BG fixes do not qualify as a weekly feature

If they really wanted to, they could throw minor hotfixes under that category. But to say they didn't deliver upon what they promised, when they clearly did so (even if it was by making the category sufficiently vague), isn't the right way to go about things.

Instead, insist that the vague areas be clearly defined (which is a topic of its own), and the posts containing those vague parts be updated with clarifications of those areas. You can't really claim to be surprised when there is wiggle room in a promise and wiggling occurs. Not if you stop to consider it.

While words may be synonymous, it is accepted that some words are more correct than others. If, for example, we take your definition of refine, and a perfectly good definition it is, why then does the word 'fix' exist? Why does the word 'update' exist? Why does the word 'improve' exist? Would you be so kind as to differentiate those words for us? The insult to intelligence here is your attempting to explain away SOE's action with a technicality. It again comes down to one's own interpretation.

And the above poster is correct in terms of 'refine' potentially being applied far too broadly. For instance, if they changed the SOE logo to have a little star in the middle of the O on the patcher. Would you consider that a fair enough weekly feature? Technically, it's a refinement to the game (at least from the perspective of the person who did the change). Would you be ok with a back-end change to the code that affects the users in absolutely no way? Technically, it's a refinement to the game. Do you see where this is going?

There's nothing to be interpreted from what they say. Everything is laid out very clearly. The true insult to people's intelligence is found in posts where what they've written and the meaning of one word or another is called into question. It only serves to confuse people. There's no such thing as a back-end change that doesn't affect users. In fact, there are a lot of back-end changes that aren't mentioned in the patch notes, as they try to work on things like latency issues.

Do you really want me to give you the etymology of each of those words*? Or will you be satisfied that the words exist primarily because of two invasions and one migration: the Roman invasion of Gaul, the Norman invasion of current day Great Britain and Ireland (since the Normans ranged as far north as Scotland and as far west as Ireland), and the migration of some Germanic tribes from the vicinity of modern Schleswig-Holstein (respectively)? Or, if you prefer a simpler explanation, because the English language is basically the red-headed stepchild of languages**.

I'm not attempting to explain away their actions - not really. I'm just explaining that when you get angry specifically about promises being broken, you don't have logical support for that anger. They worded their promises vaguely, and therefore anything they choose to call a weekly update is a weekly update. Even if you couldn't call the code fix a refinement, it still fits under the last category. Look at it, if you don't believe me. That last category is so vaguely worded that it is a catchall for anything not covered by the first three. They could do a single hotfix and call it a weekly update, because hotfixes neither merit inclusion in an expansion nor merit being a big monthly highlight. This means that a weekly update includes whatever they choose to include under that heading.

So, as I told the other person, if you want to call them to task, do so because they word things vaguely. Insist that they clearly define things from now until the game sunsets (regardless whether it happens one year, ten years or even 20 years from now). I'm not really telling you not to be angry or disgruntled, but if you insist upon getting upset, get upset for the right reasons.


* If you are actually interested in the etymology of those words, I'll send you a PM that details the etymology of each - since I'd prefer that we not bore the carp out of the rest of the forum-goers.
** Don't get me wrong, to me its diversity makes it a rich language - but I realize that it can be a daunting language for non-native speakers to learn***.
*** Precisely because it has large groups of words that mean the same thing.

Which goes back to my original point if everything is either "part of the Xpac" , "a monthly feature" or "a weekly feature" the term has no meaning at all, it is just a smokescreen for delivering less due to staff cuts.

Ok, but that isn't the subject of the thread. The subject of the thread is whether or not the BG fixes count as weekly updates. If people can't be bothered to critically examine the words stated and set their expectations accordingly, then that isn't the fault of the dev team. I doubt that many of the devs that post on these forums (and do the lion's share of the work on the game) were consulted about the update schedule. I also doubt that they were consulted about the wording.

If you want to get mad about the wording of the promises, the thread where the promises were made might be a good place - or, since the last post was over a month ago, a new thread specifically referring to that wording might also be a good place*.

* I say might because there really aren't any clear standards about the length of time it takes for a thread to become necrotic.

So since you now agree it is a meaningless term, and an empty promise can we get you to move one step further?

Why use the term at all?

This made me laugh out loud, really. I nearly spewed soda on my screen.

This is the English language. We have umpteen words for all sorts of things. It makes things interesting (and occassionally frustrating). Why would we need a thesaurus if we only had one word for any given thing.


They are delivering what they stated they would. Not the sort that some people seem to think they should be, but I can't seriously think they could put together something super awesome every single week. I was skeptical about the whole 'weekly update" thing from the get go. But so far they've delivered what they said they would. Many have been useless to me, but they've brought them to the game.

I for one, am glad they are making improvements to existing things that worked, didn't work as well as they could have.

It was a rhetorical question to make people think . Evidently it wasn't taken as I intended. Ultimately my point was that while a word can mean something, it doesn't necessarily mean it was intended to mean it by the author. Especially when translating to different languages a direct translation often doesn't adequately describe the meaning the author was trying to get across. I have no doubt that SOE deliberately chose an open-ended word to describe what they can label a weekly feature, but I don't believe for a second that a long-overdue fix to an existing system that has not been working is keeping within the 'spirit' of the weekly/monthly release; and that this thread has gotten far off course with arguments about whether the fix logically falls under a specific category, rather than addressing the actual issue of the OP which is that in some (I had hoped all, but apparently not* ) players' view a long needed bug fix to an inoperable system should not constitute the weekly feature.

Bring back the GUs please SOE.

*It's bizarre some players are willing to accept, and even defend, poor management.

As I believe the rhetoric of Georgeson's announcement was designed to obscure that the EQ2 team no longer has the resources to produce quarterly Game Updates I do not believe that they can come back.

It seems evident that they do not have the resources to meet the much lower hurdle of Weekly/Monthly features either. Hence the labeling of some item in the weekly patch as the "Weekly Feature".

BTW I do not think that this is a case of "poor management" by anyone on the EQ2 team, it is simply them managing the best they can on the limited resources available to them.

To be fair, the San Diego area fire which could have very well impacted the work schedule. And I do think that if the Producer's Letter was a sticky (since June is still yet to come), it would get better attention and it is clearly stated in it that certain things have had to be delayed.

The producers letter is found here (in case it falls off the first page):

https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/producers-letter-may-june-news.548325/

I never stated that it was meaningless, just that it was very vague. I am just saying that you shouldn't read anything into it that isn't explicitly stated. A promise that is easily achieved is still a promise, and not an empty promise (since an empty promise is a promise made with no intention of fulfilling the terms of the promise), at that. Meaningless literally means without a meaning - and the promises made have meaning (just not the meaning that many thought it was going to be).
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Anyway, so that part of my post is actually on topic, the update fit within the vaguely worded categories. The were just vague enough to cover pretty much anything that wasn't expac or a monthly highlight. If you read something into the words that the words don't actually state. I can't help you. They set the bar to achievable and didn't promise anything beyond the scope of the listed categories. Hopefully next time those that tend to complain about things in the game will read what was written and keep their expectations low. That way, the weekly updates won't cause so much anger, and those that lower their expectations will be pleasantly surprised whenever the dev team actually releases content that exceeds the rational expectations based upon the promises.



In summary, if you must be discontent, be discontent with the right things. And post that discontent in a thread specifically created to discuss the vagueness in the promised categories. Not in one that is questioning whether the most recent (as of today) Weekly Feature is less than what was promised. Which it isn't.

I think the devs are doing a good job. Rather have them just work on the expac tho.

I would like to see a crafting HQ that has the hand of the maker and the prayer shawl as a pre req.

Also would like to see a HQ that gives classes there Mythical Cloak buffs.

And 5 raid zones:
Fabled Emerald Halls
One with just 1 named that takes awhile to kill like Cheldrak
Intro zone: Protecters realm
One with just 1 named that is easy, like Levithan
and then one HM zone.

Also, please have like 9 heroic zones, really liked how many options there are in TOV. Make sure they each have one rare item.

TY.

Would be a pretty bawler expac.

Very legalistic .... except an empty promise is also one that is worthless or meaningless. The "promise" of weekly features certainly meets those other two characteristics.
The general expectation of Georgeson's announcement was that it would be more than we had been getting as normal weekly patches. As you point out what his words can be construed to mean is that we would get nothing more than we had been getting, hence "empty promise".

While you may not consider I am not being "discontented with the right things" ( an opinion you are entitled to and entitled to voice) I and others consider we have every right to be discontented with this weeks "Weekly Feature" and with the whole sordid concept.

keep the token system worked well and the armour crates

It is more than we would be getting on a regular basis. Before this new schedule of development, we would have to wait a few months before seeing any new zones or features, because they would all be held together for a GU release. Over the last 30 days, we've seen two zones, a new guild hall and a new merchant released, along with a bunch of fixes. Compare this to last May, when all we really saw was tweaks to Cobalt Scar. There's an added benefit to all of this. Testing on test and beta can be more focused for most of the year. (Of course, there still seems to be an issue with people deciding to do the testing. )

At any rate, we are getting what we were promised. The so-called value of what is added depends on who you talk to, but that's irrelevant. All bases were covered when Dave said what we would see in weekly updates. The true value is something most can't comprehend and that's the amount of work that went into one update or another. Apparently, anyone with a keyboard can spit out some of these updates and keep all this other stuff going on. Considering how often I've seen team balance issues pop up in other games, I can't imagine it was a trivial matter to try and fix that.

Agreed, OP. I don't even care about a weekly feature, though. Am I the only one who liked the quarterly medium-sized content releases? A quarterly increase in loot tier, AAs, new items to buy with Etyma, etc. would be enough to keep me coming back for a while. Not many people can resist the carrot on the stick. Otherwise I usually only play for a few months per year due to content stagnation.

LOL but we got all of Scars of the Awakened on 30 April 2013 and prior to that on 26 Feb 2013 we had new x2 raid zone Wurmbone's End: Nox Incessit (with normal and challenge versions) and new x4 raid zone The Dreadcutter:
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2...y-april-30-2013-scars-of-the-awakened.534718/
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/update-notes-tuesday-february-26-2013.4708/

The tempo of product delivery has fallen, not unexpected when you consider the staff cuts made late last year. But it has fallen.

What we are getting in "Weekly Features" is about what we were getting last year in the normal patch cycle, and what we are getting in the "Monthly Features" is much less than what we got in the quarterly GU's.

It's what people asked for, isn't it? They want expansions to be big again. They can't magically produce big expansions and push major GUs, now can they? The old saying is true. Players really don't know what it is they want.

btw, new BG zone is still coming soon.

• A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
• Knowing what you have been getting is more important than hoping for what you might get in the future.
• Finally, they used to produce significant GU's and big expansions. This year we have lost GUs and got a smaller Xpac than we have had in the past.

BG zone is still coming soonTM not that it will effect me any, I never PvP. Like many others.