by Moorgard on 2001-08-07
Trike-Unity wrote:I'll do my best to explain the situation.
Most of you are aware that there is still a bit of a bug with the way pets work in the aggro code. In Kael there are a lot of NPCs that can be charmed that are significantly more powerful than any pet. Some folks were using this combination of bug and situation to make encounters much more trivial than they were intended to be.
Fixing the bug will require a full patch, and a largish one at that. We weren't willing to make a large emergency patch, taking down all the servers and requiring all that downtime for our customers to fix a bug being abused in one zone.
This left us with pretty much three options.
1) Allow folks to continue to use the bug to their advantage.
2) Begin punishing people for using the bug until it could be patched.
3) Remove the ability to use the bug in the situation where it was most abusable, Kael, and then fix the bug with the next patch and remove the temporary fix.
We chose the third option.
We don't want people using bugs to their advantage. We feel that it harms the game integrity and the gameplay of those that don't use bugs to their advantage. We couldn't take option one.
We could choose option two, but policing such things requires resources, and banning people isn't something we like to do. This is a new bug, and perhaps people were unsure that it is indeed a bug. And in most circumstances this bug only changes the play style of some people. Only in a few circumstances does this bug become abusable. So fixing the specific circumstance is better than giving warnings to players.
I know the next question, and let me answer it right now. This is a new bug, and it could be argued with some conviction that players using it to their advantage were unaware that it wasn't purposeful code change. In the case of the abuse of safe zones, it is well known that using such locations is against our rules. It can't be reasonably argued that any player with a character over 50th level doesn't understand that.
In any case, we plan to fix the bug with the next patch. Until then, the NPCs in Kael will probably remain uncharmable. We understand that this adversely affects single and double group raids in that zone, and for that we are sorry. But things should be back to normal soon. Assuming anyone knows what normal is anyway...
Alan
We're glad to finally get some official word on this matter. But just think how much resentment and backlash Verant could have saved themselves if they had stepped forward and given us this information immediately upon doing the patch.
There is a certain logic to the change, but in what amounts to a pattern of behavior, Verant makes mistakes in how they handle such situations. That is, rather than explain up front why they are doing something, they make a change, don't say anything about it for a while, and let a huge customer problem build up before addressing the issue.
So the Avatar of War won't be unkillable forever, according to Absor. That's a good thing. The fight was hardly made "trivial" by the use of pets, of course, and when they do fix pet aggro I'm sure the fight will be tougher than it was for the first two kills.
We at Mobhunter have the utmost faith that Legacy of Steel will handle whatever roadblocks Verant throws their way and will conquer the unconquerable all over again.
Until then, we make a plea to Verant: keep your customers informed. Even though only 80 players were directly affected by the change to Kael, when you cripple one of the top guilds in the game, you cripple the dreams of tens of thousands of players across all servers who look to these guilds to give them hope for the future of EverQuest.
Hope like that is priceless to a company, and is irreplaceable once lost.