Hey all - Due to the behavior of a small group of people skewing the vote by cheating, the results have not been presented perfectly during the voting process. We have had to scrub the numbers at the end of each voting cycle and manually remove thousands of fraudulent votes. We apologize for what appears to be a bait-and-switch move and we are doing what we can to keep the vote as clean as possible during the Finals between the Dark Elf Ranger and Wood Elf Beastlord. (Keep in mind the Froglok Monks have already been selected to go into EverQuest with the winner of these Finals on or around the 15th Anniversary) Best regards, -Thom
Not really sure what your point is. I wasn't questioning his right to have an opinion, merely the sanity of it. Specifically the parts about thinking this vote was rigged, and at the same time trusting the same people to administer another vote. Voting (either in general or just secret-ballot voting specifically) is not a bad idea. I wouldn't even say voting using a system highly susceptible to fraud is all that bad, when the vote is for something of little real importance.
I am curious if a possible strategy is to purposefully exploit the opposite bracket (Wood Elf Beastlord) to guarantee the win of their bracket (Dark Elf Ranger). A bit of reverse psychology. We cannot comprehend the motives of the persons behind the monitors. Please utilize the in-game poll feature in the future.
I understand that the votes were tampered with, but the fact that so many of us got our hopes up that Iksar Berserker was going to win the last round then it switched at the last minute was terrible. I would wish the top 3 could be added to the game, but can we at least have the winner AND the runner up added to the game as a concession? This last round of voting is tainted because people who wanted the Dark Elf Ranger to win have actually said they've been voting for the Wood Elf Beastlord just because the option with the most votes always loses. Can you guys please consider giving us a few different Race/Class combos so that we can enjoy the anniversary event instead of being bitter that a Race/Class combo we have zero interest in playing was added and that was it? Frog monks are cool, but c'mon... Even if they're not combos from the vote. How about... Iksar Rogue (There should be some stealthy lizard assassins on Kunark...) Iksar Ranger (They should be protecting the jungles of Kunark...) Half Elf Cleric (They can already be Paladins.) Half Elf Shadow Knight (They can be warriors with an evil deity and already a crusader race.) Halfling Bard (These jolly balls of fat sing a lot when they're merry... Don't they?) High Elf Warrior (Why should wood elves be the only magic-less fighters in Faydwer?) Dark Elf Druid (They have one of the coolest leather armors in the game, but it's totally useless right now.) Human Shaman (If Humans are so diverse, why can't they learn shaman magic?) Ogre Cleric (They can already be shamans with low wisdom... Why not clerics too?) Troll Cleric (Same as ogres... A very cool and underplayed race.) Vah Shir Cleric (On Sullon Zek they followed Tunare apparently... Why not do it again to be clerics? One of the cooler plate graphics, under used.) Vah Shir Paladin (See reason for Vah Shir Cleric.) Froglok Magician (They already have wizards and necromancers... Why not?) Froglok Enchanter (See above.) Drakkin Shaman (They've been dragon touched... Aren't dragon priests shamans?) There are other options, sure, but I excluded some because their models either don't exist for Luclin with their armor type, or they're horribly bugged. (i.e. Iksar Necromancers... Tails clip through the back of their robes. Excluded Iksar cloth classes for that reason.) Please consider adding more Race/Class Combos during the 2014 anniversary!
If that was literally true, then the DE Bard would have won the slot in the final matchup, and Rangers would be out already.
Again, the silver and Gold memberships getting more votes is completely unnecessary in terms of making the vote legitimate. As I already said, if they limit the votes to accounts that existed prior to when the voting was announced, the reasoning you gave is completely null and void. When I referred to your time tables, I was referring to the fact that you gave exact time and dates, which, again, are also not necessary for the legitimacy of the vote. I'm not saying that they were unreasonable time tables but you represented them as the ONLY option to make the suggested re-vote legitimate, and that simply isn't the case. Actually, I disagree with your last statement. The reason that a 24 hour wait time is, IMO, better is because lots of people only have time to play at certain hours. It's a minor point, but it still makes more sense than doing it 12 hours sooner. Especially in light of your own argument that it would give the devs time to do what they need. After all, the devs likely work regular hours; it makes no sense that you give them a 12 hour period to do one task and then flip to the exact opposite 12 hours to do the next task. If you give them only 12 hours, then realistically, you are only giving them the section of that 12 hours that they actually are at work; if you give them 24 hours, then barring it being their day of, they have their entire work day to get it done.
I didn't say that happened in previous rounds. People have said in these very forums that they are voting for the Wood Elf just because the Iksar Berserker was in the lead and lost. Multiple people. I'm not the person making that claim, but if you look around others are. At this point, with no additional fan service (More combos added) the entire voting makes SOE look bad and I know at least one gaming site is going to be publishing an article about this event on the same outlet that EQ Next news is published. Not doing anything to make this better is horrible PR for SOE and makes them look shady to future EQ Next players.
NEW RESULTS ARE IN! As of 9:10am Pacific Time Saturday... 2014 Membership Changes Uproar has 3 threads with 737 posts and 44,945 reads. Race/Class Voting Uproar has 5 threads with 541 posts and 56,356 reads. What does this show? People are pretty passionate about both issues and SOE did the right thing by re-changing the membership changes. I hope they decide to add more of the popular race/class combinations after this unpopular vote. Not only is it the right thing to do, but I want my Wood Elf Beastlord to have other new classes to group with at low levels. To SOE: Maybe players would be willing to forfeit the hoarded Station Cash or have our credit cards charged to help pay overtime for the Devs to implement more than two new race/class combos. I invite you to charge my VISA card ending in 8193 the sum of $100 to put towards this purpose. To Phathom: Thank you for updating us.
Great point. And I'd also give money for additional combos for the anniversary event. Anything beyond that would be a waste; you'd miss out on the rush of groups.
I think that another option should be considered as well. This is going to make the bards, rogues & enchanters angry but with all the masks in the game & at this late stage of it's life, why not turn all masks & illusion clickies to all/all? Save yourselves time & effort on more race class combos & just let people do what they want within the confines of the system. Yeah the lore wouldn't allow it but it didn't allow for passive alien hippies sitting around smoking craet & the pig men in Grelleth & all the other various things that didn't fit the lore either. We deserve more options in this game & a bit more respect as the game that made SOE what it is today, I hate seeing EQ get treated like the red headed step child while they make that bastardization EQ Next and tout it as the Second Coming of MMOs that'll save the genre etc. I love EverQuest & have since the first time I logged in late March of 1999, that's what you call a lifer. I don't plan to change games even within your own line up of games. Don't forget that some folks don't want to change & prefer to keep things as is as long as they are happy with the product.
Making illusions more accessible isn't a fix to this problem. Certainly, as someone who has played EQ since the early days you can appreciate that Race/Class/Deity combinations are part of what makes your character unique? I don't want to LOOK like something else. I want to be something that EQ has never allowed before. I'm going to be completely honest here. When the last round was happening I was pretty content with the concept of "Looks like it's going to be Dark Elf Ranger versus Iksar Berserker... I want the Iksar to win, but really I'll play either of those... I win either way. Come March I'm going to sub up for a year and come back to EQ with a new character; something that feels fresh to me." Then, at the last minute Wood Elf Beastlord suddenly wins over the Iksar. Immediately then it's winning over the Dark Elf Ranger. If there was any trace of honesty in the votes being cheated, I don't see why SOE won't give us a few different options instead of only one. They were the ones that allowed us to think the voting was going a certain way and got our hopes up, only to crush them at the last minute. With the way things are looking right now, I most likely won't be coming back to EQ, and with SOE continuing this track record of customer disappointment and shady tactics, I more than likely will never even install EQ Next. I hope that they fix this and think of the fans for once. Edit: My bad. I forgot about the Froglok Monk. Okay, so they're giving us two... One that I know I didn't vote for, and a second that there was no vote for. Why not add one or two more that were in the vote? Something!
And do the same for everyone who'd still be disappointed that the combo they want wasn't picked...pretty soon we'd have all possible combos. (And yeah, I get why they don't want to do that, and even can't realistically for some combos missing animations/armors. I'd just like to see it.) Even get some new races and classes. I want to be a Petorian Hugonaut, whatever that is.
