My understanding is that the "developers" are mostly a contracting team that can be scaled up or down when needed. That may work in the boring business world but not in an old game with difficult outdated technology - that requires someone who is passionate about the game and has experienced the issue first hand. Not someone in another country picking up a bug ticket to fix it in a vacuum without ever having play tested it.
What is the source you have that says they are in another country? Some of the members of the CRC may be in other countries but they do not do any alterations to the game. They just provide feedback.
The reason original EQ was so groundbreaking and amazing is because the original dev team would work on the game all day and then go home and play the game all night. Their lives revolved around EQ. Nowadays, we have the polar opposite situation -- it is apparent that the EQ dev team doesn't even play the game. So sad
The thing is they post this stuff with links to the forums like the players wont look there for details and see the walls of text from players complaining about FTE. At least before there were at least some defending it, but now that we have it on test its pretty clear that no one wants this. EQ2 recently rolled back and unpopular feature, you should really consider doing the same here. We are 2 weeks away and your making changes to core mechanics that will likely only introduce additional bugs. Your testing implementation is not some "golly how could we have known" scenario, it's broken in ways that were predicted by the subject matter experts, which is apparently your player base at this point. Points were broken down on various foreseen iterations for FTE and Feign Death training with aggro on unkillable mobs was discussed here as a worst case scenario example and you implemented it anyways, and now you have unkillable mobs that can be trained on people which is broken to the point of making it unplayable. Listen to them please. They do not want this. Make a poll and find out if your convinced they do.
I was just making an analogy to the outsourcing of America's IT departments. I do remember JChan saying something about they can easily scale up their work force for a project and then scale it down. That triggered outsourcing to me.
You hit the nail on the head there. Watch this documentary (Parts 1 and 2) of the History of EverQuest and you can see that Brad left as soon as the game's direction was ripped from his grasp. I don't understand why companies think that they have to take over suddenly when something becomes profitable. It became profitable because of what the creators were doing, wouldn't you say "keep doing what you do and make me money"? I've seen it happen before in the business world. A project is going great, some greedy executive calls a meeting with ideas to make it more profitable (isnt it profitable enough?). No one has the guts to speak up and say its a bad idea, or if they do they get labled as a "troublemaker". This is why they say money is the root of all evil. Take money out and its a bunch of nerds creating something FUN with no pressure. This equals SUCCESS.
You would have thought the BETE server would have been a prime location to invite a bunch of players to test the FTE mechanic, not Test. Would still require more than a week testing though.
That kind of development is what leads to all kinds of issues around both physical & mental health, it's entirely unsustainable.
Personally then I won't be renewing the regular 1 year subscriptions for my accounts (which I let expire naturally in march awaiting the new TLP) unless the entire FTE idea is publicly announced to be scrapped for Oakwynd - not just from being active on launch, but also with a promise that FTE will not be added later either, since even if FTE were made to be working as announced there would still be too many problems and changes to gameplay arising from the FTE (as currently described) The fact that they haven't made this announcement already leads me to believe that they intend to not only introduce the FTE mechanic (broken or not) to Oakwynd sooner or later, but also to make the FTE mechanic a new TLP standard (and maybe even push it to the regular servers). If that were to happen then my days playing EQ on the official serves would be 100% over, since it simply won't be the same game anymore with FTE (as currently described) in place. This prospect have, of course, also given me pause to my plans of picking up the old (and new) bag packs for my accounts to be used on a later TLP, since if this is the future of EQ then I wouldn't ever have any use for them anyway. Imo then the only acceptable use of FTE (as currently described) would be for certain triggered spawns (epics and other similar quests) that can be tripwired by other players interfering (by accident or spiteful intent). To combat KS'ing then a more acceptable FTE system would be to flag the player/group/raid that got the FTE tag so that they would only be required to do 25% damage (or whatever % seems reasonable) to the target(s) in order to get the kill (XP+loot). This would still give a clear advantage to engaging first, but also solve any problems with someone stealing and/or holding mobs for ransom for long periods of time. To combat training then "simply" reintroduce the PlayNice policies of old and have them vigorously enforced by actual live 24/7 GM support on the TLP server. This would solve most other ongoing problems as well. I personally would gladly pay double subscription fee for my accounts (and get the bag packs on top as well) to play on a TLP server with this solution in place. Who knows, maybe there would (eventually) be so little to do on such a dedicated GM TLP server that the GMs would be able to provide similar support to other TLPs as well? Let it not be said that you were never presented with any workable alternatives.
None of the suggestions you provide prevents KS period . Eg a paladin will always lose even if the player engaged first. There will never be a return to a play nice policy , we all know that . That is not a viable solution that is cost effective and in the end this a cost saving feature. The entire point is to cut down on tickets generated by toxic players. As for the comment it won't be the same game ? What does that even mean , there has never been a true classic TLE created ever. EQ has always been a constantly evolving game even on TLP servers , mom , out of era drops , quality of life changes like bandoliers , hate list , added questlines and the list can continue. I think the main issue people have is change , there used to a broken game that is easily exploited and even easier to grief and are concerned that the dev's are going to continue to refine and fix exploits that damages eq as a whole. Just because it has been like that for 20 + years , does not mean it shouldn't be addressed. I like the concept of FTE it allows specific classes and playstyles to compete that otherwise will not ever be played or are rarely played. I do agree , that FTE does need to be fixed before launch of the server.
In the end even if the FTE was implemented perfectly it still does something to EverQuest that changes what it was. The excitement and adrenaline you get when you're solo and getting a mob down before someone comes and tries to take it will never be there again. EQ to me was about doing sketchy and dangerous things. This makes EQ much less dangerous if its actually fixed and working properly. I am sure many of us have experienced being in a group and someone TRAINS you accident or whatever and your group handles it all. You get a sense of pride taking on trains. That will never ever happen again. That sucks.
First, no one answered me on my previous post about the bags, bouh Second, If you want to get rid of kill stealing, only one efficient way : Make the server pvp ! Kill the thief: end of problem. Revenge is an acceptable loot. If you can't kill him/her /new gender, well tough luck...Come back stronger.
EQ has not had a risk vs reward concept since the removal of CR's. I get that feeling of accomplishment , I also see the other side. The you are constantly trained and waste 2 hours or your entire time available to play, because it's a viable way to run someone off a high value camp. That sucks.
please watch video part 2 also , both are awesome. so many things goin on in those years , many outside influences and MMO competing . EQ2 and Landmark ect pulled many away just in its own company (there is only so much time in a day, I was playing 3 games just in their company alone ) . both were fun, EQ2 in its way,, and Landmark in another( could have evolved into something like "Ark Survival) Employees that left went on to other MMO teams and other game development, you can see their influence from EQ hehe
I never said that it would prevent KS entirely, but the problems with KS would be mitigated by my first FTE advantage suggestion (without removing yet another competetive element entirely from EQ) and potentially fully solved by my 24/7 GM suggestion. In any case then it is far better than merely replacing KS (Kill Steal) with TS (Tag Stealing) as will be the case with the FTE system (as currently described). What I am hearing here is that you want paladins to be able roll into an area where a group have already killing amd clearing - grab the mob that the Paladin wants when it spawns and not allow the group already there to be able to do anything about it. Why not? It is all about incentive and money, so if the subscription fee would be double for such a server then I see no reason why that couldn't fund GMs to enforce PlayNice rules on that server ... solving many ingame problems. Rather ironically then that is a toxic strawman argument at best. Exactly where do you get this from anyway? It is certainly not listed as one of the stated goals in the public announcement. Anyway, adding FTE (as currently described) will not cut down on tickets - it will just change the topics of the tickets ever so slightly from being about KS (Kill Steal) to being about TS (Tag Steal) ... and as it has been explained in other threads then the FTE system (as currently described) wouldn't even remove trains (but yeah, noone expected the code to be so poor as to allow training to be even worse than before - as it currently the case on Test). The "True classic" part is all in your head - I never mentioned that (and nor do I want that). FTE (as it has been suggested) changes fundamental core mechanics making the game experience fundamentally different - unlike any other changes or additions before. FTE fixes nothing that was broken and stops zero exploits. In fact, if anything then it will add broken mechanics and allow for new exploits that can be used for griefing. All FTE (as currently described) does is destroying one of the few fundamental core elements of the game that set EQ aside from other (for the most part) jawbreakingly boring MMORPGs out there - all with zero real need for social interaction (is that what you actually consider to be broken and an exploit?) This is another nonsensical strawman argument - all classes are and always have been played in many different ways (another strength of EQ that will be dimished by FTE - that not all classes are equal in all settings), but yeah - a paladin stealing mobs from a group without the group being able to do anything about that have not been the most frequent of events ... and that is a good thing!
