View Full Forums : Official EQ Druid Forum


Fanra
12-24-2007, 11:55 AM
I've always ignored SOE's druid forum (The Druids Circle) because I felt it was worthless and that the best druids would be here.

However, with Fenier moderating it, I've decided to visit it occasionally and post there.

So exactly how should it interact with The Druids Grove?

Fenier, does anyone at SOE actually read either their own Druids forum or this site? Are you the only communication they ever get regarding druid issues?

In the past, on very rare occasions, someone from SOE would post here, so I know that someone there has visited here at times.

Basically, I enjoy discussing issues and learning from druids both here and on SOE's site and I will continue to do so.

However, I was wondering if anyone at SOE reads any of the posts we make and if so, which venue was best for getting their attention.

Although, to be honest, I'm not really expecting to get their attention, at least in a positive way. I've given up on SOE.

Fenier
12-24-2007, 12:24 PM
So exactly how should it interact with The Druids Grove?

I try to draq information from both sites, as I know certain posters avoid one or the other.

Fenier, does anyone at SOE actually read either their own Druids forum or this site? Are you the only communication they ever get regarding druid issues?

They read both, I can (and have) pointed out threads to them for review, but I've also been asked questions or seen adjustments based on what's been posted about (the unlinking of Sotw and CoS comes to mind).

As for the second question, I hope not, everyone is free to send information to the devs via PMs, posts and so forth. People shouldn't feel obligated to wait on me.

However, I was wondering if anyone at SOE reads any of the posts we make and if so, which venue was best for getting their attention.


Non-Class issues, the vet's forum is by far the best way. Eqlive is likely the second best way, but I would tie it with here.

-Fenier

Fanra
12-24-2007, 12:35 PM
Non-Class issues, the vet's forum is by far the best way. Eqlive is likely the second best way, but I would tie it with here.
Err...what's Eqlive?

(Feel free to riff on me for not knowing, I don't mind asking foolish questions and being tagged for it :)

Fenier
12-24-2007, 12:39 PM
The Druids Circle (or more exact, any of the Offical Everquest forums)

Nodyin is pretty good and does check the class forums about AA information. Prathun is less active on the forums, but does sometimes comment on spells.

Knowing which dev is in charge of what helps.

Quickly

Prathun does spells
Nodyin does AA
Merloc does Items

Rashere is the lead, Maddoc is Ast. Lead and tends to work on things like skillcaps, and such.

Khauruk
12-24-2007, 02:36 PM
Best place to get a dev's attention is to make one of our class issues not simply druid-centric, and use the Vet. Lounge - like if I was bringing up Ferocity being useless for my Beastlord, I would talk about all classes that can buff ATK.

If you're reasonable, doing the "Developer XXXX - Please read this re: subject" gig as your subject line can get it looked at. But, keep it smart, well reasoned, etc,...otherwise you go rapidly on the ignore list.

Starting a thread with a PM being sent at the same time to the dev. you want to highlight it to can work also.

But, don't expect a whole lot...the devs are busy, and may have specific reasons for not replying. Or, like Prathun, may just be brats.

Fenier
12-24-2007, 03:22 PM
The subject is pretty important, and after a while if all your topics drastically overstate your claims, you'll get less attention, so it's pretty important to be honest, and not dramatic.

Take these two topics:

Reptile/WoT/DS Nerf WTF!!1!

And:

Possible Concern over new defensive proc spells - proc limit

Which would you click on if you were pressed for time?

The first isn't specific at all, and most people are going to assume it's a spell question. The second directly says - "I have a question for the dev and / or coder that worked on X issue" it draws attention, it will help.

-Fenier

palamin
12-24-2007, 08:21 PM
There has been a few times(I am being nice here), where I was running around in busted zones, busted mobs, with busted spells and abilities over the course of my tenure in EQ. One example being, the revamp they were doing to make mobs scale to a more generally even margin, example, they upped mobs attack and hit values things like that, to if you were exping in say plane of nightmare, the standard level 50-55 mobs would hit for around 300 no aa's things like that. They said they upped the older mobs luclin and stuff by 20%. But, when after the patch a bunch of players ran around testing them, me being one of them. What we found were previously 130 hitters hitting in the 400 range, eek, I even found a few in the 600 range, those were not exactly fun.

The level range in that revamp was intended on level 46-56 mobs. So, I tested a few veterans in Kael which are level 57+ mobs, and I found them unchanged, but, the lower level mobs that were 45-55, were like fighting mack trucks, and were out damaging the Vets by large margins.

So, by giving values to over a wide variety of mobs in various zones that were changed, with standard things like, I was a level 70 ranger with xxx defensive aa's trained, armor class and stuff like that. Also, pointing things out like look the progression servers just came out, at the time, they are going to progress through that content wearing xxx gear, this will be to much for them to do in exprience groups for what is intended to be exprience mobs.

Backing up your claims with actual data and comparing it with what they used to do, what the intended fix was supposed to do, and what the intended fix actually did, and giving out a few implications of what will happen, risk versus reward, went a long way to getting things smoothed out in short order. Of course there are other examples of things they never got around to like smoothed pathing in certain zones and such.

Elric91
12-25-2007, 06:51 AM
I remember one time sony posted on the patch message they were looking for help. i remember quite clearly one of the listed job requirements was :

"the ability to pick out a small nugget of wisdom out of page long rants"

that should pretty much tell anyone of sony's general attitude towards their community. they pretty much think any post we put up is gonna be just a page long rant with only a nugget of actual worth, so we better have enough actual facts and data to block a river, and our presentation convincing, concise, and right to the point or we can pretty much accept the fact we will be promptly /ignored.

and i dont really believe that they are too busy to read our posts. i have /petitioned stuff over and over, again and again and have not had a single reply to any of my issues.

like when DoD first came out i could not zone into the hive. i /bug reported, /petition, sent tells to gm's, danced on one leg, all the while staring at the moons of jupiter and i never got a reply. i phoned sony customer support and they said " we cant help you, thats an in game issue to ask gm's" and promptly hung up on me. so weeks later when i finally saw a gm running around in PoK and i sent a tell he said, and im not joking, "thats a technical issue, not an in game issue, i cant help you with that one. you need to call the technical support line".

so i was so angry i almost quit EQ for good when i met a kind passer by, and explained my problem. i said i can go to undershore, stoneroot falls, and most other DoD zones, but some of the DoD instances like the hive and the narligor pits causes my computer to crash. he said " thats sounds like a corrupt or missing file. try doing a complete file check."

such a simple answer to a crash problem, and i searched the support site for weeks, called on the phone, practically begged in game gm's, /petitioned and /bug reported, and I waited and waited. not a single one of them could spare me a minute of their precious time to tell me i had a corrupt file. i admit im not albert einstein when it comes to science or computers, and i coulda used a little assistance, which i never got.

it seems everytime ive had an issue with somthing on the technical end, like crashes, (yes ive had more than just the above reported issue) ive got the same treatment and had to re-install EQ to fix it.

another time i was locked out of my guild chat. roster said i was still in guild. i still had the guild tag. but if i tried to send a message in guild chat it would tell me an error message and it wouldnt work. after waiting on sony for a week and no reply i re-installed EQ and re-patched it and still didnt work.

then i tried to transfer my guild leadership to a friend and leave the guild so i could re-join and see if it would fix, but after i left guild i couldnt re-join. kept saying i was still in the guild even though i wasn't on the roster, had no tag, and was even able to join a different guild that proved i was not in the guild, it still said i was already a member and could not be invited.

well, my point is after i waited on sony for over a week, i had to spend hours and hours trying and trying till i found a loophole in the in game commands that allowed me to fix my own problem because sony apparently did not care at all about my problem. I could easily list more problems i have had, that were glitches or bugs, and sony did absolutely nothing.

maybe there are methods that can get their attention and maybe there are'nt. maybe sony read my messages and casually discarded them and maybe they didn't.

im trying to be fair, and thinking that the problems i have are usually delegated to lower end people that work 9 - 5, and dont care about anything except when they pick up their checks, but its hard when im continually ignored.

theres a big difference between sony hearing us, and sony listening to us. i can only judge based on my own experiences, but unless you have a very solid, un-class biased point that cannot possibly be denied, like Palamins, then you will more than likely be ignored.

Fenier is the first person who actually looked like he was LISTENING to me, not just hearing me. which is why i try to be respectful towards him as our CC. i think its good that, while he don't always agree with what we say, at least he is present in the boards all over the place, debating with us. at least we get to voice our opinions.

Fenier
12-25-2007, 01:10 PM
There are a few different systems in EQ. Knowing which one to use can make your life a ton easier.

The /petition command, which goes to Guides and GMs handle issues with your character and / or mob spawns in relation to actual game play. This doesn't cover certain issues such as being unable to zone or do X, as those are techinal issues and they have little to no experience with them. The CS team (I believe) reports the most common tech issues to QA.

The /bug command goes directly to QA. QA will then attempt to reproduce the bug. This is why they ask for everything under the sun. If they can replicate the bug on a consisent basis, it generates a support ticket which is then assigned to a Coder / Dev as is fit for the issue.

The Tech Support Team addresses techincal issues such unable to access game features, crashing etc. As a good rule of thumb, if you can't see something your supposed to, or zone somewhere you should have access to, you may have a corrupted file. I am sure Tech support also forwards the most common issues to QA for testing.

The key here is, QA needs to replicate the issue. If they can't it's much much harder to get it fixed. All bugs from Crashing to spelling mistakes is assigned a priority. More important things normally get addressed first.

Ocassionally the issue is a design issue, which are handled by the devs, however sometimes those issues require Code support, so the issues are put on hold until Code has time to address their end of it.

So it really depends on a fairly large number of factors on what gets addressed, when and by whom.

-Fenier