Flight

I didn't know where to put this post. It relates to at least three or four others, at least, that have been going on for the least few days.


All is not well at camp SoE. The latest indication of this has come with the new LoN expansion, Forsworn. As most players know, you buy boosters at $3 a piece, as soon as you open them the contents depreciate in value to the ridiculous extent that you can trade the contents of over a dozen packs for one unopened pack. Theres over a hundred rare cards, at one per pack, but you can trade less than 10 packs for a full set.

Unopened packs are worth so much more than the contents, because you get the small chance of a loot card. This is what is driving the majority of LoN sales. Heres the twist in the tale. Its not the LoN devs that design and implement the in game loot items - its the EQ1 and EQ2 devs.


If you're an EQ2 player you'll be reasonably happy with the new expansion; its lived up to expectation. You can get lvl 80 guild mounts, with no guild requirements, that cost not a single plat or any status points. It has really nice stats, the Pale Rhino Mount is for melee stats and the Dark Rhine Mount is for casters ( see them here ). Plus, unlike the regular in game mounts, it has fire shooting out of its eyes, its feet and probably its ass to boot. They also have cloaks with glide, shrink illusions with damage shields etc LoN devs and management must be really happy with the EQ2 devs.

EQ1 devs, however, are throwing a bit of a hissy fit. They have, so far, refused to put any decent effects on any of their in game items. Remember the first expansion ? Familiar of Lord Nagafen was a loot card gained familiar, that gave a 600+ HP buff, that stacked with everything except DMF. Kiss of Errolisi Marr was an instant 10k mana, 5k endurance regen clickie.

Familiar of Lady Vox was announced and speculators, reasonably, expect maybe a mana buff. Nooooooo. Its just a visual. All the new cards are absolutely shoite. The best one is illusion of Nillipus - except that it doesn't shrink you, it turns you into a big brownie.



Theres no comment at all on this from the LoN devs or CRs; the only word on this is from the EQ1 dev, Elidroth :

If you make the LoN loot give valuable stats/abilities in the game, you essentially tell people you MUST play LoN to play EQ. That's not something we want to happen. LoN shares in the characters, lore, and art of EQ, but at least in my opinion, that's where it should stop.



To me there is more and more we are seeing that lends credence to what Fortune had to say in the UT thread. SoE is managed like a McDs. When is this industry going to start recruiting competent people from outside the industry, instead of their buddies or even folks who fucked it up so badly, the first time they got a shot ? I read an interview with Froech this week and he mentioned something in passing about the only animals he sees in his office are all the dogs some of his staff bring to work. What the fuck ?


I'm guessing Brenlo is ruling the public face of SoE with a rod of iron, at the moment. But, all is not well behind the scenes. You can read some of Brenlos more famous quotes here.

Caswydian

While some of the LoN items are nice, none are anywhere close to being essential for the game. In essence, LoN items are just like any other rare drop out there, but obtained through a slightly different fashion. One can ignore LoN items entirely and be no worse off for it.

Flight

Theres not much that can be classed as essential. Lets face it though, a permanent 600+ HP buff thats stacks with every HP buff in the game is significant.


Anyways, the point isn't about how useful the cards/items are - its another example of poor communication (both internally at SoE and with the player base) and a lack of structured management at SoE.

Caswydian

How do you figure? Granted, I don't have any experience with LoN in EQ1, just EQ2, but so far, the EQ2 implementation seems to be doing quite well, save for the spam and patching.

Could you give concrete examples of this poor communication and structured management?

aduros

Rise of Kunark.

__________________

Caswydian

In what way? Aside from some itemization issues, and Karnor's needing some more polish, what exactly is wrong with RoK, save that you might not like the number of solo quests?

RoK seems like a fairly well done expansion, certainly no worse in terms of technical factors than any other expansion released by other companies.

If you don't like RoK, that's fine, but if you're going to claim RoK is indicative of real problems in SOE, you'd best be able to back that up.

kyros

ok. you're right. absolutely nothing is wrong with rok. nothing at all.
unless you open your eyes. how about t8 arrows? i'll let the rangers answer this one:

in case you missed it... there are no "tier 8" arrows. none. which means that any new bows that you get will do far less than their potential damage because you're stuck using old arrows.

Jalathan

I think what Aduros is getting at (and I may be wrong, but it is what I'm seeing too) is that there is no clear direction with anything in LoN or EQ2. RoK is a prime example of that, it has completely rewritten the underlying design of EQ2 without impacting any other section of the game that isn't in RoK.

For example, the itemization from RoK is so good that solo quests are netting items just 4 levels higher than KoS fabled that replace KoS fabled (the mantle of Naz is a great example of this, it is as good if not better than my mantle of vindication).

Now of course this wouldn't be so bad if it was a universal increase in playstyle, but it isn't. The entire expansion is basically solo (at least hit has been to 77 so far), so much so, it is next to impossible to group with the faction issues and the difficulty of finding x number of people on the same quests with enough faction to not hurt themselves. Combine that with the severe nerf of grouping xp (in RoK only) and raid gear being easily replaced by low level legendary (that is solo content, not group in RoK) it sends a mixed signal about the direction of EQ2 (at least it does to me). It is almost like they can't make up their mind which direction they want the game to go (solo, group or raid).

is any playstyle better than any other? No. But the lack of direction in the goals in the game is.

__________________
Retired paladin/player of Lucan D'Lere

Caswydian

The issue with arrow mechanics is not a problem with RoK, it is a problem with arrow mechanics. The devs are aware of it and are working on a fix. Is that really the best you can do?

aduros

They had 10+ months to make a polished expansion, but somehow they ended up with this unfinished piece of shit. That tells me theres an issue internally.

Theres so much missing/bugged content, how SoE justified that this was ready for launch is beyond me. The contrast in quality between RoK and EoF is glaring to say the least.

__________________