EQ2 Flight Wings Toss Lore to the Wind
If the options of a Flying Gryphon, Hovering Disc, Cloud, and Pegasus weren’t enough, if flying as a Freeblood Cloud of Bats or Fae or Arasai weren’t enough, the time may have finally come for your flight option.
From EverQuest2.com:
It’s a bird, it’s a plane..No! It’s your EverQuest II character! Introducing the ground-breaking Flight Wings to EverQuest II. Now you can fly through the air with the attached Pegasus Feather Flight Wings or the Nightmare Flight Wings. Fly through Norrath in style, group with your friends and intimidate all challengers as you swoop into action from above.
Check out our newest EQ2 YouTube video here: http://youtu.be/GepeTEsEwGs. Don’t forget to check out other YouTube videos as well at www.youtube.com/eq2videos!
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Comments (44)
Me
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That sure would be a cool quest reward……….
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Anaogi
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So much for fae/arasai getting a cool special option.
Color me disgusted.
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Lempo of Everfrost
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Yet another total bastardization of the lore in the game.
These are the most horrid looking ridiculous things I have saw on the SC shop to date.
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Artoisx
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Next Buffalo flying wings ?
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Moorog
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The developers really don’t have a vision for this game, do they? Just put out a bunch of crap and let the masses pay them money for it.
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Kralus
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That’s embarrassing.
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Daniel
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Agreed… I like what SOE has done with flying in the game. This just might screw it up. Whats next, flight combat like in Aion? Jeez i hope not.
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milliebii
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inch by inch : day by day. This game is turning to scheisse.
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Yotel
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I like it. It’s just a different look to me, but I don’t care about the lore too much. More appearance variety imo.
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Dedith
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While the video above is lame (reminds me of the attack of the hawkmen from flash gordan), there have been wings in the game for a long time. When they intro’d the fey/arasai flight, they promised later an option to into flight with wings. However, I was under the impression it would be a quest or something for the current batch of wings. I’m not liking the idea of spending another boatload of SC on something I thought was going to be available for my current wings.
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Katzilla
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Ratio of time spent fixing bugs and broken content that we have ALREADY PAID FOR and can’t play beauce its broke to putting out fluff that we may want to play IF the game wasn’t such a mess has gone right down “KAK-anaon Alley” it seems… Sie haben Recht Milliebll.
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Claviarm
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But I’m going to guess even these will still kill any illusions the player is using. If I could be a flying droag or gnoll, maybe I’d be interested.
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Rick777
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I like the wings, I don’t see what the lore issue is, most of the lore stuff doesn’t make sense in this game anyhow. The fact that they are bought with cash bothers the heck out of me, but that’s what we get with a f2p model obviously. I had read somewhere that there would be a quest to get these wings, although for the life of me I cannot recall where I read that and have no idea if it’s true or not.
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epoling
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Fae and Arasi can fly with their own wings if you do the quest near the Goahmari village, so some characters already fly. With that quest, they even give you lore for it. On one hand, it is disappointing that everybody can fly now, and my little guy isn’t so special. On the other hand, flying without a mount is cool, and who am I to complain that it has been opened up to all? Everybody gets to share the fun, and isn’t EQ2 supposed to be about having fun?
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Liftik
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haha above video looks like EQ2 is turning into “Angels vs. Demons”
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Me
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@Rick777 There will be a quest for the wings. It will cost 1950SC to unlock though.
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Landiin
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How can you not care about lore? Lore is important to any game. It gives the game a direction. I am not a big lore fan myself but I understand its importance and need for it to be there.
Out of the blue you have wings, go forth and fly!
Don’t get me wrong I to also know they have to make money. However something like this needs a bit of lore. That is like waking up in the morning and discovering you are not the same sex you was when you went to sleep. (Yes I know some would welcome this).
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Charn
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Actually, that is the look I THOUGHT we’d get get as Freebloods instead ONE person turning into a cloud of multiple bats . . . with red trailers following each one. That or we’d become one bat instead of the 10 or so that are in the bat cloud. Of course, since everyone can get that “flying wing” look, it’s a but of a dead issue.
Though it IS a help in raid zones where you’re still on your mount. It makes it easier to see the mob without having to try and see around everyone’s warg, rhino, or gryphon mounts. Yeah, I know I can turn mounts off, or even just off for combat. But I LIKE the look of mounts to have them always off (which only turns off ground mounts) and I think it’s just too choppy and disjointed to have mounts disappear and reappear for combat
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Kwill
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I agree with Katzilla … I would have thought there would have been a better use of the team’s time.
To me this is another sign that the focus is on fluff items, that really have nothing but a cool factor, instead of playable content. It is also telling they compared Free Realms and EQ2 on the same chart … But after the recent release of how sales are so great, why wouldn’t the VPs say go for anything that will sell on SC? Bleh.
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boho
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You morons consistently don’t understand how development works.
For the sake of your limited understanding, let’s say there are two teams that work on EQ2.
Team 1 makes SC stuff.
Team 2 makes everything else.
Team 1 essentially sits around and comes up with one or two cool-looking fluff things each week. This is EASY.
Team 2 has to make non-fluff content and fix broken stuff each week. This is HARD.
For pretty simple reasons, (a complete lack of experience and knowledge of project management), the peanut gallery thinks:
-There’s only one Team and they’re spending more time on SC things than the game. This is just wrong.
-If Sony just combined everyone into one Team and told them to work on the game itself, everything would be better. Again, wrong. I could go into detail, but instead I’ll point you toward the de-facto book on software project management: The Mythical Man Month (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mythical_Man-Month).
Since I know exactly zero of you reading this comment will actually follow that link, let alone read the book, the summary is that, in software development, a breaking point is eventually reached where adding more people to a single task actually INCREASES the amount of time required to complete the task. This is factual information.
tl;dr — SC items and patches have absolutely no correlation. Removing SC items entirely would not make patches come any faster. Adding the people that work on SC items to the patch side of things would slow down patches dramatically.
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Cuteypie of Permafrost
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When I saw a flying Iksar, I laughed and cried at the same time.
I love Iksars!!!!! But it was so ridiculous seeing them with wings!
To be honest, I love lore. It’s quite interesting, if you give it the time and mind power. Not many people do, but don’t downgrade us for different interests.
The wings are okay-looking on some races, but on others, they are absolutely ludicrous (flying froggssss!!!!! 🙂 ). It really makes no sense any more. Where’s the story? I woke up and had wings. It really makes all the cool info about Fae/Arasai flight seem like a bunch of bogus.
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camelotcrusade
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Heh, nice smackdown BOHO. I loved it. Don’t think it will stamp out the EQ2 flames that burn up the comments section on every single post, though.
And for my actual comment, I say… why not? I had a good chuckle over it, and I kept thinking of the Wicked Witch from Wizard of Oz saying “Fly, my pretties!” I do hope they parody that at some point.
EQ2 is still the best game MMORPG I’ve played for customizing your character and really making it yours. If you want to be a flying frog, you can do it.
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Betony
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Excellent post BOHO! Followed the link and then the link to the preface. Both good reads even tho’ the preface is simply a preview.
Have to agree with CAMELOTCRUSADE that the flamers will still burn up every single post, anywhere. Their hate is too deeply ingrained for any light to shine upon.
“Fly, my pretties!” Oh holy krap, I immediately thought of that froglok with wings and had to feign death ’till he flew out of sight.
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Feldon
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Boho,
Normally I would have just deleted your post. As per the rules right below the comments box:
First, you are totally full of crap. SmokeJumper was asked point blank after he joined the team as EverQuest II Senior Producer about whether StationCash and Legends of Norrath items were created by another team. He said NO.
StationCash items are produced by the same art, animation, and design teams that create standard EQ2 items. There may be some additional interns or staffers working on these items, but they use the same tools.
I’ve read the book. It seems you haven’t or you would have gotten the basic premise.
The Mythical Man Month is about a company or team hiring more employees WHO ARE UNFAMILIAR WITH THE PRODUCT. The reason why the project falls behind is because those NEW TEAM MEMBERS must be educated on the process and workflow, must be brought up to speed on the tools, and must be brought into the communications loop. Adding staff to a late project makes it later.
StationCash items are produced by the same teams of employees, using the same development tools, using the same design strategy, and using the same communication system as the EQ2 core game.
Your argument is total bunk.
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Thait
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I think they wings are pretty neat. they can look good on some characters and horrid on others. My wood elf looks really bad with either wings due partially to the outfit she wears. My Kerra on the other hand looks awesome with the nightmare wings because they work with her armor.
I would have to say that if i had been the person going to add them to the game i would have done so with a questline about some insane gnome who designed them after getting pissed at a fae who wouldnt stop mocking him about flying.
i dont really care if the team takes time for stuff like thise. I mean who really cares if they spend an hour to reskin a pegasus or something else. They still get content out at a normal rate and keep working on the game. Which is all i ask of them.
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Katttara
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I stopped reading his post after using the word “moron” about people they do not know. Children coming along and calling others names (regardless of age, its childish. Reminds me of kindergartners “Jane you’re stupid, Johnny you’re a jerk!”) It loses all credibility to me. It frankly makes me want to stop reading comments here, especially when others applaud it. Leaves an exceedingly bad taste in my mouth.
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skippydippy
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Its begining to become clear where the dev teams priorities are laying,towards the fluff stuff i mean they release an expansion with no content in it yet have the time to muck around with this nonsense
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Maethor
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Well, using separate item design teams would make sense for the sc items to be a different team than drop items(fluff items vs items with balance considerations) the visual team is still the same. Regardless if they were the same or not the teams would still communicate regularly that’s the biggest blunder a any team can ever make is a lack of communication.
Another thing is that the item creation team is never the same as the programming/bug fix team. I doubt most of the people who complain about the bugs have never actually coded any serious project. I could not imagine seeing the source code for something like everquest with so many updates over the years(it just has to be a nightmare). Finding something like a small memory leak in something so massive could take a single person months.
Btw even though he was wrong on the premise of The Mythical Man-Month, anyone interested in programming really should read it, especially any project leads. It is a really good book.
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Mike
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Well skippydippy, soe is a company and just as any company will do, they will try to create things to make a profit…and the sad part is, and it’s probably the same people that complain about it, is that people buy these items! Which just goes to further soe’s decision to create more SC items…I see tons of people that as soon as a new mount comes out, they buy it…if you don’t support the fluff items, don’t buy them…the biggest statement players can make is a statement that speaks in $$$
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Katzilla
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((Stands by Katttara and asks him/her not to stop reading EQ2 wire))
Thanks, Feldon for setting the score straight in terms of who does what-at SOE- you beat me to it.
Most bugs/game issues are found days or even weeks before the dev teams know anything about them: mainly due to forums… like this one. The fixes for them and when they will be out are posted on forums…like this one. Folks can even ask direct question to game devs (all be it in a controlled way) on a forum…like this one. They are also the first place for game devs to get instant feedback when a new feature/object is released and whether folks love it or hate it and whether to spend any more time doing the same thing or whether they nedd to change it.
So we are in fact actually HELPING the game, its players and the various teams by highlighting these issues and giving our opinions, and NOT trolling them since if we said nothing they would be entirely out of touch with their customer base or worse still, believe that we liked everything they did.
Look at the dramatic climb down on race packs and toon slots after the AOD came out. Is it really “moronic” to say “Hey hang on I don’t want this, could we have this as well as or instead of, That?”
Sharing information and comments is a good thing and helps people know which directions to try even if they are dead ends sometimes.
If voicing an opinion that might help somebody, soewhere make a more informed decision makes me a “!moron!” then guilty as charged. I can and will live with it.
Qui tacet consentire videtur- he who sits in silence is taken to agree.
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Drew
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That music is just terrible. Sorry I just had to say that. It’s like Rocky meets bad techno.
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Charn
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I find it kind of funny, in a MYTHical FANTASY game, that people are having a hard time with any race sporting flying wings. Why are talking frogs, rats, cats, and lizards OKAY, but put flying wings on them, THAT is out of the question?
It’s a game of magic. As someone pointed out, for several years now we’ve had cloaks that appear as wings. Now that they actually WORK, “Oh no, that’s just not right?” . . . It’s MAGIC! “Hey, I found a magic cloak that turns into wings.” or “I drank a potion and grew these things . . . yeah, they look weird on me (and they itch like HELL) but they sure are handy!” How’s that for lore?
Now, I’m right there with the rest of you when it comes to bug fixes, better itemization, better implementation of features (don’t get me started on the lackluster implementation of Dungeon Maker . . . it could (and still can) be done SOOOOoo much better), the ever-present “balancing” act of classes, want for new content, and a myriad of other things that need to be done. But I don’t mind throwing them a couple bucks here and there to support my favorite game . . . as long as they DO all the things (and more) listed above in a timely manner. Only time will tell . . . and the clock is ticking.
I’d hate 2012 to have to be my fifth and final Fan Faire . . . though it would be nice to go out with a bang (and by bang I mean pushed back to my room, by security, in a wheelchair ’cause I’m so blotto . . . night after night. (and yes, we DID see that happen last Fan Faire to some girl . . . while her friends looked on and snapped pictures. Great Friends!)
( 0 ;
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Eschia
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Now if only SOE would give us the option to hide flying mounts… If it isn’t bad enough everybody in the game is riding a rapter, and every time I zone I end up with my face inside a rapters bunghole, now we have superhumans flying around like bird man. And none of it can be hidden.
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Eschia
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On the other hand I think I can predict later on there will be a variation of these wings, which will be all mechanical like if made by gnomes. Then we will have people flying around like bobafett.
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Anaogi
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On the other hand I think I can predict later on there will be a variation of these wings, which will be all mechanical like if made by gnomes. Then we will have people flying around like bobafett.
…now that, I’d be all for. But only if there’s a chance it explodes.
Does that make me a bad person…?
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boho
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StationCash items are produced by the same art, animation, and design teams that create standard EQ2 items. There may be some additional interns or staffers working on these items, but they use the same tools.
Feldon, I fail to see this is any different than what I said. Yes, the SC people are part of the EQ2 team. But they work on items. We could call them the, oh I don’t know, Item Team. What else does the Item Team have to work on, exactly?
The gripes I read on this site come in two forms: fundamental feature or mechanic problems (ie, Dungeon Finder sucks, raids are too exclusive, broken quests/bugs, etc), and “why aren’t they fixing these fundamental feature or mechanic problems?”
The latter is always implicitly answered either in the method of asking or in the article itself: It’s a conspiracy and EVERYONE should be working on bugs and bad features, whether or not they actually have any experience in that department or not. After all, weekly new SC items PROVE that SoE only cares about SC… am I right? Oh, and let’s ignore the weekly hot fixes because that doesn’t fit into the conspiracy myth.
This is where The Mythical Man Month comes in. The Item Team is the Item Team. You said this yourself. The Item Team doesn’t know how to fix code-level bugs, or pathing, or Dungeon Finder. They know how to fix items. To move them to fixing code, pathing, and Dungeon Finder would result in the exact kind of backfire that TMMM details because, like you pointed out, they’d need to be trained.
You also missed the part in The Mythical Man Month where it’s discussed how, at certain population breaking points, communicating about a project begins to take up more of a team’s time than actually doing the project, regardless of the expertise the individual members have.
Basically, Feldon, I don’t know why you chose to write your post like you’re trying to counter my points. All you did was confirm them.
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Whilhelmina
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I usually hate flying. I think it ruins the game and I find griffons and pegasus alike totally ridiculous/hideous. That said, I was in the film above and I had a blast. It was evry very funny to move around in the air without a mount. So yes, I like the wings.
Lore wise, I don’t have a problem with it for 2 reasons:
– We had wings in EQ2 for years (shards of love and such) so it’s nothing new.
– We lack something that exists in EQ1: levite. After having crossed Great Divide multiple times by levitating through the zone (levitating means moving in a straight line in the air, with your feet moving across an empty surface) I will never be able to find any mean of moving through the air unnatural. We don’t levitate in EQ2, we have mages everywhere, it seems logical to have somebody design flying wings (which is what arasai wings are btw)
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Grugg
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The black wings look awesome. Just wish they’d fix the longstanding, overly complex UI.
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Feldon
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Boho keeps talking about Item Teams and SC teams and other inventions.
EQ2 has like 4-5 people on created items that require artwork. One of those people is Gnobrin. These folks make items for SC or for the EQ core game and to my knowledge, there is no distinction between the two. Nearly every set of furniture created for the Marketplace has later had a crafted version become available with a different appearance. The basic shapes which recently appeared on the Marketplace will later have crafted versions. Prove that these are done by different people. You can’t.
Trying to shoehorn your own ignorance about how SOE games are designed into a well-documented programming and design precept like Mythical Man-Month isn’t going to fly.
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Feldon
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As for the lore issue, it’s not a big deal to me. But realize that just a few months ago, Fae and Arasai were given quests which had all kinds of lore about why they had to be shrunk down by 50% in order to be able to fly, as their wings were never designed to do anything more than hover. Generations ago, Fae and Arasai were smaller in size and their wings could support flight.
With this SC item, wings are being bolted onto Ogres, Trolls, Frogloks, and other non-aerodynamic races. It’s not that the fantasy genre prevents bolt-on wings. I mean, the Kingdom of Sky islands are being suspended in mid-air by what must be tremendous magical forces.
The point is, SOE made a point of placing a whole chunk of Lore between Fae/Arasai and flight based largely on weight and lifting ability. And now wings are being handed out to anyone and everyone.
The internal inconsistency is at least worth a chuckle.
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badcat
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All I have to say is we can see whats going on here. More and more items added to the sc store. I just shake my head and go gee wiz, look at eq2 becoming free realms more and more each day.
It is obvious the demographic of who is playing this game has changed. I think were almost at the point of calling eq2, freerealms-eq2, but I think that is what soe wants.
The want more and more weird stuff in the store that folks can buy, without pumping out content and fixes to stuff that’s broken in game.
I guess it is easier to put wings on my kerra, than fix the memory leaks that crash the game.
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Thait
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Exactly how fast do you want content released BadCat? They have always run on a yearly content release. This used to be done every november but they shifted it to feb a few years back. This feb is when they release the other half of DOV with overland, dungeons and raids.
I keep hearing a people shout about content as if we have somehow not gotten the usual amount when in fact they are putting it out exactly on time. A few people keep pointing to AoD and screaming that it didnt have content when it was never supposed to, they came out and said that the other half of DOV was coming in feb as a general update.
As for fixing certain bugs, while i will say that some would be and should be easy to fix there are bugs that only affect a small portion of the player base and dont affect others. I have yet to ever have a memory leak problem. In fact i have never once had a bug affect my login, zoneing or other such process. The problem with fixing some bugs is they affect some people but not others, this means that you have to try and find out why that person alone or that small group has the problem and fix it without causeing problems for someone else.
I still find it amazing that they can toss in a fix for a lighting problem, or other random problem, and suddenly there are a small group who cant log in or get stuck in a building, or like one of my friends just start crashing randomly. Though part of that is simply the age of the game and different people who have all worked on it.
While i fault them for bugs not fixed that are reported from the test server and feedback i dont fault them for strange bugs that crop up from other fixes. Especially when said bugs seem to only hit randomly among the player base.
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Striinger
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Don’t let the cascade effect of bugs on pc’s hurt your brain. To understand why pc development is so painful, just start a thread asking: what hardware type/brand, OS/edition, antivirus version, windows updates, attached peripherals, network connection method, etc. do you use?
While MOST of that doesn’t matter most of the time, sometimes it does.
As for like/hate wings…I don’t care enough to flame and haven’t seen anyone I play with sporting them anyway. Just spend your time in no-mount dungeons and you won’t see them.
Last, this and any other anonymous community are FILLED with morons…I’m usually one of them. It’s just what you get when everyone feels such a strong sense of entitlement; belief that their opinion is important or insightful. Truth is, comments are usually flames or fanaticism…though Wire comments have degraded over the past year. The price for success?
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Teralle
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Badcat’s observation is spot on. EQ is becoming D&D themed FreeRealms. Lore doesn’t matter anymore.
Unicorns, flying wings and rainbows? It’s like my pretty pony.
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