Plane of Fear

Caelor · #1 12-01-2009, 02:02 PM

My impression was that hell levels were a mistake that was left in; like the halfing exp bonus. True or false?

**Aeolwind** · #2 12-01-2009, 02:06 PM

Quote:

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

My impression was that hell levels were a mistake that was left in; like the halfing exp bonus. True or false?

False. Hell levels were a math calculation flaw that wasn't "fixable" till After POP. There was a drastic coding change around that time and they were able to go back into the XP modules without hosing every character in the DB.

Halladar · #3 12-01-2009, 02:16 PM

Quote:

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

False. Hell levels were a math calculation flaw that wasn't "fixable" till After POP. There was a drastic coding change around that time and they were able to go back into the XP modules without hosing every character in the DB.

Okay Aeolwind. Were hell levels in eq on day one? That is an awful hard one to prove or disprove. I know 1 or 2 of the first level 50's were some rogues that leveled with an enchanter using the old whirl till you hurl bug. That only took like a month or something.

Here is a theory: about two weeks after launch someone goes to Smedley and gives him a projection about what percentage of the server will be level 30, 40, 50 in 3 months, 6 months that sort of thing.

Then about a week later without being announced, a code change was put in on the server.

And hell levels now existed.

I could be wrong. But disprove me.

Halladar · #4 12-01-2009, 02:22 PM

Look, please don't get the idea I am angry. It is hard to explain my position on this. I hope you don't take any of my posts to mean I have any personal animosity to you or any of the devs here.

I have a lot of theories about EQ, the way it started, and why things turned out the way they did.

I could well be wrong, a lot of what I think would be unverifiable unless one of the original dev team for live showed up and started talking.

I like to analyze and think about things like this. If anyone knows anything about this sort of thing, I am happy to be proved wrong.

Just to say one thing though, eq was a great game. I still can't believe that bunch at Verant produced it back in the day though. And a lot of things that were, didn't really need to be that way, that is an opinion though.

**Aeolwind** · #5 12-01-2009, 02:33 PM

Quote:

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

I could be wrong. But disprove me.

I wasn't in the beta so I can neither prove nor disprove if they were in the live beta. All I can say is this, it was almost 6 months for the first SK to hit 50 on emarr.

Halladar · #6 12-01-2009, 02:09 PM

We probably have someone here who played in beta. Beta is kind of artificial, but did they have hell levels then?

My personal thinking is that Verant was totally freaked out by how many players they had, how fast they were leveling, and how little content they had for them when they got past about level 30 or so.

So they put in hell levels to slow everyone up.

Kind of like "they built all these crackerbox houses, and Jesus people bought 'em."

Then someone like Abashi can come along and say it is all "working as intended." When the reality is they never really knew what was intended.

**Aeolwind** · #7 12-01-2009, 02:13 PM

Quote:

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

We probably have someone here who played in beta. Beta is kind of artificial, but did they have hell levels then?

My personal thinking is that Verant was totally freaked out by how many players they had, how fast they were leveling, and how little content they had for them when they got past about level 30 or so.

So they put in hell levels to slow everyone up.

Kind of like "they built all these crackerbox houses, and Jesus people bought 'em."

Then someone like Abashi can come along and say it is all "working as intended." When the reality is they never really knew what was intended.

Yeah, there were very few 50's in the beta though. Hell levels were literally a coding flaw though. There was something like a "if @level / 5 then @xp x2" Ugly, but it shows why I should never touch the source....