Another Producers Letter Full of Nothing

Producer's Letter: 19 Years of Norrath

Unsurprisingly, the latest producers letter provides the same hype and hot air we've seen for a while now.

BE EXCITED!! WE'RE GIVING YOU... STUFF!! REALLY REALLY COOL STUFF!

 

Lame as usual.

 

Expert zones!

The same old crap we've been running for 4 months, but with 10x the HP and 30k more Potency Mitigation so the zones take longer!!!!

Oh, but consume your Kronos for P2Win bonuses, and we're going to milk you for the expac in November again.

 

Man, I really, really, honestly thought they'd acknowledged that expert zones were a bad idea. Yet here we are again. I swear a dev agreed they weren't a great thing. Am I imagining that?

 

What to do in the meantime.....COLLECT FAMILIARS!! Woohoo!!

/sarcasm

 

T2 heroic gear is already almost as good as t1 raid armor.. there's no 'space' for the expert gear...

 

OMG GAIS! BUY THE KRONO TO GET THE THINGS! We're not going to give you any details about how it works, and it's probably bugged and you'll lose money on it. BUT MAKE IT RAAAAAAIN ALL UP IN HEAH.

Also, did anyone else notice the blurb about Ethereals starting early? In response to folks not being able to reliably get basic groups together?

The things are coming!! Can't tell you what they are, but trust me they're as jam packed with content as the expansion was! Oh wait...

Do they think any significant number of customers are going to fall for this... again?

 

Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.

No way am I going to fall for their sleight of (under)hand business practices again.

 

Only if they are dead from the neck up .

 

It's like they are thinking .... Let's siphon as much cash from these chumps asap before they awaken from their eq2 comas and become fully self aware. I was honestly laughing out loud when I read it.

 

When the raiders can no longer find new blood they are dead in water.

 

Really? That is a line of pure genius. Lots of thought invested there.

Wow... A one time deal, good for march, and it was posted on March 16... This looks to me like they are scrambling not even for Krono sales, but for ANYWAY POSSIBLE to boost the number of active subscriptions for the quarter. To me, it seems that a lot of folk have jumped ship, and the suits are finally noticing, and are not happy with the numbers. /Desperation move

Please Please Please!! Spend money, drive our subscription number up!
Looking around, their 5, 10, and 25 packs are actually priced lower than buying Krono's from "Third Party" sites, but not by much, and not with fast delivery.

That is a direct response to a huge outcry on the Official Forums, pretty much since PoP came out, multiple threads, many of which were deleted. Probably again, because people are seriously unhappy about not being able to obtain the class runes (meh, I don't have them, or need them) and other Ethereal drops. This too, is about boosting subs, for the double currency loot. Of course, it will seriously piss off a few, vocal posters in the category of "I got mine, during the summer, just shut up and wait, or just plain shut up, you don't need it".

/yawn
It's probably finished. They will copy one of the existing base-maps (again, probably the smallest one), add 6 more repeatable faction quests, and a door to an instanced zone. Tradeskillers will be deemed irrelevant and ignored, and the adventure instances will be scripted to the point that only a fast bot or a twitch-fingered 12 year old will be able to survive them.
The Pre-order will include some apparently nice items, but they will be useless in reality, and the super-deluxe collectors edition with include massively overpowered potions and gear for those that want to spend the cash to finish the entire expansion in 3 hours rather than 3 days.

-----

I got a semi-random /tell from an acquaintance a couple of days ago, asking me to come to a PQ, because "There aren't enough people, we really need the help"...
During prime-time.
I told him that I am not doing anything in PoP past the sig line on any of my toons, and not even the sig line on most of them.

 

I cant do anything but smile

You just cant make this stuff up any longer. Had me laughing good. Do people over at DBG really think people like familiars? And who on earth loves the leveling system.

 

Sigh. Lots more to say, but right now I just can't be arsed. I've cared so much about this game, its community, the dev teams, the people, and it hurts to see it going so sideways.

So my reaction right now is just a sad ogre sigh...

 

I've said my bit, quoted below. I don't expect any change/response though.

 

If you put your post in the "already in progress" thread, it has been deleted already.

 

Figures. Its much easier for them to live in denial and pretend that diminishing sales and player numbers isn't their fault or responsibility.

 

I was interested that Holly's name is now missing from the Producers letter and now Lauren is covering both EQ and EQ2. Management changes I guess.

 

Failing upwards - the DBG way.