Why increasing the level cap should mean no more low level expansions.

[Thunderthyze]

<p>With the speculation beginning on the next expansion the main questions being discussed are "where will it be?", "what levels will be catered for?" and "will the level cap be raised?"</p><p>I am particularly interested in the last two questions as their implementation may well make or break the entire game.</p><p>In my opinion if the level cap goes up (and let us hope fervently that it does) then the expansion HAS to concentrate on levels 60~80 at the very most (assuming that is the new cap). </p><p>Basically EQ2 will never have another huge influx of new accounts as they did when the game was released, there is just too much competition out there nowadays. Therefore the vast majority of players will be high end mains complemented  by lower level alts able to cruise through the lower levels with the benefit of game experience and twinking. If SOE futher dilute the lower level zones then their relative emptiness will turn off a lot of core players. Lower level zones WILL be boring, borne out of familiarity, but will be burned through in any case. Be honest, just how well do you know Greater Fay compared with say Antonica? All because you haven't spent so much time there on your way to the higher level stuff.</p><p>I think that the release of EoF supports my case even more. No level cap raise and lower level content, BUT increased AA's and deities. The result of this increase in player capabilities had the result of trivialising content brought out years before and balanced assuming no AA's whatsoever.</p><p>If SOE are really brave they will severely reduce the xp rate post level 70 too. An entire expansion geared to lvl 70+ which is impossible to burn through in a week. Now THERE'S an idea!</p>

[Triste-Lune]

increasing the level range would be a good idea but the real problem comes from the way skill are done. any spell are made useless with lvl increase. it s just gutting to have to be fully master and when expansion is out all your work is render meaningless. Level increase also makes all the old content subpart and no one even stops to even take a look at it.giving 100 AA to grind as well as a 90% lvl 65+ orientated expansion is a much better thing than 10 lvl and a few other AA.

[Thunderthyze]

<p>Personally I believe that expansions should involve character advancement, whereas adventure packs are available to provide additional content where necessary.</p><p>As far as I know EQ2 was developed initially with a view to an ultimate level cap of 150+? It would be nice if this were reached before the franchise is superceded by EQ3 or whatever.</p>

[Judist]

<p>Whatever their next move, it's gonna be hard to top T7 raiding. We have ALOT of content (dont gripe, we do) and if T8 comes out with only a handful of raid zones its gonna dissapoint alot of players. Going from KoS, Fallen Dynastly and EoF to just one new expansion sounds boring.</p><p>Personally I'm all about a new tier, but only if they bring a ton of content. Talking about a pack the size of EoF only for T8 progress and with 10+ raid zones/areas. That would make me happy. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[DobyMT]

<cite>Thunderthyze wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>With the speculation beginning on the next expansion the main questions being discussed are "where will it be?", "what levels will be catered for?" and "will the level cap be raised?"</p><p>I am particularly interested in the last two questions as their implementation may well make or break the entire game.</p><p>In my opinion if the level cap goes up (and let us hope fervently that it does) then the expansion HAS to concentrate on levels 60~80 at the very most (assuming that is the new cap). </p><p>Basically EQ2 will never have another huge influx of new accounts as they did when the game was released, there is just too much competition out there nowadays. Therefore the vast majority of players will be high end mains complemented  by lower level alts able to cruise through the lower levels with the benefit of game experience and twinking. If SOE futher dilute the lower level zones then their relative emptiness will turn off a lot of core players. Lower level zones WILL be boring, borne out of familiarity, but will be burned through in any case. Be honest, just how well do you know Greater Fay compared with say Antonica? All because you haven't spent so much time there on your way to the higher level stuff.</p><p>I think that the release of EoF supports my case even more. No level cap raise and lower level content, BUT increased AA's and deities. The result of this increase in player capabilities had the result of trivialising content brought out years before and balanced assuming no AA's whatsoever.</p><p>If SOE are really brave they will severely reduce the xp rate post level 70 too. An entire expansion geared to lvl 70+ which is impossible to burn through in a week. Now THERE'S an idea!</p></blockquote><p>I've been saying most of this all long now.  If you take all of the 55-70 content, do a little research to see what zones are empty.  Now do one 1-55.  1-55 is just disgusting how much of the content is never used.  There is more than enough for 1-55, and yet, at 70, almost every is just begging for something to do.</p><p>Oh, and PLEASE cripple the xp rate.  I've even mentioned before it should be at 10% of what it was 60-70 with the release of KoS.   I'm against any new AAs, I don't care about new Dieties, another "Epic" quest yada yada.  What I want is REALLY nice contested mobs, maybe some progressive raiding, flagging if you will, somewhat like DT access, but don't make the boss mobs a joke.  Challenging dungeons, challenging instances. The usual that we hopefor and never get. </p>

[Matia]

Well, actually I'll differ from you here. It could just as easily be argued that aiming content at the upper tiers of levels is just as much to blame. For example, with the exception of EoF, every expansion and adventure pack has been aimed at <levelX>+. The expansions that raised levels contained content almost exclusively for those added levels with a little for those just under that range. The adventure packs did not raise levels, but there was a range you needed to be in before you could participate in them even if it was just to get into them. EoF on the other hand introduced no increase, but did add zones and content for all levels. Since then, I personally have noticed an increase in the population in not just those new zones but many of the older zones. People making new characters are going back there. People with existing characters are playing their lower levels to take advantage of the new characters having increased the population. All of the zones? No. But a good number of them. Now, does that mean they should add new lower level zones regularly? No. But they should not leave off of them. That was one of the things that led to a dissatisfaction in older games. EQ for example kept adding more and more higher content and ignored the older zones. End result: nobody went there because there was no reason and nothing new. The game ended up being solely about the upper levels. Everything else was relegated to something you speed through to get to the "real game". That meant that new players had absolutely no reason to show up. Will the game again see an influx like when it first appeared? Probably no. Will it have periods of new player influx? Yes. Especially when new things are added. As was seen with EoF (and similarly in other games around the same time), when new content was added that was available for new players to experience, they come and try it. Some stay, some don't. But if it isn't added, they will not come. As a new player, you don't care what shiny new things just got added for the top 10-20 levels, because those don't affect you or your experience. No sector of the player base should be concentrated on more than another. Those in the upper tiers should gain new things to do and enjoy. Those in the lowest tiers should also have new experiences to enjoy (especially when things are added that cause new characters to be made such as new races or potentially classes). Those in between should similarly have just as much newness aimed at them. This doesn't necessarily mean that all this "newness" involve new zones. Existing zones can be changed around from time to time. Fallen Gate is an example. Keep the zone or dungeon the same basic level of difficulty, but change it around. People go and explore it all over again and enjoy themselves. The same can be (and probably will be) done for other places throughout the game in the future. Getting rid of lower zones because "they are always empty" or "they are totally unused" and making new higher zones assures a lowered liklihood of new players. After all, why join a game with nothing for you because you are lower level. If they are truly unused, then re-do them from time to time and make them "new" again. Also add more things for the higher levels. The fact that zone X isn't perceived as used by a particular player doesn't remove from what is available to them. Dropping that zone in order to add something for them however does remove from anyone else that wants to use it. As usual, this is just my opinion.

[Ogrebe]

If they raise the cap then yes the expation should pretty much be 70-80 only. Because content would be stretched out to thin. imagine if they raised that cap in Eof 70-80 would have (1 out side zone, 2 duegons and a few instances). That would of totally sucked. Now if they keep the level range the same then ya 50% can go to 70 and the rest can be split up for the lower level (kinda similar to EoF).

[Illmarr]

<p>I'd like to see exp needed to level grow more at higher levels. There are always going to be the hardcore that Have to get to the new cap as fast as possible. The game needs them as much as it needs the person with 6 or 10 slots filled with level 20-50 characters. But exp needed to level should not be balanced around these folks. Make it more to a point where a player playing in a manner of trying to level can get to the cap in about 3 weeks of 3-4 hour a day gaming. Then that will allow the Raiding Guilds to start working on the new raiding content.</p><p>I know there is all the buzz about RoK being trademarked for EQ2 and all, but I think RoK should be the evil factioned bookend to EoF. RoK should be another all level expansion, and (Braces for the torch and pitchfork wielding mob) should not be released for at least 2 years. The next expansion should raise the level cap, introduce a few more Dieties and concentrate on level 55-new cap. Make it either Odus or The Underfoot/Darkhollow. Spread the content in it across the spectrum of solo/group/raid in a fairly flat bell curve, something like 30/40/30 distribution. Then the expansion after that I'd like to see a very progression based expansion aimed at the high end. Make it like Gates of Discord was in EQ for difficulty (Could really delve into the mysteries of the forces behind OoLS and OoB). Make it so hard it's only just being beaten by the time your new all-levels Kunark expansion releases. </p><p>Waiting four years between all level expansions hurt EQ1 as far as turning it into a game that was almost overwhelmingly daunting to start fresh in any time after Gates was released. It's entirely possibly I would still be playing it and naver even tried other games had a dearth of new people joining and advancing in the game made it prohibitive to replenish the expected losses of people to other games.</p>

[Thunderthyze]

<cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, actually I'll differ from you here. Will the game again see an influx like when it first appeared? Probably no. Will it have periods of new player influx? Yes. Especially when new things are added. As was seen with EoF (and similarly in other games around the same time), when new content was added that was available for new players to experience, they come and try it. Some stay, some don't. But if it isn't added, they will not come. As a new player, you don't care what shiny new things just got added for the top 10-20 levels, because those don't affect you or your experience. </blockquote><p> There will NOT be periods of significant new player influx. There can't be. There are are just too many titles out there today competing for your dollar/pound/euro/yen. Each game also has it's own personal bete noir. Few WoW will port across to EQ2 because it's....well, EQ2!. Vanguard players won't jump ship in significant numbers either cos most of them USED to play EQ2 and burnt out. So you're looking at trying to convince players new to MMORPG's to try out the game....that will constitute a steady trickle, no more.</p><p>The problem with an established game is that new players are often intimidated by the high level "ubers". The know they will NEVER get to that level so what is the point in trying. By and large new players are attracted to new games.</p><p>So, I reckon 80~90% of all level 20's are alts. They know how to level up quickly. They are not interested in taking time to smell the flowers, they probably did that first time around. For them, levels 1~55 are a necessary evil they have to wade through before they get to be useful guild members. Thing is though, if those levels are duplicated over 4 or 5 expansions then they will be spread do thin that any good content will be spoilt by lack of population.</p><p>In my earlier post I suggested that perhaps adventure packs are the way to go to add to lower level experience. Splitpaw is an example of a great addition to lower level content, albeit somewhat narrow and restricted. Bloodline less so, but in my opinion this is as a result of implementation rather than content. Fallen Dynasty achieved the distinction of adding low/medium content as well as high end raid mobs. Continue with these packs and sufficient variation will be achieved at lower levels. Keep major expansions for cap raising content. Cut down the xp gain and you will have players fully utilising the new zones.</p><p>Job done......next!?</p>

[Gungo]

<p>The next expansion will probably be Kunark..........</p><p>Here is the problem i see. The developers have hinted enough to say a new evil race and city will be available. My guess is cabalis is the new major evil city. And the ruins of firona vie as the good race encampment within kunark. A representative of  cabalis is already seen in the isle of mara. Sarnaks willl probably be the new evil race. Regardless.....</p><p>If they create a new evil race they will undoubtably include a new starter area and progressive leveling zones. Just like EOF. SOE thinks that EoF did so well that a similar expansion will do equally as well. It will not.... I can not stress this enough... More lower tier content will not keep the burdening masses occupied. They will probably raise the level cap to level 80. With such a large displacemtn of content. This expansion needs to Soloey be a tier 8 expansion period....... I hope SoE does the smart thing and just make the entire content of kunark a T8 expansion. Full of only tier 8 zones and raid zones. Make it a heavly group/raid oriented expansion with some outdoor zones as soloable. Fill this expansion with content and not diluted lwo level content. Make it progressive in design and implemention and remove the excessive lower tier content. </p><p>This expansion should be a challenge rigth from docking with your boat in "Overthere" or firona vie. The entire theme of venril sathir's rise of kunark and the vampires and drakkors etc. Hill giants and Claws of Veeshan dragons. The sarnaks and frogluks and iksar empire. sebelis, kurns tower, dreadlands, the combine tower, chartosis, city of mist, field of bone, veksar, and wandering dragons around kunark. </p><p>content content content so much T8 content . It will at least equal the amount of T7 content of Kos and EoF and TFD combined. </p><p>These easiest way to get around the whole new evil race thing is make them LIKE the froglucks REQUIRE a raid to unlock them which leads them to being unlockable in EFP. Then the next expansion should be ODUS with a full 1-8 tier progression and then VELIOUS can be a tier 9 expansion. Then another tier 1-9 expansion. Finally a tier 10 expansion that concludes the current lore of EQ2's prophecy. lvl capped at 100 and finally raids on qeynos and freeport.</p>

[Illmarr]

<p>I'd be just fine with the next expansion being the one that is a hard progression based/raid heavy expansion. A healthy, entertaining endgame is necessary for a game to have any life. I would not be just fine with that high end expansion being Kunark. Make it Odus/Darkhollow/whatever place the CHaos races from OoLS and OoB call home. I'll be more than happy to wait to make my Sarnak Crusader <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> so long as he has an entire continent's worth of tongue wagging goblins to kill and heritage quests for The Regal Band of Bathezid and Shrunken Goblin Skull Earring.</p><p> Kunark has waaaaaaay too much lore and way to big a place in the hearts of Norrathians of any era to be opened only to a narrow audience that admittedly needs more to do.</p>

[Goemoe]

Holymoly@Runnyeye wrote: <blockquote><p>So, I reckon 80~90% of all level 20's are alts. They know how to level up quickly. They are not interested in taking time to smell the flowers, they probably did that first time around. For them, levels 1~55 are a necessary evil they have to wade through before they get to be useful guild members.</p></blockquote>Wrong. My main lives in Kelethin and I can't believe how many new players show up daily. There are nearly as much noob questions (which I enjoy, telling the game lives on) as in Antonica a good two years ago. And there are also many many player enjoying a second or third relaxed path through the levels up to 70. There are much less raid hungry fanatics, than most of you think. I am pleased as it has been until now. Two themed level-up-expansions and after two years a great full grown all level world expansion thingy. So next should be 65-80 and 75-90, until we see another full grown all level world expansion thingy. Keep up the good work. Goemoe

[Sebastien]

<p>I couldn't possibly disagree more with OP.  I believe you have this completely backwards.</p><p>When you release an expansion that focuses exclusively on high-level content, who is your target audience?  A subset of your current customers.  In other words, lets say you have 10,000 customers.  Of them, only a portion will be max level, and therefore only a portion will be interested in the new expansion.</p><p>A year goes by an you release another new expansion, this time again focusing only on people who are max'd out.  Remember that portion you sold to last time?  Now you are selling to a portion of that portion.  Ever hear of diminishing returns?</p><p>To the extent that expansions focus on max'd out characters, the developer will experience diminishing returns, getting fewer and fewer customers for the same amount of work.  Eventually the game becomes functionally off-limits to new players, who have no hope of ever seeing the endgame content that everyone is playing and that the devs are working on.  It's essentially a slow death.. like the developers intentionally drown themselves.</p><p>It's especially noteworthy that OP takes issue with EoF.  OP, I wonder if you could tell us which expansion was by far their best-selling?  Was it the expansions that followed your advice, or was it Eof?  I also wonder, OP, if you are aware of how many new players come back to the game every day, because of EoF?  Sorry, but your claim that EoF is an example of a "bad" way to make an expansion is totally disproven by reality.</p>

[Oosu]

Gungo@Crushbone wrote: <blockquote><p>The next expansion will probably be Kunark..........</p><p>Here is the problem i see. The developers have hinted enough to say a new evil race and city will be available. My guess is cabalis is the new major evil city. And the ruins of firona vie as the good race encampment within kunark. A representative of  cabalis is already seen in the isle of mara. Sarnaks willl probably be the new evil race. Regardless.....</p><p>If they create a new evil race they will undoubtably include a new starter area and progressive leveling zones. Just like EOF. SOE thinks that EoF did so well that a similar expansion will do equally as well. It will not.... I can not stress this enough... More lower tier content will not keep the burdening masses occupied. They will probably raise the level cap to level 80. With such a large displacemtn of content. This expansion needs to Soloey be a tier 8 expansion period....... I hope SoE does the smart thing and just make the entire content of kunark a T8 expansion. Full of only tier 8 zones and raid zones. Make it a heavly group/raid oriented expansion with some outdoor zones as soloable. Fill this expansion with content and not diluted lwo level content. Make it progressive in design and implemention and remove the excessive lower tier content. </p><p>This expansion should be a challenge rigth from docking with your boat in "Overthere" or firona vie. The entire theme of venril sathir's rise of kunark and the vampires and drakkors etc. Hill giants and Claws of Veeshan dragons. The sarnaks and frogluks and iksar empire. sebelis, kurns tower, dreadlands, the combine tower, chartosis, city of mist, field of bone, veksar, and wandering dragons around kunark. </p><p>content content content so much T8 content . It will at least equal the amount of T7 content of Kos and EoF and TFD combined. </p><p>These easiest way to get around the whole new evil race thing is make them LIKE the froglucks REQUIRE a raid to unlock them which leads them to being unlockable in EFP. Then the next expansion should be ODUS with a full 1-8 tier progression and then VELIOUS can be a tier 9 expansion. Then another tier 1-9 expansion. Finally a tier 10 expansion that concludes the current lore of EQ2's prophecy. lvl capped at 100 and finally raids on qeynos and freeport.</p></blockquote> Love it and completley agree

[Yojimbo99]

<p>i have to agree with Gungo..</p><p>alternating the expansions between being  end game focused and all around expansions is the prob the soundest way of implementing new content to all players and styles.</p><p>and the idea of putting in a new evil race in a fashion similar to the froglocks is a fantastic idea</p>

[kcirrot]

<cite>Triste-Lune wrote:</cite><blockquote>increasing the level range would be a good idea but the real problem comes from the way skill are done. any spell are made useless with lvl increase. it s just gutting to have to be fully master and when expansion is out all your work is render meaningless. Level increase also makes all the old content subpart and no one even stops to even take a look at it.giving 100 AA to grind as well as a 90% lvl 65+ orientated expansion is a much better thing than 10 lvl and a few other AA.</blockquote>QFT.  I agree that the next expansion should be focused on high levels, but those high levels are 55-70.  Give us two new Achievement trees to grind.

[Maroger]

<p>An expansion that is solely for high levels and raiding guilds will have diminishing returnd and will not sell well. In short it will be a spectacular sales Flop. </p><p>SOE cannot afford to cater to a minority of the players and expect a major expansion to sell well. I belive that  EOF sold well for SOE and got good reviews. I am sure they will go the same way with Kunark. They are not going to spend almost whole year developing content for a minority of the player base.</p><p>Rather than increasing levels, I would rather see new dieties, new AAs etc. along with a new race and new evil city, new quests etc. </p>

[Pins]

<cite>Maroger wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>An expansion that is solely for high levels and raiding guilds will have diminishing returnd and will not sell well. In short it will be a spectacular sales Flop. </p><p>SOE cannot afford to cater to a minority of the players and expect a major expansion to sell well. I belive that  EOF sold well for SOE and got good reviews. I am sure they will go the same way with Kunark. They are not going to spend almost whole year developing content for a minority of the player base.</p><p>Rather than increasing levels, I would rather see new dieties, new AAs etc. along with a new race and new evil city, new quests etc. </p></blockquote>There are a LOT more people at Level 70 than most realize.  There are currently around 68,000 Characters at Level 70.  Now, let's assume that it's about 1.33 Level 70 characters per account, which gives us roughly 51,000 accounts.  Most estimates put EQ2 at around 275,000 subscribers, that's 18% of the population.   That's a large portion of the population that is waiting for more content.

[TaleraRis]

18% is not a large portion of the playerbase. That's 82% left over. They can't make an expansion for not even a 5th of their playerbase and ignore the other 82% of it. Even if all 18% bought it, that's 82% of their playerbase that didn't buy it. That's financial suicide.

[Lodrelhai]

Please, please, not an expansion/zone that focuses on end-game content and completely ignores lower levels. EoF was the most exciting thing to happen as far as I (and, I think, most of my guild) am concerned since the game first launched.  A whole new continent!  New quests to level our lowbies through!  New things to see!  New stories to explore!  Even with that, how much of it is geared towards high-level, raiding players was disappointing. Now I admit, I and my guild are probably not typical.  We've mostly been in game since within 2 months of launch.  Most of us came here directly from EQ1.  We're a fairly small guild, made up of real-life friends.  Most of us have careers, kids, spouses, and other demands that make extended playing almost impossible.  We're spread out across two continents, making scheduling for guild events very, very difficult.  Even if every single person signed on at the same time we wouldn't be able to take on most raid content, lacking enough people for more than 2 groups, and that barely.  We're alt-aholics and rpers to an extreme degree.  And not one of us has more than one character in the 55-70 range, with no one having a maxed character. So what the heck is taking us so long to hit end content?  Two things - first, we don't grind a lot.  We enjoy seeing the content at various levels as we get there, to compare how it was in EQ1 vs EQ2, find those ties and changes from the old world to the new.  Second - there's not that much for us to go higher.  I personally love any story content I can get a hold of.  The Sarge's quest line in Fallen Gate remains my favorite quest line to this day - absolutely brilliant method of storytelling.  But the higher we go, the more the lore content is entangled with the raid content, and the less likely that we'll get high enough to experience the lore content by greying it out and taking it on as a group. Taking EoF as an example:  New race?  Tons of fun with that.  Kelethin? Favorite city, and I only wish they had better housing.  New lowbie zones and quests?  Fantastic fun.  Familiar areas now vastly changed?  Incredibly exciting!  Top-heavy content?  You bet your bum, buster. Some of it made sense.  Even a slow leveler like me goes through the first two tiers fast enough that having them both in one zone worked well.  And Mistmoore chewed groups up and spit them out in EQ1, so not too much of a surprise having it an epic zone.  Other things though... not so much sense.  Given that my dirge was able to experience most of the content in TS, Nek, EF, and Zek before outleveling them, did tiers 3 and 4 really need to share a zone?  Disappointing as it was to hear Unrest would be high-level, my guild figured at 55-70 range we could hunt around the entrance and penetrate further as our chars levelled.  Then we went into the zone and found lvl 74 heroics guarding the door.  So much for that idea. Short version - not everyone who's been in the game since launch is rushing their alts through to the big stuff.  Some of us take our time, and would like to see new things to experience throughout, rather than more high-end stuff that we probably won't be able to experience even when we do get that high.  Even if new zones aren't added, how about scrambling up the ones that are there a bit?  To this day my guild has fond memories of the Plague in the Karana Plains in EQ1.  We didn't even participate in the large-scale quests which started and then cured the plague - we just had fun with the changed zones and the swarm of beetles that came running through.  It was a lot of fun and required only a couple new quests and a handful of new mobs.  Expansions that cater completely to high levels just encourages people like me NOT to buy it until we've got characters high enough to utilize it - and by that time, they'll probably be in a multi-expansion set like the store version of EoF.  Combine this with nothing to draw in new players, and it's really a losing situation all around.

[Nightmoon]

<p>I'd like to put my 2 coppers in if I may.</p><p> I think there has to be a different way to progress in the game than the standard level progression for this or any MMO is to survive. Everytime you raise the level cap into a new tier, everything previous becomes trivialized. look at all the hard work that has been put in to the end game content between KoS and EoF. All that will become a trivial race to level now...no one will raid T7 because there will be T8. You can see it in all the content from all the previous tiers, its not a cost-effective cycle.</p><p> I believe the effective way to keep the game going is for it to be a gear-centric game, not a level-centric game. I think T7 has been developed into a very well implemented progression in its own right. a level 70 geared out in xegonite compared to a level 70 geared out in KoS fabled is like a level 1 character compared to a level 20 character (for sake of comparisson.) similar can be said of a level 70 geared in KoS fabled compared to a level 70 decked out in EoF fabled.</p><p> I think everquest 1 did a great job with this, after seven years they are still at a level cap of 75 (if I remember correctly) but they developed an alternate way to keep players advancing their characters that didnt trivialize all the previous content. AA's and gear. This kept new people from being too intimidated and older players a way to keep interested and continue to advance their characters.</p><p>So..</p><p>Progression 1 = 1 - 70</p><p>Progression 2 = 70 KoS geared - 70 EoF geared</p><p>Progression 3 = EoF geared - next expansion</p><p>With Achievment Trees intertwined in there I think it makes for a system that will keep the game going for years to come. Honestly, does the majority of people that level grind do it because they enjoy the leveling part? I think people level fast because they want a high level character to do the high level content. Same with their alts, they want a high level character in that particular class to do the endgame content and get GEARED. I think what people really want is more challenging dungeons/raids/mobs and better and better gear. This can be done and be just as effective if not more than simply raising the cap again, without trivializing all the great content thats already here.</p><p>I raid and am mostly geared in KoS gear and working on getting into the EoF gear. I think it would be great to have 10, 15, hell 20+ raid zones over time for a raid guild to progress though. I think all raid guilds go through times where people drop off and they have to rebuild with new characters and return to some easier zones to regear those new players. I think it would be great to have that progression, but have so many options to choose from that people wont get so sick of the same place because they will have multitudes of raid zones at different levels of difficulty all in the same tier. This idea I think can also carry into group and solo content as well, but seeing how, at least in my experience, the raiders are the majority that want the level increase, I figured I would explain my point with them in mind.</p><p> I hope I was able to get a constructive point across and didnt ramble too much <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Arleonenis]

<cite>Nightmoon wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I'd like to put my 2 coppers in if I may.</p><p> I think there has to be a different way to progress in the game than the standard level progression for this or any MMO is to survive. Everytime you raise the level cap into a new tier, everything previous becomes trivialized. look at all the hard work that has been put in to the end game content between KoS and EoF. All that will become a trivial race to level now...no one will raid T7 because there will be T8. You can see it in all the content from all the previous tiers, its not a cost-effective cycle.</p><p> I believe the effective way to keep the game going is for it to be a gear-centric game, not a level-centric game. I think T7 has been developed into a very well implemented progression in its own right. a level 70 geared out in xegonite compared to a level 70 geared out in KoS fabled is like a level 1 character compared to a level 20 character (for sake of comparisson.) similar can be said of a level 70 geared in KoS fabled compared to a level 70 decked out in EoF fabled.</p><p> I think everquest 1 did a great job with this, after seven years they are still at a level cap of 75 (if I remember correctly) but they developed an alternate way to keep players advancing their characters that didnt trivialize all the previous content. AA's and gear. This kept new people from being too intimidated and older players a way to keep interested and continue to advance their characters.</p><p>So..</p><p>Progression 1 = 1 - 70</p><p>Progression 2 = 70 KoS geared - 70 EoF geared</p><p>Progression 3 = EoF geared - next expansion</p><p>With Achievment Trees intertwined in there I think it makes for a system that will keep the game going for years to come. Honestly, does the majority of people that level grind do it because they enjoy the leveling part? I think people level fast because they want a high level character to do the high level content. Same with their alts, they want a high level character in that particular class to do the endgame content and get GEARED. I think what people really want is more challenging dungeons/raids/mobs and better and better gear. This can be done and be just as effective if not more than simply raising the cap again, without trivializing all the great content thats already here.</p><p>I raid and am mostly geared in KoS gear and working on getting into the EoF gear. I think it would be great to have 10, 15, hell 20+ raid zones over time for a raid guild to progress though. I think all raid guilds go through times where people drop off and they have to rebuild with new characters and return to some easier zones to regear those new players. I think it would be great to have that progression, but have so many options to choose from that people wont get so sick of the same place because they will have multitudes of raid zones at different levels of difficulty all in the same tier. This idea I think can also carry into group and solo content as well, but seeing how, at least in my experience, the raiders are the majority that want the level increase, I figured I would explain my point with them in mind.</p><p> I hope I was able to get a constructive point across and didnt ramble too much <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote> i agree here, adding new tier would just made all the masters i acquired all hard work in getting gear meaningless... its like telling me: ok, now you need to start all over again... becouse as levels are handled in eq2 next tier is just a new game, you may enter it better or less prepared but you must do same things and progress the same way, grinding levels, instances to gear up than raid zones to gear up than harder raid zones for better gear all the time harvesting rares for a3 and huting for masters becouse a3 next tier is much better than m1 last tier... so yes adding new ways to improves toons like AAs or MAYBE few special levels that are very slow to gain and dont increase you level in reality to 7x, you will still be level 70 but like new crafting professions are add on... with new unique spells diffrent than ones you already have but not "replacement" just further improvement this way you may come back to do labs in 2 groups for example from time to time or do fast run in DT to gear up new member/alt or just for fun, tell me how often you go back to raid t5 or even t6 content? personally never so with increased level cap even with entire new expansion dedicated to t8 it still be to little to do, not enough content: hardcore players will chew through it in no time no matter how hard you do it and less hardcore raiders wouldnt be able to progress at this level, it will be above they capabilities, as if they would stay at 70 they always come back for one reason or another to KoS raid zone or EoF or something else like FD

[Bayne]

I believe RoK will be a 1-70 expansion. It makes sense with how the original RoK was release in EQ1. You could level a character from 1 to 60 (the cap at the time) without ever leaving Kunark. Plus, they need some kind of balance with the fae coming in. They need a new evil race, and with that a new starting zone and progression. After EQ2 first released, the first 2 expansions had level increases and a steady decline in subscriptions. EoF releases and now SoE sees an  increase of subscriptions and old accounts being reactivated (I personally know several that came back just because of EoF). If you were SoE, wouldn't you go with what works? If we follow the EQ1 timeline, Velious will be after Kunark. Velious was the 1st expansion that only dealt with high level content, and was a huge sucess because of the glut of level 50+ running around trying to level with only 2 zones to level in (Karnors/Sebillis). I could totally see Velious being thier T8 expansion, exclusively catering to the 65-80 levels. That would be a great expansion to do it in too (dragons galore!). EQ2 lore is Velious has melted and we don't know what was under the ice. I pray and hope that RoK does not become a 1-80 expansion. It sucked in EQ1 when there was only 1 zone to level in for level 50-55 and 1 zone for 55-60. We don't need something like that again.

[TaleraRis]

<cite>Nightmoon wrote:</cite><blockquote> <p> I think everquest 1 did a great job with this, after seven years they are still at a level cap of 75 (if I remember correctly) but they developed an alternate way to keep players advancing their characters that didnt trivialize all the previous content. AA's and gear. This kept new people from being too intimidated and older players a way to keep interested and continue to advance their characters.</p> </blockquote> Wait wait wait wait wait Let's represent this accurately. This statement could not be more false. Nearly every expansion in EQ1 trivialized the previous content because nearly every expansion in EQ1 (until OoW is my full time experience, I've gone back loosely in DoN, DoDH and PoR periods) raised the difficulty bar. In raising the difficulty bar, more powerful gear had to be obtained to combat the increased difficulty and since the previous content remained the same challenge, it was constantly being trivialized. Just up to PoP, I recall hearing situations of people duoing the Avatar of War and the Statue of Rallos Zek in Kael Drakkel, which was only two expansions old at that point in time. Those used to be heavy duty raids that required a lot of people and a lot of deaths. In PoP, they became nothing, because of the quality of the gear that was available. That's just taking the gear factor, however. The further development of AAs is even worse. It gradually became the norm with AAs that there were "required" AAs for every class. Not just in terms of what guild would recruit you. If you were a warrior in PoP and you didn't have your defensive AAs? Good luck getting any group. Or an enchanter who didn't have TD3. You definitely didn't have a spot in any raid taking on Rallos Zek unless some guild took pity on you. It was also around PoP that the moniker of "The game begins at X level" really took shape. It had been whispered about before that, but up until PoP, the majority of an expansion wasn't locked to a large portion of the playerbase. Kunark and Luclin both had low level areas and even Velious emcompassed 30s+ which was about half the game at that point. PoP offered no zones to anyone below level 47 except for the Plane of Knowledge. IIRC, even the Plane of Tranquility required 47 and there were only 4 zones off the PoT that were accessible at that level. The rest of the expansion for quite some time remained locked behind raids. They eventually opened the next tier up at 55, then some like Bastion of Thunder and Plane of Tactics at 62, but that was the ground state of PoP when it first came out, one zone for below 47 and 6 for 47+ non-raiders. This sort of thing led to the continuing idea that "The game does not begin until" whatever level. For PoP, it as 47 at the onset, although gradually it became 51 (when you could start gaining AA and only once those AA started to really matter) then 61/62/65 (because 60 was a very short level and nobody spent much time there) , then 70 once the cap was raised and now I go back and everyone and their brother is 75 with thousands of AA. This whole idea was extremely intimidating to new players. There was a very large problem of people being powerleveled through the levels because they were a "needed" class for all the raiding that PoP required of the population. The newbie zones were bare, unless you were running an alt through the gamut that began with Paludal Caverns becasue of the increased xp there. I'm sure the gamut has changed to another set of zones by now, but it's the same general idea. The lower levels are something to be sped through and if you don't have the means to speed through those levels then you are at a decided disadvantage, because you will be a low level soloer in a game that is extremely solo unfriendly. EQ1 is the last game you want to hold as an example of how a gear-centric game is the answer. It is an extremely gear-centric game and said focus on that gear and on the idea that better gear could only be acquired through the application of more people is what killed the low level and casual game for a long time there. The gap between those who committed their lives to the game and those who stopped to smell the roses was allowed to grow to excessive proportions and I know many of my fellow casual-based friends moved here to EQ2 or WoW for that exact reason. Has it improved? Probably. The shroud system and monster missions make it easier for even lower levels to join together with their higher level friends. But it took EQ1 over 6 years to achieve even a slightly reasonable balance.  And it's still not fixed. I keep wanting to go back. I miss my enchanter. But it is such a daunting task to be 69 and thousands of AA behind everyone. I can't even get my spells for my current level because they either require no-drop runes in group zones or drops in the new expansion that are extremely rare and just one piece of the research recipe goes for 20k plat a pop.  Consider that I've only been an inactive player for the time since EQ2 has come out. I can't imagine how it is for someone who just started say with the Serpent's Spine and the new race to have all that catching up to do before they're part of the "real game".

[Nightmoon]

<p>I'll concede to your point on EQ1 Talera, as I do not have the experience that you have, I played many years ago and havent seen the recent content or setup. I was trying to use the idea of "alternate advancement" to make my argument. I just don't think a level increase is the best way to go to keep the game running. </p><p> Everytime a new tier is added it trivializes the previous tier. This wouldnt be a problem if there were a new and different and refreshing way to go about progression through that tier. but lets face it, its the same exact thing. For the "power gamers" (for lack of a better term) they grind the new 10 levels (and the new CAs' they get are the same EXACT things as all the tiers before, just a new name and a little more powerful to match the level of the tier), then they raid and raid and raid to get the best gear for that tier, then a new 10 levels comes along and they grind the new 10 levels, relearn the same CA's with a new name, raid and raid and raid and get geared...and so on and so forth. People usually stop playing a game when it becomes mundane and nothing new is added. I personally think "new content" means more than just places to go, it means new ways of doing things to keep the player base interested.</p><p>And then of course the casual gamer who levels slower than the power gamers? they'll just level and level for the rest of their time in the game. never reaching the top because it keeps raising. I felt this way when DoF and KoS came out. (and by the way, I think that was biggest problem in eq2's lifespan, having two expansions so close together that raised the level caps so drastically)</p><p> at least when the tier remains the same, yea gear will eventually trivialize the earlier zones in that tier, but they are still available to return to when the need arises (new guild mates that need to get gear) because if new people are not progressively geared from the easier raids, they will never stand a chance in the hard raid areas (or group areas, etc.). T5 has some great raid zones, but because of the quick level cap raise why would anyone bother to return to them when they can just grind to 70 and work on T7? This is the same thing that will happen to T7 as the level cap raises. and I think there are so many great areas in T7 that it would be a shame to grey them out so quick, or ever for that matter (but thats just my opinion)</p><p>Ok, maybe eq1 was a bad example, perhaps eq1's problem was they added so many AA's at once. I just think there needs to be an alternate way of advancing a character instead of constantly tacking on more levels. Levels are the quickest way to trivialize zones and content and seperate the heavy gamers from the casual gamers. While gear does the same thing eventually, it is a much slower process, especially in eq2. Again this is all just my opinion, but I definately believe the gear and achievement route is the lesser of two evils.</p>

[TaleraRis]

I'm completely in your court about new levels not being the answer, but I don't see how any sort of progression won't trivialize the content in some way. AAs will make the character more powerful, requiring the bar to be raised. Gear will make characters more powerful, requiring the bar to be raised. Maybe not as high as if levels were involved, but trivialization of content is something that can't be avoided so long as the difficulty continues to jump with each progressing level.

[ke'la]

<p>DoF Flopped over all</p><p>KoS Flopped over all</p><p>EoF was a Major Success</p><p>Huh, wich model should the devs fallow? </p><p>plus I guess no one in this thread EVER checks the Newbe Yard because a) you can't post there unless you are new to the game and b) there are new posts all the time and one of the most commin is "I am new to the game should I buy the expainitions?" up until EoF the answer was pritty much No. Now the answer is a resounding yes</p><p>As for what I think the devs should do, consitering that they will probly have atleast 3 months more dev time(they Trademarked EoF at this time and KoS was just released, so they have the addtional Dev time from EoF release until now) as they likly wont release the game until Nov '07ish, as such there is plenty of time to add 1-80 content, especally if you make Travel from EoF to RoK quick and easy and go light on where we are currently content heavy 45-60. That would leave plenty of room for 2 or even 3 T8 overland zones, dungons and such.</p><p>Oh and to the people saying that MMOs should not try for new people, you are a fool as MMOs by there very nature have a Bleed effect where all of them loose players over time and if those players are not replace by new players your MMO bleeds to death. </p><p>Lastly, content can be added for High lvls and Raiders between expaintions very easily (see Unrest), however its nearly Impossable to ADD content for new players between expaintions(though another revamp pass through old world zones is warented).</p>

[Gungo]

<p>People fail to realise that there are hard skill caps that can not sustain an inflated itemizaton And a saturated economy that can not sustain a flooded market. Masters will be worth less and less  when people acquire more and more. </p><p>I am sorry but the way this game is designed it MUST have a level increase.</p><p>I am fairly certain the next expansion will be similar to EoF. a nostalgic kunark including a new evil based city and evil race. Possibly a good based encampment. And since Kunark will probably include a new race it will include newbie areas to level this new race. maybe 2 overland T8  zones and 3 raid instaces. </p><p>Sadly this is a wrong way it seems. The overexposure of new lower level content makes for alot of unused older content. People will no longer go to older lower level zone as rewards from newer zones far outweight older zones. Then you run into eq1 type scenarios with dozens of older zones barren and empty, unused by any players. You run into new players unable to find groups or even see people in starter cities, because no tutorial can tell them where people go to play. </p><p>The path from 1-20 is lightening fast 20-30 is fairly fast as well. How many T1, T2, T3 zones do we need? It will be a sad day when the starting citites become barren because people no longer go to qeynos or freeport.</p><p>I truly do not think any more hub cities should be created. I do nto mind a new evil city, but it should be an intereactive city, not necessarily a player city. Not a place where you could build a guild house, take up residency easily etc. The new city should not be to convinent.  Please do not thin out the population in freeport and qeynos. Citites should be interactive hubs, they border dungeons in design. They allow for quest givers and progress, but are hostile and dangerous as well. Player should be outsiders and not someone who just walks in and buys a home, recieves a new title, and the classic citzenship. </p><p>Please, do not just dillute the lower tier zones and hardly include any T8 content. IF they coppied EoF and make 1 T8 overland zone like loping plains and only 3 raid zones. The new expansion will be a dilluted and wasteful dissapointment.</p>

[Jalkoz]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Thunderthyze wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>With the speculation beginning on the next expansion the main questions being discussed are "where will it be?", "what levels will be catered for?" and "will the level cap be raised?"</p><p>I am particularly interested in the last two questions as their implementation may well make or break the entire game.</p><p>In my opinion if the level cap goes up (and let us hope fervently that it does) then the expansion HAS to concentrate on levels 60~80 at the very most (assuming that is the new cap). </p><p>Basically EQ2 will never have another huge influx of new accounts as they did when the game was released, there is just too much competition out there nowadays. Therefore the vast majority of players will be high end mains complemented  by lower level alts able to cruise through the lower levels with the benefit of game experience and twinking. If SOE futher dilute the lower level zones then their relative emptiness will turn off a lot of core players. Lower level zones WILL be boring, borne out of familiarity, but will be burned through in any case. Be honest, just how well do you know Greater Fay compared with say Antonica? All because you haven't spent so much time there on your way to the higher level stuff.</p><p>I think that the release of EoF supports my case even more. No level cap raise and lower level content, BUT increased AA's and deities. The result of this increase in player capabilities had the result of trivialising content brought out years before and balanced assuming no AA's whatsoever.</p><p>If SOE are really brave they will severely reduce the xp rate post level 70 too. An entire expansion geared to lvl 70+ which is impossible to burn through in a week. Now THERE'S an idea!</p></blockquote><p>I've been saying most of this all long now.  If you take all of the 55-70 content, do a little research to see what zones are empty.  Now do one 1-55.  1-55 is just disgusting how much of the content is never used.  There is more than enough for 1-55, and yet, at 70, almost every is just begging for something to do.</p><p>Oh, and PLEASE cripple the xp rate.  I've even mentioned before it should be at 10% of what it was 60-70 with the release of KoS.   I'm against any new AAs, I don't care about new Dieties, another "Epic" quest yada yada.  What I want is REALLY nice contested mobs, maybe some progressive raiding, flagging if you will, somewhat like DT access, but don't make the boss mobs a joke.  Challenging dungeons, challenging instances. The usual that we hopefor and never get. </p></blockquote><p>Uhh, so you just want more hardcore grinding and what apparently seems like PVP (at least that's how I'm reading it) and to make it even harder for casual players to reach the new cap. You're also against content from again what I read. Sorry pal, but some of us have a life that takes up a large portion of our time (Me going into boot camp in a month then schooling which adds to 1 year total) aren't on the same boat as you are. Sure, go ahead and tell us to quit whining or go somewhere else. We lose content and ease of playing, we probably will. </p><p>I remember SOE making EQ2 easier for a reason and a lot of people complained how easy it was compared to EQ1, so tell me, are you one of those EQ1 hardcore people who don't care for lore and contant and only want to raid until your eyes bleed to death? I need something to keep me involved, and to me, raiding isn't going to cut it. Plus the 60-70 exp rate will probably still be nasty to me, add in 10 new levels with a severely reduced exp rate and I'll be clicking cancel, don't know about everyone else though.</p><p>Don't go speaking for everyone and don't throw the 'but you spoke for everyonr' crap at me. I'm speaking for myself and a few casual players who have a lot going on in their lives and EQ2 to them is a game to be enjoyed, not some raid-happy grindfest catering only to those with near-infinite amounts of time. </p>

[Kindayr]

<p>Personally, i think for the next expansion, they should fuse some more servers together. I realize how much of a pain this must be for many players, but it'd increase the concentration of players on each server. </p><p>I remember in EQLive how easy it was to get into a group, and the first half hour, you'd be fighting for a camp because the server was so dense. I prefer that so much more than rushing through zones mass killing all i want, all by myself [though i do love soloing sometimes, but not when i'm actually looking for a group].</p><p>Personally, i think they should increase the level by half tiers for the next few expansions, but make the experience gained by killing things in the new tier by like 5% of what it usually it. </p><p>heh, my next idea is just a joke, but SOE should just cut everyone's level in half. Keep all the content, just make every 70 a lvl 35 again, and make leveling so much harder.</p><p>I probably sound [I cannot control my vocabulary], but its march break, and i'm too lazy to type all my other ideas out.</p>

[Jalkoz]

<cite>Kindayr wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Personally, i think for the next expansion, they should fuse some more servers together. I realize how much of a pain this must be for many players, but it'd increase the concentration of players on each server. </p><p>I remember in EQLive how easy it was to get into a group, and the first half hour, you'd be fighting for a camp because the server was so dense. I prefer that so much more than rushing through zones mass killing all i want, all by myself [though i do love soloing sometimes, but not when i'm actually looking for a group].</p><p>Personally, i think they should increase the level by half tiers for the next few expansions, but make the experience gained by killing things in the new tier by like 5% of what it usually it. </p><p>heh, my next idea is just a joke, but SOE should just cut everyone's level in half. Keep all the content, just make every 70 a lvl 35 again, and make leveling so much harder.</p><p>I probably sound [I cannot control my vocabulary], but its march break, and i'm too lazy to type all my other ideas out.</p></blockquote><p>Everyone's level being halved and making it harder to level? Again I'll make another point/rant depending on how it's interpreted.  Sure for some getting to level 70 or so isn't hard and can stand the level cut (Though I'm pretty sure some worked hard) but when you look at new players who see those notes how all levels were cut in half, exp made MUCH harder to get, and servers merged doesn't look very good... they'll think this game has issues.</p><p> You want it to be hard to level? Please go to EQ1 or heck, maybe even FFXI. I enjoy this game because it's easier than FFXI  and WoW, but nowhere near as easy as some other MMOs. If you want to take a longer time levelling, play a harder to play class and solo to 70. Go on and laugh, but there's your precious 'so much harder to level' answer right there.</p><p>SOE may not be great at ideas, but they're not stupid enough to cave into the few who want grinding to be nearly impossible and end up being some korean MMO rip off. </p>

[Rashaak]

<cite>Jalkoz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kindayr wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Personally, i think for the next expansion, they should fuse some more servers together. I realize how much of a pain this must be for many players, but it'd increase the concentration of players on each server. </p><p>I remember in EQLive how easy it was to get into a group, and the first half hour, you'd be fighting for a camp because the server was so dense. I prefer that so much more than rushing through zones mass killing all i want, all by myself [though i do love soloing sometimes, but not when i'm actually looking for a group].</p><p>Personally, i think they should increase the level by half tiers for the next few expansions, but make the experience gained by killing things in the new tier by like 5% of what it usually it. </p><p>heh, my next idea is just a joke, but SOE should just cut everyone's level in half. Keep all the content, just make every 70 a lvl 35 again, and make leveling so much harder.</p><p>I probably sound [I cannot control my vocabulary], but its march break, and i'm too lazy to type all my other ideas out.</p></blockquote><p>Everyone's level being halved and making it harder to level? Again I'll make another point/rant depending on how it's interpreted.  Sure for some getting to level 70 or so isn't hard and can stand the level cut (Though I'm pretty sure some worked hard) but when you look at new players who see those notes how all levels were cut in half, exp made MUCH harder to get, and servers merged doesn't look very good... they'll think this game has issues.</p><p> You want it to be hard to level? Please go to EQ1 or heck, maybe even FFXI. I enjoy this game because it's easier than FFXI  and WoW, but nowhere near as easy as some other MMOs. If you want to take a longer time levelling, play a harder to play class and solo to 70. Go on and laugh, but there's your precious 'so much harder to level' answer right there.</p><p>SOE may not be great at ideas, but they're not stupid enough to cave into the few who want grinding to be nearly impossible and end up being some korean MMO rip off. </p></blockquote><p>You should go re-read the comment you decided to concentrate on...he said it was a joke...</p><p>anyways...back on track...</p><p>The next expansion should concentrate on the higher end, but there is so much of Norrath still not uncovered that to make future content high end would not be a good move. So far EQ2 has withstood and held its own against the many other MMO's out there now and think they will continue to do so. With that, the next expansion should increase the level cap to 80 and possibly another AP tree, but I believe it will also have content for lower levels as well. Basically it'll be much like EoF except a lot more focus on higher end content. </p>

[Jalkoz]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Jalkoz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Kindayr wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Personally, i think for the next expansion, they should fuse some more servers together. I realize how much of a pain this must be for many players, but it'd increase the concentration of players on each server. </p><p>I remember in EQLive how easy it was to get into a group, and the first half hour, you'd be fighting for a camp because the server was so dense. I prefer that so much more than rushing through zones mass killing all i want, all by myself [though i do love soloing sometimes, but not when i'm actually looking for a group].</p><p>Personally, i think they should increase the level by half tiers for the next few expansions, but make the experience gained by killing things in the new tier by like 5% of what it usually it. </p><p>heh, my next idea is just a joke, but SOE should just cut everyone's level in half. Keep all the content, just make every 70 a lvl 35 again, and make leveling so much harder.</p><p>I probably sound [I cannot control my vocabulary], but its march break, and i'm too lazy to type all my other ideas out.</p></blockquote><p>Everyone's level being halved and making it harder to level? Again I'll make another point/rant depending on how it's interpreted.  Sure for some getting to level 70 or so isn't hard and can stand the level cut (Though I'm pretty sure some worked hard) but when you look at new players who see those notes how all levels were cut in half, exp made MUCH harder to get, and servers merged doesn't look very good... they'll think this game has issues.</p><p> You want it to be hard to level? Please go to EQ1 or heck, maybe even FFXI. I enjoy this game because it's easier than FFXI  and WoW, but nowhere near as easy as some other MMOs. If you want to take a longer time levelling, play a harder to play class and solo to 70. Go on and laugh, but there's your precious 'so much harder to level' answer right there.</p><p>SOE may not be great at ideas, but they're not stupid enough to cave into the few who want grinding to be nearly impossible and end up being some korean MMO rip off. </p></blockquote><p>You should go re-read the comment you decided to concentrate on...he said it was a joke...</p><p>anyways...back on track...</p><p>The next expansion should concentrate on the higher end, but there is so much of Norrath still not uncovered that to make future content high end would not be a good move. So far EQ2 has withstood and held its own against the many other MMO's out there now and think they will continue to do so. With that, the next expansion should increase the level cap to 80 and possibly another AP tree, but I believe it will also have content for lower levels as well. Basically it'll be much like EoF except a lot more focus on higher end content. </p></blockquote>I know it's a joke, I'm no idiot, have you seen what some developers put into MMO expansions/updates based on what some players will joke about though? I've been subscribed to a few MMOs where a few players would joke around about a Tank class being too powerful or something and within a few big updates the Tank classes got nerfed  in many ways and those who were joking around got figured out and essentially had to kiss grouping goodbye.  As DPS and healers no less.

[Rashaak]

<p>Is it really nerfing? or balancing?  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I know CoH had an Issue that they took their heavy tank and nerfed its taunt ability...</p>

[Jalkoz]

<cite>Rashaak wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Is it really nerfing? or balancing?  <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I know CoH had an Issue that they took their heavy tank and nerfed its taunt ability...</p></blockquote><p> It's nerfing. Before taunt and such could affect a LOT of mobs at once, no limit really and that's perfect for some of those ungodly sized spawns. Now it's 5 max that can be possibly affected, so two tanks are always needed for the task forces (think mini raids) and often two healers (Or good empaths later on) and that cuts down on dps and such. Plus the mezzers and such being made psuedo-DPS and cutting out greatly on their mezzing. Now those who were asking for balance or nerfing (really the same thing with cryptic... come on, 20 months for a power to be noticed with a misplaced decimal and having it 'fixed'?).</p><p>The thing is, it's also Issues, not just one, and ED as well. Now SOE might not be the brightest group out there, but I'll be damned if they aren't doing a better job than Cryptic fifty times over. The mob AI here is already good from what I've seen.</p><p>Back to the lower level and no more low level content.  Someone nailed it on the head earlier when they said all the level 70 content would almost go to waste, equipment included: Look at World of Borecraft with TBC hit, almost all the epics and such attained through LONG raids and ungodly PVP for level 60's was now useless to greens and blues brought in TBC.</p><p>That was funny though, seeing a purple that once would sell like a hot-cake for around 500 gold now remain on the Auction House untouched. When SOE makes another expansion (They will, and they'll add something, unlike CoH's 'free content' with each 'Free expansion'... just huge updates and all. SOE has them beat in that) they'll do their best to cater to everyone as best as they can, it's the only way to keep EQ2 from going downhill. We're at the same stage auto assault is at, no really huge influx of players, so we have to keep everyone who currently plays as happy as they can.</p>

[Aelfric_Runnyeye]

<p>Imho, Vanguard is going to take a year to be worth playing, just as EQ2 did when it started. The best games around at the moment are City of Heroes and Everquest 2.</p><p>CoH tanks had to be re-balanced, it was possible for seven players of a group of eight to stand at the zone in and let the tank just run round the zone killing everything. Fast XP yes, but no fun whatsoever. Comparisons with CoH aren't really that valid though as once you hit level 50 you more or less put that character to bed and start a new one, there is little opportunity to improve the character past 50 although there will be with the new free update which will add inventions. Like many I made the mistake of racing to the end the first time only to discover that I had essentially cheated myself out of playing the game so had to make new characters. The new game with many powers sets adjusted downwards simply means that there is more grouping than there was.</p><p>Yes people were upset because their individual characters, comparatively, were less powerful, but it improved the game overall. A nerf, yes, but not the EQ1 bard nerf which completely destroyed the ability of bards to play in the way they had. A way which was not game unbalancing just removed the need to sit lfg for hours.</p><p>That essentially is the decision E2 developers have do they put an limit on the development that one character can achieve and instead offer new content which you can go through with a different character or do they continue to up the stakes with more levels, more AA's etc.</p><p>In the end continuing to raise the level will result in EQ1 problems, would anyone start afresh in EQ1 these days?</p><p>As I see it, setting aside the reverse engineered graphics and fixes to bring the game up to date, the gap between starting and catching up to the part of the game where you can actually get groups is just too wide to bother with. The good thing about EQ2 AA's is that you gain them as you play up an alt (as long as you play and don't power level) and this cuts down the gap that new characters have to make up.</p><p>At the moment though EQ2 does need more content level 40+ and much of the Everfrost/Lavastorm zones need to be re-designed to be more solo orientated. At the moment many of my characters have to do 'grey' group missions because of a lack of solo quests from this level range and the woeful lack of groups at this level.</p>

[baddogshaun]

<cite>Lodrelhai wrote:</cite><blockquote>EoF was the most exciting thing to happen as far as I (and, I think, most of my guild) am concerned since the game first launched.  </blockquote>AMEN

[baddogshaun]

Gungo@Crushbone wrote <blockquote><p>Sadly this is a wrong way it seems. The overexposure of new lower level content makes for alot of unused older content. People will no longer go to older lower level zone as rewards from newer zones far outweight older zones. Then you run into eq1 type scenarios with dozens of older zones barren and empty, unused by any players. You run into new players unable to find groups or even see people in starter cities, because no tutorial can tell them where people go to play. </p><p>The path from 1-20 is lightening fast 20-30 is fairly fast as well. How many T1, T2, T3 zones do we need? It will be a sad day when the starting citites become barren because people no longer go to qeynos or freeport.</p></blockquote><p> But EoF simply hasnt had that effect.. if anything Qeynos is busier, and as "everyone" wants an evil fae freeport is getting an influx too from betrayers. Its enlivened the lower level game not diluted it.</p><p>New full range content has been a huge success, any new expansion pack (as opposed to adventure pack) should and probably will bring full range content.. but there is zero reason why it cant wrap in upper level cap increases with a good starter of content, and rolling new content over the following year (this IS a subscription game after all so ongoing new content should be an expected thing)</p><p> In contrast a solely high level expansion would be, as previous ones demonstrate, an unmitigated disaster, and the more exclusive (i.e. the more raid focussed) it is, the worse the disaster will be.</p><p> Who would lose?</p>

[Lanklock]

Hrm... I've been thinking about this for a little while, sure, I'd love to level up more, but, I think I would be equally as hapy with some more zones to run.  I am against level 80 because; -Kills off all the great KoS zones even further -No more T7 raids, but with a focus on, propobly 5 t8 zones that would come out. - If you get tired of your current character, its going to be very difficult to level a new toon back up to level 80, which would put alot of plays out. -Player levels would be spread out even further, if you are under level 50 its very difficult to find people to group with, on my server (Butcherblock). My only suggestion would be, an adventure pack, slightly bigger than TFD one, all for t8. And then another expansion like we saw with EoF, which also contains more t8 zones and zones for all ^.^ That way lower levels don't have to pay for the expansion that is just full of t8 stuff.

[Razak]

Well thought I'd throw in my 2c. For EoF, I honestly think that the expansion is one of the best expansions for any MMO since they started getting expansions. And I've seen a lot. It was a very very complete expansion and has been a lot of fun to play. Second, I think that having new low level areas is actually a positive for a game even if the old areas are enough. The reason is that I had done the old areas a million times, knew em like the back of my hand. At this point in the game most people have, and most start new chars all the time, most of my friends have at least 3 level 70 characters already, if not more. And as they get more they start new ones, so in essence they are likely really sick of the low level content as well and probably appreciate some new low level challenges. Point, even at this stage in the game having new low level areas is actually not a bad idea just to make it fresh for us vets, it isn't always about new players you know. Also I would like to note while you'd think you don't need to return to the old content you do past level 20 pretty much, so yes the lower parts of antonica and the newb zones are unused but those zones sucked anyway. That being said I think if they do two expansions in a row without raising the cap it'll be suicide. A lot of people, such as this poster, complained that this expansion wasn't only for them (me personally i hated that the previous two were only for them) and if they feel ignored for two in a row like they ignored the low- to mid-levels then they'd probably leave (I think low and mid levels tend to be used to getting mistreated). Also, if they do concentrate on all, they'll have to add more AA or somethin to appease higher levels, and honestly I think they need to give AA a tad of a break, I expect with a level increase they may add like a line to the general class tree or something, but if they didn't raise the cap they'd have to come up with a whole lot more than just one here and there. This is just not needed at this point. So here is what I expect out of the next expansion. They will do another general expansion as EoF, just not quite as spread as EoF. They will have some new content for 0-50, but they will have a lot more new content for 55+ than EoF did. The level will get increased from 70 to 75, and the guild level will increase from 60 to 70. This isn't a huge increase but should help keep vets busy with their higher level chars. I would expect those 5 levels to take as long as 60 to 70 did, again not much but it will keep them busy. Then they will add the new evil race so once you get done with 75 you can go create a new evil race and start all over again. I also think they will finally add 2 new character slots here as well largely because even players with the all access pass and the two extra slots are starting to feel the slot pinch. They will either add a new skill at the end of every general class AA line, or they will add a new 5 skill line in the general classes and raise the cap to maybe 120-130.  Lastly, I think they will add 1 new secondary tradeskill (I like the idea of Dying coming back to the game but that may be too graphically intensive for this type of expansion and may be added with an all higher level expansion). With this, they add to the end game for guilds and players more by raising caps, they balance the sides by adding a new evil city, they add new content for all levels keeping everyone happy, and the higher level cap even helps the tradeskillers and adding the new secondary tradeskill would likely help that and add new money drain as well (like the two secondary skills but there is little variation with it and with 6 characters at least it is extremely easy to get everything you need out of it). I think this is a likely solution because they almost need to balance good/evil within a year and with the announcements of slower expansions they need to take care of that. If they don't do it this way I think they will do a 70-80 expansion with an all encompassing expansion coming after that, it will be one or the other I think, I don't think they can afford to not do another all encompassing one. (As a personal standpoint, one thing I really enjoyed about EoF was the new Heritage & Signature items at all levels but in particular 50+. I do enjoy doing those quests, they are a pain in the [Removed for Content] but they make me feel like I am doing something far more epic). About the thinning of the low level content, I do think this actually is a long term concern. This hasn't yet hit as bad, but once the new expansions aren't new then it will be as some will start in newer cities and some old as both have been well covered. I personally am fond about the idea of blowing up Qeynos and Freeport or turning them into high level raids and Antonica/CL into high level areas as well. Those two cities were fairly badly designed and if the new evil city is anywhere near as nice as Kelethin we'd be better off without them. Outside of the lack of guild housing, raids, and other misc. things (which could be easily added into Kelethin I think) Kelethin is so much better designed and so much nicer to live in. I'd move all my chars there if they had better housing. (Freeport is easily one of the worst designed cities I've ever seen since Dark Age of Camelot's silly and confusingly laid out cities).

[valkyrja]

I really don't want to see a level increase.  I hate that so much content in the game goes unused because it turns gray.  I wish there was some way to make old zones interesting to higher level people, while still raising the cap, but I just don't see how it is possible. Not to mention that I hate the idea of having to grind through another 10 levels, get an entirely new set of gear, and get all my masters again.  If the cap is raised, for the love of god, give us all new spells, and don't make me get a new version of what I had 14 levels ago.

[Suta]

<cite>Matia wrote:</cite><blockquote>Well, actually I'll differ from you here. It could just as easily be argued that aiming content at the upper tiers of levels is just as much to blame. For example, with the exception of EoF, every expansion and adventure pack has been aimed at <levelX>+. The expansions that raised levels contained content almost exclusively for those added levels with a little for those just under that range. The adventure packs did not raise levels, but there was a range you needed to be in before you could participate in them even if it was just to get into them. EoF on the other hand introduced no increase, but did add zones and content for all levels. Since then, I personally have noticed an increase in the population in not just those new zones but many of the older zones. People making new characters are going back there. People with existing characters are playing their lower levels to take advantage of the new characters having increased the population. All of the zones? No. But a good number of them. Now, does that mean they should add new lower level zones regularly? No. But they should not leave off of them. That was one of the things that led to a dissatisfaction in older games. EQ for example kept adding more and more higher content and ignored the older zones. End result: nobody went there because there was no reason and nothing new. The game ended up being solely about the upper levels. Everything else was relegated to something you speed through to get to the "real game". That meant that new players had absolutely no reason to show up. Will the game again see an influx like when it first appeared? Probably no. Will it have periods of new player influx? Yes. Especially when new things are added. As was seen with EoF (and similarly in other games around the same time), when new content was added that was available for new players to experience, they come and try it. Some stay, some don't. But if it isn't added, they will not come. As a new player, you don't care what shiny new things just got added for the top 10-20 levels, because those don't affect you or your experience. No sector of the player base should be concentrated on more than another. Those in the upper tiers should gain new things to do and enjoy. Those in the lowest tiers should also have new experiences to enjoy (especially when things are added that cause new characters to be made such as new races or potentially classes). Those in between should similarly have just as much newness aimed at them. This doesn't necessarily mean that all this "newness" involve new zones. Existing zones can be changed around from time to time. Fallen Gate is an example. Keep the zone or dungeon the same basic level of difficulty, but change it around. People go and explore it all over again and enjoy themselves. The same can be (and probably will be) done for other places throughout the game in the future. Getting rid of lower zones because "they are always empty" or "they are totally unused" and making new higher zones assures a lowered liklihood of new players. After all, why join a game with nothing for you because you are lower level. If they are truly unused, then re-do them from time to time and make them "new" again. Also add more things for the higher levels. The fact that zone X isn't perceived as used by a particular player doesn't remove from what is available to them. Dropping that zone in order to add something for them however does remove from anyone else that wants to use it. As usual, this is just my opinion. </blockquote> Best post in this l33t talking thread.  All the expansions were for end game content. It was nice to finally get an all level content expansion.  Hope the next one is the same.

[Moongloom]

<p>I think they could add something like LDoN from EQ1.  That way all level ranges can have a bunch of new dungeons to explore and it can be set to where it only takes an hour or so to do one or you can set it for a 4 hour long raid thing.  Make it to where there are one group things to do and 2 group raids in it.  </p><p>Then you can add new dungeons/content into it every month or so and now have to add more zones.  Could make some interesting lines of quest like "General Giminy stole a powerful object from Rallos Zek and we need to get it before either General Giminy uses it or Rallos Zek gets it back."  Then you can get some random item from good loot table.  </p><p>I hope AA's don't continue to go up.  I left EQ1 because I just didn't want to grind 200000 AA's to be considered for end game stuff.  AA's in EQ1 were game breaking imho.  So far in EQ2 AA's are just tweeks and a little extra diversity without mobs having to made around "player x has 2000 AA's" type stuff.</p><p>Typos ftw!</p>

[maka73]

<p>Just my 2cp. </p><p> I did the new t7 EoF instances less than 5 times each once they came out, there is nothing I need there. I paid 40$ for a few raid zones and to pine away in a few non challenging zones to get the cloak of flames. If vanguard was more appealing(and to some in my guild it was)  I would have cancelled my eq2 account until the cap raised to give me something to do. I wonder what the comparison is of how many accounts they lost to vanguard and other games vs how many new subscribers they gained from a 1-70 expansion? I know a few joined, because my real life friends are playing the game since the expansion. They are not playing because of the expansion but because people like myself that have had the game since launch talked them into playing. To bad SoE doesn't have some form of survey for new players to take to see why they bought the game. </p><p>I understand that the EoF t7 legendary drops couldn't be better than the x4 fabled KoS gear but the lack of a cap raise made me look other places for my gaming time. I see people complaining about losing spells and gear. I can't wait to lose mine, it will be my motivation to play the game outside of raid time again. Until then its old FPS games, madden football... and the occasional browsing of other mmorpg games.</p><p> I saw someone crunched some numbers (god knows if they are right) that said about 1/5 of the accounts have a 70 toon. Most of these are SOE's loyal customers for several years. I have 6 friends that are playing now because of my word of mouth praise for the game, not the amount of content for lower level toons. IMHO if you add anything at all for the lower level toons in the next expansion make it adventure packs that adjust to level like splitpaw.</p><p> Oh, and the reason I saw this thread? I was looking for something to keep me interested in the game. Can SoE at least put out something about a new expansion or level increase that's offcial and not rumor/guesses by players? It's been 4 month's since EoF came out and some of us need a bone.</p><p>A few final random notes, I have tried other games and EQ2 is still the best MMORPG on the market. I may be bored silly with the current content outside of the raid zones but wanted to mention that so I didn't come across as nothing but a complainer. I feel it wouldbe a HUGE mistake to raise the cap to only 75 in an attempt to keep t7 zones active. I would rather wait longer for a fuller expansion. Also, would it be possible to put a 'lockout timer' on contested mobs? 24-48 hours on heroics and 8 days on x4 contested? This would free some of the heroics up for people that don't kill them for a living and give other guilds one day to try the contested before the guild with the timers blows them away every week shortly after they pop.</p>

[Jenarie]

I don't think this is accurate.  <i>Maybe</i> 90% are alts who know how to level quickly but they ARE interested in taking the time.  I joined the game one month ago.  Most of the people I've met are leveling with xp turned off to take advantage of all the quests they can do.  Some of them do it because they think it would be easier to AA at lower level and some just because they like to do quests.  There are people leveling as fast as they can but I've met many more who are leveling the slow smell the flowers route.  Traveling around even the old zones I've rarely found a totally empty zone.   Zones are not crowded but they aren't empty either.  Holymoly@Runnyeye wrote: <blockquote><p>~90% of all level 20's are alts. They know how to level up quickly. They are not interested in taking time to smell the flowers, they probably did that first time around. For them, levels 1~55 are a necessary evil they have to wade through before they get to be useful guild members. Thing is though, if those levels are duplicated over 4 or 5 expansions then they will be spread do thin that any good content will be spoilt by lack of population. </p></blockquote>

[Drumly]

<p>Having been working on my Fae alt for awhile (I love jumping off of things), I have to say that the solution the Dev's have used for the low levels seems to be much faster leveling until you reach about 55 or so.  I don't really think that I am much better at grinding it out . . lol.</p><p>With this idea that people can get to the expansion content fairly quickly as compared with people like me who took 2 years (lol), I think upping the level cap to 80 isn't such a bad idea.  New things to see is always nice, but if the characters are growing too much laterally, then the balancing gets out of whack.</p><p> The thing about higher level content is that if it takes too long to catch up (EQ1 before some of the new expansions) then you are really only "designing for a subset".  With mentoring high levels have a chance to see older content that they may have missed, and with faster levels, newer players and alts can get to the new content quickly.  It might be a different story at level 120, but at 80 I think most players could reach that with a fairly small investment of time.</p><p>The Tang</p>

[Dwightdee]

I dont really want them to increase the level cap. A rigid 10level based tier system is kinda silly to keep going by now that there is so much fleshed out at t7. What i would rather see is more aa paths.  maybe next expansion we could get a large, expandable, open ended AA scheme such as the eq1 system.  And later perhaps AA trees along the lines of the current ones, but based on your characters race, and the 4 archetypes(mage, fighter, scout, priest). Either way some need to grind XP is going to be added, and i would rather it be by AA's than by levels(more options, and customizability). This also lets you keep all the curent t7 raid content which is used to gear up for all the newer content released, instead of people just outleveling it and having all these zones go to be barely ever used again.

[TaleraRis]

Dwightdee@Everfrost wrote: <blockquote>I dont really want them to increase the level cap. A rigid 10level based tier system is kinda silly to keep going by now that there is so much fleshed out at t7. What i would rather see is more aa paths.  maybe next expansion we could get a large, expandable, open ended AA scheme such as the eq1 system.  And later perhaps AA trees along the lines of the current ones, but based on your characters race, and the 4 archetypes(mage, fighter, scout, priest). Either way some need to grind XP is going to be added, and i would rather it be by AA's than by levels(more options, and customizability). This also lets you keep all the curent t7 raid content which is used to gear up for all the newer content released, instead of people just outleveling it and having all these zones go to be barely ever used again. </blockquote> EQ2 could really use a mission progression system like EQ1 has with DoDH as well. I've gone back to my (now 70) enchanter there while still playing EQ2 on and off and I'm having a blast with my friends going through all the old DoDH missions that I've missed out on being away. They usually result in a decent item and have the ability to scale difficulty. We did a hard version with my 75 friends and me the other night and it was so very very red in there, but we managed it. Most of my friends are in a casual, every-other-day, raiding-not-required guild, too, so it wasn't a case of superior gear winning out. That's a major point that EQ2 is missing, imo. We need to have difficulty scale, much as some parts of Splitpaw were designed to do. And a mission system either like LDoN, DoN or DoDH keeps the carrot out even for more casual gamers and gives them something to strive to. More hardcore players get it first, but the casuals will get there eventually. EQ1 still is very solo-unfriendly (getting my butt kicked by greens in Velk's trying to do the scavenger hunt, >.&lt<img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> and EQ2 still has that over it, but it has some very good ideas on how to make grouping fun and engaging that would do well for being embraced in EQ2.

[SageGaspar]

<p>I think EoF did actually bring in a decent number of new players, and it is important to release a new low-level expansion every once in a while just to attract their attention.</p><p>I agree with another poster (maybe in another thread) that mentioned some weaknesses -- a level 35-40ish dungeon in the next expansion would fill in content for a level range that is lacking. Adding at least a little low-level content in every expansion is good policy.</p><p>However, I disagree that there should really be a focus on low level content at this point in the game. For the new player, there is really a ton of it there already. I can't imagine walking into this game having never seen the Vermin's Snye, Crypt of Betrayal, Serpent Sewer, Edgewater Drains, Blackburrow, Wailing Caves, Stormhold, Fallen Gate, Nektropos Castle, Ruins of Varsoon, Runnyeye, DFC, Perma, Sol Eye, Obelisk of Lost Souls, Cazic Thule, Clefts of Rujark, Living Tombs, Silent City, Shimmering Citadel, or their associated quests and HQs... not to mention the EoF zones like Crushbone and Klak'anon... not to mention the overland zones or the boss instances or a million other little things. There is a holy [Removed for Content] of things to do and see at low levels. It will take you three or four alts to come close to exhausting that at the current levelling pace. If you level lock your characters at a certain tier until you get 100 AA and fabled out... well, that's really your problem. You have a hardcore grinding playstyle that just evidences itself in a different way. You are not the average player.</p><p>I do not think there should necessarily be a raise in level cap. Maj'dul is sad and lonely. It's even got like two thousand of those ! pages fluttering in the wind to complete the appearance. It'd be nice if the next expansion didn't turn KoS into a speedbump on the way to another level cap. The trick is figuring out how to do that while still maintaining forward progress. People like to see bigger level numbers next to their name. Even if they increase it to 75 so that KoS doesn't grey out it's just a temporary stopgap until they figure out something else for people to do. An Augment system for CAs? Shadow levels? Evolving armor? A good old fashioned gear gap?</p>

[Gungo]

<cite>baddogshaun wrote:</cite><blockquote>Gungo@Crushbone wrote <blockquote><p>Sadly this is a wrong way it seems. The overexposure of new lower level content makes for alot of unused older content. People will no longer go to older lower level zone as rewards from newer zones far outweight older zones. Then you run into eq1 type scenarios with dozens of older zones barren and empty, unused by any players. You run into new players unable to find groups or even see people in starter cities, because no tutorial can tell them where people go to play. </p><p>The path from 1-20 is lightening fast 20-30 is fairly fast as well. How many T1, T2, T3 zones do we need? It will be a sad day when the starting citites become barren because people no longer go to qeynos or freeport.</p></blockquote><p> But EoF simply hasnt had that effect.. if anything Qeynos is busier, and as "everyone" wants an evil fae freeport is getting an influx too from betrayers. Its enlivened the lower level game not diluted it.</p><p>New full range content has been a huge success, any new expansion pack (as opposed to adventure pack) should and probably will bring full range content.. but there is zero reason why it cant wrap in upper level cap increases with a good starter of content, and rolling new content over the following year (this IS a subscription game after all so ongoing new content should be an expected thing)</p><p> In contrast a solely high level expansion would be, as previous ones demonstrate, an unmitigated disaster, and the more exclusive (i.e. the more raid focussed) it is, the worse the disaster will be.</p><p> Who would lose?</p></blockquote><p>You qouted one area of my post and talked about another. the point i made in that clip is that a NEW CITY would dilute Freeport and Qeynos. Kelethin is more of a wayward or stop. Other then the few acorn apartments it is not that same as Freeport and qeynos. I don't mind a new EOF type zone, but it needs to be ALOT more T8 content then anything else. you would lose alot more if the raised the cap and had not enough T8 content. And while i could care less abotu low level content. Time spent developing another low level dungeon is wasted time on T8 content. </p><p>Rumous has it the next race will be a race already seen in game. </p>

[Leatherneck]

<p>It doesn't really have to be all or nothing.</p><p>And a new race doesn't necessitate a whole new land for levels 1-70+.</p><p>The first point, let's take Velious as an example.  IMO, Velious was the best expansion in EQ.  It had a good amount of content for everyone, raiders and non-raiders alike.  It wasn't max-level only, yet it didn't have any newbie gardens.</p><p>If I were going to craft RoK for EQ2, I would maybe bump levels up to 80.  EQ had a max level of 60 for a long, long time, yet people still had things to do.  The expansion itself would cover (assuming level cap stays at 70) zones for levels 30+.  It would have raid zones off normal exping zones, with quests that would allow you to bypass the normal zone (where appropriate).  For example, some raiding zones would be right off the normal zone.  Some, however, would be at the bottom of a normal type dungeon.  The latter would be candidates for warping to the raid zone, similar in function to the Splitpaw caves in TS.</p><p>I would add a new evil race, and that race would have a smallish Island about where (talking EQ1 here) Ogre Island was in Tim Deep.  The Island would have content from 1-12 or so.  It would have some sorta newly discovered thing (bell, boat, portal, etc) that would connect with Commonlands.  Then new evil race players would sorta merge advancement paths with the rest of the baddies outta Freeport (or Qeynos....or G-Fay if they betray).</p>

[DobyMT]

<cite>Jalkoz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Thunderthyze wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>With the speculation beginning on the next expansion the main questions being discussed are "where will it be?", "what levels will be catered for?" and "will the level cap be raised?"</p><p>I am particularly interested in the last two questions as their implementation may well make or break the entire game.</p><p>In my opinion if the level cap goes up (and let us hope fervently that it does) then the expansion HAS to concentrate on levels 60~80 at the very most (assuming that is the new cap). </p><p>Basically EQ2 will never have another huge influx of new accounts as they did when the game was released, there is just too much competition out there nowadays. Therefore the vast majority of players will be high end mains complemented  by lower level alts able to cruise through the lower levels with the benefit of game experience and twinking. If SOE futher dilute the lower level zones then their relative emptiness will turn off a lot of core players. Lower level zones WILL be boring, borne out of familiarity, but will be burned through in any case. Be honest, just how well do you know Greater Fay compared with say Antonica? All because you haven't spent so much time there on your way to the higher level stuff.</p><p>I think that the release of EoF supports my case even more. No level cap raise and lower level content, BUT increased AA's and deities. The result of this increase in player capabilities had the result of trivialising content brought out years before and balanced assuming no AA's whatsoever.</p><p>If SOE are really brave they will severely reduce the xp rate post level 70 too. An entire expansion geared to lvl 70+ which is impossible to burn through in a week. Now THERE'S an idea!</p></blockquote><p>I've been saying most of this all long now.  If you take all of the 55-70 content, do a little research to see what zones are empty.  Now do one 1-55.  1-55 is just disgusting how much of the content is never used.  There is more than enough for 1-55, and yet, at 70, almost every is just begging for something to do.</p><p>Oh, and PLEASE cripple the xp rate.  I've even mentioned before it should be at 10% of what it was 60-70 with the release of KoS.   I'm against any new AAs, I don't care about new Dieties, another "Epic" quest yada yada.  What I want is REALLY nice contested mobs, maybe some progressive raiding, flagging if you will, somewhat like DT access, but don't make the boss mobs a joke.  Challenging dungeons, challenging instances. The usual that we hopefor and never get. </p></blockquote><p>Uhh, so you just want more hardcore grinding and what apparently seems like PVP (at least that's how I'm reading it) and to make it even harder for casual players to reach the new cap. You're also against content from again what I read. Sorry pal, but some of us have a life that takes up a large portion of our time (Me going into boot camp in a month then schooling which adds to 1 year total) aren't on the same boat as you are. Sure, go ahead and tell us to quit whining or go somewhere else. We lose content and ease of playing, we probably will. </p><p>I remember SOE making EQ2 easier for a reason and a lot of people complained how easy it was compared to EQ1, so tell me, are you one of those EQ1 hardcore people who don't care for lore and contant and only want to raid until your eyes bleed to death? I need something to keep me involved, and to me, raiding isn't going to cut it. Plus the 60-70 exp rate will probably still be nasty to me, add in 10 new levels with a severely reduced exp rate and I'll be clicking cancel, don't know about everyone else though.</p><p>Don't go speaking for everyone and don't throw the 'but you spoke for everyonr' crap at me. I'm speaking for myself and a few casual players who have a lot going on in their lives and EQ2 to them is a game to be enjoyed, not some raid-happy grindfest catering only to those with near-infinite amounts of time. </p></blockquote><p> 1) It should be harder for casuals.  Point blank.  The more you play, the more you earn.  I don't deserve something I'm not going to put some effort in for.  </p><p>2) I couldn't care less about your personal life.  I was active Army single dad when KoS came out.  Still being a great dad I found my few hours in the evenings to raid and level and whatver else.  If you choose to do something besides EQ2 in your personal time, that's awesome.  I encourage it.  But read #1 right there.</p><p>3) Content you dope isn't just what you think it is.  I think content is quests, raids, groups, instances, Live Events, lots of stuff.  You come from the great and powerful anti raider perspective, and it makes me sick.  Its an epidemic that has seeped through RL and is now in the video game I like.  Just cause you exist doesn't mean you should get everything.</p><p>4) Experience should be that.  Experience.  You shouldn't get it for just sitting around.  It should be hard to get, and take some serious adventuring to gain some.  You don't wanna work hard for it?  Craft then. </p><p>5) And for the record, since you brought up the world's lamest argument in the game.  I raid for maybe 3-4 hours a few nights a week.  I usually don't play much else than that.  I just played hard when it mattered to level my guy up.  Just cause you can't hang don't make the entire rest of the community suck with you.</p><p>Did you even read my post?  I am ALL for content.  Just not 1-55 anymore, cause there's already WAY too much there.  You can go from 1-55 and hit MAYBE half the zones in MAYBE 2 months if you play a few hours a couple days a week.  55-70 you HAVE to go to every zone possible cause of lockout timers and you STILL will run out of zones to go into and you will end up grinding in MMC or something.  55-70 deserves more content.</p>

[Leatherneck]

DobyMT wrote: <blockquote>1) It should be harder for casuals.  Point blank.  The more you play, the more you earn.  I don't deserve something I'm not going to put some effort in for.  </blockquote><p> I'd be interested in seeing a defense for this statement.  I don't remember anyone asking for something they didn't put in effort for.  I don't see anyone asking for experience for "just sitting around".</p><p>A tedious grind doesn't make the game "harder".  It just makes it longer.</p><p>And no, I'm not an anti-raider.  I've done tons of raids in EQ1.  I <i>led</i> tons of raids in a game with a much steeper xp curve needed to stay on top of the game.  I've done things like questing the entire Vex Thal key on two separate characters.  If there's anything that tedious in EQ2 (and there very well might be) I haven't heard of it.  I've been away from the game for a couple of years and just came back to it.</p><p>I'm just interested in hearing the justification for a longer exp grind.</p>

[DobyMT]

Because it shouldn't take 5-8 days for someone to clear a top tiered level gap? That should be rationale enough. This game is too easy, and is too rewarding for not ever having to try. Gratz on the eqlive accomplishments, but that game was going the right direction until AAs messed it all up.

[Leatherneck]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>Because it shouldn't take 5-8 days for someone to clear a top tiered level gap? That should be rationale enough. This game is too easy, and is too rewarding for not ever having to try. Gratz on the eqlive accomplishments, but that game was going the right direction until AAs messed it all up.</blockquote> I get what you're saying, but I don't think this game is going to be, nor was it meant to be, what you're wanting.  VG is headed in that direction.  EQ was there (they did gimpify it too much for my tastes...graveyards, shadowlands-or whatever it's called, heck all the utility of the guildhall, opening more and more planar access, etc.), but they lost the path.  I don't think EQ2 is "it" and really I doubt sincerely that it's going to be "it".  I suspect, as VG gets more and more "ready", there will be 3 camps.  One that's more hardcore/raiding, Vanguard, one that's more casual, EQ2 and one that's inbetween, EQ.  It makes sense for each game to concentrate more on their audience.  Granted, SOE doesn't handle VG as far as development goes, but I believe they get a cut of the subscriptions.  It seems readily apparent to me for them not to cut their own throats by trying to compete with a game they're already getting profits from.

[TaleraRis]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>Because it shouldn't take 5-8 days for someone to clear a top tiered level gap? </blockquote>Content is always going to get chewed up by those who play 24/7 in some fashion. Back on my server in EQ Live, we had a 65 froglok 4 days after the race was introduced because a guild took one character and passed it out among different people in shifts, so the character could xp 24 hours a day until they reached 65. That's in a game with a much steeper experience gaining curve than EQ2, and it still happened. There will always be someone out there who will tear up new content just so they can say they were first.

[DobyMT]

I agree with you guys.  There are ing to be that 5% of the population that will get through in no time flat.  But xp gain is so asy in EQ2 right now that a casual player can go from 60-70 in probably 2 weeks at a slow casual pace.  No matter how you try to defend that, that isn't right.  I was casual in EQlive on my Warrior before PoP came out, and I only reached level 54, and thats the way it should be.

[Leatherneck]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>But xp gain is so asy in EQ2 right now that a casual player can go from 60-70 in probably 2 weeks at a slow casual pace. </blockquote><p>You may have a different idea of what is casual.  I know people who play every day or every other day and aren't 70 yet.  They're not interested in maxxing their xp per hour.  They play fewer hours.  They don't use spoilers to check out dungeons and quests and such.  Casual is not only the amount of time you play, it's also the style of play.</p><p>There's people who have been playing for years and aren't above 40.</p><p>IMO, SOE shouldn't tailor the exp curve toward them.</p><p>SOE also shouldn't tailor the exp curve toward the people who play non-stop for the first two weeks an expansion is live (or until they've finished all the content).</p><p>In a similar fashion to Olympic Judging, toss out the highest, toss out the lowest and average what's left.</p>

[DobyMT]

If you didn't intentionally lock yourself into a level, its impossible experience content and not hit the cap. You will level no matter what, if you quest, if you grind, if you do whatever. BTW in terms of EQ2, casual is anything not hardcore. Those are your only 2 options. And you could just as well be a hardcore player and level lock at 40. There are way too many variables to acually mention all of them, and because of that, experience gain across the board should be reduced by at least 50%.

[Leatherneck]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>If you didn't intentionally lock yourself into a level, its impossible experience content and not hit the cap. You will level no matter what, if you quest, if you grind, if you do whatever. BTW in terms of EQ2, casual is anything not hardcore. Those are your only 2 options. And you could just as well be a hardcore player and level lock at 40. There are way too many variables to acually mention all of them, and because of that, experience gain across the board should be reduced by at least 50%.</blockquote><p> Your first paragraph is simply untrue.  You assume someone stays with one character.  How many character slots * how many servers?  That's an awful lot of alts.  You could experience a ton of content and never hit 40 and never delete a character.  You could go to player events, which don't generate exp.  You could role-play, also something that doesn't offer exp.  You could be a trader and buy low, sell high.  Also no exp is generated.  All of those are as equally a valid style of play as adventuring and questing, and they don't require locking your level.  And that doesn't even cover harvesting and crafting.</p><p>Our perceptions are colored by those we spend our time with.  Just because the people you know, the ones you hang around tear through 60-70 in two weeks doesn't mean that it's the norm.  Some one pointed out something like 18% of the characters are level 70.  Why should the progress of 82% of the players be slowed down because 18% of the playerbase is level 70?  How is that fair to the majority because of the minority?</p>

[WinterHotfoot]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>3) Content you dope isn't just what you think it is.  I think content is quests, raids, groups, instances, Live Events, lots of stuff.  <b><span style="color: #ff0000">You come from the great and powerful anti raider perspective, and it makes me sick.  Its an epidemic that has seeped through RL and is now in the video game I like.</span></b>  Just cause you exist doesn't mean you should get everything.</p></blockquote><p>Uhh....  errrr... what?  There are raids, similar to those in MMOs, in Real Life?  And they happen frequently enough for some horribly unacceptable "anti raider perspective" to form?  Why isn't this kind of thing on the evening news?  Seriously, you may need to get out more, pay a visit to the world of reality, and perhaps take a moment to think rationally about things.</p><p>Perhaps you think this "great and powerful anti raider perspective" is an "epidemic" that has somehow managed to suddenly gain a foothold in EQ2?  I hate to break it to you, but the raider vs. casual argument existed on the EQ2 forums before the game was even in beta.  Of course back then, the company line was all about how the primary storylines of the game would be designed around the single group, working in 1-2 hour (max) blocks to accomplish the main parts of the game, there would be a "few, optional raid targets" (and that was the official claim at the time, explaining how there would be raid encounters and maybe even a raid zone, but they wouldn't be in the way of "normal" play.  Remember the E3 video showing a single group getting killed by Venekor?  Supposedly going to be a Heroic encounter.  The comment there was, "better luck next time." He did not say, "should have brought a raid."  That was never even implied.) and that what was gained from those raids would not be significantly more powerful than other equipment of that level.  Of course, back then, the argument was different.  It was the raiders demanding that they get parts of the game made just for their playstyle.  And their rewards better be "worthy." too.  They wanted something special to show for their accomplishment, and not just something cosmetic, like a title or trophy for your housing.  Oh no.  They wanted something that made their characters perform better than the non-raiders.  People who disagreed with that were called anti-raider back then, too.</p><p>Let the time machine travel a bit forward, and we get to see quests that start solo or heroic and without warning end up epic, raiders demanding more raids and getting them, raiders complaining that raid loot isn't good enough compared to that acquired by lesser means and more powerful raid itemization getting added to the game.  As far as I'm concerned, any complaint against these things are not anti-raider at all.  What they are is against a shift in the balance toward raiders.  Or more appropriately, they are complaints about anti-non-raider changes.  There are many things that can be pro-raider without being detrimental to non-raiders.  Unfortunately, most of what the vocal raiders on these boards advocate (and often seem to get some of) is some new increase in character strength (whether through gear, abilities or access to areas with even more powerful rewards) not available to non-raiders or a general increase in difficulty (because the new gear, abilities, and/or access made it too easy) over all of EQ2.  Arguing against these kinds of changes is not anti-raider, because it does nothing to change the position of the raiders.  It just is not anti-non-raider, because it is defending the non-raiders from being relatively weakened.</p><p>Just because you raid, doesn't mean you should get everything.  Unless the Powers That Be want to come out and tell us that they've reconsidered and decided that EQ2 is now about raiding and that if we don't want to raid, this isn't a game we should be playing.</p>

[DobyMT]

No, I don't want everything. In fact, opposite of you, I want earning things to be so hard its almost ridiculous. I want to get gear that will help me kill epics, and I want to do quests that involve epics. I want the leel cap to be so hard to get to that even the MOST hardcore can't get it in a month. That's what I want, and it all concerns woking harder to get it. Oh, and reading comprehension FTW. Way to take parts of a sentence and ty to be cute...

[Allisia]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>No, I don't want everything. In fact, opposite of you, I want earning things to be so hard its almost ridiculous. I want to get gear that will help me kill epics, and I want to do quests that involve epics. I want the leel cap to be so hard to get to that even the MOST hardcore can't get it in a month. That's what I want, and it all concerns woking harder to get it. Oh, and reading comprehension FTW. Way to take parts of a sentence and ty to be cute...</blockquote> I think what you really want is a different game. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[DobyMT]

LOL no, I want what this game was at launch. And I truly believe that this new expansion when it comes will return this game to its rightful place as the best MMO on the market. These changes would take it back to where it was once upon a time.

[WinterHotfoot]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>No, I don't want everything. In fact, opposite of you, I want earning things to be so hard its almost ridiculous. I want to get gear that will help me kill epics, and I want to do quests that involve epics. I want the leel cap to be so hard to get to that even the MOST hardcore can't get it in a month. That's what I want, and it all concerns woking harder to get it. Oh, and reading comprehension FTW. Way to take parts of a sentence and ty to be cute...</blockquote> <p>"Opposite of me" ???? You talk about reading comprehension, yet fail to demonstrate it.  Go ahead and attack me on baseless accusations.  They are without merit and do nothing to support your cause.  It's your wasted effort.  You assumed a lot, based solely on the fact that I disagreed with you.  That says a lot about your ability to discuss this rationally.  I alluded to that possibility earlier.  At what point did *I* say I wanted everything?  I, by quoting entire sentences, in context ( not just "part" of any sentences as you falsely claim), did nothing more than point out that you were being irrational and inaccurate in your view of the persecution of raiding and ended the post by turning toward you  the same accusation you levelled at others, after I had previously pointed out that raiders, like yourself, have, for a long time, been demanding not the same, but EXTRA consideration for their playstyle.  I am sorry, but reality disagrees with you about who exactly it is that wants something for nothing here.</p><p> For the record, I, too, wish levellingtook quite a bit longer, but understand that that is a selfish desire based on my own playstyle.  I also understand that any advancement slowdown that would effect the "hardcore" in the way you claim to want would kill the casual game.  </p><p>And I have no issue with raiding per se.  It can be entertaining (imagine that!  A game that is entertainment and not an occupation), on occasion.  I take issue with implication that it is somehow superior to the official primary method of advancement and interaction in this game and thus more deserving of rewards. Raiding should never be the "best" for  content or progression in this game.  It's supposed to be a lesser alternative to group play, excactly as "worthy" soloing, and should have similar enticements.  That it gets as much benefit as it does is an error, that it get more would be an abomination.  If the Devs wanted to change their stance on what the most important foucs of play should be, they should have the ...integrity to come out and let all of us non-raiders know that they don't care about us, so we can take our money somewhere else, rather than stand around confused when reality contradicts the deceptive statements made by the company's representatives. </p><p>If you want an XP/loot grind and a raid-dominated game, Arrex was right.  You want a different game.  That game has been around for a while.  SOE offers it, too.  It's called EQLive.  It has everything you've claimed to want for EQ2.  Don't come here and try to turn EQ2 into that POS.</p>

[Leatherneck]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>LOL no, I want what this game was at launch. <span style="color: #ff0000">And I truly believe that this new expansion when it comes will return this game to its rightful place as the best MMO on the market.</span> These changes would take it back to where it was once upon a time.</blockquote> If by "return this game to it's rightful place" you mean they'll implement the more tedious version you're asking for, I wouldn't make book on that.  SOE has EQ1 for a "harder" game.  VG is even more tedious.  It wouldn't make sense for them to undo all the changes they've been making.

[DobyMT]

<cite>WinterHotfoot wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>No, I don't want everything. In fact, opposite of you, I want earning things to be so hard its almost ridiculous. I want to get gear that will help me kill epics, and I want to do quests that involve epics. I want the leel cap to be so hard to get to that even the MOST hardcore can't get it in a month. That's what I want, and it all concerns woking harder to get it. Oh, and reading comprehension FTW. Way to take parts of a sentence and ty to be cute...</blockquote> <p>"Opposite of me" ???? You talk about reading comprehension, yet fail to demonstrate it.  Go ahead and attack me on baseless accusations.  They are without merit and do nothing to support your cause.  It's your wasted effort.  You assumed a lot, based solely on the fact that I disagreed with you.  That says a lot about your ability to discuss this rationally.  I alluded to that possibility earlier.  At what point did *I* say I wanted everything?  I, by quoting entire sentences, in context ( not just "part" of any sentences as you falsely claim), did nothing more than point out that you were being irrational and inaccurate in your view of the persecution of raiding and ended the post by turning toward you  the same accusation you levelled at others, after I had previously pointed out that raiders, like yourself, have, for a long time, been demanding not the same, but EXTRA consideration for their playstyle.  I am sorry, but reality disagrees with you about who exactly it is that wants something for nothing here.</p><p> For the record, I, too, wish levellingtook quite a bit longer, but understand that that is a selfish desire based on my own playstyle.  I also understand that any advancement slowdown that would effect the "hardcore" in the way you claim to want would kill the casual game.  </p><p>And I have no issue with raiding per se.  It can be entertaining (imagine that!  A game that is entertainment and not an occupation), on occasion.  I take issue with implication that it is somehow superior to the official primary method of advancement and interaction in this game and thus more deserving of rewards. Raiding should never be the "best" for  content or progression in this game.  It's supposed to be a lesser alternative to group play, excactly as "worthy" soloing, and should have similar enticements.  That it gets as much benefit as it does is an error, that it get more would be an abomination.  If the Devs wanted to change their stance on what the most important foucs of play should be, they should have the ...integrity to come out and let all of us non-raiders know that they don't care about us, so we can take our money somewhere else, rather than stand around confused when reality contradicts the deceptive statements made by the company's representatives. </p><p>If you want an XP/loot grind and a raid-dominated game, Arrex was right.  You want a different game.  That game has been around for a while.  SOE offers it, too.  It's called EQLive.  It has everything you've claimed to want for EQ2.  Don't come here and try to turn EQ2 into that POS.</p></blockquote> I played EQLive for 5 years, and this one since almost launch.  This game is so much better than EQLive in so many awys except that it is the EASIST game onthe market.  There is no reward for playing more, or applying yourself more.  The fact that anyone on the boards even disagrees that there is too much lower level content, not enogh higher level content, and leveling is too easy proves that everyone is given what they want over the last few expansions.  This game at launch was incredible.  And I played a really worthless class all along there, because the game was challenging, and rewarding after ALL of the challenge.  If you wanna tell me to go find another game, I say go play WoW or LOTRO.  Those games are based on as low of difficulty as possible, and anyone can pick them up and in WoW especially you can grind to 70 in about 2 months tops.  Yay for easy leveling.  It ruins good games.

[Allisia]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>I played EQLive for 5 years, and this one since almost launch.  This game is so much better than EQLive in so many awys except that it is the EASIST game onthe market.</blockquote>EQ2 is not the easiest game on the market. It's a matter of opinion either way, but I suspect there are more people that agree with me than with you. <blockquote>There is no reward for playing more, or applying yourself more.</blockquote>Of course there is, you get things done faster and/or get them sooner. <blockquote>The fact that anyone on the boards even disagrees that there is too much lower level content, not enogh higher level content, and leveling is too easy proves that everyone is given what they want over the last few expansions.</blockquote>That's not a fact, it's your opinion. <blockquote>This game at launch was incredible.</blockquote>I didn't start til January of 05. The game was incredible, but there were still things I didn't like about it. That's inevitable of course. I like it more now than I did then. <blockquote>If you wanna tell me to go find another game, I say go play WoW or LOTRO.</blockquote>I think you misunderstood my earlier post. I wasn't telling or asking you to go play another game. What I meant was that what you are looking for really isn't to be found in EQ2 and isn't likely to return to EQ2. Perhaps another game, such as Vanguard, would be more to your liking. I am no interested in what Vanguard is selling, so I'm not buying. I like EQ2, so I play here. I don't understand people that continue to play a game that they seem/claim to have so many differences with. You may or may not fall into that category. You aren't vocal enough with your displeasure (outside of this thread anyway) for me to remember you. <blockquote>Those games are based on as low of difficulty as possible, and anyone can pick them up and in WoW especially you can grind to 70 in about 2 months tops.  Yay for easy leveling.  It ruins good games.</blockquote>This would seem to be counter to your earlier argument that EQ2 is the easiest game on the market. What ruins the game for you might be just what makes it a great game for others. Maybe it ruined EQ2 for you, but that doesn't mean it isn't the perfect game for someone else.

[DobyMT]

Ok, I'll make this a little more simple, so that everything can be understood from where I'm coming from. To hit level 70 should be an accomplishment. Its not, anyone who plays the game for a few months can hit 70 with EASE. Not that they have to, not that it requires real devotion. You can get a level in a day with just a few hours played. Don't agree? Try it, just to see how fast you can level a guy. I am not against level locking, mentoring, speed leveling, or anything along that nature. But in any MMO, reaching the adventuring pinacle should really be a serious noteworhy thing. But experiencing the GAME should be fun for those who don't care about leveling. What I am asking for only makes hitting the cap harder, and require more than a few hours a day for a few months, that's all.

[Leatherneck]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>Ok, I'll make this a little more simple, so that everything can be understood from where I'm coming from. To hit level 70 should be an accomplishment. Its not, anyone who plays the game for a few months can hit 70 with EASE. Not that they have to, not that it requires real devotion. You can get a level in a day with just a few hours played. Don't agree? Try it, just to see how fast you can level a guy. I am not against level locking, mentoring, speed leveling, or anything along that nature. But in any MMO, reaching the adventuring pinacle should really be a serious noteworhy thing. But experiencing the GAME should be fun for those who don't care about leveling. What I am asking for only makes hitting the cap harder, and require more than a few hours a day for a few months, that's all.</blockquote><p> Here's what you're not getting.</p><p>For an average, casual player, hitting 70 IS an accomplishment.  </p>

[DobyMT]

how is it if you can do it without ANY real dedication and just by joining groups and exping in a few short months? That doesn't make sense, its a default action. Its like being proud of a participant trophy when you join a sports team. Everyone gets one that joins. Unless they directly turn it down.

[Cuz]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>how is it if you can do it without ANY real dedication and just by joining groups and exping in a few short months? That doesn't make sense, its a default action. Its like being proud of a participant trophy when you join a sports team. Everyone gets one that joins. Unless they directly turn it down.</blockquote> If you want to play that card nothing in this game is much of an accomplishment. You click icons. Wooooo...

[Leatherneck]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>how is it if you can do it without ANY real dedication and just by joining groups and exping in a few short months? That doesn't make sense, its a default action. Its like being proud of a participant trophy when you join a sports team. Everyone gets one that joins. Unless they directly turn it down.</blockquote><p> Takes the same amount of /played time, if not longer, for a casual player to hit 70 than a hardcore grinder.</p><p>Given that nothing in these games is truly hard, merely tedious, I would say the person who /played the most to 70 gets more respect.</p>

[DobyMT]

<cite>Cuz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>how is it if you can do it without ANY real dedication and just by joining groups and exping in a few short months? That doesn't make sense, its a default action. Its like being proud of a participant trophy when you join a sports team. Everyone gets one that joins. Unless they directly turn it down.</blockquote> If you want to play that card nothing in this game is much of an accomplishment. You click icons. Wooooo... </blockquote> Thank you for understanding.  That's why there should be strategies, and it should take severe dedication to reach the pinnacle.  Not just logging in, hitting /lfg and waiting for your next automatic level.

[CalypsoCGN]

Here's what I think about the whole situation... EQ2 needs another expansion like EoF (whole new continent with t1 - t7) as much as SoE needs to cater to the end-game a bit more then they did with EoF! In EoF the end-game is almost non-existent. We have 1 dull overland zone, now 3 instances with Unrest (and Unrest is the only instance worth doing) and 3 1/2 raid-instances. Most of the raid content has been killed and now it's just about farming and getting the stuff you need for about 7-8 more month. Thats not really THAT exciting...and there's not even a complete epic questline to keep me busy... I guess that SoE will make an EoF-like expansion again and the game DOES need it. The game needs players that are either completely new, come over from other games or reactivate their accounts. More and more the servers feel [I cannot control my vocabulary] empty and thats hurting the game experience. The best way to get all this done is another Exp with content from t1 - t7. And I don't see any problem with this, as long as SoE created enough content for t7 (EoF does not have enough by any means. Not in the solo/group area and certainly not in the raid area.). So, if SoE can create enough t7 content (2 - 3 overland zones, ~5 dungeons / instanes, ~5 raid-zones) along with the new t1 - t6 content this would be the best way to get arround a new tier and to keep the whole playerbase busy until the next cap increase. And yea...to make it easier to code for the dev's, why not combine some tiers into one zone?? Make one area of a zone t3, but a part of it t4 also...this would actually bind people to those zones, as they would like to see all of it, but can only do that by leveling up in this zone or come and re-visit it, if the have the needed level. And as mentioned this would mean less programming for the dev's in therms of creating different (low-lvl) zones and would give them more time to create other content. The only real problem I see with another sub-tier in t7 is, that the dimishing return would make t7.3 gear almost worthless to get, as most raiding folks is already at the hard-cap...and this means there would have to be another combat system-revamp alongside with the expansion to make it worth getting the gear.

[joeygopher]

<p>I do wonder what the expansion will bring - it must surely have a level cap increase, but the content will need to be big enough to accomodate the thousands of lvl 70s that will be frantic to grind to 80.</p><p>I'm very interested to see how tough the content is too.</p><p>At the moment, regular group or solo content doesn't really get any harder all the way through to tier 7.  Crypt of Valdoon for example, is no harder than Blackburrow.  If anything its easier.  You have the benefit of all those AA points, and months of building up better gear.  You have more spells and CAs available (e.g. Ancient Teachings).  And every one of those spells is Adept 3 at least!</p><p>Will we see more zones like Unrest or like Nizara?  And will T7 EOF raid gear be required for T8 raiding?  I'm thinking it will be matched at least or superceded by T8 legendary from instances.  Not that anyone should be completely surprised by this (its happened before! twice!).</p><p>We will either see uber-geared toons tear through T8 complaining its all trivial, or the content will be balanced against masters and relic gear and too hard for those that haven't spent the last year in full fabled.</p><p> I can't wait.</p>

[Illmarr]

Slypher@Guk wrote: <blockquote>Here's what I think about the whole situation... And I don't see any problem with this, as long as SoE created enough content for t7 (EoF does not have enough by any means. Not in the solo/group area and certainly not in the raid area.). So, if SoE can create enough t7 content (2 - 3 overland zones, ~5 dungeons / instanes, ~5 raid-zones) along with the new t1 - t6 content this would be the best way to get arround a new tier and to keep the whole playerbase busy until the next cap increase. <b><i>And yea...to make it easier to code for the dev's, why not combine some tiers into one zone?? Make one area of a zone t3, but a part of it t4 also...this would actually bind people to those zones, as they would like to see all of it, but can only do that by leveling up in this zone or come and re-visit it, if the have the needed level. And as mentioned this would mean less programming for the dev's in therms of creating different (low-lvl) zones and would give them more time to create other content.</i></b> The only real problem I see with another sub-tier in t7 is, that the dimishing return would make t7.3 gear almost worthless to get, as most raiding folks is already at the hard-cap...and this means there would have to be another combat system-revamp alongside with the expansion to make it worth getting the gear. </blockquote><p> The bolded part is what was done in Steamfont Mountains which easily turned out to be my favorite zone in the expansion, but I am a casual, alt-playing person in a three active person guild who doesn't do pick-up instances, so I don't do instances much on my main *lol* But the storyline for Steamfont was great. </p>

[Cuz]

<cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Cuz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>DobyMT wrote:</cite><blockquote>how is it if you can do it without ANY real dedication and just by joining groups and exping in a few short months? That doesn't make sense, its a default action. Its like being proud of a participant trophy when you join a sports team. Everyone gets one that joins. Unless they directly turn it down.</blockquote> If you want to play that card nothing in this game is much of an accomplishment. You click icons. Wooooo... </blockquote> Thank you for understanding.  That's why there should be strategies, and it should take severe dedication to reach the pinnacle.  Not just logging in, hitting /lfg and waiting for your next automatic level.</blockquote> I have <a href="http://www.play-asia.com/paOS-13-71-zl-49-en-70-1rjw.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">this</a> for the PS3 it works fine for the PC. Until I need something like that to play, it's still just clicking icons.

[Kryussius]

Bad idea to ignore the lower levels, even for the vets with high level toons. Mainly because grinding an alt through (basically) the same steps repeatedly really takes away from this game's replayability.

[tarien]

<p>Kryussius typed, "Bad idea to ignore the lower levels, even for the vets with high level toons. Mainly because grinding an alt through (basically) the same steps repeatedly really takes away from this game's replayability."</p><p> Well, how many zones would they have to make to satisfy lower level people? I mean, according to what you are saying, every expansion they ever came out with would have to have some kind of lowbie content, which makes no sense.. if were on expansion #6 and your main is only like lvl 30, then it really shouldnt matter anyways, i mean, the direction SOE is going now, theyre losing some of their playerbase because they wont make the game more challenging. I left to try out vanguard ( which i thought sucked, mostly because it was way too bugged ) . The game needs more of a challenge to it. It is way too easy to get to 70 and get max AA's. The next expansion i had hoped would be made more towards lvls 60 - max lvl, b ut with the release of a new evil race, i fear it will be a dissapointment. </p>

[Cuz]

Kryussius@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote>Bad idea to ignore the lower levels, even for the vets with high level toons. Mainly because grinding an alt through (basically) the same steps repeatedly really takes away from this game's replayability. </blockquote> What about the army of us that have a (few) character(s) at 70 and 6 alts? I deleted a character for EoF, I'm not doing it again, and doing the same zones for no-trade loot that the group can't use that ends up vendor fodder is not exactly keeping me entertained either.

[xanders70]

I have now played this game since the day of the launch, I loved it in the beginning, I reached elvel 50 fairly quick and I could not wait till next expansion to raise the level cap, they did. they released it, I played it, and I got to level 60 in my usual speed. Pretty quick, then came KoS. By this time I got bored of the game. I did raid, I did grind, I did the prismatic quests. And it just felt like they did the same thing over and over again. More levels, more quests that are about the same thing etc. Now this I felt BEFORE KoS was launched so I took a short break then I got on teamspeak with a couple of old guildies and they told me about the new AA system and everything and I really got into it again. I had never been much of an alt guy but when KoS came out and I reached level 70 and I had done most of the content (I never did any raiding in KoS because I wasn't in a raid guild at the time) I started a Shadowknight sicne I was a paladin I felt hey why not start something that probably would be about the same thing as what I know. And I got to level 70 with that character in less than three months. My point is I agree with people that are saying that this game is way to easy to level up in and also I would like to add that to make a successful expansion/adv. pack new concepts are needed such as the AA system, new kinds of quests such as the line of quests seen in the Claymore line as well as several quests in EoF. The line quests really catches peoples intrests since they reward you peice by peice as in you get an item for finishing a part of the whole quest. For the heritage quests and the quests that are epic at the end such as A Thor of Old quest for the wurmslayer I have heard a lot of people complaining about it because they want to be able to do heritage quests without having to join a raid guild or spend several hours in a pickup raid that might not even make it to the end of a raid instance but what they didn't know was that the wurmslayer quest will give you a reward after each crafter part of the quest. (Not very good item but still a legendary weapon that is fairly decent.) This I would really like to see in the future, if you're not a raider you should still at least be able to take part and recieve a reward for doing a heritage quest considering these are items from the old game and a lot of the players in this game are not raiders they should be able to take part of it. By all means make the last couple of steps epic but at least reward the people that don't raid and let them have some of the cake <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> On the level cap issue I do think that this game needs an increase. I would assume there are people here like me that doesn't like to have a bunch of alts around and focuses on one character and wants to make that character as good as they can. But there are also people that like to have all these alts lying around so that they can hop on those guys when they're bored etc. I think the ideas of making it like EoF is a good idea. And with the rumors of a new starter city as well as a new player race I wouldn't see how they could make a whole new continent without making it so that lower leveled people can be there and hunt. And if you look at some of the zones in EoF and KoS and some of the zones such as Castle Mistmoore there are zones out there with T8 mobs where you can level up. I realize a lot of you want to go and soley work your new levels up in the new zones but there are places to go in the old zones as well and who knows maybe they'll be adding zones along the way like they did with Unrest and the other lower level instances they added to TS and the other areas. For the AAs I think we need lots and lots of more AAs, it was a good idea in EQ 1 and it really helped out here as well. I saw a post earlier in this thread where it was said that it ruined the game because it turned into a thing where there were certain "Must-have-AAs" well I don't really see the problem in that since EQ 1 had the option to get as many AAs as you wanted, there was no cap. Put the points you need in the "Must-have-AAs" and then go down the line you want later, Here it would become a problem if that happend so I still think they should keep a cap on the AAs just add another or two more lines to go down or maybe add a cap to the existing lines. I have to say I'd rather have new lines :p These are just my two cents. Dissagree or agree however much you feel like =) Have a nice day Rurick on Splitpaw

[DMIstar]

Next Expansion will have a new Lower lvl zones with Race. Which will in turn should have a number of new players, and along with older players makeing a new toon to enjoy the new zones. Which in turn leaves alot of population and growth for the game. New people do not want to come onto a game and find nearly nobody around.. there is no interest comeing on to old zones and working way up with very few people around.. EQ is prime example... If it wasnt for the amount of people around when the time i started, id never had gotten addicted to the game... I look at those places now, and i cant see how anyone new would want to start it. and if you dont have new players, all you have left is a dwindling player base, as ppl eventually move on.

[xanders70]

Yeah you can pretty much sum up my post into DMI's post =)

[Cuz]

Bloodravenger@Mistmoore wrote: <blockquote>Next Expansion will have a new Lower lvl zones with Race. Which will in turn should have a number of new players, and along with <span style="color: #cc0000">older players makeing a new toon to enjoy the new zones</span>. Which in turn leaves alot of population and growth for the game. New people do not want to come onto a game and find nearly nobody around.. there is no interest comeing on to old zones and working way up with very few people around.. EQ is prime example... If it wasnt for the amount of people around when the time i started, id never had gotten addicted to the game... I look at those places now, and i cant see how anyone new would want to start it. and if you dont have new players, all you have left is a dwindling player base, as ppl eventually move on. </blockquote> I think a lot of us don't feel like deleting and alt <b>again </b>to do that.

[Apocroph]

I'm a "new" player.  I just started EQ2 last week.  Prior to that, I've spent large amounts of time with EQ1 and WoW. As a "new" player, I'm more in favor of scaling content (i.e. Splitpaw, or LDoN from EQ1) than I am an overt 10 level increase simply because the task of leveling to 55+ before I can "begin the game" seems VERY daunting to me.  I realize that it's probably not as bad as it seems, but at the same time, I'm sure it's more troublesome than much of the high end crowd would have me believe. The trick to scaling content though, is making sure you've got enough themes to keep people interested.  LDoN was a good start, but 4 themes is really only a month or two of entertainment before things get too familiar. Rather than making a comprehensive expansion, spanning 1-max, why not make the new content scale within some preset parameters, starting at about 35?  This keeps older, lower tier content viable, while providing options at higher levels for things to do.  Having each unique dungeon scale within a set level bracket extends the life of the dungeons without necessarily having to mentor, while still retaining a track of progression through content.  If you like the look and feel of Dungeon A more than Dungeon B, and their scaling brackets overlap, you can still enjoy Dungeon A. Can't really comment on the state of raiding, however, as I haven't experienced EQ2's raid game yet.  I can say, though, that having dungeons scale leaves more room in the world for raid zones, as "less" space is consumed by leveling zones. Adding a new race, non-hub city and newbie zone provides a bit of specifically low end content.  Scaling dungeons in 35+ range adds some needed mid-level content with a prolonged shelf life, and leaves room for needed raid content. I don't really see a need for a level cap increase, citing EQ1 again.  The cap was 60 for a good long time and people still found things to do.  With quests like the Swords of Destiny being fleshed out, adding scaling content from mid-level onward seems like a pretty good way to give people things to do without having to negate the effort put forth (read: time spent) to reach max level and acquire the best of the best spells and gear. That's just how my "fresh" eyes see it.

[SageGaspar]

As a new player, if you're powerlevelling to 55 to start the "real" game you're missing out. It is really very easy, I took a character up to 62 in the last month with almost zero outside help, albeit with some pretty heavy playing. However I would not do this if this wasn't my sixth or seventh character since the game started. There are so many cool dungeons and instances to explore on the way up, especially once you hit 40+, that it's a shame to powergrind through them. EQ1 achieved longevity with a fixed cap mostly by being incredibly gear based and having a metric shitton of AA to grind. This has not been the way EQ2 has worked so far. The new character you have started will likely be almost capped on AA before you hit 70. There is nothing really special you need to do to gear up before you can jump into raids. Some people like it and some people do not, but the advantage to how EQ2 works is that there is not a huge gear and AA gap to overcome before you can start playing with the established players. The main problem in EQ2 is that it is tough to figure out new directions for us to go in right now besides a big gear gap or a level increase. We already have two trees of AA, most of us have four or five hotbars filled with buffs and attacks that we use on a regular basis... it's tough to come up with new ideas for spells or AA that are interesting without being overwhelming. Maybe a gimmick like monster shrouds or something. Personally I think the way to go is probably a gear gap with really tough dungeons or some sort of adornment modification system for spells, but I guess we'll have to wait and find out.

[Gungo]

<p>The final say on this before it gets lost in the myopic comments of people. </p><p>The game needs its low and high level new content. And due to the way this game is made it needs a level cap increase because of the HARD CAPS. </p><p>Ideally the game should release a full content expansion and new races etc then a full new tier expansion. alternating between the 2. Raising the tier once a year. The full content expansion came out w EoF. Sorry its time for a new tier full T8 expansion. </p>

[Gungo]

<cite>SageGaspar wrote:</cite><blockquote>As a new player, if you're powerlevelling to 55 to start the "real" game you're missing out. It is really very easy, I took a character up to 62 in the last month with almost zero outside help, albeit with some pretty heavy playing. However I would not do this if this wasn't my sixth or seventh character since the game started. There are so many cool dungeons and instances to explore on the way up, especially once you hit 40+, that it's a shame to powergrind through them. EQ1 achieved longevity with a fixed cap mostly by being incredibly gear based and having a metric [I cannot control my vocabulary] of AA to grind. This has not been the way EQ2 has worked so far. The new character you have started will likely be almost capped on AA before you hit 70. There is nothing really special you need to do to gear up before you can jump into raids. Some people like it and some people do not, but the advantage to how EQ2 works is that there is not a huge gear and AA gap to overcome before you can start playing with the established players. The main problem in EQ2 is that it is tough to figure out new directions for us to go in right now besides a big gear gap or a level increase. We already have two trees of AA, most of us have four or five hotbars filled with buffs and attacks that we use on a regular basis... it's tough to come up with new ideas for spells or AA that are interesting without being overwhelming. Maybe a gimmick like monster shrouds or something. Personally I think the way to go is probably a gear gap with really tough dungeons or some sort of adornment modification system for spells, but I guess we'll have to wait and find out. </blockquote><p> I was thinking the next expansion should introduce gear dependant skills. This means although you have an advantage w fabled gear new RoK gear is needed to fight RoK high level (raid mobs, to a degree heroic).</p><p>The 4 new skills i think they should add are: "guard","strikethrough", "spellshield", "spell break".</p><p>These are a new class a skills obtained through gear ONLY. Although innate to the raid mobs. guard provides an additional avoidance check for all melee/ranged atks. strikethrough is an additional to hit check on melee/ranged. Spellshield is an additional resist check on spells, and spell break is an additional to hit check on resisted spells. </p><p>Additionally Rok should seperate spell resists and spell mitigation this would allow more skill/item based progression. </p><p>i would also like to see a more defined spell resist system like eq1 where a mob NEEDED to have resists lowered in order for DEBUFFS to land. Spell in eq1 such as Malo, tashini, etc where necessary for raids to debuff and survive a raid mob. This required more classes working together. which eq2 sorta lacks. I would also like to see taunts mitigated. </p><p>In other words define spell resist and seperate resist and mitigation and ALSO introduce item based skills. Finally upgrade to current spells can include the new skills in t8 such as dove song for troubadors adding "spell break". etc. </p><p>finally i would liek to see more short duration buffs/debuffs like precision of stone, cacophony of blades, dispatch, elemental vestment. These spells require more thought and timing on proper useage then regular buffs and makes playing classes w such buffs more skillfull.</p>

[Soldancer]

Arleonenis wrote: " ... adding new tier would just made all the masters i acquired all hard work in getting gear meaningless... its like telling me: ok, now you need to start all over again..." Hehe, that's the way I like it. buying and selling new masters for crazy high prices, all my raidgear becomes crap from one day to the other because legendary T8-gear is better - that will be an amazing race again, can't await it ... until then I play VG, come only here to raid. If there will be no level increase and only another lame AA-tree, then that was it. With EoF came enough new low-level content, now it's time for new high-level content. And of course SOE can and will modify the xp-curve in a way that new players can catch up to the high-levels in the same time as now. It's only a question of adjusting the global game parameters.

[Galithdor]

Sadly...i have to say that a level cap increase will keep people in the game <img src="/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> but hey...they could just raise it to 80 BUT make the leveling really slow lol.

[DobyMT]

Exactly. 10 levels of painstakingly slow exp gain. Everyone wins except people who want to play 1 hour a day and level as fast as people who power grind.

[rubels]

<p>Honestly , I whould like to see a new 5 lvl cap addition . Then have these 5 levels basicly eq 1 Hell levels. This does a few things , still makes a raiding progression (call it what you want but there sort of is with kos , eof raids) , does not outdate EoF zones . Imagine a 10 level incresse and I can x 2 EH , MMIS , FTH etc. This will also lead to every piece of fabled being outdated, skills outdated. Like I stated I whould also like to see 5 lvls worth of "ancient type spells" that way are t7 spells are not outdated. I dont know about you but most people that put alot of time into there current spell / gear sets be [Removed for Content] if it was outdated. I whould like to give you a general concept of what im thinking gear whould be in t8 ... look at MM castle treasured. I can promise if its a 10 lvl cap everything your wearing is out the window.</p><p>- Krovax</p>

[iceriven2]

<cite>rubelson wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>Honestly , I whould like to see a new 5 lvl cap addition . Then have these 5 levels basicly eq 1 Hell levels. This does a few things , still makes a raiding progression (call it what you want but there sort of is with kos , eof raids) , does not outdate EoF zones . Imagine a 10 level incresse and I can x 2 EH , MMIS , FTH etc. This will also lead to every piece of fabled being outdated, skills outdated. Like I stated I whould also like to see 5 lvls worth of "ancient type spells" that way are t7 spells are not outdated. I dont know about you but most people that put alot of time into there current spell / gear sets be [Removed for Content] if it was outdated. I whould like to give you a general concept of what im thinking gear whould be in t8 ... look at MM castle treasured. I can promise if its a 10 lvl cap everything your wearing is out the window.</p><p>- Krovax</p> <p>Although i wouldn't mind 5 lvls...the entire games is based on 10 lvl increments.  Theres no way for soe to release just 5 lvl unless they change there entire system. </p></blockquote>

[Illmarr]

<p>I don't understand the logic when people use the argument that current T7 Fabled gear and Masters will become outdated. The same thing happened when DoF was released. The same thing happened when KoS was released.  You have always had obsoleting of content by new content. That's the way the Everquest family of titles are based. If your only argument against a level increase is having to replace your current Fabled/Mastered self, why don't you just walk away since you've won EQ? I don't mean that in a snotty arrogant manner, I just don't understand how you come to a point where you are happy receiving no upgrades in ability/power yet still retain the desire to play (This is on the assumption that if you are fully Fabled/Mastered you are in a good raiding guild/alliance and have done the vast majority of the content at the endgame)</p>

[Chay]

Are people still complaining that EoF was for all levels and not just pandering to the T7 raiders? Oh well. Do we need more T6/T7 opportunities? Yes, but not just for raiders. I think EoF needed to be all levels as it was, it needed a bit more late level opportunities but my expectation is that the next expansion will be late level content. I hope its not just T7 or T8. I think there are better solutions for the game than raising the level cap. Intriguing, challenging, provocative content is a much better idea than adding more grinding. I'm tired of content going gray and rather see content that sparks my interest and imagination rather than hoping on the leveling treadmill. So here are some crazy alternatives (this is all off the top of my head so don't laugh too much). I would like to see more dynamic content. Zones/Instances that are inherently in flux such that the storyline and goals are always changing so that the player's strategy has to adapt each time they visit. Throw in mobs that gain experience when they kill a player (instances that remember what you did the last time?). Or raid zones or group instances where if a player dies in battle they are removed from the zone and locked out for a period of time (or until the zone is cleared). Or campaigns where each person in the group is given a different quests they must complete so the end result is dependent on all parties doing their part. Or zones that lock you in till you complete them. Well you get the idea. Crazy stuff... Something different.

[Galithdor]

<p>Yeah i would prefer added content instead of increased level...why increase the level when its going to be the same thing over and over again, people complaining about being at cap again! I can add some of my ideas but meh im not a true raider and i enjoy grouping,questing,and soloing heh here they are though <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>-Dungeons that scale up with you level...for levels 20-70 (like splitpaw heh but goes to cap)</p><p>-More X2 and X3 content for people who dont ahve the time to focus on 4 groups (more time for your loot!!)</p><p>-Class specific solo dungeons that drop gear for your class (Treasured and probably 1 Legendary maybe...) with its own quests too!</p><p>-More quests like the Peacock,Claymore,and SoD...long and they have some nice lore too!</p><p>-More AA's that actually mean something heh (i like them right now but most people ive talked to dont) raising the cap to about 200 AAs or so (Stat boosts,DPS/Haste mods,innate run speed,ect from eq1 would be cool <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)</p><p>-New armor drops from hard raid content (yeah i know that always comes but hey...raiders want it <img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />)</p><p>-The new skeletons for the races...so we can get new designs for equipment</p><p>-And finally some revamps to old zones.</p>

[Galithdor]

<p>Haha forgot to add some stuff!</p><p>-Special attacks from AAs that do not require a certain weapon type...and class specific so SKs are not getting anything with Holy in it.</p><p>-Guild level cap increase</p><p>-New cloak designs</p><p>-New cloaks that give good abilities...but dont over-power players</p><p>-And more mounts that are not horses! (Maybe racial mounts heh and yes i know thats from WoW)</p>

[rubels]

<p>Re :</p><p>Its not based on the complaint of replacing my current armor and masters. Its about "people" being able to bypass content because you can trivialize it. That also goes for raid progression is it fair that people that can clear content like EH , MMIS etc basicly have there gear and time wasted ...so that casuals that dont want to put forth the effort can just wait til its "easier". There is no risk vs rewards with a continual cap progression. The only progession that will be measurable is AA count. This same argument can go with the ability to farm out masters , fabled etc [Removed for Content] im single grouping most t6 raid zones now.</p><p>Argument #2 </p><p>Soe says that player population is up... ok , ill even give them the your right. Now new players entering the game are basicly spread out over more content based on level. The majority of the player population being high end (this game is top heavy) with a continual trend of either one or two things happening. Soe makes it easier for new players to "catch up" this once again trivialize everyones hard earned work. Ask anyone that had 50 AA before EoF .... if they felt jipped compared to some new toon that got aa disco , more quest disco etc</p><p>Or</p><p>B : The distinct feeling that alot of servers are feeling empty and begging for mergers even though in reality the player count is just spread so far between levels and zones. This is are current problem.</p><p>So no matter how you want to look at it in reality 10 lvl caps are fun .... but there not the solution for alot of reasons. Bottom line if theres going to be a risk vs reward at all , there needs to be progression be it Solo , group based or raiding without it this game is nothing but a race to grind 10 lvls ... with no OOOoos and Ahhs </p><p>- Krovax </p>

[TaleraRis]

<cite>xanders70 wrote:</cite><blockquote> For the AAs I think we need lots and lots of more AAs, it was a good idea in EQ 1 and it really helped out here as well. I saw a post earlier in this thread where it was said that it ruined the game because it turned into a thing where there were certain "Must-have-AAs" well I don't really see the problem in that since EQ 1 had the option to get as many AAs as you wanted, there was no cap. Put the points you need in the "Must-have-AAs" and then go down the line you want later, </blockquote> Therein lies the rub. Each expansion that has come out in EQ1 has introduced more and more and more "Must-have" AA abilities. So the Must-haves from PoP were piled on by those from GoD, OoW, DoN, DoDH, PoR, TSS, TBS, etc. Remember that the only way to get AA in EQ1 was to fight mobs and you had to set aside a portion of your own xp to do it. Some of these later AAs to finish an entire line of the Must-have's can be as many as 20+ or 40+ AAs. I have a line of defensive AAs for my enchanter where each step is 5 a pop, totalling 25, and my paladin friend has a line that will need 45 to get all the ranks in.  It involves a tremendous time investment and always has, and since PoP, those without the time to sit around grinding AAs every night for hours at a time have fallen behind. Not to mention newer players to a level who had to compete with people who had been at that level for a while gaining AAs. AAs greatly alter the balance between two characters of the same level, and the Must-have mentality leads to cookie cutter cutouts. There is no room for "going down the line you want". It's all about "which do I need to have just to get a group".

[Vonotar]

Random thought - But what if you had to earn your right to level's 71-80 by completing some sort of x4 raid questline. As such you would still need to spend a certain amount of time at level 70 until you are sufficiently equipped to move to the next tier, this both preserves content at level 70 and at the same time ensures that players have time to find Master/Fabled drops etc so that they enter level 71 on a high. The level 71-80 content would be a significant jump in difficulty in recognition that it is aimed at players who have had to prepare well at level 70. In return, players who achieve level 71+ would gain access to significant rewards across Norrath in recognition that they are the 'champions of champions' and would be able to access new areas (instances) in existing zones, the majority of sentient (+sane) NPC's would bow to their high status. In particular they would gain some access to the 'central zones' of Qeynos and Freeport that are currently inaccessible.  Here they would be able to take advantage of services and quest givers that are aimed at their Tier, receiving orders (quests) directly from the Queen/Overlord. Other benefits could be added which (if given to everybody) would not normally be considered, this could include housing outside of the current housing zones (anybody want to live in a tower somewhere?)  etc. Importantly a similar system could be used with tradeskilling as well.  For example allowing a tailor to produce mastercrafted clothing of exactly the same stats as current mastercrafted (across all levels) however the end product would be in guild colours with the guild symbol. If a simply cap increase takes place we will simply end up with a vast number of level 80 players instead of a vast number of level 70 players, it's time to take a different approach to thin the number who reach the cap. Just an afterthought, but when the cap goes from 80 to 90 (you know it will eventually) the Lv70 quest would be weakened to allow more thru, however a new Lv80 quest would ensure that not too many make it thru to the new tier....

[iceriven2]

Why must there always be a limit  or less ppl at the lvl cap.   I would luv a MMo that has no lvls so everyone can grp and play the same content but still need xp gain for spells and combart art like attacks.  Still a ton of stuff the DEVs can add and keep players busy without the need of an xp grind.

[Xev]

I think they would do best by creating more horizontal ways of advancing your character.  I know they did this with the AA system, but there are still other things they could do.  That being said, I wouldn't be opposed to an increase in the level cap, I just think there are better options. Even if they do raise the level cap though, they don't need to focus solely on high end content.  I think finding things to do for people of all levels should be their priority.

[Potterguy]

Just my 2cp, but I think that new races and/or new classes keep as many people in the game as new end-game content. Think about how full the newbie zones are after a new race comes in. I think if you looked at the number of players that crowd into new upper level raid content, versus the number of players that crowd into a new race or class, you would find a greater percentage of the player base starting a new race. I also think that there are truly new players that join up with an expansion like EoF, because they know that many other players will be starting over, and that there will be folks to group with. I think that it would be a mistake to "only" focus on one type of content or another. I recently came back to EQ2 after a year away, and started over. I have been very pleased with the availability of groups, guilds and content in the level 1-45 range. The trick is, not to assume that everyone who plays the game has the same playstyle and motivations as you. What I hope, is that the devs can figure out the top reasons why folks left for Vangard, and give them a reason to come back. I have been surfing their boards, and it looks like its not going so very well.

[Supp]

<p>What about increasing the level cap by only 5?</p><ul><li>In so doing, you still allow "prior teir content" to be raid accessible. This opens up a lot of backdoor capability without eliminating these zones.</li><li>You'll have 5 fewer levels of masters to suffer acquiring, so you'll have recieved more bang for your master buck, while still getting a new spell lineup. Remember that spell ranges span 14 levels, not 10. And those hard to acquire L60 masters wont matter anymore. /phew!</li><li>For everyone out there with a ton of capped alts, it wont take as long to get to the new high end content with all your characters. I imagine that's become an increasing problem.</li><li>My guild is still working on the 2nd floor of EH, and we have not yet beat Mayong, but here we are 6 months into EoF. And this is WITHOUT having to relevel ourselves. I remember how long it took for the raid force to get their 10 levels and get back into raiding when DoF and KoS released.</li></ul><p>As a side note, I definitely want 50 more AAs. It's like Christmas going through new ones <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[rubels]

<p>Why not just add in 5 lvls of "ancient type spells" that way those level 60's still count <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>As for the guy above that said the game was based on 10 level tiers and they wont. They can if they wanted to. I stated the problems with a 10 level raise. The additional problem is for the raid community. I dont know about you but I dont want to go from having alot of raid zones to a handful. I am all for 10 levels if you put another 20 raid zones in. Otherwise you just screwed the raid community with content. </p><p>- Krovax</p>

[TaleraRis]

<cite>Magnamundian wrote:</cite><blockquote>Random thought - But what if you had to earn your right to level's 71-80 by completing some sort of x4 raid questline. </blockquote> You would completely alienate your non-raiding playerbase. Ability to level should never be based around one playstyle. Perks to the playstyle in the way of more challenging areas for that particular playstyle, be it solo, group or raid? Yes. Completely locking people entirely out of progression unless they're artificially forced into a playstyle not of their choosing? Bad business decision.

[Rahatmattata]

<p>I can't believe those of you actually wanting *more* 1-50 content <img src="/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Take a look at this list of zones in eq2...</p><p><a href="http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/questlist.html?byzone=1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.allakhazam.com/db/questl...t.html?byzone=1</a></p><p>Look at how much 1-50 content there already is. So so so much of it unused. I don't know what kind of groups you guys are getting, but I've leveled dozens of alts to 30+ and ended up deleting them and virtually every group I get goes something like this: Wailing Caves/Blackburrow > Stormhold/Fallen Gate > Ruins of Varsoon  > Runnyeye > Cazic-Thule > Permafrost > Sinking Sands and then on up to various different DoF/EoF/KoS content.</p><p>Rarely, I'll get the occasional odd group to goto Firemist Gully, Obelisk of Lost Souls, Rivervale, Drafling Tower, Nek Castle. </p><p>I never ever get groups that goto Solusek's Eye, Condemned Catacombs, Maiden's Gulch (except the x2 instance to start Draconic language), Mirrigual's Menagerie (sp?), Icespire Summit/Icy Digs (one of these is solo can't remember which one), Trembling Lagoon, instance in Sol's Eye, another instance in Lavastorm, Serpent Sewers (or any sewer zones for that matter), BSV, Steelbone Family Crypt, Gigglegibber Hideout, any instances in Zek (DFC groups were impossible to find before the revamp), and tons tons more instances and zones. I never ever get groups to goto overland zones not even EoF such as BBM or Steamfont. </p><p>I know a lot of the zones and instances are for specific 1 time quests, and some are solo but still... point being, a new player has more conent 1-50 than they will ever experience their first time through the game, and vetern players leveling alts will more often than not skip anything besides the standard leveling progression I outlined above.</p><p>Now, on top of that long long list of unused content, you can add Splitpaw, Bloodlines, and the entire EoF expansion for peeps levels 1-50 to enjoy. Yea, what this game really needs is another expansion to jam in a bunch more 1-50 content that will be skipped by and unused except maybe to go through it once just to say you did it. I can't even get a group to goto Crushbone Keep any more to do the stupid cloak quest FFS. There is enough low level content in the game. </p><p>Bump the cap to 80+ and concentrate the new expansion *only* on T8 (what I would prefer), or make the expansion *only* for T7 content providing some all new original (to EQ2) character advancement. 100 more AAs to grind and some new Gods ain't gonna cut it. I want new combat arts and buffs, and if the cap stays at 70 then we dam well better be able to at least progress our characters to be able to kill level 80 - 85 mobs (solo heroic and epic). The Dieties as they are now are pretty useless. Almost everyone I know of rarely if ever pops a blessing or miracle, and the pet that gives me +27 str or w/e the hell it is = meh. More AAs are expected and would be OK, but there better be somethign better than that if there's no level cap increase. I want AoE Dispatch or something <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Some kind of new abilities. Stupid god pets, miracles, blessings, and enhancing my existing combat arts and buffs just aren't gonna satisfy. I know many of you absolutely dread having your fully mastered toon you worked so hard for level up to 71 and suddenly have it replaced by an app2 spell from a merchant, but personally I welcome it. Sitting at fully mastered (which I am not yet, but dam close) and fully fabled is pretty f-ing boring. It's about time to give us some room to play hard and advance our characters to the next level of gameplay. This holding back out of fear of having to find new masters and grind a few more levels is lame. Give me progression, or give me a new game.</p><p>And a new race will be more than enough to entice new players to try the game. New low level zones is not going to bring in new players, because to a new player, every zone is already new.</p>

[AbsentmindedMage]

They have said that they will only raise the level cap when the content calls for a level raise.  We have fought dragons and Mayong Mistmoore.  These are powerful creatures and their level is mid to low 70 at most.   Raising the level cap without the proper context wouldnt make sense. As far as slowing level progress, this is a good idea if the content is present to eventually get you to the maximum level.  What I do not want is to end up mindlessly grinding experience by killing the same creatures over and over again.  One of the things I like about everquest 2 is that you can gain significant experience doing the QUESTS.  It is Everquest after all.  It isnt Everraid or Evergrind.  I would really like a lot of quests in the next expansion.  A fair mix of both single and group quests with some raid quest lines thrown in as well.  There is more to the game than raiding.   Unfortunately, a lot of people think content is acquiring the best gear which does involve raiding.  Personally, the biggest appeal to me has always been the quests and the story.  I like exploring and adventuring both with friends and by myself from time to time.