Controversy
Many players and reviewers were dissatisfied by the Gates of Discord expansion; some claimed it was thus far the worst EverQuest expansion, or at least the worst since The Shadows of Luclin. Gamers perceived Gates of Discord as an unfinished product and criticized Sony Online Entertainment (SOE). The main issues were with the rushed release that had unbeatable content at critical points of the expansion, and problems with the graphics engine which was updated at the same period. Matters came to a head when Woody Hearn, a notable gamer and cartoonist of GU Comics website called for the boycott of the next planned expansion Omens of War.
When released, some of the content was nearly unplayable for most of the player base. Numerous bugs were discovered in the game with the release of the expansion, which also updated the graphics and geometry engine. Old content seemingly unrelated to the new expansion "broke", requiring the immediate attention of the new developers or online guides and GMs. One explanation offered is that during expansion developments there was a "changing of the guard" in the staff at SOE, leading or contributing to these issues. It was also revealed that a management mistake had been made in which some of the content was meant for the next tier cap of player levels - level 70. A SOE game developer confirmed that SOE designed Gates of Discord with level 70 in mind, but SOE did not include the planned tier cap increase from 65. This management mistake ensured that several critical points of the expansion were unbeatable by most players at that time, both for single groups and raids. Whatever the cause, these issues were eventually addressed, but too late to prevent controversy.
Several "uberguilds" (highly powerful and influential groups of players), including Fires of Heaven, Afterlife, Ascent, and Keepers of the Faith, departed from EverQuest around this time. Many of these players acted as beta testers for World of Warcraft, which was in development for release later in the year, although by spring of 2005 some returned. This possibly had something to do with EQ becoming a game with fairer competition due to instanced raids. For example, the Fires of Heaven guild failed to complete even the first tier of raids in Gates of Discord and losing elite status understandably helped to motivate their later departure.
In response to player criticism, SOE organized a summit in the summer of 2004 to hear the main concerns of the playerbase towards Gates of Discord and EverQuest in general. The summit's guests included influential players and gamers from guild leaderships and fan websites, notably among them Hearn (of GU Comics). SOE also delayed the release the next expansion Omens of War by several months to give time for the GoD quality issues to be addressed.
Read more about this topic: EverQuest: Gates Of Discord
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