Here are the May Update Plans for EverQuest II!

[Piestro]

<p align="center"><a href="http://www.everquest2.com/images/en/features/2012/05/updateplans/update.jpg"><img src="http://www.everquest2.com/images/en/features/2012/05/updateplans/update_th.jpg" /></a></p> <p>We made it! Whew! The Skyshrine Game Update went live and was well tested thanks to the community at large as well as the internal teams. We are all really proud of it and it seems like a good bunch of you are enjoying it too.</p> <p>While we are still watching Skyshrine and responding to any issues that come up, we are obviously marching onward to our next big projects. Also, as we’ve said many times, we are looking at the existing game and how to make improvements to what we have. We’ve jotted down a few things below that are in progress this month to give you an idea of just some of what we’re working on right now. We hope to release them in May but won’t until they are ready:</p> <ul><li>Remember in December 2011 on Test server we offered the ability to play as your character in Dungeon Maker? We took a look at the results and it was pretty clear we needed to make some significant improvements. Our team of engineers took to doing some research and experimentation and has come up with a great solution that we feel will have other applications as well. We are calling it “Level Agnostic” game play. What it means is that no matter what your level, you will be able to go into Dungeon Maker as your character and be effective. While that’s a bit of a no brainer, this goes for groups in Dungeon Maker too. We have already done early tests of groups of level 90s with level 50s and lower and it’s really fun! There’s a bit of tuning we need to do here and there, but there are definitely other ways we can use this. We are still in testing and want to get this one right, so we are going to do a lot of testing before we go live. And of course we’ll have it on the Test server when we feel it’s ready.</li> <li>On a more practical side, the team has been looking at low-impact solutions to improve the game experience for everyone. One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.</li> <li>Another challenge the team faces is being responsive during testing during our Beta periods. It’s very frustrating for designers and engineers to be testing raids and group content and have to stop due to a bug or difficulty and have to wait a day for another build. Not anymore! The engineers are already well into developing a testing tool that allows developers to make changes on the fly in real time. This is HUGE news for us and those players who help us test certainly will recognize the value. We certainly hope to start using this during testing for our next update.</li> <li>We are also starting to push through a list of historical bugs and prioritizing those and we’ll give updates on those as we go forward.</li></ul> <p>So from all of us, to all of you, thank you for the amazing support and playing the best MMORPG around!</p><p><em>Holly "Windstalker" Longdale</em></p>

[Vinyard]

<p>So, you're not making the Antonica scarecrows heroic....</p><p>Here's something to look at. For leveling, you have, in essence, removed the freedom of it. Back in the old days, people had the option to grind in heroic overland zones, or quest. Pretty much these days, it's get pl'd or take the "golden path" (which, is off. The golden path does not function as well as it was intended. It just seems to cut you off short every zone in terms of exp).</p><p>Maybe for June? Bring back the heroic overlands. Antonica, TS giant groups, Nek forest....these zones are EMPTY. It's WASTED content. Wasted space. And wasted server load. Bring life back into these zones. You guys are putting in so much work revamping the original starting cities, but forgetting the areas around them. </p><p>Heroic overland zones were a great place to meet your server community. To know who you are playing with. Some of us enjoy this kind of leveling, instead of packed dungeons full of pl groups (or 1 sk pl'ing a group), and questing is just so boring.</p><p>Thank you! Let's restore this games former glory. I know the team can pull it together. If you really focus on this stuff, and make a shift back towards the begining, you will see a much happier playerbase.</p>

[Lodrelhai]

<p>Um, most of south TS is heroic, including giants, gnolls, and undead.  And the only people I see in those areas are twinks soloing them.  I'm not as familiar with the heroic content in some other zones, though last time I was in EL there were still plenty of them in the north of the zone.  But I'm one of those weird people who likes all the boring quests.  And as I don't usually twink my characters, having lots of solo mobs to kill for those quests is a great thing to me.</p><p>The unfortunate fact is those zones are unlikely to become populated just because the difficulty is raised.  The drops by overland heroics have never been as good as dungeons, and never been popular for grinding/power leveling even when there was a lot of overland heroic content.  Not that I remember anyway.  Early EQ2, groups I saw in overland zones were grouping for quests.  Grinders hit the dungeons.  Add to this the current speed of leveling and the percentage of the population in end-game, and the mid-game population just isn't available to fill these "dead" zones.</p><p>Honestly, I'm not sure what you mean about the packed shared dungeons, either.  I'll see one, maybe two other groups (or moloers) in the contested dungeons whenever I peek inside one.  And they're rarely in conflict unless they're all after a particular named (generally for a quest).</p>

[Peogia]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So, you're not making the Antonica scarecrows heroic....</p><p>Here's something to look at. For leveling, you have, in essence, removed the freedom of it. Back in the old days, people had the option to grind in heroic overland zones, or quest. Pretty much these days, it's get pl'd or take the "golden path" (which, is off. The golden path does not function as well as it was intended. It just seems to cut you off short every zone in terms of exp).</p><p>Maybe for June? Bring back the heroic overlands. Antonica, TS giant groups, Nek forest....these zones are EMPTY. It's WASTED content. Wasted space. And wasted server load. Bring life back into these zones. You guys are putting in so much work revamping the original starting cities, but forgetting the areas around them. </p><p>Heroic overland zones were a great place to meet your server community. To know who you are playing with. Some of us enjoy this kind of leveling, instead of packed dungeons full of pl groups (or 1 sk pl'ing a group), and questing is just so boring.</p><p>Thank you! Let's restore this games former glory. I know the team can pull it together. If you really focus on this stuff, and make a shift back towards the begining, you will see a much happier playerbase.</p></blockquote><p>Don't forget all the Epic's, Zek us-to have them overload and fist us-to be worth killing as an epic now he can be stepped on</p>

[Celline-Layonaire]

<p>Hmm I'm liking what I'm seeing here. (don't know about what they'll end up in the end...)</p><p>And most interested in the 'Testing/modifying on the fly' feature.</p>

[Rukor]

<p>Just curious where the ability to respc an adventure class for us tradeskill(aholics) might be in the list.   It's nice to see that there is a plan being laid out and worked and re-worked.  Gives me a lot of good vibes knowing that EQ2 is still going so strong.</p><p>/bow</p>

[Geothe]

<p>So no plans to fix the messed up progression, nor utterly screwed up itemization.</p><p>Imagine that.</p><p>Freaking awesome.</p>

[Arbreth]

<p>I for one would love to see a return of the random epics roaming free in the world.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So no plans to fix the messed up progression, nor utterly screwed up itemization.</p><p>Imagine that.</p><p>Freaking awesome.</p></blockquote><p>Clearly these aren't the most important issues with the game.</p><p>My question was, are the bug fixes going to address that only 1% of the players can progress HM drunder and the PoW timeline?</p>

[Chronus1]

<p><cite>Geothe wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>So no plans to fix the messed up progression, nor utterly screwed up itemization.</p><p>Imagine that.</p><p>Freaking awesome.</p></blockquote><p>This.</p>

[Sinnous]

<p>Ok so yes to the random roaming epics. I wondered what happened to the X2 centaur that used to roam The Thundering Steppes, just came back to the game recently, and secondly I would say that 10%-15% of the games population should be able to do HM Drunder and things anyway. That content is meant to provide a challenge, not meant for everyone. I personally have never got to do it, but that is what keeps me playing, the work to get to that point.</p>

[DonnyOddlegs]

<p>Please don't spend any more time trying to fix dungeon maker.</p><p>I pay a subscription to have new (working) content created for me by developers and have no interest in doing the job myself.</p><p>Player created content is ok but not something I want to play and certainly not something I am prepared to pay for.</p>

[Celline-Layonaire]

<p><cite>DonnyOddlegs wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't spend any more time trying to fix dungeon maker.</p><p>I pay a subscription to have new (working) content created for me by developers and have no interest in doing the job myself.</p><p>Player created content is ok but not something I want to play and certainly not something I am prepared to pay for.</p></blockquote><p>So, you are apparently the only paying customer of this game..</p>

[Rarrum]

<p>Adrenal Flow ...</p>

[Sharakari]

<p>Quests..... can you make the flag over their head a different color for repeatables!  I like to do as many unique quests as I can, and I go back into old zones a lot to see if I missed anything.  I'd like to know before accepting a quest if it's a repeatable.</p>

[Gravy]

<p><cite>Piestro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.</blockquote><p>Why would we have to target the NPC?</p><p>Currently there is a feather over a NPC with a quest.</p><p>In the quest journal there are categories for each quest: Tradeskill,  Mission, Etc.</p><p>Why not have a visual cue over a NPC based on the category of quest?</p><p>So if I'm running by and see a wrench over a NPC's head I know that is a tradeskill quest. If I see 3 small faces I know its a group mission. A Heritage quest giving NPC might have a scroll over its head. Etc.</p>

[Ahlana]

<p><cite>Gravy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Piestro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.</blockquote><p>Why would we have to target the NPC?</p><p>Currently there is a feather over a NPC with a quest.</p><p>In the quest journal there are categories for each quest: Tradeskill,  Mission, Etc.</p><p>Why not have a visual cue over a NPC based on the category of quest?</p><p>So if I'm running by and see a wrench over a NPC's head I know that is a tradeskill quest. If I see 3 small faces I know its a group mission. A Heritage quest giving NPC might have a scroll over its head. Etc.</p></blockquote><p>I figured they meant Mobs.. like I target a panther and the tooltip tells me it upates my quest for panther hides.</p><p>Just my take on it. But it sounds like nothing is actually coming in May? All behind the scene stuff that might come later?</p>

[SisterTheresa]

<p><cite>Piestro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p align="center"><a href="http://www.everquest2.com/images/en/features/2012/05/updateplans/update.jpg"></a></p><ul><li>Remember in December 2011 on Test server we offered the ability to play as your character in Dungeon Maker? We took a look at the results and it was pretty clear we needed to make some significant improvements. Our team of engineers took to doing some research and experimentation and has come up with a great solution that we feel will have other applications as well. We are calling it “Level Agnostic” game play. What it means is that no matter what your level, you will be able to go into Dungeon Maker as your character and be effective. While that’s a bit of a no brainer, this goes for groups in Dungeon Maker too. We have already done early tests of groups of level 90s with level 50s and lower and it’s really fun! There’s a bit of tuning we need to do here and there, but there are definitely other ways we can use this. We are still in testing and want to get this one right, so we are going to do a lot of testing before we go live. And of course we’ll have it on the Test server when we feel it’s ready.</li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">It would be cool to play as one's character through the Dungeon Maker (as it might get used more) it is hardly important enough to put forward more than many of the bugs in the game.</span></p><ul><li>On a more practical side, the team has been looking at low-impact solutions to improve the game experience for everyone. One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.</li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">What you should do first is update and fix the quest tracking/highlight on the map thing FIRST.  Half the zones don't even have it, many quests don't show it on zones that do, and alot of the area highlighted are plain wrong.</span></p><ul><li>Another challenge the team faces is being responsive during testing during our Beta periods. It’s very frustrating for designers and engineers to be testing raids and group content and have to stop due to a bug or difficulty and have to wait a day for another build. Not anymore! The engineers are already well into developing a testing tool that allows developers to make changes on the fly in real time. This is HUGE news for us and those players who help us test certainly will recognize the value. We certainly hope to start using this during testing for our next update.</li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Heh one day .. I waited a month for a quest to get fixed.  We'll see if this is any good at what it is supposed to do.</span></p><ul><li>We are also starting to push through a list of historical bugs and prioritizing those and we’ll give updates on those as we go forward.</li></ul><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">How about re-itemization?  I STILL have bugged items from over 4 months ago.</span></p></blockquote>

[FoTwenny]

<p>I'm a veteran from game inception. I've always regretted the fact that the game is now "time spent = character ability". Sure time spent has always been a key factor in MMOs, but back in the day it took skill to do good DPS, now it doesn't matter.  Good players with bad gear or low AAs can play will until they're blue in the face, and bad players who simply put the time in can out-DPS the good players with ease.</p><p>It seems like the gear/AA to "player quality" balance has completely vanished in favor of gear/AA.  It'd be nice for those of us who don't have the time to get max AAs and new raid gear to still be able to use our veteran talents to actually be useful in the game.</p>

[Fendaria]

<p><cite>Piestro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul> <li>On a more practical side, the team has been looking at low-impact solutions to improve the game experience for everyone. One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.</li></ul></blockquote><p>Don't really need or want this.</p><p>If you really want to do something worthwhile for quests like this then...</p><p><ul><li>Figure out something to help me manage those quest items in my bags<ul><li>When I delete a quest, remove the quest items that go with it</li><li>When I examine a quest item, tell me if I am still on the quest</li><li>Fix the LL drops that say I still need them for the quest, but really don't</li></ul></li><li>As someone else suggested, fix the highlighted zones in the map windows for quests<ul><li>I don't mind checking the map and then searching around to find the mobs to kill, its not really that hard</li></ul></li></ul></p><p>Fendaria</p>

[Maroger]

<p>Don't waste too much time on Dungeon Maker - those zones are mostly poorly designed, BORING, and a huge waste of time. I have used them to level a few lowbies - but I can't see wasting time with a L90 in that thing. The rewards ARE NOT WORTH IT - what you buy with the token is junk -- I got the one thing I wanted the Emerald Mount and the rest is not as good as SC.</p>

[Avacii]

<p>I hope that buglist includes the incredibly annoying ranged weapon auto-attack always toggling...</p><p>And is "lack of feedback from Customer Service Representives" down as an issue as well? The "% of ignored posts" and "lack of faith customers have in feedback" have must be eligible for the Guinness Book of World Records.</p>

[ratbast]

is there a website that lists fan fiction storylines via dungeon maker? im not interested in taking in-game 'like' recommendations. would be cool if profitui created a link to it as well. i would spend time on a creative story, even if loot and exp sucked. so many roleplayers, should be some really great (and authentic to eq2 universe) content.

[Geothe]

<p><cite>Avacii@Splitpaw wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I hope that buglist includes the incredibly annoying ranged weapon auto-attack always toggling...</p><p>And is "lack of feedback from Customer Service Representives" down as an issue as well? The "% of ignored posts" and "lack of faith customers have in feedback" have must be eligible for the Guinness Book of World Records.</p></blockquote><p>As nice as that would be.I highly doubt it.There has yet to be even a single Dev response on that ENTIRE situation since it was implemented and complained about on Day 1.They just dont seem to give a darn.</p>

[Necrotherian]

<p><cite>ratbast wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>is there a website that lists fan fiction storylines via dungeon maker? im not interested in taking in-game 'like' recommendations. would be cool if profitui created a link to it as well. i would spend time on a creative story, even if loot and exp sucked. so many roleplayers, should be some really great (and authentic to eq2 universe) content.</blockquote><p>I'm working on building a website, ( <a href="http://www.eq2-dungeon-maker-raters.com">www.eq2-dungeon-maker-raters.com</a> ) that will rate player made dungeons on aesthetics, flow, survivability, token vs. time, and variety.  I've already got a few ratings up, several for the Unrest Server and one for AB server, and as I get the opportunity to do dungeon delving, I'll have more of the pages populated.  Right now, the site isn't in its final form, but eventually it will be. </p><p>Note: the actual rating pages still need to be updated, so if you don't see all the rating areas on a given one, it is because I haven't updated it yet with the new system.</p><p>When you see the banner in my sig, you'll know it has at least one dungeon rated from each server (except Test and Test Copy - I may do those as well, but time will tell).</p>

[Raferty]

<p><cite>DonnyOddlegs wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't spend any more time trying to fix dungeon maker.</p><p>I pay a subscription to have new (working) content created for me by developers and have no interest in doing the job myself.</p><p>Player created content is ok but not something I want to play and certainly not something I am prepared to pay for.</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I think the dungeon maker was aimed more at the decorator community than anything. And I have enjoyed it emmensely, though I can see why adventurers don't want to bother. So please stop asking them to quit giving me content just because you don't want to use it. I do.</p>

[Necrotherian]

<p><cite>Raferty wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>DonnyOddlegs wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't spend any more time trying to fix dungeon maker.</p><p>I pay a subscription to have new (working) content created for me by developers and have no interest in doing the job myself.</p><p>Player created content is ok but not something I want to play and certainly not something I am prepared to pay for.</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I think the dungeon maker was aimed more at the decorator community than anything. And I have enjoyed it emmensely, though I can see why adventurers don't want to bother. So please stop asking them to quit giving me content just because you don't want to use it. I do.</p></blockquote><p>Apparently, there are a few people that think that their way is the only way that the game should be played.  They seem to have an innate resistance to reason, or even critical thinking, for that matter.</p>

[Vinyard]

<p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Raferty wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>DonnyOddlegs wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't spend any more time trying to fix dungeon maker.</p><p>I pay a subscription to have new (working) content created for me by developers and have no interest in doing the job myself.</p><p>Player created content is ok but not something I want to play and certainly not something I am prepared to pay for.</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I think the dungeon maker was aimed more at the decorator community than anything. And I have enjoyed it emmensely, though I can see why adventurers don't want to bother. So please stop asking them to quit giving me content just because you don't want to use it. I do.</p></blockquote><p>Apparently, there are a few people that think that their way is the only way that the game should be played.  They seem to have an innate resistance to reason, or even critical thinking, for that matter.</p></blockquote><p>Maybe it's because up until Sentinel's Fate, Adventuring was the main focus of this game. After that, it took a seat behind crafting and decorating. Which is stupid.</p>

[Illgauskus]

<p>What, if anything, will differentiate the rewards from running the dungeon maker with your own character versus the more limited Avatars?</p><p>If you are going to be able to fix problems in real time, does this mean that we will see and increase in the number of actual applied fixes and response time overall?</p><p>On a more generic note:</p><p>What, if anything, is being done to bring some balance and sanity back into the game. As a player that has followed EQI & II since they were in Beta and before SOE took them over, I hate to see how dreadfully EASY the game has become. I watched someone go from level 1-90 with 200+ AA's in under 5 days. Skill has taken a backseat to gear/AA's & exploration has been reduced to running the game on rails as you progress from quest to quest. In your efforts to make sure that everyone has the same game play experience you have removed or nullified everything that makes the experience INTERESTING. 90%+ of the crafting recipes are completely useless. The dark scary dungeons are generic hack and slash with no thought, strategy, or reason to be afraid. The storyline has been truncated down to tiny episodic chunks that can be swallowed in an hour and feel everything BUT epic.</p><p>Remove at least SOME of the flags over peoples heads so that there is something for players to discover. </p><p>Put something in your books and tomes that hint and allude to some undiscovered content without the big announcement and the journal entry so that people actually have a reason to READ them.</p><p>Make at least SOME of the quests lines ones that AREN'T tracked in your journal.</p><p>Make at least SOME of the content at every stage of the game require flags or some other form of access quests so that people have a REASON to explore.</p><p>Slow the level advancement dramatically so that there is TIME within your level range to explore the content for that level without the need to Chrono down.(And no, setting your xp to 100% AA is not a solution)</p><p>Give the player a reason to care about their place in the world you've created. (Aside from the childish binary, "I'm KOS in evil cities or good cities because of where I started.")</p><p>Rebalance player crafted goods with the dropped items. Maybe give one better green stats and the other better blues, or one better clicky affects. Even better would be to make the player crafted gear more flexible as to what stats/affects matter.</p><p>And last, but certainly not least, give us something to make the classes unique again. Please. They are so generic now that no matter which toon I am playing I feel like nothing has changed. </p><p>I love Everquest, and have been playing for over a decade now, but the truth is that SOE has lost their way at some point in their efforts to try and please everyone with everything. </p>

[Winky]

<p>Are there still any plans to go ahead with the Adventure Class reroll for high level crafters? Last I heard (last fall)  Rothgar was working on this, but he's with EQNext now isn't he? I've been waiting for years on this one. It would be a huge disappointment if this was scrapped.</p><p>edit: typo....</p>

[Necrotherian]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Raferty wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>DonnyOddlegs wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Please don't spend any more time trying to fix dungeon maker.</p><p>I pay a subscription to have new (working) content created for me by developers and have no interest in doing the job myself.</p><p>Player created content is ok but not something I want to play and certainly not something I am prepared to pay for.</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I think the dungeon maker was aimed more at the decorator community than anything. And I have enjoyed it emmensely, though I can see why adventurers don't want to bother. So please stop asking them to quit giving me content just because you don't want to use it. I do.</p></blockquote><p>Apparently, there are a few people that think that their way is the only way that the game should be played.  They seem to have an innate resistance to reason, or even critical thinking, for that matter.</p></blockquote><p>Maybe it's because up until Sentinel's Fate, Adventuring was the main focus of this game. After that, it took a seat behind crafting and decorating. Which is stupid.</p></blockquote><p>The main problem with that comment (especially the last three words of it) is that it implies that anything that is associated with tradeskills and decorating is a waste of time.  That might be your view, and nobody is telling you that you have to do the others, but to expect that your playstyle be the primary one to which they cater is a bit narrow-minded.</p><p>I would be happy if they would structure the GUs in the following rotation:</p><p>Expansion update - Content for questers, raiders, crafting, and decorating.</p><p>Next update (3 months after expansion) - Adventure content for questers and solo/duo players; crafting content for woodworkers, weaponsmiths, and armorers.</p><p>Next update (6 months after expansion) - Adventure content for groups (heroic content) and x2 raids; crafting content for sages, jewelers, and alchemists.</p><p>Next update (9 months after expansion) - Adventure content for raids (EM and HM); crafting content for carpenters (maybe some house items from the previous update's heroic zones), tailors, and provisioners.</p><p>That way, throughout the year, each play style would get an update in addition to expansion content.</p><p>My reasoning for putting the adventure updates in that order is that the first gives a little boost in content to help those players get good enough gear to survive in group zones, the second gives the group and x2 players content since by 6 months, those zones are getting a bit old, the third gives the raiders some harder content to hit, since many guilds will have made it through most of the existing raid content by this point.</p><p>As far as the crafting part goes, the order I put is pretty arbitrary, so it could be switched around however necessary.</p><p>End result, though, is it would give a rather fair distribution of content.  At least compared to the way they do it now.</p><p>Also, while we're at it, they could do a kind of "round robin" on the RNG positions for gear drops every update.  So if mages occupied positions 1-6, scouts 7-13, fighters 14-19, and priests 20-25, then they could shift them like so:</p><p>Expansion update - Mages 1-6, scouts 7-13, fighters 14-19, and priests 20-25.</p><p>Next update (3 months after expansion) - Priests 1-6, mages 7-12, scouts 13-19, and fighters 20-25.</p><p>Next update (6 months after expansion) - Fighters 1-6, priests 7-12, mages 13-18, and scouts 19-25.</p><p>Next update (9 months after expansion) - Scouts 1-7, fighters 8-13, priests 14-19, and mages 20-25.</p><p>Doing this would average out any potential positional RNG bias, thus allowing mages and priests, over the course of the year, to get just as much gear as scouts and fighters.</p>

[inspire1444568]

<p><cite>Piestro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul><li>Remember in December 2011 on Test server we offered the ability to play as your character in Dungeon Maker? We took a look at the results and it was pretty clear we needed to make some significant improvements. Our team of engineers took to doing some research and experimentation and has come up with a great solution that we feel will have other applications as well. We are calling it “Level Agnostic” game play. What it means is that no matter what your level, you will be able to go into Dungeon Maker as your character and be effective. While that’s a bit of a no brainer, this goes for groups in Dungeon Maker too. We have already done early tests of groups of level 90s with level 50s and lower and it’s really fun! There’s a bit of tuning we need to do here and there, but there are definitely other ways we can use this. We are still in testing and want to get this one right, so we are going to do a lot of testing before we go live. And of course we’ll have it on the Test server when we feel it’s ready.</li> <li>On a more practical side, the team has been looking at low-impact solutions to improve the game experience for everyone. One of them was to be able to target an NPC and have an indication of what quest they might update. The engineering team already has this working for simple quests. The challenge now is to make sure we get every quest in the game flagged appropriately. That’s going to take some time, but the functionality is already there and it’s been great to see it working in game. We are hoping to get the first phase of this out to the Test server soon.</li> <li>Another challenge the team faces is being responsive during testing during our Beta periods. It’s very frustrating for designers and engineers to be testing raids and group content and have to stop due to a bug or difficulty and have to wait a day for another build. Not anymore! The engineers are already well into developing a testing tool that allows developers to make changes on the fly in real time. This is HUGE news for us and those players who help us test certainly will recognize the value. We certainly hope to start using this during testing for our next update.</li> <li>We are also starting to push through a list of historical bugs and prioritizing those and we’ll give updates on those as we go forward.</li></ul> <p>So from all of us, to all of you, thank you for the amazing support and playing the best MMORPG around!</p><p><em>Holly "Windstalker" Longdale</em></p></blockquote><p>Why this &%it? Why not healer class balance? Three years (or more) we have only one super-needed class ?</p><p>Yes yes i know... this theme is... BIG BANG, but <a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=518157" target="_blank"><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>INQ IS HISTORICAL BUG !</strong></span></a></p>

[ReddyKY]

<p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Adventuring was the main focus of this game. After that, it took a seat behind crafting and decorating. Which is stupid.</p></blockquote><p>The main problem with that comment (especially the last three words of it) is that it implies that anything that is associated with tradeskills and decorating is a waste of time. </p></blockquote><p>Adventuring is the canvas that allows crafting and decorating to take place; it is the frame upon which other things are hung. This game would be a completely hollow shell without adventure content, therefore that which is primary needs to take primacy. If adventuring content thrives it pulls the rest of the game along with it.</p>

[Katz]

<p><cite>ReddyKY wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Adventuring was the main focus of this game. After that, it took a seat behind crafting and decorating. Which is stupid.</p></blockquote><p>The main problem with that comment (especially the last three words of it) is that it implies that anything that is associated with tradeskills and decorating is a waste of time. </p></blockquote><p>Adventuring is the canvas that allows crafting and decorating to take place; it is the frame upon which other things are hung. This game would be a completely hollow shell without adventure content, therefore that which is primary needs to take primacy. If adventuring content thrives it pulls the rest of the game along with it.</p></blockquote><p>The vast majority of crafted items are for <strong>adventuring</strong> use.   Adventuring is still the main focus of this game.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Necrotherian]

<p><cite>ReddyKY wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Adventuring was the main focus of this game. After that, it took a seat behind crafting and decorating. Which is stupid.</p></blockquote><p>The main problem with that comment (especially the last three words of it) is that it implies that anything that is associated with tradeskills and decorating is a waste of time. </p></blockquote><p>Adventuring is the canvas that allows crafting and decorating to take place; it is the frame upon which other things are hung. This game would be a completely hollow shell without adventure content, therefore that which is primary needs to take primacy. If adventuring content thrives it pulls the rest of the game along with it.</p></blockquote><p>I'm not arguing that adventure content isn't important.  I'm merely stating that adventurers (and I am one, as well as a crafter, decorator, shiny salesman, adorner, transmuter, tinkerer, former-raider-since-my-guild-stopped-raiding, former-group-player-until-the-umpteenth-time-I-ran-instances-and-they-still-dropped-scout-gear, and Guild Sarcasm Officer [I wanted to put something else, but that would involve bypassing the p-filter, which isn't allowed]) shouldn't get angry when crafters and decorators  get something.  Especially crafters.</p><p>However, whether or not it would be a "hollow shell" as you put it, is mostly a matter of subjective opinion.  Those that do nothing but craft would still be able to craft (granted, they would make no profit, because the only ones that would buy the items would be the vendors for fuel costs, or other crafters).</p><p>My point is, even if you consider adventuring a necessity, it isn't the only ingredient which allows this game to continue existing.  Imagine if you had a bowl of plain oatmeal - no salt, no sugar, no butter, nothing but oatmeal.  It would taste pretty bland.  Without the rest, this game would be a lot like plain oatmeal.  (Don't get me wrong, I understand that some people like bland oatmeal - but that is a matter of personal preference.  As is whether to just adventure, just craft, just decorate, or to actually go out and experience all the game has to offer - or at least as much as you can.)</p><p>Without the crafting and decorating side of the house, there is very little to distinguish this game from any of its competitors.  Especially now that the game is more "gear-oriented" than "skill-oriented".</p><p>The suggestion that I posted earlier attempts to address the differences in playstyles.  I encourage you to read it, ponder it, and evaluate it with an open mind.  Or you can just continue to think that the adventuring side is the only part that needs content.  (Or some other option, which may or may not involve hamsters, which has nothing to do with the subject being discussed.)  Your choice.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Imagine if you had a bowl of plain oatmeal - no salt, no sugar, no butter, nothing but oatmeal.  It would taste pretty bland.  Without the rest, this game would be a lot like plain oatmeal.  (</p></blockquote><p>I completely agree that all those add an extra flavor to the game that improves it and needs to continue to be developed as much as possible.</p><p>However, using your same analogy, how would a bowl of sugar, salt, and butter taste without oatmeal? Or how would that taste on a bowl of badly undercooked oatmeal? Or the same amounts of sugar, salt, and butter one would use on a full bowl, but on only a 1/4 of a bowl instead.</p><p>If the devs forget they need to make a decent bowl of oatmeal, all the seasonings in the world aren't going to keep people saddling up to the table, or coming to the table initially. Before they worry about adding accents to the dish, they need to make sure the initial dish is done well.</p><p>Now I went and made myself hungry.</p>

[Necrotherian]

<p><cite>Kenazeer wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Rotherian@Unrest_old wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p> Imagine if you had a bowl of plain oatmeal - no salt, no sugar, no butter, nothing but oatmeal.  It would taste pretty bland.  Without the rest, this game would be a lot like plain oatmeal.  (</p></blockquote><p>However, using your same analogy, how would a bowl of sugar, salt, and butter taste without oatmeal?  </p></blockquote><p>Depends on the proportions.  And how long you cook it.  (I love caramel.)</p>

[Yimway]

<p>Why is it so hard for SoE to communicate with players on the important issues affecting the health of the game?</p>

[SOE-MOD-02]

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=499962&post_id=5756008" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=49996...post_id=5756008</a> Trolling is not permitted

[SOE-MOD-02]

This post has moved: <a href="/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=499962&post_id=5756018" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">/eq2/posts/preList.m?topic_id=49996...post_id=5756018</a> Trolling is not permitted on these forums

[Morgania434]

Let me re-phrase: Why can't SOE communicate with the players in a more consistent manner so that said players can continue to pay for their subs/accounts/sc items without fear of losing real world money if SOE decides to close down eq2?

[inspire1444568]

<p><span ><span >This is </span><span >rhetorical question.</span> <span >Clearly,</span> <span >they spend</span> <span >all the money</span> <span >from the</span> <span >SC</span> <span >for new projects</span></span></p><p>... focus on only the SC !</p>

[inspire1444568]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why is it so hard for SoE to communicate with players on the important issues affecting the health of the game?</p></blockquote><p><span ><span >If I write</span> <span >about the problems</span> <span >in the themes</span><span>, then</span> <span >no one answers!</span> <span >If</span> <span >I write PM... no answers too  </span></span><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>inspire1444568 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why is it so hard for SoE to communicate with players on the important issues affecting the health of the game?</p></blockquote><p><span><span>If I write</span> <span>about the problems</span> <span>in the themes</span><span>, then</span> <span>no one answers!</span> <span>If</span> <span>I write PM... no answers too  </span></span><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/2786c5c8e1a8be796fb2f726cca5a0fe.gif" border="0" /></p></blockquote><p>I'm convinced its their new 'bury our heads in the sand' company directive.</p>

[Morgania434]

I agree Atan. I wished it were otherwise as I really loved the game and the community.

[inspire1444568]

<p><cite>Piestro wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p align="center"><strong><span style="font-size: medium;">We are also starting to push through a list of historical bugs and prioritizing those and we’ll give updates on those as we go forward.</span></strong></p><p><em>Holly "Windstalker" Longdale</em></p></blockquote><p><span><span>And finally...</span></span></p><p><span><span>But</span> <span>how to deal with</span> <span>historical</span> <span>bugs,</span> <span>if you (</span><span>SoE</span><span>)</span> <span>aren`t listening to</span> <span>players !??</span></span></p><p><em><span><span>If they aren`t</span> <span>Inq</span></span>, <span><span>of course</span></span></em></p><p><strong><span style="font-size: medium;"><span><span>Eq</span> <span>2 could</span> <span>be the best</span> <span>MMORPG...</span></span></span></strong></p>

[Vinyard]

<p>So, how much of this has been implemented?</p><p>There are 3 "hotfix days" left for the Month of May.</p>

[mjmartin]

<p>Atan, the only thing I have to say to your endless optimism is - look at the left. They still haven't managed to fix it so that you show up as the leader of the right guild. That is really all I can say.  As for the rest of it, to the person who thinks the game took a back seat to the crafters, the crafting in the game was so abyssmally terrible when Domino got ahold of it that the only direction it could conceivably go was up.  Domino was special, and it was a crime to let her go.   Domino was the average player.  She had a perspective that seemed to be lackiing by any other dev.  And eventually,, she managed to get her feet wet in other aspects of the game.</p><p>I don't enjoy DM, and I know very few who do. DF is an abyssal failure on my play server no matter what the level range.  I don't enjoy the broken itemisation. Why put polls into the field that are intended to go nowhere? To say you had? the most recent SC mess shows that.</p>

[Kenazeer]

<p>Is there a patch today?</p>

[SisterTheresa]

<p><cite>Vinyard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Here's something to look at. For leveling, you have, in essence, removed the freedom of it. Back in the old days, people had the option to grind in heroic overland zones, or quest. Pretty much these days, it's get pl'd or take the "golden path" (which, is off. The golden path does not function as well as it was intended. It just seems to cut you off short every zone in terms of exp).</p><p>Maybe for June? Bring back the heroic overlands. Antonica, TS giant groups, Nek forest....these zones are EMPTY. It's WASTED content. Wasted space. And wasted server load. Bring life back into these zones. You guys are putting in so much work revamping the original starting cities, but forgetting the areas around them. </p><p>Heroic overland zones were a great place to meet your server community. To know who you are playing with. Some of us enjoy this kind of leveling, instead of packed dungeons full of pl groups (or 1 sk pl'ing a group), and questing is just so boring.</p></blockquote><p>An interesting thing you brought up, as I thought for the Freeport Revamp, we were supposed to NOT go through zones of BBM in order to level, doing all through CL, Nek, etc.  Guess that got thrown out with the baby and the bathwater.</p><p>And the Golden Path is not what it is cracked up to be.  So many places are missed.  My main went that route, I was 90 in 3 months.  Errrr</p>

[MaeveFedlech]

<p><cite>Illgauskus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What, if anything, will differentiate the rewards from running the dungeon maker with your own character versus the more limited Avatars?</p><p>If you are going to be able to fix problems in real time, does this mean that we will see and increase in the number of actual applied fixes and response time overall?</p><p>On a more generic note:</p><p>What, if anything, is being done to bring some balance and sanity back into the game. As a player that has followed EQI & II since they were in Beta and before SOE took them over, I hate to see how dreadfully EASY the game has become. I watched someone go from level 1-90 with 200+ AA's in under 5 days. Skill has taken a backseat to gear/AA's & exploration has been reduced to running the game on rails as you progress from quest to quest. In your efforts to make sure that everyone has the same game play experience you have removed or nullified everything that makes the experience INTERESTING. 90%+ of the crafting recipes are completely useless. The dark scary dungeons are generic hack and slash with no thought, strategy, or reason to be afraid. The storyline has been truncated down to tiny episodic chunks that can be swallowed in an hour and feel everything BUT epic.</p><p>Remove at least SOME of the flags over peoples heads so that there is something for players to discover. </p><p>Put something in your books and tomes that hint and allude to some undiscovered content without the big announcement and the journal entry so that people actually have a reason to READ them.</p><p>Make at least SOME of the quests lines ones that AREN'T tracked in your journal.</p><p>Make at least SOME of the content at every stage of the game require flags or some other form of access quests so that people have a REASON to explore.</p><p>Slow the level advancement dramatically so that there is TIME within your level range to explore the content for that level without the need to Chrono down.(And no, setting your xp to 100% AA is not a solution)</p><p>Give the player a reason to care about their place in the world you've created. (Aside from the childish binary, "I'm KOS in evil cities or good cities because of where I started.")</p><p>Rebalance player crafted goods with the dropped items. Maybe give one better green stats and the other better blues, or one better clicky affects. Even better would be to make the player crafted gear more flexible as to what stats/affects matter.</p><p>And last, but certainly not least, give us something to make the classes unique again. Please. They are so generic now that no matter which toon I am playing I feel like nothing has changed. </p><p>I love Everquest, and have been playing for over a decade now, but the truth is that SOE has lost their way at some point in their efforts to try and please everyone with everything. </p></blockquote> <p>This.</p> <p>A million times, this.</p> <p>I don't normally post on the forums, and rarely even check them, but I feel this is important. I didn't do EQ2 beta however I have been around off and on nearly since launch. EQ2 was always my go-to game when others got boring or failed completely. It's pathetic what the game has become. Okay, maybe when the game first launched some parts were too choppy or difficult, but now the game is such a hand-holding easy-mode bland mess. The way the game is now, you may as well give people the option of starting at level 90.</p> <p>Why even put flags on mobs? Let people read the quest journals. Allow them to explore the areas.  And while I was looking forward to the Freeport revamps, I was woefully disappointed. Freeport doesn't even feel like a city anymore without its public urban sprawls; certainly not an evil city with the gaudy ugliness of it now. And while I still get a sense of nostalgia going through Qeynos and Antonica, and still enjoy decorating houses from time to time, it's not enough to keep me around for more than a month or so, and even that is beginning to fade. Soon, it seems, I won’t even get that nostalgia out of Qeynos, and if it’s anything like Freeport, I’ll no longer be able to enjoy living in the Willowwood.</p><p><span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: "Times New Roman";">Watching this game slide downhill the way it has the past few years has been like watching a friend die a slow death.</span></p>