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[Madthrok]

Stackable plat bags please

[Madthrok]

+1 Madthrok for that great idea!

[clbreastmilk]

In theory there could be another thread that breaks down what players want to see into "new content" and "changes for current content".  I have seen Hateborne pump out something without server consent, but at the same time, I think he listened to well constructed and detailed reason when he was dealing with the HP/DMG adjustments for UW. 

Change requests in a large corporate IT environment (where I work), tend to get resolved quicker when the problem is correctly documented and detailed.

I see both new content and current content change suggestions in this thread.  Some are simple and not likely to see reason not to implement (stackable plat bags?).  Bigger stuff like the ip restrictions might be best to have server input.

My suggestion to Hateborne is thus, throw up a poll/vote here for some of the controversial changes that "you" will consider.  That way, if the server votes for or against it, you can direct the haters to the winning vote team.   Stuff like stackable plat bags?  Shouldn't require input.

[Hulkpunch]

My suggestion to Hateborne is thus, throw up a poll/vote here for some of the controversial changes that "you" will consider

+1

[hateborne]

If you see disapproval without suggestions, then I suggest you look up definitions to words like transparency, feedback, discussion and snarky.  Not trying to be rude, but typing from the phone and I explained each of these words in great detail in my previous post.

Dimur,

Not going to turn this into a public pissing match, but you are being rude. Simply stating "not being rude" while being so, does not make it less rude. I'm going to try one last time to get a legitimate answer out of you.


This right here nails it, we've got one dev working on content and coding and as overwhelmed as he me be, he seems to have absolutely no interest in taking people up on offers of help...Nate's been rebuffed a couple of times on the forums for offering to help with basically a, 'Thanks but no thanks' response.  Sorry for singling Nate out here, but the point is that Nate has done a lot of coding and help over the years for EZ and for Hunter, Hateborne has posted that he's not interested in Nate's help. 

This right here nails it, we've got one dev working on content and coding and as overwhelmed as he me be, he seems to have absolutely no interest in taking people up on offers of help...Nate's been rebuffed a couple of times on the forums for offering to help with basically a, 'Thanks but no thanks' response.  Sorry for singling Nate out here, but the point is that Nate has done a lot of coding and help over the years for EZ and for Hunter, Hateborne has posted that he's not interested in Nate's help. 

He has offered once or twice. Nate is highly competent and very helpful in EZ's past. Simply because I did not want help in two occasions does not mean I'm "rejecting" all help. I would like to point out that Hunter rarely reached out for help except in desperation or if something was damn near shrink wrapped then handed to him. Every addition I made to the server was 95% completely turnkey. Hunter could copy, paste, and be done with it. Nate offered to act as a third set of eyes (yes, third. Akkadius exists too). I am being dickish when I say this, "Simply because Nate has done a great many things, he is not entitled access to the server as a result of his actions." Nothing personal, Nate and I have spent enough hours annoying each other with crazy things. I'm fairly sure he understands the intent of that statement. :-)

I can tell you openly and honestly that a lot of tenured vets are less than satisfied with trying to offer feedback and either getting a snarky /ooc response from Hateborne, getting told on the forums that you can find another server if you don't like it, or just outright ignored.  I am pretty sure most people understand the gravity of the responsibility Hateborne has accepted, knowing that he's basically in a no win situation and is constantly subject to bitchy, whiny complaints from every level of progression.  I can accept that shit gets old when all you're trying to do is help and it's never enough.  What bothers me, and a handful of other people who've vented/let me vent to them, is the whole martyr mentality of thinking it's all on you and rebuffing people's legitimate attempts to offer help.  Nobody knows what to do because if you offer the wrong feedback or ask the wrong question as to why this is what it is, you either get a pissy response or I'm taking my ball and going home type response.

Again, Natedog/Paldail is very good at what he does but I refused his help as it was not needed at that point in time. With some upcoming bits, I'll be harassing the hell out of Akkadius and, potentially, Natedog for assistance as it's...well, @#$%^@ing huge. I'm a bit miffed that somehow you have become the focal point for the server's veteran players and their complaints/comments. Oh, and that none of them are able to post/email/pm on their own. As for the snarky OOC responses, if I stopped what I was doing every single time some one made a suggestion or demanded a fix...nothing would get done. We have forums, email, and PMs available to keep Akkadius and I updated on what's not working, what's "off", and what is completely @#%@ed. Even if I tried to constantly notate EVERY SINGLE OOC SUGGESTION, I wouldn't even be able to truly investigate/work through them. Hunter logged in seldom enough that he could do that, I'm on significantly more often and cannot.

What I'd like to see?  A little more effort be shown toward building and nurturing this community.  I'd like feedback to be considered and evaluated based strictly on it's own merits from the powers that be since the general community will undoubtedly offer their feedback picking it apart anyhow; I don't see a need for threats of censorship just because it's something that management doesn't like to hear.  We do a good job of policing ourselves and we do a better job of using our in game experiences to reinforce or debunk concerns that people offer up.  People aren't always adept at presenting their ideas and even if it sounds fucking stupid when they offer them up initially, you might be able to find a nugget of wisdom if you can clear the shit obscuring it away. We are the ones playing the content being put out, involve us in discussions when people bring up concerns they deem valid.

Not going to lie, the statement in red straight up pissed me off. I've deleted ~3 threads since I've had any authority. One was a "server down?" thread I started and was mistaken on. Another was a small rant/flames that got "too hot" (basically started and ended as pissing match and insults with tons of profanity and no useful bits). I know there was a third one but I cannot remember details. As for OOC, I don't even wreck people for rated R language (which I will have to start doing as it's getting a wee bit out of hand). I would prefer you provide an example(s) of when I censored some one? I've revoked 2 people in the last 2 months for an hour or so to calm them down and then months ago when a player and I had a long running "spat" that ended in daily insults/taunts.

Again, please provide some example(s) of when I've been overbearing or a censor.

I'd like to see more transparency.  I'd like to have an idea of what the general direction of the server is, where it's headed and why.  It's far too common to log on to changes that were implemented with zero discussion, forewarning or measured feedback.  Regardless of the validity of design/dev changes, people who choose to devote time and resources here don't need to be kept in the dark because the only answer offered as to why is, 'Because I said so.'  We choose to play here at our leisure and would rather be allowed to graze instead of being herded to the trough.

I am amazing more vocal in explaining things then Hunter ever was. Not that he was bad or worse for doing it quietly, but that's just not my "style". I prefer people have an idea of what's going on. I'll admit that I don't post a backstory for every change I make, but in 100% honesty, what MMO posts full backstories for changes? (You'll never see Blizzard going "We nerfed Mutilate's bonus from 98% to 86% based on the findings that a rogue with dagger X and sword Y, in raids AB or CD, and utilizing trinket 1234 becomes effectively unstoppable DPS and never becomes a fair point of competition."). I'm also running threads on major changes coming down the pipe. Whether or not people want to read them is their own prerogative. I don't know how else to be any more clear or transparent. Again, pointing to Hunter, his method was "accept it or leave". I'd like to believe that I've been at least marginally more open than that. I've also yet to knee-jerk-nerf something into the floor because of 1 potential case of abuse.

This isn't meant to be a scathing review of on the job performance, I'm simply posting what other people have discussed with me and my own feelings on matters as well.  This is simply me forwarding the results of those discussions to add to and promote further discussion on this thread.  A lot of people keep pointing out ways to fix content and that's valuable feedback, but I think we need to also concern ourselves with the positive health of the community feeling some of us aren't experiencing as much anymore.

I understand that and appreciate the input. As mentioned earlier, I'm seeing a lot of things that seems to be my failings...but I'm not seeing any evidence to prove it. I'm not above failure or pride, but I need metrics/data/examples/evidence instead of merely saying "It's a problem because 'we' said so".

As always, you've been great about providing me metrics or feeding me information to fix issues. However, this post is, while well worded, very "smoke and mirrors" feel (or perhaps, 'less informed'). I asked for more specifics  and got "If you see disapproval without suggestions, then I suggest you look up definitions to words like transparency, feedback, discussion and snarky."





-Hate

[Expletus]

So ya. I would like to see raid bosses that require mechanics and strats like off tanking x while killing y or x and y off tank between 10% difference in HP's or boss z becomes enraged. Etc. Cool shit.

[hateborne]

So ya. I would like to see raid bosses that require mechanics and strats like off tanking x while killing y or x and y off tank between 10% difference in HP's or boss z becomes enraged. Etc. Cool shit.

Already in the works for soon(ish) area. ;-)


-Hate

[Dimur]

Not looking to drag this out any more than it already has been, but it's quite easy to sit here and ask me to offer concrete evidence and specifics when I simply don't screeenshot or log every infraction I see.  The one example I did point out was summarily dismissed by you and then somehow twisted into me rallying the pitchforks to replace you as dev/gm.  I never claimed that Nate be given access to the server, I just clearly and plainly pointed out an example of you dismissing an offer of help from someone skilled and versed enough to give it. 

Another example of you being disinterested in someone offering help was the entire time you were tuning T9 and multiple vets offering to help test changes and offer feedback.  If memory serves, and yes I apologize for citing my memory as a valid piece of evidence since I neither logged or screenshotted the conversations, T9 was opened for testing for all of a 5 hour window and shoved through.  I know I offered on more than one occasion to devote time to testing and feedbacking the content before it was released, but apparently the 5 hours of a few people running around the zone was enough to correctly tune it.  Since it's been opened, I've done my best to offer feedback but I still wonder how much would have had to be corrected on the fly if it were a bit more polished first.

First off, i want to thank Akka, Hate and Love for their hard work keeping this server up in memory of Hunter.

Secondly, i have to admit that i have not bothered to play since UW changes. I spent too much time working on it, for it to become a dps weapon only. I understand that changes were needed  in order to add new Tiers and make it possible for non UW holders to do T8. But understanding and liking something are two diferent things.

Adding UW Augs, now this i dont understand. When you were planing the UW changes, you wanted to keep the UW damage at a 3x or 5x Epic damage. But other players convinced you to keep UW at least as a DPS weapon since its Tanking stats (HP) got greatly decreased.  Now you want to add even more DPS to the UW. Something you wanted to cut short when you started working on UW changes. Never posted about th UW aug before, since i always figured it was a way to shut up all the people whining about their UW clickies being gone.

UW changes are not the only reason i'm not playing anymore. At first it was UW changes, but then changes to resist and spells, kept me away. Again, i understand that either resisting or not made content quite boring. But I had enough to do already 12boxing and most of the time watching TV series or movies at the same time. All i wanted to do is pull, position the mob(s) and kill. If id wanted to be fully concentraded on the game i would be playing something else, not EQ.

First bit, thank you! I hope Hunter would be proud of how things are going.

Second, it's still a gigantic leap over the dropped items. It no longer gives a player pure invulnerability in any tier minus top tier or top two tiers. You worked hard for the ultimate weapon. That's what it still is, wildy powerful weapon that allows you to tear things apart. If I forced everyone to farm the UW, then your work/effort for it was not special and essentially was just part of the game.

As for the augs, I never stated that they are specifically damage augs or extra DPS. There will be some clicks that cause damage for sure, but they are the minority. The DPS was an issue initially because I didn't realize how jacked some of the mob hp/damage was. With UW changes completed, the mobs' hp and damage took HUGE hits. In a nutshell, the dps was relatively untouched but the mobs have less health now (in high ends). The UW Augs were not just a cheap attempt at soothing people butthurt about the changes. I did and do mean to put them in play. The effects right now are still "on the drawing board", but I'd like to add a variety of things to make the UWs feel unique/customizable for all the work players have put in to them.

As for the rest, if that's the way you want it, good luck in whatever other game you want to play. Sorry EZ isn't an afk for freeloot server for you anymore. Not trying to be a dick, but if this server is no longer what you want it to be, why keep up and question changes?


-Hate

So to paraphrase you sir, Simply stating "not being a dick" while being a dick does not make you less of a dick.  This is one post that comes to mind when asked to show you threats of censorship...sure it may not be squelching someone from speaking but it's a totally dismissive statement that says if you don't like it, get out instead of anything resembling constructive consideration of the ideas presented.  You know the reason people follow and question changes even if they don't feel compelled to log on is because they are sincerely interested in EZ surviving and thriving since they've devoted an enormous amount of their time into progressing through the content it has to offer, but here you openly mock someone who disagrees with the direction they see EZ going.  The other day, and again my apologies for not logging this or taking a screenshot of it, Chunka suggested in /ooc that there be some sort of open chat to discuss various issues and concerns.  Your response to this was promising, even going so far as to offer to log the chat so it could be posted to the forums for people who weren't online at the time but of course you had to throw in a comment about serving someone a 2 weeks suspension if the chat went south.  I'm not claiming that you'll knee-jerk react to something totally benign, but you on more than one occasion have used the THREAT of censorship which is all I stated...in no way was I saying there was a problem with actual censorship being imposed or enforced.

As for you being miffed that I've somehow become the focal point for the servers' veteran players and their complaints/comments...get over yourself.  I am a member of a community of peers, many of which are at or near the same point in progression that I currently am.  We do talk, as amazing as it may sound, since this is a group of people that share common interests, motivations and goals.  And when we talk, we talk candidly about things that we like and things we dislike, just like real people do.  I'm sorry? if some of the things we discuss are things that some people don't feel like relaying for whatever reason they have be it fear, indifference or general malaise but I've simply pointed out some of the concerns that I have and that were discussed with me.  I also don't log these conversations, so again it would be pretty difficult for me to give you anything more concrete than what I have offered up.

Yep, you do post a thread outlining some design intent and changes and players appreciate it, but it's mostly an outline.  As an example, it will say something to the effect of 1. Implementing Necro Death line Pending and be updated to 1. Implementing Necro Death line FIXED with no discussion or information in between (please note that I am only using this as an example and I haven't even followed this specific change).   As far as other MMO's, I wouldn't know since this is the one I choose to spend my time playing, so offering some arbitrary WoW reference is just going to go over my head.  I don't want to compare you and Hunter because there was a lot of shit he did that I hated as well as most of the shit you have done that I love.  But to specifically say you have been far more vocal about changes than he ever was is a bit of a stretch.  Hunter was very responsive in tells and /ooc when discussing design ideas and things he saw needing to be addressed, not to mention he was very active in email replies.  Hunter also wasn't holding down a full time + job for long stretches of time that allowed him to do this and he also was able to parlay this little hobby of his into a viable way to sustain his chosen lifestyle...for these reasons and more it isn't fair to compare his level of communication and/or involvement with the player base to  yours.  That being said, he very closely followed and commented on threads discussing various design and itemization issues...the original T7 thread and the ToFS threads jump to mind immediately as great forms of two way communication he engaged us in.

I'm sorry I can't give you time stamps and log entries of things that you can review and weigh in on, and you know more than anyone that none of this is personal.  I've always had your back because I know that you have always first and foremost placed what you consider the best interests of EZ in mind.  This back and forth could probably continue indefinitely because you're a numbers guy and I can't give you hard numbers about this shit, only feelings that I have and the people I confide in have as to why the general health of the community isn't where it needs to be.  I also know that it's not all on you, but as a vested member of this small community we share, I hope that you can look at this as constructive criticism and not me telling you how to do your job.

[hateborne]

For testing, I'm not sure how many hours/days Hunter allowed for testing new content. I spent tons of hours testing it alone, but I cannot predict how others will respond. As with Hunter, my ability to actively monitor during testing phases are extremely short. It's not that I believe testing is magically complete in a full hours, it just comes down to delaying things a week+ before I have time again to sit down and dedicate more of my continually dwindling free time to testing. Hell, ask Akkadius. He's been politely waiting for a month to give me a tutorial on the expedition system. :-(

For the censorship, if you come in the "round table" chat channel and start going "penis penis penis lolololol", you will get a 24-48h suspension. That has nothing to do with bad ideas or disagreements, it's just people being assclowns for attention. I don't hold any expectations that these discussions will be flowery or 100% upbeat as it will likely end up being heated at times, but that isn't the type of thing that will earn a kick/suspendsion. In the quote, yes I got pissy. People that do not play and have no interest in playing, but linger to criticize. If you have a legitimate interest in the server (read: you play here :-D ), speak up! If you are just sitting on the sidelines, with no intention of playing, but like to throw around your opinion...yes, I will be less than polite.

Lastly, I took most of it as just that, constructive criticism. You actually provide points and actionable data (or, at least a well defined direction) that I can make use of now or in the future. More often than not, it's the complete opposite (from others).


Thank you Dimur. Keep'em coming people. :-)


-Hate

[Krinkle]

Just wanted to throw my 2 cents in about censorship, If you guys make a channel for specific real discussion about things, and someone comes in acting like a retard, then by all means suspend a retard i dont think anyone cares about that.

The thing I worry about is how the server was (not talkin bad about hunter its just how it was) right before he passed, You were not allowed to ooc opinion without threat of ban or suspension, period. THAT shit is not cool and thats the thing I worry about, its ooc, we talk about random stuff in ooc and for an internet comunity we for damn sure do a good job of policing ourselves and keeping it non offensive chat.

But yeah make a channel state the rules of that channel if people break the rules of that channel screw em.

[Akkadius]

So, lots of interesting things to be read in this thread. Some not quite so productive and bit overboard.

I have taken the time to catch up on dozens of E-Mails, PM's and other such issues, of which is sift through the countless threads on issues on the forums here and after reading through this I will have to make a few statements.

First I will start off by defending Hateborne, not because all of what he does is perfect, nor is my actions but considering the circumstances at hand and Hunter's untimely death, we as a server are sitting in very great standing overall. Hateborne has done a great job learning many things riding by the seat of his pants trying to pick up the beast (a mess if you will) that Hunter left behind, we both have. And though not all of it has really been all that bad, it has at the same time been an opportunity and honor to keep the place going to the best of our ability. That's not to say that maybe Hate should change his approach in how player faced issues are handled or that we evolve our approach as to how EZ Server related issues are being handled, you can guarantee that is our commitment to do so. And you can see already that he is making a humble attempt to balance his approach.

The reason I mention balance is that when you take up the role of Lead Server Content Development, you take on a crazy amount of roles and responsibilities that can ultimately make you feel overwhelmed at times, and it makes it very difficult to give every facet of this server the attention that it needs. When you can easily get loop-holed into distractions or issues and bugs that take away from things that need its attention. This will always be a balancing act that any server operator plays depending on how many roles are effectively distributed.

Some people wonder if I am avoiding content development or server issues itself. The answer is once again no. A lot of things I want Hateborne to take the reigns on, not because I don't want to, but because I know he can, which creates challenge and allows us to divide our resources up respectively. There are a lot of other issues I address on the back-end as far as exploits and core bugs, crashes and issues that having everything to do with stability that means the world to not have to deal with for someone trying to focus their perspective entirely on content related issues. Does this mean I am not helping on content related issues? Not at all.

Currently, and in the near future we are consistently working on making our time efficient and changing our approach, such as life. You see this with new rules, the Wiki, new tools, new server hardware, new server code, revamped tiers, revamped features, revamped NPC's and tons of fixes everywhere. There is no shortage of things being done currently.

Developer Chat:

This is not a bad idea to have a scheduled live chat, but the problem with this is that things can easily drown in the chat box and there is too much distraction in-game to have a productive chat. The forums are the best place in my opinion to have structured thoughts (Thought out) and expressed.

Issues, Bugs:

The same goes for this, when you see a GM enter the server and you pounce on them regarding a bug, exploit, issue. If it is not game breaking and does not warrant immediate attention, please post on the forums so they can be addressed, do not be surprised if you are asked nicely to do so.

Content Related Issues:

I like to see everyone posting their ideals and what they want, do know that not everything will make it through even though there are in reality a lot of great ideas, many of them will be considered and even put into action. I have a big list of things myself that I intend to address personally.

Receiving Player Help:

Getting help from technical players is not necessarily something that we are wanting to avoid. There are many bright minds here who passionately care about this community in both love/hate relationships (No, not hateborne) that it only helps us all to come up with ideas and things that would make the server a better place to play.

Future Content:

One thing that makes me happy is that I see a lot of people who are interested in 'Dungeon Crawls', I must make note of this that with the recent server code update we now have the ability to use an engine that I spent over 150+ hours or so developing on that allows us to create 'Expedition' or 'Mission' oriented content that very much resembles structured LDON/DoN/TBS 'Missions' where you would take up a repeatable zone with a limit of characters, whether it be a group or raid. This was something I developed for EQEmu as a whole and was released very recently.

Expedition System (Not EQ Live's System):

• Task Synchronization - Will sync task progress for all members in the task if you set it to
• Enforces Level Requirements
• Enforces Player Count Requirements
• Enforced minimum player requirement as well as maximum
• Supports as small as 1 player, to 80+ players
• Will not allow more than the specified players to travel to the instance
• Supports Task Lockouts - If lockout is set - players can't do the instance for the specified time frame until the lockout is lifted

I personally LOVED this style of content as you can easily log in for a while and KNOW that you have time to knock out a few missions and get some points before you hit the rack for the night. You can progress on your own and spend your currencies how you wish (And whatever else you might gain by doing the mission).

For us, it is a very realistic thing to create 'Gauntlet' oriented dungeon crawls where we can chain several instances of a zone that use completely different 'versions' of those zones to tell stories or have it be a simple slaughterfest with custom ruleset just for the sake of fun.

With this we can implement 'Daily' missions that people can log in and acquire points towards specific items that you can only get from dailies, which would encourage people to log in to make sure that they do their Dailies so they can get that special item.

With this we can setup just about any sort of special event that we want enclosed in its own special instance.

And yes, I'm still waiting on Hateborne to get with me so I can show him how it works

For now I think I've typed enough. If anyone has any questions, comments or concerns I will respond to them after I get up from my nap.

Thanks everyone,
-Akkadius

[Strix]

Hateborne needs to make a new post, why players leave and brainstorm that, otherwise we shooting in the wind with the "I wants (including me)"

So that’s me

So why have I stopped playing EZ:

1.    Boxing 12+ toons is really tiring.  When I first started playing on EZ (some 6 years ago) a single group of 6 toons was adequate to all content (T2 being the highest teir).  For me 6 toons was really manageable playing in large amounts of lag.  When the content shifted and it became obvious that a second (and then third) group of toons was needed to manage content reasonably – I started getting tired of logging toons in.
2.   There are too many long and boring grinds on the server.  Everything from RoA to UW to SoT are just massive in themselves.  Personally, I hit the “one grind too many” syndrome.  The content is just not dynamic enough and the grind ends up being really hard work.
3.   Single zone tiers started to really bore me.  Spending a couple of months grinding out T6 possibly broke me.  The zone is dull, one dimensional and not at all fun once broken.  The forced repetition there (with way too many shades of brown) just did my head in.  Loping Plains was better but I started to long for more varied content.  
Side thought – it would be nice if the entire server wasn’t in the same gear and going for the exact same items.

I’ve started playing on the live servers again – mainly to get ready for EQ Next but also to recapture that sense of solo play again.  After playing on EZ I had really forgotten how skilled you need to be to master a class.  The toons on EZ are so maxed out that only a few of the AAs are truly meaningful – and nowhere near as meaningful as on live.  And really – when you box an army there’s no need to really think about the nuance of a class when you can simply muscle your way through the content.

Today on live you can start with a lvl 85 toon (with all the AAs possible to attain at that level) and you are equipped with Raid ready gear for that toon.  The server populations on live are now quite low and to answer this, Sony has provided Mercs and Heroic Adventure zones where two or more people can group together in mini raids.  Playing solo and in small groups is now really feasible on live.  The hell levels have all disappeared and leveling to 100 could take a focused player no longer than a month to achieve.  

It occurs to me that EZ currently has no streamlining to end game content.  If anything, it’s been deliberately developed to stop newer players from progressing with any kind of speed: especially in the face of needing to box more than 6 toons.  Live now seems to shortcut content for newer players to ensure that endgame content is more than possible faster.  For good or evil – it means that returning players like myself aren’t put off by this MASSIVE grind to end game content that could potentially take years.  When I think about EZ, I wonder how long it would take a new player to build a box set of 6+ from Field of Bones to T9 with all augs, UWs (on main tank), RoA at 200+ level.  My guess is that it’s close to a year (with lots of help).  Certainly no casual player is getting there anytime soon.   As the server grows and develops more tiers the distance between a new player and end game will be close to insurmountable without some serious consideration to streamlining the earlier content.  How does EZ server look at Tier 20 for example with no changes to the lower tiers.

My thoughts anyway – from a distance.

Strix

[clbreastmilk]

I'd like to piggy back a bit on Strix.  I am currently in T9 just finishing off the last few toons with full gear.

Looking back, I will say the most fun I had, was leveling to 70 and the early tiers like qvic and tacvi.  Don't get me wrong, I had fun breaking into a new tier but the grind is mindless sometimes.  In my opinion, as more and more content is created at the top (t9 currently).  Lower end content can and should (in my opinion) be made somewhat easier.  Examples would be UCv1, AA increased at lower tiers (but not enough to beat out higher tiers), plat gain at lower tiers, additional rot bots and anything else that makes an upward sloping demand curve.

http://www.digitaleconomist.org/pref_4.gif

If we take the vertical axis and make that "Difficulty in terms of time spent" and the horizontal axis is literally just the different tiers arranged in ascending order from left to right; this is what it should (in my opinion) look like.  That line can just be extended to the right as we build more and more tiers.

Some may disagree with this and prefer to keep what they have earned at the same difficulty, but seeing as I am in the same tier as  most of these folks, it's just a difference of opinion.  As stated by strix and seen with any successful MMO, the business model must change to retain and attract players.  You typically can't perfectly balance the hardcore crowd's wants and desires with the casual's.  Finding the middle ground for EZ is prob quite the task, seeing as the majority of the people who play here would qualify as a hardcore MMO crowd.  EQ live especially at start/beta was pretty hardcore to begin with, which is why I still get the itch and play here.  Most of the successful business models we have seen typically try and keep the most recent content difficult (but not impossible) in order to keep the top players busy while easing up on the lower end content as more is created to ensure a new player base exists and grows.

And to add a disclaimer..  I don't support hand outs or stuff going from easy to Free.  Just tweaks here and there, as has already been seen and done in the past.  (rot bot, essence drop increase, plat increase, charm drop increase etc. etc.)

To steam line this concept into an operational management standpoint, anytime a new tier is created.  Spend an average amount of time revisiting lower tiers up through the list for any possible tweaks in the line.

[Chunka]

Akk, I agree and disagree with you on live round tables. Yeah, it can get pretty crowded and you can end up seeing chat just fly by....but if its organized properly it wont be much of an issue. The benefits from a real time chat vs a forum post I think will outweigh the detractions....especially if we log the chat and post a copy or even a text doc on the forums to examine and pick apart later.

Ideas heterodyne, and they feed off of each other far better in a real time format than they do in a forum environment in my experience.

[Premador]

I personally LOVED this style of content as you can easily log in for a while and KNOW that you have time to knock out a few missions and get some points before you hit the rack for the night. You can progress on your own and spend your currencies how you wish (And whatever else you might gain by doing the mission).

This rang a bell for me. This is one thing that seems lacking on EZ. Would be nice to have a zone that I could spend 30 mins on one day, come back in a couple days and continue where I left off. Closest thing is T6 where u get 3 days, but even at 3 days is not much for a player new to the zone unless you can play for 4+ hours.

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