If they can't take a data backup and restore it into a corner somewhere I'd seriously doubt their ability to perform a successful disaster recovery!
We are working on a solution to the levels on the harvests folks. We do not want to add the text manually on each one because that just causes a lot more work each time we make new ones and we would very much like to be able to do more. We are aware its difficult currently to tell them apart aside from within the depot and we are working on a solution for it. We do not have a time table for when it will be completed as of right now. We can't just revert back because it was changed due to having the same resources in the same level spread so it sometimes looked like you should be able to use certain materials when you really can't. Either way we are working to get it resolved. Sorry, its been a bit hectic as you can imagine.
Agreed. I'm glad to here this is on the list and to hear some of the rationale. That's way better than wondering if it is even being considered. Not as good as hearing it's in the next patch, but generally speaking I'm a glass half-full type of guy. Thanks Gninja.
On EQ2U, if the item has the flag Harvestable, then this text is displayed: This raw harvest looks as if it could be used for crafting level '.$itemlevel.'-'.($itemlevel + 9).' items. If the itemlevel is exactly 90, to handle Chains of Eternity, then we display: This raw harvest looks as if it could be used for crafting level '.$itemlevel.'-'.($itemlevel + 5).' items. I believe EQ2 also does this programmatically rather than having specific descriptive text on these items because we've always had to generate our own text on EQ2U. So it seems there are two systems now. For the harvestables from EQ2's first 14 years, they have classification types of "tierXX_harvest". There are 290 such items: http://census.daybreakgames.com/s:e...ayname,itemlevel&c:sort=itemlevel,displayname But with Blood of Luclin, we seem to have switched to a new flag called "expXX_harvest". There are 46 such items: http://census.daybreakgames.com/s:e...ssification_list&c:sort=itemlevel,displayname This is very confusing. I will be adding a notice on EQ2U to display the appropriate expansion -- Chaos Descending or Blood of Luclin along with the existing harvesting text. You might say it is janky to display an expansion title on a harvested item, but the choice to have two different tiers at the same itemlevel has forced this situation. We didn't do this for Withered Lands (90-92). We didn't do this for Chains of Eternity (90-95). We didn't do this for Altar of Malice (96-100). Either eliminate this change, increase the itemlevel of BoL harvests to 115, or add the expansion to the description.
TL;DR: I'm still trying to wrap my head around this, but it looks like rather than using itemlevel to differentiate short tiers like 90-92 (Withered Lands), 90-95 (Chains of Eternity), 96-100 (Altar of Malice), and so forth, they've switched to a different classification with the expansion number on the item. Blood of Luclin items are flagged "exp16_harvest". This is totally new and conflicts with the old method which was tier1_harvest through tier14_harvest. The old way may have been a mess, but this is messier. And it's a paradigm that doesn't work in level-spanning expansions like Kingdom of Sky/Echoes of Faydwer or Rise of Kunark/The Shadow Odyssey. Those expansions shared harvests.
Wait... so 3-4 tiers will be tagged as the same 'level'? Since the game was released with 4 to 6 tiers of mats? Wouldn't this lead to the same 'confusion' of some materials at a particular 'level' not work for those recipes STILL be a problem?
I wish someone on the EQ2 team had called up Domino and asked to pick her brain on the best practices here. This very much feels like the team tried to proceed without gathering as much information as possible.
I fully agree. This is unacceptable. It makes it so much harder to craft. Why was the change made in the first place without considering the player base? Are you developers trying to get rid of crafting now after 15 years of happy crafting in EQ2?
While I am not a big crafter (most of the crafting that I do is for the current tier, or the materials are already in my guild depot), but even so I can see how not having that information available would be a detriment for serious crafters. Kudos to the team for restoring this information.
Heck, I remember when they first said, "Oh, you silly players, it's not a bug, it's SET IN CONCRETE NOW! Muahahahahahaha! >:->" and Sigrdrifa, who is usually the voice of calm, cool, collected reason, and diplomacy between the company and the players, was massively ticked off, judging by her posts. That took a lot of doing. :-/ I'm just glad they saw the error of their ways (or Ms. Chan threatened them with a 10 meter nuclear cattle prod ["STOP ANNOYING THE PAYING CUSTOMERS!"]; yay, boss! ), or finally got things fixed and were planning on pleasantly surprising us, or whatever it took. ;-> EDIT: Thanks for the info, Feldon! It makes...at least a little more sense now... X-P Uwk
The way I heard it, they were being flooded with /bug reports about it, so we wouldn't be seeing it on the forums. What I find interesting is that, even after they restored our info (thanks again, devs! Thanks, Ms. Chan! Keep cracking the whip, or whatever you did! ), as far as I can tell, the levels 96-105 stuff, for example, is exactly as it was, so that wasn't fixed. Haven't checked my 100-105 stuff yet, but I imagine that's probably also the case. :-/ EDIT: Since Feldon's explanation, apparently the things that needed to be fixed were the BoL mats. Sounds surprisingly similar to many a suggestion in this and other forums... ;-> Uwk
Well, EQ2 came out in 2004 and I could play it on dial-up on a Win98 (badly, graphics- and performance-wise, but it could be done), so... ;-> Uwk who wonders if the files are clay tablets with wedge-shaped marks in them... ;->
