[SOE]Stratos - Hello, my name is Daniel Lewis, Associate Art Director EQII

Brekkee - *Speranza* In EQ there was a lot of down time for casters such as memorizing spells and meditation mana, I am sure that those will be back but is there anything you have done specificly in EQ2 to lessen Down time?
[SOE]Russo - In EQII we've drastically reduced the downtime between fights as well as the time it takes to get your spells up and running. With our encounter system we are able to tell when a player isn't in combat so we give them a nice regeneration rate increase. This tends to keep downtime between fights to around 30-45 seconds or so. We have also removed the time required to memorize a spell from your spell book as well as scribing a spell i
[SOE]Russo - This tends to keep downtime between fights to around 30-45 seconds or so. We have also removed the time required to memorize a spell from your spell book as well as scribing a spell into your spellbook.
[SOE]Russo - done

Brekkee - *Baramur* I would like to know if you can make a statement of how you will handle the initial flood of players when the game goes live?
Cao - The early stages of the game are designed to handle a large number of players. When players first enter the game, they'll each be on an instanced tutorial boat.
Cao - Then, players will move to various instances of the Isle of Refuge. Thus, the initial flood of players will be directed into the ‘tributaries’ of instances.
Cao - From there, the players are divided into the two cities. In each city, players are divided up into race-specific districts (which further spreads them out).
Cao - Off each district is an instanced newbie yard. The number of these yards will grow as demand does.
Cao - The combination of these elements should keep overcrowding on day one to a minimum. Done.

Brekkee - *LeStudd* Since artisan has become a sideline to an addventure class, are there any plans to allow a character to develope more than one artisan branch?
Cao - The various artisan sub-classes in EQII have hundreds upon hundreds on unique recipes that they can create. Our goal is to further enrich each of the sub-classes while maintaining the artisan-to-artisan interdependence that is the core of our tradeskill approach.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Glanconer* Is it true that there will only be one IV Master Spell for each server? If so, what lead to this decision ?
[SOE]Russo - There will be more than one of each Master IV spell on each server, although they will be very rare.
[SOE]Russo - done

Brekkee - *Blackin* Are there going to be any options in place for guilds that wish to house 2 seperate guilds(One good and one evil) under one umbrella?
Cao - The player guilds in EQII function as loyal organizations of either of the two cities. Because of this, guilds are created to support and further the ambitions of these cities. That is why earning status points is city-dependent.
Cao - At launch, we’ve decided to support city-specific guilds. If players wish, they can form out-of-game associations that span the two cities. But we want to reinforce the fiction of the world, the story of two opposed cities locked in a cold war.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Ekredem* Will there be many different armor types at high levels? Will my troll be able to wear black armor?
Rystall - YEs we have close to 100 different armors available..including black armor types
Rystall - done

Brekkee - *Druc* Can we expect to see anything close to the number of quests given out at up to level 10 when we are in our 30's and 40's or will there be fewer longer quests?
Cao - There are currently thousands of quests in EQII. They vary in size and complexity from simple city tasks to lengthy, story-based adventures.
Cao - As a player increases in level, the quests become more complex (and usually longer). But you can expect that no matter what level you are, there will always be hundreds of interesting, quest-based activities for you to pursue.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Imperator* I would like to know if there are any limit to the Mastery Quests, from which I'm told offer bonuses and special attacks against certain types of creatures. Is there a limit to how many you can do, and how many mobs are they available for?
Moorgard - I just posted a new thread on the enemy mastery feature a little while ago on the official forums. it includes some examples on how the quests work and at what level you get to make your choices.
Moorgard - done

Brekkee - *Ekredem* Will the armor types differ greatly in style and aesthetics?
Rystall - Yes, Tons of variety. There are unique looks for different classes and different armor "families" like chain, plate, leather, etc.
Rystall - done

Brekkee - *Snakeoil* Will crafting tables/objects be placable in housing?
[SOE]Russo - Yes, players can purchase tradeskill devices and place them in their homes. This allows players to create and sell the products they make from home.
[SOE]Russo - done.

Brekkee - *Athaneil* With the recent lift on the NDA, many are complaining that combat is too fast causing crowd control spells such as root and mez to be less optimal than Direct Damage spells, how is this being addressed?
[SOE]Russo - Direct damage as well as crowd control spells are both equally effective in different situations. When you have a hord of enemies the crowd control spells are more helpful. When there's just one big guy the direct damages spells are more helpful.
[SOE]Russo - With that being said, we are always looking at the game to make sure it is balanced and fun.
[SOE]Russo - Done.

Brekkee - *AlphabetMan* Hi =) can the developers reveal anything more about how the different factions within cities will benefit guilds that support them?
Cao - There are two main types of organizations that players will interact with directly in a city: guilds and societies. Guilds are the familiar player-run organizations that seek to gain status by serving the six main factions (e.g The Freeport Militia) of each city.
Cao - Societies are NPC-lead organizations that players can join regardless of their guild association. At launch, look for four different types of tradeskill specific societies.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Doggyfromplanetwoof* I played Everquest when it first came out for about a year. I really enjoyed the large raids I was able to attend, but I also disliked all the time spent on trying to level up my character and the massive experiance loss. How will Everquest2 fix these problems and improve on them?
Cao - EQII is designed from the ground up to provide a more intimate gaming environment where the contributions of each player make a difference. We’ve also created raid-like content (called epic encounters) across all player levels.
Cao - In combination, these two factors will mean that smaller groups of players working together in skilled coordination will have opportunities to challenge their abilities at every level of play.
Cao - Expect to find meaningful specialized encounters for one, two, three and four groups throughout the life of your character.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Kolwithe* Howdy ^_^ Will the solo content in eq2 become more available? I last heard there wasn't very much solo material in eq2, and more is being added - but will there be enough for solo players to level throughout the game without ever needing a group?
[SOE]Russo - In the past few weeks we have actually almost doubled the amount of solo content that is readily available for players. It is a major goal of ours to make sure that solo players have enough content to consume from levels 1 through 50.
[SOE]Russo - Done.

Brekkee - *Melikos* will there be a level range when grping with people ie. must be within 5 levels if the highest person in the grp, and will lower level players gain any bonus for being a grp with higher level players
[SOE]Russo - We don't limit the level range to group with anyone. However, to actually get experience while grouping you must be within 6 levels or 75% of the highest level member of the group (which ever is the greater range).
[SOE]Russo - The amount of experience that the group gains is also based on the group level and everyone gains the same amount.
[SOE]Russo - Quest credit is also limited to the range stated above.
[SOE]Russo - Done.

Brekkee - *Frizzen* Can we get some examples of "fluff" spells that will be added?
Moorgard - There will be cool spells added that give a lot of flavor to each subclass. We'll be posting them next week as part of our Advancement Path info. Done.

Brekkee - *khalysta* One of the main abilities of the scouts is supposed to deal with poisons yet there has been little information on this so far. So my question is what can we expect to see from this system and how will it help out the scouts
[SOE]Russo - We are close to being done with the potions and poisons portion of the tradeskill system. Potions are designed to be used exclusively by the Scout professions.
[SOE]Russo - There will be a wide range of effects that the poisons will provide the scout as well as the party.
[SOE]Russo - Done.

Brekkee - *Para* Instancing seems to be utilized more and more in MMO's today. Do you feel that there needs to be a balance between instanced zones and regular zones and how much of EQII is instanced?
Cao - In EQII, instancing is used to create custom encounters or to reward players with high experience/loot situations due to quests they have accomplished in game. While we do make extensive use of instancing, our philosophy is to always establish a sense of place with a larger, static parent zone.
Cao - Commonlands, for example, has several different instances associated with it. But each instance is both graphically and thematically linked to the larger context that Commonlands provides.
Cao - We want to make sure that the sense of shared space that is key to an MMO is preserved. But we also want to create specialized content areas through instancing. To put it simply, we’re looking to establish a balance that favors a sense of world.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *StormCrow* Some of the early beta testers have noticed a downgrade in graphics in the last few months as more people join have you toned them down??
[SOE]Stratos - There hasn't been any downgrade in graphics quality. The graphic options got reset with one of the beta updates a while back. Look through some of the options like 'Texture Resolution', 'Complex Rendering Distance', and some of the lighting options and make sure they are set where you had them before.
[SOE]Stratos - done

Brekkee - *Acidian* I have a question about the faction system, I as a player lay alot of weight in that my actions in the game counts for something, Im just wondering if it is possible to some kind of rank within the diffrent factions, and if there are any rewards for this, rewards like getting a salute from faction friendly npc's, or material things like clothes displaying rank?
Cao - It is important to define some terms we use in EQII to describe organizations in the world. As I stated in an earlier response, guilds and societies support more complex organizations that players are involved with.
Cao - Factions, on the other hand, are NPC-exclusive organizations that create a broad response to players based on previous actions. They function very similarly to the way they did in EQ1 (i.e. players gain and lose faction through their actions).
Cao - One of the challenges of a faction system, however, is that players rarely enjoy being subjected to consequences they cannot clearly predict. Big faction hits for unknown actions, for example, are usually a detriment.
Cao - Expect the faction effects in EQII to be clearly communicated in both action and effect. But look for detailed interaction with an NPC organization to come through guilds and societies.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Icevultur* One thing I enjoyed in EverQuest was the fact that maxing out your character wasn't do-able in 3 weeks time as a casual gamer. You would be able to enjoy your character for months or even years before you felt it was time you did everything you could with your character and it was time to move on. Is EverQuest 2 structured in this way, or is levelling less difficult?
Cao - The focus of player progression in EQII includes both the journey and the end goal. Because of this, players are encouraged to play through the content available at each level rather than race to the end of the game.
Cao - This makes the actual rate at which players advance less important than the adventures they have along the way. We’ve designed the game to offer so much content at each level that players will be challenged to complete it all.
Cao - From our perspective, that sets up a more satisfying goal (i.e. enjoying play in a level) than leveling for leveling’s sake tends to provide.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - *Riddikk* Question: I have read that raid groups will be set at 24 players max, is this gonne be a hard number throughout the game?
[SOE]Russo - In order to present the players with an intimate tactical experience where every member has a significant role in determining the outcome of the battle, we have chosen to go with a maximum raid size of 24.
[SOE]Russo - The decision on raising that or not will be made once we see how the play experience is.
[SOE]Russo - Done.

Brekkee - *{SG}Rouzuki* Currently when a player engages with a monster they become locked in combat and no other player can assist, yet other monsters that are not part of the monster's group can enter the engagement and attack the player. Are there any plans to lock out both players and monsters or allow some player assistance?
Cao - Players are a lot smarter than monsters ?
Cao - Whoops.
Cao - My happy face turned into a question mark.
Moorgard - Somebody set us up the bomb.
Cao - Ok...try that again.
Cao - Because of this (and to preserve the challenge that the game offers), monsters are not excluded from adding to a locked encounter. The locked encounter system was designed to address player-to-monster balance issues.
Cao - It is about balancing many of the factors introduced by the difference in intelligence and resources that a player versus monster encounter creates.
Cao - Done.

Brekkee - That will wrap it up for our question portion of the chat. We will get to the beta key giveaway in just a moment. So don't go anywhere!
Brekkee - I'd like to thank the developers for taking the time out of their schedule to join us.

Moorgard - Thanks for the questions everybody! See you next time!

[SOE]Russo - Thanks everyone, take care.

Cao - Thanks, all. We look forward to seeing you in game.

[SOE]Stratos - Thank you!

Rystall - Thanks, enjoy EQ2!