New Hot ZonesFollow

I love watching people stomp their feet over petty incongruances to their own desires. It makes me feel like I am in the third grade again!

As one who has been around one SOE game or another for the last ten years, I tend to agree there exists an attitude of entitlement. Interestingly tho, I've always felt it exists on the other side... whenever I've become engaged in discussion with anyone from SOE, I've generally come away feeling they felt they were entitled to my money, and I wasn't entitled to much of anything. It's sort of a theme throughout the EULA actually.
In the interest of fairness, it's not out of the norm for most all the online gaming industry tho. Nor is it likely to change anytime soon. In most all forms of commerce, the overwhelming majority of consumers are perfectly content to receive sub-par customer service. Rather ironic in a national economy that has abandoned so much of its manufacturing production in favor of service industries. When it's practically all we do, you'd think we could find a way to do it a bit better.

Seriously? Have you ever spent much time reading threads on the EQ boards?

For a dev to only flash this attitude rarely is an amazing feat in itself considering the childish mess of people they put up with there and still reply to and have discussions with daily...

...I guarantee you if you read enough of the silly, pointless rants and whines on that forum and probably that whole thread the post originated from in the first place, you'd gain a whole new understanding what the devs deal with. And yet they still spend time they probably can barely spare discussing the game with the players.

In terms of MY argument FAILING, the best I can infer from your post is that I'm saying it's OK to remove hot zone augs IF they tell customers up front? You're saying that since they introduced them and maintained them for 3+ years THEY CAN NEVER TAKE THEM BACK EVEN IF THEY EXPLAIN IT COURTEOUSLY AND UP FRONT??

That's a tad UNrealistic. I mean in this rotten economy companies of all sorts are reducing employee benefits, product selection, services and other perks just to survive. Nowhere is there any contract between us and Sony as to the current entirety of what they deliver to us for our $14.95 a month continuing forever. They reserve the right to change the game whenever they want and however they want. WE reserve the right to cancel our subscription pretty much whenever we want. THAT'S the contract.

Please don't put me in the unlikely position of DEFENDING a big company! LOL. But let's be adults here; there is NO Santa Claus, folks.



I don't know if it really IS unreasonable. It's bad business not to warn us and maybe explain the decision at the time of its introduction. I don't know about yours, but none of the boxes I bought of EQ and its expansions over the years "guaranteed" us hot zone augs.... in fact, none mention hot zones at all. And indeed IF any did and I missed it, I'm "reasonably" sure none of them said Sony guarantees to have new hot zones with nice new augments every year.


Edited, Jul 21st 2009 10:37am by Sippin

OK...I wasn't too upset about the hotzone thing, but I think Elidroth has the sense of entitlements reversed.

SOE didn't implement hotzones and fill them with aug drops to "help out" players. Not any more than they implemented a whole new set of armor (ie, Defiant) that drops everywhere and often, and represents a significant upgrade to what many characters were wearing.

They did it to make their product more attractive to a customer base that was rapidly departing to competitor's products which offered more opportunities to quickly level and equip than does Everquest. And it did help a little. I played in hotzones(in fact, I leveled three alts into the high 60's in hotzones) and met many other players that did, too. It probably kept me from giving up EQ when many of my friends and guildmates left EQ altogether. Maybe it increased subscriptions (or decreased cancellations) a little, or more than a little. I don't know. But that was clearly its intent.

I'm actually ok with a product team that says "we prioritized our time somewhere else this time, but we'll be back on this aspect of system maintenance in the next cycle. Thanks for understanding!"

A product team that says "***** you...we're rolling back SOE's policy of trying to make it easier to level and equip lower level characters" is a different matter. I'm guessing the author of those comments got called on the carpet for them privately. If not, he should have been, because I'm guessing that he wasn't authorized to publicly controvert SOE's stated policy on that matter.

In the end I think the message to Elidroth and his boss should be "if you guys think we're going to continue to pay you to deliver inconsistent results and abuse us for it when we question poor delivery, you've got another thing coming. If you don't like us as customers, then find some others. We could use our money for other things. I'm inclined to recommend we stop paying you."

I haven't logged on in several weeks, and have been debating about whether to log on more, or cancel my subscription. I'm not saying Elidroth's comment will sway that decision. But the availability of fun and rewarding hotzones probably will.

I've seen this discussed in game enough, and i really just don't get it. The perception of hot zones has become so warped that i really hope that they don't do them anymore.

As stated, the hot zones were introduced to offer extra options in underused zones to players who were tired of the very popular zones. Before hot zones the most popular zones were popular because after considering exp, difficulty, loot, access, etc., they were the best, or at least good, options. The hot zone is rarely one of the better options, and it isn't supposed to be. It's just supposed to be an option. Now, if the hot zone is even an okay choice for a group, it is the most popular zone at that level. Exactly the type of zone that inspired the creation of hot zones.

There was certainly no need for new augs. If you want augs, just go to the old hot zones. All the augs still drop, all the quests still work. If you do half of it then you certainly will be past the point where the new stuff would be that useful. Of course if you only exp in the current hot zones you'll miss out on the gear, but putting that stuff in every new hot zone isn't the answer. How many augs do you want to drop? Without ever trying, all of my gear is augged and i've let hundreds rot.

The hot zones are such a small part of the game. While this burger and fries analogy accurately preserves the roles of everything, the magnitude is all wrong. The hot zones aren't free fries. That would be quite a large part of the meal. It's more like getting some extra sesame seeds on your bun or a slightly larger piece of lettuce for free. Sure, they can be nice. But they are just so inconsequential.

While I somewhat agree with this, the fact is that the new hot zone drops are typically the only thing worth looting in the zones, especially the older expansion zones. The hot zone drops were essentially SOE's way to get around reitemizing old zones -- "Hey, we upped the xp and added an augment, a melee drop and a caster drop!". I suppose with Defiant everywhere, SOE probably feels that reitemization is effectively done.

As Saguaro notes, the hot zones (and drops) aren't a favor. The SOE developers aren't trying to be your buddy. It's an attempt to retain customers in a constantly expanding field in which EQ grows progressively more antiquated.

I like the hotzone concept, but maybe it is time to tweak it (since I agree that there is enough hotzone quests and drops existing from the past few years).


My suggestion is just perma-hotzone everything pre Omens of War. That takes care of the under 70 casual crew very nicely. Most lowbie hotzones are used to powerlevel alts anyways, this would provide choices to the people not trying to do that (aka the altoholics that like to play them up solo).

Then do a 3-4 month rotation of a select few hotzones for the 70-85+ (thinking ahead) crowd.

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As far as re-itemization of older content: I agree wholeheartedly that it needs to happen but certainly won't hold my breath waiting on it.

I would have severely limited the introduction of new trash and tradeskill items many expansions ago and just re-incorporated the old drops. For example: a level 85 quest based out of Kaladim would still need an orc scalp from crushbone. Everything needs an orc scalp.

Well, for 51-70 I suppose you can make the AA curve case. And arguably skinspikes potions are a brainless pocket PL well into the 40s.

Hotzones aren't really necessary at all, we've gotten used to them though. I liked it best when it was dungeon XP bonus (with the Hole being the highest %) that attracted the XP hungry.

The downside to normalizing hotzone xp 1-50 would be that you'd level up too fast if you were truly trying to see the scenery. Not sure many do that nowadays though.

BTW, I amend my earlier assessment of TFS as a hot zone. It's a GREAT hot zone! Each level is much larger than I remember and it's a fun upward "crawl" to go through the tower. The keys to each level drop fairly often (maybe 1-2 hours per level, depending on your kill rate) and they become soul-bound so you can destroy them as soon as you use each. The layout of each floor is different, and interesting, and the mobs change from floor to floor. If you're the right level to get XP here, definitely check it out. One of the better-designed dungeons in the game, IMO.

Just did ToFS top to bottom last night with a 55 monk (me) and 53 bard (friend). Valsera was dicey, Tserrina not so bad. I spent alot of time spinning in circles from spell effects.

I feel that ToFS is the best 1980's linear-style PC rpg dungeon in the game hands down, and it's a dungeon-style I wish they would do some more takes on.

On of the smarter things they did with ToFS was allow you to get out on multiple floors.