Lyriana, my EQ2 main, first hit the game's level cap (then 80) in 2009, with 127 out of 200 possible AA points. Two expansions since have increased the level cap once and the AA cap twice, with a third increase in a two year period slated for November's expansion. Right now, Lyriana has 264 out of the current cap of 300 AA - when she gains thirteen more, she will be able to access the expansion's final ability (a two-point cost, which requires 275 spent elsewhere). Raiding guilds that advertise on Crushbone generally include this 277+ point ability as a pre-requisite for would-be recruits.
As it now stands, the daily quests that I do routinely while waiting to see if I can find a group get me enough experience for one additional AA. I don't mind the system, since it rewards me for stuff that I'm doing anyway, and it's not keeping me out of content - I'll have the AA's well before I meet the gear requirements. I could see how someone who had a guild waiting on them might feel differently.
That aside, there is one significant aspect of the way in which the AA cap has risen - each time it has done so, there has been a free respec, and additional respecs are available for a price. Meanwhile, in Telara, Trion apparently plans to increase Rift's not yet launched Planar Attunement cap at least once, if not twice, to unlock the second and third tiers that are currently sealed on the UI. Trion's system controversially does not allow respecs even though the game's entire class system is balanced around players changing roles at a click of a button.
I'm not entirely opposed to the lack of respec, especially since no one really knows how the system will play out. However, it does beg a philosophical question - when those additional tiers open up, will there be a respec? If not, should players who have cherry-picked the best abilities out of the current trees save up their planar attunement points to buy future abilities, rather than picking up less desirable abilities now? Bear in mind that we have no indication whether attunement point costs will be higher on future trees - higher costs would slow power inflation due to the system, but could leave players regretting a spending spree on filler points today.
At the end of the day, it is kind of fun to get the occasional new ability, whether it's through an increased level cap or alternate advancements. It just seems that the consequences - power inflation on the high end and an ever steeper curve for newbies on the low end - bear some watching.
Showing posts with label eq2. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eq2. Show all posts
What I'm Working On: EQ2
EQ2 marked Labor Day with a double exp weekend, and I took advantage by finishing off all of the solo content I had yet to complete from the current expansion. As a result, my AA count shot up from 241 to 258, finally entering the new ground from the current expansion, with a mere two months to go until the next one.
After picking up the new AA abilities and trading in some more shards for Ry'Gorr shard gear (now including the gloves, bracers, hat, and boots, along with the T1 chest), Lyriana is sitting about midway through the heroic instance progression. Her stat sheet includes 118% Critical Mitigation (with a few empty adorn slots I could fill if I wanted to spend shards on adornments), 205% crit chance, 125% crit bonus, and 164% multi-attack. Instances in DOV are strictly gated by these types of numbers - especially the Crit Mit and Crit Chance - but I've got the gear to get my foot in the door of the KD instances.
Overall, EQ2 is generally the game I go with given the choices amongst all the MMO's in my stable, and that's usually the criteria I go by when deciding what games to pay for and play. Unfortunately, SOE is consistently testing my resolve on this front.
Unfortunate updates and decisions
The last Game Update brought in a messy revamp of every item in the game - Arkenor has been covering the ugly and unpredictable details. The mere fact that there were some issues with items that pre-date the current design might have been forgiveable if the current design was good. Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend the itemization plan. A Scout like Lyriana requires a specific amount of crit to auto-crit all mobs in a given zone, and a corresponding amount of crit mit to avoid being one-shot by AOE attacks. Once you're at that number - if and when they get the itemization progression in the order they plan, this will be a highly regimented progression from tier to tier - you're just after multi-attack and crit bonus to improve your DPS. It's neither creative nor interesting.
Meanwhile, the weekend featured SOE's latest Winback promotion. If only I had let my account lapse no later than August 2nd, I would have received three days of free game time, an exclusive mount, and $5 worth of Station Cash just for resubscribing. As someone who routinely comes and goes between MMO's, the message is really clear - when my EQ2 subscription runs out, I should not renew it until the next time SOE offers me a bribe to do so.
Between this promotion and another one that was carefully designed to exclude players who came back voluntarily for the expansion earlier this year, I have missed out on $20 worth of Station Cash that I would have received had I been willing to schedule my gaming time around SOE's marketing gimmicks. That's half the price of an expansion, which would have done wonders to soften the blow of having SOE ask me to open my wallet for a second paid expansion box in nine months come November. This goes doubly when the allegedly feature-focused expansion consists of a bunch of features I'm not that interested in bundled with an AA cap increase that will presumably be mandatory.
Outlook
Amidst all these adjustments, cross-server grouping is en route to EQ2, possibly as early as this month. This could have a major impact on my EQ2 play. As a Dirge - a class that provides crucial and arguably overpowered buffs to melee party members - I have routinely enjoyed quick group invites which have made it possible for me to spend time in Norrath's heroic dungeons. Depending on how the automated system plays out, it is very possible that this gravy train will be derailed shortly.
Beyond this milestone, and the expansion, lies an interesting thought experiment - how long can an otherwise enjoyable gameplay experience remain so in the face of what I see as major issues with the game's itemization, mechanics, business model, marketing, and general development direction? I suppose I'll keep y'all posted.
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| Having 10 points on the third tier of the DOV AA tree means that one of my default buffs now offers a 10% boost to the coveted Crit Chance stat. |
Overall, EQ2 is generally the game I go with given the choices amongst all the MMO's in my stable, and that's usually the criteria I go by when deciding what games to pay for and play. Unfortunately, SOE is consistently testing my resolve on this front.
Unfortunate updates and decisions
The last Game Update brought in a messy revamp of every item in the game - Arkenor has been covering the ugly and unpredictable details. The mere fact that there were some issues with items that pre-date the current design might have been forgiveable if the current design was good. Unfortunately, it's hard to recommend the itemization plan. A Scout like Lyriana requires a specific amount of crit to auto-crit all mobs in a given zone, and a corresponding amount of crit mit to avoid being one-shot by AOE attacks. Once you're at that number - if and when they get the itemization progression in the order they plan, this will be a highly regimented progression from tier to tier - you're just after multi-attack and crit bonus to improve your DPS. It's neither creative nor interesting.
Meanwhile, the weekend featured SOE's latest Winback promotion. If only I had let my account lapse no later than August 2nd, I would have received three days of free game time, an exclusive mount, and $5 worth of Station Cash just for resubscribing. As someone who routinely comes and goes between MMO's, the message is really clear - when my EQ2 subscription runs out, I should not renew it until the next time SOE offers me a bribe to do so.
Between this promotion and another one that was carefully designed to exclude players who came back voluntarily for the expansion earlier this year, I have missed out on $20 worth of Station Cash that I would have received had I been willing to schedule my gaming time around SOE's marketing gimmicks. That's half the price of an expansion, which would have done wonders to soften the blow of having SOE ask me to open my wallet for a second paid expansion box in nine months come November. This goes doubly when the allegedly feature-focused expansion consists of a bunch of features I'm not that interested in bundled with an AA cap increase that will presumably be mandatory.
Outlook
Amidst all these adjustments, cross-server grouping is en route to EQ2, possibly as early as this month. This could have a major impact on my EQ2 play. As a Dirge - a class that provides crucial and arguably overpowered buffs to melee party members - I have routinely enjoyed quick group invites which have made it possible for me to spend time in Norrath's heroic dungeons. Depending on how the automated system plays out, it is very possible that this gravy train will be derailed shortly.
Beyond this milestone, and the expansion, lies an interesting thought experiment - how long can an otherwise enjoyable gameplay experience remain so in the face of what I see as major issues with the game's itemization, mechanics, business model, marketing, and general development direction? I suppose I'll keep y'all posted.
EQ2 Dungeon Tokens Testing Need Versus Greed
Lyriana's slow and steady journey through the instances of Velious is continuing, and I'm learning a bit more about the endgame armor system than I knew when I had my first piece crafted. SOE has made some unusual choices when it comes to having items crafted from account bound group dungeon drops. The system seems to be working, but it also blurs the lines between the traditional forms of need and greed.
Verifying Need
As detailed in Feldon's guide to Velious armor, there are three tiers of class-specific armor that can be crafted using tokens from the current expansion's single group (six players) dungeons. All of these have in common the Primal Velium Shard, which will be familiar to players who are familiar with dungeon currencies in other games. Your typical dungeon run awards somewhere between 3-5 shards, which are account-bound (as is most dungeon loot in EQ2, so that players with multiple level 90's can be flexible in which character they bring), and your typical piece of loot from the first two tiers will set you back between 20-33 shards, while the third tier wants as many as 45.
(In tiers 1 and 2, finding a crafter to turn your shards into armor saves you 5-8 shards off of the vendor price, and also excuses you from any faction requirements on the vendor. Because you are going to need to farm up shards no matter what, and because the shards can also be used for higher tiers or "adornments" - EQ2's version of enchantments - most players head straight for the second tier; I've very seldom seen anyone advertise that they're crafting the tier one stuff.)
In tier two, also known as the Ry'Gorr armor because the NPC vendor is part of the Ry'Gorr orc faction, the player must supplement the shards with a polished gem. The rough gems, which are account-bound, drop in regular instances and are rolled as regular loot. However, as I learned when I went to get my first piece of armor, you can trade these items once a crafter has polished them - perhaps in part to protect players from being screwed by the random number generator (and the prospect that the gem will be a six-way roll if it does drop).
This means that we have a standard need before greed dungeon drop that sells for over a hundred plat on the broker. In principle, you could inspect the players who roll need to determine whether they already have the piece of armor that can be crafted with that gem (or better). Then again, is it legitimate to roll need because you can sell that gem for the plat you need to buy the gem for the piece you don't have yet, when you have no way of knowing whether the other rollers are doing the same?
The situation in the third tier gets even more complicated. Instead of gems, the tier three armor costs the standard velium shards plus ore that is obtained by disenchanting regular loot items that drop in those dungeons. In the tier one and two dungeons, I typically don't even roll greed on stuff my character doesn't intend to use, because someone else might at least have an alt that will use the account-bound gear. In the third tier, I would need to obtain some of those drops to get the ore for my own armor, and, again, there's no good way to tell whether someone is rolling need for the gear, for the ore, for the cash to exchange for other ore, or just straight up for the cash.
Good idea?
On the one hand, I see where SOE is coming from with this system. For the slots where I can have class-specific armor crafted, it's very rare that I'm going to want a generic dungeon drop, and that does reduce the system to a pure token grind. That said, I don't know that I'm entirely comfortable with what this model does to the incentives in loot rolling, especially with cross-server grouping coming to the game possibly later this month.
Overall, the problem is a shortcoming of the genre-wide need before greed mechanic, rather than anything specific about EQ2's armor system. I'm just not sure it's a good idea to have a system that tests community agreement of what constitutes need versus greed.
Verifying Need
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| A tier three armor recipe |
(In tiers 1 and 2, finding a crafter to turn your shards into armor saves you 5-8 shards off of the vendor price, and also excuses you from any faction requirements on the vendor. Because you are going to need to farm up shards no matter what, and because the shards can also be used for higher tiers or "adornments" - EQ2's version of enchantments - most players head straight for the second tier; I've very seldom seen anyone advertise that they're crafting the tier one stuff.)
In tier two, also known as the Ry'Gorr armor because the NPC vendor is part of the Ry'Gorr orc faction, the player must supplement the shards with a polished gem. The rough gems, which are account-bound, drop in regular instances and are rolled as regular loot. However, as I learned when I went to get my first piece of armor, you can trade these items once a crafter has polished them - perhaps in part to protect players from being screwed by the random number generator (and the prospect that the gem will be a six-way roll if it does drop).
This means that we have a standard need before greed dungeon drop that sells for over a hundred plat on the broker. In principle, you could inspect the players who roll need to determine whether they already have the piece of armor that can be crafted with that gem (or better). Then again, is it legitimate to roll need because you can sell that gem for the plat you need to buy the gem for the piece you don't have yet, when you have no way of knowing whether the other rollers are doing the same?
The situation in the third tier gets even more complicated. Instead of gems, the tier three armor costs the standard velium shards plus ore that is obtained by disenchanting regular loot items that drop in those dungeons. In the tier one and two dungeons, I typically don't even roll greed on stuff my character doesn't intend to use, because someone else might at least have an alt that will use the account-bound gear. In the third tier, I would need to obtain some of those drops to get the ore for my own armor, and, again, there's no good way to tell whether someone is rolling need for the gear, for the ore, for the cash to exchange for other ore, or just straight up for the cash.
Good idea?
On the one hand, I see where SOE is coming from with this system. For the slots where I can have class-specific armor crafted, it's very rare that I'm going to want a generic dungeon drop, and that does reduce the system to a pure token grind. That said, I don't know that I'm entirely comfortable with what this model does to the incentives in loot rolling, especially with cross-server grouping coming to the game possibly later this month.
Overall, the problem is a shortcoming of the genre-wide need before greed mechanic, rather than anything specific about EQ2's armor system. I'm just not sure it's a good idea to have a system that tests community agreement of what constitutes need versus greed.
When Stealth Doesn't Pay
Like many games, EQ2 has a dungeon armor currency. Unlike some of those games, solo players can do a daily quest to obtain a shard per day - a reasonably generous offer given that prices on tier 2 dungeon armor have been slashed to a mere 20 shards per (if you have the requisite gem to have it crafted).
In an attempt to try and provide some variety in the quest, there are actually three separate variants, all of which involve sneaking into a keep full of giants and generally messing with them. The Rambo approach, in which you kill everything, gets you the promised shard, but there's a bonus (50 gold) for not killing the generic guards and an additional bonus (a gem worth 500 rep to the current expansion faction of your choice) for completing the quest without aggroing any of the generic guards.
It's a good concept, but the execution is a bit flawed. There are several ways to lure guards into other rooms, but certain random combinations of objectives can force you to summon guards into a room where you're going to need to sneak later on. More to the point, the quest goes much more quickly if you disregard the optional objective not to be seen, because you can aggro mobs and run until they leash (preserving your 50 g bonus). The difference is so great - especially if you get an unfortunate combination of objectives - that it's rarely worth taking the extra time. If you need the rep, you can almost always get it faster by questing for that faction.
Guess this is the catch when you try and make things more interesting for players?
It's a good concept, but the execution is a bit flawed. There are several ways to lure guards into other rooms, but certain random combinations of objectives can force you to summon guards into a room where you're going to need to sneak later on. More to the point, the quest goes much more quickly if you disregard the optional objective not to be seen, because you can aggro mobs and run until they leash (preserving your 50 g bonus). The difference is so great - especially if you get an unfortunate combination of objectives - that it's rarely worth taking the extra time. If you need the rep, you can almost always get it faster by questing for that faction.
Guess this is the catch when you try and make things more interesting for players?
Rift Alternate Advancement For Advancement's Sake?
Part of Scott Hartsman's Rift State of the Game is a plan to introduce alternate advancement at the game's level cap. While I am a non-raider who does enjoy continued progression - the theoretical target audience for this system - I am not convinced that this is a good idea.
I'm curious what Scott thinks of the AA system over in his old game, EQ2, where players arrive at level 90 with less than half of the current AA cap and can expect a lengthy grind to obtain class-defining abilities in their AA trees. Unlike gear, there is no short-cut involving plat or guildmates willing to hand you loot - your AA will remain substandard until you've played "enough" to fix the problem. This is fine if you're happy with what you're doing while you play and less fine if having a minimum number of AA is a balance requirement for your friends to be allowed to bring you on raids.
Meanwhile, the balance implications are significant. In the short term, this is yet another form of vertical progression that will make the repeatable content that is intended to keep players in the game easier and easier with each passing day. In the long term, it's not just group players who face content balanced around the assumption that players have AA - either all future content will assume some baseline level of AA or all future content will be easier than intended for current players. The former is a problem for new players (who would have to stop and grind AA before continuing to grind levels so they can get to the cap and grind more AA). The latter is a problem for current players (who will find each new expansion's difficulty ruined by their efforts in the previous one).
I understand the appeal of the alternate advancement - it's a way to give players permanent progression in chunks that are much smaller than additional levels (which would have an especially big effect on an open ended class system like Rift's). It is possible that the system could even be used for something unique and interesting, though it's equally possible that it will be reduced to boring but mandatory stat bonuses. In either case it is unlikely that the game will break on the day the system comes out. In the long run, though, Trion might end up regretting the decision to add more vertical progression solely for the sake of progression.
I'm curious what Scott thinks of the AA system over in his old game, EQ2, where players arrive at level 90 with less than half of the current AA cap and can expect a lengthy grind to obtain class-defining abilities in their AA trees. Unlike gear, there is no short-cut involving plat or guildmates willing to hand you loot - your AA will remain substandard until you've played "enough" to fix the problem. This is fine if you're happy with what you're doing while you play and less fine if having a minimum number of AA is a balance requirement for your friends to be allowed to bring you on raids.
Meanwhile, the balance implications are significant. In the short term, this is yet another form of vertical progression that will make the repeatable content that is intended to keep players in the game easier and easier with each passing day. In the long term, it's not just group players who face content balanced around the assumption that players have AA - either all future content will assume some baseline level of AA or all future content will be easier than intended for current players. The former is a problem for new players (who would have to stop and grind AA before continuing to grind levels so they can get to the cap and grind more AA). The latter is a problem for current players (who will find each new expansion's difficulty ruined by their efforts in the previous one).
I understand the appeal of the alternate advancement - it's a way to give players permanent progression in chunks that are much smaller than additional levels (which would have an especially big effect on an open ended class system like Rift's). It is possible that the system could even be used for something unique and interesting, though it's equally possible that it will be reduced to boring but mandatory stat bonuses. In either case it is unlikely that the game will break on the day the system comes out. In the long run, though, Trion might end up regretting the decision to add more vertical progression solely for the sake of progression.
Incorrect EQ2 Expansion Predictions Ironically Were Vaguely Correct
In my post of incorrect summer 2011 convention predictions, I actually got a few points right about EQ2's forthcoming expansion. The game will indeed be getting Beastlords, and there was no increase to the level cap, but the expansion will arrive in November 2011; way earlier than my May 2012 prediction. I correctly assumed that SOE could not possibly finish the promised Velious content updates and also create as much additional content as they have shipped in previous expansions anytime sooner than May. It just never occurred to me that they would go ahead and release a paid expansion anyway, without additional content and a mere nine months after the last time they hit players up for $40.
Producer David Georgeson has a roadmap for the game which actually includes a fair amount of content and features between the February 2011 launch of DOV and the presumptive launch of the expansion after Age of Discovery in November 2012. Georgeson says that he would like to transition the game to quarterly updates with new features and content arriving in smaller chunks as it is ready, rather than saving it up to bundle together in a large box. The material he is proposing is well suited to this model, but his publisher does not appear willing to take the chance that players will decline to pay for stuff they don't want.
I might be okay with the business model decision, except that it creates pressure to pick the flashy sports car that does not have enough seats for your family over the less exciting car that actually gets you where you need to go. Reaction to the new class, which Wilhelm nailed years ago apparently, seems positive, but consider the opportunity cost. Developing an ambitious pet system, with taming, talents, loyalty, and advancement is going to take a large amount of time, as will attempting to find a niche for the new class amongst EQ2's crowded field of 24 existing classes. Meanwhile, the benefits will be confined to a new class that no one currently plays, at the expense of the twenty four classes that represent 100% of existing characters.
I don't think this makes much sense as a development strategy for a seven year old game, but SOE apparantly thinks it's a good strategy for selling expansion boxes. And, if that doesn't work, there's always the increased AA cap to force players to pay for the annual expansion, even if the new AA's are just passive increases to DPS that further inflate the time it takes for new players to prepare for endgame. As someone with no interest in re-rolling as a Beastlord and limited interest in NPC Mercenaries who will probably lack the AI needed to help with the heavily scripted instances of the last three expansions, I'm not feeling especially excited about paying for the features in this "feature" expansion.
Producer David Georgeson has a roadmap for the game which actually includes a fair amount of content and features between the February 2011 launch of DOV and the presumptive launch of the expansion after Age of Discovery in November 2012. Georgeson says that he would like to transition the game to quarterly updates with new features and content arriving in smaller chunks as it is ready, rather than saving it up to bundle together in a large box. The material he is proposing is well suited to this model, but his publisher does not appear willing to take the chance that players will decline to pay for stuff they don't want.
I might be okay with the business model decision, except that it creates pressure to pick the flashy sports car that does not have enough seats for your family over the less exciting car that actually gets you where you need to go. Reaction to the new class, which Wilhelm nailed years ago apparently, seems positive, but consider the opportunity cost. Developing an ambitious pet system, with taming, talents, loyalty, and advancement is going to take a large amount of time, as will attempting to find a niche for the new class amongst EQ2's crowded field of 24 existing classes. Meanwhile, the benefits will be confined to a new class that no one currently plays, at the expense of the twenty four classes that represent 100% of existing characters.
I don't think this makes much sense as a development strategy for a seven year old game, but SOE apparantly thinks it's a good strategy for selling expansion boxes. And, if that doesn't work, there's always the increased AA cap to force players to pay for the annual expansion, even if the new AA's are just passive increases to DPS that further inflate the time it takes for new players to prepare for endgame. As someone with no interest in re-rolling as a Beastlord and limited interest in NPC Mercenaries who will probably lack the AI needed to help with the heavily scripted instances of the last three expansions, I'm not feeling especially excited about paying for the features in this "feature" expansion.
Canada Day Resolutions For 2011
It's July 1st, which means it is once again time to hono(u)r our neighbors to the north with PVD's annual Canada Day Resolutions. How have my New Years' Resolutions been going so far? What's on deck for the rest of the year?
WoW Resolutions
Revised Resolutions are:
DDO/LOTRO Resolutions
EQ2 Live/Extended
Revised Resolutions:
At the start of the year, I had no plans to return to ROM. Probably the biggest thing I did to improve my experience was to stop worrying about keeping my secondary class up to date. Focusing on the druid side, which is the side that I really enjoy anyway, literally halves the grind, and the result is a level that I can enjoy as a pleasant non-subscription diversion.
Revised Resolutions:
The original plan here was to sightsee in DCUO and pick up some misc single player games. Unfortunately, the more I've heard about DCUO - including today's half-hearted introduction of a cash shop - the less impressed I am. I may eventually pick this up on the PC if the price gets low enough, now that the station pass upgrade costs only $5 more for EQ2 subscribers. On the single player side, I've beaten Portal 2 and Infamous, and now I'm working on Assassin's Creed 2.
Rift Resolutions
I had planned to take a pass on the launch rush, but relatively reasonable pricing ultimately tipped me in favor of signing up at launch. I let my sub lapse at the 30 day mark, I haven't been back, and I can't really articulate a rational reason why; I just didn't feel like sticking with the game over the other options. Though the launch went exceptionally well by all MMO standards, there were some rough edges that got balanced out, for better or worse, over the last few months. I figure that the game that I will eventually return to will be better than the one I declined to pay for back in April, so there's no hurry, especially with how quickly Trion releases new patches.
Revised Resolution:
At the top of the year, I said that I'd consider Vanguard and STO if they went free to play. The buzz on Vanguard has since gotten interesting enough that I will likely take it for a free trial spin, even though no business model change is in sight. I remain not so interested in SWTOR or GW2 because I didn't care so much for their predecessors, and I don't feel like there have been enough hard details about TERA for me to say much about the game.
The other game I'm vaguely curious about is Allods, which a lot of people seemed to enjoy until they discovered that the publisher intended to make money on the product, and which is supposedly adding its own take on dual/multi-classing. That said, time is really the limiting factor in trying any MMO's I'm not currently playing, and I'm just not sure that Allods or anything else is going to fit in the calendar.
The Blog
As I predicted, I'm limping along at around three posts per week due to limited gaming/blogging time. Some weeks, I've had so little time that I realize it's been several days since I posted anything. Others, I've got something to talk about every day. It's not ideal, but it's what I've got for now.
As always, thanks to my readers for sticking around, and we'll see how these resolutions fare in six months.
WoW Resolutions
- Get both my Gnome mage (currently 84) and my Tauren warrior (82) up to the new level cap of 85.
My mage came up just short of hitting the milestone this year for reasons I've discussed. - Complete every normal and heroic 5-man at least once on both high level characters.
- Explore some of the revamped old world on new alts.
Currently, I'm a bit over halfway through a tour of the newbie (1-12) zones with a small army of new alts. My favorite lowbie specs right now are Subtlety Rogue, Survival Hunter, Destruction Warlock, and Discipline Priest. It's possibly telling that none of those are traditional leveling specs, which tend to make life too easy.
Revised Resolutions are:
- Finish the heroics (including new ones) on the mage.
- Check out the new daily campaign in 4.2.
DDO/LOTRO Resolutions
- Actually get a character into the mid-high levels. [DDO]
- Complete the Vol 3 Book 2 content in Enedwaith (added during the F2P switch)[LOTRO]
- Await Isengard [LOTRO]
EQ2 Live/Extended
- Write fewer news posts about the EQ2 business model.
- Either find a Velious bargain or skip the expansion entirely
Revised Resolutions:
- Wrap up the Velious solo timelines, including any new content as it arrives.
- Complete each heroic dungeon at least once (I've currently finished the first six, leaving the three KD zones and the new ones in Drunder), and try to finish up the major dungeon questlines.
At the start of the year, I had no plans to return to ROM. Probably the biggest thing I did to improve my experience was to stop worrying about keeping my secondary class up to date. Focusing on the druid side, which is the side that I really enjoy anyway, literally halves the grind, and the result is a level that I can enjoy as a pleasant non-subscription diversion.
Revised Resolutions:
- Advance towards the level cap on the druid (or as close as I can get before the grind and/or the need for gear kills it)
- Pick my third class (probably either Warden or Warrior, leaning Warden if they improve it in upcoming patches) and take some of the additional options for a spin.
The original plan here was to sightsee in DCUO and pick up some misc single player games. Unfortunately, the more I've heard about DCUO - including today's half-hearted introduction of a cash shop - the less impressed I am. I may eventually pick this up on the PC if the price gets low enough, now that the station pass upgrade costs only $5 more for EQ2 subscribers. On the single player side, I've beaten Portal 2 and Infamous, and now I'm working on Assassin's Creed 2.
Rift Resolutions
I had planned to take a pass on the launch rush, but relatively reasonable pricing ultimately tipped me in favor of signing up at launch. I let my sub lapse at the 30 day mark, I haven't been back, and I can't really articulate a rational reason why; I just didn't feel like sticking with the game over the other options. Though the launch went exceptionally well by all MMO standards, there were some rough edges that got balanced out, for better or worse, over the last few months. I figure that the game that I will eventually return to will be better than the one I declined to pay for back in April, so there's no hurry, especially with how quickly Trion releases new patches.
Revised Resolution:
- Get to level 50 on my Cleric, PUG some dungeons to see how the experience compares with WoW and EQ2.
At the top of the year, I said that I'd consider Vanguard and STO if they went free to play. The buzz on Vanguard has since gotten interesting enough that I will likely take it for a free trial spin, even though no business model change is in sight. I remain not so interested in SWTOR or GW2 because I didn't care so much for their predecessors, and I don't feel like there have been enough hard details about TERA for me to say much about the game.
The other game I'm vaguely curious about is Allods, which a lot of people seemed to enjoy until they discovered that the publisher intended to make money on the product, and which is supposedly adding its own take on dual/multi-classing. That said, time is really the limiting factor in trying any MMO's I'm not currently playing, and I'm just not sure that Allods or anything else is going to fit in the calendar.
The Blog
As I predicted, I'm limping along at around three posts per week due to limited gaming/blogging time. Some weeks, I've had so little time that I realize it's been several days since I posted anything. Others, I've got something to talk about every day. It's not ideal, but it's what I've got for now.
As always, thanks to my readers for sticking around, and we'll see how these resolutions fare in six months.
Incorrect Convention Predictions for Summer/Fall 2011
My track record for incorrect Blizzcon predictions is so epically bad - last year all my calls were proven wrong before the show even started - that I've decided to get a head start and expand my coverage to be sure that I can be totally wrong about even more 'con's. Without further ado...
Inaccurate Predictions for SOE Fan Faire (to be disproved by 7-9 July)
The new EQ2 class will be the fabled Beast Lord, and the new expansion will have something to do with the destroyed moon of Luclin. The new expansion will come out sometime later than previously (perhaps May 2012) and will NOT increase the game's level cap. Given that EQ Next was no more than concept art last year, it won't be playable this year.
There really isn't another choice of class that I've ever heard anyone suggest serious interest in. Of course, I didn't hear much call for a premium vampire race either, but finding a home for a new class in a game that already has more classes than it knows what to do with is a bit more work than a mostly cosmetic new race. It really wouldn't make sense to spend the time on something that no one would care about, the melee pet class is the only option I can think of that isn't covered by the game's two dozen existing classes, and the Beast Lord was tied to the lore of Luclin in the original EQ.
My guess on Luclin arises partially from similar reasoning - this game isn't getting any younger, so it doesn't make sense to save its most recognizable expansion ideas for some future rainy day. There is the minor issue that Luclin doesn't exist anymore, but my guess is that this expansion will be very light on new content. Smokejumper came out and said that he'd like expansions to be more about new features than new content, and I would guess that the additional content that is being added in the content patches of Velious is coming out of the dev time that would have been available for the next expansion. In that context, a Cataclysm-like plot in which chunks of the old moon fall on underutilized zones may fit Smokejumper's plan.
Finally, the level cap. I have not heard a single complaint that DOV did not increase the level cap this year, or a single desire for it to be increased next year. Quite the contrary, the only thing we absolutely know is coming next year is the Qeynos revamp (following this year's Freeport revamp), and there was the whole kerflaffle about giving away max level characters, which only gets worse as the game accumulates more than its current 90 levels. Meanwhile, last year's TSF expansion was a mess in large part because they raised the level cap far more than the limited new adventuring content could support, and nothing suggests a different scenario this year. I guess they could go for 1-3 levels as Ferrel has suggested from time to time, but I don't see a real reason why there need to be any this year, and thus I'm predicting zero.
Inaccurate Predictions For Pax Prime (to be disproved 26-28 August)
I don't even know who is exhibiting this year. I'm guessing that Trion and Turbine are in, since they were in last year, and that Blizzard and SOE are out, because they have their own events.
The Turbine booth will assuredly be busy hyping the new LOTRO expansion, but I don't expect major news to drop a mere month out from the expansion launch. The real news here will.be the mystery non-druid class to be added to DDO. My guess here is a modified version of the pen and paper Mystic Theurge, which can cast both arcane and divine spells at the cost of reduced progression in both schools. I predict that the DDO version will be a stand-alone class (i.e. does not stack with other classes) with a single set of spell slots for both schools (since DDO uses a more MMO-like SP system instead of DND spell slots). Someone will find some creative use for it, and it will be easy for Turbine to make because it doesn't require large amounts of new mechanics; it's basically a Sorcerer with slower spell acquisition and a wider spell list.
The Trion side of things is harder to predict - to my knowledge, they've said next to nothing about patch 1.4, other than the assumption that it will contain the guild banks that were not ready for 1.3. At their current pace, patch 1.4 will be in final testing or live and they'll be hinting at the contents of 1.5. Six months post-launch is too soon to be talking paid expansions, so it would surprise me if anything of the sort came up.
Incorrect Blizzcon Predictions (to be disproved 21-22 October)
Having been told last year that Diablo III will not launch in 2011 and Titan, the Mystery Fourth Project, will not be announced until 2012, takes much of the guesswork out of this year. DIII will take center stage, accompanied by the SCII expansion (which finally got some face time this year).
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Blizzard will opt NOT to announce the next World of Warcraft expansion at this event. This would break past precedent - all three past WoW expansions were announced at Blizzcon, and you would ordinarily expect the new expansion to roll out at this con - 10 months post-Cataclysm - to start building hype for its launch at the 18-24 month post-Cataclysm launch. The problem is timing.
Blizzard planned 2-3 patches for Cataclysm before they ended up breaking 4.1 in half and spending seven months to get both parts out the door. At their customary 6-month patch cycle, we'd expect to see the patch that was previously the second patch of the Cataclysm era hitting the test servers around this time, with the third patch and the final battle with Deathwing presumably at least six months beyond that (i.e. June 2012). If that's the timetable, October seems a bit soon to be looking beyond the Deathwing era. Maybe they can hold Blizzcon 2012 earlier, or announce the WoW expansion at some other event in early 2012?
Whenever they do get around to announcing the expansion, I predict that Nozdormu and the Infinite Dragonflight will be the stars of the show. I do not expect any significant changes to the now out-of-date lore of Outland and Northrend, but we could see a slight tie-in where players heading to those unchanged continents are specifically told that they're being sent into the past to prevent the Infinite Flight from changing (relatively recent) history. I'm also going to predict neither a new class nor new races. Blizzard has said that they like to alternate because of art demands of a new race, but I just don't see a niche for a new class in a game that is already struggling to deal with the 30 subclasses of its 10 classes. I predict that there will be five new levels - unlike EQ2, I think there is a demand for more dings, but I don't think they want the talent point inflation that comes with 10 levels.
And that's what I've got for the year's three big cons. Have fun pointing and laughing over the next four months. :)
Inaccurate Predictions for SOE Fan Faire (to be disproved by 7-9 July)
The new EQ2 class will be the fabled Beast Lord, and the new expansion will have something to do with the destroyed moon of Luclin. The new expansion will come out sometime later than previously (perhaps May 2012) and will NOT increase the game's level cap. Given that EQ Next was no more than concept art last year, it won't be playable this year.
There really isn't another choice of class that I've ever heard anyone suggest serious interest in. Of course, I didn't hear much call for a premium vampire race either, but finding a home for a new class in a game that already has more classes than it knows what to do with is a bit more work than a mostly cosmetic new race. It really wouldn't make sense to spend the time on something that no one would care about, the melee pet class is the only option I can think of that isn't covered by the game's two dozen existing classes, and the Beast Lord was tied to the lore of Luclin in the original EQ.
My guess on Luclin arises partially from similar reasoning - this game isn't getting any younger, so it doesn't make sense to save its most recognizable expansion ideas for some future rainy day. There is the minor issue that Luclin doesn't exist anymore, but my guess is that this expansion will be very light on new content. Smokejumper came out and said that he'd like expansions to be more about new features than new content, and I would guess that the additional content that is being added in the content patches of Velious is coming out of the dev time that would have been available for the next expansion. In that context, a Cataclysm-like plot in which chunks of the old moon fall on underutilized zones may fit Smokejumper's plan.
Finally, the level cap. I have not heard a single complaint that DOV did not increase the level cap this year, or a single desire for it to be increased next year. Quite the contrary, the only thing we absolutely know is coming next year is the Qeynos revamp (following this year's Freeport revamp), and there was the whole kerflaffle about giving away max level characters, which only gets worse as the game accumulates more than its current 90 levels. Meanwhile, last year's TSF expansion was a mess in large part because they raised the level cap far more than the limited new adventuring content could support, and nothing suggests a different scenario this year. I guess they could go for 1-3 levels as Ferrel has suggested from time to time, but I don't see a real reason why there need to be any this year, and thus I'm predicting zero.
Inaccurate Predictions For Pax Prime (to be disproved 26-28 August)
I don't even know who is exhibiting this year. I'm guessing that Trion and Turbine are in, since they were in last year, and that Blizzard and SOE are out, because they have their own events.
The Turbine booth will assuredly be busy hyping the new LOTRO expansion, but I don't expect major news to drop a mere month out from the expansion launch. The real news here will.be the mystery non-druid class to be added to DDO. My guess here is a modified version of the pen and paper Mystic Theurge, which can cast both arcane and divine spells at the cost of reduced progression in both schools. I predict that the DDO version will be a stand-alone class (i.e. does not stack with other classes) with a single set of spell slots for both schools (since DDO uses a more MMO-like SP system instead of DND spell slots). Someone will find some creative use for it, and it will be easy for Turbine to make because it doesn't require large amounts of new mechanics; it's basically a Sorcerer with slower spell acquisition and a wider spell list.
The Trion side of things is harder to predict - to my knowledge, they've said next to nothing about patch 1.4, other than the assumption that it will contain the guild banks that were not ready for 1.3. At their current pace, patch 1.4 will be in final testing or live and they'll be hinting at the contents of 1.5. Six months post-launch is too soon to be talking paid expansions, so it would surprise me if anything of the sort came up.
Incorrect Blizzcon Predictions (to be disproved 21-22 October)
Having been told last year that Diablo III will not launch in 2011 and Titan, the Mystery Fourth Project, will not be announced until 2012, takes much of the guesswork out of this year. DIII will take center stage, accompanied by the SCII expansion (which finally got some face time this year).
I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that Blizzard will opt NOT to announce the next World of Warcraft expansion at this event. This would break past precedent - all three past WoW expansions were announced at Blizzcon, and you would ordinarily expect the new expansion to roll out at this con - 10 months post-Cataclysm - to start building hype for its launch at the 18-24 month post-Cataclysm launch. The problem is timing.
Blizzard planned 2-3 patches for Cataclysm before they ended up breaking 4.1 in half and spending seven months to get both parts out the door. At their customary 6-month patch cycle, we'd expect to see the patch that was previously the second patch of the Cataclysm era hitting the test servers around this time, with the third patch and the final battle with Deathwing presumably at least six months beyond that (i.e. June 2012). If that's the timetable, October seems a bit soon to be looking beyond the Deathwing era. Maybe they can hold Blizzcon 2012 earlier, or announce the WoW expansion at some other event in early 2012?
Whenever they do get around to announcing the expansion, I predict that Nozdormu and the Infinite Dragonflight will be the stars of the show. I do not expect any significant changes to the now out-of-date lore of Outland and Northrend, but we could see a slight tie-in where players heading to those unchanged continents are specifically told that they're being sent into the past to prevent the Infinite Flight from changing (relatively recent) history. I'm also going to predict neither a new class nor new races. Blizzard has said that they like to alternate because of art demands of a new race, but I just don't see a niche for a new class in a game that is already struggling to deal with the 30 subclasses of its 10 classes. I predict that there will be five new levels - unlike EQ2, I think there is a demand for more dings, but I don't think they want the talent point inflation that comes with 10 levels.
And that's what I've got for the year's three big cons. Have fun pointing and laughing over the next four months. :)
Ineffectual Cash Store Bitternesss
EQ2's Associate Producer, Emily "Domino" Taylor, is puzzled by player reaction to item shops - why, she asks, are players simultaneously angry that the shop exists and dismissive of its offerings? The answer, I would suggest, can be found in her own long-running "what do players want?" series; players occasionally ask for things that may be both nonsensical and not what they actually wanted. The complaints about prices of cosmetic items are more of a pre-emptive sour grapes defense against an indirect price hike that the players are not willing to pay.
The 68-dollar gorilla in the room this week has been Eve's new cosmetic monocle, which consumes items worth several months' worth of game time in exchange for a cosmetic item for one character. The clever thing about this approach is that the price was never designed to target the player who actually opens up their wallet and pulls out $68 because they want a monocle. Rather, the intent appears to be to encourage players with more in-game ISK currency than they know what to do with to destroy in-game-timecards, rather than allow them to get cheap enough on the in-game market that the average player can avoid paying the monthly subscription.
Fair but unbalanced?
The in-game cash shop draws the level of bitterness that Domino and others observe because it is simultaneously egalitarian and undemocratic. Until CCP sticks even more 0's onto that price tag, the cash store approach means that anyone who wants to pay can, and, at least in principle, can mean that those who are unwilling or unable can still play the base game for the old price. In principle, the extra revenue could be the difference between survival or closing for your game of choice, which would seem to be a good deal for everyone.
At the same time, the process is inherently undemocratic in that there is no real way for those who are opposed to "vote against" the cash shop. Unless you are willing to cancel your subscription altogether, your vote is +/- zero, and the guy who is willing to pay for the monocle's vote is +68, and the short term net total appears to be positive. Meanwhile, the financial incentives will almost certainly drive future development in the way that the guy with the monocle wants.
In the long term, I think it is possible for cash store creep to do long-term harm to a game's reputation; for example, I think the uproar over EQ2's new class was rooted in SOE's decision in December to add the game's first new race in three years to the game's cash store, rather than including it in the $40 expansion box. Unfortunately, this impact is not going to be apparent immediately in the short run, and the result runs the risk of destroying the village not to save it, but as an example to other village owners.
Companies want to appear responsive to customer feedback, which is why protests sometimes work as Spinks notes (with the caveat that a PR event does not equal changing the policy), but there's very little even the large majority of customers can do if the company's minds are made up. In this case, ineffectual cash store bitterness sometimes feels like all unhappy customers have left.
The 68-dollar gorilla in the room this week has been Eve's new cosmetic monocle, which consumes items worth several months' worth of game time in exchange for a cosmetic item for one character. The clever thing about this approach is that the price was never designed to target the player who actually opens up their wallet and pulls out $68 because they want a monocle. Rather, the intent appears to be to encourage players with more in-game ISK currency than they know what to do with to destroy in-game-timecards, rather than allow them to get cheap enough on the in-game market that the average player can avoid paying the monthly subscription.
Fair but unbalanced?
The in-game cash shop draws the level of bitterness that Domino and others observe because it is simultaneously egalitarian and undemocratic. Until CCP sticks even more 0's onto that price tag, the cash store approach means that anyone who wants to pay can, and, at least in principle, can mean that those who are unwilling or unable can still play the base game for the old price. In principle, the extra revenue could be the difference between survival or closing for your game of choice, which would seem to be a good deal for everyone.
At the same time, the process is inherently undemocratic in that there is no real way for those who are opposed to "vote against" the cash shop. Unless you are willing to cancel your subscription altogether, your vote is +/- zero, and the guy who is willing to pay for the monocle's vote is +68, and the short term net total appears to be positive. Meanwhile, the financial incentives will almost certainly drive future development in the way that the guy with the monocle wants.
In the long term, I think it is possible for cash store creep to do long-term harm to a game's reputation; for example, I think the uproar over EQ2's new class was rooted in SOE's decision in December to add the game's first new race in three years to the game's cash store, rather than including it in the $40 expansion box. Unfortunately, this impact is not going to be apparent immediately in the short run, and the result runs the risk of destroying the village not to save it, but as an example to other village owners.
Companies want to appear responsive to customer feedback, which is why protests sometimes work as Spinks notes (with the caveat that a PR event does not equal changing the policy), but there's very little even the large majority of customers can do if the company's minds are made up. In this case, ineffectual cash store bitterness sometimes feels like all unhappy customers have left.
Trial Only Servers
Rift's previously announced free server transfers have gone live with some remaining kinks - for instance, the crowded Faeblight server was initially on the destination list, only to be removed by the time you're reading this. That aside, there's an interesting detail that may have been previously announced, but was news to me - the game will now have "trial account only shards" where subscribers will not be allowed to create characters, and will be prompted suggesting that they remove any characters they made while they were trial accounts via the new free transfer feature.
Cynical comments about EQ2X aside, I don't know of any game that segregates its free trial population in this manner. There are very good reasons for doing so - beyond the traditional gold spammers and level 1-10 general chat trolls, Rift seems to plan on continuing to do one-time server events that encourage queues, and adding trial accounts to that mix is bound to leave someone unhappy.
That said, what will the community be like on a server populated entirely with trial accounts (and perhaps a few rebellious players who make new accounts and convert them to paid accounts for the sole purpose of being amongst the few players on the server to go beyond the trial level cap)? Will that environment be at all conducive to actually converting trial players into paying customers? Will the current referral program allow players out of the newbie leper colony to play with their friends who are already in game?
I'm not saying that it will work, or that it won't work, but someone who wants a sociology paper may have topic in waiting here.
Cynical comments about EQ2X aside, I don't know of any game that segregates its free trial population in this manner. There are very good reasons for doing so - beyond the traditional gold spammers and level 1-10 general chat trolls, Rift seems to plan on continuing to do one-time server events that encourage queues, and adding trial accounts to that mix is bound to leave someone unhappy.
That said, what will the community be like on a server populated entirely with trial accounts (and perhaps a few rebellious players who make new accounts and convert them to paid accounts for the sole purpose of being amongst the few players on the server to go beyond the trial level cap)? Will that environment be at all conducive to actually converting trial players into paying customers? Will the current referral program allow players out of the newbie leper colony to play with their friends who are already in game?
I'm not saying that it will work, or that it won't work, but someone who wants a sociology paper may have topic in waiting here.
Legendary Dirge Boots
Lyriana finally obtained 40 Velium Shards - EQ2's level 90 dungeon token currency - and I was off to have her very first piece of endgame armor ever crafted. Ironically, Feldon posted a guide the very next day that could have saved me some heartburn.
Crafting your dungeon gear
The boots cost 47 shards if you buy them from the NPC vendor, but only 40 shards if you have them crafted. That's 2-3 dungeon runs worth of shards, which is enough for even a lazy player like myself to go hunting for a crafter to have the boots made. Fortunately, I found a helpful guy who was very patient with me as I didn't know a fair amount of things that theoretically I should have known.
The armor also require a gem that drops in various Velious instances, and this ingredient is still required if you're having a crafter make them. I've never seen the gem I would need drop, and was in for a bit of sticker shock when I visited the broker to see how much it cost when I found out I would still need one. (There's a less powerful tier of armor that only requires shards, but this seems like a bad deal since the pieces cost more shards, are missing key abilities, and will be discarded as soon as you can upgrade them.) Spending 100 plat on an armor component was painful, but in the end the component is worth that much on the open market whether I farm it myself or pay someone else to do it for me, and it's not like I generally spend money on much of anything else on the broker.
Overall, the system is an interesting way to keep crafters relevant in a game state where the good gear is still primarily reserved for group content.
A big deal for a support class?
The thing that really set my mind on farming up the boots, rather than some of the other options (made with cheaper gems), was the special focus effect. EQ2 characters have five "concentration slots" with which to maintain buffs that require concentration. Most classes do not actually need this many, but bards are a buff-focused class and actually do manage to fill all the slots. Last expansion, a raid-only adornment (like a WoW gem, LOTRO relic, etc) was added that removes the concentration requirement from a buff that a Dirge will always want to be using. This expansion, that same effect is available on all T2 and better class boots, such as the ones I just had crafted.
As a result, I've now got permanent leeway to add another one of my buffs to the mix. This is a piece of gear that I will almost certainly carry with me until I manage to replace it with another item that offers the same effect, almost no matter how much better the gear gets in the next expansion, because this makes me better at my class' core function - buffing the rest of my party - in a way that I can't replace by adding a few percent to my personal DPS.
I'm not sure that this type of class defining perk is a good idea for endgame gear - eventually, it gets to the point where late-comers simply can't do what groups expect them to because they have not yet gotten a group to get the unique items they need. That said, I'm definitely happy to have an upgrade that's more interesting than your average +1% crit or whatnot.
Crafting your dungeon gear
The boots cost 47 shards if you buy them from the NPC vendor, but only 40 shards if you have them crafted. That's 2-3 dungeon runs worth of shards, which is enough for even a lazy player like myself to go hunting for a crafter to have the boots made. Fortunately, I found a helpful guy who was very patient with me as I didn't know a fair amount of things that theoretically I should have known.
The armor also require a gem that drops in various Velious instances, and this ingredient is still required if you're having a crafter make them. I've never seen the gem I would need drop, and was in for a bit of sticker shock when I visited the broker to see how much it cost when I found out I would still need one. (There's a less powerful tier of armor that only requires shards, but this seems like a bad deal since the pieces cost more shards, are missing key abilities, and will be discarded as soon as you can upgrade them.) Spending 100 plat on an armor component was painful, but in the end the component is worth that much on the open market whether I farm it myself or pay someone else to do it for me, and it's not like I generally spend money on much of anything else on the broker.
Overall, the system is an interesting way to keep crafters relevant in a game state where the good gear is still primarily reserved for group content.
A big deal for a support class?
The thing that really set my mind on farming up the boots, rather than some of the other options (made with cheaper gems), was the special focus effect. EQ2 characters have five "concentration slots" with which to maintain buffs that require concentration. Most classes do not actually need this many, but bards are a buff-focused class and actually do manage to fill all the slots. Last expansion, a raid-only adornment (like a WoW gem, LOTRO relic, etc) was added that removes the concentration requirement from a buff that a Dirge will always want to be using. This expansion, that same effect is available on all T2 and better class boots, such as the ones I just had crafted.
As a result, I've now got permanent leeway to add another one of my buffs to the mix. This is a piece of gear that I will almost certainly carry with me until I manage to replace it with another item that offers the same effect, almost no matter how much better the gear gets in the next expansion, because this makes me better at my class' core function - buffing the rest of my party - in a way that I can't replace by adding a few percent to my personal DPS.
I'm not sure that this type of class defining perk is a good idea for endgame gear - eventually, it gets to the point where late-comers simply can't do what groups expect them to because they have not yet gotten a group to get the unique items they need. That said, I'm definitely happy to have an upgrade that's more interesting than your average +1% crit or whatnot.
Blaming the Tool for the User
Lots of people have lots of ideas on what is to blame for the touted death of the PUG community. Fresh in my mind since I just listened to the respective episodes are the Multiverse gang, who blame Gearscore, Deadly Boss Mods, and other addons in their latest episode, and Klepsacovic's appearance on the Twisted Nether Podcast, where he points the finger at cross server groups, amongst others. I feel that this is blaming the tools for the actions of the tool users.
Many major MMO's, including WoW, EQ2, and Rift, now offer tokens good for high quality gear rewards as an incentive to keep players running instances that they no longer need. This is the exact opposite of what happens everywhere else in MMO's - both solo and raid content eventually all but stop rewarding players who have farmed them into the ground. Instead, non-raid group content is pushed into an odd situation that Rohan discusses in which the participants have markedly different goals.
(Ironically, Rohan's post responds to another post of Kleps', completing the bloggy circle of life.)
If the only reason why players are continuing to run this content is to gain the rewards, it stands to reason that they will want to do so as quickly as possible. If they don't need to use crowd control or tolerate newbies, they won't, because they're not being "paid" to do so, just for completing the dungeon. This is not the dungeon finder's fault, or gearscore's, and would happen even if these things were removed from the game.
As Rohan says, the real problem is the daily dungeon quest bribe, which exists because developers have yet to come up with a better way of making sure that late-comers still have people to group with for the entry level content. The problem only gets worse in an endless cycle of vertical expansion Tipa terms "the Expansion Trap", and that I've been griping about on and off for a while now. The further upwards progression climbs, the more damage to the existing game will be needed to get newbies up to the level they need to reach.
Blaming the tools for this is like suing the hammer manufacturer for your broken window when turns out that someone picked up the hammer and broke the window so they could dive into your house for cover because the management was shooting indiscriminately into the street.
Many major MMO's, including WoW, EQ2, and Rift, now offer tokens good for high quality gear rewards as an incentive to keep players running instances that they no longer need. This is the exact opposite of what happens everywhere else in MMO's - both solo and raid content eventually all but stop rewarding players who have farmed them into the ground. Instead, non-raid group content is pushed into an odd situation that Rohan discusses in which the participants have markedly different goals.
(Ironically, Rohan's post responds to another post of Kleps', completing the bloggy circle of life.)
If the only reason why players are continuing to run this content is to gain the rewards, it stands to reason that they will want to do so as quickly as possible. If they don't need to use crowd control or tolerate newbies, they won't, because they're not being "paid" to do so, just for completing the dungeon. This is not the dungeon finder's fault, or gearscore's, and would happen even if these things were removed from the game.
As Rohan says, the real problem is the daily dungeon quest bribe, which exists because developers have yet to come up with a better way of making sure that late-comers still have people to group with for the entry level content. The problem only gets worse in an endless cycle of vertical expansion Tipa terms "the Expansion Trap", and that I've been griping about on and off for a while now. The further upwards progression climbs, the more damage to the existing game will be needed to get newbies up to the level they need to reach.
Blaming the tools for this is like suing the hammer manufacturer for your broken window when turns out that someone picked up the hammer and broke the window so they could dive into your house for cover because the management was shooting indiscriminately into the street.
Two EQ2 Mea Culpa's
Earlier this week, EQ2's producer told Massively that the game would be getting a 25th class this year, and I promptly speculated that it would be headed to the game's cash shop. I was not alone, and I was wrong. This prediction failed out faster than usual because I'm not the only one with a mea culpa - Smokejumper revealed that he screwed up when he disclosed the class so soon.
If he hadn't said anything, no one would have known that it had been a slip-up; developers drop this kind of hint all the time without elaboration. The problem was that the morale of the EQ2 playerbase is so low when it comes to new features that the speculation that the new class was going to the cash shop became widespread in the absence of further information.
During the two evenings after the interview was posted, I saw about half a dozen conversations about the news in general chat. Each one went about the same - someone expressed disbelief, someone provided the link that confirmed the news, at least one person suggested that the new class would be the famous EQ1 Beastlord, and then conversation turned to what the class would cost in the cash shop and whether it would obsolete any of our current characters in order to encourage sales.
It's hard to get an accurate feel of the opinions of the "silent masses" of MMO's, but my experience has been that any subject that comes up repeatedly in public chat channels is much more serious than your average forum thread. My guess is that SOE did not like the way the conversation was going, to the point where Smokejumper had to issue a clarification that the new class - whatever its other merits or issues - will not be in the cash shop.
Time will tell whether the class will be the oft-rumored Beastlord, whether it portends an expansion focusing on Luclin (which was blown up in between EQ1 and EQ2 lore) or how it fits into the game as a whole. If the curtain actually is coming up at Fan Faire, I guess we don't have that long to wait.
If he hadn't said anything, no one would have known that it had been a slip-up; developers drop this kind of hint all the time without elaboration. The problem was that the morale of the EQ2 playerbase is so low when it comes to new features that the speculation that the new class was going to the cash shop became widespread in the absence of further information.
During the two evenings after the interview was posted, I saw about half a dozen conversations about the news in general chat. Each one went about the same - someone expressed disbelief, someone provided the link that confirmed the news, at least one person suggested that the new class would be the famous EQ1 Beastlord, and then conversation turned to what the class would cost in the cash shop and whether it would obsolete any of our current characters in order to encourage sales.
It's hard to get an accurate feel of the opinions of the "silent masses" of MMO's, but my experience has been that any subject that comes up repeatedly in public chat channels is much more serious than your average forum thread. My guess is that SOE did not like the way the conversation was going, to the point where Smokejumper had to issue a clarification that the new class - whatever its other merits or issues - will not be in the cash shop.
Time will tell whether the class will be the oft-rumored Beastlord, whether it portends an expansion focusing on Luclin (which was blown up in between EQ1 and EQ2 lore) or how it fits into the game as a whole. If the curtain actually is coming up at Fan Faire, I guess we don't have that long to wait.
EQ2 Plan: Subscription Content, Expansion Features
SOE wisely waited for the second day of E3 so that their EQ2 interview with Massively would have a bit more of the stage to themselves. Unfortunately, their recent history has me a bit skeptical about what they're selling.
What they say...
In the short term, low level players can get "leaping" and "gliding" mounts to tide them over until they qualify for flight. (Personally, I think the leaping sounds cool and far less likely to trivialize outdoor quest content than flight, guess it's too late to trade the latter back out of the game.)
In the medium term, Smokejumper envisions providing regular content in the quarterly paid subscription updates and concentrating on "adding features to the game" in paid expansions. In the long run, the producer claims to be considering a la carte sales of the expansion features in lieu of fixed expansion sets.
What do they mean?
The catch is that having content in the content updates was something that the game used to do on a more regular basis in expansion eras past. (In fairness, the leanest patches were probably set in motion before Smokejumper arrived.) Meanwhile, earlier this year the game made a point of adding an expansion-ish feature - a new race - for an a la carte fee IN ADDITION TO the paid expansion box, which also contained most of the new content that the game has received over the last year.
It's possible that they do legitimately want to run an expansion that focuses on the low to middle level range, which is presumably where free EQ2X players are petering out over on the game's new most popular server. Currently, free players have no reason to pay for any expansions until they hit level 80. Revamping Freeport and Qeynos into "multi-level quest hubs" fits with this theme, as does a greater emphasis on new features (since there is already a decent amount of content in the low levels). Some of these - notably cross server grouping - are potentially a double edged sword when it comes to retaining current players, but I guess that's what they say about omelets and eggs.
Of course, they're going to want to sell expansions to veterans too, so the "features" might be expected to include something that gates content in practice (if not strictly by expansion ownership). In that context, we get the last teaser - a game that already has 24 classes, which is arguably 12 or more classes too many for actually designing class niches - will be getting a 25th sometime this year.
Much as I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, a new class isn't content, and it isn't an expansion feature (since that is confirmed for next year), so it sure looks suspiciously like we're going to see a new class land alongside a new race in the cash store in a game that also charges a subscription and $40 per year for an expansion box regardless of how much content is ready to go in that box. If there is an extra fee involved, the odds that the new addition will be on a level playing field with its 24 compatriots goes down rapidly. I'll be happy if I have to quote this post and eat some crow in six months, but I think the odds against are pretty good.
What they say...
In the short term, low level players can get "leaping" and "gliding" mounts to tide them over until they qualify for flight. (Personally, I think the leaping sounds cool and far less likely to trivialize outdoor quest content than flight, guess it's too late to trade the latter back out of the game.)
In the medium term, Smokejumper envisions providing regular content in the quarterly paid subscription updates and concentrating on "adding features to the game" in paid expansions. In the long run, the producer claims to be considering a la carte sales of the expansion features in lieu of fixed expansion sets.
What do they mean?
The catch is that having content in the content updates was something that the game used to do on a more regular basis in expansion eras past. (In fairness, the leanest patches were probably set in motion before Smokejumper arrived.) Meanwhile, earlier this year the game made a point of adding an expansion-ish feature - a new race - for an a la carte fee IN ADDITION TO the paid expansion box, which also contained most of the new content that the game has received over the last year.
It's possible that they do legitimately want to run an expansion that focuses on the low to middle level range, which is presumably where free EQ2X players are petering out over on the game's new most popular server. Currently, free players have no reason to pay for any expansions until they hit level 80. Revamping Freeport and Qeynos into "multi-level quest hubs" fits with this theme, as does a greater emphasis on new features (since there is already a decent amount of content in the low levels). Some of these - notably cross server grouping - are potentially a double edged sword when it comes to retaining current players, but I guess that's what they say about omelets and eggs.
Of course, they're going to want to sell expansions to veterans too, so the "features" might be expected to include something that gates content in practice (if not strictly by expansion ownership). In that context, we get the last teaser - a game that already has 24 classes, which is arguably 12 or more classes too many for actually designing class niches - will be getting a 25th sometime this year.
Much as I'd like to give them the benefit of the doubt, a new class isn't content, and it isn't an expansion feature (since that is confirmed for next year), so it sure looks suspiciously like we're going to see a new class land alongside a new race in the cash store in a game that also charges a subscription and $40 per year for an expansion box regardless of how much content is ready to go in that box. If there is an extra fee involved, the odds that the new addition will be on a level playing field with its 24 compatriots goes down rapidly. I'll be happy if I have to quote this post and eat some crow in six months, but I think the odds against are pretty good.
Picking Amongst the Free
Earlier this week, Spinks asked whether there are now so many non-subscription offerings that the model is no longer a selling point. If and when we get there, I think this will be a good thing.
For now, we're looking at two trends. First, games that do choose to stick to the old pay to play model are meeting a higher bar, and it seems to be catching some of them unexpectedly on the chin. Being free to try is not necessarily a huge selling point, but being pay to try may be an increasing detriment in a world where even the paid games have free trials.
Second, the non-subscription offerings that are out there may be increasingly fighting for time in gamers' schedules. Over in EQ2 (both the subscription and non-subscription sides), we've had large cash store sales. However, exactly as Spinks predicts, this fails to interest me because I'm not in the market for cash store loot, and I am in the market for bonus exp. This was absent from EQ2 (which usually offers bonus exp on holiday weekends but just came off a welcome back bonus week), and present in Runes of Magic this weekend, so that's where my time went.
At the end of the day, a sale or a discount (including all the way down to "free admission") is still only a good deal if you actually want the thing that's on sale - the biggest wastes are the things you purchase on sale (whether in cash stores, as Nils points out, or in traditional stores) that you don't end up needing. I, for one, look forward to the day how a game makes its money can take more of a backseat to whether it is worth the money.
For now, we're looking at two trends. First, games that do choose to stick to the old pay to play model are meeting a higher bar, and it seems to be catching some of them unexpectedly on the chin. Being free to try is not necessarily a huge selling point, but being pay to try may be an increasing detriment in a world where even the paid games have free trials.
Second, the non-subscription offerings that are out there may be increasingly fighting for time in gamers' schedules. Over in EQ2 (both the subscription and non-subscription sides), we've had large cash store sales. However, exactly as Spinks predicts, this fails to interest me because I'm not in the market for cash store loot, and I am in the market for bonus exp. This was absent from EQ2 (which usually offers bonus exp on holiday weekends but just came off a welcome back bonus week), and present in Runes of Magic this weekend, so that's where my time went.
At the end of the day, a sale or a discount (including all the way down to "free admission") is still only a good deal if you actually want the thing that's on sale - the biggest wastes are the things you purchase on sale (whether in cash stores, as Nils points out, or in traditional stores) that you don't end up needing. I, for one, look forward to the day how a game makes its money can take more of a backseat to whether it is worth the money.
EQ2 Pre-Raid Progression In Practice
One of the big complaints about EQ2 today is that the current cap - level 90 - is not really the end of pre-raid progression. I must be in a weird demographic, because I'm perfectly happy with the way things are running right now.
Beyond Levels
Key, class-defining abilities are handed out through the game's alternate advancement system, and it is very easy to hit the game's level cap with a substandard AA count, especially if you didn't spend time farming AA's at some previous level cap in expansions past. I hit level 90 last summer with 173 AA out of 250, a cap that rose to 300 in the new expansion. Raiding guilds are currently asking for players to have 277, as required for access to the top ability in the "Heroic" AA tab added in the expansion.
(Only this last ability is a real choice - the rest of the 50 point tree are small passive state increases.)
On top of this, there is gear progression. In the new model, critical hit chance is a contested stat that is mitigated by a boss mob's resistances, which means that values greater than 100% are once again in high demand. I have been told that I did not meet the gear check bar for an instance group because my crit percentage is too low, but all of the "upgrades" I have seen include Critical Hit Bonus (which magnifies the size of the Crit, once you have guaranteed it) which does nothing to help me meet the bar for higher instances. These upgrades are sitting in my bank as a result in favor of objectively worse gear that contains the crit chance I still need.
Progress
That said, where am I in progression right now? I have currently run six of the nine single group instances in the current expansion. I did Pools, Shadowed Corridors and Ascent three times each (one of the Ascent runs broke up on the final boss due to bugs), but I have only completed the other three dungeons (Umbral Halls, Haunt, and Spire) once each. I have yet to max out any factions, half of the quests in Eastern Wastes (and a few in the dungeons I have cleared once) are still incomplete, and I have yet to complete a single piece of Shard reward token gear (though I'm definitely excited that one of the pieces will remove the concentration requirement from one of my buffs, a previously raid-only perk).
I'm now sitting at 225 AA's and gaining about one per dungeon run (more with bonus exp). Now 40-50 dungeon runs does sound like a bunch, but I also gain AA for any number of other things I'm working on, and I'm maybe 1-2 gear upgrades (if I find any that have crit chance instead of crit bonus) from qualifying for the final three instances, which I have yet to see. A new patch slated to hit in the next few weeks will then add three more.
The bottom line is that it's my own fault for focusing on the easy stuff if I run any content into the ground before I hit the bar that qualifies a new character for raiding. I don't really care about that mark because I'm not looking to raid. The group that is not happy right now are the folks who would like to skip over the single group dungeons to join their friends in raids (an issue we're also seeing in Rift).
There are real problems - including itemization woes and instance-killing bugs - in EQ2's single group game. That said, as a player who enjoys running moderately challenging single group PUG's, I am literally picking EQ2's instance game over both WoW's (my mage has only cleared a single heroic) and Rift (where I left my Cleric at level 35). Either I'm doing something wrong or they are doing something right, but I'm having fun either way.
Beyond Levels
Key, class-defining abilities are handed out through the game's alternate advancement system, and it is very easy to hit the game's level cap with a substandard AA count, especially if you didn't spend time farming AA's at some previous level cap in expansions past. I hit level 90 last summer with 173 AA out of 250, a cap that rose to 300 in the new expansion. Raiding guilds are currently asking for players to have 277, as required for access to the top ability in the "Heroic" AA tab added in the expansion.
(Only this last ability is a real choice - the rest of the 50 point tree are small passive state increases.)
On top of this, there is gear progression. In the new model, critical hit chance is a contested stat that is mitigated by a boss mob's resistances, which means that values greater than 100% are once again in high demand. I have been told that I did not meet the gear check bar for an instance group because my crit percentage is too low, but all of the "upgrades" I have seen include Critical Hit Bonus (which magnifies the size of the Crit, once you have guaranteed it) which does nothing to help me meet the bar for higher instances. These upgrades are sitting in my bank as a result in favor of objectively worse gear that contains the crit chance I still need.
Progress
That said, where am I in progression right now? I have currently run six of the nine single group instances in the current expansion. I did Pools, Shadowed Corridors and Ascent three times each (one of the Ascent runs broke up on the final boss due to bugs), but I have only completed the other three dungeons (Umbral Halls, Haunt, and Spire) once each. I have yet to max out any factions, half of the quests in Eastern Wastes (and a few in the dungeons I have cleared once) are still incomplete, and I have yet to complete a single piece of Shard reward token gear (though I'm definitely excited that one of the pieces will remove the concentration requirement from one of my buffs, a previously raid-only perk).
I'm now sitting at 225 AA's and gaining about one per dungeon run (more with bonus exp). Now 40-50 dungeon runs does sound like a bunch, but I also gain AA for any number of other things I'm working on, and I'm maybe 1-2 gear upgrades (if I find any that have crit chance instead of crit bonus) from qualifying for the final three instances, which I have yet to see. A new patch slated to hit in the next few weeks will then add three more.
The bottom line is that it's my own fault for focusing on the easy stuff if I run any content into the ground before I hit the bar that qualifies a new character for raiding. I don't really care about that mark because I'm not looking to raid. The group that is not happy right now are the folks who would like to skip over the single group dungeons to join their friends in raids (an issue we're also seeing in Rift).
There are real problems - including itemization woes and instance-killing bugs - in EQ2's single group game. That said, as a player who enjoys running moderately challenging single group PUG's, I am literally picking EQ2's instance game over both WoW's (my mage has only cleared a single heroic) and Rift (where I left my Cleric at level 35). Either I'm doing something wrong or they are doing something right, but I'm having fun either way.
The Draw of Bonus Weekends
Two weekends back, a bonus weekend got me back into Runes of Magic for the first time in a while - I've since gained ten levels in both of my two classes. This week, SOE's winback double exp week has gotten me back into EQ2, where I've gained 12 AA's and counting, with an evening left to go. (There hasn't been any announcement, but SOE often opens up bonus exp on holiday weekends as well, so next weekend is a possibility.)
As an MMO tourist, I'm probably amongst those players most likely to wander back to a game for this type of event - for most of the regular residents, these things provide an occasion to perhaps put in a little extra time, but probably not any significant purchasing decisions. Still, I suppose it's a good thing overall. Perhaps a bit of extra money for the developers, and otherwise just a little something for everyone else to remember.
I'd write more, but there are dungeons to farm for AA. :)
As an MMO tourist, I'm probably amongst those players most likely to wander back to a game for this type of event - for most of the regular residents, these things provide an occasion to perhaps put in a little extra time, but probably not any significant purchasing decisions. Still, I suppose it's a good thing overall. Perhaps a bit of extra money for the developers, and otherwise just a little something for everyone else to remember.
I'd write more, but there are dungeons to farm for AA. :)
Win Back At Sony
As Ardwulf notes, SOE's winback campaign is underway now that the services are back up. Change your Station Account password and then check your subscription statuses - you likely have 45 day pending subscriptions for all SOE games that you have ever paid for. This deal must be claimed by August, but extending it to former customers seems like a smart move - it costs them nothing if the player does not take them up on it, and the amount of time involved is long enough that they could potentially win back some former players during that time. (Besides, they coughed up former player data alongside current player info.)
EQ2 players are also getting a variety of goodies, including 30 days worth of rent deposited to their houses, 35 days worth of spell upgrade research time, and about two weeks of double exp. (EQ2X non-subscribers get 30 days of Gold time, so load up your broker slots early and often.)
On the PS3 side of the house, they're offering up two free downloads from a list of five games (US list here). Again, the cost isn't that impressive - we have two greatest hits games with recent full-priced sequels and several PSN-only games that Sony is probably hoping will convince people to consider buying more in the future. Longtime players have probably played the ones they wanted, but relatively recent PS3 owners who spend most of their gaming time doing other things (like MMO's) are likely to find something nice in the care package.
(Infamous was on my want list anyway, and I'm sure I'll get at least some mileage out of whatever I pick from the others - probably Wipeout, I liked F-Zero back in the day, and this looks vaguely like F-Zero with missiles.)
On top of this stuff, they're reportedly working on identity theft protection for everyone affected, which is the most obvious direct remedy to the actual harm that people potentially suffered. I can think of any number of times when some third party has disclosed my personal info in ways I would have preferred they not do and I've walked away from the deal with a lot less to show for it.
Will it be enough to convince players to put this all behind them? Not counting folks who were looking for an excuse to cut their ties with the company anyway, I think they've done what they can. Even if their reputations are mostly back, the cost is substantial, and time will tell what the impact of that is. Still, I think it could have been worse - hopefully we won't have to find out.
EQ2 players are also getting a variety of goodies, including 30 days worth of rent deposited to their houses, 35 days worth of spell upgrade research time, and about two weeks of double exp. (EQ2X non-subscribers get 30 days of Gold time, so load up your broker slots early and often.)
On the PS3 side of the house, they're offering up two free downloads from a list of five games (US list here). Again, the cost isn't that impressive - we have two greatest hits games with recent full-priced sequels and several PSN-only games that Sony is probably hoping will convince people to consider buying more in the future. Longtime players have probably played the ones they wanted, but relatively recent PS3 owners who spend most of their gaming time doing other things (like MMO's) are likely to find something nice in the care package.
(Infamous was on my want list anyway, and I'm sure I'll get at least some mileage out of whatever I pick from the others - probably Wipeout, I liked F-Zero back in the day, and this looks vaguely like F-Zero with missiles.)
On top of this stuff, they're reportedly working on identity theft protection for everyone affected, which is the most obvious direct remedy to the actual harm that people potentially suffered. I can think of any number of times when some third party has disclosed my personal info in ways I would have preferred they not do and I've walked away from the deal with a lot less to show for it.
Will it be enough to convince players to put this all behind them? Not counting folks who were looking for an excuse to cut their ties with the company anyway, I think they've done what they can. Even if their reputations are mostly back, the cost is substantial, and time will tell what the impact of that is. Still, I think it could have been worse - hopefully we won't have to find out.
A Case For Paid Max Level Characters?
The blogosphere all jumped down Smokejumper's throat for the suggestion that EQ2 might give out max level characters, in no small part because we don't trust SOE not to monetize such an offer in ways that no one would enjoy. Looking back on the controversy, like Massively's Karen Bryan, I'm starting to wonder whether selling max level characters for cash would actually be less damaging than the current approach to vertical progression.
Solo content in big budget MMO's is not going anywhere so long as the majority of the revenue comes from players who would rather solo. At the same time, the communities that make MMO's worth a solo player's monthly fee are built around players who tackle repeatable group content week in and week out, and those communities seem increasingly threatened by the sheer number of barriers - server, faction, archetype and level - that stand in between players and the friends they would like to group with. Even solo content is suffering from constant reductions in difficulty that are needed to keep the leveling time for new group players in line.
We already have a de facto split where the leveling game is primarily solo and the endgame is primarily group-based. Perhaps it is time to make it official, allow group players to buy their way out of the "chores" they don't want to do anyway, and go back to balancing solo leveling content on its own merits, rather than on the basis of how much leveling it is fair to force group players to endure.
Solo content in big budget MMO's is not going anywhere so long as the majority of the revenue comes from players who would rather solo. At the same time, the communities that make MMO's worth a solo player's monthly fee are built around players who tackle repeatable group content week in and week out, and those communities seem increasingly threatened by the sheer number of barriers - server, faction, archetype and level - that stand in between players and the friends they would like to group with. Even solo content is suffering from constant reductions in difficulty that are needed to keep the leveling time for new group players in line.
We already have a de facto split where the leveling game is primarily solo and the endgame is primarily group-based. Perhaps it is time to make it official, allow group players to buy their way out of the "chores" they don't want to do anyway, and go back to balancing solo leveling content on its own merits, rather than on the basis of how much leveling it is fair to force group players to endure.
EQ2 Destiny of Velious Month 1 Impressions
Perhaps this opportunity to judge the expansion on its own merits is ironically the best approach to the new content.
Expansion Content
The adventuring content in last year's Sentinel's Fate expansion really suffered from SOE's decision to increase the level cap by 10 levels without the content available to support that many levels. As a result, the new content had absurd quest hubs where you got nine quest completes for killing seven mobs, because there was no other way to hand out that much exp in that little content.
DOV did not increase the level cap, and, with that constraint removed from content design, the new outdoor solo content returns to the higher level of quality from pre-TSF expansions like ROK and TSO. I'm pretty much done with Great Divide now, and it looks like there's a fair amount of content to do in the next zone.
I've also spent a fair amount of time in dungeons, having completed four of the expansion's nine heroic single group dungeons. A big part of this is because I'm fortunate enough to have picked a class that plays like a DPS but gets group invites like a tank. I'll also concede that the content is occasionally buggy - especially when it comes to giving everyone in a group credit for certain updates, but sometimes with more serious issues as well - but I've had a decent time despite this. It's very uncommon for original, high quality solo content to become something that I do to kill time while looking for a group, but that's exactly where I've ended up in EQ2.
New Features
I've written about the new flying mounts, and I remain unconvinced that player controlled flight is a good idea in this type of game, but at least they're well implemented and people seem to like them.
The other big new mechanic is Norrath's take on the public quest. On the plus side, these things do give players a reason to group up in the open world. Unfortunately, I can't really recommend them. Instead of offering a fixed challenge (like Warhamer) or a scaling one (like Rift), this version simply starts out at raid difficulty and fails as many times as is needed until the number of players present are able to defeat it. With a large enough group, victory becomes a certain, if laggy, proposition.
It's not a horrible diversion, the best loot is a bit beyond what you can get in solo quests, and you are also guaranteed a gem worth a daily quest's worth of rep with the faction of your choice, which allows you to do PQ's in place of other ways of pursuing rep. That said, I can't imagine that this version of PQ's is going to convince anyone to pick EQ2 over Rift, and one has to speculate that this was part of SOE's motivation in implementing it.
The Business Model
I don't really enjoy writing about SOE's usually inscrutable business decisions, and this expansion hasn't done that much to change this.
- They released a new race at a separate (and large) charge from the $40 expansion box, which are already the most frequent fees of that size amongst major recent MMO's.
- The game's most populous server is the separate free to play server, with a population that is predictably and horribly skewed towards low level characters of free races and classes - last time I did a /who all 90 dirge on Freeport during prime time, there were only 6 online (compared to 40+ on Crushbone) which can't be fun for trying to get a group together.
- All the trivial solo quest rewards have been upgraded from "treasured" to "legendary" quality (think if WoW removed greens and had only blue items) because non-subscribers in EQ2X have to pay per the item to unlock these. Ironically, it's cheaper to play the game as a raider than a non-raider, because a raider gets their best in slot item and keeps it for months, while solo gear may last for only the next quest chain.
SOE either did not know or did not care how this would look to people who came back voluntarily. Likewise, the idea that some existing players might want to jump on the free level 90 alt bandwagon supposedly did not even occur to Smokejumper (unless he was fishing for this request to claim that there's demand for level 90 premades in the game's cash store).
There's a line between smart price discrimination and making your existing customers feel that you value potential customers over current ones, and repeated incidents like this over the past year have left many current players feeling that the line has been crossed. If you're selling a single player game and never expecting another dime from your customers, that's your prerogative, but it's less advisable in a genre where you're asking for more money each and every month.
Outlook
What I've seen of Velious so far is a definite upgrade from last year's effort, though that says as much about the poor quality of TSF as about DOV. SOE has now kicked off a publicity campaign promising to deliver the remaining content of the Velious story arc - which many of us feared would be put off to a future paid expansion - as regular content updates. After last year, they haven't exactly earned the benefit of the doubt, but the three new instances in next month's patch are a decent enough start.
Overall, I'm not sure how to recommend this expansion. On the one hand, it's good quality content that I've enjoyed playing so far, and expect to get at least another month out of. On the other, the expansion is completely useless until you've reached level 86+, and the bugs that I've seen in the early content are apparently nothing compared to the issues in the high end game, where mandatory progression bosses are still routinely removed from the game for weeks at a time due to bugs and where veterans are strongly displeased with both class balance and itemization. It's never a good sign when your strongest advocates are all off playing Rift, and that's precisely where many of EQ2's strongest former partisans are now found.
 |
| Seeing Ferrel, Jaye, Feldon, Starseeker, et al in Rift over EQ2 is seems as odd as Otter/Frog romance. |
At the end of the day, I suppose my best advice if you're on the fence is to wait and see how the promised changes play out. Who knows, there might even be a free level 90 character or other exclusive discount offers available if you just hold out a bit longer - perhaps not in the game's best interest, but this is a bed of their own making.
(P.S. I picked up something like 17-18 AA's during the last month, but I'm still at only 209 out of the current cap of 300. This is a problem, because raiding guilds expect 250+ AA's, and the rate that I've been earning them at is not sustainable once you run out of non-repeatable awards for quests and first-time boss kills. I'll be out of content AND even geared for raiding well before I hit the 250 mark.)
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