In the absence of any really meaningful communications from the Devs on the forums, I was wondering if they might be taking a bit of a rest during the end of June and the beginning of July? Personally, I think things are going pretty well. I love the new TLservers, and I won't ignore Live or Test. It's just that I find that a few nice words from Devs once in a while makes me feel more secure. More appreciated. More in the loop. Anyway, nice you fixed raids on the TLservers, but don't forget there are a lot of us down below level 30 who need some TLC sometimes too. Same for the live servers. (Not an issue on Test). Keep up the good work and keep quality of life changes coming. I like those. Oh, another thing... who put the loot timer on 30 minutes? Gosh, that's a pain. I personally don't like it, and wish you would go back to the 8 minute timer. At least in most zones. Don't all those corpses on timers tie up a lot of processing power?
I'm sure given the effort they've been putting in regarding TLP servers they deserve a break! Personally I'd love to hear more about plans for the other servers, but with only a few devs they can only do one thing at a time. Hopefully once TLP issues settle down a bit we'll hear a bit more.
The vast majority of the team's effort is focused on the Campaign. I suspect it looks like we're concentrating our efforts on the TLP servers, because that's what our community discussion tends to revolve around lately. But, like every other summer working on EQ that I've been here for since 2002, this is the time of year when we have our heads down cranking out new content for the next big release. So, yeah. We're still here and we're still kicking and we're still working. A few people are taking days off soon to hit Comic-Con or celebrate Independence Day with friends and family, and that's also business as usual. (And in my experience, not terribly restful...)
Unpossible. We all know that every ounce of dev attention is being aimed at the dirty TLP servers. I don't think people will accept this response until devs start posting a minute by minute daily work log + web cam footage.
More along the lines that they have had a significantly reduced staff since the layoffs, which released back to back glaringly inadequate expansions. With that same staff, some of whom are spending at the very least a little time focused on TLP specific issues, how are we going to course correct to get as far away from CotF/TDS as possible and get back to reasonable expansions like RoF and prior?
Any early timetables regarding beta invites, announcements, etc? You know, so when you say "sometime in August" I can hold my breath at 23:59:59 on July 31'st and start mashing F5 on EverQuest.com until I see an update.
As you can imagine the speed with which issues get fixed on the progression servers is a bit off putting for the rest of us. Yeah that's where the new money is I guess... but still sucks. But yes, devs deserve breaks like everyone else so whoever is off enjoy your time as much as you can
Weird. The last month on the TLP boards has been all about how slow the devs have been to respond to the issues they want responded to. I am sure upping the damage on the old bosses to increase their difficulty is something that took a lot of resources for a sustained period of time, too. Sure, they pumped out a queue system and afk log outs mildly fast. But let us not pretend that the TLP servers have been this huge drain taking up a majority of the devs time since they launched. Outside of the opening few weeks, there obviously hasn't been near the focus people pretend there has been on the TLP.
Hooray for vacation breaks! <- sunbathing with glasses on I understand the feeling and it does often feel like that here too with the buzz and excitement surrounding the TLP servers and the success that surpassed our expectations... but, if you have a few minutes, take a look at the patch notes over the past several months. Even while the TLP servers were deep in development or after they'd recently launched, we were still rolling out changes, fixes, and updates for the non-TLP servers. We're always looking to make the game a little better, and we do, every month, like clockwork. And this is in addition to most of our attention being focused on the Campaign content. I know I keep saying that, but it bears repeating! Despite what it looks like from the outside, the vast majority of our efforts here are being poured into upcoming content, and this is what we do every summer. (In-between the occasional vacation sunbathing with glasses on )
You do realize how many glaring issues on live go months, years or never get addressed? TLP has had most of its major concerns some of which are merely opinions on play styles and such addressed fast and frequently. The people on TLP complaining that their needs aren't being addressed quickly when those servers haven't even been up as long as most of lives glaring long term issues that still sit on the back burner is quite laughable. I am all for a healthy TLP if lots of people want it as long as it doesn't take to many resources and time away from live which is what kept the lights on to even have a TLP server. The last two expansions and displayed lack of concern has live at a tipping point based on how this new campaign turns out to be.
Well, let's say this Twinkie represents the size of the Campaign... The standard SOE Live / Fan Faire announcement is out this year, but I suspect the order of events will be generally the same: Announcement (check!) Teaser Beta invites Beta test Release Don't have any estimates on timetables yet, I'm afraid.
Please post repro steps and a full description of issues on the dgcissuetracker site, if they aren't there already.
Yeah... with 11 pages of 'open' reports for months that are actual valid bugs (for the most part), this is kindof a joke. Given that we aren't allowed to post persistent bugs in the current bug threads anymore it's kindof a compounding effect. Don't get me wrong, positive changes have come of it on some issues but it seems a tad misleading to suggest it's a solid method of reporting when detailed, easily reproducible bugs are left 'open/unconfirmed' for ages. I'm not sure who is supposed to be 'confirming' the bugs so they get elevated in status but it's not with any type of reasonable speed. On a positive note, the updates about the non-expansion are good to hear.
Thank you for posting, Prathun. The fact you're spending a lot of time on the Campaign is reassuring. Make sure to have a cold one if you're catching some rays!
Actually we're starting to get some traction on issue tracker driven problems. Some have gone in quietly as minor repairs or changes that haven't been in update notes, some have gone in a little more noisily, for example the AE rez on hover. Its slow, but we are seeing responses from DBG folks here and there. The best thing is to help issues get more votes, and I know that there are several of us working to assist people the best we can via the tracker, there's lots of things that aren't bugs. If you have a particular issue you'd like for me to review, feel free to pm me and I'll do what i can to help move it along. The better, more specific, and clearly stated our issues are put forward, the more likely they are to be actionable, in my experience. *inserts standard disclaimer here about if you use the issue tracker, be sure to use a separate password, as its a 3rd party site*
You basically spelled out the whole major issue with the 'issue tracker' in your post. People (mainly EQ vets) do NOT want to have to go to a 3rd party site to deal with EQ-related issues. That is why the whole tracker is a major bust IMO. Short of directly asking major community players to go up-vote an issue relevant to them, the general player base does not even acknowledge (or know about) the issue tracker. And why should they have to go to an external site to get recognition? It's a great concept but too late to the show. Unfortunately, since Roshen decided that persisting issues/bug reports were not allowed in current patch bug threads, there is little choice short of a futile attempt at dev PMs or the tracker. I commend the efforts of the people who work on the tracker site but it's really too little, too late for the general playerbase. This is abundantly obvious given the mass complaints of communications on Reddit, FB, and Twitter, etc.
