Too bad we had to dig thru some article on a site many of us have no knowledge of just to get any news about a game we all play daily (well most of us) but many of you will be happy to hear: "Longdale is also looking at some behind-the-scenes updates—primarily a round of server mergers for next year. EQ has had server mergers in the past as the population has dropped, but they were always two-to-one mergers involving all servers. This time, servers with low populations will be merged, but ones with high populations, like Luclin and Xegony, won’t get one. Longdale also intends to deal with the Zek server, the last remaining PvP server in the game, which is said to be a ghost town. Longdale wants to “find a solution” to Zek this year." "Work began in February on the next expansion, the 26th in EQ’s history. It will likely be a December release, as has become tradition over the last several years." "Longdale says the team’s attention is largely on things that need it: for starters, fixing the advanced looting feature introduced in 2015" Ref: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019...range-20-year-trip-still-has-no-end-in-sight/
How to fix advance looting: remove this crap from the game. And yes, I have to use it if I'm grouped with someone else that does.
Agree with Tucoh. For those of us who box (which is a LOT), advanced looting is a godsend. It also advertises to the whole group what has dropped and streamlines the process of allocating loot. It isn’t perfect, but it sure as hell beats someone checking every corpse, linking what dropped, and then folks rolling to decide who gets. Or the age old problem of a “master loot” splitting coin whenever someone joins / leaves the group to ensure things are “fair.” So, please, whatever fix is contemplated, do not change the core aspects of adv loot!
Really the only things I hate about Adv Loot are that coin split defaults to off and if I have something marked as No, but then realize oh I did want it, I can't just give it to that character, and I can't change the No back to a Need. I have to leave it on corpse, wait on the timer, blah blah.
I hope they change their minds and give Xegony a server merger. On the other hand if I think Xegony needs a merger I dread to think of what things are like on what they consider the low population servers. I guess we will have to wait for Xegony to become the low population server before there is a merger *sighs*.
Solo advloot is about perfect. But group advloot does nit take into account different kinds of grouping in this game. Box groups, friend/family/guild groups and pickup groups can have very different looting setups. My thoughts about this: For individual item preferences, ability to create profiles. Solo profile is default, additional can be created as needed. Blanket settings: opt out, greed on anything over X value, greed on anything 'tradeskills', stuff like that. For master looter, options to handle by category. I.e. have anything tradeable go to specific member, have anything no-trade set to free grab. If item given to player is on their 'never take' list it gets left on corpse.
I always use it when I solo. I avoid it whenever possible in a group. When soloing it is almost automatic for me, but with a group it just seems clunky. Not bad, just not terribly efficient. On the other hand, if someone I group with wants to handle it, that's fine. I won't turn down a group because of it.
advloot is probably the single biggest QOL improvement they have implemented in over a decade imo. Sure it could use some tweeks here and there but it is significantly better than running around clicking on corpses instead of killing things or being productive. There is nothing even remotely exciting about clicking corpses over and over again. Its like doing manual tradeskill combines. After about 5 minutes you start to question your life choices.
I like the idea of having different loot profiles available!! Depending on who I'm grouping with loot rules can vary. Some groups need roll everything vs other groups greed roll everything and various scenarios in between. It would be nice to have a profile set for each scenario so I don't have to disable my preferences or switch the always filter every time I switch groups.
Unless a Dev confirms those plans are still in development, color me skeptical when it comes to mergers. It goes against what was indicated in some of those other threads... Which makes me question the entire article.
Advanced loot needs 5 things: 1) Fix the problem with Luck on items changing if you use free grab. This is a stupid bug and it needs to be fixed. 2) Fix the problems where items get "stuck" in the window. It happens often enough, though I understand it can be hard to track down what exactly causes it. 3) Add an option to specify a "Main Looter" I've been saying this before the system even went live and they all acted like I was crazy for the suggestion. So many people box in this game and most of them want the majority of loot to go to their main or designated alt. Having to repeatedly press the assign all button defeats the purpose of the system automatically doing loot for you. It should be possible to set a single character as "Main Looter" and all items (that aren't set to not want/never want*) will automatically go to that character. *Which brings me to my next point: 4) Remove Need/Greed. Replace with "Want." You either want an item or you don't. It's a binary choice that has been overly complicated by adding an unnecessary subjective qualifier (how much you want it) to it. The current system only creates problems because not everyone agrees on it. Whether you "need" something or "greed" something is entirely subjective. If I'm broke and need plat, then I *need* that expensive tradeskill drop (to sell for plat) just as much as the guy who needs it to make a tradeskill item. All that has happened is that it has caused arguments and annoyances because groups all come up with different rules. You shouldn't have to alternate between need and greed for the same items because one group you are in prefers using greed and another prefers using need. Tacking on a profile system only adds a further layer of complications on this, it doesn't make it simpler or easier to use. All you *cough* need *cough* is "want / not want" (and always/never). If an item is *that* important you need to specify between a player that really needs it and one who doesn't (like a quest drop), you are better off manually assigning it anyway. Automated systems are never better than manual when it comes to value judgments because value judgments are subjective. 5) Add an option to Leave on Corpse.
There is probably some disconnect between Holly and the EQ dev team. I think it's likely that she means to merge the older TLP servers (and maybe Brekt) before anything will happen to the Live servers.
Driving trafic on news sites by giving the news sites the news gold nuggets will increase news sites’ interrest in EQ, (because trafic), and increase news exposure to potential future returnees. It is quite rational, I would guess. We will read it anyways, because we are very enthusiastic, while at the same time a lot of players never visit these fora. (I would guess 1 in 10 players or less visit the boards).
The devs said they couldn't do mergers at this time. It looks like they have allocated code time into fixing it so they can. I hope this also means they are fixing account to account transfers at the same time.
I wouldn't worry about a merge for Xegony, if they do mergers with a free transfer off as they have done previously everyone is going to transfer to Xegony anyway. LOL