Originally Posted by firamas

lulz x42

clueless.

Originally Posted by firamas

so who are they going to pay that:

A) isn't an active EQ2 player on a live server
B) is skilled enough to carry through the execution needed on these endgame fights

...uh? ....uh?

are you talking about a dedicated professional playtest guild to test all of their beta raid encounters and post-release raid tweaks? their current playtesters can barely keep up with the basic shit they do to ensure the solo/heroic content is in line... and the closed betas on the test server prior to each expansion (the setting for this entire drama) aren't as productive as they could be.

do you know how much it would cost to employ 24 paid playtesters as full time SoE employees? you're talking the better part of $1mil/year. and telling them they can't play on live servers in their off time... how are you going to regulate that if they want to be sneakysneaky about it?

what they've been doing with guilds like NPU/SD is the most cost effective solution for them.

Originally Posted by Johnny50

So pretty much, any guild that takes down trak now after that post will have been cheating so to speak, unless the encounter is changed.

Originally Posted by firamas

what's funny about all this anger recently is that it's almost completely misguided. anyone in a raid guild knows that mob mechanics can be learned simply by taking repeated pulls on the encounter and testing certain things. it's not the strat, it's the execution. guilds like NPU, SD, CL, etc, just happen to be exceptionally guild at the execution. =)

it takes between ~2 to ~6 pulls on most mobs until you have screenshots of all the buffs/debuffs and all of the AE timers refined and put into ACT... from there's it's just a matter of not sucking at the game and being able to come up with a strat that works around those mechanics. if scripted events happen at a certain % during the fight, you'll probably wipe the first time you encounter it, but you quickly adapt and move on. once in awhile there are unique effects that require a bit more thought, but there's nothing in game that is so completely mystifying as to confuse the top tier of raid leaders.

yes, the information that NPU received was extremely detailed. HOWEVER, they were beta testing endgame encounters for SoE during the RoK beta period, and without feeding them all the encounter mechanics up front the trial & error process would have taken a lot longer. the point of doing that was to have NPU test the script and ensure everything was working correctly (not bugged), and to test if the encounter was literally unbeatable even by the best of the best worldwide. lyndro was present in zone at times and would burn Trakanon down to certain %'s to test script triggers, etc.

i dunno, maybe i'm just cynical, but raiding (strategy wise) in this game is NOT hard at all. the difficultly lies ENTIRELY in the execution of those strats... keeping 24 people completely and utterly focused for 10-15 minutes at a time. every single person has to pull off perfect execution. little to no room for mistakes.

do you really think there's so many raid guilds that still aren't in VP right now simply because they "dont have the strats" to do it? =)

Originally Posted by Fizbiz

uh ... hu....

But its not the best thing for the game for obvious reasons.

$1 million dollars for testers? Sorry I have actually been a software tester while in college. $10 and hour isnt going to break the fucking bank at SOE. They also have in house testers that should be testing this shit. Thats their fucking job, SOE just needs to hire a few more so they can do it.

Originally Posted by gungo

I dont care they used a live guild to test, but move that fucking guild to test. Or close fucking test server because it is obviously useless and a failure merge them into unrest since that is thier server of choice.

Create a test server where people can copy over to test game updates. Whatever internal developer walkthroughs are handed to these test guilds should be posted in a section on the test boards. Have a section were guilds who tested the content can provide public feedback on the encounters. It then becomes all public open and no more hotmail type behidn the door secret messages.