[compulsion]

This last week has been all about the crazy hate between people who have not used mage swords, the people who have used the shit out of them, and a few who are mad because the bug fix won't allow them the opportunity to use them.
GMs are annoyed with the blame game, potential players lose interest in what looks to have become a waste of time, etc.

This isn't a crisis, it's just something that happens with games. To a population that has played shitty, easy mode games for the last 5 years I'm sure that tripling your pet's damage with an item made sense in the same way that 20 minute levels and 2 shotting your way through WoW or Rift made sense. I doubt a big percentage of the Red99 playerbase both played a mage and remembers how big of a POS those swords were in 1999 - 2002.

A witch hunt for the perceived exploiters is unrealistic. It won't accomplish anything, and in a few months it won't matter at all. What will work would be rewarding the players who have put gameplay over personal advancement and bring back players who have lost interest.

It has been mentioned before, but this is actually a perfect opportunity to reward the people who made parses and did research to call attention to the bug as well as involve more people in the server. Add back the +50% xp bonus for, lets say the 19th to the 2nd. For two weeks the kids are out of school, the adults are taking vacations, and the atheists have lots of extra free time. It is the perfect chance to maybe get some old EQ players who are wary of an emu to give it a shot as well as remind the players who have been playing the game as intended that this is still supposed to be fun.

Remember how much more fun this was when 500+ were playing?