Update July 14, 2004

Well, I never expected so many people to actually read my little corner of the big WWW.  I received over 6 times my usual monthly traffic within 5 days of putting my initial State of EQ message up. For those that are here for the first time, you can find the original message under the updated section. My email has had a steady stream of encouraging messages ever since.  Thank you for that support and keep it coming.

Well, SOE has had a month or so to make changes. What have they done? They have asked for feedback on what everyone believes are the issues with EQ.  Class representatives have been assigned to aid in this process.  They have even come up with Top 10 issues by class. They have made a few changes here and there, but nothing they’ve changed has really impressed me or indicate that SOE is doing anything other than continue to cater exclusively to the raiding players. The Top 10 list for bards included an issue that the poor Time-level people are having.  They want to bank the uber bard weapon from the elementals but want its effect to be clickable from inventory. How does something that ONLY IMPACTS RAIDERS get into the Top 10 list? The other items pretty much received the same “we’re working on it” or “we’ll look into it” response.  So, we have SOE trying to garner the goodwill of people by ‘gathering feedback’ and listing their progress, which is nothing more than “we’re looking at it” response we’ve always gotten.

Also, the people on the boards are showing anti-customer service abilities.  One thread someone asked about an instrument needing some tweaking. The developer that responded was very abrasive and flat out rude.  These folks that post on the board need to remember they are talking to paying customers and giving a prickish response will do nothing to improve the badly battered image that SOE has of its customer service to begin with. I did report the post per the guidelines, but I doubt it will be given a second glance.

For those that are following this page but not my main page, the VP change has me fuming a bit as well.  Here is a repost of that short write-up:

Well, the changes to VP have me in a fit now.  They took a zone that required hours of mind-numbing killing of green mobs for everyone and made that time wasted.  Wasted that is unless you are in a raiding guild which is the only player they really care about anyhow.  I was very much looking forward to the new VP as a way for SOE to fix a problem with GoD. GoD AA costs were based on a Plane of Fire experience gain rate. This means for those not in raiding guilds that we can’t even get the base rate that the AA are set to be gotten at. Revamp VP to an elemental-level area for xp AND raids and SOE gives the non-raider a place to at least get the base-line rate. Well, in order to get the new key you have to be in a raiding guild, so the regular guys are fucked again. A 2k AE that checks at -300 is practically unresistable for us non-raiders.  I have mostly the LDoN armor with an upgrade from that in some slots. I consider myself very well geared for a non-raider.  The third AE will most likely kill me fully raid buffed.  If, as a plate wearer, can barely take 3 AEs, there is no chance our casters can handle enough to do it. So, you’ve effectively given the raiders another play ground while those of us that could have at least used the old zone AND SPENT HOURS getting keyed for it now have less zones. I thought EQ was suppose to be an expanding world where content was added, not removed. This change continues to show SOE’s focus on their raiders with no consideration for the rest of us. I will continue my support for boycotting the new expansion unless SOE can SHOW, not talk about, it is committed to is non-raiding players.

The State of EQ

The state of EQ right now is pretty dam sad. There has been so little going on in the past two months that I haven’t even touched my website. The only things of note is I got squeezed in on a Vallon Zek raid with a friend who just left an alliance guild for a raiding guild. Aside from that, I’ve gone over 1,492 points in one of the LDoN dungeons and am within 3 normal adventures in 3 of the others. I’ve been toying around with some older content. I finished off my 9th ring with the help of a couple of friends, farmed the Caller Cycle for the invis cloak, and AE kited some for some mid-40’s and mid-50’s friends.

EQ right now is hurting. The top guild on Xegony (Inner Circle) has broken up.  They received 30 beta accounts to World of Warcraft.  The alliance my guild is in has all but fallen apart. I think we have 1 (maybe 2) clerics left, but they don’t play regularly. The alliance channel has gone from 40 people to low 20’s.  Afterlife and Fires of Heaven (probably 2 top guilds in all of EQ) have both closed their doors. The various message boards I keep up with are all reporting similar issues.

SOE’s answer to this has been to call a guild summit.  They have invited representatives from the top raiding guilds on each server plus various well known community members such as Woody from /GUComics to attend.  They pushed back the release of the latest announced expansion as well to ‘fix current bugs’, or so they say.  My impression is with the stuff they are just pushing out to the test server and the fact they haven’t even mentioned a public beta, is that they were not going to be able to meet their shipping deadline, so instead of getting bad PR by having to move the date, they simply announced they would delay it out of the kindness of their heart to address player concerns. Of course, by player concerns, this means the raiding guild people. 

The gap between the raiding-oriented folks and the casual-oriented folks is getting out of hand. I don’t even feel that casual is a good way to describe many of the casual folks out there.  I play 4-6 days a week for 2-5 hours a day (5-8 hours on weekend days). I put in 30-40 hours a week or so. I wouldn’t consider anything that I spend almost as much time doing as I do working something casual.  Perhaps, folks who won’t leave their current guilds for 100+ member guilds is a better description. Anyhow, the people in guilds that are more family-oriented instead of raid-oriented have been falling behind those raiders.  This gap has been widening. Before, this was a minor issue in the grand scheme of things.  Now, this issue is huge, and may or may not be fixable. Gates of Discord is a good example of this.  The raiders are loving to cram down the casual folks throats that they have smaller raids and single group content. What they fail to realize is that without being elemental+ geared, this single group and smaller raid content isn’t doable.  On TCH, one person mentioned all the good single-group gear that drops from Ferubi. My alliance goes there with 4 groups and we still wipe sometimes.  The sewers with mobs that hit for 1,100+ and 1 mis-pull means you get to start over is such a joy. So, yippee-freaking-yea, I can zone into a place I have zero chance of winning.  Yup, that makes me happy and content. The family guilds (even those that form alliances) simply can not regularly field 8+ groups. Yet, in order to get to the content where they can do things with 40-60 people (GoD) they have to go through the 70+ people raids to have a shot at winning.  In order for SOE to design stuff that challenges the raiders, they’ve over-challenged the family guilds. The casual folks do not want stuff just handed to them.  But giving us un-doable content is the same as not giving any content.

This gap between the raiders and the casual folks is also causing rifts within the EQ community. Boards that were once a pleasant board to read are now hostile bitch-fests. I’m almost to the points where I will be abandoning The Concert Hall all together. This board caters solely to the high-end raiders.  One bard in particular, Genado, to me is the biggest example of the intollerance on the boards.  Those that read any of the bard boards will recognize this name.  This would be the bard that found the level 32 mana song overpowering for a few of the raid-content fights and asked at a Fan Faire for it to be nerfed.  Two weeks later it was. Thank you Mr. High-end for taking away a tool some of us lowly non-raiders used since our casters don’t all have FT15. This was the first I had heard or seen this particular person.  Since then however, he has gone from a single moment of idiocity to a complete “raiders are the only ones that matter” prick. His opinion of casual players asking for a bone is that we all simply want stuff handed to us. Any post where someone wants something fix or points out a bug or gives anytype of feedback, he bitches about them whining.  On the Raiders vs Casual arguements, his opinion is that the game is for the raiders and the rest of us can kindly STFU and be grateful they let us play the same game as them.  In one thread, he points out that EQ2 will be better designed for casual folks so we can all go there.  Mr. High-end, the seperate but equal thing has been done in the past and didn’t work, thank you, next caller please.  While this specific example is someone on the extreme end, it highlights the issues and opinions of many of the high-end folks and the treatment that the casual folks come across when trying to express our concerns.

Genado isn’t the only “High-end raider are the highest priority” person on TCH, nor the only one across many boards, just the biggest, most vocal one. It highlights the widening gap. If SOE does not address this gap more sooner than later, it may cost them any customers in future products.  I am not sure if this gap can be fixed within the remaining life of EQ1. EQ1 is in one of its worst states ever.  The raiders are bored and not raiding.  Some guilds that farm the Plane of Time can’t even field enough people to farm Time anymore, let alone the latest and greatest that GoD has. The casual folks are tired of doing mid-Luclin and Velious content that they can do without needing 8+ groups.  The hamster-wheel that is LDoN also holds little long-term appeal to most, although, aside from a few PoP exp grinds, there is little else to do.  At least with the LDoN, the casual folks can eventually get a decent piece of gear.

So, what is the point to all this? Hopefully, people will read it.  There are many loud voices for the raiding players, but few to none for the rest of us. There are issues that the other side does not see. I am not saying the raiders don’t have issues that need to be addressed. SOE knows there are. They are flying many of them to California to talk about it. What I’m saying is that there is a segment of players who are just as passionate as the louder segment that have issues that are just as relevent and important.

So, we’ve had a summit to discuss the raiding issues of EQ.  This summit came just as Woody from /GUComics started a very vocal boycott of the next expansion. To the raiders, this may have addressed the issue. Hopefully some of their problems will get fixed. However, before I continue to support EQ and its team (Dev’s, mangers, SOE in general), I would like to see a true effort on their part to address the concerns of the other segment of their customer base.  This doesn’t mean you have to fly a ton of representatives from casual guilds to California. It means you need to consider the interests of all segments and ACT on them. Without some showing of action on the issues of the casual player I will not continue purchasing the expansions that are produced.

Jarroll’s List:

Only release working AND finished content: Please thoroughly test material before releasing it. You have turned down people for EQ2 beta and other games have the same issue. There isn’t a lack of people to do testing, use them, listen to them, implement the fixes. If SOE can release a complete, mostly working expansion, it would go a long way in restoring consumer confidence.

Balance between the raiders and casuals: How do you create content that works for people without Elemental & Time gear that is doable while still challenging those with the gear? The person that can create a working solution to this should be given a huge bag of money from SOE, since this could drastically improve the game.  The easy answer is instancing similar to LDoN that can populate the zone based on flags and/or equipment.   Instancing provides huge possibilities.  I was truly looking forward to the LDoN raids.  My alliance could plan and even squeeze out 40ish people with enough planning.  The alliance simply wasn’t high enough geared to handle the raids though.  Some sort of equipment/flag check could have helped.  This is probably a nightmare to even attempt to code.  While I have a very good working knowledge of computers, I make no attempt to say I even remotely understand programing (kuddos to those that can though). There are balancing issues within that as well.  Just because someone is flagged for PoTime, doesn’t mean they have geared up there. Personally, I would consider the person’s equipment level to be 1 level below their current flag (i.e. flagged for PoTime, probably means they are farily well equip’ed with Elemental level equipment). 

Player & Developer Team:  An open-table discussion between players and developers specifically for this topic should be done on a fairly significant scale. Chat rooms, email lists, web-boards, and even some tele-confrencing could all be used to cheaply accomplish this.  Create a semi-permanet team of players (not employees) to be a part of this group.  I know many people would be willing to take the time to be part of a permanent team to assist in the game we love without compensation (I’d be the first to volunteer).  This wouldn’t be a paid team, so the only costs would be the time of the developers on the team to interact with the non-developer members.  As things stand now, the players feel that they have little to no influence on development. Let the players be part of the process. This gives you the imput on the front-end, not after the fact. The sayings “A stitch in time saves nine” and “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of problems” are very appropriate.  Problems solved early are typically easier, cheaper, and less-detrimental if handled early. Put the players on your team so they can work for/with you instead of the current advisarial role we have now.

Jarroll Lonelysong,

Bard of Xegony

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