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Round table changed racial restrictions
Ender4
Member UncommonPosts: 2,247
There seems to be a serious misunderstanding about the racial restrictions round table. It changed the path they were going with it in the game. If you watch the video that is made quite clear in it. So all the people saying derp they didn't do what the poll said so it means these are meaningless are all 100% completely wrong.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY98L28TySo
Here is the history of the topic.
1. Devs decide that game should not make players feel their character isn't viable by making them make choices before they have all the information. (mentioned at start of video)
2. Devs plan on having racial restrictions. (clearly stated towards end of video)
3. Devs put poll on round table and community agrees with them, lore based racial restrictions.
4. Devs put message board topic up. Community expresses concerns on how restricted race/class can back them into a corner making them feel that #1 applies.
5. Devs change their plan and go with no racial restrictions. (clearly stated at end of video)
The round table changed the direction of the game and yet people are saying because they went against the poll it proves the round table doesn't work. The message board is the most important part of this process. It is the part that gives them the best feedback and they have already proven that if the feedback is compelling enough they will alter parts of their game plan.
Comments
I admit - I overlooked that
EQ2 fan sites
I'm afraid you've completely misunderstood. Listen to it again. It's a cop-out answer. Devs changed nothing as a result of player feedback.
This is how it really happened:
1. Clearly stated by Jeff Butler that Dev team decided early on that they did not want any racial restrictions (wanted to avoid situation where players backed themselves into a corner with character choices).
2. Poll comes back and Omeed is stuck saying internal team was not in agreement with the round table (which wanted at least some race restrictions).
3. Jeff Bufler states that although team was philosophically in line with votes that players were putting forward (i.e. race restrictions), they were not able to do it. Several reasons were given why.
"It's a situation where the actual design and the responsibility for the life of the game and its health outweighs the benefits and the desire as a roleplayer and as a gameplayer and a game crafter to actually have these restrictions."
4. Omeed makes a comment at end that "discussion changed a fundamental design decision", probably to make you think that discussion was making a difference. When in fact SOE had known what to do all along.
Yep, pretty much what superconducting said... I'm not sure how it changed the course of the game since they basically said they planned long ago they didn't want racial restrictions because it would mean it could "hurt players down the road not knowing what classes or races would be added later."
They said the second part of your sentence but they did not say the 1st. They decided the 1st part was true AFTER the discussions. That is why I came here for this post, people like you that made up that 1st part while listening to the explanation at the beginning. You basically put words into their mouth after listening to the first few minutes which was an explanation of their original overarching design philosphy. They pretty clearly said that originally they were going with racial restrictions. They mention it when they said they were happy with poll results because it agreed with what they were going for and then they mention it again later when they said that they realized they had to make a change.
They mention it again in the round table discussion video where they stated they were going to go one way until they read the discussion and thought, duh it can't work this way.
This post specifically was made for people like you who have it wrong and you are spreading misinformation to people who haven't been here to listen to the actual process.
Thanks for posting this. I really like things like the DAoC Team Leads, EVE Council of Stellar Management, and ATITD's Lawmaking. Organized community feedback like this for EQN is a really positive direction in my book.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
This sentence is the crux of the matter.
They decided early on to avoid this, but it wasn't until they had the discussions with the players that they realized that the racial restrictions were doing just this so they had to disagree with the poll. You are reading this as we disagreed with the players before the poll even happened which isn't true.
Before the discussions they agreed with the players. Pretty plainly spoken here. They changed their minds not based on the poll results, but listening to the discussion and realizing this concept was against their basic game design philosophy.
Is it OK to imagine that everything SOE does here is just, well, PR? They could had already set their mind on what they want (whatever that is), and just set out the poll to give some PR and hype.
Poll goes along with plan? Congrats the posters that their wishes are heard. Against their plan? Say "Yes we agree with the poll!" but pull some elite PR moves about the poll not gonna work and offers the true idea as the solution.
Frankly speaking, only the insiders know what is going on. Everything else is just spectaculations, like my IMAGINATION!
The possibility of the universe collapsing into a singularity is higher than the birth of a perfect MMORPG.
I go to sony and I vote my opinion. As long as te devs can give a reasonable awnser asto why they went against the poll im
cool with it. I would rather they have their own vision
andknow their own direction. As been said already game design by commitee would be a bigger mistake..
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
Well sure, if you want to just assume that this is just PR that is your prerogative. It is a really oddball way to go about hyping your game since the topics are not really hype based topics though. My point was that if you are going to attack the process at least understand what the devs say while you do it. The poll agreed with the devs and the devs changed things based on the discussion. That is very different than the people who think the devs had a plan and chose to ignore the poll.
Whether you want to believe the devs or not is going to be up to you, but you should probably at least understand what the devs said happened first.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
No. They started with lore based restrictions. They agreed with the poll. The discussion made them realize that lore based restrictions wouldn't work because it gets in the way of their core game design philosophy. They agreed with the poll and were going to make the game that way until the discussion, that is the only point they changed their mind and it was because of player base discussions on the forum.
There is this misconception that they went against the poll because they had already made the decision when the reality is they were planning on going to go the same direction the poll voted until they listened to the actual players and then they changed.
People are making this weird leap that the discussion at the beginning of the video is about race when they state that it is the overall design goal of the entire game. It hadn't dawned on them that by deny some race/class combos it would make some players feel their character wasn't viable down the line. When the players expressed this they realized they had to change things. The players drove this change. It isn't really that important but the fact people keep trashing the round table because they don't understand how this went down is just annoying me.
You need to learn how to quote. Highlight what you want to respond to, dont hack a person post to bits and remove their name. Altering someones post is considered rude by most forum junkies. Its kinda of a mild insult when you do.
Step 1: Making the Philosphy: Play the way you want
Step 2: A Life of Consequences through gameplay and not through character creation screen
many other steps
Step 2430: Making Class/Race restrictions based on Lore
many other steps
Step 4559: Making Poll
Step 4560: Poll agrees with decisions so far
Step 4561:reading Forum
Step 4562: internal discussion about stuff the players brought up
Step 4563: realising that Step 2430 was against step 1 and 2
Step 4564: Making no Race/Class restrictions to avoid backlocking
Step 4565: announce new decision to the players
I think this was what Ender4 wants to say to us.
Sigh. I'll try this again. Listen carefully.
Jeff says they originally WANTED to listen to players and wanted to have some race restrictions but ultimately could not do this. So they decided for no racial restrictions, BEFORE even posing the question to the community. But by this point they had already decided what to do (no restrictions) before the poll.
Jeff Butler said these:
"We decided early on, before we had addressed any of these questions internally, that we wanted to try to avoid these things. And so that led us to, in this case, not being in agreement with the players."
"Unfortunately, when we started developing the game, we realized we wanted to create a situation where our players were never forced to make a decision that they would later regret based on knowledge that they didn't have at that stage in their careers."
-- It is crystal clear here that the decision was made BEFORE the poll.
Now I will go further and address Omeed's comments at the end. He says the following:
"It blows my mind that we actually started thinking about this while this discussion was happening, that when we put up the poll, we were seeing these results come in and we were happy. "Oh, that's where we're going, that's what we're thinking." And then as we went through and we're reading arguments and discussing it internally, we said wait a second...this isn't gonna work with our game."
"I thought this one was really interesting in that the discussion actually really changed a fundamental design decision."
-- So what Omeed is doing here as the PR guy is playing to the community a little, by basically saying they wanted to think like the players, but ultimately had to do their own thing because it was best for the game.
Do you see it now? This is a COP-OUT ANSWER, plain and simple. Do not be fooled.
No you are misunderstanding what they are saying.
This quote is regarding their overall philosophy for building the game, it has nothing at all to do directly with racial restrictions. That statement is setting their overall goal for the game. It took the player feedback for them to realize that this is exactly what racial restrictions was doing. You are completely misunderstanding the information here.
Enrif's post above pretty much nailed how this went down. You are putting words into the devs mouths. You are free to believe whatever you want but it is important that others know that it isn't actually what the devs said happened. YOu can choose to say that they are just lying but not everyone is willing to do that.
You clearly made up your mind before they ever said a thing here. You put words into their mouths in the start and assumed that the next 3 references to the subject were PR spin trying to cover for what the first guy said. They have mentioned this topic at least 3 other times in other videos which I'm assuming you are accusing them of lying about as well.
Maybe they can have race restrictions on class in the beginning to satisfy lore, but as your character explores and sees other things they are given a more final choice to stay the course of their cultural standards or change.
I don't like racial locks on classes personally. Racial locks on class approach/style I understand. For instance an Elf archer shouldn't behave the same as a human one.
I don't see what the big hoo hah hah over this is all about though.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I agree with you on racial restrictions, I like them personally. The big hoo hah hah is that a lot of posters are saying that the round table itself is flawed because of the decision they made in this particular case. Their argument is that the devs wanted no restrictions yet the poll said there should be restrictions which means that our votes simply don't matter. The fact is they were leaning towards having restrictions, the poll agreed with them yet the discussion itself made them realize it wasn't going to work.
Basically the round table was proven to work yet some people are saying that it was proven to be a failure because they don't understand what actually happened.
great, now the game is going to be ruined due to the posting of no- lifers who want everything to be like wow but different.
seriously dev, grow a friggin spine allready
over 20 years of mmorpg's and counting...
Sigh, can't make everyone happy. The devs decided on their overall philosophy before they ever polled the community. The discussion made them realize that racial restrictions did not fit the philosophy. It isn't like they just caved to people asking for something.
I guess it doesn't matter what they do, someone is going to nitpick it into being awful for the game.
Listening to forum advice is the largest single downfall of most MMO's. If the purpose of the round table is to provide an easier and more effective means of gathering feedback than a forum (ie, a poll), then it failed. The devs did not trust the feedback it gave and fell back to accepting the most vocal forum trolls as a majority instead.
If the purpose of the round table is simply to "make the Dev's think" which in turn ultimately led them to the forums, then I can see why you would draw this conclusion. My contention is that the round table is meant to replace "Ruling by forum troll mandate" and not supplement it. In which case this entire series of events is yet another horrific reminder that good games only exist when they're kept secret and obscured from the prying and meddling ineptness of the masses.
The morning sun has vanquished the horrible night.
I'd also add, the game has been in develepment since 2009.
The poll was put up on August 7, 2013.
https://forums.station.sony.com/everquestnext/index.php?threads/should-all-races-have-access-to-play-all-classes.19/
Now, IF they had wanted and made the restrictions for the races/classes until August 7 of this year to then change their mind, think at how much they need to change in a hurry.
The code needed to be erased for negated the use of weapons of classes unavailable prior to the poll. As in "You cannot equip this' type recognition code.
The animations needed to be added for races that were previously unable to use those weapons they now can. They have 40 classes, how many were restricted to which race? That can be alot of animations, which then include making sure they don't clip since races have different sizes. Plus, they said different weapons would have different animations.
All of this needs to be rushed right now since Landmark is set to launch, and if it has race/class restrictions then it might be believable they changed their stance from the poll, though I doubt it.