Congratulations... I think? I guess? Maybe?

We got a relatively small number of new AA. Even with this, as you said, it could have taken some time to grind without banking, so the saved collection clickies made a difference already. But SoF was just a sign of what's to come. When the level raise happens, are you seriously going to say that gaining 2 of the 5 new levels instantly makes no difference because you can grind that xp eventually anyway? If that was fine, why would they go into all the trouble wiping corpses and despawning the shroud npc on the expansion launch day?

In the name of helping players catch up (also known as negating the lead those that have a lead earned) there's AA acceleration, hotzones, and possibly in the future a block grant. <- Rocket Powered AA Skates.

And there stagnating those that have a lead - Maximum AA Leg Irons and thrown away AA.

Acceleration for those who were lazy and/or just haven't supported the game for as long as some of us. Deceleration for those that have earned more. Sounds backwards to me.

Oh, there's enough AA that "they" catch up more quickly and I no longer have to grind AA, I can just do the progression accomplishments? Or maybe even just cash in credit for past and unclaimed accomplishment? Works for me. I don't need more to do - the fact that I'm tossing away AA is a sure indication that I've done enough.

I prefer the "You Made It! Lodge" at the summit of the AA Molehill to (for example) rolling AA deceleration when you get 500 AA from the end (it takes twice as much exp to get an AA/accomplishments provide 1AA max).

Overall this expansion is easier than VoA, which was easier than HoT, which was easier than Underfoot the best expansion this game ever produced.

devs = casuals, possibly boxers.

Ok, that's low, maybe not boxers.

VoA was easier than HoT?

I think he might be high or something

Yeah......HoT was likely one of the easier expansions we have ever had. VoA was harder than RoF too, IMO.

I love the derision of those who play less often than you. It's as if you have more respect for people living in their mother's basements and play EQ all day than those who have successful real lives and only play for fun.

I read this thread for its snark value.

This isn't an undefeatable problem as you're making it sound. Unit Testing and design considerations (good documentation, reducing coupling, etc) make this nothing to worry about. It becomes easy as, make a change, and run the automated unit tests; which are a very strong indication that everything is working properly if they all the tests pass.

Your example where you have to test everything, is an example of a very poorly designed system with tight coupling e.g. the worst case scenario where some high school drop out wrote the code during the 90s.

One of the reasons people regression tested was that the version control system occasionally allowed, or was subverted to allow, superseded modules and their buglets back into the final build. There are perhaps 100 different types of data or code created and maintained by dozens of toolsets and a gazillion assets.

I've seen this happen in mass market products written by university trained people who were likely dead sober when they done dood it. Tight coupling, data abstraction, data hiding, or failure to empty the bit bucket has nothing to do with it. The build process, version control, and necessity to certify everything that should be in the final build is in the final build is the issue.

BTW those old guys - writing a video game in assembler, fitting the object code and graphics in a 16Kx8 bit ROM takes a bit of doing. Just sayin'.

I once had to write some code to make a little man walk across a screen in high school. It was a pain in the . I can't even imagine how much it sucked to write the code for this game or looking at it 15 years later and a million revisions/add ons/whatever.

Welcome to EverQuest!

Makes me laugh, no one of us took of any day at work, no one logged in earlier and no one stood up longer, those events were totaly easy. Nothing to learn really. So it was done during one common raid evening like anything else that is on farm mode.

There are definitely raiders amongst the dev crowd. Not all of them, mind you, but they exist.

You can tell, they're the ones missing emotes, get em!

Some people will always consume content faster than others. We could put up artificial blocks, or just make everything "Hell Levels" or the equivalent, but some folks would power through it no matter what. This isn't an avoidable issue. Fortunately with Game Updates coming more regularly, you can look forward to new content more often. If your old pattern was finish an expansion in 2 months and then have 10 months of waiting for new content, then those 2 months will be split up throughout the year instead of all in one go (as will the other 10).

As Elidroth has previously addressed, that was never the schedule. There weren't any big internal changes that changed the schedule. The schedule is doing just fine, and appreciates everyone's concern.

I never finish with group content (at least until I outlevel it on all 16 characters). I like killing mobs. Is doing the quests once finishing it? How about achievements? As long as there are people for me to group with I'll keep playing in it, and that's part of getting use out of it.

The EQ Team is actually slightly larger now than in the previous 3 or 4 years.

Don't give away my secret identity.

How much SC for another spell dev? Could you put that up in the market place?