Roundtable Q&A: Dave Georgeson Discusses GU60
This article originally appeared on ZAM on April 29, 2011.
Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff recently participated in a roundtable interview with Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss EverQuest II's Game Update 60 and beyond.
We recently had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with EverQuest II Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss “The Children of War” Game Update 60 that's scheduled to launch on May 17. This is the first update in the Age's End Prophecy saga, which was introduced in the Destiny of Velious expansion. Of course, we also asked some general EverQuest II questions that touch on various aspects of the game's future.
Georgeson explains that the bulk of GU60 focuses on PvP and battlegrounds. He gives details on the update's new battleground map and game type, as well as a new lobby system. He also confirms that there will be a new expansion next year that has nothing to do with Velious, and he hints that players will soon be able to enjoy some new transport mechanisms at levels 30 and 60.
Keep reading below for the full Q&A!
UPDATE May 15, 2011: This Game Update has been delayed since the original posting of this article and is expected to hit Live servers in late May or early June.
Will there be any gameplay changes to the EverQuest II core experience with Game Update 60? How much new content can players expect to see in the update?
Dave Georgeson: The gameplay changes that are happening in this game update are mostly revolved around PvP and battlegrounds. When battlegrounds came out, we were really pushed to get it out by the time we wanted to get it out. Some of the stuff wasn't as refined as we wanted. What we're doing is going back and addressing the features that battlegrounds revolve around and making them a lot more fun and balanced. We're adding things like a lobby so PvP players will be able to work together to create a better community. When you come out of a battleground game, you'll be in this very cool battleground lobby area. Everybody that comes out of a battleground game will be able to hang out in that lobby and all of the merchants will be there, as well as other stuff. That way they can mill together and decide to go into a game together and so on, and have more fun.
As far as the mechanics changes themselves, we're setting things up so that the armor for PvP is more specialized and easier to fill up with adornments the way you want. And in general, we're going through and making a bunch of gameplay mechanics changes so that it's more fun to play in PvP. Future game updates will deal more with stuff outside of PvP, but this one is mostly about that.
Content-wise, there's a bunch of stuff coming out in this update. We have three new instance dungeons, three new raids, the Crystal Caverns area, new heritage quest chapters, and a whole bunch of different things. I think players will be really happy. I'd say that people are just now starting to finish Destiny of Velious content. There are always some people who race ahead and finish early, but the majority of players are just now working through it all. The timing is good for a new release.
What's in this update, as well as recent updates, that will bring old and new players to the game?
Georgeson: If you haven't played for awhile and you have a level 90 character, you should come back and check out the game because flying is amazing. I know flying has been done in other games, but it makes such a huge difference in the game. We've been doing a lot of stuff with refinements on intuitiveness and working to make the game in general more fun. If you talk to people who have played Destiny of Velious versus older expansions, I think what you'll find is people are excited about what we've done as far as quality and improving the pace and the drama of the events, and definitely improving your access to the storyline as you go through the game. There's always been a lot of lore in EverQuest 2, but a lot of it has been fairly successfully hidden. What we're doing is developing new ways to bring that up into your face as you go through the game so you can understand what's going on and why you're going on adventures.
This year we'll be concentrating specifically on increasing the quality of content, as well as delivering more content. There are a lot of reasons to come back and check the game out right now, but there will be even more as we go through this year.
Can you give us some details about the new Vanquish battleground type?
Georgeson: Vanquish is the battleground game type we're adding in Game Update 60, and the battleground itself is called the Frozen Tundra. It's pretty cool. It's very different from the other battlegrounds. There will be up to 18 players on a side and there are NPCs involved in this battleground. Basically there are these towers on each end of the battlefield and NPCs from both sides are pushing against each other to try to take over the opposing tower. There's more lore to it than that, but that's basically what it is. If the NPCs are left on their own, they basically create a stalemate in the middle and they can't really push through to succeed. The players are doing two things: they're trying to protect their side and get the NPCs to the other tower, and also be able to hold the other tower. There are mechanisms by which the scoring is done, but there's a lot of protect and hold involved, and well as capture and hold elements.
Frozen Tundra looks brilliant. I think people are really going to like the way it looks. It feels very outdoors, which isn't typical. The new game type is excellent. We've been playtesting it recently and having a good time with it.
Can you tell us about the itemization tweaks coming in the update?
Georgeson: As far as near-term tweaks, one of the things people didn't like recently that we kind of had to suck up and suffer through as developers was going down to essentially a single primary stat for all the classes when they're hunting for loot. We knew that wasn't the best result, and of course the players didn't like it that well at all, but it was a necessary step for us to do what we're going to do next. We're going to start adding in the secondary stats and adding in a bunch of other mechanisms that will make it easier for people to understand what's going on with their items and how they affect their character, as well as making it a lot more fun.
We're doing some small things, like adding in an adornments interface so you can see easily what's slotted in and what's not, but it also allows more flexibility so you can decide what types of adornments you want. We're doing a lot of things like that and they'll be debuting all the way through the next couple of years. We have a slate of stuff we want to do, and we'll start releasing more details on that in the next month or so after we nail down the annual slate.
Will there be a new overland zone in Game Update 60?
Georgeson: No. There won't be a new overland for a little bit.
When should we expect Game Update 61?
Georgeson: In mid-August.
You've stated that Velious content will be coming for a long time. Will there be another expansion next year?
Georgeson: There will be an expansion, but that's about as much as I can say about it right now. We're really excited about what is going to be in the expansion. It has nothing to do with Velious. We can't wait to be able to tell you about it, but we're not ready yet.
Everybody loved the original Velious back in EQ1, and it was really big content. We have this Age's End Prophecy and we wanted to make sure that we took the time to tell that story properly, and have the dramatic moments and cliffhangers and elements that need to be in that story for people to actually appreciate it. After looking at how long it would take to be able to do that and how big the expansion pack would have to be if we wanted to roll it up into just part two, we decided to create a schedule in which we can continue to put out releases for the expansion and tell the story the way that we want to.
The really good flipside of that is that anyone who buys Destiny of Velious is getting honestly one of the biggest and baddest expansions that has ever been made for an MMO. We're going to be putting this stuff out for awhile. I know how big it's going to be and I can't really tell people because it's too far in advance, but it's going to be huge. I think eventually people will be really happy with it. They like the game right now as it stands with Destiny of Velious, but by the time we're done with it it's going to be epic.
Why aren't flying mounts available at lower levels?
Georgeson: Somewhere between GU60 and GU61 we're going to release a couple new features that will be very cool. What we've identified is that having fliers at level 90 is a really cool hook. It's a way for people who push to 90 to show off that they got there, and it's also a really neat gameplay experience. All of a sudden everything feels very free. You've been walking and running all over the world for 90 levels and this just feels fantastic when you get there.
We have a lot of people who have gotten to level 90 and get used to flying and then they don't want to play their alts anymore. At levels 30 and 60 we're going to add some more hooks in there and we're going to create transport mechanisms by which players can have fun as they level toward 90. That's all I'll say at this point.
How many people are now playing EverQuest II?
Georgeson: A lot. I can't answer that, but I will say that populations are pretty solid across all servers. EQ2X is still doing extremely well and we're quite pleased with how many players are playing the game, but we can't get into specific numbers.
Have you ever thought about the possibly of merging the EQ2X server with live servers, or is that completely off the table?
Georgeson: It's never off the table, but right now the players on the EQ2 live side of the fence are adamant that they don't want that to happen, and so we haven't broken that fence down. If the players ever decide that they would love to freely transfer back and forth, I'll be honest and say I'd love for that to happen.
The chief concern is that players on the EQ2 live side are essentially earning everything they own, and players on the EQ2X side can purchase things like mastercrafted armor and self rez scrolls. The players on the EQ2 live side feel that those people are essentially using their wallets to achieve a goal they had to earn. They don't want those characters to come over because they feel that it cheapens their own experience. That's an understandable reaction. If the majority of the people on the EQ2 live side decide that it would be fun to freely transfer back and forth, then at that time we'd break the wall down, but probably not until then.
Can you talk a little about the recent discussion surrounding your winback promotion ideas for level 90 characters? Do you have any other ideas for getting players into the game?
Georgeson: Sure we do. That's one of the things we talk about all the time. The conversation on the forums was hopefully the first of many of that kind of conversation. What I was really trying to do was get people into more of a conversational attitude about the game. It worked to a certain extent, but it was a little bit of a culture shock because they're not used to me doing that. It's going to take a little while before they get used to it, but it'll be really good once we get to that point.
As far as brainstorming about the ways of bringing players into EQ2 live, we have lots of internal discussions about what's going on. We're talking about revitalizing the free trial and a bunch of other stuff. We don't have anything really solid, but that conversation with the players gave me a lot of ideas that we've talked about internally already. I think that some good things will come out of it. It was a really productive conversation for me personally, and hopefully the players will embrace those in the future.
Were you surprised at the reaction you received from the players?
Georgeson: I was only surprised that I got so many reasonable conversations back (laughs). I fully expected people to hate the idea, but what I wanted to do was discuss the reasons for why they hated the idea, so we could tinker with those reasons and figure out what would work. That was really successful for us.
Do you have any details on your plans for veteran rewards?
Georgeson: I can't really say what players should expect to see because we're still brainstorming the ideas. One of the crazy ideas we're talking about – this isn't for sure, and we don't have plans for implementation – is it would be really cool is if you were earning tokens as a veteran the longer you play. Then it would be nice if there was a catalog of veteran rewards you could buy from so you could basically play, earn tokens and then buy from a a catalog of items. We'd like to move in that direction, but the details of that program might fluctuate wildly from what I just described.
Public quests seem to be very popular. Are there any plans to add more? Are you considering to add them in the lower level zones?
Georgeson: Yes and yes. But we don't have any details yet. We have a lot of stuff to do between the Age's End Prophecy, all the Velious stuff we're doing, the Freeport revamp, and all of the different game features and mechanisms we're adding. There's a huge slew of stuff we're doing. And we want to go back through and rework a bunch of the old areas and add in public quests and things like that. The dev team will not be bored, let's put it that way.
Once EverQuest Next comes out, there will be three EQ games on the shelves. How do you see EverQuest II fitting into the EQ family once that game is released?
Georgeson: EverQuest Next is going to be a very different kind of game. EverQuest II, in my opinion, will continue to exist side by side with EverQuest Next in perpetuity. I don't see any reason why either product should ever die. They will end up being extremely different products and will attract different audiences.
Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff recently participated in a roundtable interview with Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss EverQuest II's Game Update 60 and beyond.
We recently had the chance to participate in a roundtable interview with EverQuest II Executive Producer Dave Georgeson to discuss “The Children of War” Game Update 60 that's scheduled to launch on May 17. This is the first update in the Age's End Prophecy saga, which was introduced in the Destiny of Velious expansion. Of course, we also asked some general EverQuest II questions that touch on various aspects of the game's future.
Georgeson explains that the bulk of GU60 focuses on PvP and battlegrounds. He gives details on the update's new battleground map and game type, as well as a new lobby system. He also confirms that there will be a new expansion next year that has nothing to do with Velious, and he hints that players will soon be able to enjoy some new transport mechanisms at levels 30 and 60.
Keep reading below for the full Q&A!
UPDATE May 15, 2011: This Game Update has been delayed since the original posting of this article and is expected to hit Live servers in late May or early June.
Will there be any gameplay changes to the EverQuest II core experience with Game Update 60? How much new content can players expect to see in the update?
Dave Georgeson: The gameplay changes that are happening in this game update are mostly revolved around PvP and battlegrounds. When battlegrounds came out, we were really pushed to get it out by the time we wanted to get it out. Some of the stuff wasn't as refined as we wanted. What we're doing is going back and addressing the features that battlegrounds revolve around and making them a lot more fun and balanced. We're adding things like a lobby so PvP players will be able to work together to create a better community. When you come out of a battleground game, you'll be in this very cool battleground lobby area. Everybody that comes out of a battleground game will be able to hang out in that lobby and all of the merchants will be there, as well as other stuff. That way they can mill together and decide to go into a game together and so on, and have more fun.
As far as the mechanics changes themselves, we're setting things up so that the armor for PvP is more specialized and easier to fill up with adornments the way you want. And in general, we're going through and making a bunch of gameplay mechanics changes so that it's more fun to play in PvP. Future game updates will deal more with stuff outside of PvP, but this one is mostly about that.
Content-wise, there's a bunch of stuff coming out in this update. We have three new instance dungeons, three new raids, the Crystal Caverns area, new heritage quest chapters, and a whole bunch of different things. I think players will be really happy. I'd say that people are just now starting to finish Destiny of Velious content. There are always some people who race ahead and finish early, but the majority of players are just now working through it all. The timing is good for a new release.
What's in this update, as well as recent updates, that will bring old and new players to the game?
Georgeson: If you haven't played for awhile and you have a level 90 character, you should come back and check out the game because flying is amazing. I know flying has been done in other games, but it makes such a huge difference in the game. We've been doing a lot of stuff with refinements on intuitiveness and working to make the game in general more fun. If you talk to people who have played Destiny of Velious versus older expansions, I think what you'll find is people are excited about what we've done as far as quality and improving the pace and the drama of the events, and definitely improving your access to the storyline as you go through the game. There's always been a lot of lore in EverQuest 2, but a lot of it has been fairly successfully hidden. What we're doing is developing new ways to bring that up into your face as you go through the game so you can understand what's going on and why you're going on adventures.
This year we'll be concentrating specifically on increasing the quality of content, as well as delivering more content. There are a lot of reasons to come back and check the game out right now, but there will be even more as we go through this year.
Can you give us some details about the new Vanquish battleground type?
Georgeson: Vanquish is the battleground game type we're adding in Game Update 60, and the battleground itself is called the Frozen Tundra. It's pretty cool. It's very different from the other battlegrounds. There will be up to 18 players on a side and there are NPCs involved in this battleground. Basically there are these towers on each end of the battlefield and NPCs from both sides are pushing against each other to try to take over the opposing tower. There's more lore to it than that, but that's basically what it is. If the NPCs are left on their own, they basically create a stalemate in the middle and they can't really push through to succeed. The players are doing two things: they're trying to protect their side and get the NPCs to the other tower, and also be able to hold the other tower. There are mechanisms by which the scoring is done, but there's a lot of protect and hold involved, and well as capture and hold elements.
Frozen Tundra looks brilliant. I think people are really going to like the way it looks. It feels very outdoors, which isn't typical. The new game type is excellent. We've been playtesting it recently and having a good time with it.
Can you tell us about the itemization tweaks coming in the update?
Georgeson: As far as near-term tweaks, one of the things people didn't like recently that we kind of had to suck up and suffer through as developers was going down to essentially a single primary stat for all the classes when they're hunting for loot. We knew that wasn't the best result, and of course the players didn't like it that well at all, but it was a necessary step for us to do what we're going to do next. We're going to start adding in the secondary stats and adding in a bunch of other mechanisms that will make it easier for people to understand what's going on with their items and how they affect their character, as well as making it a lot more fun.
We're doing some small things, like adding in an adornments interface so you can see easily what's slotted in and what's not, but it also allows more flexibility so you can decide what types of adornments you want. We're doing a lot of things like that and they'll be debuting all the way through the next couple of years. We have a slate of stuff we want to do, and we'll start releasing more details on that in the next month or so after we nail down the annual slate.
Will there be a new overland zone in Game Update 60?
Georgeson: No. There won't be a new overland for a little bit.
When should we expect Game Update 61?
Georgeson: In mid-August.
You've stated that Velious content will be coming for a long time. Will there be another expansion next year?
Georgeson: There will be an expansion, but that's about as much as I can say about it right now. We're really excited about what is going to be in the expansion. It has nothing to do with Velious. We can't wait to be able to tell you about it, but we're not ready yet.
Everybody loved the original Velious back in EQ1, and it was really big content. We have this Age's End Prophecy and we wanted to make sure that we took the time to tell that story properly, and have the dramatic moments and cliffhangers and elements that need to be in that story for people to actually appreciate it. After looking at how long it would take to be able to do that and how big the expansion pack would have to be if we wanted to roll it up into just part two, we decided to create a schedule in which we can continue to put out releases for the expansion and tell the story the way that we want to.
The really good flipside of that is that anyone who buys Destiny of Velious is getting honestly one of the biggest and baddest expansions that has ever been made for an MMO. We're going to be putting this stuff out for awhile. I know how big it's going to be and I can't really tell people because it's too far in advance, but it's going to be huge. I think eventually people will be really happy with it. They like the game right now as it stands with Destiny of Velious, but by the time we're done with it it's going to be epic.
Why aren't flying mounts available at lower levels?
Georgeson: Somewhere between GU60 and GU61 we're going to release a couple new features that will be very cool. What we've identified is that having fliers at level 90 is a really cool hook. It's a way for people who push to 90 to show off that they got there, and it's also a really neat gameplay experience. All of a sudden everything feels very free. You've been walking and running all over the world for 90 levels and this just feels fantastic when you get there.
We have a lot of people who have gotten to level 90 and get used to flying and then they don't want to play their alts anymore. At levels 30 and 60 we're going to add some more hooks in there and we're going to create transport mechanisms by which players can have fun as they level toward 90. That's all I'll say at this point.
How many people are now playing EverQuest II?
Georgeson: A lot. I can't answer that, but I will say that populations are pretty solid across all servers. EQ2X is still doing extremely well and we're quite pleased with how many players are playing the game, but we can't get into specific numbers.
Have you ever thought about the possibly of merging the EQ2X server with live servers, or is that completely off the table?
Georgeson: It's never off the table, but right now the players on the EQ2 live side of the fence are adamant that they don't want that to happen, and so we haven't broken that fence down. If the players ever decide that they would love to freely transfer back and forth, I'll be honest and say I'd love for that to happen.
The chief concern is that players on the EQ2 live side are essentially earning everything they own, and players on the EQ2X side can purchase things like mastercrafted armor and self rez scrolls. The players on the EQ2 live side feel that those people are essentially using their wallets to achieve a goal they had to earn. They don't want those characters to come over because they feel that it cheapens their own experience. That's an understandable reaction. If the majority of the people on the EQ2 live side decide that it would be fun to freely transfer back and forth, then at that time we'd break the wall down, but probably not until then.
Can you talk a little about the recent discussion surrounding your winback promotion ideas for level 90 characters? Do you have any other ideas for getting players into the game?
Georgeson: Sure we do. That's one of the things we talk about all the time. The conversation on the forums was hopefully the first of many of that kind of conversation. What I was really trying to do was get people into more of a conversational attitude about the game. It worked to a certain extent, but it was a little bit of a culture shock because they're not used to me doing that. It's going to take a little while before they get used to it, but it'll be really good once we get to that point.
As far as brainstorming about the ways of bringing players into EQ2 live, we have lots of internal discussions about what's going on. We're talking about revitalizing the free trial and a bunch of other stuff. We don't have anything really solid, but that conversation with the players gave me a lot of ideas that we've talked about internally already. I think that some good things will come out of it. It was a really productive conversation for me personally, and hopefully the players will embrace those in the future.
Were you surprised at the reaction you received from the players?
Georgeson: I was only surprised that I got so many reasonable conversations back (laughs). I fully expected people to hate the idea, but what I wanted to do was discuss the reasons for why they hated the idea, so we could tinker with those reasons and figure out what would work. That was really successful for us.
Do you have any details on your plans for veteran rewards?
Georgeson: I can't really say what players should expect to see because we're still brainstorming the ideas. One of the crazy ideas we're talking about – this isn't for sure, and we don't have plans for implementation – is it would be really cool is if you were earning tokens as a veteran the longer you play. Then it would be nice if there was a catalog of veteran rewards you could buy from so you could basically play, earn tokens and then buy from a a catalog of items. We'd like to move in that direction, but the details of that program might fluctuate wildly from what I just described.
Public quests seem to be very popular. Are there any plans to add more? Are you considering to add them in the lower level zones?
Georgeson: Yes and yes. But we don't have any details yet. We have a lot of stuff to do between the Age's End Prophecy, all the Velious stuff we're doing, the Freeport revamp, and all of the different game features and mechanisms we're adding. There's a huge slew of stuff we're doing. And we want to go back through and rework a bunch of the old areas and add in public quests and things like that. The dev team will not be bored, let's put it that way.
Once EverQuest Next comes out, there will be three EQ games on the shelves. How do you see EverQuest II fitting into the EQ family once that game is released?
Georgeson: EverQuest Next is going to be a very different kind of game. EverQuest II, in my opinion, will continue to exist side by side with EverQuest Next in perpetuity. I don't see any reason why either product should ever die. They will end up being extremely different products and will attract different audiences.