A thought on Expansions, and giving Sony Dev Team a Break.

[Lilosh]

Ok, we ALL have our opinions about recent EQ expansions. Mine may , at times, be a bit...err... negative.


But I've come to realize something. The Dev is darned if they do, and darned if they don't.

They , for example, make new content REQUIRE you to purchase the expansion. They are therefore called "Greedy Corporate Pigs", and all kinds of nasty language, because they are forcing you to buy the whole expansion, for the sheer purpose of you getting Ubah_Item_3, or Trade_Skill_Recipe4, or even General_Feature5. (Think expanded bank, PoK Stones, or any one of a dozen others).

Or, on the other hand.

They do NOT require you to purchase the new Expansion to use the new content. Magus Transport, Armor Dyes/New Geerloks (Finished products, mind you). They get lambasted for selling "Empty" expansions that "aren't worth buying" because all the cool stuff is "Given to you already, even if you don't".


So , while many a time do I/we boggle at the truly mindblowing decision making that Sony tosses our way, I can think of at least half a dozen more situations where the devs are going to annoy a whole bunch of people either way. And it's normally due to the simple fact that most people can't see past the tip of their nose, and all they can think of is how "SOE is SCREWING ME, MAN!!".


Please, don't argue whether any of the specific items should or should not have been given free, or included in an expansion. It's really not the point of this thread.

Just next time you're debating the merits of an expansion, please think about how many people would have been angry if the pendulum had swung the other way, and you'd gotten things your way. :-)


-Lilosh.

[Nolrog]

The one expansion I had the biggest problem with was LoY. Most of the other expansions added significantly to the number of zones. LoY gave you 5. That was a bit of a let down. There was a lot of fluff included in LoY that made it seem bigger than it was. With both PoP and LoY, I felt that there were things that should have been given to everyone. In this expansion (God that is), though, one of those things is the new tradeskill UI, and that's going out to everyone.

I started after SoL, so I can't comment on the first 3. I thought LDoN was terrific though. As much as I love Velious, I thought LDoN was better. I love the concept of LDoN, the dungeon crawls, the time limit, the instancing and all that jazz. I just wish they would abandon their insistance that each expansion be totally stand alone, and have LDoN camps in Velious, on the Moon, and in Kunark. I think there are a lot of great things they could do with it.

I got off my original point (actually, I never started making it.) I don't mind buying an expansion. I realize that SOE is a business, and they need to make money. I bought LoY in the preorder, and I think the Gunthak zones are excellent. A lot of fun, challanging, good XP and nice loot, but that doesn't mean I was not upset that there were so few zones in it. (side note here, if you didn't notice, they advertised LDoN as having the most new zones of any expansion to date. That must have been directly related to the criticizm they got for the lack of Loy Zones.)

Anyway, I'm finished babbling. If you can make any sense of what I wrote above, then good for you.

[Balkin]

I'm fine with expansions... *shrug*

Anything that improves my quality of play works for me. Especially since the odds of me joining EQ2 are slim and none... and we buried Slim last week.

Gotta agree with Lilosh... Most people don't look past the end of their noses... Thus, whining to the tenth degree.

[illovich]

I've liked every expansion since velious, and I would have liked Kunark if I played before it came out.

Some are better than others, but that's life. I was more excited for LDON than I was for LoY, but in the end I think LoY was a better overall value for me, even if did just add 5 zones. (Frankly, I've only really utilized maybe 7 zones in velious... Thurg, GD, EW, IC, Kael (hardly) and CS. The rest are neat places that I may or may not have been to twice).

I was just thinking yesterday as several people were berating someone for daring to say they loved EQ in /ooc, "God, if the game causes you so much grief, stop playing it already!"

[Silound]

I have a thing for velious. Not the whole expansion, but the genius of the three warring factions and quested armor. That to me was a terriffic idea that should have been implemented in other expansions.

[Bennan]

Pleasing everyone...

Sony will never please everyone, thats obvious from all the class boards. Every board has posters that believe their class is broken/fine/outstanding. And its always the same with expansions.

My personal view is;

When I look at expansions I always judge them by robust content. Everquest has a huge amount of content that fits the bill of "content" but not robust content, as in fully fleshed out.

Luclin is a prime example of content that is not robust. Far too many zones are just killing mobs that are walking around the zone, or a set camp.

On the other hand Velious is an example of content that was robust (well parts of it at least), with the three factions etc.

[ianwenie]

i LOVEed LoY ---- it added a LOT more bank space... and it was an start wher i ditten have to wait about 6weeks on a CD to install and get RELLY behind in it and when all was playing in POP i had to wait 6 weeks on my CD and **** it was hard...
( yes Euro player here )
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its rarely that i have some to complane about. and i dont have any this time ether.

[Lilosh]

I too loved LoY. It was one of the main reasons I posted this topic. :-)


-Lilosh

[eniamn]

Originally posted by Silound
I have a thing for velious. Not the whole expansion, but the genius of the three warring factions and quested armor. That to me was a terriffic idea that should have been implemented in other expansions.

love velious too. i think if they had kept doing it it would have lost its charm though. wish the factions were a bit more firm though. throwing factions around is like switching underwear to some people. something you have to do but not difficult.

[Stugein]

I haven't had any huge problems with any of the past expansions. LoY, while limited, is entertaining enough. LDoN is simply a blast.

GoD though...I'm kind of on the fence about. I didn't preorder it. I don't have any immediate plans to buy it. For whatever reason it just isn't thrilling me. I'm a casual player. I level slowly (L55 after 4 years), so the new AA don't do much for me. The tribute and leadership features may turn out to be awesome, but nothing I have heard/read so far have blown me away about them. As for all the new zones..well, there's still plenty of higher end zones that I have never seen yet from the current expansions. I don't know. There's just nothing about GoD for me that is making me want to buy it. I'm sure I will eventually, maybe a few months down the road. But this will be the first expansion that I didn't either preorder or purchase within a day or two of it's release. That's just me though.

With PoP it was the planes and the books/stones and PoK. LoY it was the bankspace and spell quests and frogs. LDoN it was, well...LDoN. GoD...there's just nothing that grabs me. The only "expansion complaint" I have is, "Why didn't SoE sucessfully sell me on this? Why should I buy this?".

I know this is off-topic a tad for this thread. I'll quiet down now.

[Bennan]

The only thing that bugs me...

I have really enjoyed all the expanisions the only thing that I fear is that the developers seem to be heading down the path of releasing lop-sided content.

LOY being a good example, and I loved LOY btw. Fantastic expansion, more so for the non-raider but I don't think the pure raiders got that much out of it. LDON could be argued the same, and again I love LDON to death, the attention to the raiders didn't seem there. And now we have GOD, which I am prepared to love as well , but I am a bit concerned they focused too much on the raiders hehe.

Maybe I am an example of the can't please everyone statement made in the first post. But all I want from an expansion, is content for the Raiders and content for the Non-Raiders which I don't think is that unreasonable...

[Aethia]

Lilosh - excellent analysis. <humor on starting now>

However, my lvl 35 druid isn't happy she can't play in GoD zones.

Her evil twin adopted sister, a 65th necromancer is just thrilled she has finally found a way to ditch the little brat.

The little baby froggy warrior is having a field day hoping from stone to stone to stone playing leapfrog in PoK.

The 54 monk is annoyed at her baby brother because she had to run to all the zones, uphill, both ways, without shoes!

however, they are all little packrats (family trait) and thrilled with the expanded bank space, although the family wonders how they managed to give birth to a frog, given they've only mated with elves (must be a recessive gene from the elves) <g>

I have bought every expansion - why? because there has been at least 1 thing in every expansion that I have wanted. For me, atm GOD is a bit weak. However, I play on Stromm, a newer server and we don't have the number of players that are elementally flagged/time geared. GoD ***MAY **** give them something. It may not. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, I'm still wandering about, entranced with the graphics and the animation. I'm able to suspend my RL reality when I enter the Absymal Sea and the new zone I can never remember it's name.

If nothing else, maybe I can find a safe spot there to fish and just listen to the music.....