You have to understand something. These players are miserable for whatever reason. Housing isn't something that will abate that negative emotion they feel. So the idea of someone else enjoying something is anathema to them. Housing won't negatively affect TLPs anymore than they do live. They're data is already on TLP, we use the same version of EQ as live. Housing exists on TLP but is locked due to a server setting. Nothing more. But these people know this. They just makes excuses because of the reason outlined above. Let people have their fun. And this is coming from someone who probably won't use it. Don't even use it when I play on live. But why shouldn't others enjoy things?
What i never understood is why they haven't worked on making more marketplace stuff available earlier like when server launches. Have housing, illusions and more available on classic tlp launch for players to spend their money... many of them are more than willing to spend money on server launch for cool items, and most of them probably wont stick around for when it actually unlocks, so the company loses that money. i'd like to think it would be worth for them to work on including housing and other things for future tlp launchers, or even get it into the current running tlps.
There is no server setting for housing. There is a server setting for each expansion. There are scripts to unlock each expansion which are driven by a calendar which the devs set up on each TLP. Housing can't be separated from that process without considerable programming. Mercs can't be separated from that process without considerable programming. Berserkers and Drakkin can't be separated from that process without considerable programming. And etc etc etc. Just because you think it's a flip of the switch doesn't make it so.
Would you have said precisely the same thing about extended target window being locked to Underfoot expansion before they gave it to TLP's in classic? Would you have said it couldn't be separated from Underfoot without considerable programming, and thus was very unlikely to happen? If you would not have said that, why not?
Hello, Houses itself are useless to the general player; it's just another trash bin to throw stuff that you could store on a mule or elsewhere. The real benefit about housing are Anchors and they are game-changing... serious stuff! You also have Trophies, not game-changing but they are just like... another Augment slot that you pay with tribute. Anchor packages are sold on the Store but also on the Loyality vendor.
Because the xtar window is a UI mod, not actual game content. It was never "locked" to Underfoot to begin with, they just created a duplicate set of default UI files and let the launcher decide which set to download based on whether you owned that particular expansion. People actually fell for that. The functionality to select what target gets mapped to which line in the window was always global once it was coded. This became more-or-less common knowledge when the earliest modern TLPs were launched and the xtar window popped up fully functional in Classic, catching the devs off-guard. Prathun coded something to block viewing the target assignments until level 20, because he deemed having it at level 1 in Classic was too OP (something with which I disagreed at the time). You still get the xtar window at level 1 if you want it, and you will still see a % character on individual lines when you have aggro on enemy target(s), you just won't see target name or its precise health until level 20. The underlying functionality is global and always has been. Also, it was "given" to FTP players on Live servers before Fippy was launched.
Oh I see now. So it would require considerable programming to unlock actual game content for earlier TLP eras, but not for UI features. So like, anniversary content for example. That would probably require considerable programming to unlock for earlier eras than when it was initially introduced? That would probably not happen would it?
Except there is. All that is required is a version of the game with those items unlocked. Which we're already using. Sorry the attempt of denying fun is not going to work here.
This is entirely manufactured nonsense - not the least of which being that the change happened after Prathun left, so it's quite magical that he made that change. And it didn't exist on Phinigel until we legitimately unlocked UF - the L20 thing is quite recent, contrary to your implication of multiple years like the Prathun involvement would imply. Phin didn't have xtar until Underfoot launched in early 2019 - even though the xpac came out in 2009. And talking about raiding characters, not people that were sub-20.
The problem with housing is it isn't accessable until you get the Guild Lobby, which would be Planes of Power at the earliest. But I see no reason for illusions and pet illusions to not be available at launch with any buffs disabled until later time. I also feel they should rotate these in and out of the market place, the ones we have in there currently fee like they have been there forever. The only things that seem to get roated round are Familiars and ornaments.
They change which expansion actual game content is tied to all the time. They decide at which expansion zones become available, and sometimes change their minds. Things have been pretty settled the last couple of years, but prior to that they tinkered with it fairly regularly. They decide when zones get revamps, and sometimes change their mind and move things around earlier or later. All the functionality is there in the game client already. Likely all they really would need to do is enable the housing zones to become accessible at say Gates of Discord, when the guild lobby becomes available. It certainly wouldn't break the game to have housing available.
They could make it earlier by giving back Throne of Heroes to everyone... One easy possibility. You wouldn't be able to zone out to pok, but could zone to housing and origin or gate to get back to Norrath.
There's nothing in the game client that controls which zone line connects to another. It's server side based. I know because you can make any zone line go to any other zone line in the p99 version of the game by simply setting up the server side to do it. No changing of the client required. In other words, if they wanted to make it so you could go from Commonlands to the player housing district zone when you step on a particular spot, they could do it. They don't actually need the guild lobby to zone you to the player housing district. For that matter, they can attach a zone change to anything really. They could make an item that you buy from any NPC in your home city that when you click it, it causes you to zone to the player housing district. That would require: Adding a new item with click effect that causes you to zone to player housing district Add the item for sale on a set of NPCs for a set amount Changing the player housing district zone out locations to send you to your origin (rather than to guild lobby) It's all database work. Not one thing would need to be changed in the game client. Just saying.
I think you're arguing just for the sake of arguing. You're also making generalizations that I never said. The word "considerable" is very nebulous in the programming world. Anniversary content is a particularly deceptive example, since none if it is tied to any specific expansion; at worst, it merely requires that content up to that year's anniversary be unlocked, and some anniversary quests don't really require anything. Do you want to propose that anniversary quests be unlocked out-of-era? Don't let me stop you. I didn't play on Phinny, so I can't speak to that. But xtar has been available to level 1 characters in the tutorial ever since F2P went live, which was March 2012. It's the same code base, so anything that treats xtar differently on TLPs has been hard-coded in as an exception. Prathun was still here in 2019.
Prathun left in the middle of 2019 - the earliest this could've happened (since Phin didn't have it) was about the same time as he left. (or to quote him directly "I left before development of ToV started in earnest" - which assuming normal development timings would be July or August of 2019) And no, the "5 slots at L20" version of xtar didn't exist on Live servers F2P or not - they got the regular version with all the slots, at level 1. My wife found it quite alarming after her test runs of ENCs on FV versus early Mischief/Thorn.
Your memory is very bad. Holly left in March 2020 to go over to Blizzard. Prathun left >after< Holly, some time in mid-summer 2020. His exact departure date was never officially announced. I think I just said that.
And just logged onto FV to verify it's STILL that way, and yep - we've still got completely different /xtar than them - I have a full 12 slots of xtar on a L1 that's logged in over there right now.
You said if it existed as a UI mod - it was a pretty major overhaul for TLP use. It changed from an expansion unlock w/ full feature to a new variant version with a level lock. UI mods don't care about expansion unlocks and such.
