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Producer, Scott "Gallenite" Hartsman stopped by the official forums this afternoon to drop off a brand spanking new Producers Letter. Gallenite:
We've been busy around here with the last couple months' of live updates as well as the recent release of The Bloodline Chronicles http://www.bloodlinechronicles.com, and we haven't done a lot of of talking about what's up next for EQ2.
In the future, as with our updates to the game, I think we'll be favoring smaller updates like this one and getting them out there more frequently instead of waiting until we have a huge batch of things to talk about all at once.
The Recap
I was making the usual rounds of the boards this morning and stumbled upon a link to this writeup by Tazman over at EQ2Vault. http://eq2vault.ign.com/View.php?view=columns.Detail&category_select_id=8&id=384
I'm glad he took the time to sum it all up. It's really interesting to see that list put together in one place like that. If anything, it shows that we weren't kidding in saying we wanted to make the game more accessible, and that what we've done so far stands on its own as a lot more than empty promises. We're learning that it's challenging, though possible, to make a predominantly group game more accessible and satisfying to non-groups, without adversely impacting the group game, and without making the game as a whole easier.
In our thoughts, what we're doing is less about "Casual Friendly" and more about "Content Accessibility." It doesn't mean "not challenging" or "easy gameplay." It means "there is more challenging, rewarding fun stuff to do for people who are time limited or unable to devote large blocks of time to playing the game."
That whole list of changes has an interesting other benefit, in that grouping is actually on the rise in EQ2, which I'll talk about a bit more later.
The Concept
For this update, I'd like to talk about something that's going to be coming to your server in some of the overland zones.
As many of you know, we've been experimenting with a new population on Test Server and a couple of select live servers in the following zones: Antonica, Commonlands, Nektulos Forest, Thundering Steppes, Enchanted Lands, Zek (The Orcish Wastes), and Feerrott.
This population takes parts of an overland zone, in places where we have an abundance of full group content that hasn't traditionally been used by full groups, and it turns that content into inhabitants that are more suitable for those who solo, duo, or play in small groups.
Nameds and certain group, raid, or quest NPCs that need to maintain their existing challenge remain as they were.
In effect, what this does is:
* Lets people complete more quests before the targets have gone grey
* Along with the new quest series' that have been put in place in a number of these overland zones, it provides even more opportunities to do fun quests that literally no one ever grouped for. It's really fun enough to play this way for the entire game if you choose.
* And it does this without detracting from the parts of EQ2 that are group-centric.
Ironically, in places we've tested this, we've actually seen more incidental groups form than did before. When the overland of EQ2 was 95% "bring your own group," it was challenging to get groups together in the first place. This way, people who choose to group can still be having fun while they're looking, and people who choose not to group can be having the fun that they want as well.
In essence, everybody wins. Even people who are looking for a group are a lot more likely to stay around if they're having fun in the meanwhile.
The world of EQ2 is big enough to where we can provide challenging, rewarding play for all types of playstyles. EQ2 is about the world, its history, the stories, the areas, your character's development, the challenges you find to overcome, and the friends you make along the way. It's not about only being fun for just the right size of group.
The Beta
After testing this out on those three servers, we're going to try it out in what we're calling a "Beta" form on all servers as of tomorrow morning's update.
By "Beta," what we mean is that there are a couple of places that aren't exactly like we'd like them. However, those issues are extremely minor when compared to the huge benefits of enabling it immediately for everyone to have a look.
If it doesn't work out, it may go away entirely in a few days.
After the responses we've gotten so far from those who've played through it, it's definitely time to unveil it to the EQ2 audience at large for your collective opinion and play.
The Concerns
Now that I've done nothing but talk about the positives, I do want to address a couple concerns that people have had.
* The specific spot of green Heroic creatures you are soloing today may not be there tomorrow.
The goal isn't to slow down your experience in any of this. The more people you add, the higher level things you should be able to be taking on. The feedback that we've had so far is that it's both a lot of fun and very rewarding to take on entire groups of creatures around your level, as opposed to fighting through Heroic content that has gone green.
There are probably places in the same zone where you can stay to fight green Heroic encounters if you choose, or you can choose to move up to fighting higher level nonheroic creatures. We've tried to make sure that a healthy split was preserved.
* Some people did ask why we didn't do a mirrored instance for all of the overland zones. One with old population and one with new.
That's an absolutely valid question. However, we're really not looking to have people play in mirrored zones from each other based on their playstyle at the moment.
Playstyles change as quickly as people decide to click Yes on an invite box. There's a lot of organic group-formation that goes on when people are all in the same place that wouldn't occur if we segregated people based on their momentary choice of playstyle.
With that, we look forward to hearing your feedback after trying this out. Please do let us know what you think after you've given it a try.
Good hunting.
- ScottYou can take part in the discussion over here.
http://eq2.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=68&id=44550
We've been busy around here with the last couple months' of live updates as well as the recent release of The Bloodline Chronicles http://www.bloodlinechronicles.com, and we haven't done a lot of of talking about what's up next for EQ2.
In the future, as with our updates to the game, I think we'll be favoring smaller updates like this one and getting them out there more frequently instead of waiting until we have a huge batch of things to talk about all at once.
The Recap
I was making the usual rounds of the boards this morning and stumbled upon a link to this writeup by Tazman over at EQ2Vault. http://eq2vault.ign.com/View.php?view=columns.Detail&category_select_id=8&id=384
I'm glad he took the time to sum it all up. It's really interesting to see that list put together in one place like that. If anything, it shows that we weren't kidding in saying we wanted to make the game more accessible, and that what we've done so far stands on its own as a lot more than empty promises. We're learning that it's challenging, though possible, to make a predominantly group game more accessible and satisfying to non-groups, without adversely impacting the group game, and without making the game as a whole easier.
In our thoughts, what we're doing is less about "Casual Friendly" and more about "Content Accessibility." It doesn't mean "not challenging" or "easy gameplay." It means "there is more challenging, rewarding fun stuff to do for people who are time limited or unable to devote large blocks of time to playing the game."
That whole list of changes has an interesting other benefit, in that grouping is actually on the rise in EQ2, which I'll talk about a bit more later.
The Concept
For this update, I'd like to talk about something that's going to be coming to your server in some of the overland zones.
As many of you know, we've been experimenting with a new population on Test Server and a couple of select live servers in the following zones: Antonica, Commonlands, Nektulos Forest, Thundering Steppes, Enchanted Lands, Zek (The Orcish Wastes), and Feerrott.
This population takes parts of an overland zone, in places where we have an abundance of full group content that hasn't traditionally been used by full groups, and it turns that content into inhabitants that are more suitable for those who solo, duo, or play in small groups.
Nameds and certain group, raid, or quest NPCs that need to maintain their existing challenge remain as they were.
In effect, what this does is:
* Lets people complete more quests before the targets have gone grey
* Along with the new quest series' that have been put in place in a number of these overland zones, it provides even more opportunities to do fun quests that literally no one ever grouped for. It's really fun enough to play this way for the entire game if you choose.
* And it does this without detracting from the parts of EQ2 that are group-centric.
Ironically, in places we've tested this, we've actually seen more incidental groups form than did before. When the overland of EQ2 was 95% "bring your own group," it was challenging to get groups together in the first place. This way, people who choose to group can still be having fun while they're looking, and people who choose not to group can be having the fun that they want as well.
In essence, everybody wins. Even people who are looking for a group are a lot more likely to stay around if they're having fun in the meanwhile.
The world of EQ2 is big enough to where we can provide challenging, rewarding play for all types of playstyles. EQ2 is about the world, its history, the stories, the areas, your character's development, the challenges you find to overcome, and the friends you make along the way. It's not about only being fun for just the right size of group.
The Beta
After testing this out on those three servers, we're going to try it out in what we're calling a "Beta" form on all servers as of tomorrow morning's update.
By "Beta," what we mean is that there are a couple of places that aren't exactly like we'd like them. However, those issues are extremely minor when compared to the huge benefits of enabling it immediately for everyone to have a look.
If it doesn't work out, it may go away entirely in a few days.
After the responses we've gotten so far from those who've played through it, it's definitely time to unveil it to the EQ2 audience at large for your collective opinion and play.
The Concerns
Now that I've done nothing but talk about the positives, I do want to address a couple concerns that people have had.
* The specific spot of green Heroic creatures you are soloing today may not be there tomorrow.
The goal isn't to slow down your experience in any of this. The more people you add, the higher level things you should be able to be taking on. The feedback that we've had so far is that it's both a lot of fun and very rewarding to take on entire groups of creatures around your level, as opposed to fighting through Heroic content that has gone green.
There are probably places in the same zone where you can stay to fight green Heroic encounters if you choose, or you can choose to move up to fighting higher level nonheroic creatures. We've tried to make sure that a healthy split was preserved.
* Some people did ask why we didn't do a mirrored instance for all of the overland zones. One with old population and one with new.
That's an absolutely valid question. However, we're really not looking to have people play in mirrored zones from each other based on their playstyle at the moment.
Playstyles change as quickly as people decide to click Yes on an invite box. There's a lot of organic group-formation that goes on when people are all in the same place that wouldn't occur if we segregated people based on their momentary choice of playstyle.
With that, we look forward to hearing your feedback after trying this out. Please do let us know what you think after you've given it a try.
Good hunting.
- ScottYou can take part in the discussion over here.
http://eq2.warcry.com/scripts/news/view_news.phtml?site=68&id=44550