Is it supposed to be this expensive?

[Whipcream]

I can think of several reasons why the old system was removed, none of which you'll accept because of that bad old SoE.

No, I am totally cool with hearing the reason. Just because you don't think I'll agree with it, doesn't mean you don't have to say it.

I am reading a lot of "new research is better because of this" but not any "old research had to be deleted because of this."

If the old system was re-implemented along side the new system , how many of you would get up in arms and complain?

[KyrosKrane]

Perhaps the simplest reason is to control the amount of spells that enter the world. With the new system, it's fairly simple to control the number of drops, which is the limiting factor on new spells. With the old system, there were multiple items for each individual spell that had to be tracked.

If too many drops enter the world, then the skill becomes trivial to raise, everyone has it, and it's worthless. Spells wouldn't sell because everyone could make their own, or knew someone who could make it for free.

If drops are too rare, then we're back to the bad old days. Spells are impossible to find because there are no appropriate drops. The skill is difficult to raise, and researchers complain about having a yet-again-worthless skill.

By disabling the old system, Sony now has better control of the drop rate. Through that, they can indirectly control the number of spells entering the world and the supply of skillup materials. That allows them to maintain the skill for the long term.

[Lolnoob]

I am amazed at the lack of intelligence on these and SOE's boards. The OBVIOUS solution (sans egos, or trying to get people to buy expansions, etc.) would have been to add the new research system as a supplement to the old system. There are also many mitigating steps that could have been taken to migrate to a "new system only" state, such as eliminating the old drops, but leaving the old recipes and books active for six months to a year; announcing on the patcher, or a MOTD, rather than rely on players reading these boards (sorry guys, but I only check here when there is a problem, don't do it daily for entertainment), etc etc. Other minor issues to add, why the old books are still sold by merchants, but not bought by most, also don't say much for SOE's thoroughness or logic.

The least that could be done at this point is for the devs (as in, Ngreth) to address why the old system had to be eliminated. He did make one comment regarding the lack of announcments, to the likes of, if you didn't read the online boards, TS. Nice to see neocons running SOE.

The point now is not hoping for some fix, I have dumped my words and books and will play on for the remainder of my subscription at least. The issue at this point is if this is the way SOE thinks EQ should be run, and this is how they will deal with things in the future, and adding that to all the other ways they have F'd up this game up to this point, will I have to change my MMORG choices.

If all that is too difficult for y'all to comprehend that is your loss, not those of us whose heads are not firmly planted up you know where.

[Lolnoob]

...and to reiterate, this has nothing to do with change in and of itself, but change done in a totally incompetent and reckless manner.

[Flehmen]

The fact that the old books are still available shows a little thoroughness in the thought of the Devs they probably noticed that certain quest combines were made in those books. I know this is true in at least one case.
Rather than have to break and repair old quests they left the old containers in place. It's good that you only come here to use the site yet still feel the need to insult those who do come here. Whatever, EQtraders has an ignore list too.

[Maevenniia]

/sigh