HEY, I KNOW, LET’S LISTEN TO THE PLAYERS, GUYS! COME ON, IT’LL BE FUN! [Author: Lum the Mad]

Demonix was the first to point this thread out to me (and also asked for mad pr0pz0rz – consider yourself madly propped). Of course, since I was swamped all day, you don’t get to read about it until now, after it’s been on every other EQ news site. But hey, that’s why you come here – to get the news third.

Anyway, the upshot is that Brad McQuaid actually listened when you folks told him that people didn’t group because soloing – while infinitely more tedious – was somewhat more efficient.

After much discussion today, both within and without Verant, he announced the following changes to be implemented the patch after next:

• Increasing the experience bonus for being in a group, from the current 2% per additional group member to a significant bonus to be announced when it is released
• Increasing the XP modifier for underutilized OldWorld/Kunark dungeons
• Placing more bind spots near underutilized areas

The initial response from the player base was “Damn! He LISTENED to us! Now if they actually DO this stuff, we’ll die of shock!”. My initial response was “They’re actually promising to release the numbers they’re boosting the bonuses by? Daaaaaa-aaaaamn. They’re learning.”

Meanwhile reports continue to come in of Verant’s GMs investigating aggressively the possibility of duping. One player said that he was interrogated for having “too much plat in his bank”. Gee… over-zealous investigation of exploiting – we’ve never seen that before in a MMOG.