The thing about something like P99 is a LOT of bugs simply cannot be fixed. Why? Because we do not have the source code to the client, and we have no ability to truly know how the server code worked in all aspects.
It is a little silly to just count bug tickets and proclaim that is an indicator of a lack of desire to fix stuff. A lot of those tickets are either duplicates, or bugs unfixable due to the two issues I mentioned above.
Also, you do need to consider how changes will affect the community (and their desire to play the game). Building up a concurrent player base of thousands of players over many years is an achievement in itself, and throwing it away will spell the doom of the server. This is especially true considering most companies would have shut P99 down years ago. it is possible there are some real life politics that must be considered when making changes to avoid provoking Daybreak or whomever currently owns the Everquest IPs.
The staff's time is partially devoted to monitoring the community and rules enforcement as well. This further dilutes their ability to make changes, as they are responsible for trying to keep the community from leaving. Are they always successful? No, but they are obviously doing a good enough job, considering the population count as of today.
Finally, P99's source code is closed. The reason for this is once it becomes open source, people will make P99 clones which will dilute or destroy the player base. This means many code contributions will not work, even if they are based on the EQEMU code, because you have no idea how drastically different the P99 code is.
I understand you are really passionate about certain fixes, but I think you are a bit naïve on how the process of creating and maintain games really works. Especially something like P99. If you are looking for a project that can have big changes occur in a reasonable amount of time, with plenty of developers looking to contribute, P99 can never be that, simply because of all of the existing roadblocks that either cannot be undone, or would destroy P99 if they were removed.
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