NewsPro Archive

/ Of Mice And Men - Friday, June 27, 2003 - D 0ne
The post by Alan. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- AbsorEQ EQ Community Relations Posts: 15 (6/16/03 8:21 pm) Re: Info posted about Lost Dungeons.... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The coming August Expansion will be adding Dungeon Instances. This is a programing/Hardware feature done quite well by Publishers such Blizzard North (DIABLO 2) & Mystic (DAOC). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes and no. Certainly done well by those folks, but let's leave Diablo out of any reasonable conversation about MMORPGs, please. Great game, nothing like an MMORPG. And, well, last I checked DAoC doesn't do instancing at all. There are, however, a few others that do, and have it working fine. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 2. However, we are dealing with SOE. SOE is in the process of trying to finish EQ2 and has admittly been using EQ as a testbed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "admittly" (sic) implies that we've actually said that, which we haven't. That, and it's not true either. Is it ok if we just improve EverQuest because we want to make the game better? Does everything we do have to be some sort of test for EQII? I am certain that the EQII team is keeping their eyes on what we do, but EQ is not the test bed for any game. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. In the last week Prexus (et all) has been going up & down like a Yoyo made of TNT. BOOM! is the word I would use. It has been rather less than fun. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It went boom. Unrelated, of course, to anything having to do with this conversation, but it was a hardware thing. Hardware, in case you don't know, sometimes goes boom, whether it is involved in instancing dungeons or keeping pr0n mailing lists. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 4. To introduce this Expansion the Server Clusters will have to be reconfigured to accept the new hardware to generate "X" number of random Dungeons based on the number of groups that wish to use them. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Heh. No comment, except to say that you are not entirely correct. Why would we have to touch the existing server architecture to add new boxes? Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 5. SOE will have to input the server side code in TEST to Beta 1 the Expansion and on Legends to Beta 2 it. This is still 1 TEST Cluster & 1 Blue Cluster. These are seperate systems from the usual production servers. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Here you are: a) not making much sense. b) being insulting. c) correct in that these are indeed seperate (sic) systems, but then so is every other Live server. They are, though, as similar to each other and every other Live server as any Live server is to another. d) all of the above. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 6. Given SOE's history of debugging softwares and the outright refusal to do the required testing I expect to see EQ (as a total Game) crash the entire system as it did with LUCLIN. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- And if it works will you actually come here and admit it? Will you be brave enough to stop ranting and actually admit that we know what we're doing? Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 7. Another expansion is slated for release in December (XMAS?). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No comment. Except that this is rather unrelated to anything about LDoN. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 8. Given the problems generated by the August release + the slew of new problems from the December release I expect something rather worse than the LUCLIN Mess to occur. Since LUCLIN Mess took over a year to correct (release of the BAZAAR) I expect EQ to be almost unplayable for several months. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- All I can say here is… well, nothing for public consumption. Quote: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 9. FOR THE RECORD: Aplogists for SOE not releasing truly viable Gold Code for sale will be considered VAK. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Last defense of those without the ability to debate their opponents, call them names if they disagree. Truly sad when you feel the need to do it even before they've made their comments. To everyone else in this community, I apologize for replying to this at all. But sometimes I just can't sit here and read this sort of… stuff… and not respond. A ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Alan VanCouverings bio from the Sony site Bio - Alan VanCouvering has been a member of the EverQuest® Live team for just about a year as of August 2001. He filled the gap left when Gordon Wrinn was promoted to Associate Producer for EQ Live, and serves as Community Relations Manager. In this capacity, Alan is responsible for ensuring that the players of EverQuest are able to form and develop a cohesive and functional community. He reviews websites to learn about players' issues, and responds to them publicly whenever possible. Alan was born and raised in Orange County, California. He has an Associate of Arts degree in engineering, but decided that the life of an engineer was too structured for him, and headed out into the world to find his career. He has worked in managerial positions for a large chain bookstore, where he says he learned the most important lesson of his life, both for work and for life in general, "Everyone is a person. Treat them that way." Many of his former positions have been as a clerk of one sort or another, and most recently, he worked for the federal government as a computer specialist. Most of his responsibilities revolved around technical assistance for other users. He was also involved with a website called EverQuest Express, a roleplaying web-zine that focuses on EverQuest. Their message is that roleplaying is the heart of EverQuest, and they encourage that in players. Alan's introduction to computers came when his brother wanted one to do his homework on in high school. Quite naturally, the brothers became interested in computer games early on. Alan says, "I still remember playing Star Saga, with lists and maps spread out all over the room." He goes on to explain, "My primary love for computers is what they can do, not so much how they do it. I know plenty of people who only know joy when they are taking apart and putting together PCs. For me it's using them - that's the fun part." The first games that appealed to Alan were role-playing games of the pen and paper variety, even before he got into computers. He and friends played marathon board games, bizarre variations of Monopoly, and lots more. However, he says, "My favorite memories have always been from the series of Call of Cthulu games a friend ran at the local game convention. They were so funny, people were standing in the halls watching the game just to see how it would turn out." He feels strongly that in the pen and paper style games, there is something about interacting with people in a world where nearly anything is possible, and believes that for that versatility, he will always keep going back to pen and paper games in the long run. Alan is a confirmed and contented bachelor who still roleplays regularly with his high school and college friends, even though he now has to drive 80 miles to do it. At one time, he was a member of a light weapons house in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA), which is a very popular historical role-playing organization, and briefly was a member of the International Fantasy Gaming Society. He reads a lot and aspires, as many do, to write a novel someday. Alan describes himself as a fan of science fiction and epic fantasy, citing Orson Scott Card as his favorite author, but he mentions Heinlein, Bear, Brin, Benford, Niven, Kay, and Martin as well. The latter genre, fantasy, would most likely be the one he would choose as his own, he says, hoping to one day have characters like those of Card, political machinations like Kay, the inventiveness of Niven and the vision of Heinlein. Lofty aspirations, to be sure, but the result would no doubt be spectacular reading!

June 2003