PoP = The Death of the casual/semi-casual player

[Rthen]

The End of Everquest (or, the end of the game for those 80% of players not in a massive guild)

It is happening right now as I type this, its the slow trickle of people: leaving the game for good but not canceling their main account due to the fact that most people will not ditch 2 or 3 years of work, taking extended breaks to play other games, or simply canceling their accounts now in disgust. I doubt SoE will see a financial impact for some time, maybe an entire year. At least not until some other MMOG has a firm hold on the disgruntled customers and proves to be just as good or better then EQ.

There have been plenty of posts like this thoughout the past 3 years and I am certain they were better written and for the most part written by more game knowledgeable people. No one has pointed out what I am about to say recently so I decided to proceed with this post.

There are some key reasons why I believe we have reached the end of the road for most of the EQ customer base:

1. The access method in place to get to PoP content discorages the recruitment efforts of high end content guilds (and any guild that is in PoP tier 3+ zones already). The number of key quests and flag encounters you will need simply discorages taking on recruits that do not already have close to the same access that you have. People do not like redoing contant constantly. Guilds that loose large amounts of players due to SWG, SB, and other games will fail. If you are a player that has not yet been flagged for tier 3+ PoP zones then your best bet is to quit now because getting help to get flagged is not going to be easy. On the 2 servers I play on it will be impossible.

2. The nerf to soloing in PoP has decreased the options for AA and exp advancement for the 61+ crowd. It has insured that only the following classes can effectively solo now: Druids and Wizards, followed by a distant second for: Enchanters, Necromancers and Shaman. By effective I mean earn enough exp per hour by soloing to make it a real alternitive to grouping if you cannot find a group. The days where most classes could rack up at least AA exp in numerous zones and still be productive without a "perfect" group are over. Once you hit level 65 and are not amoung the classes that can effectivly solo you will need to find a group, plan on being LFG for hours unless: 1. You are a Cleric, Warrior, Enchanter, Rogue, or Shaman. Monk's and Shadowknights ocasionally find work as pullers but for most popular exp camps they are not required. or 2. You are in a top guild (thus the 20% of players) and have a guild group all set and waiting for you evey time you log on.

3. Class balance, fixing existing bugs, and upgrading exisiting content have been ignored in favor of adding new content. When level 65 non-primary class characters are sitting LFG on PoV and PoS for hours on end there should be no new content added unless its content to help them solo if they cannot find a group.

My prediction is that after the next 12 months some of the following will end up happeneing:

1. Everquest will be left with around 25% of its existing customer base (I averaged the percentage of high end game players ont he servers I play on) as people most heavily affected by the issues leave for new games. These departures will not have a real financial impact on SoE until their owners cancel their accounts. You might see some server consolidations. I predict that Legends customers will be moved back their their home servers by the time EQ2 is released.

2. People that play classes that cannot solo at level 65 effectively or find groups easily will quit the game. The number of Magicians, Palidians, Necromancers, Beastlords, and Shadowknights will drop drasticly. No one will care and life will move on in EQ. This has already been slowly happening.

3. SoE will dumb down the game to continue raking in profit as folks leave for new games - 1. The flagging system will be made eaiser to enable more people to gain access to higher end content in PoP as ubers leave to play other games like SWG. 2. All classes that are not group needed will obtain content or abilities to solo better.

4. SoE will do nothing and hope the departures from EQ are headed to SWG or EQ2.

In my personal opinion I think that the worst thing SoE did with PoP is the way it handled access in PoP, this closely followed by insuring my class and others that used to solo somewhat well were now faced with having to spend hours LFG. PoP killed the casual player and also insured that more dedicated players had a harder time keeping guilds together due to the amount of of "keying" that needs to be done. Miss a raid or 2 and your far behind your guild mates.

The casual player is the vast bulk of EQs revenue base and alienating them from even exp progression will kill this game.

Perhaps it is in their plans to kill the game so people will play SWG and EQ2.

It will be interesting to see what this new expansion is all about. I doubt it will address any of the above issues I listed

[Samus Aran]

Yeah, bards can't solo at all... and enchanters are FAR from the best...

[medalinor]

Originally posted by Rthen
No one has pointed out what I am about to say recently so I decided to proceed with this post.

All of your points were discussed a month ago.

Here are the links regarding the "death" of soloing along with EQ:

Soloing:
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showt...&threadid=3792
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showt...&threadid=3751

EQ:
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showt...&threadid=3945
http://www.fohguild.org/forums/showt...&threadid=3474

Edit: fixed a link

[Iannis]

hEhE.

Anyway, yeah, pop was aimed at ubers. Because ubers were ready to leave. PoP keeps them around longer, casual gamers who are still killing trakagimp or in SoV still have stuff to play through. VI not losing many pay accounts(maybe some alt accounts that nobody wants to flag), so they're happy...

SW:G and EQ2 become new cash cows before EQ loses profitabily. Everyone pats themselves on the backs over the fact they have 3 half-assed highly profitable games. VI has horrible reputation. Sony, already having a horrible rep, doesn't care.

[Fender]

If you haven't noticed, this isn't a casual gamer board.

[Old Man Potter]

The one indisputable fact about EverQuest is this:

casual gamers subsidize powergamers


The casual gamers that plays a few hours a week pays the bills for the powergamer/uber gamer that plays 8 hours a day. Each player pays the same $12.95 monthly fee. The powergamer plays for pennies per hour while the casual gamer pays substantially more.

And what does the casual get from the Devs at SOE? Nothing.

-90% of the content in EQ will never been seen or experienced by the casual gamer yet the Dev team focuses on the ubers every whim and gripe to the detriment of us all

-PoP makes pickup groups without the Holy Trinity of classes almost impossible

-soloing in POP is effectively dead


Any business that fails to address it's demographic will ultimately fail. The Devs at SOE have zero business sense. Most are powergamers that are making a game for powergamers. The future in online games will be making online worlds more accessible to the consumers out there that have jobs, families, etc.

Many of the uber types that frequent this board like to poke fun at the poor hapless slob that happens to be a casual gamer. Show a little respect and consideration because that person is paying the bills for EverQuest.

[Sihriel]

Hehe can you imagine what it will be at the end in a couple of years ? Having to merge all the servers into 2 or 3 because all casual gamers would have moved to another game, those 2 or 3 servers would be filled with nothing but FoH, Heaven&Earth, Triton ... and the likes.
That would make some interesting races to spawns.

[Rufus]

90% of the content in EQ will never been seen or experienced by the casual gamer

This part of this statement is entirely untrue. Most of your casual players will experience at least half of the content if not more. Up until pop, uber-restricted content was limited to a zone or two, and even slowly they're going to get knocked off as casual haunts.

Now if you mean '90% of the content that is interesting to you' ... maybe. Oddly, the people I know having the most fun are those who are untagged in their mid-40's. Much less stress =)

[Dauvan]

90% of the content in eq, not accessible by the casual gamer? hmm, they have all of antonica, kunark and 90% of velious, 90% of luclin and 30% of pop, accessible without doing a thing. So basically 10% of eq is not accessible by the casual gamer?

oh and on the holy trinity comment, I guess that would be like having a BST main tank consorts in PoN, in a pick up group.. while being the main slower? nah, that probably would never happen.

[aychamo_aycono]

It is funny though, if you think about it.. They pay the same as the ubers, but get half the game, in effect. That is almost like paying tax in real life.

[mguru]

Originally posted by aychamo_aycono
It is funny though, if you think about it.. They pay the same as the ubers, but get half the game, in effect. That is almost like paying tax in real life.

It's part of the drive that keeps people playing though. Look at games that didn't have anything to look forward to, DoaC jumps to mind.

At level 40 you were experiencing everything the game had to offer, why the hell keep levelling? Or keep playing for that matter.

How many people read this board everyday that aren't in the top guild on thier respective server? The original poster comes to mind immediately. If you want all the content /now/, why are you playing this game?

As far as the original poster;

It's no secret there's been limited high end zones since the day Kunark shipped, these are the same complaints that happened then.

As far as the PoP limitations, I have a few friends with BoT/PoT/CoD flags already that aren't even in guilds. Shit, there was pickup raids on a few servers that dropped AD already. When's the last time there was a pickup raid for ST keys? Or to kill Emp?

They put in a method for 6 man groups to gain access to the planes, and you're still complaining? Go take 6 people and get into VT with no help.

Sounds to me like they actually thought about how to make it easier for people not in large guilds to get access to some of the planes, and you're here pretending that method doesn't exist.

If you want to play a single player game, go play one. That seems to be your biggest complaint. Or don't level to 65, stay level 60 and solo farm AA's til you're blue in the face, the choice is yours.

Go de-level if not being able to solo is game-breaking for you, it's not like you have no choice in the matter. You want to be 65, then be 65, it's not secret the way the con system changed, and it's no secret the majority of classes can't solo effectively at 65, but we all knew that the day PoP was released.

As far as "perfect" groups, I call bullshit on that too. I've had monks and rangers tank just fine in PoV. Druids and shaman make fine healers, bards and beastlords can fill in for slow. Shit, a good warrior with a willsapper has filled in for slow in the caves in PoV before. The "holy trinity" is only in your mind.

Just because people don't want to group with you, don't blame it on some class requirement crap. Go make a reputation for yourself as a good player, that will carry you a lot further than what class you play.

I can't remember the last time I had a group that actually had an enchanter in it, nevermind a cleric.

mguru

[Nikkohung You]

i dont really understand all this bitching about the trinity we finished up some ones BoT key with a 65druid magi ranger(tank) shaman and rogue...sure we werent killing the medallions mobs but we got sash/bone from forest and desert(ss maybe i dunno im not a smart kid). did this on fennin w/ bumbik/loden/rinimas and a druid....trouble recalling named...sorry

[Vikki]

Heh... I'm almost always eager to sweep up almost any class given I need their abilities except... Wizards and Druids and (since I am a Paladin) Shadow Knights and Warriors... Beastlords, Rangers, Necros, etc. are great to have in groups... And as for Paladins, heh... Aside from the occasional bad day I rarely spend more than 10 minutes lfg.

I would take a skilled Beastlord over a Rogue any day in a group, there's alot more difference they can make.

We have a guild that typically raids with NO MORE than 3 groups (typically 2) on our server with access to Plane of Tactics and Bastion of Thunder... As was said earlier, just because you choose to ignore these methods of advancement because they require actually taking time and/or playing skill (this is important) does not mean they are there.

There are 1-2 group methods to get in: Lair of TT, HoH, PoTactics, CoDecay, PoV, PoS, BoT and probably other ones that haven't been discovered yet...

The recruitment thing is more out of lack of need. If a guild really needs people bad enough they'll recruit and do flags, but why recruit a Cleric that doesn't even have a Plane of Valor flag over one who's got all of the tier 2 or 3 zones?

Just earlier today we were running through BoT killing the high leve first floor named with a Paladin/Ranger/Cleric/Shaman/Druid rather easily.

It's not that hard, but it does take some skill, and you're not going to be able to instantly go from farming Halls of Testing to farming the Elemental Planes, and you shouldn't.

[gn0me]

Originally posted by mguru

Just because people don't want to group with you, don't blame it on some class requirement crap. Go make a reputation for yourself as a good player, that will carry you a lot further than what class you play.

Aye, I agree. Unfortunately, Rthen has already completely ruined his reputation first on Saryrn and now on $tormhammer by being a whiny fucktard to everyone he encounters. He just completely sucks at both Everquest and making friends so he whines and whines when others are successful at both. I think it's part of his image. . . some self-hating-pity-me type bullshit and EQ is his outlet.

Anyway, like everyone has already said there is no "holy trinity." You'd be surprised how much you can achieve in this game with a small group of friends and a desire to succeed. It is too bad for you, Rthen, that you lack both and instead choose to blame your inabilities on non-issues like class requirements.

[Snagglepuss]

2. People that play classes that cannot solo at level 65 effectively or find groups easily will quit the game. The number of Magicians, Palidians, Necromancers, Beastlords, and Shadowknights will drop drasticly. No one will care and life will move on in EQ. This has already been slowly happening.

can i plz be a palidian?