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EverQuest II - Dear Devs: Player Questions Answered
MMORPG.com's Adele Caelia recently submitted some questions from EverQuest II players to the game's developers. Today, we present three of the company's answers. Remember to check back next week for more.
Question One
Dear Devs,
I would like to know if there is any hope for graphical revamps for EQII. Specifically in regards to adding support for features like dual core, as well as upgrades to the graphics themselves. Unfortunately, it's been over three years now, some of the environment textures are not looking so hot and the sky could definitely use a revamp. [I] would just like to know if this is possible or not.
Thanks!
We’ve looked at several options for incorporating more “dual core support” features for EverQuest II, and in fact a couple of minor features have been pushed out live. Unfortunately, however, to do a ‘complete’ support for dual core machines would entail rewriting the entire game engine, as that type of processor wasn’t considered when the game was originally written. I don’t expect us to take the several months necessary for multiple developers to rewrite the game engine, but I do expect that we’ll continue to expand using that feature set with new code, or when we run into areas that have to be rewritten for another reason. Which is a long winded way to say that we’ll continue to add small amounts over time, but you won’t see us do an entire revamp just for that purpose.
Question Two
Dear Devs,
We know the game engine is getting on in age, and that maybe the development of the engine was made for a different type of hardware, but at this point many threads on the tech support forums exist about the many shortcomings of the engine with today’s latest hardware.
Whether it is the 8800 series video cards, no Dual Core support or even simple things like missing shadows, we as a community would like a final answer on if any of these issues will be addressed.
Myself, like many others I believe, would be happy without one or two "content" updates to let you strictly focus on performance instead. Can this be done? We would prefer to not hear "We are looking into it" and more of a “Yes, we plan to start fixing the engine within a [certain time frame].” or just, “No, we cannot fix it.”
Thank you,
Raymond
Raymond,
I’ve answered the dual core support issue in the previous question, and want to address the other issue you raised with the 8800 video cards. We’ve been working very closely with the video card companies and the engineers who develop the drivers for them to address the issue. We’ve already placed one fix in from our side, and are working diligently with them to address the issues from their side. Unfortunately, we don’t control when they release their drivers, so it is hard for us to give you a time frame. And we continue to look at ways of modifying our code as a work-around.
Question Three
Dear Devs,
Do you have any plans to revamp quest rewards in older zones?
Right now quest rewards in four of the 1-20 zones absolutely pale before what you can get in Timorous Deep. The quest rewards if you choose to start in Qeynos or Freeport are especially bad. Even normal crafted gear is [a lot] better. The rewards from 20-30 quests are also generally vendor trash if you have done everything in Timorous Deep. It really throws off the balance of the early part of the game.
I also wonder when or if you are going to make class channels work for neutral classes. For example, a Wizard that starts in Timorous Deep (and you'd be a bit crazed not to if you are a member of an eligible race) can't access the wizard advice channel.
Thanks
We certainly are hoping to find the time to revamp the quest rewards in all lower level zones. In fact, it is an ongoing process of analyzing data, planning how to make the changes, and then actually implementing the changes. However, as there are fewer people going through those zones than many of the higher level zones, we have to balance the amount of effort that we place in all areas. But yes, this is certainly on our plate.
Why did she give the devs two of the nearly same questions? Mine would have been alot better than a second "Hey you going to update the graphics engine lol."
Mine is, are they still going to update the models, and do something about Soga? And, are you going to be bringing Erolissi back soon or at all? But of course its too late now...
I did read second question was hoping they will answer finally to missing shadow questions.
Duh no luck
And for so many MMOs on marked those from SOE have biggest problems with "broken" NVidia drives, and poor SOE need to develop workarounds.
Now how unfair toward SOE it is !
I was curious also why two graphical questions were asked? However it is a pretty big issue, expecially for an 8800 user like myself. Its hard to believe that EQ2 still crawls and stutters on some of the newest systems. I installed AOC and run everything maxed at high resolution and it runs like a champ! (looks better in every aspect also)
Oh well, my days of EQ2 have finally come to a close.
I submitted all questions that were sent to me within a reasonable time after the request. The devs were great and answered all of them, so more letters will be posted:) Keep checking back:)
Thanks again SOE for taking the time to write back to the players!
Yes, all in all pretty dissapointing those answers. I do understand them, but it doesn't help that it, well, doesn't help.
Just yesterday I completely purged one of my 2 accounts, I am only holding on the 2nd one out of nostalgia. But somehow I doubt I would go back (for very long). Too bad, I enjoyed it while it lasted.
These EXACT questions were asked and answered about 3,000 times on the official EQ2 forums (which is accesible to non paying customers)
You guys should have looked there first before asking those questions.
PS
I hope one of your other questions wont be about the skeletal revamp because they answered that too lol
Again, these were not questions asked by MMORPG.COM. These were letters submitted by the community and for the community. All letters were submitted.
Sorry, I hadn't heard any answers as to when or how long or if the skeletal revamp is going to take place, can you fill us in on what the answer to that question was?
I posted on the huge thread on the graphical issue and in particular the 8800 issue. The Devs never could come up with much answer or help for that matter. They pointed a finger at Nvidia, and Nvidia pointed back at them. The interesting fact is the main 8800 "lag" issue mainly only happens in EQ2. I have yet to see it in any other game. In any event it seems by their above answer they are still blaming Nvidia, they did say they "fixed" something on their end. But we all have to still sit around for Nvidia to update their fix on the next driver release. Who knows which release it will include, or if it even exists. I will say one thing, after spending a ton on a nice system with dual 8800's, quad core and a bunch of other tech EQ2 will never use its pretty depressing, but seeing it actually make the game all laggy and crapped up is disheartening.
No offense my dear, but they didnt answer the questions, they responded to them. Two totally different things.
They are treating eq2 like a milk cow and they want to milk it out before it dies, after all updating the engine wont turn into money, that's Sony for you.
haha very well put!
The skeletal revamp has been worked on for the last year and a half. The first steps of the skeletal revamp was incorporated with the new race; the Sarnak. There is no specific timeline as to when the skeletal revamp will be done as the developers do not have it as a priority on their list.
With the skeletal revamp, you will see new original designs in armor, robes, etc.
They answered that a LOT. On the official forums whenever someone brings this question up, someone inevitably links a dev response.
I do agree with you. They need to fix A LOT of things in EQ2, but my main point of this thread is that these are questions that have been answered hundreds of times (maybe not hundreds...but dozens) by the developers and tech support.
Maybe MMORPG.com should have reviewed these questions and picked out ones that the Devs never answered. As a Senior Guide for Everquest 2, I know quite a few issues that the DEVs never really tackled in the official forums. But to be all fair, the last question was a good one as many DEVs like to skirt that issue with low quality loot in older zones.
Again... we did not just choose specific questions. We sent in ALL letters that were sent to us, so it was not a matter of sending in ones that were never answered. We cannot control what players ask, and we only gave players the opportunity to write a letter to the devs and have those letters answered. Again, everything that was sent to us was sent in. All letters were answered. More will be posted soon.
I know...you already said that ;)
What Im saying is maybe you all should have reviewed the questions people here wrote down and mmorpg.com should have picked out the questions that aren't the most popular ones on the official forums where the Devs already officially answered.
You could kind of tell the Dev was a little miffed from answering the same questions :)
I know you guys sent them a list. Im just saying you should have gotten a mmorpg.com staff member who is familiar with the official forums over there and picked the questions that were asked the least over there. Again, like I said in an earlier post here the third question was good because the DEVs usually skirt that question.
This was the answer from last month
Ew... vistaids! lol
Yuck, indeed! Pestering my beautiful XP with yer fugly Vista shots. ;)
But seriously, I didnt really get the answer to "will there be a graphical rework"? The graphics IS a bit outdated. Didnt DAoC have a graphic overhaul once too? So it should be possible. Aww well.
I am a bit disappointed the skeletal rework apparently seems stuck. So many robes and armours still look exactly the same just differently painted. In the core EQ2 is such a great game but always has been bogged down by the many small issues.
Sorry,
But I agree with Enigma, 3 pretty stupid questions. If you're (not mmorpg.com, but people in general) wanting to know the same political answer to those questions ANY of the game developers will give ya for any game that's ever been written, I'll be more than happy to give you the standard stupid question answers ALL devs give.
Ask something important, like gameplay, what is the direction for casual to hardcore gameplay? or what are their plans for overcoming dimishing returns? You know, smart, intelligent gameplay decisions of what I have to look for as a player, not coding which doesn't effect but .1% (that's 1 tenth of a percent) of the playerbase and asked by people who haven't played, or never plan on playing.
regarding 8800
EQ2 is -not- the only game with these issues, as you will see if read these links
kriegshauser.blogspot.com/2008/03/nvidia-8800-frustrations.html
It seems EQ2 isn't the only game affected. UT2003 and UT2004 and Team Fortress 2 as well as Test Drive Unlimited have people reporting problems. Even a Mac user reports issues using applications. Curiously, however, some games seem to be largely unaffected but I don't know why.
update 04/04/2008
kriegshauser.blogspot.com/2008/04/nvidia-8800-update.html
blog.gregsplace.com/2008/03/armchair-programmers-4tw.html
We're working towards improving client performance on new systems but don't have any concrete information or dates to release at the moment.
Currently, the following hardware upgrades may improve EQ2 performance.
Increase RAM (up to 4gb)
Increase hard disk access times
Increase CPU speed
CPU's with multiple cores and SLI setups don't currently offer significant performance benefits for EQ2.
That's it, 3 questions, 2 almost identical ? This is a joke.
Diminishing returns on stats, you know, something that actually affects someone actually playing the game. I have no idea what that has to do with it at all.
However, it cracks me up to see a real programmer comment on the hordes of armchair programming morons out there that think they can program "The Greatest MMORPG In The World"(echo: world world...) with a rubber band and ink pen. What are they, McGuyver? I love this comment:
Any programmer that thinks you can flip a switch or "plug and play" some code from another application and you magically have a high performing multi-threaded application seriously needs to find another line of work.
LOL, great stuff.
I don't think the problem lies with Nvidia drivers, the only game that gives me problems is EQII, I have had no issues with any other games.
SOE marching orders are maintenance mode only, except for expansions and all the expansions do is add more and higher content. They have basically gave up on the new player.
EQ2..../blah. I would have asked them these two questions instead:
1) When will EQ1 get a classic server?
2) Is EQ3 in the works?
It wasn't a matter of picking certain questions/letters because all letters were sent in so all letters received an answer. This was only a few of the letters sent in out of a handful of people who wrote in. The rest will be posted with their answers. We didn't just pick certain letters to have them be answered. We gave all players the opportunity to write a letter to the devs and have their letter answered. The devs were given the list of letters, and they could have chose to not answer repeated questions or any of them for that matter, but they were nice in answering all of them, even if the question had been asked before. They could have skipped repeated, but they were great in replying to everyone. I think it was great of them to give each player that wrote to them a reply.
And I have played EQ2 since release btw:) I didn't exclude any letters because this wasn't an interview where we chose certain questions. This was an opportunity for players to write to the devs and have their letters responded to, all of them, not only certain ones we picked out.
Keep checking back to see more PLAYER letters and the developer responses to those letters:)
Also keep an eye out for furture opportunities to write your own letters=)
Enigma, You should probably edit your screenshots a little better. That one shows (what looks like) your resume with your first and last name in the title bar.
its fine. :)
When I was a moderator here, we were forced to have our first and last name in our personal information section.
Trust me, if someone wanted to screw me over it would have been when I was a Moderator here ;)
But, Ill probably remove it soon. Thank you!
At least they fixed up the launcher...I couldn't even get the old one to launch EQ2. And upgrades took forever.
And then there's the "broken" classes....
It's interesting that EQ2 has issues with the 8800. I always thought EQ2 used an upgraded version of the SWG engine, yet SWG has no issues with the 8800 cards...
highly doubt EQ2 used a upgraded version of the SWG engine. I think you mean the otherway around. Atleast with the NGE and it's EQ2 spell like effects.
But seriously, well above was serious, the size of SWG planets and how engine would work that wouldn't fit with EQ2.
I'm surprised that EQ2 isn't trying to keep up with the computer technology changes. There's more and more Dual Core machines in use now, and not to mention Quad Core machines. I wonder if I'll even be able to play the game with my Quad Core AMD and Crossfire graphics cards.
SWG has always had particle effects, they just increased the usage of them over the years, heh. Devs in the past have mentioned that engine improvements have been shared between both SWG and EQ2 which kinda implies that the two engines are compatible. It kinda makes sense since the two games were developed around the same time (although EQ2 came out a year later) - it doesn't make much sense that they'd create a whole new engine from scratch when they had already just done that with SWG.
But then again though, we can sit down in chairs in SWG, and have our characters dance :D
I'm sure I can't be the only person that feels none of those "answers" were worth squat? It's like getting punched in the nose. No one likes it.
I love SOE. I hate when they say they'll "answer fans" by beating around bushes
.
That's really too bad I have been looking forward to finally rying EQ2 after not really being able to have the time to game (having a baby and making a career change will do that). Hell, these days a quad core is becoming quite popular along with the 8000 series. I myself have just middle of the line PC with both of these and REALLY enjoying the graphics in AoC
Unless I am mistaken, Sony has to be making some pretty decent coin with EQ2, and if they aren't willing to invest in at least re-working some of the key parts of the engine, then they are really shooting themselves in the foot.
Unless they keep up with technology, they can expect their player base to drop much quicker because of this. they can go ahead and give out as many free trials and free return times as they like. If they don't impress the customer, they are going to go play something else.
Wow, those folks have made some pretty ignorant decisions.
Perhaps people wouldn't be so miffed seeing two identical questions asked and responded to if you had either picked 3 different question/responses OR just posted all of them instead of attempting to drag them out into more articles.
I dont get all the issues people have with the graphics and performance.
I just upgraded to a Duel Core, 3.6 (overclocked), 4 mb ram and an 8800GTX, and can now run the game at Max settings and get 50 frames a second with no stuttering or issues at all. And it looks completely stunning, better than AoC in places, which shows incredibly foresite for a game thats 4-5 years old.
So, anyone with issues, just upgrade, or sort your drivers out. Its completely doable these days.