Crafting is well and truely ****** in BoL

We all agree the EQ1/EQ2 teams have been tight on labor and resources for the past couple years.

We don't know exactly how much time and labor they put into setting levels for harvest mats. Perhaps, they did a cost-benefit analysis? Did it take an egregious amount of time away from other content? Does it affect the game in other ways (i.e. clutter, slows down performance with global file checks)?

By getting player (or third party) sites to take on a greater role* in the game (yes, outsourcing is often a nasty word), will the dev team be able to focus more on tangible content?

*People having been asking for years on how they can contribute to EQ2.

 

Didn't you say you have an iffy history with the EQ2 team?

I'll use EQ1's culture as a comparison. The devs frequently share pertinent values (SPA, stat calculations/formulas) and keep other information privileged (spawn RNG unless defining a bug, drop rates, loot box probabilities). There's hardly an outcry in EQ1 for a lack of transparency. Players have taken the information given and run with it (but never really complained about the unknowns). The devs can apportion information on a need-to-know basis.

 

Customers DO have a need to know... why supply tool tips if they are gonna be wrong? And if you DONT supply them, offer something or your game is so user-unfriendly that only those who thrive in that sort of game will play it for long.

 

Wrong reply area

I meant to reply to Benito and realized I was replying to Feldon lol . I was having a senior moment.

 

In my honest opinion, many of these games and specifically, EQ and EQ2 owe so much to their fan sites and community support. EQ2 more now than ever. These gracious people, i.e. Feldon, don't receive any payment from these companies for providing this level of support to the community (only from grateful users of their sites and that is not mandatory).

 

Information can be supplied on a need-to-know basis. Not everybody needs to be an open book.

EQ1 is thriving even though the devs are not fully transparent (spawn rates, drop rates, loot box probabilities).

 

I remember when getting that information on the mats in the first place was a huge victory for crafters.

Sheesh.

 

EQ2's master strategy of the devs intentionally making decisions that the community doesn't like has really worked out well for them these last few years.

 

I think this can apply, on some level, to pretty much every game that has any sort of player choice, whether it's a single player RPG or an MMO.

EQ2 has always been especially reliant on fansite support, moreso than it's contemporaries, to the point where it's become integral to player performance, and they take for granted the information provided. What would happen if EQ2U went offline today? How long would it take for someone else to pick up that burden - would anyone else pick it up? Lets say someone had the drive and skill to do so, for argument's sake - How long would it take to get the site up and running, to get all of the information sorted and whatnots?

What would the players do in the meantime?

EQ and EQ2 are different games with different systems and mechanics, it's ridiculous to hold the two up as 'same same' and compare them as if they are equivalent.

 

20 years ago there was no Youtube. There was no Reddit or chan boards willing to help you at the cost of a piece of your soul. Search engines were mostly junk. If you wanted information on a game you went to their official forums and/or searched for fan sites. Maybe you'd get lucky in a trash fire like VN/IGN. Most likely something like Alakazam or DAoC Catacombs was often your best hope to find help. I don't believe this was just because the devs were slackers or meanie heads. Everything has evolved since then. Even SOE got sort of better over time. Games can script dropping a ton of information, probably too much in some cases, right in your lap. Even though EQ2 is an antique at this point players shouldn't have to hunt and peck across the internet to sort out what should be trivial information they already have access to.

 

It’s not so much a conscious design decision but the possibility of fan sites picking up the slack. (EQ2 dev team possibly seeing what the EQ1 community is doing and what the EQ2 community can do).

 

That still isn't a good strategy, whether consciously done or not. What if there were no fan sites? Know what I mean?

 

If people like Niami or Feldon call it quits, other people will take the initiative.

 

They might, but with a game this old, who can say?