[note: I keep debating on whether to send this out or not, I hate
to keep busting Verant's chops, but I gotta cause I love
the game and I want them to make it worth playing like it
was so many, many months ago. Delete this if you are tired
of hearing the problems of the game, otherwise read on, agree
or disagree, but if you flame me, I'll light my blowtorch and
scorch anyone in my path ;) I don't care to hear any people
saying, speak with your money, or just leave. If that's the
bulk of your reply to this after you are done reading it, then
don't bother sending it. ]
> on some hits? The two I killed gave me no xp, which I expected. Could some
> of the changes made last week have changed this? As it is now these guys
> are nearly as tough as griffawns of similar con.
Kit, this is Verant man. You do the math ;-)
When have they not bungled code? I bet the client and server code
are so patched right now that adding anything new or changing existing
subroutines is like trying to eat spaghetti with a spoon.
My client sometimes just plain crashes to the desktop. Sometimes,
on the chat server, boom... client to desktop. Sometimes I get to
the character select screen, press Quit, and boom to the desktop.
I have an SBLive card, Novemeber drivers, latest directX, but I'll
be in the middle of typing something to the group, and boom desktop.
It didn't use to be this way. I never crashed, ever. But the magic
four or five months ago, something in the code base was radically
altered and I crash at least one a night now, and maybe once a week
extra now due to the SBLive card hiccuping on a sound.
The patching process is so slow, especially when they don't prune
the news... I mean it could take up to 5 seconds to watch that
box fill up with text. How hard is it just to put the text in a
buffer and move it into the screen block... No, this is Verant and
they draw each text line, letter by letter, word by word, line by
line. /yawn (The accept, esc, esc, esc simply is irritating,
and I wish someone would write a little crack program to adapt to
the latest binary and bypass that garbage.)
Optional patch? Nice idea, they used it once. Hell, I never click
on it anymore. They simply don't utilize it. Male barbarian shields,
caster hats, bard instruments... nothing has been done about these
images. But you know what? They gave necro pets the ability to cast,
lol.
I love this game, if I didn't I wouldn't give a rat's ass about it's
playability and such. To fix a problem, you must identify the problem.
Verant has an extremely hard time admitting they are wrong. I mean it's
like pulling teeth to get them to fess up to making mistakes.
I hate to be so 'doom and gloom' because I want to be as much a part
of this whole adventure as Verant wants me to be. But everything is
losing its luster in the big picture, not just bards, not just
Harmonic -- a lot of people are complaining about various things.
While I don't see anything that compares to Everquest yet, I imagine
a lot of people would love to move on. That said, Asheron's Call
sucks. It doesn't suck a little, it sucks a lot. So I'm just
spinning my wheels in EQ and doing crazy things I never did before
to try to make it more fun. (ie. The Mistmoore Tower Suicide Run)
I'm not ready to leave the game, but I would like to want to stay.
Verant isn't offering much in the 'we want you in our world' area.
I like this game, I love the people, and the graphics are pretty
at times. I'm trying not to let the lack of ability and coordination
on the programmer's/designer's part hamper my journey in Norrath.
I'm trying not to let the fact that they are constantly fixing things
that do not need to be addressed, while other more prominent 'features'
(read: bugs, bugs, bugs) exist in the game. Instead of having the
modeler toying around with bard avatar movements, how about adding
some more emote actions to the game. Instead of having the sound
programmers add echo'ing and sound effects, why don't they fix the
sound card compatibility problems they've been plaguing us with.
And pathing, lord... I've seen better pathing in PacMan. I mean
FPS like Unreal and Halflife get it right. Starcraft and many
other Blizzard games have awesome tactical pathing. Hell, even
Westwood did a decent job at it with Command and Conquer.
What's Verant's problem? Did all the key programmers bail? And
now some half-ass, idiot programmers are learning the ropes, toying
with code? It sure seems that way. I've noticed no really big
changes are occuring. Tweaking the numbers in a database, adding
new items, changing a few mobs around with different loot. How
hard can that be? I don't think they have the talent they once
had to make this game spectacular.
I recently went to the Plane of Sky. Got into the quest (Efreeti)
room and found the appropriate bard efreeti. Songjammer or Song
something, anyway... I start talking to him, and I'm standing there
for like 10 minutes fighting the g'damn text parser. He's like not
talking to me at all. Paraphrased from like a week ago:
I want to begin the tests of song
'I can offer you the tests of joy and of sorrow. You must choose
which person you would like to begin with: Denise or Clarrisa'
I want to begin the test of joy.
I want to begin with Denise.
Who is Denise?
I want to begin the test of joy with Denise.
Bzzzzt. Bzzzzzzt. So sorry, hit the road, Harmonic. heh.
The correct response is 'I choose Denise'. Ok, not quite clear,
but I'll buy that, my mistake.
The efreeti poofs and Clarrisa appears... WTF? I said I choose
Denise you pos, ignorant, non-common speaking, crappy Efreeti.
Sheesh, the opening on the Plane of Sky is similar in my mind
to the release of the game. They hurried through it all, knowing
there were missing things, incomplete areas and just released it.
I don't complain anymore that several songs are missing (not even
created yet). Whoever said they were waiting for the expansion
to introduce new songs that were required for it is bullsh*t.
The new L47 song (oops, we forgot to implement it) has nothing
to do with the expansion, it is as all purpose as all the other
songs we get. Plus, GZ was like we want you to tell us what you
think when it goes in the game (they hadn't created this song
until a month or two ago and now they want it's viability).
I loved using all my songs when I was little, they were extremely
definitive of a bard. The only songs I play now are Clarity and
Victory. Sure Psalm songs can give dmg shields, a whopping 9 dmg.
It just doesn't stack up like it did in the L30s. What happened
to Lament, what happened to Lullaby, hell what happened to Hymm.
I outgrew all these songs. And I never use them anymore. If
I try to Lament something and fail these days, it's like instant
death. If I fire up Lullaby in the PoF, I cannot even count to
3 before I'm dead. Hymm is cool, but at L50 when you are healing
tanks with 2k hp, it really sucks. Hymm didn't grow as fast as
I did. It's much easier to Clarity a healer, than to even think
about mixing Hymm. It's simply not worth the effort. I love my
Charm song, I never get to use it however as I don't fight many
things that are L37 or lower. Yet another song I outgrew.
I've got all these neat sounding Instruments, what do they do? Not
much. Oooh, a Lute of the Gypsy Princess -- that must be really cool,
or a God Flute, that must do wonderous things... I wish. Need to pick
up Kelin's Lute so I can heal for 3 more pts... whopptiedoo. Bonus
modifiers on instruments? How about +magic, or +FR/CR? Yeah +DEX is
really cool, too bad this lute/drum/flute/horn doesn't proc anything.
+STR on it? Wow... I can now punch for closer to max 13 dmg, ooooh.
My arms have +INT and my helmet too! Just what I wanted.
All my skills are friggin 200 already, and I have +INT gear I use
for skill/trades. How about some more +STR/+AGI ? I killed like
20 scorn banshees, and not one dropped a damn thing last week in
Hate. If it's that hard to get to these planes, get setup, and
get killing things, I would like a lot of the items to be worth
it -- not just for bards, but _all_ classes. Some mask dropped
in PoF three weeks ago, everyone let it rot because they already
had a non-planar piece that was better.... good job, here's your
low ac, +1 int mask. Thank you, drive thru.
Argh, Verant is losing touch, and it's definitely frustrating to
see my friends and myself so disappointed in this very promising
game.
Harmonic.