I know, by now you’re thinking to yourselves “Stargrace! Stop beating a dead horse!” but it’s not so easy to simply stop writing about something I’m incredibly passionate about. Plus a lot of my friends are still playing the game, so I hear about this subject all of the time. I wanted to name a few things that Sony could have done different to avoid the feedback from the public that they are now receiving.
In regards to the TrueFreeblood race: In order to avoid a huge amount of screaming from the public (but note, this would not eliminate all screaming; because then we wouldn’t be human) all Sony had to do was offer the race for free to everyone without conditions. Release it as a Velious race or a perk before Velious if you want (so the company at least sells a few extra boxes) but allow every player to create one without cost. Now, add all of your vampire goodies to the station market. Sure you won’t make as much money as offering the entire race for $20 early to the masses, but you’ll save yourself a lot of fallout. After all, one of the finer things that must be done is finding a balance between making money and selling things on the marketplace, and keeping players (old and new) happy. As my previous arguments pointed out I do not mind the market, but I feel that a RACE is supposed to come with the very basic $14.99/m that I pay (or an expansion). Froglok. Sarnak. Arasai. Fae. Make us pay for every little cultural extra (animations, appearance weapons, homes, mounts special to the race) but the basics should be included.
In regards to the Lucan D’Lere merger. I thought of, and discussed with Arkenor, a few possibilities for this and none of them will make sony any money which is probably the problem. Lets assume that people from LDL are upset with the news of their merger, because I know at least a few are (Arkenor, Ysharros, G33kg0dd3ss I’m looking at you three in specific). I know a good number are happy to be moving to a higher population server but I’m going to play the side of the role player in this scenario. Number one, Sony said that they could not move LDL players to AB because the population on AB is already far too high. Why not allow those who want to leave AB do so, for free. Lots of people pick a server based on its population. Due to the recent merges, I’d expect those populations to be much higher now then they were before. I also imagine there are a lot of non role play players who would not mind moving to another server. On that same note, why not allow those role players of AB who are tired of the crowds, to move to LDL for free. AND why not open up moving to LDL in general for free. The part that irks me is that although Sony has stated AB is overflowing with players – you can still pay $25 and move there. If the folks from LDL merging are adamant about staying on an RP server (and lets assume that a handful will be) they will be more than happy to pay $25 to move to another RP server instead of losing their ‘culture’ (for lack of a better term). Win-win for Sony.
In regards to the Velious Beta forums fiasco. For those who were unaware, the Velious beta forums were moved from the EQ2players web site, to the EQ2X players web site. Why? Because EQ2X players are unable to view the EQ2 forums without a regular EQ2 subscription. Now this entire time we’ve been hearing that “EQ2X will be completely separate, you won’t even know it’s there!” – except for those people in the Velious beta, because you’ll have to log into your beta forums from the EQ2X forums. Also when you actually play the Velious beta (note – I am NOT in the beta, this is through observation of others playing) it announces on Raptr that you’re playing – you guessed it – EQ2X. I realize this is because it’s using the same servers and what not, but still. For the life of me I can not figure out why EQ2X players need an entire forum to themselves. Why don’t they just have a sub topic in the EQ2 forums like the Bazaar and Vox servers do. Aside from stuff being on sale is there that much different in the basic game play? The mechanics (as far as I’m aware) all work the same for both games except one is Pay to Play and one runs on a subscription. I think Sony created extra work for themselves in fabricating these entirely new forums, and it should not have been done in the first place.
I realize it’s easy for me to say all of this stuff since I am a 3rd party, removed from any of the actual facts and decision making. I know the people at Sony work really hard and I have nothing but admiration for the Developers and the folks in Community Management because I know that a lot of these choices are out of their hands – but – someone really needs to wake up. Time and time again these past few weeks I have seen veteran players state that they no longer know the games they once loved. That things have changed, the company has changed. New direction is good; but not at the cost of your loyal veteran players.
I have been playing EQ2 non stop since December 24. Non stop means I have never taken a hiatus and I’ve always been quite active, not so much lately but enough that I log on five days a week to raid with my guild. Roleplay has been officially dead since 2k6, that’s a fact. -Anyone- who is upset about this merger because LDL is (or was) a RP preferred server is not being realistic. I drop by the districts in FP and I see zero roleplay interactions~.
There are no roleplayers in LDL, as somebody who has been one I know this all too well because I’ve spent copious amounts of time looking for it. Yes, there are a few people who RP within the confines of a guild hall or house…that’s not something that will be hindered by a merger with some random server as that’s something you can do anywhere else, after all, are not doing it in public anyways~.
Even during its prime time, LDL was always the weakest server in terms of roleplay, everybody knows that AB > LDL but ignoring that fact, there are no signs of RP. LDL forums were barren whereas you could see AB’s bustling with life and requests of events. AB had events once per year (that gathering of the harvest or somesuch), ever see something like that in LDL? No. Why? Because, while there were some, the roleplayers that the server had were far from proactive and did not exploit the posibilites offered by a MMO environment. So again, anyone who is bitter about this merger because of RP related issues is simply looking for an excuse to complain about rather than being realistic and accepting of the facts. As it stands now, roleplayers in LDL are less than 1% of the population, to claim that this merger ruins anyone’s “immersion” is absolute selfishness~.
I’ll be getting the vampire race for “free” in February, but I doubt I’ll make a vampire character. First, I’d have to pay for a new character slot, and then I’d have to pay for anything additional that culturally distinguishes the vampire race from all the other races. It’s kind of like having to pay extra for frogloks to hop. I’ve gone from being pretty excited about the vampire race, after having first heard about it, to just feeling “meh” about it. I strongly believe all of those extra vampire items ought to come with the game we’ve already been paying for. Sure I don’t need to have those things if I made a vampire character, but what’s the point of making a vampire if you aren’t going to have the goodies that go with them?
I’m amazed that you’re even willing to accept the extras of a race on the Marketplace. You already pay your “reant” as well as expansions. I would frankly be pissed off if I had to pay for loads of extra stuff in WoW/Rift.
Also, all things considered, and excuse my French, but EQ2 expansions to be really fucking poor. Look at Cataclysm. Sure, it was two years in development, but FIVE new zones, 4 new raids, 3 new battlegrounds, two new races, an overhaul of the talent and stat systems AND the Shattering. That doesn’t even include all the patches between WotLK and Cata, and what did you guys get in Sentinel’s Fate? 2 new zones, a new level cap and a few dungeons. From an outside perspective: it just seems like SOE are lazy. Lazy, arrogant and money-grabbing.
For all the good things people say about what EQ Next might be, I know I’ll be sticking with every other developer (excluding Turbine; they’re pretty pathetic as well, but that’s another story.) Really, I don’t know how you could stomach such a developer for so long. I feel really sorry for all the things EQ2 players go through, and their plight at the hands of Sony. Hopefully an EQ2 successor, independent of Sony, will rear its head at some point.
This is an SOE pattern that I’ve noticed before – specifically with EQ1. They have an order of doing things:
1. Build and launch an interesting game, but the launch is an absolute disaster and bad publicity abounds.
2. Fix launch problems and have first expansion – this part rocks and people come in droves. (I start playing)
3. Second expansion – yay more fixed and improvements, some stupid stuff from launch gets fixed.
4. Third expansion – more fixes, but um – some wild game play changes that start to deviate from original vision
5. Continued “fixes” to gameplay that pull it further from original – some are good changes, but some are real head-scratchers.
6. Straw piles up as game is now made “easier for someone to enter” – but really is made incredibly too easy and veterans start to leave in droves.
7. Year 4 – 5 of game – completely unrecognizable to launch players, most of whom have left.
8. I leave also, sad that the game I loved doesn’t exist anymore, but by now SOE has started on the next game that I’ll love
9. Rumors of new game abound – See you all in EQNext.
I love SOE and their games, but they always “evolve” the game into something I have no real desire to play. Which is ok, how many years of my life am I supposed to devote to any one game anyway? EQ2 I played for almost 5 years, and had a wonderful time playing. So now I move on for a bit, yes I’m a little mad at SOE right now for these changes that have driven me away. But I also know that they’ll do a great job with EQNext and I’ll be back to play that game as well. Time for me to look at other games until EQNext launches (and maybe a bit after, launches are frequently bad).
I agree with every single word. Just wish someone from Sony would actually take the time to read these well structured pleas vs. rolling forward on things that only they think are a good idea.