MMORPG.com article, interview from CES

Jezekie · 01-12-2006, 10:54 PM

EverQuest II: Look Forward - From CES

International CES – January 5th through 8th in Las Vegas, NV – saw the Sony Online Entertainment PR team setting up this year in a room in the MGM Grand. Chris Kramer – Director of Public Relations was present with his team.

After introductions to Michael Shelling, the two-week new PR Manager for EverQuest2, lots of ribbing about getting the games EQ and EQII straight, we launched into the game and the expansion to come.

Growing and Expanding

EQII has come a long way. From Tradeskills revamp to Skills and Spells revamp, to an upcoming class revamp, the EQII you started playing in November of 2004 is not the EQII of today.

When asked about how they garnered player feedback and if the player summit played a big part in the direction the game was moving, Chris had this to say.

“I think our success in getting these changes out without player revolt is communication and preparation. We did not spring these changes onto our player base on a whim. We read the forums and listen to what our players have to say. We play the game ourselves. From what the players are discussing and the experiences of our own team, we realized that these changes were needed to improve the game. Then we let them know the “what”, the “why” and the “when” we are making changes, we answer all the player questions we can and continue monitoring player reaction.”

The latest expansion to come, hot on the heels of the last, is EverQuestII: Kingdom of Sky, to be launched Feb 21st. In between that and now, will be the class revamp, and the PvP feature will be launched at the same time as the expansion – available to all players as a Live Update. Players will be given a one time chance to move to new PvP servers, and at least one of those servers will be a Station Exchange server.

Class Revamp

As explained by Scott Hartsman in his Producer’s letter, the idea behind the Archetype, Class and Subclass progression was to ease players into the game, providing them time to explore play styles behind their main archetype and eventually "growing into" their final profession.

However as time would tell, it could be seen that players settled very quickly into the game and the journey to the final profession choice was quick. Rather than playing a generic fighter type or mage type class, players were more interested in a specific class. Being able to select a profession at creation also will provide a player the ability to try out different classes immediately instead of having to play a generic base class for 20 levels.

To enhance the change, the starting experience will be very different as will the starting towns. A more racially distinct experience is planned. Much like the skills revamp, when this change occurs, players under level 20 will be asked to make new choices when this is rolled out.

PvP

The long requested PvP experience finally will come to EverQuestII in February. SoE polled its players on their official forums and the majority leaned towards separate servers with distinct rule sets. For a game that pits good against evil, Qeynos against Freeport, SoE could not ask for a better basis for PvP game play. The rules will be pretty simple.

Strict good vs. evil. Players will only be able to group with others of their own alignment.
No zone restrictions. Players can attach the opposing side anywhere. In their towns, in dungeons or in the open.
Betrayal will be tricky. If you don’t have a city to call home, you’re an exile and a target for anyone and everyone

Details are not finalized as yet, of particular interest to me were level restrictions. Will a level 70 be able to come into a newbie area and slaughter level 10s? I hope not!

What, if anything do you wish you had done better?

EQII has passed its first anniversary, had released two adventure packs and a major expansion. There have been two major changes in game play. So I asked the $64 question.

Chris Kramer pondered on that a while before answering for everyone. If there was one thing that the EQII team wished they had done better it was to keep EQII rooted in the world of fantasy.

“EQII was meant to be set in a fantasy world. We have player races of elves, gnomes, dwarves and trolls, and other fantasy races such as Ratonga and Kerra, but then we went too photo-realistic with everything else. Look at the elephants and hyenas in the Commonlands… in our magical world. It takes too long for players see creatures such as goblins, treants and giants. Even the Griffins look like real birds. We want to be in Norrath. Not the San Diego Safari Park.”

Was that a hint of things to come? New models or completely new critters for EQ2? Chris was mum but for a wink and assurances of wardrobe changes to come, as well as new quests and events; which led us back to the expansion.

Kingdom of Sky

The Kingdom of Sky takes EQII back to its Fantasy roots with a magical kingdom of floating islands inhabited by Dragon overlords and fantastical races of different bird-men and dragon-like creatures such as basilisks and dragon-men.

Michael expanded:

“The Kingdom of Sky is not the Plane of Air of EverQuest. It does remind old EverQuest players of it because of the concept of floating islands, but beyond that, it is totally different.”

I was treated to a movie and a Power Point presentation; lush colors and fantastical races. Aviaks, Hawkmen, Basilisks, Dragonmen… all creatures of high fantasy and of course, the Dragons.

The Kingdom of Sky or OverRealm was fought over by four different dragons until a fifth united them and they now seek to conquer Norrath. That’s where the players come in to [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] the problem in the bud by defeating them. Four bosses plus the overlord, Terranax.

Kingdom of Sky extends the level range in EverQuest2 to 70 and is targeted towards players of levels 50 to 70. Apart from new zones, items and quests, the expansion will feature:

Character advancement level to 70 and guild advancement level 50
A new achievement system to further enhance and specialize your character’s abilities
Signature Quests for class defining items and wardrobes
New player titles

So… how do players get to these floating islands? A Live Event is planned where players will be able to participate in the building of teleportation spires to access the Kingdom.

Why an expansion that extended level ranges yet again so quickly on the heels of the last? Why targeted toward even higher level players?

Apart from the faster leveling that is possible in EverQuest2II, SoE marketing strategy is to release expansions that target Retention, followed Acquisition – rinse, repeat. This expansion allows them to put the EQII base game back on the retail shelves as it will be bundled with the expansion, providing new players a single game box that will take them to level 70.

What’s the best thing EQ2 has accomplished?

Having asked what the team would have liked to have done better, I had to ask this to be fair. Toot your own horn guys. This question did not take long for Chris to answer.

“We had the best launch. The best Day One. We had over a 100,000 subscribers sign on and play in the first 48 hours and our servers remained stable. We had no crashes, no glitches. If you remember the launch of EverQuest and the server crashes… I’d say we did a great job. No queues, no wait to play.”

Apart from that, we also talked about the Community. Taina Rodriguez, Public Relations Assistant chimed in here.

“We listen to the players. We are constantly making things better. Fixing things that don’t work the way they were supposed to.”

Chris continued, “Live Events are driven by the Community Managers and they work closely with the Live Team to bring fun and games to players. The glory days of EverQuest were the early days where server GMs had pretty much an open hand to create events. But now, we have the tools and the manpower to create events. You can bet that Blackguard (Ryan Shwayder) is busy looking at his calendar and planning for April Fool’s.”

Growing and Changing

I’ve always enjoyed visiting with the SoE folks and this was no exception. I could have sat around all day, shooting the breeze with them and extracting more information but I had my own show at the CES to run.

EverQuestII continues to grow and improve. Chris confirmed my theory that players of EQII have more different characters or “alts” that they play actively than EQ. It has to do with the ease of entry, there’s much less of a “grind” to gain levels and the sheer amount of things that a player can do in the game. It is indeed a different game, and for a player that had a single main character for 6 years of EQ but 3 alts in EQII, I look forward to the class revamp and trying out “newbie isle” all over again.

FlintAH · 01-12-2006, 11:07 PM

Jezekiell wrote:
Source: This article
EverQuest II: Look Forward - From CES
EQII has come a long way. From Tradeskills revamp to Skills and Spells revamp, to an upcoming class revamp, the EQII you started playing in November of 2004 is not the EQII of today.

When the hell was there a TS revamp?

kennewick_m · 01-13-2006, 12:10 AM

When the hell was there a TS revamp?

From the year in review article located HERE Probably enough to safely be called a revamp, if not all at once, the scope of the changes are.EverQuest II spouted a very ambitious tradeskill system before launch. Crafters were going to be as big and important as adventure classes, even including their own “tradeskill raids” for big important items. Sadly, that ambition was lost along the way. Still, the crafting system remains leaps and bounds more interesting that most other MMORPGs, and now it boasts even one more benefit, increased accessibility.It’s no secret that while some people may prefer to craft primarily, the vast majority of players see adventuring as the real meat of the game, with crafting taking a back seat. Why should raising your crafter levels take as long as your adventurer levels? They shouldn’t, at least the EQ2 team doesn’t think so. At one point recently, the experience required for all crafting levels was cut in half. Now you too can raise your crafting levels with a relatively, small amount of effort. However, you should still expect to put in the long hours if you want to max that level out.An interesting issue to look back at was the crafting of player skills. It quickly became clear after launch that the Sage crafting class was making FAR more money than the others. Part of this was because the sage items were not reusable. When a player bought a new skill, they learned it and it was used up. Conversely, when a player bought a piece of armor, a weapon, or some other recyclable item, they could then go and sell those themselves when they were done with it, ultimately lowering the need for an armorer’s services. (This would later be addressed when every single piece of equipment in the game was changed to attunable, meaning once a player equipped it, they could no longer give it to anyone else).However, the major reason for this money was simply the basic demand for the sage product. Everyone wanted new versions of their skills, and they would often come to a sage for their service twice for a single skill, once for an apprentice version, and again, later, for the adept.Soon after launch, the EQ2 team saw this problem and addressed it. Rather than allowing the sages to make skills for every class, their repertoire was reduced to only the mage and priest classes. Scouts skills were moved to the jeweler recipe lists, and fighters can now get new skills made by alchemists.Just as adventuring classes rely on interdependency when forming groups to take on more challenging encounters, the EQ2 team wanted to see a similar interdependency introduced between crafting classes. Unfortunately, a proper balance between these interdependencies was never found.Eventually, the EQ2 team decided it would just be best to lower the amount of dependency required for the creation of sub components. Four new crafting skills were added, and crafters could now create the majority of their major ingredients without outside help. They would, of course, still need to consult with other crafters to create many of their final products.

Message Edited by kennewick_man on 01-12-200611:17 AM

Duhulk · 01-13-2006, 03:02 AM

The Kingdom of Sky is not the Plane of Air of EverQuest

okay, I'm going to have to go a little nerd here :smileyvery-happy:

Did he mean not plane of air, or did he mean not plane of sky, because it's sky the expansion resembles not air ;>.

I have a hard time buying that this expansion has nothing to do with Plane of Sky for three reasons

1)Sky's in the name

2)Island's held together by chains is a pretty strong visual image connecting it to sky

3)While it may not be IN the plane of sky, we've already had one instance of a sky island coming to norrath, these could just be others.

We'll see...we'll see :smileywink:

FlintAH · 01-13-2006, 06:33 AM

That's a pretty crappy revamp then.

Traldan Omegafyre · 01-14-2006, 10:20 AM

Jezekiell wrote:
“We listen to the players. We are constantly making things better. Fixing things that don’t work the way they were supposed to.”
EverQuestII continues to grow and improve.
I'm calling BS on these two statements. Rest of it is sorta bad too, but these two....

01-12-2006, 10:54 PM	#1
Jezekie General Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 1,136	Source: This article EverQuest II: Look Forward - From CES International CES – January 5th through 8th in Las Vegas, NV – saw the Sony Online Entertainment PR team setting up this year in a room in the MGM Grand. Chris Kramer – Director of Public Relations was present with his team. After introductions to Michael Shelling, the two-week new PR Manager for EverQuest2, lots of ribbing about getting the games EQ and EQII straight, we launched into the game and the expansion to come. Growing and Expanding EQII has come a long way. From Tradeskills revamp to Skills and Spells revamp, to an upcoming class revamp, the EQII you started playing in November of 2004 is not the EQII of today. When asked about how they garnered player feedback and if the player summit played a big part in the direction the game was moving, Chris had this to say. “I think our success in getting these changes out without player revolt is communication and preparation. We did not spring these changes onto our player base on a whim. We read the forums and listen to what our players have to say. We play the game ourselves. From what the players are discussing and the experiences of our own team, we realized that these changes were needed to improve the game. Then we let them know the “what”, the “why” and the “when” we are making changes, we answer all the player questions we can and continue monitoring player reaction.” The latest expansion to come, hot on the heels of the last, is EverQuestII: Kingdom of Sky, to be launched Feb 21st. In between that and now, will be the class revamp, and the PvP feature will be launched at the same time as the expansion – available to all players as a Live Update. Players will be given a one time chance to move to new PvP servers, and at least one of those servers will be a Station Exchange server. Class Revamp As explained by Scott Hartsman in his Producer’s letter, the idea behind the Archetype, Class and Subclass progression was to ease players into the game, providing them time to explore play styles behind their main archetype and eventually "growing into" their final profession. However as time would tell, it could be seen that players settled very quickly into the game and the journey to the final profession choice was quick. Rather than playing a generic fighter type or mage type class, players were more interested in a specific class. Being able to select a profession at creation also will provide a player the ability to try out different classes immediately instead of having to play a generic base class for 20 levels. To enhance the change, the starting experience will be very different as will the starting towns. A more racially distinct experience is planned. Much like the skills revamp, when this change occurs, players under level 20 will be asked to make new choices when this is rolled out. PvP The long requested PvP experience finally will come to EverQuestII in February. SoE polled its players on their official forums and the majority leaned towards separate servers with distinct rule sets. For a game that pits good against evil, Qeynos against Freeport, SoE could not ask for a better basis for PvP game play. The rules will be pretty simple. Strict good vs. evil. Players will only be able to group with others of their own alignment. No zone restrictions. Players can attach the opposing side anywhere. In their towns, in dungeons or in the open. Betrayal will be tricky. If you don’t have a city to call home, you’re an exile and a target for anyone and everyone Details are not finalized as yet, of particular interest to me were level restrictions. Will a level 70 be able to come into a newbie area and slaughter level 10s? I hope not! What, if anything do you wish you had done better? EQII has passed its first anniversary, had released two adventure packs and a major expansion. There have been two major changes in game play. So I asked the $64 question. Chris Kramer pondered on that a while before answering for everyone. If there was one thing that the EQII team wished they had done better it was to keep EQII rooted in the world of fantasy. “EQII was meant to be set in a fantasy world. We have player races of elves, gnomes, dwarves and trolls, and other fantasy races such as Ratonga and Kerra, but then we went too photo-realistic with everything else. Look at the elephants and hyenas in the Commonlands… in our magical world. It takes too long for players see creatures such as goblins, treants and giants. Even the Griffins look like real birds. We want to be in Norrath. Not the San Diego Safari Park.” Was that a hint of things to come? New models or completely new critters for EQ2? Chris was mum but for a wink and assurances of wardrobe changes to come, as well as new quests and events; which led us back to the expansion. Kingdom of Sky The Kingdom of Sky takes EQII back to its Fantasy roots with a magical kingdom of floating islands inhabited by Dragon overlords and fantastical races of different bird-men and dragon-like creatures such as basilisks and dragon-men. Michael expanded: “The Kingdom of Sky is not the Plane of Air of EverQuest. It does remind old EverQuest players of it because of the concept of floating islands, but beyond that, it is totally different.” I was treated to a movie and a Power Point presentation; lush colors and fantastical races. Aviaks, Hawkmen, Basilisks, Dragonmen… all creatures of high fantasy and of course, the Dragons. The Kingdom of Sky or OverRealm was fought over by four different dragons until a fifth united them and they now seek to conquer Norrath. That’s where the players come in to [expletive haxx0red by Raijinn] the problem in the bud by defeating them. Four bosses plus the overlord, Terranax. Kingdom of Sky extends the level range in EverQuest2 to 70 and is targeted towards players of levels 50 to 70. Apart from new zones, items and quests, the expansion will feature: Character advancement level to 70 and guild advancement level 50 A new achievement system to further enhance and specialize your character’s abilities Signature Quests for class defining items and wardrobes New player titles So… how do players get to these floating islands? A Live Event is planned where players will be able to participate in the building of teleportation spires to access the Kingdom. Why an expansion that extended level ranges yet again so quickly on the heels of the last? Why targeted toward even higher level players? Apart from the faster leveling that is possible in EverQuest2II, SoE marketing strategy is to release expansions that target Retention, followed Acquisition – rinse, repeat. This expansion allows them to put the EQII base game back on the retail shelves as it will be bundled with the expansion, providing new players a single game box that will take them to level 70. What’s the best thing EQ2 has accomplished? Having asked what the team would have liked to have done better, I had to ask this to be fair. Toot your own horn guys. This question did not take long for Chris to answer. “We had the best launch. The best Day One. We had over a 100,000 subscribers sign on and play in the first 48 hours and our servers remained stable. We had no crashes, no glitches. If you remember the launch of EverQuest and the server crashes… I’d say we did a great job. No queues, no wait to play.” Apart from that, we also talked about the Community. Taina Rodriguez, Public Relations Assistant chimed in here. “We listen to the players. We are constantly making things better. Fixing things that don’t work the way they were supposed to.” Chris continued, “Live Events are driven by the Community Managers and they work closely with the Live Team to bring fun and games to players. The glory days of EverQuest were the early days where server GMs had pretty much an open hand to create events. But now, we have the tools and the manpower to create events. You can bet that Blackguard (Ryan Shwayder) is busy looking at his calendar and planning for April Fool’s.” Growing and Changing I’ve always enjoyed visiting with the SoE folks and this was no exception. I could have sat around all day, shooting the breeze with them and extracting more information but I had my own show at the CES to run. EverQuestII continues to grow and improve. Chris confirmed my theory that players of EQII have more different characters or “alts” that they play actively than EQ. It has to do with the ease of entry, there’s much less of a “grind” to gain levels and the sheer amount of things that a player can do in the game. It is indeed a different game, and for a player that had a single main character for 6 years of EQ but 3 alts in EQII, I look forward to the class revamp and trying out “newbie isle” all over again. __________________ ---------------------------- Retired

01-12-2006, 11:07 PM	#2
FlintAH Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 382	Jezekiell wrote: Source: This article EverQuest II: Look Forward - From CES EQII has come a long way. From Tradeskills revamp to Skills and Spells revamp, to an upcoming class revamp, the EQII you started playing in November of 2004 is not the EQII of today. When the hell was there a TS revamp?

01-13-2006, 03:02 AM	#4
Duhulk Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 379	The Kingdom of Sky is not the Plane of Air of EverQuest okay, I'm going to have to go a little nerd here :smileyvery-happy: Did he mean not plane of air, or did he mean not plane of sky, because it's sky the expansion resembles not air ;>. I have a hard time buying that this expansion has nothing to do with Plane of Sky for three reasons 1)Sky's in the name 2)Island's held together by chains is a pretty strong visual image connecting it to sky 3)While it may not be IN the plane of sky, we've already had one instance of a sky island coming to norrath, these could just be others. We'll see...we'll see :smileywink: __________________ Torquil Ratherdashing Level 70 Swashbuckler

01-14-2006, 10:20 AM	#6
Traldan Omegafyre Loremaster Join Date: Feb 2005 Posts: 185	Jezekiell wrote: “We listen to the players. We are constantly making things better. Fixing things that don’t work the way they were supposed to.” EverQuestII continues to grow and improve. I'm calling BS on these two statements. Rest of it is sorta bad too, but these two.... __________________ Traldan Tralnak - 80 Necro/80 Tailor - Mistmoore - Divinus

01-13-2006, 12:10 AM	#3
kennewick_m Join Date: Jan 2005 Location: Kennewick , Washington Posts: 3	When the hell was there a TS revamp? From the year in review article located HERE Probably enough to safely be called a revamp, if not all at once, the scope of the changes are.EverQuest II spouted a very ambitious tradeskill system before launch. Crafters were going to be as big and important as adventure classes, even including their own “tradeskill raids” for big important items. Sadly, that ambition was lost along the way. Still, the crafting system remains leaps and bounds more interesting that most other MMORPGs, and now it boasts even one more benefit, increased accessibility.It’s no secret that while some people may prefer to craft primarily, the vast majority of players see adventuring as the real meat of the game, with crafting taking a back seat. Why should raising your crafter levels take as long as your adventurer levels? They shouldn’t, at least the EQ2 team doesn’t think so. At one point recently, the experience required for all crafting levels was cut in half. Now you too can raise your crafting levels with a relatively, small amount of effort. However, you should still expect to put in the long hours if you want to max that level out.An interesting issue to look back at was the crafting of player skills. It quickly became clear after launch that the Sage crafting class was making FAR more money than the others. Part of this was because the sage items were not reusable. When a player bought a new skill, they learned it and it was used up. Conversely, when a player bought a piece of armor, a weapon, or some other recyclable item, they could then go and sell those themselves when they were done with it, ultimately lowering the need for an armorer’s services. (This would later be addressed when every single piece of equipment in the game was changed to attunable, meaning once a player equipped it, they could no longer give it to anyone else).However, the major reason for this money was simply the basic demand for the sage product. Everyone wanted new versions of their skills, and they would often come to a sage for their service twice for a single skill, once for an apprentice version, and again, later, for the adept.Soon after launch, the EQ2 team saw this problem and addressed it. Rather than allowing the sages to make skills for every class, their repertoire was reduced to only the mage and priest classes. Scouts skills were moved to the jeweler recipe lists, and fighters can now get new skills made by alchemists.Just as adventuring classes rely on interdependency when forming groups to take on more challenging encounters, the EQ2 team wanted to see a similar interdependency introduced between crafting classes. Unfortunately, a proper balance between these interdependencies was never found.Eventually, the EQ2 team decided it would just be best to lower the amount of dependency required for the creation of sub components. Four new crafting skills were added, and crafters could now create the majority of their major ingredients without outside help. They would, of course, still need to consult with other crafters to create many of their final products. Message Edited by kennewick_man on 01-12-200611:17 AM

01-13-2006, 06:33 AM	#5
FlintAH Loremaster Join Date: Nov 2004 Posts: 382	That's a pretty crappy revamp then.