Exp modifyer swap

[psway]

I read a bunch of threads on here talking about how a lot of the game is concentrated in a few zones.

What about taking the existing exp modifiers and having them swap around randomly say once a month or something? Sure people would find them but it would bring everyone out into the world again.

Im pretty sure, but may be wrong, that this began happening in velious or luclin anyways. Seems like I would logon to my allakhazam account and check out what zones had now become "hotzones"

[Thulack]

Hotzones were started in 2006 so way way past our timeline. Not gonna happen. People could play in these other zones if they wanted but they dont not just because the xp isnt great.

[Yumyums Inmahtumtums]

Also, people play in these zones because they're easy.

Hot zones in places like najena, ct or paw is only going to encourage power levelling sessions.

[psway]

I think you're right about hotzones.

But we do know that its infancy started in velious, with the same patch that removed exp penalties.

It seems they did this manually until the point they decided to make it random automation.

"Zone Experience

The first and perhaps easiest to explain change that we are making to the experience system is the modification of what we call the "Zone Experience Multiplier", or 'ZEM'. Currently, every creature in game of a given level yields a fixed amount of "Base Experience" (experience before it is allocated to group members). That base experience is then multiplied by the ZEM which is set to a value in correlation with the risk in a particular zone compared with the reward; at least, that is the goal.

Recently we evaluated many underutilized dungeons and considered reasons why they might be underutilized. Some people suggested that proximity of bind locations plays a part, and as such we are considering adding more binding locations to the game. We of course will not allow everyone to bind on the doorstep of a dungeon, but these changes should hopefully reduce the potential run for a melee class. While additional binding locations probably will not be in the next patch, we did want to discuss our thoughts on the matter.

Another suggestion, one that probably has the most merit, is that some dungeons are too risky given everything concerned. The natural conclusion is that we should increase the reward in order to offset the added risk. Our contention is that most people would rather be grouping and fighting their way through a dungeon because it's more fun, but feel "forced" to sit outdoors and camp zero-risk single spawns because it is safer and thus more efficient. While that statement might be true in an ideal world, it usually results in crowding in these popular outdoor zones (for example, Lake of Ill Omen or Oasis). The crowding in these zones really results in less efficient progress than one could make in a dungeon given a good group, but is still SAFE, at least ensuring that one will not have to tolerate "going backwards".

We can increase the reward of a particular dungeon in two fashions: We can either put in good loot, or we can change the ZEM. The problem with increasing the quality or quantity of loot is that if the loot is good enough, it's more likely to draw people far above the desired level range for the dungeon, making it some place that appropriately leveled folk choose to avoid. The second problem with the ever-increasing quality of loot is inflation: as good loot becomes more widely available, its value and the prestige value from owning it declines.

In this case, we decided that the most appropriate action for several underutilized dungeons would be to increase the ZEM; that is, increase the amount of experience that everyone gets when adventuring in the zone.

As of the next patch, you will receive additional experience (per kill) in the following zones:



Droga increased by 12%
Nurga increased by 12%
Solusek's Eye (SolA) increased by 13%
Najena increased by 13%
Befallen increased by 13%
Paw increased by 13%
Permafrost increased by 13%
Kaesora increased by 18%
Qeynos Catacombs increased by 20%
Runnyeye increased by 20%
Kerra Ridge increased by 20%
The Hole increased by 25% "

[Ravager]

I think something like this should be implemented. Even though it's not classic, it would offer a classic feel, since in classic the unused zones were still populated due to 2-3k server populations and constant influx of new players not knowing everything there is to know about the game.

I would even go further and make the exp mods permanent in zones like Nurga, Najena, Paw, Cazic, Runnyeye and the Hole. Probably not going to happen though.

[Ravager]

Originally Posted by Yumyums Inmahtumtums [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also, people play in these zones because they're easy.

Hot zones in places like najena, ct or paw is only going to encourage power levelling sessions.

This is probably true too. I think the only thing that would really spread people out more is the completely non-classic answer of redistributing the loot to balance it more between all of the dungeons, which won't happen.

[psway]

Originally Posted by AceDSilva [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wonder if this server will ever get past ignorant and blind responses such as this one.

So, in our so very accurate classic timeline (with Kunark being on its third year), we all should be subjected to bloated and the same leveling zones until the end of the server's life?

Why would it be a bad thing for the staff to NOT announce which zones are the hotzones, or even WHEN they switch them? Why would that be a bad thing?

Would it be so horrible if Unrest was a nice bonus this couple weeks, and all of the sudden with no notice or warning, Oasis is riding the bonus? Is there any legitimate reason why players who don't want to go to other places, shouldn't experience their zone of choice receiving a slight bump and possible influx of players?

Oh the horror, the tragedy, the thought of having rotating ZEMs that would actually cause the population to think and not just go Lowbie > Mistmoore > CoM > Seb, whatever the track is.

What a stupid idea to actually give players a reason to move around and explore the entire game. It's a god damn good thing SOE didn't think of this until 2006, amrite?

This is kind of what I thought, random swaps at random intervals. You wouldnt know where to go, which is a classic sentiment.

Furthermore as the patch notes I posted earlier, shows this problem is classic and showed they tinkered with it for the same desired result. Those notes are from January 2001.

[Thulack]

There are zones in EQ that originally had the modifier. They then added more zones that had mods in that patch. Took them 5 years before they started adding hotzones thats rotated. Can see the list here:

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/wiki/eq:hotzones


Also need to check and make sure those zones dont have that xp mod on p99 cause it wasnt patched in til after velious release. Will get Dald on that.

[Thulack]

Originally Posted by AceDSilva [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I wonder if this server will ever get past ignorant and blind responses such as this one.

So, in our so very accurate classic timeline (with Kunark being on its third year), we all should be subjected to bloated and the same leveling zones until the end of the server's life?

Why would it be a bad thing for the staff to NOT announce which zones are the hotzones, or even WHEN they switch them? Why would that be a bad thing?

Would it be so horrible if Unrest was a nice bonus this couple weeks, and all of the sudden with no notice or warning, Oasis is riding the bonus? Is there any legitimate reason why players who don't want to go to other places, shouldn't experience their zone of choice receiving a slight bump and possible influx of players?

Oh the horror, the tragedy, the thought of having rotating ZEMs that would actually cause the population to think and not just go Lowbie > Mistmoore > CoM > Seb, whatever the track is.

What a stupid idea to actually give players a reason to move around and explore the entire game. It's a god damn good thing SOE didn't think of this until 2006, amrite?

People play here cause they want a classic experience. Deal with it.

[loramin]

Originally Posted by Thulack [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

People play here cause they want a classic experience. Deal with it.

Huh, that's kind of a funny statement just because some of the ZEMs here aren't classic. From the wiki (http://wiki.project1999.com/Recommen...and_ZEM_List):

In the old days of live EQ the server sent the actual ZEM values, which were recorded by studious players. These values were used as a basis for the EQEmu numbers, and so are in place on most stock EQEmu servers. These numbers were never known to have changed over the history of classic EQ live. However, the following important caveat applies:

Warning! The devs of p1999 have stated that they will not publicly release the current ZEM list (in the spirit of classic EQ).
The "stock" values given here, which may be representative as a whole, have definitely been changed in some zones.

In other words, the devs have already modified the ZEMs from their classic values to non-classic ones. So there would be nothing unusual about them varying them again from time to time ... unless they started doing it with any kind of hot zone-style frequency.