I am really as tired as everyone else of listening to all the whining that goes on in most of these posts, so I will try to keep my whining moment on the soapbox short. Update the quests! The game is EverQUEST! I like to do the quests but by the time you can solo a quest, the drop is obselete. If you try to get a group to do a quest, IE, Twilight Armor, you get laughed at. I have been trying to get a POF group for my zerker epic for 4 months. The DON expansion will make that easier with the mass corpse summon but I will have to get into my sixties to quest armor I should have in high 40s to low 50s. Either raise the cheddar or make the quests soloable.

I would like to see the instances modified for solo/duo use. As the player base has dropped, including many long time online friends of mine, the desire to have a place to play without worrying about random adds, trains, etc, has definitely increased. The 3 player LDON is good, but a solo or duo option would really help for casual players or people with weird schedules.

I, too, would like to see original game drops updated. Most level 15 tanks would snear at a Shiny Brass Shield now and time has long passed since I thought getting a 2h fine steel sword was cool (my paladin's first 2h weapon). Also, I think the new Lavastorm looks terrific and would like to see the rennovation cross over to other zones. Like others, I think a revamp would be nicer than another expansion at this point. The tools are there and the current changes certainly show that it is doable.

Congrats to developers, though. It's not an easy job, even though its probably fun. ;-)


Edited, Tue Feb 22 17:47:42 2005

Hello all;


(note: most of my post contains references to Ranger Quests. Allakhazam has excellent write ups on them all, so no need to repeat the details here :-)

Since this seems to have become the forum of all that is wrong with EQ, I would add my 2cp worth on a subject near and dear to my heart, specifically questing.

If this was not the correct thread for this post, I apologize in advance, but I think it is important to relate exactly, in detail, some of the broken things in EQ and why expansions aren't improvements and why people leave. In addition, I beleive in not complaining unless you have a solution to offer.


I started EQ to go questing. I enjoyed a lot of the quests before 50 but detested a lot of them as well.
The reasons I detested a lot of them were:
1. Random spawns
2. Random spawns
3. Random spawns

...und so weiter

This caused me to completely give up on the Ivy Etched Armor quest after I had all but one piece. I devoted myself to completing the quest even as everyone chuckled about that and even after I had long bought much better gear in the bazaar because I thought it was what Rangers did; get their Ivy Etched Armor. Even after I could easily solo every NPC in the quest I was still defeated. On my server (which is quite old) NO one I have ever met in the game has laid eyes on Wiltin Windwalker. And his PH has a 70 minute spawn recycle.
You cannot get the legs without the quiver he holds.
Everything in that zone is bright green to me now at 57, (I started the Ivy Etched at 35 a year ago) and I have no desire to sit on the beach for hours on end to watch his PH spawn every 70 minutes. This one experience left me so sour on EQ that I quit for a couple months and recently returned.
I have played every game you can think of back to text based on Univac systems in the service. I cannot remember another game where a NEEDED NPC for the game might NEVER appear. Combine that with the exponential pain in the *** of the Random Drop and it's a wonder anyone attempts Questing in EQ at all.
What would be wrong with having all quests involve triggered spawns (like almost every other game)? e.g. I kill 8 cyclops, two named spawn, I kill them spawning a Pirate Captain etc... when he has been done in, poof your NPC spawns WITH the item in hand; kill Him and you are Victorious. The most popular rpg/adventure/video game series in the world works just like that. The Quest mob is ALWAYS there, you just have to be badass enough to get to him. I'll leave it to you all to figure out which game :-D

OK, I thought, we'll put all that in the past.
I'm 52 now (when I returned), I want to do my Epic Quest. I want to take my Ranger into 60 working on self made uberness, lol. I begin the Epic.

I will never be able to finish my epic for two reasons, and both reasons are a large part of what is wrong in EQ for me...

1. There is absolutely no incentive for anyone to go to CoM and help me get a Jade Reaver, OR do any other quest for that matter. There is NEVER any incentive for anyone other than the quester. Almost all guilds are only interested in high level raiding or aren't large enough to complete epics regularly (now after WoW, at least).

my solution: The quester should be character flagged for the quest by previous steps in the quest (capable solo). Once other players group with that character and complete the next major step successfully (whatever it might be for your particular quest), EVERY member of the group would get a huge XP bonus for felling that "Epic" mob. You would never have problems getting a suitable group in PoK or whatever to do a quest step, it'd be like another LDoN, only with XP for everyone in the group and a step completion for the quester.
I cannot imagine why this would be difficult to implement. The character is flagged for the quest, the others are grouped with him..boom x3 XP (or whatever).
For people in large guilds, this is never an issue. However, for solo or very small guild players, it's the difference between accomplishing a lot of cool things in EQ or never, ever accomplishing them.
There HAS to be an incentive for whoever is on, friend or not, to go Questing with a stranger and perhaps bond for the future that way. The answer has always been guilds, guilds and more guilds but that is not always an option for every player.
Time to play, server population etc. might not permit you to be a part of a large guild.
That should not keep you from completing a quest when there are 30 people or more LFG around your level. Believe me I've tried going LFA for questing groups, there's nothing in it for anyone but the quester. It's a waste of time. Even if you talk 2-3 people into it, they will get awful bored sitting around while you spend another hour trying to talk 2 more into it.
I for one would spend all my time questing with others and assisting if there was a reward FOR THE ENTIRE GROUP.
No need for an expansion. No need to revamp zones. Poof suddenly EVERY quest in the game (at least the ones not broken) are worthwhile for everyone. I would help with the Necro Epic lol. Do quests you would never even think of doing for gear you could never use because A: someone else needed it, and B: you would get "pHaT xP" for helping.
Very easy to implement and would immediately revive a big part of the game (that has been dead and buried for a looong time).


P.S. SOE for the zillionth time: every piece for every Epic needs to be NO DROP.
Need I say Jade Reaver and Quillmane's Cloak for the zillionth time
(just in case Mr. Smedley is reading)

P.P.S. Be happy to post my thoughts on the #2 reason Questing is broken in EQ (imho) and a possible solution if anyone expresses an interest after this long rant! otherwise, lol, I will shut and go away ;-D


Edited, Wed Feb 16 18:08:47 2005

ok i have 2 major ideas for ya.....but you have to really think them through.
1) old world revamp....there is no reason or disire to even play in them anymore, obviously because there is no reward worth having, its just too far behind the curve now. there is plenty of space, you could add infinate static camps of various lvls in WK alone. its just become such a waisted space.
2)(and this is the marketable side of it)....dual classing ...there are numorous reasons to do this, including the fact that as metioned above EQ became a group baced game because of population, well , now that population is lower, players need the abbility to 'somewhat' solo...of course there should be logical caps to keep mechanics in line, but 1 player dual classing will be no less balanced than 2 players grouping.. caps like.. must be 65 in main class to start dual classing, so you understand your main class well enough to devote time into a second, also your secondary class should cap at at 5 lvls below your main, so for instance a lvl 70 toon could only dual class his secondary class to 65. and that toon would cap out on xp...this would also allow for smaller guilds to do higher content, that have the lvls but lack the raw numbers and or dps to kill higher end mobs...
i would like to add, im a die hard eq'er and dont have a disire to leave for any other game, and yes i have played most of them including wow, and ive enjoyed my 4 year stent in eq so far, but it gets frustrating for a war trying to xp grind when you cant find a slower cause the shammy class was killed, and chanters are obscure, and half the bst class players were the pop players that joined during luclin, and have left for other pop games like wow..... anywhay no i cant type and no i cant spell half the time, but i hope you can see through to the core idea here.../shrug

Sujan Frostreaver
guild leader
Sovereign Circle
prexus

U hear you all. I feel yor pain. Now feel mine. I'm not to bright, so i might be slow. I started when EQ came too. I have seen a lot of changes. But for my pain. To have put the time into it. to finnaly get that point. Only to lose to over croweding one old server. I talked with my best friend. Who got me invalved in EQ, my brother. Noobe server is opening . We go. i bring my years of EQ to new server . That's all I would need to get ahead . Get to that point where I had left off at older server. I hear some one say thing. No this can't be true. But then . where the heck did all those High leval peeps just come from. After all. I started there. I knew who was around , and what was happening. These guys now thought . Thay like just cut in line. Thats how I see it. Now i wasn't needed. As much. After all the work. Some one with the the knollage, transfures. Like why . how fair was that . You only had to ask your selves. Now th eplace I need to get to . I worked my self to get to from the ground up. Oh BOO HOO to you . As for the zones . there fine. all ove then. and Yes I get them all. So hear this. I am still here. I will get to Vex Thule you weeny heads. AS for the those who do leave. Good. Now the zones are'nt croweded. You will have to work harder for group. Aye . thats what it's about . Oh yea It's (Ever Quest ) . no one was ever meant to get every stinking thing out there. It's what makes you char more personnal , individual. No one should be aloud to Transfur crap. shss. Now . other than that. I still like EQ . not to be confused with EQ2. Now I need to get back to my char. See yea . GL. p.s. my 2cp. I'll just try harder. you may leave now. lol ...

From what I understand Blizzard is pretty much destroying the EQ / EQ 2 tandem with WoW. And Smedley is right, how they are doing it is by making a game that's fun, and easy to play no matter how much time you've got, and no matter what class you choose to play.

My friend plays a warrior on WoW, and he's soloed up to 29. A Warrior! Try soloing up that far on EQ. Although it's possible, you'd need a fungi or something ... or a whole heck of a lot of time.

WoW will be good for EQ, and I think you'll see some changes in order to make the game easier for all players, whilst keeping a lot of the difficult content. This is basically what players want I think, I game that is easy for all to play solo, with tough stuff you could fight as groups. Then you never have people quitting due to frustration of waiting around for groups.

Like in WoW, can't get group, fine, just solo. In Eq, (for some classes, some people) Can't get group, and this game sucks.

Ya know, I don't post, but here is something I really can relate to. Whining and sniveling here on this board isn't really going to do much good, you have to go to the source of the problem to voice your opinions and suggestions to get action. I will say, I stood in line until midnight the day of release for EverQuest, it was going to take us to the next generation of online fantasy based game play. It was "better" than being a little guy running around in a top down veiw of the world, it was better than being a 2D character on a flat screen, it was going to be awesome.
And it was, and it still is, and I'm not uber, but I'm not still living in the "good ole" days either ... the good ole days were not that good, the game has made some nice advances, and it has made some very big blunders along the way. Who in the whole course of a "life-time" or evolution of self, doesn't make some mistakes? Pardon me if I've stepped on the toes of those of you who are "perfect"
I've dealt with my share of broken quests, and screwed up pathing. Not to mention, over cons, under cons, and just general "elitests" guilds. I'm from Mith Marr, that being said, AL was always on the cutting edge of game material. (God there are days I miss Mymm /sigh /oggle)
As for making EQ a golrified chat room (i.e. Sims style) Honestly lets think about this, there are people who do this now, with "families" or groups of people who share a sur name, and claim to be this one's child, this ones daddy ect. I could see how forming clans (not subject to the same rules as guilds or forming guilds) could be beneficial to the game in and of it's self. Think of it in terms of this and not "virtual pregos", you form a clan, a clan can be any number from 2 to 200+ that share the same sur name, each clan has the benefit of a private clan channel(most do now with the server channels). There is no "requirement" for clans based on 9 accounts ect, a mission statement... ect, The only prereq for a clan is a desire to share a last name, come on people get married in the game all the time. You would have exclusive rights (other than what you are bound by in Eula) to that sur name, and for some one else to "take" your last name you have to be asked if this person would be allowed to "join" your clan. Although I think "clans" or "families" should be outside of the realm of "guilds". Guilds are for advancement of your character through the game content, clans would be more geared towards those that you prefer to group with and have over the course of time become friends with, or play with on a regular basis above and beyond the confines of guild tags.
ok just a thought and I'll leave you with that......
Eq has evolved, it has run, it has stumbled, it has faultered and almost gotten it's self injured in the fall, but they keep trying, they are trying to bring to us, what they think they want, but how are they to know what we want if we don't go to them and tell them?

Jalaran DeVine
66 Cleric MM
Catrina Devine
40 Monk MM
Rayne Stoyrme
35 Druid MM
Ssrin D'Streea
30 Necro MM
and that is just one account .... loyal to the end.... I'll be here when they flip the switch on the servers ......and all the lights go out.....

One thing I believe SoE should do, is instead of making the game more guild friendly with this new expansion, ( seems to me they are pushing us toward eq2 from what I've heard of it) and make it more amiable to the casual player. I wanted to make a new alt that would be fun, and the best class to do that with is Necro... He can solo any time he wants.. Complete BS, as well, the gear gets stronger, but there's little class balance... For instance the difference between the new epic weapons is unbelievable.. Really, soe should fix the nerfs on the gear and drops, revamp the older zones and make the game friendly to anyone wanting to start a new toon...
Just my 2cp

Although maybe slightly off topic:

I have discussed it with a few of my friends, I think there should be a new server that would only be the original norrath, no expansions or anything, and no characters could be transferred to it. I remember greatly the "good ole days" that Everquest was. I remember 50 woodelf rangers all running around with Mino axe's. I remember Trolls and Ogres that actually had to make long runs to find a city that would take them in. And so on and so on. I think That would be a neat server, and I would definatly start a character on such a server.

Smedley is just simply "out of touch". Out of touch with the game his company runs, from a player's perspective. They know how to do their part, which is crank out crap expansions, with just enough info, to make it sound compelling enough to buy, so they sell expansions, and keep people playing long enough to dangle the next expansion. repeat.

If they gave half a $#1+ about the game, they would have already been fixing at least a portion of what's broken. But they are only after two things: your next month's subscription renewal, and the $30 from the next pizza-cr@p expansion they can toss together. That's it.

They don't care. Just about income.

I find as time goes on, more and more people have left. People who were noobs 5+years ago, when I was a noob. People who LOVED eq, and logged in every day to play, and adventure, and raid, and group, and quest, and have fun. Most of them are gone. Those that remain, have mostly gone uber, to survive. Those that remain that are casual gamers are finding it tougher and tougher to just log in and play, and progress our characters. There's less guildies to group with, as most have left, or gone to uber guilds. There's less guilds who will take anything less than a 70 with 100+AA's. Unless you want to get in another remnant of a decent guild, that is struggling to have enough people on, just to keep alive as a guild.
There is more to be fixed than they are even willing to admit to, and since denial is their preferred response, good luck getting any issues addressed. Those who remain that aren't uber.....good luck. You will have more and more people calling for server merges, and less and less people on to FORM a group with. This will continue until the "bummer of trying to get a group" is outweighed by the "lack of ability to just get in one". Then you will have more people "no longer playing". Which is just a repeat of what's been happening over the past year or so. Why do you think they REMOVED hte server population listings, when at the server login screen? DUH! So nobody outside SoE insiders would see the falling polulation, serverwide. Back in the day when 2300-3000 were on each server, it was bragging rights for them, to have such a successful game. Mysteriously, those numbers were removed from our view. Of course, it's easier to HIDE momentum of people leaving a game that the designers fail to keep working, than to address things that are wrong. So YES, Mr Smedley and the rest, DONT care. Only about the $$$.

SoE dont care about eq. Just about $$$$.

/rant off

Disgruntled loyal eq'er