Some New Features Delayed for TSS Launch : EQ1 EverQuest 1 News

From www.egamefo.com

http://eqvault.ign.com/fullstory.php?id=21237

A number of new game features, such as a different invisibility system, the addition of a general forage AA, a new resist system, and a change to the fletching skill, as well as addition of some of the new spells previewed in the beta will not be launched live on September 19 with the TSS expansion. For the most part, the need for further testing is behind the delay to pushing them live. Rhagnell, EQ Producer, pointed out on an EQPlayers forum that "these things ... are not part of the expansion. There is no reason for us to push that out with an expansion launch if we think that it needs more time for testing. "

On the same thread, Nodyin, EQ Developer, added "Deciding not to release some features at launch is, I think, a good thing in this situation. If this expansion were hurting for content then it would be tragic if we had to pull content. Fortunately there is so much to do in TSS that we are able to hold off on some of the system changes that aren't 100% ready to go, polish them up a bit more and release them when they are ready and we're confident about the state they are in.

Isn't that what you would want to happen?"

Rashere posted an explanation which should help to clarify the team's thinking on how the beta testing helps them decide whether to release a new feature:

"There are two distinct things here.

First, the spells were always planned to be at a select number for casters/hybrid/melee. People get really upset when someone else has more than they do so we have to keep them in line. We created more spells than we needed and then pruned out the ones that were problematic or disliked over the course of the beta. Of course, opinions are exactly that and what one person felt was useless another sees as a core ability so there are always going to be disagreements about exactly which ones made the final cut.

Second, this beta period served a dual function of testing the expansion and giving us a large number of players doing intensive testing to check out other changes we want to make to core game functionality. Some of those changes, like downtime, panned out and will be going live. Others uncovered problems that we need to look into some more before we're comfortable enough with them, like the invis changes. It's exactly what the beta was meant to do and I think it worked beautifully. It allowed us to really stress these things during intensive game play and uncover problems we probably wouldn't have found otherwise."

It appears that until the development team feels completely comfortable with any changes they have proposed, they will not release them live.