Game Update #35 Feedback [35, 35!!!]

[OakravenDesade]

Ok I know this is going to sound harsher than I mean for it to be but just because you were given Brenloes email to deal with a complaint against another member of the staff dosent mean you have some kind of inside track to the developers. (Gee I wonder why that happend?) as for me, I got the email addys from them from way back doing traidskills and quests, Do I think I have some kind of inside track? nope.

And lets be blunt, while their are things about the old world that I can beef about, Im not realy going to bother, the sad fact is that they consider a lot of the old world stuff to be "old content", going back and fixing it to balance out the old stuff Vs the new stuff just is not going to happen unless its some lead on upcomeing new content, or the new stuff so completly overpowers the old stuff that for some reason it impacts the game.

Theirs also an issue game wide (not just the PvP servers but ALL servers) in that the "Bad guys" are a bit underrepresented(Heck even at that theirs an almost constant stream of people from Freeport-Neriak comeing to Kelthin/Qeynos to "change sides".) Lets face it, from a PvE standpoint, Freeport Sucks. And thats not counting the fact that the story line quests leave you wondering half the time if the person your questing for is going to Perma kill you just to hide the Evidence, and the rest of the time you feel like your some stooge for a 3rd rate comic book bad guy whos about to get his [ARROW] handed to him by a 4yo in a blue bodysuit made out of unstable molecules. Overall the fact that at least the new zone does not suck and has a few  nice things going for it for a change I think is a good thing. (and this from someone who plays the goodguys!)

The reality is your seeing what goes on in a lot of games, THEY want you to use the new content, so they do things that make you want to use it. that way they can go to Smed and say "See? We know what were doing, Just LOOK at the zone pops of the zones we did!

[Kurokage]

shaunfletcher wrote:

shioki wrote:

if they add content that does not effect me, then they aren't adding content as far as I'm concerned. If they aren't adding content then eventually I'll get bored and quit. 

  I don't need to get over myself because I am one of the customers, and if I don't like what they are serving I'm going to say so.

1: Really? You promise?

2: You will never be happy with any game ever. You want a personal development team implementing your every whim for a few bucks a month. You wont get it, so get another hobby.

And finally.. THOUSANDS of people think this addition is superb. This is inarguable. You are one person, who thinks someones career should be ruined because you didnt get some sweetie you wanted. You are stamping your foot.

1) Lame. You wanna be insulting, go to Mcdonalds, at least there you can do it in person.

2) You wanna scew my feedback so that you can be insulting fine, but at least put some logic behind it. I'm not asking for a team to cater to my every whim, I'm not asking them to cater to any of my whims, I'm just asking them for genuinely new content, not old content labelled as new.

3) thousands of people thought this was superb, but the millions that have quit in the last year, prompted server merges, and caused SOE to start emulating market competitors and market to former players to get them to return is proof that SOE has had a lack of groundbreaking content to keep its players. I left at one time. I came back shortly after EoF came out and thought it was cool. I had hope for SOE that they were truly expanding the potential for the game by adding new starting cities. then this came out and I'm disappointed once again. If new starting cities will only serve to introduce the races we already have but for the opposite faction then originally available, then this game isn't really going anywhere, its just icing over problems that still won't get fixed. Its not the sweetie's that I want that is costing SOE its customer base, its the trash that's being offered that is, and when they merge servers again, maybe then you'll notice that the diminishing population that still thinks this "new" content is cool isn't there anymore.

[Armawk]

shioki wrote:

 the millions that have quit in the last year, prompted server merges, and caused SOE to start emulating market competitors and market to former players to get them to return is proof that SOE has had a lack of groundbreaking content to keep its players.

If thats what you think is happening with EQ2 then its a good thing if they ignore you entirely.. Server merges? wow the euro PVP never took off, that reflects only one area, and one where SOE are appalling, which is euro support.

Other than that there are NO servers that even look like being merged and populations are visibly up on 1 year ago because EoF was so good. This content has been very well received, excpet by a tiny handful. Why would anyone listen to the tiny handful?

[Kurokage]

shaunfletcher wrote:

shioki wrote:

 the millions that have quit in the last year, prompted server merges, and caused SOE to start emulating market competitors and market to former players to get them to return is proof that SOE has had a lack of groundbreaking content to keep its players.

If thats what you think is happening with EQ2 then its a good thing if they ignore you entirely.. Server merges? wow the euro PVP never took off, that reflects only one area, and one where SOE are appalling, which is euro support.

Other than that there are NO servers that even look like being merged and populations are visibly up on 1 year ago because EoF was so good. This content has been very well received, excpet by a tiny handful. Why would anyone listen to the tiny handful?

Tell ya what, I'll let this one slide...but do a little research on the history of eq2 since it launched. From some one that has been playing this game for more then 7 months I can tell you that there were a series of server mergers, and that over half eq2's population left even before VG came out. If eq2 ignore's me entirely that's fine, since they have been ignoring thier customer base since they launched it won't make any difference at all. If you want examples of server merges then ask what happened to the old neriak server? up from one year ago when you started playing might look good, but from 3 years ago when I started it is still down by quite a bit.

[Armawk]

shioki wrote:

Tell ya what, I'll let this one slide...but do a little research on the history of eq2 since it launched. From some one that has been playing this game for more then 7 months I can tell you that there were a series of server mergers, and that over half eq2's population left even before VG came out. If eq2 ignore's me entirely that's fine, since they have been ignoring thier customer base since they launched it won't make any difference at all. If you want examples of server merges then ask what happened to the old neriak server? up from one year ago when you started playing might look good, but from 3 years ago when I started it is still down by quite a bit.

I know all about what happened, and Ive been around for a lot longer than 7 months thanks (2 years in fact). But the idea that huge numbers have left in the last year is a bit odd. The game WAS in a slump. And marketing has been handled abysmally. there are many many bad things about the games handling and early development. Listening to the user base is a useful tool, though dont mistake listening for doing what the user base seems to demand, because game players are not defacto good game designers, and giving them what they demand wholesale can kill a game dead.

But anyway since mid-late last year I think they started listening much better, EoF was a clear move in the right direction and everything since seems to me a good continuation. This update is more of the same, I dont see any way this could lose them numbers at all, so I dont see how it relates to your posts?

[Phineus]

 Wow, this got a little weird.

 Is this a place to submit bugs? I been heartbroke since my class defining spell Rift got broke in the last update and wanted to see if I could get it looked at. Makes pvp and pve a real bummer. It is no longer applying rift slam on any kind of regular basis. It knocks back and stuns but rift slam appears to be doing 0 damage more than half the time.

 Kudos on the job well done. Been a loyal costumer for 2 and a half years and love the hard work you guys put into it. Some of us really appreciate the effort.

[Kurokage]

The complete explanation on how my feedback applies to this thread is rather lengthy. To shorten it I will break it up into 2 parts. The first will be in regards to Neriak as the new starting city for evil/neutral align classes. Once you guys have had time to understand this I will address my criticism of the Arasai. When EoF came out, the balance of the game was tipped considerably towards that of the Good alignment. This was felt most on PvP servers. Advantages the good side had was not only the obvious two cities to start from and that many players trying out the new city. But also almost a dominant strength over all the resources (harvesting nodes, leveling areas, quests, etc) available on faydwer. It’s remote location gave characters that start there relative safety while advancing through the first leg of levels. Now comes the second evil city, a response to the imbalance we all saw coming. What we didn’t see coming was that the new city only answered one of the problems EoF brought. There were now 2 evil cities to compete against the 2 good cities. The problem of resources was not answered though. In fact, it was compounded. If the new evil city had been on EoF and shared resources with Kelethin, it would have at least balanced the spread of available resources in the game. Neriak, and its close proximity to Freeport, doesn’t accomplish this, it causes the two evil cities to have to share resources from commonlands on up. Meanwhile Qeynos and Kelethin still enjoy the strength of uncompeted resources on all their respective zones. Now about availability to customers. If players don’t purchase EoF, they still have 2 evil cities to start from, versus one good city. Again this is felt most on PvP servers. Making the new evil city part of EoF would have helped balance this problem better. Yes no evil races started from Faydwer in EQ1, but evil classes did have the option to start from Akanon. EQ1 cities were based on race, not necessarily alignment. As the developers changed this aspect when EQ2 came along, they could easily have given a reason as to why evil races had a city on Faydwer. MajDul came out of the oasis, which was by far not a city in EQ1. Making another city on Faydwer wouldn’t have been that hard. Now going through all the lore of EQ past would require a book, but there were plenty of EQ1 evil aligned cities the developers could have chosen. And with the introduction of Ratonga/roekillik, an excuse to make up a completely new city. I understand that everyone was jones-ing for a new evil city, and that when they got it they were ecstatic. The new zone was impressive. I liked it a lot too. But choosing Neriak made no sense. The location was bad, and for all the options they had to choose from, locations they could have put it, and ways to implement it, I feel like they dropped the ball on this one. Unfortunately now it is too late. I just hope that as they add more cities, and hopefully more starting cities, that they take more time to consider why they are adding it, and what effects it will have on the rest of the game.

[Thormiel]

But choosing Neriak made no sense. The location was bad, and for all the options they had to choose from, locations they could have put it, and ways to implement it, I feel like they dropped the ball on this one

What do you mean a bad location? This update was free for everyone, so regardless of where ever they put Neriak and its starting zone, everyone would still get these zones regardless of whether they have EoF or not. The only way to limit that would have been making them available only to those who have EoF enabled. Are you advocating that they should not have make this a free update? ETA - Argh, [Removed for Content] quote function I'm not familiar with

[Wingrider01]

Thormiel wrote:

But choosing Neriak made no sense. The location was bad, and for all the options they had to choose from, locations they could have put it, and ways to implement it, I feel like they dropped the ball on this one

What do you mean a bad location? This update was free for everyone, so regardless of where ever they put Neriak and its starting zone, everyone would still get these zones regardless of whether they have EoF or not. The only way to limit that would have been making them available only to those who have EoF enabled. Are you advocating that they should not have make this a free update? ETA - Argh, [I cannot control my vocabulary] quote function I'm not familiar with

I think what they are saying is that the physical access to Neriak is bad - but the funny thing about it in olden times (aka EQ1) access to Neriak was only available through Nek Forest, no other way. Freeport - East Common Lands - Nek Forest - Neriak. It has been implemented very well - the fact that people that do not have EOF on their account can still use the city and outside zone - unlike GF. The only thing they cannot do is create a evil Fae. If this would have been implemented with the EOF expansion I wonder if they would have been as lenient

[afarak]

shaunfletcher wrote:

shioki wrote:

 the millions that have quit in the last year, prompted server merges, and caused SOE to start emulating market competitors and market to former players to get them to return is proof that SOE has had a lack of groundbreaking content to keep its players.

If thats what you think is happening with EQ2 then its a good thing if they ignore you entirely.. Server merges? wow the euro PVP never took off, that reflects only one area, and one where SOE are appalling, which is euro support.

Other than that there are NO servers that even look like being merged and populations are visibly up on 1 year ago because EoF was so good. This content has been very well received, excpet by a tiny handful. Why would anyone listen to the tiny handful?

I'd also like to point out that there has never been more than one million people playing this game, let alone millions.  In fact, last I checked, we only have about 600,000 players worldwide.  And I agree with Shaun.  As long as the majority and long term players are happy, then the update was successful.  There's always a few people who don't approve of something, even if it's the greatest thing ever to grace your computer screen.  Just stick it out if you don't like it and wait for the next expansion.  But if it really bothers you, go play something else....you don't HAVE to play eq2.

[Fatkiddown]

shioki wrote:

Arasai were a horrible idea. Fire the Devs that created and agreed on implementing this waste of a race opportunity. If small flying creatures were going to be available to both good and evil cities, they should have been neutral. Making a good version, then copying it and making an evil version destroys any possible novelty of betraying with either race. This detriments the game twice, once for killing the motive for betraying with the original Fae, and second for betraying with the new race(which turned out to be the uncreative Arasai). If this line of "development" continues, we can expect evil versions of hobbits and frogloks, as well as good versions of trolls ogres, and ratonga. If this is the case what's the point of having Alignments at all? Quit sandbagging and give us new content.

      Now about the location of the new city. Yeah yeah Fallen gate was part of old neriak and so new neriak has to be close to it...blah blah blah. If this was the restrictions you faced when implementing a new city then I have your answer, Neriak is a poor choice. Out of all the EQ1 cities you had to choose from for a new starting evil city, pick something a little bit closer to the new EoF zones and a lot farther away from the same zones evil characters have been bored with for the last 2 years. I had a glimmer of hope for this game when they implemented a 3rd starting city and new 1-70 content, but this recent update has diminished that hope. EoF was 3 steps forward, and this update is 2 steps back.

      In short, my opinion is that this was a better game 3 days ago. This latest update was the most disappointing and unimaginative addition to the game I have seen yet. If there is a way to fix it, kill the arasai, move the new evil city, fire the dev who thought up this pethetic idea, and hope that time will help us forget this whole fiasco.

Then quit the game and take your whining someplace else.   The idea of free content injections via the GU is an excellent idea.    Not only was it free the DLW zone ROCKED!  wtg SOE

[ke'la]

Myst@Vox wrote:

Wrehn@Antonia Bayle wrote:

Dendro wrote:

However...it seems that citizens of Neriak have much easier access to the world than citizens of Kelethin.  Let's say you create a fae and an arasai, neither of whom is a sorceror or druid. To get to the Nek/TS docks, the fae has to run all the way to the BBM docks and wait for the boat, while the arasai can just teleport instantly from the dockside market port building. For the fae to get to KoS, it has to do that first and run across TS/Nek to get to Ant/CL, then more running to get to the spires, whereas the arasai can just run the short distance from Neriak-->DL-->CL-->spires. Likewise, the carpet for Kelethin is way over at the BBM docks, but the Neriak carpet is right at the Fair camp in DL.  On the other hand, Kelethin is wide open and easy for enemy citizens to move around anywhere except the royal palace, while Neriak has just one entrance, guarded by 75 epics.  I imagine that must be a much greater balance issue on a PvP server. I love Neriak and DL, and having a character live there is looking very practical.  I also love Kelethin, but I can't see living there except with my warden.  If you gave the Combine spire KoS access and put in a teleporter from Kelethin to the BBM docks, people would still have to wait for the boats, but overall access to the world would be roughly on par with Qeynos, Freeport, and Neriak.

I second this motion. 

soe have made this game even more one sided.i am from a pvp server and these 2 new zones will kill pvp

for 1. the 75 epic  times 2 guards

     2. the traveling distances

     3. even the portaling to safety on the docks

     4. the 5 bedroom house that is less than 2 plat and no status cost

  now look at kelethin and see where the advantages are all for the bad side,i wouldnt put it passed soe that with the new exspansion it will allso be geared more   towards the freeps and neriak

  i was told by a gm in game the other night the fae and qeynos  are not allied and the arasai and freeport are not allied yet its on the front on the website under town crier that they are infact allied

and i was told by this gm there is no oversight in these areas and are as intended

if soe thinks there is no problem with this u will see pvp servers going pve and u will be seeing more pple leaving due the imbalances soe has in this game

so grimwell since ur community manager i would really like to see ur view on this

and like to see what soe really do think about these imbalances that plague the game

so plz an we get a response or will i just be banned again?

if so i will be putting this thru to brenlo

This is a PvE game that has PvP in it as such, PvP balance should and seems like it will ALWAYS come second to PvE Lore.

[SpiceBoi]

Been away for a few months & when I saw what was coming in GU#35 I knew it was time to come back. I made the right desicion.  Darklight Wood, Nektulos, Arasai:  it is all fantastic.  You guys are kickin' butt on content.  With RoK sneaking up I cannot wait to see what other fun & adventures we have in store.

[ke'la]

shioki wrote:

ke'la wrote:

shioki wrote:

Arasai were a horrible idea. Fire the Devs that created and agreed on implementing this waste of a race opportunity. If small flying creatures were going to be available to both good and evil cities, they should have been neutral. Making a good version, then copying it and making an evil version destroys any possible novelty of betraying with either race. This detriments the game twice, once for killing the motive for betraying with the original Fae, and second for betraying with the new race(which turned out to be the uncreative Arasai). If this line of "development" continues, we can expect evil versions of hobbits and frogloks, as well as good versions of trolls ogres, and ratonga. If this is the case what's the point of having Alignments at all? Quit sandbagging and give us new content.

I guess you don't like the Idea of Dark Elfs either and think both of them are Lazy programing and remove the reason for Betraying a High Elf.

If Dark elves, wood elves, high elves, and half elves weren't already deeply seeded in Fantasy lore even beyond eq2 then yes, I would have thought their respective designers were just being lazy, but these have been in popular fantasy for longer then I have been alive. Since they were already in game when it was released I'm not all excited about them as possible "new content." But labelling Arasai as a "new race" when it is in fact a copy of the fae is misleading.

Um, evil Fairies have been just as much a part of fantacy, as Dark Elfs have been, and infact there are Evil Fairies even in Norse and Celtic mytholigy of with most fantacy writing is based. There have also been evil Fairies though out Norath sence EQ1, so it makes sence that that there would be a born evil playable Fairy once there was a Playable Fae. Also you said having an "Evil" verson makes betraying a Fae, undesirable, yet you fail to respond to the fact that people Betray High Elfs, Wood Elfs and even Half-Elfs(that can start in any city(other then Neriak)) all the time.

      Now about the location of the new city. Yeah yeah Fallen gate was part of old neriak and so new neriak has to be close to it...blah blah blah. If this was the restrictions you faced when implementing a new city then I have your answer, Neriak is a poor choice. Out of all the EQ1 cities you had to choose from for a new starting evil city, pick something a little bit closer to the new EoF zones and a lot farther away from the same zones evil characters have been bored with for the last 2 years. I had a glimmer of hope for this game when they implemented a 3rd starting city and new 1-70 content, but this recent update has diminished that hope. EoF was 3 steps forward, and this update is 2 steps back.

Um, there where NEVER any "evil" races that started in faydwar as such there can not be a "new evil" city there. ALSO, if the city WAS in Faydwar that would mean that in order to get ANY of the new content for this Update you would have to have EoF. Neriak was placed where it is because thats where it has always been, It is a good choice because it allows players to play in Neriak without paying for EoF. It also is a good location because it Draws new players that only have started Toons in EoF into the "old world" of norath repopulating those zones and it could very well could be the start of a Revamp of all the overland old world zones, goodness knows they need it(they have not changed(story wise) sence launch.

No evil races, but evil classes could start from akanon. I remember that eq1 peoples starting location was first determined by their race, not thier class or alignment. In eq2 everything is determined by your alignment. Since it is 500 years in the future, they can be creative and give us a new evil city near akanon, or even any of the other evil cities that were in eq1.

Um a) people have been asking for Neriak sence LAUNCH, b) Yeah I guess they could have made Lorebreaking City in Faedwar, ofcourse I would think that the Fae would have noticed it being built, or the Gnomes of Gnomeland Security. As far as another EQ1 city, well again Faedwar is out as they are all already dungons and we have been over this befor there are no truely evil player races, wich you need as they would have to be willing to at the very least welcome a TRULY evil race. Besides what other race would be able to start there? Gnomes and thats it, yeah that adds content, New City but you can only start there as a Gnome or Arasia. Now they could rediscover a differant city in Old Norath, however looking at the Map it looks like all the places that they could put them have T4 or T5 zones outside thier front doors as such they would have to create T1-T3 content instead of T1-T2.

 And no, placing neriak outside of EoF was not good. Now there are 2 evil cities available to start in with out EoF. Versus only one good city to start in without EoF. Seems to me Game balance is lost here. Now with EoF, both evil cities have to share resources from commonlands on up, qeynos and Kelethin never have to share resources.

    I guess you never accually tried to harvest out of Faydwar. Sorry to break it too you but your already sharing reasouces with Kele, Citizens, so adding Neriak is not that big a deal. There only ever seems to be about 30 nodes total(thats not 30 of each node that 30 nodes in zone) in any given zone, and in many zones half are 1 tier and half are another so thats a total of 15 nodes total in a given tier. Unlike Old World Norath where you can find that many Nodes just in the area around Windstalker Village and the like.

  In short, my opinion is that this was a better game 3 days ago. This latest update was the most disappointing and unimaginative addition to the game I have seen yet. If there is a way to fix it, kill the arasai, move the new evil city, fire the dev who thought up this pethetic idea, and hope that time will help us forget this whole fiasco.

How does adding content that does not effect you in ANY WAY, aslong as you avoid it, cause this game to become worst. If you would just get over your self and this phobia you have with the Arasia and accually LOOK at the zone maybe you will see that it has ALOT of imagination in it and is very differant then any thing else currently in game.

Well if they add content that does not effect me, then they aren't adding content as far as I'm concerned. If they aren't adding content then eventually I'll get bored and quit. Now if they do add content, and do a [Removed for Content] poor job of making it, and offer it to me hoping I'll be fooled into thinking it's better then it reallyy is, that does effect me. It means that they do not want to give us genuine effort and hope that halfassing it will placate everyone. I don't need to get over myself because I am one of the customers, and if I don't like what they are serving I'm going to say so. If you are happy with this halfassed attempt to lull everyone then thats fine. I have played an arasai, in fact I killed my fae illusionist to make the tiny winged coercer I was aiming at. Yeah they had novelty when the fae first came out, and some of the arasai wings are cooler, but as a whole I'm still disappointed with them. As far as looking into the zone, I did, and yes its neat. I didn't complain about the zone, just the city location and the arasai. Move the zone to paineel for all I care. Yes it's cool, but just put in a bad spot. I have betrayed with several toons, some of them people go wow you're a good -whatever-, some of which no one notices because it was a nuetral race. This was all done pre-DoF. Now that they have finally broke about Qeynos and Freeport being the only 2 starting cities we have so many places to start from and so many other types of races we can be, neriak and arasai are just quick fixes and rush jobs that sony is getting famous for. In game I play a brigand, and I recognize a ruse when I see it.

2 new zones, a new player race, and like it or not even minor changes to a racial model are a MAJOR undertaking in this game engine, and I am sorry the differances between the Fae and Arasia are more then Minor changes. 100 or so new quests. New player housing, an addtional caractor slot, a new LFG tool. Yeah they Half [Removed for Content] this update alright, Yeah Right!

[ke'la]

OakravenDesade wrote:

ke'la wrote:

OakravenDesade wrote:

 1) GET RID OF THE HUMAN CHILDREN!

They are in the Forien District, dude thats why there are Human Adults, Orge, Trolls and such there as well. The reason there are no DE kids running around the FORIEN District is because the DEs don't want thier kids running around with that rabble, if elfs even have "Kids" consitering how long lived all the verious Elfs are its rare to see an Elf Child. As for Arasai they come from Spirt Buds just like Fae as such they don't have "Kids".

Except some of them are specificaly refered to as not being human, and if you look around theirs no other "Human" NPCs around apart from the vampires, who technicaly are not human either.

You oviously didn't look around much as 3 of the 4 childeren that wher playing with each other where doing so outside thier parent's house, and those parents where human not Vampires.

 

[ke'la]

shioki wrote:

The complete explanation on how my feedback applies to this thread is rather lengthy. To shorten it I will break it up into 2 parts. The first will be in regards to Neriak as the new starting city for evil/neutral align classes. Once you guys have had time to understand this I will address my criticism of the Arasai. When EoF came out, the balance of the game was tipped considerably towards that of the Good alignment. This was felt most on PvP servers. Advantages the good side had was not only the obvious two cities to start from and that many players trying out the new city. But also almost a dominant strength over all the resources (harvesting nodes, leveling areas, quests, etc) available on faydwer. It’s remote location gave characters that start there relative safety while advancing through the first leg of levels. Now comes the second evil city, a response to the imbalance we all saw coming. What we didn’t see coming was that the new city only answered one of the problems EoF brought. There were now 2 evil cities to compete against the 2 good cities. The problem of resources was not answered though. In fact, it was compounded. If the new evil city had been on EoF and shared resources with Kelethin, it would have at least balanced the spread of available resources in the game. Neriak, and its close proximity to Freeport, doesn’t accomplish this, it causes the two evil cities to have to share resources from commonlands on up. Meanwhile Qeynos and Kelethin still enjoy the strength of uncompeted resources on all their respective zones.

Again have you EVER tried to harvest, in ANY Faydwar Zone especally the ones that Share Tiers, the addtion of Faydwar added MAYBE 300 TOTAL (and I don't think its that many) new Harvest Nodes to the game across all zones and Tiers, Antonica Alone probly has close to that many. So the Quenosians have been sharing The Quenos Newbe Yards, Antonica and TS(on up) with Kele this whole time. Now about availability to customers. If players don’t purchase EoF, they still have 2 evil cities to start from, versus one good city. Again this is felt most on PvP servers. Making the new evil city part of EoF would have helped balance this problem better. Yes no evil races started from Faydwer in EQ1, but evil classes did have the option to start from Akanon. EQ1 cities were based on race, not necessarily alignment. As the developers changed this aspect when EQ2 came along, they could easily have given a reason as to why evil races had a city on Faydwer. MajDul came out of the oasis, which was by far not a city in EQ1. Making another city on Faydwer wouldn’t have been that hard.

Exept for 2 things first PR, SoE already gets slamed EVERYWHERE for making people "pay for everything", adding a new player city, and having now 3 new zones all require EoF, would be another PR Bungle. Second, where would you put it? there are no Doors nor people digging to find a city, and ofcourse there is no room for a second 1-20 area on Faydwar. Now going through all the lore of EQ past would require a book, but there were plenty of EQ1 evil aligned cities the developers could have chosen. And with the introduction of Ratonga/roekillik, an excuse to make up a completely new city.

Name one that is not in Faydwar, is not near Quenos or FP, and does not have T4+ zones right outside its front door. BTW you can lvl to 20 in DLW, then move on to Nek forest and skip CL. I understand that everyone was jones-ing for a new evil city, and that when they got it they were ecstatic. The new zone was impressive. I liked it a lot too. But choosing Neriak made no sense. The location was bad, and for all the options they had to choose from, locations they could have put it, and ways to implement it, I feel like they dropped the ball on this one. Unfortunately now it is too late. I just hope that as they add more cities, and hopefully more starting cities, that they take more time to consider why they are adding it, and what effects it will have on the rest of the game.

Accually most people Jonesing for a new evil city WHERE INFACT jonesing for Neriak, and thats why they are exsited. Because in realtity FP is Evil Light, Neriak was, is and always will be the True Evil City. You have yet to say where you would have put it that was not on Faydwar(as that option is not available for resons already stated).

[Zabjade]

Actually Neriak is placed pretty well you don't even have to go into the commonlands you can go directly to Nek forrest and soon to sea. (Guess on the last one)

[Kurokage]

ke'la wrote:

shioki wrote:

The complete explanation on how my feedback applies to this thread is rather lengthy. To shorten it I will break it up into 2 parts. The first will be in regards to Neriak as the new starting city for evil/neutral align classes. Once you guys have had time to understand this I will address my criticism of the Arasai. When EoF came out, the balance of the game was tipped considerably towards that of the Good alignment. This was felt most on PvP servers. Advantages the good side had was not only the obvious two cities to start from and that many players trying out the new city. But also almost a dominant strength over all the resources (harvesting nodes, leveling areas, quests, etc) available on faydwer. It’s remote location gave characters that start there relative safety while advancing through the first leg of levels. Now comes the second evil city, a response to the imbalance we all saw coming. What we didn’t see coming was that the new city only answered one of the problems EoF brought. There were now 2 evil cities to compete against the 2 good cities. The problem of resources was not answered though. In fact, it was compounded. If the new evil city had been on EoF and shared resources with Kelethin, it would have at least balanced the spread of available resources in the game. Neriak, and its close proximity to Freeport, doesn’t accomplish this, it causes the two evil cities to have to share resources from commonlands on up. Meanwhile Qeynos and Kelethin still enjoy the strength of uncompeted resources on all their respective zones.

Again have you EVER tried to harvest, in ANY Faydwar Zone especally the ones that Share Tiers, the addtion of Faydwar added MAYBE 300 TOTAL (and I don't think its that many) new Harvest Nodes to the game across all zones and Tiers, Antonica Alone probly has close to that many. So the Quenosians have been sharing The Quenos Newbe Yards, Antonica and TS(on up) with Kele this whole time.

1) Yes I have harvested in faydwer and had no trouble finding nodes, its not as bad as you try to make it sound. In fact I found it easier for some tiers.

2) You are just talking about harvesting nodes, I gave examples that included more then just that when I refer to resources.

3) It still creates an imbalance. Whether it added 50 nodes, or 500, its still in good territory, which gives them access to more nodes than the evil cities.

Now about availability to customers. If players don’t purchase EoF, they still have 2 evil cities to start from, versus one good city. Again this is felt most on PvP servers. Making the new evil city part of EoF would have helped balance this problem better. Yes no evil races started from Faydwer in EQ1, but evil classes did have the option to start from Akanon. EQ1 cities were based on race, not necessarily alignment. As the developers changed this aspect when EQ2 came along, they could easily have given a reason as to why evil races had a city on Faydwer. MajDul came out of the oasis, which was by far not a city in EQ1. Making another city on Faydwer wouldn’t have been that hard.

Exept for 2 things first PR, SoE already gets slamed EVERYWHERE for making people "pay for everything", adding a new player city, and having now 3 new zones all require EoF, would be another PR Bungle. Second, where would you put it? there are no Doors nor people digging to find a city, and ofcourse there is no room for a second 1-20 area on Faydwar.

1) Adding the new content to Eof would not be a bungle. If there had been no mention of Neriak being given away for free, then who would care if they added it to neriak. It could have been assumed that this was more content left out of the EoF expansion at release, which has happened plenty of times before.

2) Well if they used Paineel is a starting city, it could easily have a dock connecting to Butcher block, and its own 1-20 zones.  How about the roekillick/ratonga city? It's supposedly under ground somewhere? Why not bring that up some where on faydwer. It is possible to introduce a new zone into faydwer, and they could make room if they really wanted. Now going through all the lore of EQ past would require a book, but there were plenty of EQ1 evil aligned cities the developers could have chosen. And with the introduction of Ratonga/roekillik, an excuse to make up a completely new city.

Name one that is not in Faydwar, is not near Quenos or FP, and does not have T4+ zones right outside its front door. BTW you can lvl to 20 in DLW, then move on to Nek forest and skip CL.

Paineel. If they left it out an evil city until RoK came out..then Seb. They could even use converted non-player cities I understand that everyone was jones-ing for a new evil city, and that when they got it they were ecstatic. The new zone was impressive. I liked it a lot too. But choosing Neriak made no sense. The location was bad, and for all the options they had to choose from, locations they could have put it, and ways to implement it, I feel like they dropped the ball on this one. Unfortunately now it is too late. I just hope that as they add more cities, and hopefully more starting cities, that they take more time to consider why they are adding it, and what effects it will have on the rest of the game.

Accually most people Jonesing for a new evil city WHERE INFACT jonesing for Neriak, and thats why they are exsited. Because in realtity FP is Evil Light, Neriak was, is and always will be the True Evil City. You have yet to say where you would have put it that was not on Faydwar(as that option is not available for resons already stated).

I've heard just as much clamor about painel, seb, and grobb. I have plenty of suggestions for starting cies. Starting with Paineel on Odus, and ranging to Thurgaddin. Faydwer can still be used, I have yet to see a valid arguement to the contrary.

[Kurokage]

Fatkiddown wrote:

shioki wrote:

Arasai were a horrible idea. Fire the Devs that created and agreed on implementing this waste of a race opportunity. If small flying creatures were going to be available to both good and evil cities, they should have been neutral. Making a good version, then copying it and making an evil version destroys any possible novelty of betraying with either race. This detriments the game twice, once for killing the motive for betraying with the original Fae, and second for betraying with the new race(which turned out to be the uncreative Arasai). If this line of "development" continues, we can expect evil versions of hobbits and frogloks, as well as good versions of trolls ogres, and ratonga. If this is the case what's the point of having Alignments at all? Quit sandbagging and give us new content.

      Now about the location of the new city. Yeah yeah Fallen gate was part of old neriak and so new neriak has to be close to it...blah blah blah. If this was the restrictions you faced when implementing a new city then I have your answer, Neriak is a poor choice. Out of all the EQ1 cities you had to choose from for a new starting evil city, pick something a little bit closer to the new EoF zones and a lot farther away from the same zones evil characters have been bored with for the last 2 years. I had a glimmer of hope for this game when they implemented a 3rd starting city and new 1-70 content, but this recent update has diminished that hope. EoF was 3 steps forward, and this update is 2 steps back.

      In short, my opinion is that this was a better game 3 days ago. This latest update was the most disappointing and unimaginative addition to the game I have seen yet. If there is a way to fix it, kill the arasai, move the new evil city, fire the dev who thought up this pethetic idea, and hope that time will help us forget this whole fiasco.

Then quit the game and take your whining someplace else.   The idea of free content injections via the GU is an excellent idea.    Not only was it free the DLW zone ROCKED!  wtg SOE

They wanted feedback, I gave it to them. There's more in the game I like then dislike at the moment, so I won't be going anywhere. If you don't like people disagreeing with you stay out of the forums.

[Thormiel]

shioki wrote:

They wanted feedback, I gave it to them. There's more in the game I like then dislike at the moment, so I won't be going anywhere. If you don't like people disagreeing with you stay out of the forums.

If you and all those who do not like the Arasai gave them feedback during the development of this LU and they still went ahead with it, what exactly do you expect them to do with your feedback now? Nuke all the player created Arasai characters? Morph them into hamsters? The Arasai and Neriak is in, and both of them are not going anywhere, your continuing feedback about your hate of them is not going to make them go away.

[ToiletBomb]

I am quite happy with my betrayed fae in neriak.  I notice the difference quickly between the fae and the arsai.  The wings alone vary greatly and I enjoy the novelty albeit small. The Fae and the Arsai are very similiar.  Eh whatever, there are differences and to say they are copy / pasted is absurd.  The hair and wings alone make up for a considerable difference in appearance.

[Maroger]

shioki wrote:

Arasai were a horrible idea. Fire the Devs that created and agreed on implementing this waste of a race opportunity. If small flying creatures were going to be available to both good and evil cities, they should have been neutral. Making a good version, then copying it and making an evil version destroys any possible novelty of betraying with either race. This detriments the game twice, once for killing the motive for betraying with the original Fae, and second for betraying with the new race(which turned out to be the uncreative Arasai). If this line of "development" continues, we can expect evil versions of hobbits and frogloks, as well as good versions of trolls ogres, and ratonga. If this is the case what's the point of having Alignments at all? Quit sandbagging and give us new content.

      Now about the location of the new city. Yeah yeah Fallen gate was part of old neriak and so new neriak has to be close to it...blah blah blah. If this was the restrictions you faced when implementing a new city then I have your answer, Neriak is a poor choice. Out of all the EQ1 cities you had to choose from for a new starting evil city, pick something a little bit closer to the new EoF zones and a lot farther away from the same zones evil characters have been bored with for the last 2 years. I had a glimmer of hope for this game when they implemented a 3rd starting city and new 1-70 content, but this recent update has diminished that hope. EoF was 3 steps forward, and this update is 2 steps back.

      In short, my opinion is that this was a better game 3 days ago. This latest update was the most disappointing and unimaginative addition to the game I have seen yet. If there is a way to fix it, kill the arasai, move the new evil city, fire the dev who thought up this pethetic idea, and hope that time will help us forget this whole fiasco.

I was against the Arsai from the beginning. You are right they just cut and pasted the model with come color changes to satisfy people who wanted evil fairies. I really find it out of place to have those ugly fairies in Neriak. Actually I am not too impressed with Neriak either. We had enough fairies in EOF we don't need them all over the game. I would rather the evil had been put in via a major expansion rather than just thrown in via Taiwan ( which did nothing for the art).

Basically I hope they don't mess up with Kunark. I am more but I am sorry that it won't be evil. That part of the world was always evil and making it neutral doesn't work for me. They should have stuck the Arsai there and banished them from Neriak. I am looking forward to the new race though, and I sure wouldn't use a character slot for a fae/arsai.

But you hit the nail on the head -- I agree it was a better game 3 days ago.

[seshem]

All i gotta say Is OMG  loving the new content.  i left EQ2 about sep last year for personal reasons and havent played an MMO since and have been getting the itch to play. I started playing again on may 1st and  boy im glad I did.  Everywhere on MMORPG sites im seeing ALOT of good stuff being said about EQ2 people are leaving WOW in droves and are looking for a new home and are finding thier way here.  I have played EQ SWG and EQ2 and WOW.  EQ and EQ2 are the only MMO's i have really liked.   now if we can just get SOE  to throw some advertisment money out and bring more players we can say goodbye to population problems. Keep up the good work Guys, EQ2 is far from dead

[Kurokage]

Thormiel wrote:

shioki wrote:

They wanted feedback, I gave it to them. There's more in the game I like then dislike at the moment, so I won't be going anywhere. If you don't like people disagreeing with you stay out of the forums.

If you and all those who do not like the Arasai gave them feedback during the development of this LU and they still went ahead with it, what exactly do you expect them to do with your feedback now? Nuke all the player created Arasai characters? Morph them into hamsters? The Arasai and Neriak is in, and both of them are not going anywhere, your continuing feedback about your hate of them is not going to make them go away.

You're right, and I'm kicking myself in the butt for not keeping tabs on the upcoming content. I'm hoping that this will at least influence them into not copying anymore races to a different alignment just to add new races. I'm looking forward to the sarnak, as well as the rest of the RoK expansion. Wonder when we will get to visit that second moon hovering above the sky....

[jpace1976]

I have to say now that I've played my D.E. Inquis. to level 20 that I started in Darklight Woods that I really love the way this starting area was done. It may be a little more linier but compared to starting in say freeport there was alot less time spent zoning ansd back-tracking to complete quests. I also enjoyed the content because I it was easier to follow the story line through the Neriak starting quests because I didn't feel side-tracked running through zones to get where or what i need.  It felt like the Dev's fit alot of content into a relativly small zone.

[shagr1414]

Is it me or is the newer areas just a lagfest?  I can run any other zone in a raid even at the highest settings, yet I take 2 mins to load into neriak when I call home, and I get around 60+fps normally in the zone yet the sudden stutters and lockups are annoying as hell.  Gotta be server sided cause EVERY other game I play, and every other zone I enter is zero stutters or lag, jsut when enter Neriak or the newbie areas its stupidly insane. 

[KerowynnKaotic]

ke'la wrote:

OakravenDesade wrote:

ke'la wrote:

OakravenDesade wrote:

 1) GET RID OF THE HUMAN CHILDREN!

They are in the Forien District, dude thats why there are Human Adults, Orge, Trolls and such there as well. The reason there are no DE kids running around the FORIEN District is because the DEs don't want thier kids running around with that rabble, if elfs even have "Kids" consitering how long lived all the verious Elfs are its rare to see an Elf Child. As for Arasai they come from Spirt Buds just like Fae as such they don't have "Kids".

Except some of them are specificaly refered to as not being human, and if you look around theirs no other "Human" NPCs around apart from the vampires, who technicaly are not human either.

You oviously didn't look around much as 3 of the 4 childeren that wher playing with each other where doing so outside thier parent's house, and those parents where human not Vampires.

 *snipped pixs because forum really doesn't like quoting with pictures*

My problem with the children running around Neriak isn't so much of where they as to the fact that they are direct copy/paste of The Fallen Dynasty Children.  

At the very least they need to go in and switch out the clothing, hair, eyes and the little hats on some of them. 

I would really like to see more children of the different races in game.  

Btw: Fae do have children, the spirit bud MERGES with an appropriate Fae child and Elves have children, as well.  Everything starts out as a cute and adorable bundle of "joy" for every parent. (even shrek) .. Except for Erudites.   They clone themselvs through the same failed techology that changed them beyond recogonition.

[ke'la]

Maroger wrote:

shioki wrote:

Arasai were a horrible idea. Fire the Devs that created and agreed on implementing this waste of a race opportunity. If small flying creatures were going to be available to both good and evil cities, they should have been neutral. Making a good version, then copying it and making an evil version destroys any possible novelty of betraying with either race. This detriments the game twice, once for killing the motive for betraying with the original Fae, and second for betraying with the new race(which turned out to be the uncreative Arasai). If this line of "development" continues, we can expect evil versions of hobbits and frogloks, as well as good versions of trolls ogres, and ratonga. If this is the case what's the point of having Alignments at all? Quit sandbagging and give us new content.

      Now about the location of the new city. Yeah yeah Fallen gate was part of old neriak and so new neriak has to be close to it...blah blah blah. If this was the restrictions you faced when implementing a new city then I have your answer, Neriak is a poor choice. Out of all the EQ1 cities you had to choose from for a new starting evil city, pick something a little bit closer to the new EoF zones and a lot farther away from the same zones evil characters have been bored with for the last 2 years. I had a glimmer of hope for this game when they implemented a 3rd starting city and new 1-70 content, but this recent update has diminished that hope. EoF was 3 steps forward, and this update is 2 steps back.

      In short, my opinion is that this was a better game 3 days ago. This latest update was the most disappointing and unimaginative addition to the game I have seen yet. If there is a way to fix it, kill the arasai, move the new evil city, fire the dev who thought up this pethetic idea, and hope that time will help us forget this whole fiasco.

I was against the Arsai from the beginning. You are right they just cut and pasted the model with come color changes to satisfy people who wanted evil fairies. I really find it out of place to have those ugly fairies in Neriak. Actually I am not too impressed with Neriak either. We had enough fairies in EOF we don't need them all over the game. I would rather the evil had been put in via a major expansion rather than just thrown in via Taiwan ( which did nothing for the art).

Basically I hope they don't mess up with Kunark. I am more but I am sorry that it won't be evil. That part of the world was always evil and making it neutral doesn't work for me. They should have stuck the Arsai there and banished them from Neriak. I am looking forward to the new race though, and I sure wouldn't use a character slot for a fae/arsai.

But you hit the nail on the head -- I agree it was a better game 3 days ago.

And Dark Elfs are just Cut and Pastes of Wood Elfs. Then they streched the lore to make it apear that they where differant by saying they used to be High Elfs. I am sorry Dark Elfs are just blue skined Wood Elfs, and I still don't understand how a change that has no effect on anyone that does not role a New Toon or move to Neriak Makes the game worst. Thats like me saying, because I don't plan on going to Unrest, or that I don't plan to Raid that the game is Worst because they added a New Raid zone or that they added Unrest. If you don't use it then it has no effect on the quality of the game.

[ke'la]

KerowynnKaotic wrote:

ke'la wrote:

OakravenDesade wrote:

ke'la wrote:

OakravenDesade wrote:

 1) GET RID OF THE HUMAN CHILDREN!

They are in the Forien District, dude thats why there are Human Adults, Orge, Trolls and such there as well. The reason there are no DE kids running around the FORIEN District is because the DEs don't want thier kids running around with that rabble, if elfs even have "Kids" consitering how long lived all the verious Elfs are its rare to see an Elf Child. As for Arasai they come from Spirt Buds just like Fae as such they don't have "Kids".

Except some of them are specificaly refered to as not being human, and if you look around theirs no other "Human" NPCs around apart from the vampires, who technicaly are not human either.

You oviously didn't look around much as 3 of the 4 childeren that wher playing with each other where doing so outside thier parent's house, and those parents where human not Vampires.

 *snipped pixs because forum really doesn't like quoting with pictures*

My problem with the children running around Neriak isn't so much of where they as to the fact that they are direct copy/paste of The Fallen Dynasty Children.  

At the very least they need to go in and switch out the clothing, hair, eyes and the little hats on some of them. 

I would really like to see more children of the different races in game.  

Btw: Fae do have children, the spirit bud MERGES with an appropriate Fae child and Elves have children, as well.  Everything starts out as a cute and adorable bundle of "joy" for every parent. (even shrek) .. Except for Erudites.   They clone themselvs through the same failed techology that changed them beyond recogonition.

Yes Elfs have childern, ofcourse thier "childern" are like 30, but yes they do. What I was saying is that Elf Childern are few and far between because, longer lived beings a)tend to have fewer childern, and b) when you have fewer childern they become more presouse to you so you keep them hidden longer(many times until they can care for themselfs) to keep them safe. Thats why we don't see alot of other races kids. Also I maybe wrong about the fae thing, but the way I remember my fae history quest, Fae start as Spirt Buds and those Buds become Fae, they don't merge with Faries.

[KerowynnKaotic]

ke'la wrote:

KerowynnKaotic wrote:

*snipped some stuff*

Yes Elfs have childern, ofcourse thier "childern" are like 30, but yes they do. What I was saying is that Elf Childern are few and far between because, longer lived beings a)tend to have fewer childern, and b) when you have fewer childern they become more presouse to you so you keep them hidden longer(many times until they can care for themselfs) to keep them safe. Thats why we don't see alot of other races kids. Also I maybe wrong about the fae thing, but the way I remember my fae history quest, Fae start as Spirt Buds and those Buds become Fae, they don't merge with Faries.

Linky to some of Owlchick's thinking on the creation process of Fae ..

http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=187544