To The Developers of Sony Online Entertainment's "Everquest II" - Page 5

Magnificent · 04-16-2009, 07:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jorp

This thread and it's author are extremely gay.

Reading the OP reminded me of a Tuor post.

This.

Kantaris · 04-16-2009, 01:09 PM

Meta · 04-16-2009, 03:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

Some constructive criticism:

1) Your opening paragraph does not contribute in a way that enhances my understanding for the point that you are trying to make in the essay.

2) The Body of the essay seems to have ideas that are loosely strung together that do not guide the reader towards a point that you want to make.

3) In the end, remember that developers change and that most of them and that the romanticizing 'the vision' does not help when it remains a vague floating idea in the MMO collective psyche.

Comments aside of the constructive criticism:

- I read the vision, it became Vanguard. The original launch of EQ2 was the closest incarnation of 'the vision' that I read.

- I'm likely the only person that will ever understand the extent of the mechanics disaster EQ2 was at launch. It was a political environment back then and I had to tread lightly until the climate settled and I landed in combat mechanics May-June of 2005 (following the 'boat tutorial' and new itemization diversity rules) to pull LU13/DoF, through KoS/EoF. Not everyone is a coffee drinking, sushi inhaling, 80-100 hours/week, roll out of bed and drive 1 mile to work, then back just to sleep and repeat, overachieving obsessive-compulsive/perfectionistic personality with a personal mission to fix and balance everything that also happened to play the game in a raiding guild. I hit the ground running, starting the week before that I had to talk at Fan Faire about upcoming changes, and 4 months out to DoF. Prior to LU13, most devs did not have an interest in playing the game and only one or two other devs than me had a level 50, thus the team (at the time) as a whole were largely unaware of the specific interactions causing the problems, but everyone knew that there were severe problems at launch.

I was given carte blanche to fix/balance the classes and all abilities by my supervisor after I brought up that I wanted to do a combat revamp (original discussion prior to my involvement was to fix mitigation/resists only). There is no armchair design; anything I wanted to change had to be done by me on my own time. How I justified working though mostly voluntary hours through fixing and making changes nobody even knew were issues in the first place; I believed deeply at the time that putting myself in that position would save EQ2 in the long-run from steep bleeding post-launch and benefit everyone in the company and the fans that were loyal to the game. New talent and changes in team structure also arrived and contributed to the changes in zone populations, quests, encounters, raids, and storyline at that time. Rather altruistic thing to do, and something I would never put myself in a position again. Balance was just one of the things I worked on, much of my work went into expansion planning, mechanics functionality, and ultimately achievement design KoS-EoF. I left the 24 classes in as balanced of a state with an identity for what I could reasonably achieve with the time that I had available for them before I left and that also met the demands of other team members (such as Enchanter control limitations I had to work with).

It sounds like what we all moan on about; that EQ2 has suffered from a lack of the right type of support from the people who hold the purse strings, is in fact correct. And that the only reason that EQ2 is in the state it currently is (as opposed to being in a far worse state) is due to crazy workaholics who probably work most of their hours unpaid.

Questions:

1. How would you have done it differently if you'd been able to have an influence on how the budget was spent?

2. Do you agree with me that EQ2 really could have been and should be something really magnificent rather than the spectator to the MMO market that it is? If so, at what point was the opportunity to grab the market by the balls missed?

3. Do you still play and do you agree that DE assassins are suspiciously overpowered?

4. How do you see things panning out in the near future for EQ2?

Deson · 04-16-2009, 03:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

insider info's

Wow, not working for SOE must be liberating. Thanks for again confirming what I've suspected since Beta.

Just one question since I'm sure others will be asked: Why'd you keep the 24 classes?

Sylvanking · 04-16-2009, 05:04 PM

Wasn't there a Dev before aerilick that did the same thing with brigands? Is he still there?

Deson · 04-16-2009, 05:05 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylvanking

Wasn't there a Dev before aerilick that did the same thing with brigands? Is he still there?

Lockeye? Same guy who tried repeatedly to nerf the shit out of them?

Was that sarcasm given he's posted here(Locke)? Hard to tell with text.

Kriptini · 04-16-2009, 07:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Locke

(Constructive criticism and former-dev info)

Thanks for the constructive criticism, it's appreciated.

As for your other comments, I'm surprised to hear that the other developers were blatantly unaware of specific causes of issues within the game, here I thought they were just unwilling to fix them. I wonder if that's still true for today's developers...

Kriptini · 04-16-2009, 07:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jorp

This thread and it's author are extremely gay.

Reading the OP reminded me of a Tuor post.

And by posting here, you've partaken in the "homosexual buttsecks." Grats, I'm surprised you haven't drowned a pool of your own hypocracy if you post like this all over the place.

Pitty · 04-16-2009, 07:47 PM

look at what EQ2 has done in the last 5 months, then compare that to other MMO's such as WAR and EVE online.

You might say WAR is new and getting lots of love, but then take a look at EVE and realise the game is just as old as EQ2.

I still check on the EQ2 boards every day, and all i see is rubbish community building exercises, and joke threads.

The dev chats are full of "Sorry, no plans" or "Not enough time or manpower"

I loved EQ2 for 4 years, then something happened, the stark realisation that the game was in maintenance mode

Pink Poodle · 04-16-2009, 07:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pitty

look at what EQ2 has done in the last 5 months, then compare that to other MMO's such as WAR and EVE online.

You might say WAR is new and getting lots of love, but then take a look at EVE and realise the game is just as old as EQ2.

I still check on the EQ2 boards every day, and all i see is rubbish community building exercises, and joke threads.

The dev chats are full of "Sorry, no plans" or "Not enough time or manpower"

I loved EQ2 for 4 years, then something happened, the stark realisation that the game was in maintenance mode

yeah EVE is getting a fuckton of things lately, come on SOE