Roster Master provides a method to integrate the Sony EverQuest II Guild
Roster into your guild's Web site. The Roster Master Project is a Free,
Open-Source software project, and has been ported to multiple platforms
with a wide range of included features. The Roster Master Project is
composed of a family of ports of the original Roster Master module
originally written by Rex "SaintPeter" Schrader.
Notice
As you are probably aware by now, on November 12th, 2007, the SoE Web
Platform team released a revised version of the EQ2 Players website.
Titled "EQ2 Players RoK Release (3.4)", this new version brought new
features, some bugfixes, but also introduced new problems, failed to
address several long-standing problems (some of which have existed since
the game's introduction in 2004, some three years ago), as well as
removed existing features. This is similar to the situation that was
created by changes to EQ2 Players on November 14th, 2006, on the occasion
of the EoF release.
These changes had a marked impact on the Roster Master project (due to
missing data and inconsistently formatted feeds that were the result of
the changes), but more so had a marked impact on the community. Whether
users of Roster Master, or just customers of SoE, players were left with
unresolved problems ranging from being unable to use the data, data not
being updated consistently or correctly, to the fee-based Advanced
Services not working as advertised or being able to access services that
were paid for, all the way up to reoccurring problems with billing for
those services.
Fortunately, the Roster Master project had been able to recover
partially from these changes through the efforts of Dark Grue (RM4DF dev)
and Lantis (RMSA dev). By putting our heads together along with other
members of the community, we managed, once more, to find ways to work
around the data format problem, but still at the cost of reduced
functionality.
So, what happened?
First, there is incompetence. Those feeds were broken at EoF release
last year, and it took them six months to fix them. Six months later at
the RoK release, they broke it AGAIN, making the exact same mistakes with
the same results. Poor quality and responsiveness has been a consistent
theme with EQ2 Players; however, failing to learn anything from in the
course of a year stretches credibility, and is not acceptable in any
industry.
In Logic of Empire, Robert Heinlein states: "You have attributed
conditions to villainy that simply result from stupidity." But in
having the EQ2Players RoK release duplicate the circumstances of EoF, we
have what appears to be forethought of malice, not incompetence. In
short, the appearance that SoE set out to intentionally sabotage the
community. A few months ago, a detailed report of various EQ2Players
issues, and recommendations from the Roster Master community was sent by
Dark Grue to a representative of the SOE QA team. No response was ever
given. Months later, as part of the EQ2 Players RoK Release, we see SOE
offering new Advanced Features services that replicate key Roster Master
functionality; except they are charging for this service. Simultaneously,
SoE also removed community access to roster data fields that have been
openly available for community use and that Roster Master relied upon,
and reserved them solely for their paid service. Draw your own
conclusion.
[Further information is available in the Roster Master - EQ2Players
Timeline .]
The Roster Master project is a very small group of developers that
work, for no compensation, on the project in their spare time. We receive
no compensation for our efforts (other than the thanks of the community
and the knowledge of a job well-done). We receive no ad revenue, and
garner no sponsorships. The work we do only brings value to the
community, which in turn brings residual benefit to SoE. Such
arrangements are common in today's marketplace, and are almost always
win-win situations.
As both third-party developers, members of the EverQuest II community,
and customers, the Roster Master Development Team are disgusted with the
lack of communication, quality, and ethics we experience with EQ2 Players
and the Web Platform team. Successful examples of collaboration between
the EverQuest II developers and the community on projects such as EQ2Maps
show that such interaction is not only possible, but benefits both
parties. That specific example resulted in a completely seamless
experience with the ROK launch. In contrast, the SOE Web Platform
developers have been nothing but an obstacle to the Roster Master project
and the community. They are not only ignoring us, but also changing
things with no regard as to the consequences – even when it is in fact
their own paying Advanced Services customers they are marginalizing.
Is it too much to ask that they stop ignoring the community, insulting
it in the process by offering a broken and incomplete service? Using the
Roster Master project as a stalking horse for market research and
development of a product, only to plagiarize the efforts of community
developers such as ourselves speaks volumes as to intent.
So, where does that leave Roster Master specifically? Version 3.5.0 of
RMSA and Version 6.2.0 of RM4DF have been engineered to work around those
issues, but at a loss of functionality, since many of the data fields on
which we were dependent are no longer accessible. The Web Services team
has shown an inability and unwillingness to listen to or communicate with
the community, and after soliciting the Roster Master team's input, only
to use that as a roadmap to implement their own pay service and harm the
community project, they have shown a tremendous breach of faith and
trust. Using a free open-source community project that had made every
good-faith effort to reach back to SoE and collaborate in order to
bolster their own commercial pay product which they are unable to deliver
as complete and consistently working service is not the behavior you
would expect from professionals.
The Roster Master team is committed to continue working on Roster
Master in its various forms for as long it will remain possible, and
enjoyable. But the recent experience has left us all with a bitter taste
that only seems to intensify with each passing day that the service
continues to accrue complains and problems that remain unaddressed and
unresolved.
As a community member, all we can do is suggest that you make your
opinion heard by them. The history of EQ2 Players and the Advance
Features service does not demonstrate that its purpose is to provide a
useful service for a nominal extra fee. Rather, it is to generate a
reoccurring source of income for SoE - much in the way that the banner
ads have been added to the site do (a feature which takes away value from
the customers to generate revenue for SoE). Bearing that in mind, EQ2
Players is "working as intended" as long as it is generating income,
there is no reason whatsoever for SoE to fix what is already working.
People in SoE you should consider writing to:
John Smedley, President (jsmedley@soe.sony.com)
Russell Shanks, Senior Vice President, Chief Operating Officer (
rshanks@soe.sony.com)
Torrie Dorrell, Senior Vice President, Marketing, Sales and International
George Scotto, Vice President, Global Customer Service and Quality Assurance
Mike Lustenberger, Vice President, Marketing
Sony Online Entertainment
8928 Terman Court
San Diego, CA 92121
Businesses do not hear your wallet voting - that just helps you.
Businesses listen when you write to them and tell them (in a clear, calm,
and concise manner) why you are not willing to continue buying their
services.
Sincerely,
Lantis, Roster Master Stand Alone Developer
Dark Grue, Roster Master for Dragonfly Developer
If you believe that your problem lies with Roster Master, you best
method of support is the Roster Master Development
Thread (archive prior to February 05, 2007, is located here ). As an
alternative, you may contact the author directly regarding questions or
comments. Keep in mind that the authors of the Roster Master ports are
specialists, and cannot generally assist with ports for other content
management systems.