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

Discussion in 'EverQuest II General Discussion' started by Mermut, Dec 24, 2019.

  1. Fuli

    Fuli Well-Known Member

    I like to differentiate how DBG is managing the problem, and how Longdale is managing the problem.

    DBG is harvesting the property. If Longdale can make it profitable, great - keep hanging on to it. If DBG can sell it at a profit, cool. Bankrupting or liquidating it is likely plan c, but is probably inevitable. It's just a matter of how far down the road.

    As far as Longdale is concernred, the pathologies than landed SOE into the arms of a buttom-feeding investment company/hedge fund remain.

    I'm confident DBG doesn't give a crap about how she allocates her funding, only that she hits her profit goals, and I suspect she's got a plan she's working that entails systematically grinding the franchise down to substantively a p2w raiding game, perhaps with a deco/housing and maybe a consumables component side game.

    All that's fine if that's what she's decided needs to be done. The pathology is the continued tendency to abuse the trust and loyalty of customers so she can make a few extra bucks from them along the way.

    Contrast her Fading interview and PL with how things have actually turned out. That right there tells you a great deal regarding what she's up to and what she's about.

    Here's what I believe:

    Most of the dev staff gets it. They're trying to do a good job and they really do care about customers.

    I don't believe Longdale, Caith, or Kander respect customers at all. To them, they're just objects to manipulate money out of, and they don't seem to understand that trust matters in business no matter how much people love Norrath.

    Also, I don't believe Longdale particularly cares about eq2 either. She'll work it for as much money as she can for as long as she can, but at the end of the day, it's eq that matters to her.

    I guess we'll continue to wait and see what happens, but so far things have pretty much unfolded as anticipated.

    Edit:

    Regarding customer trust issues and Longdale et al's seeming inability understand why it's important, it feels a bit like this expansion has pushed customers closer to a tipping point. Regardless of what her plan is, there comes a point where people have simply had enough, and a snowballing effect kicks in as all the various reasons for customer attrition start feeding nto each other.

    Not sure that we're there quite yet, but it feels like it's getting close. Just have to see.
     
    Last edited: Feb 15, 2020
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  2. Nawtey

    Nawtey Member

    Jaysus - any word from test on how much shite the "fix" is gonna break?
     
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  3. Alarra

    Alarra Active Member

    Nah, the refined mat thing will probably not hurt it, it will be the Raid changes that will stir the pot I reckon.


    • Raid zones have been separated into normal mode and challenge mode zones with their own respective lockout. Due to this, players will only be given one choice when they enter the zone as far as setting difficulty. How the zones are accessed has not changed nor has entrance requirements.
    • Many raid encounters have been rebalanced using a much more reliable stat package. This could cause fluctuations in health and damage output. Any encounters that are found to be either too difficult or buffs aren't applied will be quickly fixed without needing an update. Feel fre to /bug anything you feel might be a bug with these changes.
    • Sanctus Seru: The Fading Arches [Raid]
      • Each time Lord Triskian Seru is defeated he will now drop 3 of his swords needed for the quest "Ley of the Land: The Nature of Shadows"
    Looks like Gninja will be busy for the next couple of weeks sorting it out.
     
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  4. Dano84

    Dano84 Active Member

    What makes this worse is that some Raidforces exploited Raidboss and "handed" themselves the flawless achievements Rewards, Recipe for Red Runes. A lot of raidfocres won't see any of the Runes for quiet sometime and worse can't even progress with the Raidquest.
     
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  5. Meneltel

    Meneltel Active Member

    SOP for SoE… DBG... Darkpaw… err whatever they will name themselves next week. No matter the name, the BS smells the same!
     
    Last edited: Feb 17, 2020
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  6. Anaogi

    Anaogi Active Member

    Ayup. No way they'll claw back that ill-gained advantage. To hell with them.
     
    • Agree Agree x 3
  7. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    Tinkered pain, power and force links..
    Veilwalkers are made, correctly on the workbench with coal.
    Voidpiercers and Emphyral are made on the stove and keg... with coal.... because.... something..

    Crafting is borked is SOOOO many ways this expac.. the little **** like this just makes it worse since I can't imagine this **** was done 'by accident' since it would have been EASIER to copy/paste and keep it where it belonged
     
    • Agree Agree x 6
  8. Fuli

    Fuli Well-Known Member

    For those interested in a bit of insight into why EQ2 does "waste of time" stuff like they did with crafting this year, or perhaps why they do things that aggravate the crap out of their customers, check out what Jen Chan has to say about "change".

    Note that she claims that listening to customers guides choices, but we know that's not actually true (for the most part). I believe the folks at EQ2 are largely ignorant of what productive customer feedback is, and/or, they simply don't give a crap about it.

    It's also worth noting that the interviewer here really wanted to key into her earlier background in predictive analytics until she finally admitted that eq2 doesn't actually capture, store, and analyze much data (also, and as a side note: data science is best thought of as a team effort. Generally, computer science folks are not statisticians, and statisticians are not programmers - a misconception that reveals itself to be glaringly apparent at eq2.)

    All that aside, it appears from this article that Jen came in and eliminated a lot of wasteful and inefficient processes within the development process. It also seems that organization and project management are real strengths of hers. Lastly, it's pretty evident that she really does care about her customers, which is #1 in my book.

    Perhaps a ray of hope???

    Salting Out the Genius - Daybreak's Jennifer Chan on Production in EverQuest
     
    Last edited: Mar 9, 2020
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  9. Tekka

    Tekka That Village Idiot


    We'll see.

    A few things stand out, perhaps it's the pessimist in me. Or the insistence since the RadarX era that this is all a 'Team Effort'. And everyone is on The Team.


    First, she's been responsible (in whole or in part) for sorting out the 'best elements and systems' in the game. That hasn't been working out well since... ever and it's gotten progressively and rapidly worse.

    She's responsible (in whole or in part) for the processes that engineers follow to set up the TLE servers.

    She claims she both plays the game, and listens to customers/reads fan sites and yet, here we are. Unless that is specific to EQ, and then it makes a little more sense.

    There is no technical artist - the person responsible for maintaining and upgrading software tools. That explains a lot.

    The interview focuses almost exclusively on EQ, while Longdale said Chan had been her assistant in producing both games or whatever for the last 5 years? something like that. Portentous? Time will tell, I guess.

    She at least appears to be more genuine and enthusiastic than Longdale, so that is actually a step in the right direction.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2
  10. Cindrax

    Cindrax Active Member

    Step one: Force people into running same thing over and over to get the almost impossible RNG rewards

    Step two: Analyze the data and conclude "This must be very popular, everyone is doing it"

    :rolleyes:
     
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  11. Tkia

    Tkia Active Member

    Do you think there's any chance that she can organise and project manage Kander? Because until somebody does there really is no hope. :(
     
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  12. Fuli

    Fuli Well-Known Member

    Yeah. I suppose the what I might call "negatives" in my summary are what I perceive to be cultural issues; not necessarily a Jen Chan thing.

    We shall see if a damn thing changes.
     
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  13. Clementine

    Clementine Active Member

    Managing their Kander has truly been a hurdle for many a producer.
     
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  14. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    The new crafted infuser that applies to the deity layer is called...
    Empyral Physical Infuser

    The new crafted transmutation stones?
    1) 2 of them are HEIRLOOM
    2) Those same 2 have a white adornment slot


    That's lots of o_O
     
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  15. Mermut

    Mermut Well-Known Member

    heh.. and the MotD is noting that there is a bug with the new crafted infusers.... a bug that I saw reported in the test section of the forums several days ago...

    Putting the patches on test 'early' is meaningless if they're not going to make fixes based on the feedback given on the test server...
     
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  16. Fuli

    Fuli Well-Known Member

    So, if I understand things correctly....

    You can now make 25% chance infusers, and said infusers cost many, many shards/essences.

    And, you can now make the transmute stone thingies.

    So, I kinda interpret that as they gave you all something to do with the gazillion essences, etc they intend to keep giving you.

    After about a week, we should be able to see if chest loot probabilities have been modified.

    I'm expecting very little if any substantive change.
     
    Last edited: Mar 10, 2020
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  17. Zynt

    Zynt Active Member

    I'll take the transmute stones. I made 10 today and got 1 mana. I can make a few hundred more but I don't need to sell them and with this I can be self sufficient instead of buying. That being said, it looks like I'm going to be travelling for work for most of the summer and fall so I'm down to limited play anyway.
     
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  18. Sweatypie

    Sweatypie Active Member

    I hate them. Ruined the market for manas and if u got the meta belt you have nothing to do outside of raiding now. Can't even craft **** to sell anymore.
     
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  19. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    Interesting interview and confirms things as well. Yeah, EQ and EQ2 are using tools from the early 2000's still. I know that EQ2 had minimal to no version control (incremental backups) as recently as 2009. The actions of a disgruntled employee heading out the door is what finally forced them to implement it.

    The EQ2 Terrain Tool is one of the few exceptions as far as more recent tools. As a result, content creation is just absolutely glacial. It's one step above Excel sheets and editing 100 XML files to make 1 simple fetch quest. I would think even a forms editor that knows all the reserved words valid for quests, recipes, items, npcs, etc. would shave off hours of development time per week. We offered to write them such tools, but the distrust between me and the EQ2 team was already starting to build at that stage.

    Jen Chan is incredibly talented. I'm just curious to see how she will fit into a producer role. The statistical and data-driven background she has does seem to match up with what I understand of the role. I used to ask "How come Holly doesn't talk more? Why doesn't Holly give an interview and talk about what she does all day?" And the response I got was that she spends a lot of time staring at Excel sheets deciding how resources should be allocated based on Marketplace and expansion sales and player activity data (what little there is).
     
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  20. Feldon

    Feldon Administrator Staff Member

    I've railed about this one before. Lots of people running a zone tells you one of these things:
    1. It's an enjoyable zone
    2. It's appropriate for the kind of group makeups people have access to
    3. It has unbeatable loot that people are willing to endure an unpleasant zone to acquire
    They always assume it's #1.
     
    • Agree Agree x 2

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