Two things that curb my EQ2 joy...

[HammerOfThor]

I know this has been covered before, but I the powers that be need to hear everyone's opinion as they grow their game... Little bit of background:  I played EQ1 from launch off and on for a few years.  Haven't played it in a while (last expansion was PoP).  I played WoW for a while until just recently when I returned here to EQ2. With that said, I really like EQ2.  There are so many features I just love about this game and I love that they come out with new content so quickly (especially compared to some games I won't mention *cough*WoW*cough*.  However, I have only played this game off and on instead of being a full-time die-hard fan boi like I feel I could be.  I've done a lot of thinking about why I keep leaving and why I keep coming back.  Hoping that this information may help the "creators" understand someone in their customer base I feel the need to share today. I'll start with why I keep coming back first: <b>Player housing.</b>  Geez this just rocks.  I love laying out the place, getting cool and rare things to put in my home, pets, and more. <b>Collections.</b>  I don't know why...I just love them. <b>Crafting.</b>  I love the crafting.  Especially with the changes they've made. <b>Class selection.</b>  Amazing.  They all seem to do something really cool or add another facet to a group when you have one of xxx class too. <b>Race selection.</b>  Again, amazing.  I love the variety you see as you move around the countryside and group with different people, etc. <b>Content.</b>  Holy crap.  I just can't get enough of it.  I can't play as much as I would like, so I haven't maxed out levels yet on any toon, but I really get excited just thinking about how much is still out there for me to explore and experience.  It just gets bigger and bigger and makes me feel like my options are endless. There's other things I like, but these are the main things that I think about when I have missed EQ2 in the past. Now for what makes me leave from time to time: <b>Loot and content graying out</b>.  Why oh why oh why was this done?  To keep people from farming lower level content and twinking alts.  Oh noes!  We can't have someone choosing their own play style.  We must make them play the game the way we think it should be played.  Honestly, what this has done to me is disappoint me on many occasions.  I have to ardently monitor what zones have what quests, loot, fun factor and then zealously curb my xp intake in order to get the most out of the content.  Levelling is amazingly fast, which is good and bad.  I feel like I leave so much in the dust and if it's grey...well...uh...look...a chance at loot, even crap loot that I wouldn't use any more is still nice.  Plus, I like to twink.  I know that raises the ire of you people who can't control your jealousy for some reason (why do people worry so much about what others are doing if it doesn't hurt you?  I don't want to derail the post into arguments about why twinking really does cause you physical pain and keeps you from achieving your full potential in life.  Let's just say I don't agree with the nay-sayers on twinking and move on. Grey content for some reason depresses me.  Just seeing it is like looking through a window at toys I can't play with anymore.  Sure, I can kill greys to my little heart's content and some stuff is body drop now...but...I don't know...it just brings me down.  Also, sometimes...you just like to exact your revenge.  For some reason, it just isn't the same if you can't get loot.  You need something to make it worth the time even if it is a personal vendetta I guess? I know a lot of people won't agree with that one, but I don't care.  I hate greying out content and especially no loot.  It takes this giant world that is just getting bigger and makes it feel like I'm in a bigger world, but the world isn't really getting bigger for me because I only get full access to the stuff that is around my level.  So in effect, I don't feel like I'm in as big of a world as I should. Mentoring mitigates this a bit, but I don't think mentoring should be a way to experience old content because I have to find someone who is willing to be mentored.  That just increases the rate at which they level and if they're like me, that's not the desired effect.  It should be a way for higher level people to participate in lower level content without trivializing it if they don't want to. I could go on, but... <b>Character Slots.</b>  Again...why oh why oh why?  I don't care if Johnny LivesOnATrustFundAndPlaysAllTheTime has every possible race class combination and one of every crafter.  Why make so many amazing crafter classes and adventure classes and cool looking races and not give me a way to play them all?  Making me buy Station access to get more slots sounds like a scam.  I mean really...how freaking blatant can you be?  I don't want to play your other games and I don't want to pay double to get more character slots.  It is such a cheesy way to try and get a few more bucks out of people that it just blows my mind.  I imagine the person that came up with this idea must have some kind of slimy personality and makes you feel dirty after shaking their hand.  For the love of EQ2, it really should have more char slots and allow the same amount per server.  As it stands, I can't try a new race combo out without deleting one of my existing characters and I'm just not willing to do that.  You prevent me from playing your game more because I can only have so many alts and once you do cap (as I have experienced in other games, not this one I admit), you can raid or alt.  I want more alts! I must end now, because I am starting to feel guilty about taking so much work time to write this, but I had to get it out while it was fresh on my mind.  I know some won't agree.  I don't care if you agree.  Stop trying to force me into a playstyle you feel is fair.  Stop trying to box me in.  I don't care if some super duper 70 guy farms the lower content.  Find some other way to thwart farmers.  Find some other way to force people to interact with each other (i.e. limited char slots).  Find some other way to exact a few more dollars out of someone (how about fixing these glaring problems with your game and expanding your subscriber base?). Anyway...I feel better. I know many who post on these forums don't need a reason to flame the crap out of someone so I expect to receive a lot of flak.  It's still the way I feel and nothing you can say is going to change that.  This is me telling the devs/producers of this game what I like and what I don't like.

[liveja]

<p>I also love EQ2, & think that its currently the best MMO available.</p><p>But I still agree pretty much completely with the OP. Trivial Loot Code sucked in EQ1, & while it "works" fine -- from a purely technical aspect -- I think it's a major buzzkill. Unfortunately, because content greys out so quickly, you pretty much need to create multiple alts in order to really enjoy all the content available -- but then you get only 6 slots, <b>total</b>? </p><p>I'm sorry, SOE, but that's just mind-boggling. I could understand 6 slots <b>per server</b>. But 6 slots <b>total</b>? <img src="/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/c30b4198e0907b23b8246bdd52aa1c3c.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Yes, I realize we get another slot (whee! now I can have 7 characters, o JOY! <img src="/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />) when the next LU goes live, & we'll probably get another slot for Kunark ... big deal. I hate to talk about Those Other Games, but good gravy, I can have 8-10 <b>per server </b>in Blizzard's behemoth, & there's what, 200+ freekin' servers??? & yes, I know I could pay for Station Access, which would get me a small handful of slots, & access to games I don't play & have no wish to play; sorry, but that's not an option. I'd be better off getting two accounts than Station Access, which frankly doesn't say much to sell Station Access to those of us who couldn't care less about those other games.</p><p>7 slots <b>total</b> <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[mee]

<p>Just one suggestion that I'm not sure you know about - not trying to sound insulting at all. You can turn off your combat xp to slow down the leveling pace. It won't stop you from getting quest and exploration xp, but if you are a real quest monkey (good thing!) and want to experience everything at the appropriate level, then there is this option to help out. </p><p>I certainly could care less if someone twinks alts or not, but I actually like the mechanic of greying out mobs and preventing them from dropping chests that way.  It really is a nice way to keep characters too high for the content from competing with those that are in the range for that content and easily taking it from them. I understand what you're saying, and I'm not implying that you're the type that would bully a lower level group and monopolize a zone, taking all the loot from them - you definitely don't sound that way. But sadly there are people like that out there, especially gold farming bots, and this is a far more effective method to dealing with them than having to pay people to monitor behavior. </p><p>I fully agree with you on more character slots, or maybe even just the current amount allowed but for each server. I love trying out new characters and had to go on a deletefest when I changed from a station pass recently. =/</p>

[HammerOfThor]

Umara@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote><p>Just one suggestion that I'm not sure you know about - not trying to sound insulting at all. You can turn off your combat xp to slow down the leveling pace. It won't stop you from getting quest and exploration xp, but if you are a real quest monkey (good thing!) and want to experience everything at the appropriate level, then there is this option to help out. </p><p>I certainly could care less if someone twinks alts or not, but I actually like the mechanic of greying out mobs and preventing them from dropping chests that way.  It really is a nice way to keep characters too high for the content from competing with those that are in the range for that content and easily taking it from them. I understand what you're saying, and I'm not implying that you're the type that would bully a lower level group and monopolize a zone, taking all the loot from them - you definitely don't sound that way. But sadly there are people like that out there, especially gold farming bots, and this is a far more effective method to dealing with them than having to pay people to monitor behavior. </p><p>I fully agree with you on more character slots, or maybe even just the current amount allowed but for each server. I love trying out new characters and had to go on a deletefest when I changed from a station pass recently. =/</p></blockquote> First off...thanks for giving me the benefit of the doubt. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Second off, I did know about turning off combat xp and I do that most of the time I'm playing.  It helps, but isn't the best solution for me. Third off, I know there are some who would abuse the power to get lower level boss drops (farming bot group being a good example as you pointed out), but I would either live with that or find a better way to handle it than not being able to get any loot at all other than crappy body drops for a quest.

[Odalia]

I agree with the op in character slots and I get fustrated at grayed out quests too, but I also understand why they are grayed out, they need to be to keep farmers from getting the loot and selling it, I really wish that that wasn't a problem but we all know it is.

[VizP]

Hmm yes - to be honest the greying out thing is an important gameplay decision. Trust me you wouldnt want it the other way - having high lvl chars just farming and killing your lvl monsters just to benefit would cause a lot of problems. And it would certainly happen. Also the character slot issue is really a business decision - I personally find it hard to have alts (although I will make one when Neriak comes out) but I believe they are adding one more character slot. For the rest they want people to make a second account when it comes beyond a certain number of characters - an arguable one but I think true for every MMO (dont think any allows unlimited characters).

[liveja]

Odalia@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>I agree with the op in character slots and I get fustrated at grayed out quests too, but I also understand why they are grayed out, they need to be to keep farmers from getting the loot and selling it </blockquote><p>Honestly, truth to tell, I just don't agree. I think that one of the reasons EQ1 remained fresh & fun for soloists & non-raiders was the lack of Trivial Loot Code. Obviously there were a lot of other reasons, but the ability to go to a dungeon & just farm it for a while was something that lots of people enjoyed.</p><p>Sure, there were issues with farmers, but people dealt with it. IMHO, dealing with those issues is part of what added to server communities. Trivial Loot Code is an artificial mechanism for dealing with those issues, & IMHO it hurts the community by taking away from us something we're supposed to be able to deal with as players.</p>

[VizP]

That sort of old school gameplay is lost back with EQ though - good old Brad want to resurrect some aspects of it with Vanguard (may it rest in peace, lol). I think in truth with this gen of MMOs its considered an out dated gameplay mechanism - greying out I think is now pretty much a mainstay with all the current gen ones?

[liveja]

<cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think in truth with this gen of MMOs its considered an out dated gameplay mechanism - greying out I think is now pretty much a mainstay with all the current gen ones? </blockquote>In WoW, I can take my level 60 to level 15 dungeons, slaughter everything in the zone, & get every drop. Granted, there's a lot of drops that are "bind-on-pickup", which is WoW-speak for "no trade". But those things can all be vendored, & the rest of the stuff is perfectly twinkable.

[trainzebra]

A good compromise between the two may be to allow instanced zones to always con green for you character, but public zones to grey out.  You'd still see an influx of items into the market from farmers but those leveling wouldn't have to deal with said farmers camping all the bosses.  Not something I'd expect to see implemented, but it'd be nice. Character slots is what I really want.  WoW doesn't have unlimited slots, but it might as well be as I think it's something upwards of 80 toons.  Limited slots is just a money scam imo.

[liveja]

<cite>trainzebra wrote:</cite><blockquote>A good compromise between the two may be to allow instanced zones to always con green for you character, but public zones to grey out. </blockquote>I like that <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Jeger_Wulf]

/agree with OP - especially about the character slots.

[Odalia]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>trainzebra wrote:</cite><blockquote>A good compromise between the two may be to allow instanced zones to always con green for you character, but public zones to grey out. </blockquote>I like that <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> <img src="/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></blockquote> That is a compermise that I think everyone could live with. <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Ruut Li]

<p>I think the game would lose more customers if they made it possible for all levels to have access to all level loot. I doubt fresh noobs thinks its fun to compete with high levels for low level content. Fresh noobs are the games fresh blood = very important.</p><p>I love twinking my alts, but it doesnt mean I wanna run around with my level 70 toon and hog the low level stuff.</p><p>Lemmy do a thorshammer comment: "oh I know all yall gonna flame me but I dont care! its my opinion! Insert insult whoever might disagree with anything I say here" <img src="/smilies/97ada74b88049a6d50a6ed40898a03d7.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Jrral]

As far as grey zones go, that's what mentoring is for (one of the things, anyway). You mentor down to someone in level range of the area and presto, the content's no longer grey. One thing I'd like, though, is to be able to <b>turn off that bloody adventure vitality!</b> I'm routinely at 100%, earning double XP on everything. I know it's intended to let players who only play occasionally keep up with their friends who play more often, but in practice all it means is that I level so fast I start to grey out a zone before I'm half-way through the content. Once, just once, I'd like to <i>have</i> to do a bit of random mob-killing to boost my XP enough to move on once I'd finished all the quest lines. I don't think this was the intended result of vitality. I don't mind blowing through T1, but I can easily be close to T3 before finishing the Qeynos newbie areas and moving out into Antonica and that doesn't seem right.

[HammerOfThor]

I like the idea of instances staying "green".  I don't care if they give xp so much as loot and if they did give xp, I'd expect it to be a very tiny amount based on how much over their level you are. If they did this, I'd like to see more instanced dungeons though.  It might be nice not to have to worry about being leapfrogged.  That can be a pain some times and would be worse if the population actually increased significantly.

[HammerOfThor]

Jrral@Unrest wrote: <blockquote>As far as grey zones go, that's what mentoring is for (one of the things, anyway). You mentor down to someone in level range of the area and presto, the content's no longer grey. One thing I'd like, though, is to be able to <b>turn off that bloody adventure vitality!</b> I'm routinely at 100%, earning double XP on everything. I know it's intended to let players who only play occasionally keep up with their friends who play more often, but in practice all it means is that I level so fast I start to grey out a zone before I'm half-way through the content. Once, just once, I'd like to <i>have</i> to do a bit of random mob-killing to boost my XP enough to move on once I'd finished all the quest lines. I don't think this was the intended result of vitality. I don't mind blowing through T1, but I can easily be close to T3 before finishing the Qeynos newbie areas and moving out into Antonica and that doesn't seem right. </blockquote> Mentoring requires you to have someone who wants to be mentored.  What if I can't find someone who wants to be mentored?  It becomes a non-solution.  Even though it's an MMORPG, I don't always want to be tied to another player if I want to do something when I want to do it.  It doesn't mean I don't want to be a part of the community or play single player games (Oblivion is a good game though).  It just means that I don't always want to have to depend on others to play such a great game.  Part of the reason I had to leave EQ1 (my own choice) was that it took sooo much time to do the really fun stuff and get the really good loot.  I can't go back to that kind of lifestyle, but I don't think it's a good idea to make a game that excludes people based on the amount of time they can actually spend in game either. I want to be a part of the community in EQ2 and not change my permanent address to EQ2.  I like grouping, mentoring and raiding, but I also like to solo frequently.  Sometimes soloing at higher levels is tough and you don't get a shot at decent loot very often.  If I could go back and destroy the lower level stuff from time to time, I could at least get decent items for my alts and feel like I'm accomplishing something other than passing the time waiting or trying to make something level-appropriate happen.  More than likely I'd just log instead and spend even less time (from my already limited time base to play) in game which would make the world feel emptier. **Edit** I didn't realize a certain word for forcing yourself on someone sexually would be auto-edited so I changed it to "destroy" instead.

[theplayer0670]

<cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hmm yes - to be honest the greying out thing is an important gameplay decision. Trust me you wouldnt want it the other way - having high lvl chars just farming and killing your lvl monsters just to benefit would cause a lot of problems. </blockquote> I agree this is one of the best game features. if you miss content, try it with an alt but this feature needs to stay or all hell would break lose

[HammerOfThor]

Sygard@Antonia Bayle wrote: <blockquote><cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hmm yes - to be honest the greying out thing is an important gameplay decision. Trust me you wouldnt want it the other way - having high lvl chars just farming and killing your lvl monsters just to benefit would cause a lot of problems. </blockquote> I agree this is one of the best game features. if you miss content, try it with an alt but this feature needs to stay or all hell would break lose</blockquote> Please define what you mean by "all hell will break loose"?  If you mean farming, I really doubt it would be that big of a problem.  Farmers who are trying to make money will likely not bother for low-level items that they can sell for a lot less than the higher level stuff.  At higher levels, farmers are already a problem anyway, so that wouldn't seem to be a good argument either. EQ1 didn't have the trivial loot code and it really wasn't a huge problem in that game as I recall.  The bigger the game gets, the less of a problem it would become if they took out the trivial loot code (especially if they add content for all level-ranges from time to time as they did in EoF).

[JohnDoe058]

<p>The TLC locks us into one tier, which is only a negative thing IMO.</p><p>There are so many T1-T6 zones that are nearly empty....waste of programming lol.   If mobs didn't grey out, then many of us could enjoy those lower zones, and it would add a LOT of stuff to do (without the unrelaible prospect of mentoring), and ppl woulnd't be compelled to complain so much about insufficient content.</p><p>And yeah, why oh why would lvl 70 chars farm T1-T4 stuff for hours on end?  Ever?  It's faster to farm T7 stuff and BUY the lower stuff.  I just dont' see that as being a real problem.</p>

[Allisia]

How would you like to zone into Stormhold and find one group of level 70s moving around the zone AEing everything in their path to try to get a Sword of Thunder for each of their alts? How about every named in the zone being perpetually ganked by level 70s so they can sell hard to find and never replaced Masters on the broker? How would you like to finally get a master spell and go to the broker to sell it only to find that it's only worth what a vendor will pay you for it? People camped low level mobs in EQ, and they would do it in EQ2 as well if it was worthwhile. It's not and the game is better for it.

[EvilIguana9]

If it were up to me, mobs would always (or at least for a much wider span of levels) give xp.  Trivial loot code is a good thing if most of your content is shared, but you could relax it or remove if more content were instanced or otherwise proportioned based on interest.  It has always kind of bothered me that mobs never attack you once they become grey, especially given how easily a dungeon full of greys could overwhelm a person.  Ideally mobs should run and seek help if they need it and not just stand around while you kill their friends and pilfer their home.  But with the way EQ2 did heroic mobs, if mobs didn't grey out you'd need a 40 level advantage before you could even think about setting foot in a dungeon alone.  If they were to remove the whole grey mechanic, they'd need to get rid of heroic content entirely and adjust the level system to adequately facilitate players.  Absent that magnitude of change, the system they have in place works best. 

[Beldin_]

<p>I totally agree with the more characterslots.</p><p>I however don't agree with the greying out. Its not only the reason that higlevels then can monopolize dungeons, its also that i often solo heroic quests when they are greyed out, and i really don't want to have to deal with any mob if i for example run to Sol-Eye with 70.</p><p>So if i want to twink my characters i simply farm green mobs where they are level 60+ or go harvesting, sell the stuff, and buy for that whatever i need. I don't see the need to maybe farm 2 hours through a level 20 dungeon for my twink to get maybe a item worth 20 gold, while in the same time i can earn 1-2p in a T7-zone. However .. i would really like to see less "non-trade" loot *cough* <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[HammerOfThor]

Arrex@Kithicor wrote: <blockquote>How would you like to zone into Stormhold and find one group of level 70s moving around the zone AEing everything in their path to try to get a Sword of Thunder for each of their alts? How about every named in the zone being perpetually ganked by level 70s so they can sell hard to find and never replaced Masters on the broker? How would you like to finally get a master spell and go to the broker to sell it only to find that it's only worth what a vendor will pay you for it? People camped low level mobs in EQ, and they would do it in EQ2 as well if it was worthwhile. It's not and the game is better for it. </blockquote> All problems that could be dealt with in another way.  Some farming would happen, but I just don't think it would be as big of a problem as you indicate here.  The market for masters that are never upgraded is not that large.  I can only think of one off the top of my head (Rescue) and why would you farm for hours for a randomly dropped master when, as others have indicated, you can farm higher level, more valuable items and buy it? The Sword of Thunder thing could be a problem, but they could change how you get it as well or make it drop in other zones of varying levels so you have more chances to get it and wouldn't have to sit in Stormhold for days.

[HammerOfThor]

Shalla@Valor wrote: <blockquote><p>I totally agree with the more characterslots.</p><p>I however don't agree with the greying out. Its not only the reason that higlevels then can monopolize dungeons, its also that i often solo heroic quests when they are greyed out, and i really don't want to have to deal with any mob if i for example run to Sol-Eye with 70.</p><p>So if i want to twink my characters i simply farm green mobs where they are level 60+ or go harvesting, sell the stuff, and buy for that whatever i need. I don't see the need to maybe farm 2 hours through a level 20 dungeon for my twink to get maybe a item worth 20 gold, while in the same time i can earn 1-2p in a T7-zone. However .. i would really like to see less "non-trade" loot *cough* <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote> The point isn't to make it so you can farm the lower level zones.  I wouldn't want to spend all my time farming stuff although some might.  The point would be to keep old content a little more interesting.  If I go into a zone and it's devoid of other players, I would feel free to explore and see what creatures are dropping instead of just taking a sight-seeing tour.  I could try to get that hard to find item I just have to have for some reason (some are like that...I don't think I am per se). In the beginning, if they were to make these changes (and I really don't think they will unfortunately), there might be a farming rush...but it would die down.

[Norrsken]

<cite>HammerOfThor wrote:</cite><blockquote>Shalla@Valor wrote: <blockquote><p>I totally agree with the more characterslots.</p><p>I however don't agree with the greying out. Its not only the reason that higlevels then can monopolize dungeons, its also that i often solo heroic quests when they are greyed out, and i really don't want to have to deal with any mob if i for example run to Sol-Eye with 70.</p><p>So if i want to twink my characters i simply farm green mobs where they are level 60+ or go harvesting, sell the stuff, and buy for that whatever i need. I don't see the need to maybe farm 2 hours through a level 20 dungeon for my twink to get maybe a item worth 20 gold, while in the same time i can earn 1-2p in a T7-zone. However .. i would really like to see less "non-trade" loot *cough* <img src="/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote> The point isn't to make it so you can farm the lower level zones.  I wouldn't want to spend all my time farming stuff although some might.  The point would be to keep old content a little more interesting.  If I go into a zone and it's devoid of other players, I would feel free to explore and see what creatures are dropping instead of just taking a sight-seeing tour.  I could try to get that hard to find item I just have to have for some reason (some are like that...I don't think I am per se). In the beginning, if they were to make these changes (and I really don't think they will unfortunately), there might be a farming rush...but it would die down. </blockquote>Meh, just make all instances scale to your level and that tidbit is solved. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Allisia]

<cite>HammerOfThor wrote:</cite><blockquote><span style="color: #00ff00">All problems that could be dealt with in another way.</span> </blockquote>They could be dealt with another way, but they've already been dealt with. I'm not seeing much benefit to devoting countless man hours coming up with another solution to a problem what was solved when the game was still in the conceptual stages. <blockquote><span style="color: #00ff00">Some farming would happen, but I just don't think it would be as big of a problem as you indicate here.  The market for masters that are never upgraded is not that large.  I can only think of one off the top of my head (Rescue) and why would you farm for hours for a randomly dropped master when, as others have indicated, you can farm higher level, more valuable items and buy it?</span> </blockquote>You bet they would. Masters like those fetch a small fortune, an inordinate amount given the level. The reason they do that is because they ARE hard to find due to the large number of people that want them. Your method would change that by opening them up to anyone patient enough to massively slaughter gray mobs. The only way the price would go down was if more of them were coming into the game, and the only way that would happen would be if people were farming mobs to get them. This change is also counter to the idea behind transmuting. Transmuting was introduced to remove items and money from the game, but removing loot drop restrictions would increase the rate they enter the game. <blockquote><span style="color: #00ff00">The Sword of Thunder thing could be a problem, but they could change how you get it as well or make it drop in other zones of varying levels so you have more chances to get it and wouldn't have to sit in Stormhold for days.</span> </blockquote>That's just one example. There are others. I see nothing but bad things from your proposal. Mobs still drop loot and money regardless of level, but that's not enough? Quests and body drops aren't enough incentive to kill them? Then don't kill them. Your proposal is directly contradictive of the Risk vs. Reward principle.

[Illmarr]

More character slots are always welcome, but I also have to veto any change to greying out zones. You want to twink, get Mastercrafted stuff. Leave actual mobs for the people that can actually gain experience are use their drops at the appropriate level.

[Tanan]

Six slots isnt enough?  There is a simple solution to this problem.  First, before you hit that i accept button to log in, change the region to EU.  That will allow you access to the european servers where you can get six new slots.  Second,  get set up to go play on the test server and again you will get six new slots.  That is eighteen slots total.  With the next game update that will give you a grand total of twenty-one character slots.  That is three shy of being able to play every class the game has to offer.  How many more slots do you need?

[Ruut Li]

<p>Whats with the lies Hammer? You first said that you want low level content available so you can twink your alts = farming. Its bs to say hogging content wouldnt be a problem. If low level content was available to all it would definatley scare off the low level newbies, and i think those customers are much more important to soe than some bored high levels who are too cheap to twink using the broker. If you were honestly interested in the low level content you would go "lfg -willing to mentor". You dont have to know a low level player in order to mentor you know...</p><p>Please be honest with your intentions <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Raveller]

Ruut Li wrote: <blockquote><p>Whats with the lies Hammer? You first said that you want low level content available so you can twink your alts = farming. Its bs to say hogging content wouldnt be a problem. If low level content was available to all it would definatley scare off the low level newbies, and i think those customers are much more important to soe than some bored high levels who are too cheap to twink using the broker. If you were honestly interested in the low level content you would go "lfg -willing to mentor". You dont have to know a low level player in order to mentor you know...</p><p>Please be honest with your intentions <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />          </p></blockquote> Yes. Mentor. That's hot.

[liveja]

Ruut Li wrote: <blockquote><p>I think the game would lose more customers if they made it possible for all levels to have access to all level loot.</p></blockquote> You think so, but EQ1 proves you wrong, as does WoW.

[HammerOfThor]

Ruut Li wrote: <blockquote><p>Whats with the lies Hammer? You first said that you want low level content available so you can twink your alts = farming. Its bs to say hogging content wouldnt be a problem. If low level content was available to all it would definatley scare off the low level newbies, and i think those customers are much more important to soe than some bored high levels who are too cheap to twink using the broker. If you were honestly interested in the low level content you would go "lfg -willing to mentor". You dont have to know a low level player in order to mentor you know...</p><p>Please be honest with your intentions <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p></blockquote><p>Some times it can be hard to keep so many thought straight during a thread like this.  I would definitely do some farming.  I wouldn't hog the content and if some level appropriate group moved in I'd leave and find a quieter location to do my pillaging and plundering.  I know not everyone is like this.  Some might hog content.  I still don't think it would be a problem because it hasn't been some kind of game-breaking issue in other games I've been in that didn't have this stupid trivial loot code.</p><p>I don't think it would scare off all newbies, but it might scare off some.  Also, I'm not necessarily interested in experiencing low-level content at the appropriate level.  I monitor it now because that's the ONLY WAY to experience it (the way I want to anyway) and I already mentioned that I don't think mentoring is the best solution to the problem.  If I mentor someone I am tied to their agenda and at their mercy.  Not my ideal down time if I just feel like romping in some old content.</p><p>Your last couple posts have been kind of strange.  You seem to be trying to "police" my post.  I don't mind your comments about what I said, but calling me a liar in this post and flaming me subtly in your other post are not welcome.  I won't be responding to any more of your posts unless you can figure out how to leave this kind of rhetoric out of what you have to say.  Enjoy. </p>

[DocSilver]

<p>It has been mentioned that mentoring can be used to un-grey the mobs for you so that you can get chest drops. Also mentoring is used to turn in grey quests and still get achievement exp. Actually, in my experience it is really rare that mentoring is used for what it is originally intended, i.e. to adjust your level to that of a lower-level friend to share the fun and still keep the fights a challenge (somewhat like that).</p><p>So I just got the thought, why not add a feature to set your level to any lower one by yourself, so that you don't need to look for someone of the right level and ask him for being mentored? This would solve the issue with content and mobs getting greyed out. You can stay at one level of your chosing for as long as you wish and enjoy the respective content.</p><p>Only this would also make the game feature obsolete that grey quests don't give achievement exp. But then, as this is circumvented anyway by mentoring, this would remove a lot of silly mentoring just to turn in a quest.</p>

[HammerOfThor]

Jadefire@Splitpaw wrote: <blockquote><p>It has been mentioned that mentoring can be used to un-grey the mobs for you so that you can get chest drops. Also mentoring is used to turn in grey quests and still get achievement exp. Actually, in my experience it is really rare that mentoring is used for what it is originally intended, i.e. to adjust your level to that of a lower-level friend to share the fun and still keep the fights a challenge (somewhat like that).</p><p>So I just got the thought, why not add a feature to set your level to any lower one by yourself, so that you don't need to look for someone of the right level and ask him for being mentored? This would solve the issue with content and mobs getting greyed out. You can stay at one level of your chosing for as long as you wish and enjoy the respective content.</p><p>Only this would also make the game feature obsolete that grey quests don't give achievement exp. But then, as this is circumvented anyway by mentoring, this would remove a lot of silly mentoring just to turn in a quest.</p></blockquote><p>I like this idea and I've seen it mentioned before.  The argument against it was that it would make it too easy for people to farm.  I like this idea anyway and it would be a solution I could live with as far as doing lower-level content when and how I want to do it and still allow me to feel that I wasn't just on a sightseeing tour of the instance.</p><p>Got any more good ideas on how to get them to cough up more character slots? <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Edit:  One thing they could do to make it harder to farm (but still doable) would be to suspend grays not aggroing you while you are self-mentored even if they would still be grey to you while self-mentored.  That would level the playing field a bit and make it harder to bypass everything and just get the names. </p>

[Illmarr]

<p>The only thing that would even remotely make self-mentoring palletable would be if self-mentoring returned to the old mentoring mechanic where you had to redo all your spells and arts to the appropriate level ones and you had to wear gear appropriate to the level you are mentoring to instead of having your current gear scale (Badly) downward and make you a ^^^ mentored level.</p><p>Yes, I know that this is a PITA. Intentionally so since this is just as bad an idea in my opinion as removing TLC.</p>

[Valsehna]

<p>Another type of compromise plan for the "greyed out" sadness could be something along the idea of no zone, no matter its "tier" would ever be completely safe ( = devoid of all danger), no matter what level the player passing through might be.</p><p>Maybe a certain relatively small portion or a certain type of the aggro mob population could be set to always scale to the player.</p><p>Then perhaps they could also be set to always give experience, but hold no particularly spectacular loot aside from "tier appropriate" coin and body drop.  Further, they could also always be wanderers - free-range mobile objects.</p><p>This would put back in the aspect of "the world is a dangerous place", but curtail exploitation maybe.</p><p>An example of one such might be, an opposing factions guard should perhaps never grey out to anyone, perhaps not even go green or even blue.  It makes them seem a bunch of imbeciles standing around all weak.</p><p>What else could there be?  Hmm...enormous birds of prey that swoop in, small packs of truly rabid (not just named rabid) pack of animals that can chase you down if you're not watching out, humanoid thugs to rough you up if you cross their path..</p>

[Ruut Li]

<p>rofl Hammer you started out this thread by flaming anyone who might disagree. What was it? something like envious people bla bla..aint that mature too! *laughs*</p><p>And jazzliver this is eq2. Eq isnt as hawt anymore, and the reason it used to be popular was not because of the loot availability. WoW isnt so popular coz of loot availability. I have no proof, do you have proof? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I believe eq2 has a problem with getting fresh blood to play (lack of PR perhaps? certainly not because of the loot code though lol), and having them compete in an unfair environment will not help.</p>

[Lasai]

<p>If both ideas were implemented a person with 1 high level toon would never have to interact with another person again except at end game.</p><p>Enough Char slots to craft whatever you wanted.. and a high level toon to farm any and all gear you need at zero risk.</p><p>Risk vs Reward is a basic premise.  Grey=No Risk.  Why on earth should there be any decent reward for harvesting NPCs that can do you no harm?  What you are suggesting would trivialize any and all rewards up to end game.  There would not even be a need to mentor for most things.. group with a level 70, get chests, and then drop group for the quest AP.  Not good.</p><p>Yes, WOW has it.  WOW also caters to an instant gratification crowd that feels they are entitled to rewards just for buying a sub.  And, it IS a problem there, as Frost/aoe farm teams monopolize entire zones.  Since the greys aggro one rides a horse through a huge area of mobs while the teamate frosts/aoes them.  It is pretty sick to watch as an efficient team can do this for hours and deny people who need quest drops a whole series of quests.</p><p>Bringing in Transmuting makes this even more necessary.. as some transmuting raws are worth far more than any vendor price for lore or no trade items.  This drives a lot of the highlevel grey ganking in WOW, the need for enchant comps from higher quality loots.. the smart ones don't vendor.. they break and sell the high value comps from the soulbound goods.</p><p>The loot code is, to me, one of the better thought out aspects of this game.  If you feel the need to farm that stuff, make a Twink Alt and at least fight a bit for it.</p>

[HammerOfThor]

Ruut Li wrote: <blockquote><p>rofl Hammer you started out this thread by flaming anyone who might disagree. What was it? something like envious people bla bla..aint that mature too! *laughs*</p><p>And jazzliver this is eq2. Eq isnt as hawt anymore, and the reason it used to be popular was not because of the loot availability. WoW isnt so popular coz of loot availability. I have no proof, do you have proof? <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> I believe eq2 has a problem with getting fresh blood to play (lack of PR perhaps? certainly not because of the loot code though lol), and having them compete in an unfair environment will not help.</p></blockquote>I didn't flame anyone who didn't disagree.  I mentioned jealousy in regards to twinking specifically because it was a problem in EQ1 generated by people who were just upset they didn't have the shiny sparklies that some players could muster with their other high level characters.  I was not one who had the sparklies, nor was I one who complained.  What I said might be construed as a flame if you have the jealousy problem I mentioned, but it certainly wasn't a flame against anyone who disagreed. I could say I'm sorry you seem to have misunderstood, but I'm not really.  Everything I say shouldn't have to be passed through fourteen levels of review for political correctness to make sure there is absolutely no possibility of anyone being offended.  No one else here mentioned being offended by my post.  Maybe the shoe just fits you so you decided to wear it?  Otherwise, why go out of your way to be offended by what I had to say? Whatever the case may be, I'm done explaining myself to you.  I'm giving you more than I should have just by making this post, but I'm also giving you the benefit of the doubt.

[HammerOfThor]

<cite>Lasai wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>If both ideas were implemented a person with 1 high level toon would never have to interact with another person again except at end game.</p><p>Enough Char slots to craft whatever you wanted.. and a high level toon to farm any and all gear you need at zero risk.</p><p>Risk vs Reward is a basic premise.  Grey=No Risk.  Why on earth should there be any decent reward for harvesting NPCs that can do you no harm?  What you are suggesting would trivialize any and all rewards up to end game.  There would not even be a need to mentor for most things.. group with a level 70, get chests, and then drop group for the quest AP.  Not good.</p><p>Yes, WOW has it.  WOW also caters to an instant gratification crowd that feels they are entitled to rewards just for buying a sub.  And, it IS a problem there, as Frost/aoe farm teams monopolize entire zones.  Since the greys aggro one rides a horse through a huge area of mobs while the teamate frosts/aoes them.  It is pretty sick to watch as an efficient team can do this for hours and deny people who need quest drops a whole series of quests.</p><p>Bringing in Transmuting makes this even more necessary.. as some transmuting raws are worth far more than any vendor price for lore or no trade items.  This drives a lot of the highlevel grey ganking in WOW, the need for enchant comps from higher quality loots.. the smart ones don't vendor.. they break and sell the high value comps from the soulbound goods.</p><p>The loot code is, to me, one of the better thought out aspects of this game.  If you feel the need to farm that stuff, make a Twink Alt and at least fight a bit for it.</p></blockquote>A person with one high-level toon might not ever have to interact with another person on a lower-level char or in crafting.  This is already possible as the game now stands and I don't think what I have mentioned would make the problem worse.  How many people would really have one of every crafter maxed out?  Maybe over an extended period of time, but as I mentioned this is already possible (station pass, multiple accounts, etc). I don't see how you could farm things up until end-game unless you mean up to the point where you can't really farm effectively anymore because monsters are too close to your level.  This is also already possible under the existing system if you have multiple accounts. I'm starting to see a pattern here.  Maybe this is all just a scam by SOE to make me buy a 2nd account? Ah well, I wasn't really expecting to effect change.  I just wanted to let my opinion be known.  Thanks to almost everyone for their comments and replies!

[Ruut Li]

<p>Im so confused Hammer! you said you wouldnt respond to my posts <img src="/smilies/385970365b8ed7503b4294502a458efa.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Anyways nice try to subtly flame people for disagreeing lol. Didnt you just say if I interpret your post as a flame then I have a jealousy problem (=flame)? At the same time I have told you I like twinking my alts, and I probably twink em way more then you since I have no problem spending money on it so I really doubt I would be jealous of any of your toons rofl. You accuse me of being jealous because I disagree with your easy-farming method suggestion. In reality Im just defending the fresh off the island newbs who would have to compete with a "wuss" (oh relax, admit its wussy to have a high level char farming wimpy low level mobs lol!) like you in a low level zone. The best part of this thread though is that this suggestion will never go live and watching your "innocent" flaming sure is amusing, thank you <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Lasai completely ended this "discussion" with his perfect answer so theres not much more to say here, sadly lol.</p>

[liveja]

<cite>Lasai wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>If both ideas were implemented a person with 1 high level toon would never have to interact with another person again except at end game</p></blockquote><p>I was going to say "that's effectively true right now", & then I realized that you qualified your post by writing "except at end game". The qualification, of course, means it IS true right now. Because I can quite happily go days & days & days without interacting with a single player, unless I want to do a raid of some kind. I kinda-sorta fail to see what dire effects would cause from continuing what's already happening.</p><p>In any event, both of the things the OP wants are true of WoW, yet, oddly enough, WoW remains phenomenally popular, & people interact with each other constantly, throughout the game. So, I'd have to say your assertion about interaction is false. As for the griefing ... as I said, griefing is something players should be able to deal with on our own. We shouldn't (& IMHO don't) need artificial mechanisms like Trivial Loot Code. In fact, I'd even say that the two most popular MMORPGS (EQ1 & WoW) both had the features the OP asked for, & both were/are incredibly popular, with players constantly interacting at ALL levels, not just end-game.</p><p>That observation makes me think that contrary to the doom-&-gloom assertions, implementing the two changes the OP is asking for might go a ways towards making EQ2 a more popular game. It's highly possible that a lot of people don't like EQ2, because they see restrictions on the gameplay that make it less than what they wanted. </p>

[liveja]

Ruut Li wrote: <blockquote><p>.aint that mature too!</p><p>And jazzliver this is eq2</p></blockquote><p>First, you attack the OP's maturity level ... & then, you play childish little games with my posting name???</p><p>/sigh</p><p>Since you have no good arguments & nothing to contribute, please just stay out of the thread, & play your little schoolyard games elsewhere. </p>

[Noaani]

<p>With the loot code, in order for there to not be litterally hundreds of bored raiders (and non raiding, level 70 toons as well) farming everything from Blackburrow to Runnyeye, they would need to have enough end game content to keep those people happy. This is why it wasn't too much of an issue in EQ1, there was much more to do at the level cap than there is at level 70 in this game.</p><p>I dont really think it would be a bad idea to remove the trival loot code, I just know what would happen with the current state of the game if it were to happen today, and it wouldn't exactly be *nice* for new players...</p><p>As to character slots, if all you want to do is play a diffrant class or race, you can always either patch to test, or you can patch to the EU servers. After the next update that will give you 21 character slots you can use, which should really be enough to try stuff out. Basically its the same as being able to make characters up to your limit as you can per server on WoW, but instead of per server it is per region, </p>

[Ruut Li]

liverjazz I said: mature TOO, meaning both him and I are childish. Of course the difference is im having fun teasing the uber defensive Hammer. If you dont like it you can use that report button and maybe Ill be banned or something. But you know very well you cant just ask someone to leave the thread lol. Use the tools young padawan!

[Finora]

<cite>HammerOfThor wrote:</cite><blockquote> EQ1 didn't have the trivial loot code and it really wasn't a huge problem in that game as I recall.  The bigger the game gets, the less of a problem it would become if they took out the trivial loot code (especially if they add content for all level-ranges from time to time as they did in EoF). </blockquote><p>I take it you never sat camping something at a lower level for hours trying to get the named to spawn (say Frenzied for the FBSS) only to have some high level to wander in and sit on the spawn spot so that no matter what you couldn't get the mob first and most certainly couldn't get enough damage in before the high level killed, looted and was on his way to the next area that had a 'hot drop'. The only thing petitioning ever resulted in was an "I'm sorry. No one can confirm that this took place so we are unable to take action against this person. Thank you have a nice day."</p><p>It was a big problem in EQ1. I don't know about WoW because I've only had 30 and below characters and apparently play at off times, because the server seems less populated (at least at lower levels) than EQ2's test server lol.</p><p>I'll wholy agree with you on the character slots. Despite the fact I do play some of the other games on all access, I still feel like I'm getting gipped on character slots. </p>

[Raveller]

The trivial loot code is good. We had it Firiona Vie and the devs liked it so much they've shared it with everyone in EQ2. The OP is a whiner as is everyone who agrees with him. Want to loot low level mobs, then stop power grinding. Forget about exp groups, turn off combat exp and work on quests with other people who work on quests. Want to use your higher level character to loot low level items to twink your alt, then try mentoring. It works very well. To the OP: which plat farming company do you work for anyway?

[liveja]

Ruut Li wrote: <blockquote>liverjazz</blockquote><p>If you can't be grown-up enough to call me by my proper name, don't use it at all.</p><p>Thank you. </p>

[liveja]

<cite>Raveller wrote:</cite><blockquote>We had it Firiona Vie and the devs liked it so much they've shared it with everyone in EQ2 </blockquote><p>The Devs liked it so much, they tried to stamp it onto the rest of the servers as well. Remember The Warrens? Remember Stonebrunt Mountains? </p><p>No? Then maybe you also don't remember that the trivial loot code was so unpopular that the Devs removed it from the game & left it only on the FV server. People said, at the time, that it might have worked better had it been in place on the servers from the beginning.</p><p>I don't work for any plat selling company. I just think that Trivial Loot Code is hurting this game more than it's helping, & people don't even realize it.</p>

[Ruut Li]

<p>your parents actually gave you the name jazzlive?</p><p>and dizzlexics have rights too, so I will continue to "use" your name <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> Again: theres a report button lol.</p>

[HammerOfThor]

<cite>Finora wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>HammerOfThor wrote:</cite><blockquote> EQ1 didn't have the trivial loot code and it really wasn't a huge problem in that game as I recall.  The bigger the game gets, the less of a problem it would become if they took out the trivial loot code (especially if they add content for all level-ranges from time to time as they did in EoF). </blockquote><p>I take it you never sat camping something at a lower level for hours trying to get the named to spawn (say Frenzied for the FBSS) only to have some high level to wander in and sit on the spawn spot so that no matter what you couldn't get the mob first and most certainly couldn't get enough damage in before the high level killed, looted and was on his way to the next area that had a 'hot drop'. The only thing petitioning ever resulted in was an "I'm sorry. No one can confirm that this took place so we are unable to take action against this person. Thank you have a nice day."</p><p>It was a big problem in EQ1. I don't know about WoW because I've only had 30 and below characters and apparently play at off times, because the server seems less populated (at least at lower levels) than EQ2's test server lol.</p><p>I'll wholy agree with you on the character slots. Despite the fact I do play some of the other games on all access, I still feel like I'm getting gipped on character slots. </p></blockquote>I don't remember that particular problem ever happening.  What I do remember is that EQ1 had a vibrant community that actively policed itself.  If you had a bad rep, you were not going to get a group anymore and the top guilds were not going to let you in.  Even the non-top guilds would shun the type of people you mention because a bad rep for your character meant a bad rep for your guild.  I think livejazz mentioned this in one of his posts that the player base can handle these kinds of situations just fine on their own and I think EQ1 was actually a good example of this.  At least it was when I played. Edit:  I'm not saying things like this won't ever happen...I'm just saying I agree that the playerbase and player reputation should be used in place of artificial controls that really don't make any sense from a gameplay perspective.

[HammerOfThor]

<cite>Raveller wrote:</cite><blockquote>The trivial loot code is good. We had it Firiona Vie and the devs liked it so much they've shared it with everyone in EQ2. The OP is a whiner as is everyone who agrees with him. Want to loot low level mobs, then stop power grinding. Forget about exp groups, turn off combat exp and work on quests with other people who work on quests. Want to use your higher level character to loot low level items to twink your alt, then try mentoring. It works very well. To the OP: which plat farming company do you work for anyway? </blockquote> Saying you don't like something isn't really whining.  I didn't threaten to quit or belittle the game or the devs for making this feature.  I simply said I don't like it and it does affect my ability to enjoy the game as much as I would like to and in the way I want to from time to time. As for your last statement, that made me lol.  Plat farmers don't seem to be affected by the current situation.  Why would I want it changed if I worked for a plat farming company?  I'm sure they are too busy running around with their plate tank and 5 Warlock bots making money to come here and complain about game mechanics they don't like. By the way, your bully posting tactics also make me lol.

[HammerOfThor]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Raveller wrote:</cite><blockquote>We had it Firiona Vie and the devs liked it so much they've shared it with everyone in EQ2 </blockquote><p>The Devs liked it so much, they tried to stamp it onto the rest of the servers as well. Remember The Warrens? Remember Stonebrunt Mountains? </p><p>No? Then maybe you also don't remember that the trivial loot code was so unpopular that the Devs removed it from the game & left it only on the FV server. People said, at the time, that it might have worked better had it been in place on the servers from the beginning.</p><p>I don't work for any plat selling company. I just think that Trivial Loot Code is hurting this game more than it's helping, & people don't even realize it.</p></blockquote>I remember that too.  I was concerned when it first came out, but it died a quick death in EQ1.  I also remember them saying "Maybe if it had been in the game from the start...", but I look at EQ2 and I don't see how it has really helped the game all that much.  People have just found a way around it.  I don't necessarily think it has killed the game or anything like that, but I don't think it's a big selling feature either.

[mee]

<p><i>I don't remember that particular problem ever happening.  What I do remember is that EQ1 had a vibrant community that actively policed itself.  If you had a bad rep, you were not going to get a group anymore and the top guilds were not going to let you in.  Even the non-top guilds would shun the type of people you mention because a bad rep for your character meant a bad rep for your guild.  I think livejazz mentioned this in one of his posts that the player base can handle these kinds of situations just fine on their own and I think EQ1 was actually a good example of this.  At least it was when I played.</i></p><p>In the early days of EQ1, that was pretty true. I played from release until, oh jeez, I don't remember the last expansion I got, just over a year ago.  In the earlier days, you pretty much could recognize player names from having seen them around. There were still people who would grief players in one way or another, and often they'd get away with it officially, though the community would stir up drama all over the place about it, and chances are people would know those players and avoid them. </p><p>I'm not sure when you stopped playing - I think you said in your original post it was PoP, though I could very well be wrong and thinking of another post, and I'm far too lazy and not that caught up in being right to go back and look. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> But after the server populations took a dive, the community wasn't as able to police, and the higher level characters & plat farmers were driving off new players. I saw some ugly happenings, but then again, I came from the hated server so maybe it was worse. I liked it there, but then again, it's all I knew. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>While I can understand how the TLC may cause some of the existing players to get bored and grow annoyed, but I feel removing it could ruin the experience of high loot areas for new players. For a game to grow, it needs new players. I understand it also needs to retain existing players, but they're addressing that with new content, not reworking the system that works. They put in some tools to offset outleveling areas that were mentioned, which is good. I realize that some feel it is not enough, but to be honest, I think the bad that can come from it far outweighs the good of giving bored players the ability to get chest loot from grey mobs. </p><p>I know some people here feel that the community should police itself in these matters, and I realize it's a game that I play with many other people. But I have no desire to log onto a game and have to play babysitter or argue with farmers and have the time I log on to relax and have fun ruined by unpleasant interactions with farmers or rude players. Of course it's still bound to happen here and there, but I assure you from what I've seen in other games (EQ and WoW), the TLC really does reduce the amount of that idiocy that you have to deal with at lower levels. </p><p>I don't feel you're whining and am not sure why people get so hostile over discussions like this. You stated you don't like the TLC. People agreed and disagreed. I disagree, but certainly it's just my opinion and I've stated the reasons. I've read the reasons why some hate it, and I respect those opinions as well. While I may see those reasons and even agree with them to an extent, to me it's just that removing it is not worth the bad that would come. *shrugs*</p>

[Salonkolya]

<p>"EQ1 didn't have the trivial loot code and it really wasn't a huge problem in that game as I recall."</p><p> Used to play EQ1. Seems to me the only people who could state the above are either</p><p>a) farmers</p><p>b) people who bought all their gear as they levelled</p><p> For anyone who liked to quest/fight for their gear the item farming in EQ1 was a game-killer that prevented new people being able to get the gear they wanted and pushed them into farming plat mobs so they could buy what they wanted from the bazaar instead of getting it themselves.  I can't count how many times i had to log off my main cos some 50 druid was camping what i wanted. And how often when i did log on to find the spot briefly empty I rushed the fight and died because i knew a new 50 would arrive soon and take it if i didn't hurry.</p><p>I stopped playing EQ1 a couple of years ago but it still makes me mad when i get reminded of it.</p><p>~~~</p><p>"I take it you never sat camping something at a lower level for hours trying to get the named to spawn (say Frenzied for the FBSS) only to have some high level to wander in and sit on the spawn spot so that no matter what you couldn't get the mob first and most certainly couldn't get enough damage in before the high level killed, looted and was on his way to the next area that had a 'hot drop'."</p><p> Amen. All the most-wanted / bestseller stuff was like that.</p><p> ~~~</p><p>"I don't remember that particular problem ever happening.  What I do remember is that EQ1 had a vibrant community that actively policed itself. "</p><p> Lol.</p><p>Most of the item farmer chars were alts.</p><p> ~~~</p><p>"I don't feel you're whining and am not sure why people get so hostile over discussions like this."</p><p>People get so hostile about this because of past experiences. High level farmers in lower level zones completely destroy one type of personal playing style. </p><p> ~~~</p><p>Only recently started EQ2 and have to agree with the levelling being so fast you don't get to appreciate everything fully. It sort of all whizzed by my first char. Didn't know about switching off xp but i'm restarting and will do that to stop quests graying out. </p><p>What I'd actually like though is a slider so you can set the xp to say 10%, 20%, etc instead of just on or off. (Weird i know but i want *some* exp for completing a quest, just don't want to level so fast they grey out before i have finished them all.)</p><p>No change to the AA exp though as one of the reasons i've been restarting chars is to mess around with different AA choices.</p>

[nadym]

I think the solution would be to allow mentoring to yourself to the level you desire. Have a couple of npcs in the cities. Whenever you talk to them you mentor to the level you want for a specific amount of time. You cannot unmentor until that time expires. You wanted two hours, you get two hours mentoring.

[nadym]

Just checking on neriak there are some vampires with white names, whenever a player get close to the mob, the mob converts to that player level. If you are lvl 19, the mob converts to lvl 19. If you are lvl 70 the mob converts to lvl 70. If you stop the combat (death, yell, whatever), the mob goes back to white no-con until other player gets close. Some instances with that feature would be great. Same would be some instances with the splitpaw method, when you enter the mobs get converted to your level range.

[mee]

<p><i>What I'd actually like though is a slider so you can set the xp to say 10%, 20%, etc instead of just on or off. (Weird i know but i want *some* exp for completing a quest, just don't want to level so fast they grey out before i have finished them all.)</i></p><p>When your xp is turned off, it's just your combat xp. You still get xp for quests, discoveries and non-combat stuff. <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[HammerOfThor]

I like Nadym and Umara's ideas too.

[mee]

<p>Uh oh, I had an idea? If you mean the italicized text in my last post, that belongs to Salonkolya. Credit where credit's due and all that! If you mean my response to that, then that's SOE's idea, as that is how it currently works. One of my guildies has had their xp turned off for the last 2 levels. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I really do find the scaling mobs out of instanced zones to be pretty exciting for the potential there. The only thing I don't envy the devs is the need to create various levels of treasure for those encounters. But still, something that could definitely be pretty awesome as a final encounter in quests that they don't want trivialized, for example. And I've always loved Splitpaw's scaling dungeons. Never had to worry about getting to do it by XX level or missing out on any challenge. </p>

[Raveller]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>I just think that Trivial Loot Code is hurting this game more than it's helping, & people don't even realize it.</p></blockquote>You can think whatever you want, but you're flat out wrong about this. Trivial Loot Code encourages people to mentor but puts the brakes on losers who raced to endgame from going back and monopolizing lower level zones by farming. Losers who think the Trivial Loot Code is hurting the game in any way are simply whining because they're losers.

[Raveller]

<cite>nadym wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think the solution would be to allow mentoring to yourself to the level you desire. Have a couple of npcs in the cities. Whenever you talk to them you mentor to the level you want for a specific amount of time. You cannot unmentor until that time expires. You wanted two hours, you get two hours mentoring.</blockquote>That's basically just the removal of the trivial loot code. Try playing the actual game instead of power leveling to endgame like a twit.

[Kellin]

<p>I don't even understand what people would be farming for in gray zones.  Gear for alts?  Heck, mastercrafted is exceptionally good for all tiers except 7, so why would you bother farming to get that one cool piece of gear that you'd outlevel in a week?</p><p>Maybe to sell on broker?  Then you have the EQ1 problem - all the great items can only be obtained there, since farmers permacamp the mobs that drop them.  Ever try to get the Juggs camp in Seb?  Or the Frenzied in Guk?  Good luck.  Better to scrape up the 50K plat and head to the bazaar.  That's a lot of spiderling silk...</p><p>The only even halfway legitimate reason I can see for wanting greyed out treasured or better loot is for transmuting.  This can be a problem.  Almost every new transmuter I've seen has made alts to farm for the items they need.</p><p>As for the character limit, I do find that a bit puzzling.  In EQ1, I seem to recall someone mentioning that character files were actually very small, so having tons of them didn't require much server space.  In EQ2, maybe the customization on character appearance and some other options take up a bunch more room?  I don't know.  But at launch, there were only 4 slots per account, so at least they're getting a bit better.</p>

[Raveller]

Umara@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote> <p>While I can understand how the TLC may cause some of the existing players to get bored and grow annoyed, but I feel removing it could ruin the experience of high loot areas for new players. For a game to grow, it needs new players. I understand it also needs to retain existing players, but they're addressing that with new content, not reworking the system that works. They put in some tools to offset outleveling areas that were mentioned, which is good. I realize that some feel it is not enough, but to be honest, I think the bad that can come from it far outweighs the good of giving bored players the ability to get chest loot from grey mobs. </p><p>I know some people here feel that the community should police itself in these matters, and I realize it's a game that I play with many other people. But I have no desire to log onto a game and have to play babysitter or argue with farmers and have the time I log on to relax and have fun ruined by unpleasant interactions with farmers or rude players. Of course it's still bound to happen here and there, but I assure you from what I've seen in other games (EQ and WoW), the TLC really does reduce the amount of that idiocy that you have to deal with at lower levels. </p><p>I don't feel you're whining and am not sure why people get so hostile over discussions like this. You stated you don't like the TLC. People agreed and disagreed. I disagree, but certainly it's just my opinion and I've stated the reasons. I've read the reasons why some hate it, and I respect those opinions as well. While I may see those reasons and even agree with them to an extent, to me it's just that removing it is not worth the bad that would come. *shrugs*</p></blockquote>Actually, people are whining. The lower levels do go by very quickly if you do not turn off combat exp. All that means is that the gray mobs aren't going to drop chests with the loot that you can no longer use anyway because you've out-leveled it and are already using better gear and you would only use the loot to either sell for coin (or real cash) or use to twink an alt. It doesn't take much effort to take that alt out and kill the mobs with it, while they're level appropriate. So the only real reason people are whining about TLC is they want to farm for coin (or real cash). Basically, all the whiners are plat farmers.

[Vorlak]

<p>on the topic of character slots...</p><p>i think the reason is how complex it is, when they make a change they have to take into account whats going to have to be updated. Even if its scripted - scripts screw up and well this is sony we are talking about....</p><p>however, i think people should be able limited to 4 slots per accounts and allow you to buy more for $2 a slot, with a reoccuring fee of $1 per slot each month.</p><p> but what i would really like to see is a lifetime subscription of like $199.00 - one time pay for length of the game life or maybe 6yrs /shrug. Atleast in eq1 i could choose a year subscription like on my xbox account.</p>

[SteelPiston]

<p>I'm glad that there are new players still coming to EQ2, but personally I think there is too much pandering to the whims of new players in a maturing game. The average character level must be somewhere in the level 50's by now. SOE should be thinking more about not losing their existing clients and less about attracting new ones. There is too much for the newbie as it is. A genuine new player has so much content to contend with, that they they worry about missing something or their brain exploding from trying to play catch up. If you want to play the gray content again, simply roll a new toon and go and play with the grays. If content is gray to you, it's a big message to you to move on to something more challenging and fun.</p><p>I have to agree with keeping gray content and I'd even go so far as to be against mentoring in it's current form. From my long experience, the mentoring system should really be called the "Two boxer" (or more) farming system. While a good idea in theory, it's bad in practice.<b> I would like to see all mentored encounters drop no loot.</b> They would only be good for xp and quest updates. That way the help is genuine and not bottom feeding loot farming. Mentoring would still be ok for achievement xp from killing named mobs.</p><p>As for the character slots, how many is enough? Kids never have enough toys and are never happy for more than an hour or so after getting their latest one. Seven slots is enough. Concentrate on developing two or three characters to level 70 instead of bouncing around. If you can't help yourself, just go to the exchange server and sell your characters rather than just deleting them. So you have friends on another server? Make a couple of toons on that server, or pay to transfer some of your precious toons to the other server. Heck, we've even gone through free transfers week about a month ago. If anyone is still on the wrong server now, they need a poke with a cattle prod to wake them up.</p>

[SignumX]

I really agree on the greying out, i mean at the least they could make quests not grey out. People could do all the quests they want and get some "reward" with forcing xp off on themselves. It would actually make the whole focus on adding newb content have some meaning instead of just filler no one cares about in a month. Also it would make AA more a part of the game, a few expansions from now the AA to lvl discrepencies will be ridiculous, most players have like 20 aa and lvl 50ish, that can't be what the devs want is it.

[Illmarr]

Umara@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote><p>Uh oh, I had an idea? If you mean the italicized text in my last post, that belongs to Salonkolya. Credit where credit's due and all that! If you mean my response to that, then that's SOE's idea, as that is how it currently works. One of my guildies has had their xp turned off for the last 2 levels. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>I really do find the scaling mobs out of instanced zones to be pretty exciting for the potential there. The only thing I don't envy the devs is the need to create various levels of treasure for those encounters. But still, something that could definitely be pretty awesome as a final encounter in quests that they don't want trivialized, for example. And I've always loved Splitpaw's scaling dungeons. Never had to worry about getting to do it by XX level or missing out on any challenge. </p></blockquote> Quote FTW! And we need to run through Nek so I can finish Ghoulbane and turn exp back on! I hate having to mentor to make a quest green and I only have about 20% to go till 47 <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />

[Yella]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think in truth with this gen of MMOs its considered an out dated gameplay mechanism - greying out I think is now pretty much a mainstay with all the current gen ones? </blockquote>In WoW, I can take my level 60 to level 15 dungeons, slaughter everything in the zone, & get every drop. Granted, there's a lot of drops that are "bind-on-pickup", which is WoW-speak for "no trade". But those things can all be vendored, & the rest of the stuff is perfectly twinkable. </blockquote><p>That content is all instanced though. Much of the lower level content (which is what the OP is talking about) in EQ2 is open though. If you really wanted to do grey stuff you could always team up with a lower level and mentor them. The mechanism to to it is there, the OP just chooses not to use it, probably because he would have to fight the content at level rather than being able to just destroy it. </p><p>IMO the EQ2 system is the right way to go.</p>

[Salonkolya]

<p>"When your xp is turned off, it's just your combat xp. You still get xp for quests, discoveries and non-combat stuff."</p><p> Ah. ty <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[baguetteovenfresh]

Umara@Lucan DLere wrote: <blockquote><p>Just one suggestion that I'm not sure you know about - not trying to sound insulting at all. You can turn off your combat xp to slow down the leveling pace. It won't stop you from getting quest and exploration xp, but if you are a real quest monkey (good thing!) and want to experience everything at the appropriate level, then there is this option to help out.</p></blockquote>this is what i have done - gone back and made an alt, my second character, and ive turned off exp so i can actually see those access quest zones and complete a few  barrage of quests from the same npcs. i blitzed through much too fast with my first character and i am really enjoying myself now even more than i thought i would. of course 13 aa at level 17 doesnt hurt much either <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /> and im making money much more easily since im not scurrying to catch up to my spell book with spell purchases.

[YeldarbSpiritbla]

<cite>Yella wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote>In WoW, I can take my level 60 to level 15 dungeons, slaughter everything in the zone, & get every drop. Granted, there's a lot of drops that are "bind-on-pickup", which is WoW-speak for "no trade". But those things can all be vendored, & the rest of the stuff is perfectly twinkable. </blockquote><p>That content is all instanced though. Much of the lower level content (which is what the OP is talking about) in EQ2 is open though. If you really wanted to do grey stuff you could always team up with a lower level and mentor them. The mechanism to to it is there, the OP just chooses not to use it, probably because he would have to fight the content at level rather than being able to just destroy it. </p><p>IMO the EQ2 system is the right way to go.</p></blockquote><p>Absolutely, without question. The OP is being unreasonable to think the game should cater to his playstyle, but yet leave out the playstyles of people that are actually of appropriate level for the content. The grey mobs were instituted as a solution to a much larger problem, at the time, then being able to farm low level content. It was put in at the request of the playerbase. </p><p>Not even to mention putting in place a way for people to be even MORE segregated in a game where grouping is supposed to be the optimal course. It does affect WoW, and it is much worse for it. Even when all of WoW's dungeons are instances. It would definitely affect EQ2 more with the open, contested, dungeons that all players want to keep in the game. Having contested, as well as, instanced dungeons is what makes EQ2 a much better game, and we certainly don't want to destroy that for players, especially of the appropriate level for the content.</p>

[Laiina]

<cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>Hmm yes - to be honest the greying out thing is an important gameplay decision. Trust me you wouldnt want it the other way - having high lvl chars just farming and killing your lvl monsters just to benefit would cause a lot of problems. And it would certainly happen. </blockquote><p> I have been playing EQ2 since launch, off and on as I have time. And I had my doubts about the trivial loot code also - up until very recently.</p><p>And what changed my mind on it was that I played LOTRO for a while. There is no TLC there - any grey mob can drop their normal loot.</p><p>And what is happening is that higher levels are farming the crap out of them. This is especially bad when it comes to named mobs that drop rare crafting items, that are basically unkillable by the "level appropriate" people that could use the drops.</p><p>As an aside, LOTRO might be the best advertisement for EQ2 - time after time I see missing features and things that are poorly done (such as the itemization, crafts, and player selling), and the most common example of how it "should" have been done in chat and forums is EQ2 <img src="/smilies/283a16da79f3aa23fe1025c96295f04f.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[The_Cheeseman]

If you can't have fun in this game unless you're getting loot, you are playing the wrong game. If you want to be rewarded for killing MOBs that cannot even hurt you, perhaps you need to ponder the meaning of the concept, "risk versus reward." You don't get exp or chest drops from gray MOBs because those MOBs cannot hurt you, and you do not deserve any reward for killing them. They don't aggro you because it's annoying as heck to have to slaughter your way through gray zones just to get where you want to go. It may seem like the TLC is a hinderance, and that it's removal would not affect the game, but that is a very uninformed and shallow assumption. The TLC is the foundation of EQ2's in-game economy. TLC ensures that players must acquire new gear every tier instead of keeping the same items. The inability to twink lower-level characters with legendary/fabled drops you get from pharming with a high-level toon also makes sure that there is a healthy market for crafted items, and that lower level gear is not rendered obsolete via mudflation. Finally, it ensures that legendary/fabled gear maintains its value and prestige, no matter what tier you are playing at, and that classic raids and/or quests continue to be challenging and rewarding, even after additional content has been released. I notice you seem to consider EQ1 a paragon of MMO goodness and quality. Yes, it was fairly popular in its day, mostly because it was the only option available for a 3D MMO. It broke ground and determined what criteria future MMOs would be graded against. However, it is anything but perfect and well-designed. The level progression is unsteady, loot distribution is horridly planned, and the entire situation is the definition of mudflation. I played EQ1 from before Kunark to after PoP, and I can assure you that you are viewing EQ1 through some serious rose-colored glasses, friend. Don't get me wrong, it was a great game in its day, but it is not something I would use as a design guideline for the next-gen games. I mean, I used to like going down into Lower Guk to pharm the Frenzy on slow nights, too (only when nobody else was there, mind you). But when it comes down to it, I much prefer a system like EQ2 has, in which the challenges are always fresh and not watered down by new expansions.

[liveja]

<cite>Yella wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think in truth with this gen of MMOs its considered an out dated gameplay mechanism - greying out I think is now pretty much a mainstay with all the current gen ones? </blockquote>In WoW, I can take my level 60 to level 15 dungeons, slaughter everything in the zone, & get every drop. Granted, there's a lot of drops that are "bind-on-pickup", which is WoW-speak for "no trade". But those things can all be vendored, & the rest of the stuff is perfectly twinkable. </blockquote><p>That content is all instanced though.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, & I'd like to remind people of the very nice compromise mentioned earlier in this thread: have the INSTANCES "scale" so that they remain green, but leave CONTESTED content as it is.</p><p>That way, those of us who want to farm, can go farm instances; those who want to play in contested areas have nothing to worry about.</p><p>If someone could show me where this compromise would be horribly bad, feel free.</p>

[Armae]

<p> Greying out of mobs...is silly,and has failed its intended purpose(s).</p><p>If you go waaay back to the release of EQ2,what was the purpose of greying out mobs.In the "noblest" of ideas /cough/wink.It was primarily to prevent 2 of the most hated evils of EQ1 and other MMORPGS.Farming and twinking.</p><p> So what exactly is farming?Simple really.A repetetive action with the intent of adding to ones economic or material wealth,generally with little other significant benefit.</p><p> So what is twinking.Also a simple concept.Enhancing a player beyond what is expected of their capabilites.</p><p> So now we have general understanding of these two concepts,how has greying out of mobs failed to deter people from attempting,and succeeding in these.</p><p> Well lets start with farming.Are you a level 70 player.Do you run the EoF instances?Still trying for that piece of armor?Gonna try it again when the lock out timer is expired.Well your a farmer.How many farmers right now are in the KoS zones.Barren Sky probably has a health population of "single name/anonymous player".Bonemire..yup some there too.Now how many players are in lets say Rivervale..lotta named mobs there,or Runnyeye,Cazic-Thule?...1?2?6?...none? whats going on?Ahhh...the player base is forced into consolidation.Hey raiders i dont wanna leave you guys out....how many times have you done the same raid zones over and over....you know the ones..very little difficulty...can do the zone almost blindfolded now...every single person in the raid knows what to do,when to do it...well guess what..your farmers too.</p><p> So in reality,im sorry to disabuse you of your gentle carebear feelgood intentions...farming is a reality,and neccesity for players.Its not "evil" as some might like to think,and its not neccesarily a good thing..but it happens...and it will not be stopped.Unless you kill X_Mob and get expected X_Item the first time,unless you kill mobs only of neccessity to accomplish a quest or gain experience although grinding experience is also a form of farming.Then you have participated in the act of farming...and il guarantee you,you will farm again,and again.The harder you do try to stop it,the less of an interactive game you will have.Putting restrictions does nothing,it merely confines the player base to that which is farmable.</p><p> Twinking.This hasnt been stopped in the slightest.Generally any game that has skills,levels.or experience, also has restrictions on the useage of items within the game based upon those factors.This is also true of EQ2.My personal experience is that with very little farming it is very easy to meet the maximum that any of my alts can achieve for said level.It is quite simply the most brutally efficient and fastest game that i have been able to twink characters.</p><p> So that is 2 of the main rationales for greying out of mobs.Both obviously have failed.Dont believe go look at the zones iv mentioned.Try it yourself.IMO the</p><p> Unintended Concequences of greying out mobs are far worse.</p><p> 1.Plat famers who sell their in game wealth for rl gain.Yes this does encourage the selling/buying of plat.</p><p> 2.Player base is forced into content.If you take the time and travel around and do a /who....i think youd be surprised how many zones are utterly devoid,even at prime time peak periods...simple reason is that the general player base has exceeded the zone content levels.You wont find a level 70 player hanging out in CT lets say..hoping to find a group they could mentor to finish X quest or get X item for their alt.They just wont go since their is really no point...</p><p> 3.The game becomes redundant/boring since you can only do the same content repeatedly that is within your level capabilty.Sure you can go farm grey mobs to finish up lots of quests.I cant recall how many times or variations of this iv heard "thank god thats over 1000 grey mobs and im finally done".....hmm unless iv lost all faculty of sense/perception that does not sound like the words of someone who did something they feel to be rewarding.Now if the miniumum was a green mob,that gave hugely minimal experience and had a chance of dropping a chest would it make a huge difference?,prolly not signicantly so...but you might at least hear them say something like "sweet,hehe this X_Fabled Item dropped".That indicates at least a minimally rewarding experience.</p><p> 4.The Broker System.This is a complete farce.T1 items can sell for equal or greater then T7 prices.Is it expected that new players to the game would have a greater source of income then a player who was been online since release?Ahh but not to worry,if you inspect these forums you will find the easy solution for the new players,unless they just decide to buy their in-game money with rl dollars....they can go farm of course.With quite a few of my alts iv heard several newer players simply declare they wont bother buying anything until they reached Level 30 or higher.So is that really a big deal?IMO yes it is.It reduces the capability of their characters abilities,ergo potentially reducing the amount of content available to them,as well reducing the enjoyment of gameplay.Keeping in mind people generally play this to be "heroes"...most ppl dont strive for the title "gimpiest on the server".Would greening up mobs change this..hugely,the amount of items would be decent on the broker for all levels...take a look at level 1-70. Equipment is crap..a large portion of the items on the broker are just VT from ppl who dont know any better...most of it is sub-par....the few items of any really exception are priced at hugely unrealistic prices.Unless you farm,or buy your in game money.This part is also due to the majority of items being marked as no-trade...which is also IMO rather foolish on the devs part.I can understand the intent but i cant agree with it,which is to force all players to farm,the way they want you to.</p><p> 2 common arguements;</p><p>1.The broker will be flooded with a rush of items.Well maybe,...stuff,ppl actually want and can use,prices will go down and less farming to obtain those items will be req'd.People can have more time to enjoy the game.Players have a restriction on the amount of items on the broker,if the game mechanics cant handle it reduce the cap.</p><p>2.Are level 70 players going to rush to mostly empty zones and start hogging all the lower level content.Some.I think a lot of players would go back to zones they out-leveled and go back to finish off quests,farm a named etc etc...but from all levels.I dont see any real difference to whats happeneing now.>>>lots of ya say mentor...well insert your mentoring arguement here.Most of the ppl in the EQ2 world to my experience are pretty decent and agreeable ppl,treat them as you would like to be treated and they may surprise you.This assumption that ppl are going to "hog" the zones...imo its not a healthy online attitude,and the EULA is also in your benefit to deter this.</p><p> Ok so fire up the burners and flame away<img src="/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Salonkolya]

Plat sellers need it to be as easy as possible to generate game-value items as quickly as possible.

[Kir]

<p>Few things to touch on:</p><p>Farming is still rampant today.  Farming was not taken away by adding grey loot code.  Why add grey loot code, when you can just turn off exp like the farmers do now.  You think that its "normal" for people to stay at level 50 for three years, all with random gen names, don't speak any english, have exp turned off and they sit in OOB invisible running from mob to mob?  </p><p>Also, most "farmers" who are farming for cash arent going after the one big ticket item they have to farm 3 days for, they won't make enough money off gear that is pre 50 to do it this way, they are in zones with high amounts of mobs that drop cash loots, lots of coin drops and high value named treasure++ drops.</p><p>The most [I cannot control my vocabulary] thing in the world to me is greying out mobs.  I won't even comment on the characters per account bs either, thats just Sony ripping people off for money, its a marketing toy, they give you excuses that the back end is full of all this extra data they have to handle and thats why in eq1 you could have so many, and in eq2 you can't.  BULL.  I have been in development more years then I care to remember, the amount of data needed to store each character is so small, the other overhead from other area's of the game are more of a hit then character database data ever will be.</p><p>Also with the addition of Transmuting, the market would be just as stable as it is today with all the plat sellers.  Transmuting of lower end pieces would not change that, it would just mean that when I go to find level 10 gear for my alts I don't have to pay 20 gold per piece because there is such a barren sky of items for anything under 20 that the transmuters buy it for whatever they can.</p><p>As I said in beta, and was ignored.  Closing down paths to players for fun, trying to prevent out of date game systems from being exploited is [I cannot control my vocabulary].  Come up with new idea's, Quit punishing those of us who aren't farmers and realize that farming is a hard a dirty game you are going to have to buckle up and either change the system and its old style gear is everything, levels is everything style, or deal with farmers the only other way possible.  Throw money, and man power at it.  Start linking all active transactions between all accounts associated with subnets, accounts, and start searching back chat logs of players who exchange large sums of money.</p><p>Its pretty easy to tell a plat transfer from a normal one.  Player A only has interacted with Player B once or twice in his lifetime, each time transfered large amounts of plat.  Now check the account that did the intital transfer of pp, and check his logs.  See how many people he has traded large amounts of money too, on top of that start monitoring where he is getting the pp from.  When you have a large enough snail trail you ban not only the provider, but the buyer and the transfer account. If you take the time and research it instead of the typical "Ohh this guy has 10000plat ban any account with more then 100plat!" you won't get the random bannings of innocent people mixed in.  You want to stop farming, stop making it profitable.  Bottom line, make it less worth someones time to risk buying the plat then farming it.  When I can buy 1k plat for 100 bucks, and no that I will never get banned for it makes it an easy choice considering it would take me months to farm it with out buying it.  START BANNING THE BUYERS AND THE SELLERS WILL LOSE MONEY.</p>

[Armawk]

<p>Its not going to happen. People in lower zones would lose a vast amount if the 70s here who want to farm more extensively were given their way, and Sony are never ever going to allow it. Why would they ruin the game like that?</p><p>Yes there are other kinds of farming, but this one (farming out of level range stuff for loot) is the worst, and its pretty much stopped dead right now. This is a good thing</p>

[liveja]

<cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>People in lower zones would lose a vast amount if the 70s here who want to farm more extensively were given their way</p></blockquote><p>If it's kept to INSTANCES, & the CONTESTED content is left to gray out, nobody gets griefed.</p><p>That is, unless you can explain otherwise. </p>

[Illmarr]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>shaunfletcher wrote:</cite><blockquote><p>People in lower zones would lose a vast amount if the 70s here who want to farm more extensively were given their way</p></blockquote><p>If it's kept to INSTANCES, & the CONTESTED content is left to gray out, nobody gets griefed.</p><p>That is, unless you can explain otherwise. </p></blockquote><p> I don't think anyone has disagreed with your reinvention of the wheel idea. They are disagreeing with the OP who made no such instances only stipulation.</p><p>Here's a question though. Say you get your instances. So a bunch of level 70s can go farm Varsoon every 18 hours. What does he drop? A level 32 Paladin or Warlock Master again? Or do you expect these instances to be seeded with loot from every tier depending on the level of the group? Look for this in the <b>Lost Instances of Norrath</b> expansion pack in 2010 perhaps, but I just don't see reitemizing every instance currently in game like that coming in a free update soon. If a bunch of 70s want to farm a low T4 Master daily, then sure I'm all for it. It's someone's idea of fun, just not mine. Just have them do it over there in their instance....where I can't see it and it doesn't interfere with people at the proper level questing  and adventuring</p>

[Rijacki]

<cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Yella wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>livejazz wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>VizP wrote:</cite><blockquote>I think in truth with this gen of MMOs its considered an out dated gameplay mechanism - greying out I think is now pretty much a mainstay with all the current gen ones? </blockquote>In WoW, I can take my level 60 to level 15 dungeons, slaughter everything in the zone, & get every drop. Granted, there's a lot of drops that are "bind-on-pickup", which is WoW-speak for "no trade". But those things can all be vendored, & the rest of the stuff is perfectly twinkable. </blockquote><p>That content is all instanced though.</p></blockquote><p>Yes, & I'd like to remind people of the very nice compromise mentioned earlier in this thread: have the INSTANCES "scale" so that they remain green, but leave CONTESTED content as it is.</p><p>That way, those of us who want to farm, can go farm instances; those who want to play in contested areas have nothing to worry about.</p><p>If someone could show me where this compromise would be horribly bad, feel free.</p></blockquote>Instances have to be designed that way to work that way.  Some already are.

[Armae]

<p> MMORPG's are exactly that,ots of ppl interacting everyday and having different experiences.Remember when Splitpaw first came out...the game turned into a single player game amost over night.That would happen if all instances scaled to ppls lvl...if an instance turns green...why not at the least have it scale in difficulty to the players level/average group level..turn it blue or yellow.</p><p>Id rather see all content green.Yes ppl will "consider" themselves to b "griefed"from time to time.Player X-lvl 50 has no right to that mob that my player Y-lvl 30 was going to kill.Well what makes the player of the appropriate level deem themselves to be more worthy then the player who is 20 levels over that content.A couple of things.1 is greed and rationalization of the situation to their benefit.Which is based on a flawed logic system resulting in faulty "perception" of what is right and wrong.</p><p> Ppl seem to have come up with a moral value of what is right and wrong as per character lvl vs content lvl.Nowhere in the EULA does it make any such reference to any notion of characters may only engage vs combat of certain lvl appropriate to their character,any reference to characters must engage mobs that only have any color other then grey,or that penalties could be imposed upon a player that engages/attempts to engage a mob that is "grey" to them.The con color of a mob in no way reflects ability of a player to be able to fight the mob,it merely illustrates the anticipated fight difficulty level.It has no bearing whatsoever on the rights of the players.The reality is,all accounts...i wont even say players...bcuz that is irrelevant.ALL ACCOUNTS,have the same rights to ALL MOBS,irregardless.A blanket statement.And thats all their is,ther r rules pertaining to content monopolization,zone disturbances etc etc.</p><p> When ppl argue farming,they argue their own perceptions.And little else.Perception is not oft based in fact,and quite often runs contrary to the truth.The biggest perception/fear is that all the dungeons will be overwhelmed with players competeing for named mobs,the dungeons will have ppl clamboring and argueing /petitions will be fast and furious,and yes of course the sky will fall and the game will grind to a halt.Huh..is that what ppl said when mentoring came out?I do believe it is.Did it happen...well for awhile the "bad farmers" mentored down and famred till no end...uhm wait..im wrong there....they farmed for awhile and moved on to other things eventually.Look at these dungeons ppl feel they need to preserve the sanctity of level appropriateness.Most of them are devoid of any players,level appropriate or not.So what exactly are you trying to protect?</p>