Feldon 
EQ2 Developer Jamiss, who has been trudging the lonely path of migrating a 10 year old MMORPG (EverQuest II) to a new database language, has posted some reflections and updates to this last weekend’s Beta test of the upcoming database changes. If you were able to get into beta and you managed to get 250 updates from killing mobs in overland zones, you got an achievement which awarded a [eq2u]Blessed of Veeshan Reward Bundle[/eq2u] on your live character.
Bugs are expected in any beta test, but many players were unable to even get into the beta due to graphical glitches or extremely rough performance of 1 frame per second. Mid-weekend, a server reboot prevented further updates on the Achievement needed to award the mount. Suffice it to say, a few folks had to step away from their keyboards and let out their frustrations, but we need to remember that this is the first of several beta tests before these changes go live. For players who have limited play time, spending it on beta may not be a good choice. However for those who are able to chip in and test things, their contributions are greatly appreciated. Remember that the goal of these database changes is improved performance and very cool things like cross-server dungeon finder.
From the EQ2 Forums:
First, let me thank all of you who have been playing and testing on beta. Your hard work has helped us tremendously so far!
I wanted to address some questions that were in the giant beta thread:
- What were we testing?
- Generally we were testing the load on the servers as well as trying to track down any oddities that may exist with the database update.
- What was up with the mount achievement?
- This ended up being one of those oddities that we were looking for. Not everything that we were testing is directly seen by our players. We’re still running some testing on this one in particular, but as stated by Caith earlier in the thread — several monsters were not updating this due to an issue that had nothing to do with the database, and if the servers went down the achievement had to be reactivated. The good news is that beta is staying open keeping the opportunity to earn the mount! It’s currently locked because we’re working on getting a new build out there.
- Why did the servers go down / get locked / etc?
- This is a part of beta. It’s helping us iron out these issues before they make it to the live servers. I realize that it can be frustrating, but the main idea is beta is very frustrating so that when it makes it to your home, it is significantly less so.
- Why can’t I see anything / framerate so bad?
- We did notice some odd issues with the streaming client on beta. If you’re having those problems, please try to do a full download and test again.
Again, thank you for joining us on beta!
Update from Jamiss late last night:
Beta should be back up and running. I also activated the achievement. Please keep in mind that if the server goes down, it will have to be reactivated.
Currently not working kills on grays and whites are not incrementing the achievements.
Sadly the achievement was the same one that we had testing ToV which of course means the mount is pretty much useless. Oh well. guess there are some who want another useless mount.
they need to give up the cross server stuff and actually merge the servers, it would save a lot of wasted effort
Why? Server merges seem like a bandaid to a problem that will inevitably crop up again a few months after the bandaid has been stuck on.
We can’t say they’re wasting their effort, as we haven’t seen the end result and are only guessing at what it may be.
The end result may well be the perfect solution for those who are having issues with low populations on their servers, as effectively it should open up the entire EQ2 population for grouping activities.
Of course we don’t know yet whether this will be purely for Dungeon Finder 2.0 groups, or whether it will be able to extend to casual pugs or raids even. Who knows how it will work, its too early to be saying its not the answer though, with respect you or I don’t know exactly what is on the cards internally. But to be honest I don’t think they’d be pumping months worth of dev time / resources into it if they didn’t believe it was going to have a major positive effect on the game.
I’ve heard an argument that says ‘well yeah but cross server won’t fix our servers economy’. Well there is that, but maybe there will be some cross-server broker functionality. Maybe we will also be able to go and freely look at other houses and whatnot on other servers too. Of course I’m just speculating, but that kind of thing is not beyond the realms of possibility.
Lets wait and see, you don’t get anywhere without trying new things and cross-server to me seems like an absolute no-brainer for EQ2 and is a pity it didn’t happen much sooner.
I lost friends in the last 2 server mergers because a) they lost their identity, basically, when losing their names. b) there was a lot of hostility from the “natives”, particularly for LDL server (a RP server) moving to Crushbone (a troll server.. er… well you get my drift)
Mergers suck. :\ I’m thrilled that they are working so hard on cross server grouping. ^_^
If they can set up the cross server stuff they could allow people to move between servers freeley….
And give up a revenue stream? Not likely.
Since this is ‘Beta’ talk.. lets review the existing…
https://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/index.php?threads/for-developers-only-stats-mechanics-code-fails.558800/
Here’s some bits of it for the devels and others who wanna read where we are, atm.
I read until I got tired of looking for the point then started skimming. Is the short version, “AoM changes made my inquisitor gimp, please balance healers. “?
I’m talking about the link in the post above that leads to the forums, btw
Just tweeted out – for this weekend’s testing the Blessed Sokokar reward (and any received prior to this) have had the stats buffed. Don’t have comparison capability in front of me though…