Is the main problem for EQ2 that it switches out producers too often?

[Teleboas]

Don't get me wrong, I love the game.  I've played it since the first stages of beta.  But is it just me, or are a lot of problems that this game faces because it switches out producers so often?

It seems like every time there's a new producer put into play, they forget completely about what the focus of the last producer was, and just completely abandon it.  For example, BGs was a huge thing for the last producer it seems nearing the end.  For this one?  Not at all.  PVP is his last focus.

And it isn't just BGs and PVP.  As you play through the game, the game just doesn't flow together like it should.  It feels like a bunch of tiny pieces all just slapped together.  I'm sure it will be even worse now with all of changes to stats etc and quite a bit of the older gear in the lower teirs that dropped being completely useless now.

[JoarAddam]

Dropped gear has been completely useless since the last MC change.  Nobody wanted that stuff then, and it's not that much worse now.  Except that people who were wearing gear better suited for another class due to procs or ability mod or avoidance thru stats whatever are now finding that they have no benefit at all... There are some holes in the MC gear itemisation with the new stat change, tho, and the bg gear at the various tiers isn't much better.

[Lathain_Sarathai]

or pray for next producer is better lol

[Grumble69]

The problem is that they have way too many playstyles and not enough personnel devoted to them all.  So they focus on one set of priorities and everything else gets pushed to the backburner.

[Leafle]

Our current producer is terrible, but I think the problems with the game go higher up than him. Things like a cohesive vision for the game should come from the very top and we're just not seeing that kind of leadership. I'm not sure what kind of leadership we're seeing, but it aint the good kind lol.

[Yimway]

Too much to comment on here, but lack of consistent vision is for sure an issue.

Lack of product enthusiasm from key eq2 management members is another issue.

[SirDinadan]

It would surprise me if a producer followed the same path as their predecessor.. first, people are different, and second, if the previous producer had everything going in the right direction, they'd probably still be around. 

I'm just glad someone will take the job.  It's fairly thankless, extremely resource-constrained, and has a peanut gallery the size of Georgia ready to scrutinize each decision and bemoan any effect on their gameplay.

I distinctly remember one exchange on these forums, when EQ2 Extended was announced.. someone posted that they (and their entire guild) would quit if F2P players WERE allowed on their server.  Someone directly below them, on the same page, posted that they (and their entire guild) would quit if F2P players WEREN'T allowed on their server.  An objective eye would note that those two opinions were in direct contradiction to each other.. but the folks who posted them practically patted each other on the back for sharing the view that "the producer sucks".

[MurFalad]

I think our current producer is excellent myself, at least in what I have seen so far, and I'm not saying that just because I've met him or in a bizzare attempt to gain favour. 

Instead I was impressed when he made the first comment summing up what was wrong with BG's, until then I had the feeling previous producers (and on other games too) that they didn't know what made their games tick, so I'm looking forward to the BG updates here   the fact is that A) Things that were wrong are being fixed, crit being capped and mechanics were just not working (hence people were immune to non-grey mobs etc).B) More game content is coming out and the quality is good, seeing there is a 1 year pipeline with most of it I think the key job of the producer (managing the team and resources) looks good to me.C) There is some vision appearing for the game which seems to be very much based on Smokejumpers early interviews, its not just floating along doing whatever some other game does, nor is it just putting out 100 quests and X instances of the same old.There are things I don't like, EQ2X and how its in the driving seat for subs, there was a lot of SC stuff last year, the SC button on the UI (ok its minor, but an example), servers are overcrowded (or at least my one is) etc, but even here some of the decisions I do not like have been better for the health of the game, and that I do like.Before we had Brenlo, and while he seems a nice guy I have a feeling he didn't have experience of project management, its not something every can do automatically and if you are not very good at it (or learning) it shows (I know, I've been in the position of learning, or in other words sucking...), comments from devs I picked up on were telling where someone would have spare time to burn, a really bad sign from running a team standpoint, especially when the GU's were light on content.  He made imo a bad decision with gear degredation too when he clearly had gone past the point of no return on the decision borking the stats for an entire expansion.Yes he did oversee the release of BG's, yes they were better then the Arena's that failed and were abandoned by a previous producer, he also make imo a great decision to get a graphics coding guy on the team.  But overall there were a lot of things wrong.I'm not in a great position to judge what went before that though since I started with RoK, but in my gameplay through the previous expansions I do feel that there has been way too much artwork heavy content with the same gameplay over and over again, some of it was very good storyline wise, there is a lot of stuff though that everyone just ignores.  It wasn't until TSO that the game really got my interest with more thoughtful dungeons that were not just tank+spank copies of each other with altered graphics.  I'd also question where the work on the graphics and game engine were happening in the years before Brenlo appeared, personally I would have liked to have seen some of the resources creating some of the previous content instead directed towards programmers optimising the game engine, still at least with Brenlo we got the ball rolling, and I'm pleased to see its still progressing.

[MurFalad]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Lack of product enthusiasm from key eq2 management members is another issue.

I got this feeling on the EQNext panel, although in subsequent comments Smedley has been mentioning EQ2 in a positive light so I can only hope that he's really believing in it as having a life post EQNext (and I hope he also realises that what he has planned for EQNext is probably incompatible with the majority of EQ2 players!). 

There have been too many MMO's in development and still are too many for my liking at SOE, it would be a new focus to look at a MMO and nuture and grow it Eve style, the fact that Smedley did mention EQ2 and Eve in the same sentence gives me a little hope here.

Still, there is one thing he can do to really show his commitment, spend money and resources, new servers and assigning a team of coders for ~6-12 months to radically improve the game engine would for me show a real long term investment.  What I think we have right now is the best that can be done on the budget we have based on the money coming in on the short term without any longterm investments being made imo

[JoarAddam]

MurFalad wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Lack of product enthusiasm from key eq2 management members is another issue.

I got this feeling on the EQNext panel, although in subsequent comments Smedley has been mentioning EQ2 in a positive light so I can only hope that he's really believing in it as having a life post EQNext (and I hope he also realises that what he has planned for EQNext is probably incompatible with the majority of EQ2 players!). 

There have been too many MMO's in development and still are too many for my liking at SOE, it would be a new focus to look at a MMO and nuture and grow it Eve style, the fact that Smedley did mention EQ2 and Eve in the same sentence gives me a little hope here.

Still, there is one thing he can do to really show his commitment, spend money and resources, new servers and assigning a team of coders for ~6-12 months to radically improve the game engine would for me show a real long term investment.  What I think we have right now is the best that can be done on the budget we have based on the money coming in on the short term without any longterm investments being made imo

there was a dev post in the eq2x forums a couple days ago that said he was working on engine updates, but having issues with some old world zones.  I'll see if I can find a link

[Valdaglerion]

Teleboas wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I love the game.  I've played it since the first stages of beta.  But is it just me, or are a lot of problems that this game faces because it switches out producers so often?

It seems like every time there's a new producer put into play, they forget completely about what the focus of the last producer was, and just completely abandon it.  For example, BGs was a huge thing for the last producer it seems nearing the end.  For this one?  Not at all.  PVP is his last focus.

And it isn't just BGs and PVP.  As you play through the game, the game just doesn't flow together like it should.  It feels like a bunch of tiny pieces all just slapped together.  I'm sure it will be even worse now with all of changes to stats etc and quite a bit of the older gear in the lower teirs that dropped being completely useless now.

See numerous postings over the last 3 years concerning lack of leadership for the EQ2 team. Every Sr Prod since Scott Hartsman has lacked the vision and leadership to continue moving this endeavor forward in a productive manner. This might also explain why Rift seems to be doing so well now.

[guillero]

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

Teleboas wrote:

Don't get me wrong, I love the game.  I've played it since the first stages of beta.  But is it just me, or are a lot of problems that this game faces because it switches out producers so often?

It seems like every time there's a new producer put into play, they forget completely about what the focus of the last producer was, and just completely abandon it.  For example, BGs was a huge thing for the last producer it seems nearing the end.  For this one?  Not at all.  PVP is his last focus.

And it isn't just BGs and PVP.  As you play through the game, the game just doesn't flow together like it should.  It feels like a bunch of tiny pieces all just slapped together.  I'm sure it will be even worse now with all of changes to stats etc and quite a bit of the older gear in the lower teirs that dropped being completely useless now.

See numerous postings over the last 3 years concerning lack of leadership for the EQ2 team. Every Sr Prod since Scott Hartsman has lacked the vision and leadership to continue moving this endeavor forward in a productive manner. This might also explain why Rift seems to be doing so well now.

Exactly!  RIFT has good leadership. Good direction. Clear vision. A well oiled team knowing what they are doing.

That's why the game is so polished and why so many people like it and enjoying themselves.

Not like the current producer did with this Expac. Changing the core game stat system and only make it work with the new Expac and leave the rest of the game (lower tiers) in shambles and totally wrecked and don't give a flying crock about it!

That's why EQ2 is just going down in flames... slowly but surely. All motivation to continue playing has been lost.

Why bother rolling a new toon (or ALT), when only the highest Tier is properly working. Why go through extreme pains and frustration to get all the way to level 85, to be able to enter a part of the game that actually still works.

Bahh!

[DMIstar]

The Real Issue is, its an old game, Theres More work being done for EQ Next aka EQ3 then there will be fore this one. As new MMO's start getting drafted into production they will pull devs from here and other older mmo's to work on them Which in effect cuts effort and ability to this and older MMO's....

Luckily this is one of the few that still has some range of support from sony to keep things going, as well as old EQ which is surpriseing to say the least... Take a look at "Newer" yet ditched mmo's that sony has and see how they literally have nothing left .. aka vanguard.

Fact is resources for this game will always get cut for advancement of the newer stuff and theres not much that the company will ever do to stop this from happening other then makeing sure there is a sizeable effort that has the ability to keep majority in interest of keep playing ...But realy what the company wants is for the gamers here to move onto the newer stuff overall.

The only exception that can be said right now is WoW since blizzard has mostly cut alot off just to focus on that mmo .. its just only the past few yrs they finally started the ball on getting Starcraft 2 done and Diablo in the works ~ But will be interesting what happens when they start to consider deviseing another mmo game to see what happens with wow resources~

[Brigh]

All is not 100% doom and gloom below T9 as Jerokane keeps posting. When my 39 can solo a 40^^^ Ari CL guard and 46^ Fire Toad it has to be a class/player/gear issue if you can't solo yourself.

[Onorem]

Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Exactly!  RIFT has good leadership. Good direction. Clear vision. A well oiled team knowing what they are doing.

That's why the game is so polished and why so many people like it and enjoying themselves.

Whaa? Rift was horrible. Despite the novelty of it being a new game with new expectations, I couldn't get myself to bother getting a character past level 15 or so. Mechanical animations, horrible controls, nothing special UI-wise. It was boring and repetitive. (Yes, EQii can also be boring and repetitive, but that's after 6 years, not 3 betas) I was hoping that Rift would finally give me a reason to leave. Despite everything I might complain about, EQii is still the best game I've seen on the market.

[dawy]

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Too much to comment on here, but lack of consistent vision is for sure an issue.

Lack of product enthusiasm from key eq2 management members is another issue.

Atan sums it up for me.

[Cocytus]

I think Rift is a ton of fun, myself, though I do not really intend to play it without friends playing it. I was floored and shocked when I heard Aeralik was on the dev team.

That said, the issue is more that the ones in charge of funding/marketing don't know crap about the game. On top of that, switching out mechanics devs every damned expansion.

[Ealthina]

The only problem with EQ2 is that the parent company, Sony, has given up on it.

[Eugam]

dawy wrote:

Atan@Unrest wrote:

Too much to comment on here, but lack of consistent vision is for sure an issue.

Lack of product enthusiasm from key eq2 management members is another issue.

Atan sums it up for me.

What is key management ? Producer or the bosses behind the scenes ? Well, i have read they arent independent anymore. I agree on the lack of consistent vision. But i think, no matter how dense and deep the 1-50 content is, there is no large community for such anymore.

I think the current producer is good, he tries to fix what was broken in the last expansions. Really, the Lavastrom beach update with the worst textured items ever was the lowest level eq2 ever had. Epic weapons with class defining spells and buffs on them... very, very bad design !! But then, i dont know how much freedom an eq2 producer has in his decissions.

I thought the decission to remove the procs was good and, combined with the uber beta quest items, was the best decission ever to unite the broken community. Unfortunately they nerved the items and left the procs in game   Sometimes a dev should just ignore the players

The current situation on my server is a player made desaster. PUG is dead and people in small guilds are locked out from progression. Such happens when raid itemized players are one tier ahead So i changed plans and joined Rift EU headstart

Its really obvious that WoW, EQ2, VG and devs from other games made this game Its WoW for grown-up's Thats why its goint to be rather successful. But many will come back to EQ2.  It also depends on how Trion will deal with certain issues.

Oh.. i d like to mention that there are numerous threads on the forum about pro and con of ACT and similar tools. Some are 110+ pages. Such tools kill games. There are probably enough parser haters to fill two or three EQ2 servers

[Nuhus]

Smedly

[Atragon]

I forget who said it but someone said that the original team was passionate about the game. It was their baby and they treated it with respect and understanding of its community.  Then as the team got downsized, fired, whatever the game became less of a passion and just another work assignment.  it became routine and another day at the office.  And I definitely believe thats happened over the past year or two.  

Priorities are shifting, resources are falling away and the player base isn't getting any bigger.

[arvydys]

Jerokane@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Artemiz@The Bazaar wrote:

 This might also explain why Rift seems to be doing so well now.

Exactly!  RIFT has good leadership. Good direction. Clear vision. A well oiled team knowing what they are doing.

That's why the game is so polished and why so many people like it and enjoying themselves.

Any comparison between Rift and EQ2 is pointless.  Rift is designed for a different crowd than EQ2, namely the WoW crowd.  The instant gratification crowd that wants to have significant results shown for one hour of play time.  A game where gear is the only real means of character progression and (it looks like it anyway) anyone will have access to all content regardless of effort put in.

EQ2 may have strayed towards some of these ideas, but its not completely there.  The game still has a much more relaxed pace (how many people do you know who have played 6 months in WoW without a max level character vs eq2?) and FAR more things to do (Rift doesnt even have housing).

Rift's polish is keeping people happier than AoC, VG or WAR, but just because its doing well and people seem happy doesnt mean it will have long term value.  Thats the key.  No one knows if it will.

[arvydys]

Also, the new producer seems to talk the talk well.  Hopefully he can make good on statements like this:

"If you want a model to follow, and you are not Blizzard, you outta pay attention to people like CCP and EVE Online. It's the only game of its kind anywhere. Analyze what the players want," he said. What he is certain they don't want is linearity in a game. "EQ II has been largely linear in the past. That is going to change.

"There is not a lack of ideas," he said, "pick a small market, do something new. People need to get off this 'I'm going to remake WoW,' or 'I'm going to remake EverQuest' and expect different results. Players already have EverQuest and EverQuest II and WoW, so make something else. It's the publishers fault; people need to take smaller initial bites and see what works and doesn't work."

[Cocytus]

Arvydis@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Also, the new producer seems to talk the talk well.  Hopefully he can make good on statements like this:

"If you want a model to follow, and you are not Blizzard, you outta pay attention to people like CCP and EVE Online. It's the only game of its kind anywhere. Analyze what the players want," he said. What he is certain they don't want is linearity in a game. "EQ II has been largely linear in the past. That is going to change.

"There is not a lack of ideas," he said, "pick a small market, do something new. People need to get off this 'I'm going to remake WoW,' or 'I'm going to remake EverQuest' and expect different results. Players already have EverQuest and EverQuest II and WoW, so make something else. It's the publishers fault; people need to take smaller initial bites and see what works and doesn't work."

Are you talking about EQ2's producer? because letting the mechanics and stat changes get by in DOV was a huge step against all of the above lol

[Ko]

Arvydis@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Also, the new producer seems to talk the talk well.  Hopefully he can make good on statements like this:

"If you want a model to follow, and you are not Blizzard, you outta pay attention to people like CCP and EVE Online. It's the only game of its kind anywhere. Analyze what the players want," he said. What he is certain they don't want is linearity in a game. "EQ II has been largely linear in the past. That is going to change.

"There is not a lack of ideas," he said, "pick a small market, do something new. People need to get off this 'I'm going to remake WoW,' or 'I'm going to remake EverQuest' and expect different results. Players already have EverQuest and EverQuest II and WoW, so make something else. It's the publishers fault; people need to take smaller initial bites and see what works and doesn't work."

Funny because I don't see the Devs asking US what it is that we want.  Well i take that back the last time they asked it was more like what do you guys think about free to play.  We said we hate free to play.  So they decided well we will separate FTP and let the normal subscription servers die and support FTP as well as advertise FTP.  I kinda see that like someone asking you hey do you like water?  Sure I like water.  Well if you like water than waterboarding can't be a bad thing. 

[Andok]

Atragon wrote:

I forget who said it but someone said that the original team was passionate about the game. It was their baby and they treated it with respect and understanding of its community.  Then as the team got downsized, fired, whatever the game became less of a passion and just another work assignment.  it became routine and another day at the office.  And I definitely believe thats happened over the past year or two.  

People say (post) that a lot, but when I talk to EQ2 folks at SoE's yearly Block Party, they always seem excited about the game to me.

[Odys]

On the same line than Atan and others. SOE wants eq2 to simply live on its capital (current content),  on SC income. They won't propose anymore an expansion like ROK. This may also may be due to much lower income, population may be half what is was when ROK was release, this implies getting half the content we got at that time for the same price.

Most recent (negative) changes are clearly there to cut down the maintenance and devellopment price.

BTW :

"Epic weapons with class defining spells and buffs on them."

I totally disagree, epic weapon was a goal for casual player and mythical was a goal for raiders. We 24 different quests and stories. Obviously SOE lack the ressources to offer players such variety and fun. I also loved the class defining effects

"uber beta quest items, was the best decission ever to unite the broken community"

Again a very wrong decision.

It give incentive to casual to skip SF heroic content which is  silly since this content is here.

It irritates raiders that worked to buid up their toons and get reset to zero.

It does not unify the community since after 1 week or 1month the equipment abyss will be back.