Ooh dear ...

They would have to make it optional because I would riot. I'd be like Jesus flipping over the money changer's tables in the Temple.

 

I mean, do you blame the devs for that? Look at Operation Health for Rainbow Six, took a season off to fix stuff and accomplished almost nothing, lost a lot of goodwill that way. There's only so much a company is willing to do when it will be guaranteed to be a negative return for their revenue.

 

I appreciate what you are saying. I was just dreaming about what I would do if I were in charge (laughable I know).

I posted the same thing on the official forums and this was a posters reply to my post. It made me laugh I have to admit.

"Imagine you got a dog. The dog looked nice enough, but soon you start to realise all is not well. You take him to the vet time after time, a few of his ailments get sorted out but more and more spring up. It's costing a fortune trying to keep him going and there seems no end to his problems, it's just bad breeding, nothing you can really do to improve the situation permanently. The time comes when, sadly, you've got to get yourself another dog, work on that one, do a better job checking the pedigree, train him up right, all of that. It'll be better this time.

As for the old one, I'm afraid it's time to dig a hole, and take him down the end of the garden with the shotgun."

 

Yep. More specifically, I believe we'll get just enough overland and heroic content to introduce and tell a story, and then it's into the raid environment.

I also believe they had every intention of eliminating the crafting game in favor of the cash shop, which if true, was a monumentally dumb decision. I suspect that much to the ire of Kander and Caith, Jen Chan reversed that dumb-assery when she took over.

In any case, there are three components to my take (1) the revenue model, (2) the product, and (3) the progression or summation of changes.

(1) p2w:

I use this term broadly to cover p2w (there ARE bis items ONLY available from the cash shop), p2shortcut (eliminating time or effort), or p2progress (acquiring the minimum character power necessary to meet dps checks).

It is not necessary for every raider to be a whale. The general consensus is one needs to spend a minimum if about $500 to be raid viable.

That's an important bit of evidence that supports my theory. Even the hard-core deco folks (well, most of them) aren't likely to spend $500 over and above the box price on the game, but raiders are not only accountable to themselves, but also to the raid team.

Hypothetically and for illustration purposes, let's make some generous assumptions:

(1) 5,000 active customers (live and tle).

(2) Everyone pays the regular sub rate ($15.00)

(3) Everyone buys the CE ($90.00).

(4) 10 % of the raiding pop are whales spending an average of $2,500 a year on the game, 10 % spend nothing, and the remaining 80% spend $500/year.

(5) 50 active raiding guilds with an average raid roster of 30 people (1,500).

(6) 50% casuals spend an average of $10/month in the shop.

So, total revenue under these assumptions:
$900k subs
$450k expansions
= $1,350,000

Shop:
$375,000 whale raiders.
$600,000 non-whale raiders.
$17,500 casuals.
= $992,500

The assumptions presented regarding subs and box fees are extremely optimistic, and could very well be half what I assumed. Never the less, the organizing principle I'm working with is that DBG's objective is to maximize profit.

Two things should be obvious: (1) it's the non-whale raiders that anchor the shop revenue, and (2) the notion that whales anchor the shop revenue is in my estimation, a myth.

In any case, regardless of which type of raider dominates the shop, more people playing the raid environment = more money.

It's not protecting or increasing sub revenue that's the objective, it's maximizing profit. For example, if EQ2 can generate more profit with 1,500 customers who're raiders, that's what they'll do.

Of course in an ideal world, they'll covert the majority of existing customers into raiders, and I believe that's what the hope is (and I also believe that's a pipe dream).

(2) Content:

All mmo's face the sane problem: the rapid consumption of content. Given DPG's resources, the only way they can slow folks down, keep folks in the game, and as a result, keep them spending money is push more of them into raid content. That's all they've got, and besides, creating raid content is a hell of a lot cheaper than making quest and crafting content.

(3) Changes:
Something heard a lot from eq2 staff is that customers don't like change. That's partly true. What they don't like are negative changes, and more specifically losses.

If you're Kander and Longdale, and you're trying to figure out how to hit profit objectives with a handful of people, the p2w raiding model as I've described it makes a hell of a lot of sense. It allows the property to be harvested, but it also holds out hope that the final form of the game has some staying power.

I've never actually held it against them that they gotta do what they gotta do. Where I've taken exception is how they've mis-led customer expectations.

For example, what they did to crafters this year is beyond shitty, and the way this team has traditionally managed incoming customer losses is to hide them, collect the money, let folks find out after buying, and then ignore the appeals for explanation.

I do believe, however, this latest podcast did a better job if being honest, and I'm hopeful that continues.

Edit:
I'm inclined to believe a good chunk of the $500 folks actually spend more than that on an annual basis.

Also, and clarify a point of distinction, whales are the most profitable customers, but that doesn't mean they generate the most revenue.

In an ideal world, every customer spends like a whale, but that's obviously not going to happen.

 

Kander seems so disconnected from what the playerbase wants and he is the guy calling all the shots. No wonder the game is in such horrible state. He actually still thinks that people like overseers because everyone does them daily. WELL NO ****, ITS FREE STUFF. Doesn't mean people actually like the system dumbass. If the summer ethereal event is actually gonna be an overseer quest like its been rumoured I know soo many people that have said this is the final straw. They put up with lackluster content, lag, lack of class balance for 4 expansions now and the state of luclin on top of zero content outside of raiding just got to them, myself included.

I have no idea where he gets the player feedback from, but the feedback he thinks he is getting is not from any of the current raiders or people who enjoy heroic content. Nor Do I know anyone that would hate changes to the stat system, a squish or something else like commas to tooltips that have been requested for 3 expansions, at least. If you guys can find a single person that can come up with one believe able excuse not to do either ill love to see it, other than Kander of course.

I also cant believe he thinks that MMO players in 2020 wants to raid 3 days a week and thats it and that they will happily pay for that. People needs ways to improve their character outside of raiding. Its like he has not realised one bit that 9 out of 10 MMOs are moving away from raiding and giving players other ways to improve their characters - on top of raiding.

I cant believe the replies he gives these days and the videos where he says server merges are not happening because they are overcrowded. I.. I.. Can't explain how he gets away with this stuff other than weak management at DBG and now Darkpaw Games.

 

The HUGE issue with this: it does not give people reason to log in for anything other than raid...
They way they answered the quest about 'only way to progress being raid' this expac shows out totally out of touch they are.
(most) People aren't asking for or expecting raid level gear outside of raid.. they're looking for things to do outside of raid that can improve their character.. goals they can work towards to improve their characters.
This expac there are zero goals. Everything is 100% RNG.
Can't harvest to improve.. nothing craftable is worth wearing. Nothing crafted can be broken down into useful components.
Can't do quests/instances to earn tokens to save up for useful items or recipes.
Heck, even in raids.. 1/2 the loot on the challenge raid mobs is non-challenge loot. Mobs dropping 195/200 resolve loot, also drop 180 resolve loot.

I can't even begin to imagine WHAT about this expac any dev thinks is engaging and rewarding for players.


And don't get me started on healers... there is zero progression for healers this expac.. the only stats that matter for them is resolve and health. In a guild hall, I took off 1/2 my mystics armor... and her wards were effectively the same size...
The fact that the devs STILL refuse to give players ANY useful information on how 'chaotic leech' works is inexcusable.. ironcially, it is also irrelevant this expac, because the heal cap means chaotic leech does, effectively, nothing, because our heals are capped below where chaotic leech sets them...

I take my commitment to my teammates too seriously (dern my folks for teaching me all the wrong things ) to ditch them mid-expac, but if nothing changes, I can't see myself continuing to heal. It's always been a thankless job, but in the past it has at least been rewarding. There is nothing, at all, rewarding about healing when I have almost no control over my success. If people die before my heals come off cooldown it means their health, not my stats or skills are all that is important.

 

Yep, I'm in full agreement with both you and Sweatypie, and I don't believe the path they've been heading down has a snowball's chance in hell of succeeding.

The rng is obviously meant to push folks into the shop, and the logging in bit?

Overseers - brilliant.

This game is going to fail because it's stupidly expensive for the quality it offers, not fun for 70-80% of its customers, and because the company is not trustworthy.

 

I was being sarcastic

 

My dramatics weren't aimed at the messenger. I promise.

 

So in Kander's podcast he said raid lag would be better between 4th of may and the 15th of may. Its only gotten worse. What is the next step to fix the only endgame in the game and when can we expect a solution?

The fact that no one at Darkpaw games can give any sort of hint at a solution makes me upset and makes even raid evenings a living hell to enjoy.

 

The fact that you keep logging in to raid tells them that you must be somewhat ok with the situation and they really don't need to fix it.

 

The lag stuff....I have a question that you techies can answer for a technology ignoramus:

We know that they moved a bunch of stuff to cloud servers, including database servers. Is it possible that, to save money for example, they're being cheap on the processing capability they're budgeting?

Hell, at this point, I wouldn't be entirely shocked to learn they're using shared servers for some stuff.

I mean, I have absolutely no understanding of how game servers work, but raid lag aside, the performance behavior of the servers seems to rubber band sort of randomly.

 

That's exactly what happened and I said as much on the OF. They didn't migrate servers to fix lag. They migrated servers to save money because people who have put up with it this long are still going to put up with it. Lag is noticeably worse in EQ1 as well.

 

This is the lastet bit. I also seem to recall Jen Chan commenting on issues relating to a migration to new servers in Europe.

Database Migration Downtime Notification | EverQuest 2 Forums

Also, shared servers aside, doesn't Enterprise charge against a processing budget and allow the user to set processing/consumption parameters?

(I'm sure I'm not articulating that last bit correctly, but hopefully you all get the gist of what I'm trying to ask).

 

Yes, I just debugged my lingering login problems with that and posted it up on the bug forum. I can't actually prove conclusively that my problems come directly from that as I bounce around on different servers so it might have started at a different point - but, what are the odds, really?

 

^ This is at the heart of my question. I am wondering if the various server performance issues can (at least in part) be traced back to being cheap with server consumption budgets.

 

Yes.