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

Eh, the test server on EQ2 is kind of a weird beast. It's more like a super low population server that sometimes gets updates beforehand, but due to the low population high-end things don't really get tested (especially when it comes to PVE stuff, because I think the population there is mostly tradeskill-focused).

Edit: Not to say that makes **** being broken okay or anything. To be frank there's a lot of stuff that goes out on live that's broken in ways that the person implementing the change should've easily caught in their own personal testing.

 

Live servers are the Test servers now, it seems.

 

Maybe someone can help me understand this harvestable labeling issue, because I'm not understanding.

Is the description a scripting process, or is there a field for it attached to the harvestable object in the data base?

Sorry, not a programmer. Just trying understand why a real fix is problematic.

 

Every single update from BoL release has broken more than it's fixed. Surely they should know by now to test or do some sort of check to see if their changes work. It's pathetic.

If I did such a crap job I'd be fired.

 

There is absolutely no 'programmatic' reason for the change. It's been clear for several expacs that everything recipe/transmuting/harvesting related is all copy/paste one-offs.
Remember PoP when Caith accidently put harvesting mats as the fuel for all provisioner recipes?
We have knives being made on the workbench with sandpaper in other places.

The reason given is pure BS. A couple of tiers were 'inaccurate' as Kander stated, but 90% of them were correct. And the sensible solution when you have a small (relative) number of 'inaccuracies' is to fix the inaccuracies. Removing correct information instead of fixing 'inaccurate' information is... well.. I don't think the reason given is the real reason. It's just as close to a plausible one as they could spin given the pressure to explain something they did that makes absolutely no sense to players and is deterimental to the player experience.

 

Deco storage, just like DM instances. -sage nod-

 

I had forgotten about the harvesting mats as fuel.

That was pretty close to epic fail.

 

Like the reason for canceling EQNext "Just not fun"

 

Thank you, Mermut; especially for your description of the process.

Essentially, crafting is simply being marginalized, and they're trying to paint an easily fixable (even if perhaps tedious) issue as a big problem to justify it.

At least that's how it seems to me.

 

You should post more, i miss your humour

 

I fully believe it wasn't fun. What it sounded like they were trying to do didn't sound fun at all.

 

But they couldn't be bothered to make it fun. Just come up with a weak excuse and end it. I understand the need to make a profit, but if you don't invest in a future, you have NO future.

 

IMO most of this stuff is never making it to Test server to be tested. I think there's a few reasons for that. One, they don't want the player base knowing about it. Two, they know it's broken. Three, the lack of resources to test it on Test. I play on test in EQ1, and FV, and the feedback is mostly listened to, not always. EQ2 has had multiple expacs, and especially BoL, where player feed back is absolutely ignored. Same for Test.

The harvest level thing went live on Live a few days before it hit Test.

 

Well, tbh, I'm inclined to support DBG/Shanks on that one.

I mean think about it, according to Georgeson, they were developing eq3, but then he trashed it because it wasn't next gen gaming.

The he started Next, and trashed that only to start from scratch all over again.

Then there was the story bricks fiasco, the character/npc models they didn't bother to focus group. He's running a demo at fan fair selling the **** out of the AI and the voxel environment; and it turns out devs were operating the npc's and the environment was nowhere near stable.

Money down the drain. Sometimes, you just gotta eat sunk costs and walk away. I'm inclined the "not fun" business was some face-saving spin for "The game is nowhere near playable, not even close and DBG is not going to fund it any longer."

As far as anything for the future, I just dunno if it's gonna happen after all that.

I always wondered what happened to those eq3 assets. Curious if Longdale can use any if that work (well, if it's in Forgelight....eh).

P.s. /derail over. Return to your tradeskilling commentary with my apologies

 

yeah, at least not under their watch. They sunk millions into it, im told. And not much to show for it.

 

I'm still of the opinion that Next was cancelled some months before they announced it and the excuse they gave was annoyingly dishonest even if accurate. If I had to bet they canned it because the reality was more costly than what they were sold. The thing that still burns me at this point is actually Landmark and the scam to avoid refunding the backers. I'm also of the opinion that they knew they were going to can Landmark around the same time they decided Next was dead. The November or December before they announced Next was not fun iirc.

The EQNext sub was still archived on Reddit last I checked. It may be one of the few places left that hasn't been nuked. Lots of info and speculation there, but I'm not digging through it (again).

 

When Smedley offered that refund for trying Landmark in the early stages, I snapped it up immediately. So glad I did. I felt sorry for those people that stuck it out.

 

I'm one of those people who shelled out 100$ to get in as soon as the door to alpha opened, and I have mixed feelings, hindsight being what it is.

Ultimately, however, at the time it sounded like so much fun, and checked off a lot of boxes for me, so I wanted to support it. In that regard, I don't regret the purchase, or hanging in and hoping for the best.

That being said, in the aftermath I wanted to choke a bitch.

 

I had friends who loved Landmark, for what was available but they were all getting more and more burned out by the game and lack of imagination and the damned range gods for the random drops. Our tank got tired of running instances to try to get an upgrade to his boots and get the same tired pieces. This was during the dragon expansion, whatever it was called. Helping the dragons despite their lack of helping us. And you ended up with a pale sickly dragon... thing... for a mount. I wanted a dragon, a real dragon so we could fly around and make all burn beneath the shadows of our wings... and I got a mount that I was sure would die trying to carry my light teir'dal armored body into combat... or a town!