it will never happen, but some of the things they have done with the modeling in the new games is awesome. Oh well.
Hmm. would be nice that if we could start grouping across servers, and jump chars around for said grouping, that we could run cross-server guilds.
is EnterpriseDB like battlenet?
Would be interesting to see if this “cross-server” also means “cross-language”
oh god public quest, no thank you we did that with dov and unless you formed a raid you got diddly squat for loot. Public quest is the last thing I wanted to hear. Cross server grouping bah humbug, merge the darned servers already and forget coding cross server grouping, would save a lot of time and code on the programmers what few we have left. Weekly updates, lol half the time they really were not, I knew when they came out with that idea they were not going to be able to keep up with that.
Mmmm public quests, yes please for me.
PQ’s were great at their height, you could always get in a raid easily enough, and even when you couldn’t you could still join in and get loot much of the time, it brought people together enmasse out of their guild halls. Don’t forget they are revamping the PQ system entirely, so it won’t necessarily be as problematic as you previously experienced.
Theres a lot of potential to do some exciting things with PQ’s and they’ve actually been a feature of EQ2 since launch pretty much in various guises (griffon tower building, spire rebuilding, guild hall construction and what not, not just the DoV PQ’s), so its been sad to see them fall by the wayside in recent years. Time to give them some dev TLC methinks as they can be fun and something else different to do.
As for server merges, why merge the servers when it’s not really the answer? I am a bit bewildered by those that continually call for server merges. It’s like a bandaid that would probably cause more grief than anything else, such as the problems with character names / guild names / upsetting communities etc. It’s not the answer.
However, keeping the identity and communities of the servers as is now, but with a cross-server dungeon finder / grouping pooled from the entire population of all servers makes total sense to me and if done correctly permanently fixes the problem that some people have of finding groups. Well permanently until there is very little populous across all servers, and we are far far away from that anytime soon.
Sure its long-game, and is going to require time and resources to do, but makes a whole lot more sense to me than server merges.
However, I’m glad the token weekly updates have been shelved. Stick to more meaty quarterly (or whatever) updates, with hotfixes / mini-patches as necessary.
If the pq’s are like building druid rings, grifton towers that kind of thing such as spires then yes, but pq’s like in dov that had the slacker code that screwed healers, and was buggy at best, then no.
Public Quests were great at first. Then players started whining about “freeloaders” so the team started adding “anti-slacker” code. I’ve talked extensively to the team about how negatively this impacted PQs. Hopefully they won’t repeat it. There is such thing as listening to the wrong player feedback.
Yes the slacker code ruined pq’s it was a huge issue. I would do almost 800k dps be the highest on the parse and get zip, or be on a healer and get zip because you were healing. The first couple of months were great until they did that. If the new PQ have the the slacker code I will not be interested at all.
Theres no need to assume they are just creating more DoV style PQ’s using the final state of the DoV ones with their slacker code as a template though.
It’s been said a couple of times at least now that PQ’s are being overhauled / redesigned, not just adding some new ones in to the game, so I would very much expect the dev(s) looking at this will be very much aware of the pros / cons of PQ’s in their previous incarnations.
Adding the slacker code was obviously a mistake as it had negative unintended repercussions to others. That said I understand the need to try and find a way of overcoming the issue of those who park up by the side of these things afk, do sweet f.a. and get ph4t l3wt for doing so, as that’s an issue for many too. And then we saw new issues arise with the new 10th Anniversary PQ with Aspect of the Dragon.
However, I’m sure these, and any other issues that may arise are all things that can be overcome with a bit of clever thinking / coding.
As with many things in life it;s probably going to be a delicate balancing act of trying to get all elements right to please as many people as possible, as theres always someone somewhere who’ll be upset at something.
But personally I’d rather the dev teams at least had a go, and take a risk of them not pleasing everyone or the end result being imperfect in some regard, rather than just give up and not try at all, letting PQ’s rot by the wayside as they have been prior to the end of last year for the last few years.
I’m expecting and hoping for all kinds of PQ’s in times ahead – its a fantastic and extremely underused feature of EQ2 that just needs some TLC – that’s all! Be it the tradeskill style / gathering PQ’s from earlier years through to ring event style combat PQ’s in more recent years – if its overhauled, it will give the devs a fantastic new tool in their armo(u)ry to make use of, and I would hope expect to see all these styles make it into the game in times ahead, with some PQ’s being accomplished quickly like The Ring War was, with perhaps some more hardcore lengthier tradeskill / gathering style PQ’s as per the early years for good measure. They needn’t all be as frequent or regular as clockwork as The Ring War was, perhaps having some crop up more randomly, and in random locations could be quite good fun too, perhaps throwing off an occasional serverwide broadcast message as a hint.
Personally, I’m very excited and positive about what’s to come.
Wouldn’t surprise me if the Patchwork Raid Mob event was a pre-cursor/test or some of the new PQ functionality.
Anyone could join in (grouped or not) etc.
It was certainly a teaser. 🙂
I’ve gotten the top end ToV PQ drops from my Templar… both before and after the ‘slacker’ fixes … The base design is the core of the problem in that only the top % of players {don’t include me in that} were getting good drops due simply to DPS parses. Reward the highest with the most and they just keep getting further away from the norm. What’s in it for the others?
Before the anti-slacker code, anyone present who participated in even the slightest way had access to all the same rewards as those who fought the hardest.
I got a lot of good items from PQs when they came out and didnt even group. Im waiting with excitement for more new ones. The Ring War PQ was better than the other one but enjoyed both. Would also like to see some new Agnostics pop up soon as well.
I’m very excited for the dungeon finder. Hope it get’s the archetypes better then in the agnostic’s.
I love to run dungeons so let’s hope for more 🙂
The dungeon finder will NEVER work. EVER. Even if it is 100% glitch free (ex. 6 people with no tank or healer, putting the entire group in a finished instance) it will hardly, if ever, be used, mostly due to player perception and varying skill levels.
I did a PUG last night on my healer, for the first time in a LONG while, in The Hidden Caldera. Normally, with my guild, it takes 30 minutes, TOPS to complete. The PUG took 1 hour and 26 minutes.
The final boss we failed on, the first time, after over 17 minutes of fighting. The total zone-wide DPS was just over 5 million . . . which, in this expansion, should be done by one person, not the group as a whole. Heck, one of the ranger’s DPS (we had 3) was 385k zone-wide . . barely beating out my channeler in full heal spec and healing gear.
For the time and effort, the small amount of Ferrin and blue armor (instead of green), it was absolutely NOT worth the effort. And there is no WAY that group would have been able to do any of the green armor zones in Phantom Sea.
Unless the Dungeon Finder matches everyone by gear score (which may still be there unseen to us) and then matches that group to the zone they can handle . . . it’s just not going to work.
Oh, and even if it DOES do all that, there’s still the matter of skill level of the players in these, now, heavily scripted zones as well as MANY people without even a SINGLE adornment . . . not one. Heck, at LEAST put on the old white adorns . . .
I would like to see more GD/EW druid ring and spire events, but ones that we have to complete once a month to be able to continue using the portals.
This is an interesting idea, one I would support… a quest that has consequences for all involved and the world. I do wonder what happens with less populated server though?
I just wish they hurry up and do whatever it is they plan to do to fix the dying pop on my dead server. Server mergers are the answer despite the few who might lose their name.
@vapur That type of world event PQ to keep services like portals STRONGLY favors the high population servers. They’d have to balance that.
Xserver grouping sounds like the way to go and I’m hanging for it. Even more I’d like to see cross server zoning to go to other servers (yes like Landmark). Server identity is important to identity; a server is like a mega guild or your nationality. I just hope it isn’t implemented with so many restrictions that it misses the mark.
Dungeon Finder: I hate random PUGs primarily due to freeloaders and alt-o-haulics wanting to be carried through zones. Unless there is a fame system like in some of the better MOBIs I don’t see it reaching its potential.