I’ve had a slow week here at Epic Slant. I haven’t done much writing and for that I apologize. I have managed to get some reading done and while browsing the internet a bit I came across a rather interesting article on Ten Ton hammer with Dave Georgeson at E3. Dave, the new senior producer for EQ2, answered some questions, didn’t answer others and pretty much dropped one awesome quote that made me smile.
“I think that people who are just casually going in are getting worked by people who have a lot of PvP gear and because of that we are seeing that people aren’t going in without a full board commitment. Because not a lot of new people are going in we basically have the same set of people playing over and over again. Battlegrounds is a really good feature and we will continue to support it, we like it a lot; it’s just under performing for the amount of effort we put into it. I don’t like to throw things away, I’d rather fix it and we’ll get to that eventually.”
When battlegrounds were put in it was clear that the target audience was missed. Yet nobody could foresee that this feature would under perform? There was no majority demand for battlegrounds from the player base and that same group of people doesn’t want to go in and be destroyed by the PvP minority. I mean honestly, what chance do I have against someone from the PvP only server? At least it is nice to see that I wasn’t completely off base in my over reaction. Sadly this just means more development time will be wasted put into the feature.
All characters are © 2007 - 2012
HAHA… I saw that same quote too while keeping up with E3!!! Isn’t it just amazing that EQ2 has mad a nice little niche for itself as one of the better PvE games out now but because of the emphasis put on the all-mighty dollar Sony finds the need to focus on a PvP system. A system, mind you, not even asked for by the majority of the games’ player-base. You would think that they would’ve gotten the hint when the first attempt at the Maj’Dul Arena failed… I think we all remember that little catastrophe. Bottom line is if EQ2 players wanted Battlegrounds they would be playing WoW or other PvP focused games!
Also, a little off topic and I hate to beat a dead horse but isn’t this what a lot of us annoyed with the current MMO market are talking about when we say that we blame Blizzard for all these ridiculous gaming market changes. When will this cut & paste nonsense end!?!
Pretty much. Someone got it into their head that battlegrounds are what make WoW successful and created numerous MMORPGs from that. It also leads to them being stuck in every MMO because they are now a “must have” feature. They’re not though.
Let PvE games be PvE!
Well as among others Feldon of EQ2 wire have said there is no real challenging content for the casual player anymore, after SoS there is no place where you can just take a non optimal group and just have fun. SoE dropped the ball big time for the casual player that does not want “Soloquest 2″ to max level. Battlegrounds was an attempt to create something challenging for casual players to do, and as always the idea was good but BG gear must get MUCH easier to get on the PvE servers than it is now otherwise the BG’s is a massive failure. I rolled on Naggy just to get a 30s BG toon and I am having a blast. But I would like some content for my 81 Mystic that actually makes me want to log in an play.
I would have to respectfully disagree about the lack of content. Even on our tiny little Oasis server there are constant groups being formed for the myriad of dungeons in Sentinel’s Fate. Library and Demetriks are two that come to mind which are very doable by any non optimal group. We have taken one healer and no regen into those and done just fine. As you level up and get geared out, each of the instances becomes progressively easier as well.
If you want to go to a dungeon that is open, try the Hole. There are a ton of faction and Mark quests in there. To me, doing quests and dungeons is infinitely more enjoyable than repeating the same battlegrounds over and over and over. Absolutely nothing enjoyable about BGs for me, they are a broken record. If I want to PvP I would go on a PvP server like you said.
Well it may be true on Oasis on AB very few does anything outside a non optimal group (due to the large population most likely) and max level. And the common wisdom on the Hole is that it is not worth doing even for casuals (look at the thread “is there a getting started guide for the Hole?” under the official forums Zone and population topic).
Anyway YMMW
Listening to forum posts and trying something are two different animals though. We leveled a LOT of people through the Hole. The experience modifier there is actually quite good. In a lot of cases for lower DPS classes it is faster to take them there in a group than to let them solo quest.