If you have been following the posts (and tweets) of Emily “Domino” Taylor, Tradeskill lead for EQ2, over the past few months, you’ve probably picked up on her increased involvement and interaction with the other parts of the EQ2 team. Today’s news that she has stepped up from Tradeskill Lead to Associate Producer then is not too surprising, as she has already produced and contributed to several live events and had a hand in creating increasingly elaborate content beyond that of Tradeskills.
Domino has quickly grown from creating new tiers of tradeskill content (for most tradeskill classes, a mostly copy-paste operation) to producing complex quests and designing entire events. We’ve seen the introduction of elaborate Heritage quests, the first ever Signature tradeskill quest (the Coldain Prayer Shawl), as well as Tradeskill Epics, and a large variety of content for tradeskillers, all while more than doubling the number of recipes available to Carpenters and other classes.
And all along, Domino has made a point of communicating with players moreso than many other developers, and rapidly correcting the numerous shortcomings and frustrations of the EQ2 tradeskill system as it existed when she took over. I think one could safely say that, with the exclusion of the actual “mechanics” of crafting (the dull 1-2-3-1-2-3 four second crafting cycle), Tradeskills are one of the most polished parts of EQ2.
So with today’s announcement that Domino will be taking more of a “big picture” vantage point on the EQ2 development process, who will pick up the Tradeskill banner? As it turns out, someone who is no stranger to the task: Paul “Frizznik” Carrico. I’m hopeful that with his background in game mechanics and content design, he’ll be able to lend a hand to continuing to shepherd tradeskills, while addressing some of the mechanical shortcomings of the actual crafting process (the aforementioned 4 second crafting cycle having proven to be a more effective sleep aid than Diprivan), as well as the niggling bugs and caps that have largely hampered the draw of Crafting and Harvesting skill buffs. As we saw last week, Frizznik has wasted no time and already put through some changes in Harvesting speeds for lower level characters.
After the break, the full announcement…