EverQuest II: Chaos Descending Expansion Announced

With the ascension powers, we are partly divine... so when do we get the rest of it?


Never, I hope!

 

In a sense that's how you got EQ2--remember, it's technically an alternate timeline resulting from what the Gods had to do to paper over the mess the EQ1 adventurers made in the planes. If one conveniently ignores everything after Planes of Power, it works.

Of course we've been taking on deities since...did the avatars come before or after TSO? Around then, anyway. So we reached out PoP stage at that point, had our (rather anticlimactic) wrap-up of the original storyline 4-5 years ago, and well, nothing's been quite right since...

But they can't seem to get EQ3 right, so maybe it's time to let someone run a new game in a new setting. Maybe we come back to Norrath, maybe not...

 

And is now gleefully employed as the lead class mechanics (or something along those lines) dev at AOC....

 

Going from the little that is said on the OF it seems like the sales for this expansion is around 50% lower then last year.

Last year it was reported that 20-25 instances was open on maj'dul and 10-15 on AB. This year they posted it was 10-14 on maj'dul and 4-5 on AB.

 

And yet, at 50% lower than last year, im sure that is a bigger amount than DBG projected...

 

And still, it amuses me that people like to throw out the fact that numerous instances were open as proof that the game is doing just fine.

This is a company loves to manipulate appearances, and increaslingly loves to create and lean into hidden mechanics.

Does anyone know for sure, right now, what the population rule is to spin up another instance? No.

Aside from that, is it reasonable to infer that smaller maps mean a lower trigger value to spin one up? Likely.

Now, maybe things are indeed fine. It appears the art folks once again delivered and there are more side quests than PoP (which is not really a useful measure).

I would like to believe DBG has been forced to respond to feedback because of rapidly declining customer sentiment and declining sales, but...

Healer mechanics and the stupid tank check button?

No. Fully anticipating a continued deterioration in sales during the upcoming year.

There has to be substantive change to the culture to turn things around, and I'm just not seeing it.

 

Come to think of it, maybe sales aren't actually declining?

Earlier this year, I posted about a business strategy called "market harvesting".

A back of the envelope summary of it:

Step one:
Purchase a company that is losing money.

Step two:
Gut staff and quality.

Step three:
Accept high levels of customer defections/losses, leaving only your stickiest/most loyal customers.

Step four:
Gouge the crap out of said sticky/loyal customers.

Step five:
Ride those customers as long as you can, and when a specfic set of profitability metrics begin to ping, break the company through sale and liquidation, and move on.

Tldr: things might be going pretty much as planned.

 

If DBG wanted to make some real money, they'd open a Botting friendly server, that didn't bind your whole account to it. Make it IoR style rules (IE everything tradeable), and enable transfers to/from it.

Lots of botters buy expacs/subs. Playing without fear of bans etc.
Lots of people who want loot/special items transfer to/from server.
People who dont want to be involved don't have to.
People who bot & raid normally can enjoy best of both worlds.

 

The last actual number I'm aware of (during the KA fiasco) was 49-50 - capacity. I'm not sure they've ever given the 'spin up' number.

Back in the day (before the Freeport server officially launched) you could bypass the capacity cap by grouping with a player in the instance and zoning to them. However I believe they closed that loophole a few years ago, or made the capacity a hard number (I could be wrong, though).



Edit: I agree with what you're saying. The 'look at all the instances' excuse gets trotted out a LOT for the 'population is fine' argument. And it irritates me because it's misleading on many levels.

 

Dunno. 50 seems like an absurdly small number. My time in KA was so short that I can't remember if I hopped instances by grouping, but I remember doing it in ToT.

 

The reason I remember it is because folks then complained that the PQ's were more difficult to complete with the reduced number. Since they were created with a higher (potential) number in mind.

That being said, they bounce numbers and mechanics around like it's freaking pinball, so I'm sure it's changed again. At one point it was around 100 as well.

That particular excuse is as bad as SigDerp trotting out 'high traffic' as a reason for lag and connection issues...

 

i know, official forum not the core media, but normaly, patch note is a good metric for mesure :

number of view (patch note for each major gu) :
5851: chaos descending (one view from me , and i stopped in october)
8282 : seeds of vengeance (simple grind gu - summer cash need from daybreack)
12096 : pop
11340 : ka
15219 : zek (gu, correct, not heavy grind)
13304 : thalumbra
16315 : aom
25034 : tov
31992 : chain of eternity

more grind, more p2w, less players.

 

For PoP, it was as follows.

Number required in zone to open a 2nd instance - 20
Number most zones 'cap' at to stop allowing people to zone in - 100 [Can be by-passed via /zone_to groupmember].
Number PQ zones 'cap' at - 50 [Not able to by-pass].

 

Thanks Errrorr!

It was the PQ bit I was thinking of.

So even with the most generous estimation (each reported instance completely full), the weekend after launch - arguably the height - there were 400-500 players on AB and 1000-1400 on MD in the expansion...

That's fine, though. The population is fine.

 

Oh.. it gets better.
The T2 heroic patterns
1) require the T1 heroic pattern for that slot (perhaps even the same stat combo) to unlock and
2) the merchant isn't offering the gear even to toons that have the pattern in hand.
3) the devs are aware and choose NOT to put the fix into the pre-holilday patch
4) if a toon is dead when the bosses die in an instance, they DO NOT GET CREDIT for the kill... so an unlucky death can make it so a toon doesn't get to finish the instance quest without another complete run...
5) Kander was his typical 'charming' self when these 'problems' were pointed out to him in discord.

 

By all rights, Kander should be sizing up real estate opportunities in the bustling California cardboard box scene.

 

I'm starting to believe that the design team is intentionally strangling this game.

Is it possible people can actually be this stubbornly clueless?

 

I think the phrase you're looking for is 'willful ignorance'. And yes, it does exist - in the same psychological sphere as cognitive dissonance.


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