THE GREAT NERFING DEBATE [Author: wirehead]
All the action lately is here. Brad “Aradune” McQuaid, with an assist from Gordon “Calandr…Abashi” Wrinn, started with a detailed list of what he thought the EQ team had done to every class. (It’s right at the top of the thread.) Most pointed out that it was a little odd that bug fixes such as pets being attacked from across the zone and cosmetic changes such as necro pets being a different color were somehow making up for kiting and feign death nerfs.
McQuaid hung in there, and made an impassioned plea for the future of his game. Here’s some excerpts.
I’d like to address what I perceive to be a common theme throughout this thread, and that’s a resistance to change. I think some players, while they want the game to change in general, and for new and exciting things to be added, don’t want change that affects their character, especially if they perceive that change to be negative. I understand this and have been victim to ‘nerf’s playing MUDs and other similar games. Some players also don’t like the fact that earlier players were able to use tactics, exploits, etc. to progress in the game, but by the time they would have had the opportunity to use similar means, we’d changed the game.
I understand this, and this is why this thread has grown with many long and passionate posts.
I must submit to you, however, that the administrators and keepers of an online, persistent game MUST continue to make changes to the game in order to preserve balance and to address areas of the game that become contrary to design, balance or intent. There is no way one can launch a game like EverQuest and then simply sit back and let it go. The game changes on its own, the knowledge base increases, the average player advances from low level areas, to mid, and then to high — the entire game dynamic is altered through natural evolution. And it is our responsibility to protect the long-term health of the game and unfortunately this is at times at the perceived expense of a group of players. Unfortunately, sometimes the good of the many must outweigh the good of the few…
…the EverQuest team here at Verant has quite simply created and designed the most popular, successful (and in my not so humble opinion the BEST) MMORPG to date. It continues to grow (yes, we’ll be launching another server soon), and it continues to sell like crazy over 9 months after its release (mostly by word of mouth, by the way), and honestly if all of you were not so addicted to this game and overall having a blast, you’d not be so passionate, playing hours and hours a day, and responding to this thread’s original post with over 200 detailed responses in 24 hours. You have my pledge that the game will continue to overall get better, and I really believe that as the game matures we will need to do fewer and fewer ‘nerfs’. And you also have my pledge that our communication to our players will improve radically. We are very guilty of not explaining adequately why we do things, or what we’ve changed, and I apologize for this. We WILL do better (go Abashi, go!). If we have to make a hard decision and make a change that negatively impacts a class or some such, the very least we can do is let you all know the details and the how and the why.
Again, the entire thread is here. If there was something about your class you think is being ignored (like, say, rogue pickpocketing nerfs destroying their chance of ever being accepted in a group, for example) now is your chance to be heard. Unlike most Internet forums, it seems Verant is actually paying attention to this one.