Simple QoL fixes that would not jeopardize classic?

[cd288]

Originally Posted by BigPlays [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I do not think everyone would play a pet class simply because it did not take 50% of the exp. I think people would play them because they like to solo or just like the play style. DoT damage makes no sense because if you are moving you are not medding. So the time you lose while just running and not medding seems to be worse than just rooting.

I do think a decent amount the logistics around things in the game took the sub $$ into consideration. Now that it is FTP, they added in a bunch of things you can buy like exp pots. The goal of EQ was for them to make $$ off of subs because things like micro transactions did not exist at the time. If micro transactions were a thing I would guarantee EQ would have been a different game.

I was CSR back in the classic era and they definitely weren't doing things like pet exp etc. due to subscriber dollars. You seem to not recall the actual history of EQ and that this was essentially the first legitimate MMO ever made...no one was making game design decisions based around subscriber numbers (the original devs didn't even think they'd get like 100k subscribers, they thought this was going to be a minor niche game played by some D&D nerds). They designed the game the way they did upfront and then made balance changes as things went along. You're just not correct when it comes to classic era EQ.

Subscriber-based game design decisions didn't start really coming into play until like Luclin. Things they've done in the 2020s with a FTP and dying game have literally no applicability or relevance to classic era EQ and "what they would've done" lol

[Gloomlord]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I was CSR back in the classic era and they definitely weren't doing things like pet exp etc. due to subscriber dollars. You seem to not recall the actual history of EQ and that this was essentially the first legitimate MMO ever made...no one was making game design decisions based around subscriber numbers (the original devs didn't even think they'd get like 100k subscribers, they thought this was going to be a minor niche game played by some D&D nerds). They designed the game the way they did upfront and then made balance changes as things went along. You're just not correct when it comes to classic era EQ.

Subscriber-based game design decisions didn't start really coming into play until like Luclin. Things they've done in the 2020s with a FTP and dying game have literally no applicability or relevance to classic era EQ and "what they would've done" lol

Didn't they say the same thing about WoW back in the 2000s? That only a niche would play it and that it wouldn't be that successful?

These are just lies. Of course EverQuest was about getting drawing out subscriber money by any means necessary.

I mean, I'm playing this game regularly for the experience, but I have no qualms admitting a lot of this game is extremely dull and monotonous grinding that exists for the sole purpose of keeping people in the game longer.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by Gloomlord [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Didn't they say the same thing about WoW back in the 2000s? That only a niche would play it and that it wouldn't be that successful?

These are just lies. Of course EverQuest was about getting drawing out subscriber money by any means necessary.

I mean, I'm playing this game regularly for the experience, but I have no qualms admitting a lot of this game is extremely dull and monotonous grinding that exists for the sole purpose of keeping people in the game longer.

Nope, with WoW they knew they had a potential audience and definitely made design decisions around trying to substantially increase their already high projected subscribers.

There's literally no logical sense saying devs from 1999 lied when they said they had no idea EQ would be as popular as it was. it had literally never been done before in a true MMO fashion. Shit they didn't even have enough bandwidth for the number of subscribers they had at launch. UO had about 120k subscribers, and take this quote about the devs' expectations vs that from the PC Gamer article: "But EverQuest was a cutting-edge game that required a computer with a 3D graphics card, a somewhat novel piece of hardware in 1999. The team would be excited if it sold even a quarter as many copies."

As CSR we were privy to some of the ongoing internal discussions about potential game changes and not once in the early days of EQ did I ever hear something being done with the goal of increasing subscribers. As we've seen in the height of WoW days, the way to increase subscribers isn't to make the game more grueling like EQ (and make design changes mid-game that just make things way more annoying), it's to make it easier and more straight forward, fully soloable until end game, etc.

You're looking at all of this through the lens of 2023. In 1999, no one knew what kind of a cash cow MMOs could be. The monthly subscription was basically proposed primarily as an idea to offset server costs to SOE given how expensive it was to run an online game back then. Devs thought it would be a somewhat successful RPG with less than 100k subscribers. They just built the game they wanted to see at the time, not with "how do we keep subscribers grinding and paying"

[BigPlays]

So here is what I am trying to figure out. I always hear that the devs never intended people to play the way they do, sitting at camps for hours on end. Let's take LGuk for example. From what people say the devs thought during the interviews (I have not watched any of the interviews so I am going by word of mouth from the people who did) was that players would just adventure through the dungeon, get to the mob (say arch magi) kill him them just move on.

If that is the case, it would take forever to level if you were not constantly pulling mobs and you were just making a bee line to the camp (ignoring mobs off the beaten path)

If people just did that, then yeah it would keep people playing (and paying).

It is like we are all playing EQ wrong according to the devs.

[cd288]

Originally Posted by BigPlays [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

So here is what I am trying to figure out. I always hear that the devs never intended people to play the way they do, sitting at camps for hours on end. Let's take LGuk for example. From what people say the devs thought during the interviews (I have not watched any of the interviews so I am going by word of mouth from the people who did) was that players would just adventure through the dungeon, get to the mob (say arch magi) kill him them just move on.

If that is the case, it would take forever to level if you were not constantly pulling mobs and you were just making a bee line to the camp (ignoring mobs off the beaten path)

If people just did that, then yeah it would keep people playing (and paying).

It is like we are all playing EQ wrong according to the devs.

How old are you? And I don't ask that in a condescending way, but you seem to not have either been around for the classic era or been much more than a kid in the several years leading up to EQ release. Which would explain why you have this weird fixation that the devs designed EQ to keep subscribers paying.

EQ was basically a 3D, online version of MUDs/D&D. In MUDs and D&D, you get together as a group and go on adventures crawling through dungeons. As previously shown, the devs thought they might get like 30k people to play EQ max. As a result, if you open a bunch of servers there is plenty ability for a group to get together and do a crawl through the whole dungeon. Sure, that might have taken people awhile to level, but that's not why the game was designed that way.

And, again, as already stated, the subscription fee wasn't even originally intended as a huge profit driver. It was there to offset the at the time very substantial cost of running the servers etc. Once the game really exploded and subscription cost became a big cash cow for SOE, you saw them start making changes that could arguably be geared towards keeping people subscribed and stuck in the game (basically around the time of Luclin release).

[BigPlays]

Originally Posted by cd288 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

How old are you? And I don't ask that in a condescending way, but you seem to not have either been around for the classic era or been much more than a kid in the several years leading up to EQ release. Which would explain why you have this weird fixation that the devs designed EQ to keep subscribers paying.

EQ was basically a 3D, online version of MUDs/D&D. In MUDs and D&D, you get together as a group and go on adventures crawling through dungeons. As previously shown, the devs thought they might get like 30k people to play EQ max. As a result, if you open a bunch of servers there is plenty ability for a group to get together and do a crawl through the whole dungeon. Sure, that might have taken people awhile to level, but that's not why the game was designed that way.

And, again, as already stated, the subscription fee wasn't even originally intended as a huge profit driver. It was there to offset the at the time very substantial cost of running the servers etc. Once the game really exploded and subscription cost became a big cash cow for SOE, you saw them start making changes that could arguably be geared towards keeping people subscribed and stuck in the game (basically around the time of Luclin release).

I played at Launch and I think the $9.99 fee was shocking for most people. Imagine paying for a game then paying more each month to play it.

I started watching some of these interviews on YT and the consensus was that Brad himself wanted this game to be hard. He wanted HP gained every level to be a roll of the dice..so like it could range from say 10-50. Imagine being a warrior and only gaining 10 hp per level and another guy got 50.

The devs on the other hand did not want all of this loot to be super rare. They did not want mana to regen as slow as it did. They ran this by Brad and he said no. And here is the problem..one dude was making all the decisions regardless if others said different.

Sure it was new at the time but UO was around for a while before this, so they had to have some frame of reference. And yeah, people played blind but eventually figured things out. They should have adjusted the game based off of what players were doing. But camping say the Arch Magi is not "hard" what is hard is that you have to site for hours if not days for the robe to drop. It's not hard it is just time consuming. Imagine you are in line for the next drop and you sub is coming due tomorrow. You are surely gonna resub.