Quillmane spawn

[BigPlays]

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

I don't think quillmane (and the cloak drop specifically) being rare was some kind of money making scheme. You might as well just call the entire game a money making scheme if you're gonna be that cynical.

It's rare because a regeantless levitation cloak that every class can click whenever they want is a hugely powerful item to have. And yes it's for the mage epic, and epics are supposed to be *hard to get*. Not easy to get. Or they wouldn't be "epic" quests in the first place. Many epic quests have highly contested bottleneck items that's kind of the point.

My point is a lot of the items were meant to keep people on, paying that fee. They were charging a monthly fee for a reason and I am sure the marketing department and higher ups at SOE were asking them how they planned on keeping people subbing. If they did not charge a monthly fee, the alternative is microtransactions (which is now the way to keep people paying) Exp pots, mana pots, heal pots etc could have cost $4.99/bundle.

And getting the lev cloak is not "hard". it was never intended to be hard but something of an anomaly. It's not like you need to kill some raid mob or a hard mob to get it. It is "time consuming" which to my point, keeps the person paying that fee. And I do not think they thought levitate was a big of a deal that it really is, especially in pvp. Many items in this game are not hard to get, they are time consumers.

My other issue is that the cloak is not "hard" to get.

[Ooloo]

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

My point is a lot of the items were meant to keep people on, paying that fee. They were charging a monthly fee for a reason and I am sure the marketing department and higher ups at SOE were asking them how they planned on keeping people subbing. If they did not charge a monthly fee, the alternative is microtransactions (which is now the way to keep people paying) Exp pots, mana pots, heal pots etc could have cost $4.99/bundle.

And getting the lev cloak is not "hard". it was never intended to be hard but something of an anomaly. It's not like you need to kill some raid mob or a hard mob to get it. It is "time consuming" which to my point, keeps the person paying that fee. And I do not think they thought levitate was a big of a deal that it really is, especially in pvp. Many items in this game are not hard to get, they are time consumers.

My other issue is that the cloak is not "hard" to get.

Haha uh well, you might call it "hard" if an item takes a long time to get. You're just mincing words here. If it's a huge pain in the ass to get an item, for any reason, then it's hard to get. By definition.

Also if the devs didn't realize the value of a levitate clicky at the time, why would they make quillmane so rare as to keep people playing and paying?

The only reason there was a monthly subscription fee is because it costs money to keep the servers running, especially on 1999 technology and infrastructure. And sure they are trying to make money. Videogames are a business, but that doesn't mean that every creative decision must be related to making more money.

[Lune]

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

My point is a lot of the items were meant to keep people on, paying that fee. They were charging a monthly fee for a reason and I am sure the marketing department and higher ups at SOE were asking them how they planned on keeping people subbing. If they did not charge a monthly fee, the alternative is microtransactions (which is now the way to keep people paying) Exp pots, mana pots, heal pots etc could have cost $4.99/bundle.

And getting the lev cloak is not "hard". it was never intended to be hard but something of an anomaly. It's not like you need to kill some raid mob or a hard mob to get it. It is "time consuming" which to my point, keeps the person paying that fee. And I do not think they thought levitate was a big of a deal that it really is, especially in pvp. Many items in this game are not hard to get, they are time consumers.

My other issue is that the cloak is not "hard" to get.

That is NOT how classic EQ was designed and how dare you say that, heretic. Smedley didn't have enough power yet to design it like that. Besides, the massive amount of time and xp it took to get to 50 and then 60 served that purpose.

[Trexller]

i want to believe that in like 1997 a creative decision had weight over a profit strategy

but watching all the major game devs in the 2000s+ every studio has followed this model, before even the first line of code is written:

"We need to make Money!"

"how?"

"We'll produce video games, and we want to make X million off each game"

*Devs hit Y million in development costs*

"OK we're almost out of money so we're launching the game after 6 hours of alpha testing, and all the unfinished content and major bug fixes will be released as $$ DLC"

"Wheres my $60 dollars today, and $25 in 4 months bitches?"

[Ooloo]

It's a stupid way to think about it. Every single videogame that has ever been made that you've ever heard of was made, ostensibly, to make money. Like obviously.

That doesn't mean that when they drew the froglok skin or decided on the names of the various gods or whatever they were calculating exactly which names and which graphics would make the most money. Likewise, there's no logical reason to automatically assume that making a highly desireable item rare was only done to make money. Everquest was like the 3rd mmo ever made.

If you want to talk about mmo's being optimized to make money, *modern* mmo's definitely fit that bill. But in 1999 it was still very much a punk rock hodgepodge of wide-eyed developers and people like smedley funding their passion project, and they just kind of fell ass-backward into success. And quillmane was in from day 1, so I really doubt it was some money making scheme.

All of this is kind of moot anyway because p99 is free for us to play, thank god. All credit to the p99 staff for that.

[Duik]

Sure, Quill was rare, but lvl appropriate adventurers in SK most likely aided epic mages hunting the cloak.
Eg killing placeholders unbeknowingly (I certainly was one of those adventurers) and not specifically looking for the pointy headed horsie.
I recently saw the interview with the eq dev regarding Quill. Didnt really take particular notice though, but Idid recall him saying many unintended things stayed in game because time restraints. Also unfinished quests by him and others littered the db.

Spent alot of time in SK, my game partner even snagged the cloak for her druid. Didnt even know of the epic mage thing. Our small guild had a lvl52 mage (about our highest lvl then) who dropped his fucking bundle when he heard we "wasted" it. We didnt even know about mq i dont think.
So, maybe quillmane seems rarer now cuz the is no incidental adventurers hunting elephants, lion etc along with p99 devs maybe not knowing the real mechanic as well.

[BigPlays]

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

Haha uh well, you might call it "hard" if an item takes a long time to get. You're just mincing words here. If it's a huge pain in the ass to get an item, for any reason, then it's hard to get. By definition.

Also if the devs didn't realize the value of a levitate clicky at the time, why would they make quillmane so rare as to keep people playing and paying?

The only reason there was a monthly subscription fee is because it costs money to keep the servers running, especially on 1999 technology and infrastructure. And sure they are trying to make money. Videogames are a business, but that doesn't mean that every creative decision must be related to making more money.

So if you are a bard and want to get say the red dragon scale. That will be HARD to get. You need a raid force, you need to "hope" it drops. You then need to actually kill the mob.

If you are a mage and need the cloak, you just kill lv 5-10 mobs. It is just time consuming. It's not hard to kill the PH's. It's not a challenge. If I kill naggy and get the scale after getting a raid force together, I feel a sense of accomplishment. We managed to get 30 people and slay a dragon. If I kill a bunch of lv 5 mobs and get Quill to spawn and get the cloak, I feel like I just wasted a bunch of time killing PH's.

[BigPlays]

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

It's a stupid way to think about it. Every single videogame that has ever been made that you've ever heard of was made, ostensibly, to make money. Like obviously.

That doesn't mean that when they drew the froglok skin or decided on the names of the various gods or whatever they were calculating exactly which names and which graphics would make the most money. Likewise, there's no logical reason to automatically assume that making a highly desireable item rare was only done to make money. Everquest was like the 3rd mmo ever made.

If you want to talk about mmo's being optimized to make money, *modern* mmo's definitely fit that bill. But in 1999 it was still very much a punk rock hodgepodge of wide-eyed developers and people like smedley funding their passion project, and they just kind of fell ass-backward into success. And quillmane was in from day 1, so I really doubt it was some money making scheme.

All of this is kind of moot anyway because p99 is free for us to play, thank god. All credit to the p99 staff for that.

I am sure some of that monthly charge went into maintenance, but they still needed to keep people hooked. The monthly charge evolved into microtransactions. Let's say Microtransactions were a thing back then (let's say starcraft had custom skins you could buy then and some other games had some sort of cosmetics you could buy) EQ would have been using that to charge you for EXP pots, mana regen pots, health regen pots etc.

They needed to make money and to do that they needed people to keep playing. If spawn timers on naggy were a day and not a week, and dropped every item on the table, people would gear up quicker and the carrot disappears. So they make shit super rare in order to get people to chase after the carrot. Now it might not have been 100% their intent, but I am sure part of it was to keep subs.

[Sadre Spinegnawer]

Liz Woolley? You old battle-axe, how the hell are ya?!

[beev]

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

You sit three people at the spawn points. Trackers and killers work the spawns. If anyone steals that kind of spawn, if the players can't get that player's reputation jacked, I feel sorry for ya'll.

QM doesn't have 3 spawn points anymore. That was done away with a few years ago. It and it's PH's can spawn anywhere south of PAW and north of Aviak Village. Far west to Far east (not past hermit hut)