Feldon 
At SOE Live this year, we found out that of all the internal test servers that the EQ2 team uses to build content, none of them behaves quite like the Live or production servers. EverQuest II’s 10th annivesary is being celebrated with the return of the Heroes’ Festival event and although we understand the event was extensively tested internally, things just did not work as planned when the event was pushed to the live servers.
To force the event to run properly, members of the EQ2 team and Customer Service have been empowered to manually start up these events and spawn the vendor Roslyn through the weekend until a proper fix can be rolled out on Tuesday.
A Well-Received Event
So far these puppet/patchwork events have been a lot of fun and received positive feedback. Even though they are raid mobs, in actual practice they work like Public Quests in that anyone of any level can participate in the fight. As long as you get the buff on you from fighting them (you need to stand rather close to them), you should get credit.
Don’t worry, they don’t actually do any damage. There are zonewide notifications several minutes before they spawn. Specific details of the event can be found on EQ2 ZAM. Note that if you are a low level character, you can still reach Baelon in the Eidolon Jungle. Travel to the Feerrott and then take the nearest teleporter to the Fearcreep.
Kaitheel provided an update about the issues with the event and when we can expect a permanent fix:
A permanent solution is being implemented, but due to our expansion process it cannot be pushed out until the next game update, which is on Tuesday, and although that is not that far off, we wish it were sooner.
The even better news is that we have teamed up with CS to better ensure that Roslyn Mischeva respawns and restarts the event on a regular basis, until then. That way she and all of her numerous clothwork creations will make their appearances no matter what server you are on!
In the very near future, EQ2 senior programmer Dave “Maevianiu” Kish will be building a “production-like” test server which should look, feel, and taste like a real server. We prefer that events go to Test or Beta first, even if it “spoils the surprise”, as a spoiled event is better than a buggy one. But when the EQ2 team really want things to be a surprise, now they’ll be able to more reliably test things. Of course Dave Kish will be getting on that task right after he figures out how to keep the EQ2 client from crashing on computers built during George W. Bush’s first term.
I thought that was what Test server was for? Are there bigger differences than we know? Or is it an NDA thing?
I am speculating that Kaitheel wanted the event to be a surprise.
Having it as a surprise was neat, even if there were a few hiccups.
What is troubling though, is that their development/test environments don’t mirror their live/production environments.
Being a server based software developer myself, I would relentlessly hound everyone involved to rectify that, if I couldn’t rectify it myself with a cluster of VMs.
Everything is developed under siege, with no time to stop and develop the tools the “perfect” way. The Terrain Tool was a miracle. If we didn’t have that, then this year’s expansion would have been thimble-sized. Instead we get two huge overlands. The EQ2 team hired a Tools programmer and then he got immediately stolen for Next. EQ2 needs more programmers!!!
P.S.
LOVING the new style of live event! Everyone cooperating, every one included (well, except for people who do not have CoE, but Tuesday that problem will be fixed as well, if I’m not mistaken?) and no way for people to grief other players. It’s like a dream. ^_^
Aye.i’m loving the new event too – will be even better once working as intended. Got very frustrated the other day – all 5 spawned at once – i managed to get 2 in that time, just and never saw another despite standing around for literally hours.
Are they going to extend the Festival for a few days to give everyone a chance to get all the tokens, as this was borked for quite a while?
They really pulled a rabbit out of the hat for this one – a delightful total surprise.
So many of us have been asking for PQ’s to come back for awhile now, and it was great to hear recently they’re being revamped with ones on the way next year, but this came out of left field, and it really bodes well for what may be to come next year.
Great phat lewt to be had – especially if you like the fluff stuff like so many of us do, plushies and whatnot, but even if thats not your bag, theres a decent array of weaponry and armour to be had, with some good looking appearances.
Can’t wait to see what happens next year, though hope the dev team definitely tread carefully with them. Perhaps add a number of different PQ’s, and perhaps not have some of them quite as frequent as those that are in DoV to ensure they’re not having a damaging effect on those looking for groups for dungeons. I’d also say give them a chance to drop some ultra rare stuff too to keep people always interested in them so there is always a group to be had for them at peak times – maybe masters / grandmasters, tradeskill rares, rare adornments, shinies, maybe even give them a very rare chance to drop an ethereal item, plus of course a currency of some sort to purchase other stuff, house items etc. and perhaps a bit of personal status each time.
Anyway for this event, I takes me hat off to those who made these – even though they’re obviously pretty easy, they are really good fun – and for those saying that various servers are dead – I say that certainly wasn’t what I saw this weekend, it was wonderful to see so many people out and about in Norrath.
I also second the request to extend this event by a week or two, its a special occasion, ten year anniversary and all, and with the expansion hitting this week and a very busy work week ahead, many of us can’t possibly enjoy it all.
Anyway great job SOE, more of the same in the future please.
I agree that it was a great fun event 🙂 Even with it not working as intended, I really appreciated the GMs taking the time to keep it going over the weekend. I also feel like the randomness of the spawns made it more interesting, in a way. I turned on General chat again for the first time in who-knows-how-long, and there were always folks chatting in there asking where the next spawn was expected to be, or calling out what was up and giving % updates. It brought people together and gave them a reason to go out into the world again.
This is a really cool event, with achievements and all for those of us who are really into those. Getting disco on a nice looking appearance weapon was icing. The only grumbling at these was at someone who was killing people around them by wearing Aspect of the Dragon, which deals damage to your raid. Otherwise, a very nice surprise event!