The Tattered Notebook: Community rumblings

Ah, the Everquest II community. A fascinating melting pot of cynical veterans, middle-of-the-road types, and now (thanks to EQ2X), fresh-faced new bloods. While there is no shortage of informational destinations about the world of Norrath to be found around the web, the best is still the official boards when you're looking for up-to-the-minute anecdotes about the game (courtesy of its most passionate players).

In this week's Tattered Notebook, I break down a few of the more interesting discussions from the past couple of weeks, many of them dealing with the recently released GU57, EQ2X, and of course the future of Norrath in both Live and F2P flavors.

Turn the page for more.

Moar Queue Queue?

Ge'Sar posts an interesting and (judging by many of the responses) somewhat controversial idea for addressing the ongoing problem of finding a dungeon PUG. He suggests borrowing the dungeon finder mechanic from World of Warcraft and leaving the somewhat antiquated (and ultimately ineffectual) LFG toolset in the dust. The big bone of contention for most dissenters seems to be cross-server functionality. Many feel that implementing it would weaken the already wobbly communities on some of the game's less populated servers.

A few posters, such as Alvane, argue rather vehemently against the dungeon queue idea.

"You want cross server instancing or dungeon queues because you can't get groups to do dungeons on your own server. If each person made an attempt to socialize and make new friends on their own server - you wouldn't need some computer programming to do it for you," he wrote.

I'd tend to agree, as it seems like a bit more effort on the part of the players would solve the issues they have with finding groups, in addition to freeing up the development team to focus on other issues. Certainly there are enough people on the servers to run dungeons, else SOE would have merged the shards already and closed down the expendable hardware. While WoW's system has its appeal, EQII and its hardcore fanbase has always styled itself as a more traditional alternative, so the click-a-button-to-get-a-random-group-with-five-strangers model seems out of place. Additionally, this was something I talked about in an earlier column, albeit relating to finding a guild rather than a group. The answer, as many readers rightly pointed out, is to be a self-starter.

Crowd-control blues

Jeepned2 chimes in with an opinion on the necessity of crowd-controlling abilities in the game. Player CC skills have been consistently nerfed over time, whereas more and more raid and instance bosses feature the ability to mez, stun, charm and otherwise agitate the hell out of players. Jeepned2 notes that his coercer needed a bit of a crowd-control nerf in the name of balance, but he suggested that SOE devs go to the extreme of removing CC abilities from the game altogether.

EQII producer Dave "Smokejumper" Georgeson makes his presence felt in the thread, and while he stops short of agreeing with the original poster's rather radical suggestion, he does admit that the game's crowd-control mechanics need work. "

We... aim to make changes to reward more tactics and things like improved CC play. Velious first... and then we're taking it on," he wrote.

EQ2X beta finale

Crolack asks the question that's been on many minds since the inception of EQ2X, namely, when does beta end and the whole enterprise turn into something official? Dave Georgeson pipes up here as well, confirming that the beta client will roll over into a live version with no character wipes or changes other than the removal of the beta logo.

And the big day?

"It'll happen soon. We have an actual date planned, but haven't announced it yet. So all I can say right now is 'soon.' We're still making tweaks here and there... but so far, beta has been well-received. Populations are healthy, the new player experience is solid, it's easy to get groups, and even the marketplace offerings seem to be liked. We'd like to offer character slots for sale, but are still analyzing what that does to the rest of our EQII business and there are a few other things we're looking at as possibilities, but we're ready to go without the beta tag anytime now," he writes.

Too much F2P?

This thread features yet another interesting response from Georgeson. You may love or loathe the new EQII head man, but you've got to admit that he has his pulse on both the Live and F2P communities, and he isn't afraid to swim with the sharks on occasion. Vlkm writes about why he's elected to play LotRO's F2P flavor over EQ2X (basically because the latter prevents broker access). Smokejumper outlines the thinking behind the broker restrictions thusly: "The fact that you need to upgrade to use the broker is intentional. But at the same time, you can use /auction [on a] Silver membership in order to sell stuff without upgrading to Gold. This is absolutely by design and we hope the players will create their own 'open air' auction facility (like they did with EQ1) in place of the broker," he writes.

This is an interesting and gutsy decision, as there are no doubt plenty of players like Vlkm who are put off by the necessity of interacting with others to sell goods. If it works, though, it might recapture a bit of the community spirit that made the original EverQuest a much-loved title.

Smokejumper goes on to defend against the common perception that Turbine's LotRO model is more player-friendly. "If that doesn't happen [the open air auction], then we're ready to do other things instead, but the HUGE freedom of play experience (compared to LotRO) is something we think is very attractive to players. We have WAY more territory and quests available than LotRO has available for 'free' players. We really hope that gamers will appreciate that."

The EQNext Manifesto

Finally, Seliri checks in with a lengthy post detailing his desires for EQNext. As you might expect, the resulting thread provoked a fair bit of discussion from dissenting viewpoints, as most of the ideas are decidedly old-school and not in keeping with the current MMO industry trends of simplification and accessibility.

While I'd love to see a game like the one he describes in his wall o' text, I'm afraid it wouldn't be economically feasible to develop, nor would it provide much return on its investment due to the level of complexity. Still, you have to admire the dedication of fans who take the time to spill their guts in this fashion. Passion is clearly no problem, but a few lessons in scope and project management couldn't hurt.

Well, I'm about out of time for this week. Hopefully you've enjoyed our little romp through the EQII forum community. Although it can be rather crotchety at times, it's always a good ride filled with interesting tidbits. Until next week, keep the blue side up.

Jef Reahard may be an eternal EverQuest II newb, but he writes a weekly column about the game anyway, through the eyes of a Ratonga Wizard (or any one of 3,720 other alts). If it has to do with the huge and ever-expanding world of EQII, it's been jotted down in The Tattered Notebook. Send Ratonga fan mail to jef@massively.com.