Good Bye P99

[Bach]

Originally Posted by Woodark [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hello all,

My name is Woodark and I've been playing P99 since the Green server opened. After taking a 20 year break from EQ, returning to a Norrath full of active and passionate players is probably the most magical thing I'll ever experience.

As many of you know, the Locket of Escape was removed from the game on Tuesday (12/8). The devs forgot to remove the list feature and folks that were on the list (myself included) continued to complete AFK checks for a couple days until being notified that the Locket was removed. I submitted a ticket and this is Menden's response 1 week later:

"I can understand your frustration. And I will say this was oversight by staff, but we will not be handing out lockets to players that were on the list."

When I opened the ticket I explained that I wasn't asking for a locket specifically, but was hoping the GMs would try and make things right. I'm disappointed that the GMs take zero accountability for their mistake and for this reason I am leaving P99.

I would have accepted a sincere apology, but I don't think it would have been too outrageous to give the 3-4 players impacted something. I think back to the 3v3 arena event where the GMs were giving out black sapphires, rubicite armor, and peggy cloaks (just for sitting in the audience)... Or the monthly open raids where people that don't even participate win god/dragon loot... *sigh* ..

Thank you for the adventures! Good bye Norrath! I will sincerely miss you.

Cya?

[jadier]

Originally Posted by zaldaben [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I would rather spend 20 bucks a month play on a fair playing field.

Do you currently make a monthly donation to p99? If not, then your anger over free pixels remains baffling to me. “Favoritism” in games almost always amounts to, “I personally didn’t like this decision”. The one clear-cut instance of actual favoritism by a p99 volunteer resulted in that individual being stripped of the responsibilities and privileges to make it not possible.

If you’re just going to generally carp about long wait times for item reimbursements but don’t donate, or just launch baseless accusations of bad behavior by unnamed volunteers, then get ye gone.

Given you’ve said you’re toddler-tantrum-style-quitting, I’m not even really sure why you’re still posting on these forums except to badmouth a game you claim you no longer intend to play.

[Scalem]

Originally Posted by BiG SiP [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

sorry you didn’t get melee bind

[jadier]

Originally Posted by xmaerx [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Then failing to address the issue in any way, shape, or form? The list is *STILL RUNNING*, in fact.. madness.

...He’s quitting over neglectful behavior

I don’t know about you, but I have a whole long list of things I need to get done in real life. A lot of them individually could be done in <30 min. Yet they sit in my todo list for weeks at a time. I’m gonna say that the p99 volunteers, like me and almost every other human, have the same situation going on.

Calling it “neglectful” is, I suppose, technically correct, but it’s an unfair characterization. We knew the item was around for less than a month during classic, there was a patch one month after Kunark released.

Everyone camping the item ~a month after Kunark dropped was HOPING the volunteers made a mistake and left the item in too long. Instead, the volunteers mistakenly didn’t remove the /list and still haven’t found the time to remove it because they’re human people volunteering.

As for smugly dismissing, if this weren’t a one-time soul bind item with the only purpose being slightly accelerating ToV raids in a year, maybe I’d be more compassionate. If someone was, say, camping Raster for 70 hours, then a surprise patch caused a bug where he wasn’t spawning, and the devs shrugged and just said “keep camping”, I’d be quite sympathetic for forum-complaints.

But camping an item you knew was imminently going to be removed, then being upset because you thought the devs mistakenly left the item in when they just mistakenly left the /list in is....well, not a position I think deserves much more than dismissal.

If the guy wants to whine about it and choose to spend his time doing something other than playing p99, more power to him. If others want to drag him for being upset the devs made a different mistake than he was banking on, then that’s our right too!

[Thulian]

see you in thurgadin

[xmaerx]

Originally Posted by jadier [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I don’t know about you, but I have a whole long list of things I need to get done in real life. A lot of them individually could be done in <30 min. Yet they sit in my todo list for weeks at a time. I’m gonna say that the p99 volunteers, like me and almost every other human, have the same situation going on.

I'm not disagreeing with this. Mistakes happen. How you handle those mistakes colors the fallout from them.

Calling it “neglectful” is, I suppose, technically correct, but it’s an unfair characterization. We knew the item was around for less than a month during classic, there was a patch one month after Kunark released.

Everyone camping the item ~a month after Kunark dropped was HOPING the volunteers made a mistake and left the item in too long. Instead, the volunteers mistakenly didn’t remove the /list and still haven’t found the time to remove it because they’re human people volunteering.

Technically, the timeline is unclear on this. On blue, it was removed 2 weeks before the other legacy items. Here, it wasn't. The existence of the list added a lot of ambiguity which would otherwise have been dismissed as removal. I guarantee the train of thought "Well if the list is still running, it must be in still" was deployed, and entirely reasonable.

As for smugly dismissing, if this weren’t a one-time soul bind item with the only purpose being slightly accelerating ToV raids in a year, maybe I’d be more compassionate. If someone was, say, camping Raster for 70 hours, then a surprise patch caused a bug where he wasn’t spawning, and the devs shrugged and just said “keep camping”, I’d be quite sympathetic for forum-complaints.

But camping an item you knew was imminently going to be removed, then being upset because you thought the devs mistakenly left the item in when they just mistakenly left the /list in is....well, not a position I think deserves much more than dismissal.

If the guy wants to whine about it and choose to spend his time doing something other than playing p99, more power to him. If others want to drag him for being upset the devs made a different mistake than he was banking on, then that’s our right too!

Compassion isn't in short supply. It's created on demand. I'm not saying we need to build safe spaces for vulnerable people, but this isn't some fleeting thing for most people. P99 isn't a turn and burn kind of experience. People give a shit about this game, and they're investing into it emotionally, and physically if you're talking about marathon camps. It is reasonable to expect those investment to be respected. Not rewarded, but respected. OP feels this didn't take place. Shitting on him for it just seems a little sweaty to me.

I don't think there's much to gain by broadcasting a move like this, but I think we all recognize it as desperately venting frustration during vulnerable times for many people. For the few non-aspie people playing this game, a shred of sympathy is pretty easy to come by.

[jadier]

Re: the timeline, yeah it was removed earlier in Blue. It stuck around extra long in Green. I’m certain that you’re right that “the list is here so the item must be too” was the reasoning. My contention is: the locket dropping a month after Kunark released would clearly be a mistake. That it was removed *earlier* than a month on Blue and on Live both suggest that, a month in, the locket shouldn’t be there.

The folks camping it thought the devs left the locket in too long (the mistake they wanted) when in fact the devs left the /list on too long (the mistake that actually happened).

Again, the locket isn’t some class defining Uber item. It’s a hardcore raider convenience that sells well.

Re: sympathy, it truly sucks that this happened, and I do feel bad for the people who got shafted. I do not feel any sympathy at all to venting, raging, hating on the devs, etc. In the other thread on this topic, I got extremely annoyed by the sense of entitlement, “give them all freebies!”

This game does mean a lot to a lot of people, myself included! Hating on the devs publicly because you thought they made an exploitable mistake (not removing the item within a month) when instead they made a mistake that hurt you (not removing the /list within a month) is not only counterproductive, but is way more likely to hurt the chances of this weird and wonderful emulator continuing to get care and love from the devs.

The volunteers all love this project, and they’re all adults who can handle whine-y forum rants, but I can’t imagine seeing nothing but vitriol posted because people couldn’t exploit things the way they wanted is good for their motivation or enjoyment.

No patch notes were released. They should’ve been, we all agree. But why weren’t they? It probably wasn’t malice, that doesn’t make sense, it was probably a sense that they weren’t needed cutting down on the motivation to do it. “Why spend my time writing notes saying we’ve removed all the items that dropped for less than a month during Kunark?” I don’t agree with that logic, but I can understand why a busy person who just did a lot of volunteer work on a project for other people to enjoy might not be able to muster the motivation to take that last step and post saying “this patch just removes all the things that, in our public timeline, should be gone by a month after Kunark. Here’s a long list...”

If maintaining this server isn’t rewarding for those doing it, they’ll...stop. They owe us nothing. If it becomes annoying, they probably won’t stop completely, but instead become more and more withdrawn and less and less motivated to do that extra step, especially if anything they do gets them grief.

TLDR; I mostly wish the official forums were more like the subreddit, where people seem to post out of joy instead of rage/annoyance/entitlement

[Tunabros]

Originally Posted by BiG SiP [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

sorry you didn’t get melee bind

[Nuggie]

Originally Posted by jadier [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Do you currently make a monthly donation to p99? If not, then your anger over free pixels remains baffling to me. “Favoritism” in games almost always amounts to, “I personally didn’t like this decision”. The one clear-cut instance of actual favoritism by a p99 volunteer resulted in that individual being stripped of the responsibilities and privileges to make it not possible.

If you’re just going to generally carp about long wait times for item reimbursements but don’t donate, or just launch baseless accusations of bad behavior by unnamed volunteers, then get ye gone.

Given you’ve said you’re toddler-tantrum-style-quitting, I’m not even really sure why you’re still posting on these forums except to badmouth a game you claim you no longer intend to play.

Oh my sweet summer child. Do you know of Xzerion? Uthgaard? Amelinda? Derubael? The project is littered with volunteers allowing their character flaws to make choices.

[Swish]

Originally Posted by Nuggie [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Oh my sweet summer child. Do you know of Xzerion? Uthgaard? Amelinda? Derubael? The project is littered with volunteers allowing their character flaws to make choices.

What happened to Hobby? That was a quiet exit.