I totally agree with you (and every positive thing about Dzarn people have said) BUT... How long was he with SOE/EQ before the Daybreak layoffs? Based on how incredible he was, and depending on time at the company, he was probably bringing in some [relatively] big bucks compared to others. Remember, pure speculation here... however, if that was true, it made 100% sense -on Daybreak's part- that he would be let go. They probably went top- and bottom-end first. Who is taking the most and who gives us the least. It was still stupid though because of how much he gave to the game (and was probably worth extra $$$). That said, stupidest decision I've heard so far with this change and I have been fairly optimistic about it despite all of the unfortunate losses. As an Enchanter, every time I saw Dzarn's name attached to a raid I knew after the initial steep learning curve, it would be a super fun, organized-chaos type event. The content was challenging, properly balanced (in general), nostalgic, responsive to player feedback, original (as could be in a 15 y/o game), and FUN. From my experience, Dzarn usually replied to any PM that was logical even if it was a "I'll check it out" one-liner. He regularly posted and engaged players on the forum. He was undeniably a fan favorite. I almost wonder if he was on the way out though... his involvement in TDS seemed dubious. Idunno... maybe this was the final nail in the coffin for him? Or it is just as simple as him being cut. As for poor time management- yeah, posting daily updates about how you spent a week naming spells (and taking a week naming spells) is a frivolous waste of resources. How many words can you possibly come up with to say "Mesmerize"? Anodyne is a stretch and I'm fairly certain someone keeps a thesaurus planted on his desk during Beta. I'm content with the idea of a numbering system (Hi, Burnout). It would certainly be easier for new players as well. Oh, and how about ALL those armor templates? I guess that didn't take a lot of time though since an Excel spreadsheet + click and drag doesn't take a lot of effort. At least the naming of items couldn't have taken long (Expansion catch word [ether, water, etc.] + tier defining word [suppressed, flowing, etc.] + class word [Mindlock, Lifewalker, etc.]+ armor slot). Although, who knows how long it took to build EQ's two-bit latin for TDS. Complain about lack of people skills. Um ok... cus I guess no developer has ever had to pitch ideas and debate in Monday morning meetings for years. Complain about lack of time and resources. So... don't spend time and resources on things the player base does not need (and many probably don't care about when it is done). EQ must provide some type of gain or we'd be down to 4 servers (my guess: Test, FV, Zek, Vanilla) and EQ Mac-level support already (/wave to whoever is the future Hobart).
As an electrical engineer, it behooves me to consider the end application for every circuit I design, even if it is something I will not personally ever use (e.g. a curling iron or shoes for kids with lights in them). It is very important for me to receive feedback from my test engineers and customer service staff to let me know if something isn't working or not up to expectations, but in every case where I am able, it is always a benefit for me to personally pull samples from the line and ... well ... (ab)use the living **** out of it. Forget about specs for a moment - let's look at how people who don't particularly know or care how manufacturing works, and are not really inclined to read directions or abide warning labels, will actually use the thing. (Just get in there and get your hands... toes... w/e... dirty. It will be worth it, we promise.) Take your time on this step. Some of the stories we get from CSRs explaining how people use the things I've designed (... they tried to do what with it?) can be as entertaining as they are shocking (no pun intended) and it's really driven home just how outside-the-box (and just plain out there) people can be so I "idiot-proof" things as much as possible. It also puts me in touch with how well our product is received (or scorned) by those who put their faith in us to not screw them over by misleading them or selling them junk. (Don't become so infatuated with your product that you forget what it actually is. Be honest. Lying to yourselves helps ... whom? exactly?) This is all part & parcel to product development. I understand that coding is different than a material good of some kind (depending on the complexity - more and more things are microcontroller-driven and require firmware to be written and tested) but I think the same principle should apply: (Don't let this happen to you.) P.S. Even when we engineers are not actively involved with a specific project, many of us are always doing research, reading trade journals, and diversifying into different fields just to keep current with the latest industry trends and developments. We do not get additional pay for this extra activity, but if we wish to maintain relevance and marketability (aside from simply satisfying one's unquenchable curiosity) it's not really more of a burden than, say, a cop, firefighter, or pro athlete taking a trip to the gym. Just goes with the territory.
As a software engineer in the games industry for 10+ years I can agree with most of what you say, it's all just as relevant in any time of product intended for use engineering. I will add thought that though you might not say it many people boil this down to "do what we say we want"... The key in what you said is: "feedback from my test engineers and customer service staff" A) This is not you using the product since you will be heavily biased, as you mentioned the value of feedback from others B) You have specific people who extract that feedback in a useful way since what end consumers say they want is often not what they really want, just their immediate response
No, I didn't forget. But don't let not reading my post stop you from telling me what I did or did not consider or say.
As much power as we may think we have over the game with our x number of gold play accounts, if we try to influence the parent investment company they will want to know how many shares of stock we own. They will listen to shareholders not 'game players'.
Quit being all logical and correct. I'm sure the last few commenters on that petition are stake holders anyhow... haha.
Is Daybreak Gaming directly opening their interest in EQ to public trading? If so, does anyone know what the stock name is?
Agreed. I did not mean to imply that any single opinion, be it customer, designer, or manager, is the only one that matters - rather the point needed to be made in response to Muuadib that there is great value in actually testing/using the products you create unless totally unfeasible (such as if I was tasked to personally test cosmetics or hosiery like in the referenced movie scene - besides, nobody wants to see that, I am no Mel Gibson that's for sure, I am more like Gale Boetticher). It's not too much to ask of any designer. It also helps to leave titles at the door and argue ideas and feedback on their own merits, not on whose name(s) are attached to them.
Errr come on, a guy like him wouldn't just leave because he's fed up or something without letting people know. And if he wasn't fired, don't you think Daybreak, any Dev that is still here like Elidroth or Absor etc, would have told us by now to calm people down? But ok...if it's still like that despite of all logic, consider me signed up for another episode of the Eq Twilight Zone.
He was an intern during the HoT beta & then they hired him on full-time. He's newer than the other devs they kept on. In terms of taking the most and giving the least - this was a guy who singlehandedly created a totally new, different, & amazing epic ornament quest for every class in his spare time because they wouldn't let him do it on paid time. If that isn't someone you want to keep around, I don't know who is. Whatever they were paying him, they were getting back way more than they bargained for.
I would like to see some extra “one-off” raids. The requester must be top raid flagged. Ok the guild has to put some work in to this. They can be an instance of the arena, similar to the Champions of the people event, or the naggy event for Legacy raids, you know fun raids, not annoyingly massive emoted where one misses all of you die, type of events. The guild only needs to do this once. The Loot? A drop turned in the portal guy that adds that to his list. So if there was a Brother Island version, the GGH would gain that as a port place. you can all old exp port places as well, multiple for older content. I don’t want too much put in, in fact they can all be the same strat as the legacy raids people don’t do because the aug isn’t viable anymore.. hey, you could put this as a reward or you could just tweek those raids to a hard version and the new portal is the guild’s reward. You want to improve your guild? Here are a series of raids to add portal places, here are some that add Raid Markers for the RL to drop at events as rally points. Here is one that allows your guild to add one more trophy.. you get the idea. These won’t be done over and over, so the development time needs to be extremely small. I would also like someone to teach the wayfarer brother hood magus’s how to port to the Guild Lobby. The one in the guild lobby can send you to most of them, but none of them can send you back. Ok, make the only one that knows be the one at abysmal sea, now to port back to the guild lobby, you have to zone a time or two.
I think we're only hearing one side of the XPNerf debate. Listening to the twitch(?), it was explained that the changes were to bring the amount of XP into line with what you could get in the new expansion. My view for what it's worth is that a HA should give the same amount of XP as playing in a zone of the same relative level, by the same player/group of players. So for DH HA's, I should get the same XP soloing in there as I would in DH normal zone - broadly comparable. What was happening was the XP in DH HA was and still is far in excess of what you'd get soloing in Katta Castrum @ L101 for example. It's probably a whole lot quicker than soloing at L105 in Katta Castrum too. Surely it should be risk reward - You should get more XP over the same amount of time. for undertaking harder higher level zone content. than mass slaughtering in a lower level HA mission.
so wait lemme get this strait the game been goin down the preverbial TOILET and everyone here is moaning and groaning about how someone who was INCHARGE of making changes......btw which no good change has been made to this game in over 3 years minus the "promised" return of full expansion releases and also the 3 years is putting it lightly mind you... and everyone is upset?!? i say throw a party and lets hope the new "bosses" actually listen to the player base vs do wtf ever they want in hopes of killing the game so everyone will move to EQ next.....here is a hint dev's WE DONT WANT EQ NEXT OR EQ2 WE WANT EQ 1! please fix the garbage thats been done over the past few years and make this game fun again or more then 2 months a year to play PLEASE!
I dont agree at all, the last few years the "rich content" you speak of has been a joke and decreasing all while he ignored 90% of what the player base asked for.....where has this rich content been the last 3 years please tell me?
I was blown away by many RoF group missions and the Epic Ornament quests. The rest of it has been one turd after another. The benchmark will always be Velious. Proof that an engaging world with factions that matter and intriguing lore beats collection missions, tiered gear and lockouts.
You do realize that Dzarn's content actually HAD something nice, while most of the other stuff was simply tedious? That's why people are upset...
Dzarn wasn't in charge, he was a worker that produced the best content within the recent expansions. All of the recent expansions had some bits and most of those bits was designed by Dzarn.
1. why not add a max price and a min price an item can be sold for in bazaar. get the aconomy back to normal and not have people way way overpricing items and ripping people off. 2. would be to stop Epic 1 items being Multi Questable. this would stop the farmers in plate of fear ect farming it all the time and let players actually doing there epic 1's have a chance at getting there drops.
1. Price controls correct nothing - somebody wants the item, they will pay. If not, price comes down if risk/reward isn't comparable to going out yourself. 2. How bad you want it? Wife and I spent three days camping PoF last year for a piece of her Shammy epic - was a fun camp, being very positive to visitors until we had it done. Collected a lot of trader gear Get in the spirit and compete, it's not like it was in the old days, crowd control isn't the problem here.
Some fixes I'd like to suggest for EQ1 Cleric Fix our Spell Haste (Benediction of Piety, Blessing of Fervor etc...) so that a higher level of the buff overrides a lower level, like all other buffs do. I left a character in the guild lobby once, and ended up with 4 different levels of this spell line on my buff bar... Why not just increase our heals, rather than make us work for AA's that give us a "chance" to heal greater than the base 12k on our biggest heal? ("Light" is right...) I left the game in 2006 when my biggest heal (Complete Heal) was around 7500 (base), and a tank could buff up to around 10k. It boggled my mind when I returned in 2011 and level'd up, and my biggest heal (though faster casting by half) was at 6500 (base), while the warriors were buffing up to 120k! Mercs had replaced us in groups. Pallies, Druids, and Rangers (!) can heal as well as a Cleric, Shaman can out-heal us. These days clerics are only of value in decent numbers on raids. Even if we max our AA's, the benefits are left to "chance". I realize these changes were made to get Clerics out of those dreadful Complete Heal Rotations, but you really Nerfed us badly in the process. Please restore us to our former healing glory, as we are now a dying breed. TDS Spell Drop Rate Never before in a new expansion, did it take me so long to get higher rank spells. Cleric Mercs are especially preferred in groups now, because THEY automatically have Rank II Buffs and heals once their owner levels up... Nice! Tradeskills Create a Tradeskill NPC we can put in our Guild Halls where we can store all of the tradeskill items we loot. Then tradeskillers can loot what they need from there. Collectibles - Ditto. Then our Guild Banks won't fill up with these items either. Fellowship Change the fellowship feature so that it is at the Account level. Then when we log on to play an alt, we can still enjoy fellowship benefits. Hint: Nobody uses "shared XP" anymore since it was changed to useless, so might as well do away with it now...
