It seems that the business people have taken over another area of the gaming world. They don’t care about player satisfaction anymore, only generating as much cash as possibly while stiffing the playes, and playing upon their addictions to remain.

I only hope that future MMORPG’s don’t go down this road.

In the time your Bard has hit 54 my Ranger is still plodding along slowly and currently at level 50. He regularly groups with a small band of friends from the guild he’s in and does ‘whatever’ as long as he considers it fun. That sometimes involves experience and sometimes doesn’t. Experience and items are not all that Everquest is about. If it’s become that way for you then it’s time you took a break.

You say you’ve spoken to people who’ve played since the start and complain of ‘nerfs’. Those people obviously didn’t play a Ranger (I started one in Jun ‘99) that has only been improved from the start. Mages may happen to be the loudest voice of complaint at the moment because they have a minimal role in high end raids but a few months ago it was Necromancers.

There will ALWAYS be people complaining their class isn’t as good as so and so… I can remember when Rogue’s were a terrible class and now are one of the most powerful in the game. The game is continually being balanced and tweaked. Just look at the hybrid and melee changes that recently occured, well recent in EQ terms, and the fact they’ve announced upcoming changes for casters (such as Ancient spells).

I do agree that high end experience is hard to get but for a Ranger I go from getting spells every 10 levels to every level. So the fact that level may take longer then they used to isn’t so bad. I also start gaining other abilities, known in EQ as disciplines, that I can use on a limited basis.

The level 55 Trueshot discipline is one most Rangers dream about allowing a Ranger to deal out massive amounts of damage with his bow for a small period of time.

Realistically I may never reach level 60 or obtain the AA (Alternate advancement, basically an area you can dedicate some, or all, of your experience to after reaching level 51 and you use each level gained to select a new ability) feature of an endless quiver as I’ll probably have departed to greener pastures (Star Wars: Galaxies) by then. Of course Sony won’t care as they’ll still be getting their share of my money.

But while I am still playing Everquest I play it to have fun with friends. The extras of loot and high end abilities are just bonuses that I may get along the way.

Finally you put your own conclusions to Brad’s comments which could work, but so could the fact he just wanted to get back to a small company where he wasn’t management and was ‘getting his hands dirty’ on a daily basis again.

I think you’ve run in to the problem of the 51-60 end game that is relatively new and hasn’t had the benefit of years of fine tuning. Take a holiday and come back just wanting to catch up with friends and have fun and take any uber loot as a bonus not a prerequisite to you having fun.

Or try another MMORPG for a similar amount of time and start discovering all the wonderful unfinished flaws it has (DAoC comes to mind) that is just basically part of the genre.

It seems to me that the same people who may have played Nethack with little text characters for free and just kind of accepted it flaws and all but are now paying money to support the commercial entity that is essential to a MMORPG somehow expect everything to be perfect in what is essentialy a ‘glitzed up’ version of the same thing.

Anyway, I’ll stop typing now or I’ll never shutup. :)

“When asked if he takes into account consumer input Flock is dismissive, relying instead on the expertise of his staff. ‘No, we never talk to consumers - they just f— us up. Someone asked for a copy of our market research which made us take the decision to do EverQuest. I said we hadn’t done any market research. Had we done, the game would never have been made. We never focus on them. Gamers don’t know what they want. We just want to know if they have a valid credit card”.