by Moorgard on 2001-12-10
Ah, another day, another patch message, right? Well, this one is meatier than most, and will probably be seen as a sucker punch by a lot of people. Here goes:December 10th, 3:00am
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*Patch Changes*
- Fixed a problem that resulted in excessive swapping for people with particles turned off.
- Fear spells should again be working correctly.
- AoE fear spells will no longer work versus players on PvP Servers.
- Fixed a crash caused by a familiar dying.
- Fixed a bug with the "Alternate Advancement" system. An artifact from the removal of the class-based experience penalty several months ago resulted in hybrids gaining AAXP much faster than they should, and warriors and rogues gaining it slower. AA-point cost was designed to be the same regardless of class.
- Increased the experience cost per AA-point overall after analysis of point accruals accross the game.
- Corrected several zone-crashes. Also implemented a workaround to prevent the Hollowshade crash while we investigate the problem further.
- Fixed several miscellaneous bugs that were causing crashes or had the potential to cause crashes on varied systems.
- Fixed a bug that caused some people to crash when reentering the game after exiting.
- Addressed a good number of content-related issues (quest problems, bad items, etc).
*Luclin Install*
We found that the default install directory for Luclin may be wrong for some people, specifically those who have copied their EverQuest files into a directory different from their initial installation.
Also, we've received a number of calls from Luclin subscribers who've tried logging in to their character on a friends computer that does not have an install of Luclin on it. This will not work as the files necessary for you to view Luclin content are not present unless Luclin has been installed.
We've added code to point out both of these cases in the future.
*Continued Plans*
As we wrap up the technology-related issues over the course of this week, making sure that everyone who wants to play EverQuest can play EverQuest, the programming team will shift their focus to aesthetic issues such as animation speed/timing, armor tinting, face-picker operation, etc. We do indeed plan on getting to all of these issues in the very short term.
The content-team, however, is hard at work on content-related issues right now, and stands ready to address any broken quests, items, encounter-imbalances, etc., that you may run across in your adventures. Please feel free to visit our forums off of www.everquestlive.com and submit a comment through the Developer's Corner.
Thank you for your patronage,
-The EverQuest Team
The bug fixes are great, and are much needed. Personally, it has taken far too many system tweaks for me to get the game into even a remotely playable condition, and folks with beefier systems than I are registering similar complaints. Remember when games worked out of the box? Remember when release dates were pushed back rather than rushing something that wasn't finished? Does anybody remember how many patches Zork I required in order to be completed successfully?
Aside from fixes that will hopefully make the game more stable, the obvious thing in this patch is the nerfing of the alternate advancement system. To be honest with you, I'm of two minds on the matter.
On the one hand, the alternate advancement system was Luclin's saving grace. It's the one new thing that actually worked, and that players seemed to universally approve of. To negatively impact the feature at this juncture seems like an insanely bad move on Verant's part. Why take the time to nerf something before the game is actually stable? Don't we all think that Verant owes us something for the massive screwup they inflicted upon all of us?
On the other hand, I know far too many Barons already to say that the alternate advancement system was working as intended. When we first saw the breakdown of the skill tree, we got the feeling that it would take months to achieve the class-specific skills... and honestly, that seemed okay. To have characters advance too quickly is to trivialize the whole system. If this feature was meant, at least in part, to be a means of personalizing your character, then to make it so all skills were obtainable in a relatively short timeframe would make any such personalization meaningless.
Ultimately, you have to play the game you want to play, not the one you perceive Verant wants you to play. No one is forcing you to grind for experience in the alternate advancement system (time for an acronym--let's call it AAS). While some skills are very nice, these abilities weren't necessary to clear NToV, or wake the Sleeper, or kill the Avatar of War. It was the inventiveness of players that brought down these mobs, and it's this skill that Verant will never be able to nerf.