I figured out why the GoD vote on Flippy keeps failing, it’s the DPS classes, they fear the Berserkers massive DPS!
Alendi, in the EQ Forums
Another vote came and went, Monday morning rolled around, and the Gates of Discord expansion on the Fippy Darkpaw time locked progression server remained closed.
Nobody Loves Me
Now some on the forums are trying to figure out why, with the usual lack of success. Click on the link at the top of the post for examples.
Meanwhile, there was a request to find out what the actual results of the poll were. Piestro did not have the results to hand. It apparently requires a developer to go in and extract results from polls. In response to the inevitable “why don’t you just show the results by default?” Piestro answered:
The voting system is intended for more than just TLP votes, so making that change would mean every vote would be displayed. That’s not necissarily desirable.
And, of course, he is right.
When SOE is adding in things like health, power, and self resurrection potions based on simple majorities in polls, they certainly do not want to give anybody opposing adding a potentially lucrative item to their cash shop any leverage by letting them know anything beyond vague details. 55% in favor sounds good, but if you knew what percentage of the actual playing population voted… and we don’t know that number… the percentage of ‘Yes’ votes might sound considerably less impressive.
Anyway, on the Fippy Darkpaw Time Locked Progression server, the times seem to be favoring “locked” over “progression.” The next vote will come up in a week, but Gates of Discord won’t be unlocked until June at the earliest.
Addendum: Piestro posted the voting result percentages.
Vote to open Gates of Discord on Fippy Darkpaw – Yes: 40% No: 58% Ron Paul: 2%
Oddly, this second vote on Fippy Darkpaw ran concurrently with the first vote on Vulak, which ALSO failed to pass.
Vote to open Gates of Discord on Vulak – Yes: 42% No: 56% Harold Stassen: 2%
More on this as it slowly ceases to develop.
The Ancient Gaming Noob 
Locking it before the release of Gates of Discord keeps the game at the point many people feel was the end of the golden age of EQ. It’s the EQ that I would want to play.
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My thoughts exactly, were Blizzard ever to do this with WoW (I guess they never will) then I can’t see the majority voting to progress beyond Burning Crusade simply for nostalgia’s sake.
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@Jason – The problem is, life is change. SOE hasn’t added 18 expansions to the game merely to piss off the people who liked the game at launch. (Though some days it feels like it.) They have added those expansions to keep the game fresh and interesting, because eventually most people will tire of doing the same content.
Yes, there will always be some who will stick around because of friends. The Al’Kabor server, stuck forever at Planes of Power, is an example of that.
And I understand that sense of nostalgia which drives the desire to have a place just like it was back whenever we defined the golden age of the game to have been. (And at every unlock vote, there has been somebody who has said, “Vote no, because EQ was best at this point in time!”)
But part of the reason for the progression server is to progress through the content, so that it can be experienced and defeated in conditions (e.g. level range, equipment, classes) as close to what existed at the time (as close as SOE can manage anyway) for any given expansion.
If people are voting “no” because they haven’t finished the content, I get that. If people are voting “no” because they want to make this their classic server… well, that seems a bit mis-guided.
Although if the no voters can hold onto the voting majority for a few more votes, they can probably make the “no” vote effectively permanent, as the raiding guilds looking to progress will eventually tire of the wait and fade away.
I wonder what SOE would do then.
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They’re probably voting “No” because they remember Gates of Discord from the first time round! Traumatic experiences like that are hard to forget.
Anyway up, that’s democracy for you!
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GoD was really a terrible expansion. I bet a lot still remember it. That was the expansion that led many of the uberguilds to leave the game. I certainly don’t want to see it ever again!
On the bright side, it probably isn’t as bad now – a lot of the problems initially were bugs, like the one where the dudes you had to kill with specific classes and damage types didn’t emote what was required…
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Wow. The will of the masses and all of that, I suppose. Funny to see how that can turn.
I understand the argument you directed to Jason. But I suspect leaving progression in the hands of the players is a bad move in that is the intention. Maybe they need an escape clause that will allow expansions to be time unlocked if multiple votes fail.
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I have no idea what’s going on. Even though I’m back playing EQ1 (and I admit in a possibly douchy move I voted no – as I’ve always done on principle – to GoD second vote (I returned just after the first no vote) when I popped back onto Fippy to confirm my old guild was dead and I’ve no one to pick up with again on planar progression), I’m on regular Cazic Thule now giving the Serpent Spine track a go, just because I’ve previously never done anything but a few early CR quests.
Anyway, I find it incredible players are _FINALLY_ voting no. I’d have thought all the players likely to vote no would have gone by now – you know, the ‘EQ was best at Kunark/Velious’ crowd, of which I’m basically one. Though I appreciate for the majority some progression is needed to keep interest – and for me too, but I like a classic option _as well_, and fail to see why SOE can’t provide both – maybe with free transfers off a classic-only server after six months?
Nope – it must be that most active players are simply not done with PoP, with a vocal minority who are that are now bitching on the forums. Almost all the classic-loving players I knew back at launch are now gone. So unless there’s another reason why people are voting no to GoD, I reckon it must be that.
Granted there was anti-GoD sentiment way back when, but would players _really_ hold a grudge for_ten years_ and vote no out of spite, despite surely being aware GoD has since been fixed and is nothing like the train wreck it once was? Hmmm…
Ok, I take it back. It’s probably anti-GoD sentiment that’s led to two no votes in a row :-D
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