If they made it more fun to get those innumerable xp to get to levels above
35, more people would stay. Why not give more xp for high level questing?
There are innumerable things they could do to prevent high level xp from
only coming via many hours of cramped camping. Whether they will figure
that out before it is too late to save many of those players or not remains
to be seen.

Kitasi

-----Original Message-----
From: James Schuldes [mailto:jgs@...]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 1:52 PM
To: 'eqbards@onelist.com'
Subject: RE: [eqbards] Twinking Causes a Crisis of Faith

From: James Schuldes <jgs@...>

Well, they had to slug through a lot of other problems making the whole
world come together - and making it work on 15 or 20 servers all synch'd to
some kinda version control system. What I think happened is that what they
saw in beta was incorrectly interpreted:

some gamers find stuff and use it to gain xp = "oh they are exploiting we
will fix that"
nerf

some gamers find new ways to use tricks to gain xp = "oh they are exploiting
we will fix that - normal players will never do that"
nerf

rinse, repeat

"ok, beta is over folks - thanks for all your help! say good bye now cus we
are gonna delete your chars (again - hehe)"

commercial release

some gamers find stuff and use it to gain xp - post it on their web site and
everyone does it = "oh they are exploiting we will fix that"
nerf

some gamers find new ways to use tricks to gain xp - post it on their web
site and everyone does it = "oh they are exploiting we will fix that -
normal players will never do that"
nerf

rinse, repeat

They did not or maybe even could not have anticipated the success of their
product and the desire for the player to "win" even as it means enduring
endless hours of boredom. And it's this boredom and the needless 'hell'
levels that will turn away the casual to medium level players. At some
point, if you develop a game where the players compete against AI, you need
to decide how many people you will allow to win.

I contend as I have in the past that they should not make it harder to get
to level 50 - but they should make it more fun for everyone to get there.
That is if they want to maximize their their player base retention. If
their model is: get to 50 or get frustrated and get out - then what they
have is just fine. Right now its real hard to break thru 35 and keep going
on my server - one because of the game design itself and how hard it is to
get xp without hours and hours played. And two because there is a big bunch
of player right at or near my level (mid 30's) Lower Guk on a popular night:
70 players vs 40 or 50 froggies? Solb - same deal. Kith was a good try but
has been kinda fizzled becuz of too much insty-death situations although I
have not been there in a week (becuz nobody else was in the zone to even get
a group going).

What the heck is so hard to understand: make the game more fun and people
will play it more - and pay. Make the game harder and more frustrating and
people will leave - in droves.

Here is a run down:

Azmo - 35 frustrated and stopped cus he cant get decent xp in 2 hours a
night
Aejis - Azmo's friend quit now too cuz his friend is not there to play with
Bate - cut back cuz Azmo and Ae are not on - so he is roughing it with
pick-up groups
Skwid - quit a couple months ago after a nerf that made his war get less xp
- also a casual play for an hour or two type
"mr x" - raised a player to 20's and got frustrated with slow xp for casual
play - bought an ebay account - not playing either one much - prolly bz
working
thrifmir - raised a wiz to mid 20's - went away on business for 2 weeks and
came back to most of his friends too high to group with - so now hes not
playing any more
sylly - still here ;p
nadare - level 48 enchanter
xaera - level 50 SK as of 2 days ago
moods - level 50 Cleric as of 3 days ago

So out of 10 - 3 make the end by hard core power gaming, 1 or 2 struggle on
and the other half quit? What kind of ongoing community will you have when
you suffer a 50% loss getting "winners" and then have huge loss rates among
the "winners"??? "Welcome to level 50 - the level of nothing to do!"

These are issues that they did not seem to think of - I can understand that
they had their hands full with lots of other issues building the world and
the game but I do have some fundamental concerns.

In the mean time - I really need to get level 38, 39 and 40. Really.

Sylly Songsynger
<Spirit of the Moon>
Bard of the 37th song
somewhere on Innoruuk

-----Original Message-----
From: Renee Cole [mailto:nat_ive@...]
Sent: Thursday, December 02, 1999 2:09 PM
To: eqbards@onelist.com
Subject: Re: [eqbards] Twinking Causes a Crisis of
Faith

From: "Renee Cole" <nat_ive@...>

Still and all, I wish Verant would have given a little more
forethought to
what would happen down the road to the high end players. I
suspect many
more ppl will leave the game in the coming months.

-Treehugger and Songmaker

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