In what seems to be a new tradition of producers/company presidents writing to players to show that hey, they're people too so will you please stop annoying the Customer Service and Community Teams so they can get some rest and stop twitching, the EQII Senior Producer, Scott Hartsman, has a thing or two to say.
Of note, amongst the hyping up of the Adventure Packs and cosmetic add-ons, somewhere along the line someone, and a smart someone at that, found out that now and then people like to take the two M's out of MMORPG and instead play solo. Because, you know, not everyone can squeeze in finding a group, waiting 2 hours until the Priest has sold his/her loot and picked up new spells, a further 30 minutes for the Warrior to collect his spirit shard because he died coming from the next zone over, and travelling 20 minutes to a dungeon only to die in 10 seconds when you've got a mere 1 hour to spend between coming home from work and sitting down to the family dinner.
Since launch, we've added dozens of new quests and hundreds of new NPCs all over the game world, specifically for soloists and small groups. Expect the steady stream of additions like this to continue over the coming weeks and months. Whether you have a half hour by yourself or all night in a group, we want to make sure that EverQuest II has something fun for every style of player.
In tomorrow's update, expect significant solo and small group experience boosts across the board that allow for advancement that will be much more visible and feel much more satisfying.
In the following weeks' updates, there will be a new class of creatures added to the game that present an increased challenge to soloers and small groups. Specific details will be posted in the message that accompanies the update. Soloing shouldn't feel like a grind; it should be an exciting and fun style of play in its own right.
Also in those updates, brand new item rewards will be added for soloists and small-groupers. Additionally, some of the rewards that have been reserved solely for groups will also make their way, though more rarely, to the solo and small group encounters in the world. At the same time, expect group rewards to improve as well. The chances for some of the group-only ultra-rare drops will likewise be increased.
In the weeks following that, expect new dungeon instances to be made available for those who solo, duo, and trio. Exciting dungeon crawling is a core part of what people love the most about online fantasy games, and it shouldn't be reserved solely for those who choose to play in full groups.
Essentially, the way it should work is like this:
Soloing and small grouping should be a way to advance at a satisfying rate. You should be able to earn good rewards that are exciting in their own right. Soloing and small grouping should also provide a chance at the great rewards that people might not expect in anything except the traditional six-person group.
Grouping will still provide the fastest overall experience gain, but the advantage won't be as drastic as it is today. Grouping will also provide better chances at the spectacular ultra-rare rewards. This isn't a knee jerk reaction: After our designers measured what's been going on in the world, it is far from over-stuffed with ultra-rare rewards. There are actually fewer out there than we'd have expected, so making them appear somewhat more frequently than they currently are is just the right thing to do.
This constitutes as quite a departure from the origianal hallowed design decision of "group or die".
SOE...the Vision...changed...
Hold me.
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