One of the oldest and most active MMO communities, the Fires of Heaven forums, ran an AMA for the EQ leadership and last night the answers were published: Holly Longdale, Exec Producer Alan VanCouvering, Lead Content Designer Ed Hardin III, Lead Systems Designer Jennifer Chan, Technical Director Kevin Lydy, Lead Artist Jonathan Caraker, Design Lead After reading some of the questions FoH threw out I am both surprised and impressed the EQ leadership didn't just shake their head and tell us to eat dirt. Instead they provided 55 answers to these questions, many of which are quite in depth and thought provoking. I'd paste all the answers here but there are too many and suineg colored them all on FoH: https://www.firesofheaven.org/threads/everquest-ama-answered.10980/ Highlights:
5) Are there any plans to revert the revamped zones (IE; Freeport) for any future TLPs? They are pretty high up there on the complaint list by most. Alan: I don't think many of us on the team like the new Freeport all that much (not that I speak for them). However, it's not just throwing a switch to restore it. Other than the art issues, content exists in the new Freeport that didn't exist in the old one. All of that content would have to be moved to the new old Freeport. It's a very large task for what is, frankly, not a huge return. So the short answer, something I don't do well, is no. It's always nice, when there's a consensus opinion on a topic. Also, damn that's as honest as an answer as I've ever read. After reading through that Q&A, it was pretty good the questions were pretty rough though. There are questions with development items that not even money-printing machine WoW could accomplish with their 400+ dev team.
Fires of heaven? Is this 2003? I had to check the date to make sure this was not a decade+ necro thread.
It's nice to see that DBG seems to be taking a more active stance in promoting the game outside the box. And it is especially nice to see actual answers instead of half-statements. What's disappointing is that DBG went to a place that's at least linked to a bad EQ history moment (I have no idea what the connection between the current website and the old FoH guild...personally, I've never heard of the website until this thread...but I only play EQ) and has not seemingly not bothered talking to the folks who have been helping keep the game alive - the folks at EQ Resource, Gidono et al at Allakhazam, Fanra and his wiki, and all the rest. I suspect that all those sites would have jumped at the chance to do a Q&A with the EQ team. Promotion outside the EQ family is great! But you should spend at least as much time IN the EQ family to answer questions, talk about future plans and directions, etc.
FoH has been around almost as long as the industry has been around. There are developers in the industry that lurk (and participate) on their forums. Heck, back when Vanguard was in development, there was more discussions with Brad on the FoH forums than there was on the actual Vanguard forums. To put it simply, they have an earned reputation with the industry, and not a fly by night advertisement-laden website. Plus, they don't bend a knee to the game companies. Everybody is treated the same. If you make crap or you sell lies to your customers, they are going to call you on it.
“3. Necro dot revamp, ever happening? Other revamps seemed so successful. Jonathan: When time and resources allow, we will tackle consolidating necromancer DoTs. Ed: What Jonathan said. It’s important and also much too risky to rush.I really wish they would of replaced that question with the more important issue - debuff slots available on a target, and a redesign around that.
This is the single best reply I have heard in more then a decade to shut down the rampant 3-4 people who constantly flood these boards with PvP now or I quit spam. You have a PvP server, The vocal 3-4 cant even get people to play the FREE PvP server. Why would they waste resources on a paid server?
They asked us, we didn't seek them out. And you're kidding yourself if the think FoH is outside the EQ family. Note the number of questions and the fact that not all of them were psychotic or mean spirited and actually related to the game. There are players there too. We love and respect all the places you mentioned and the ones you didn't. And we've answered questions from those places too, and would do again in the future. However, answering 100+ questions takes a lot of time and time is precious. Also, I am of the opinion that if the questions are not curated to at least remove the duplicates, we shouldn't bother next time. But that's just me.
"6. Do your gms actually ban people? I've seen the same 48 boxer in sirens grotto 24/7 for 2 months. (this relates to question 2 also) Holly: Yes, we ban people. Fairly frequently. Make sure you report people. Alan: We ban them and call their mothers to make sure they know what kind of children they raised!" Nice. But what if their mothers are also the same sort of EQ player? Nicely put. Reminds me, I need to add comments to the report cards for my Kindergarten class.
