Responding to my post about radiance gating a few days ago, unwize pointed me at a comment in Orion's Belt, an ongoing blog by the senior Turbine developer of that name. The blog, well worth following by anybody interested in the nuts and bolts of how a games designer tackles a specific job, is essentially about Orion's ongoing redesign of Garth Agarwen; on 24 July, however, he had the following to say about the radiance controversy:
When you deal with a mass of people all spouting opinions and everyone keeps harping on one point or another it can be very difficult to drill through to the core of the issue. This has been the case with Radiance Gear. At first, it appeared that radiance gating was the only part of the issue because that was the breadth of the complaints. After drilling deeper and reading more and more from folks it became apparent that there were many symptoms to the problem.
- Radiance gear is now required to enter raids.
- The only way to acquire radiance gear is to complete hard modes.
- Hard modes objectives are obtuse.
All good points, all taken to heart and all actively in the pipe for some form of retrofit to address the core issues. No time frame yet. Just and admission that we hear you, we understand you and we are committed to rectifying the issue.
It was, needless to say, heartening to read this, as it's the very first time anybody at Turbine has so much as conceded that there might be a problem. Of course, Orion's comment shows that he has very slightly missed the point: it's not that people object to completing hard mode instances, it's having to complete them over and over and over again that they hate - that, and the fact that the only pathway to the new instances is the radiance pathway. Nevertheless, his blog demonstrates that the message has registered with at least one person in the right quarters. "No time frame yet" casts a slight chill, but on the other hand, "we are committed to rectifying the issue" is pretty clear-cut. Let's hope a retrofit will indeed be applied before too long; in the meantime, thank you for listening, sir.
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I was thinking of your post (along with many other posts about Radiance gear gating/hard mode) when I read his blog posts. I too am very hopeful for the future. As I read Orion's posts, he strikes me as someone who "gets it." There's no business motivation, there's no money motivation, there's no selfish motivation. It's simply that he wants to create something that is fun, and while that term is highly subjective, it doesn't mean he can't strive for it. I definitely recommend reading all his posts, especially the last ones about the GA retrofit. Very informative not only about GA itself, but about the development/thought process. Players could do with a dose of the "other side" from time to time.
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