Brannoc - Welcome to another great Stratics house of commons with the developers of Everquest 2! Tonight will be a general chat so all questions on the game are welcome. Please send your questions to [QT]Bot by using /msg [QT]Bot My question here.  Questions sent to myself or the developers will NOT be answered so please do not send them to us.

We'll begin with a brief introduction from our guests and then proceed with the chat.  Now would be a good time to send those questions to [QT]Bot!

Blackguard - I'm Ryan Shwayder, the Community Relations Manager for EverQuest II. You may have seen me on Good Morning America, Attack of the Show, or on numerous important videos all over the internet.

Beghn - Hi I'm Ben Skelly the Tradeskill Designer for EverQuest II.

Gallenite - Evening, folks!  I'm Scott Hartsman, the Senior Producer of EverQuest II, who has nothing particularly witty to add on to his introduction today.  Thanks for coming. :)

Archonix - I'm Chris Junior, PvP Mechanics Czar for EverQuest II.

Lyndro - Hi I'm Lyndro and I'm the design supervisor for expansion 3, Echoes of Faydwer.

Aeralik - I'm Chris Kozak, programmer EQ2 and work mainly on PvP and other aspects of combat

Ilucide[EQ2] - Evenin'! I'm Noel Walling, Game Designer for EverQuest II. I spend all my time writing quests, making zones and working on something which I'm sure you'll hear more about tonight, so I didn't have time to come up with something witty to say.

Brannoc - *Jetfire* Beyond the changes to the Tradeskill writ system, are there any plans to make TS combines profitable? Even if it's a few cp per raw used?

Beghn - I'll take that question.  As we implement the new writ system for tradeskills we will also be implementing a way to sell back some of your items for a profit.

Brannoc - *Anon8520* What can we hope to see for PvP in the near and in the distant future?

Archonix - In the near future, we'll be introducing systems for players to swap out Master I spells that their alignment cannot use, as well as bringing back the Fences (Including ways to stop the other side from buying from your side).  We're also looking at how resistances work in the high end game.

Brannoc - *Denuve_Mistmoore* Thank you for planning this event.  A quesiton we all would like to know.  Are there plans for guild halls in the near future?  And if so.. how near? :)

Gallenite - Guild halls are something that we really want to get in the game as well, especially after hearing how excited people were at the prospect this past fan faire.  We're still looking for the right opportunity to be able to deliver both a system and areas (the halls themselves) that live up to what people will be expecting.  We don't have a solid timeframe for them yet, but do rest assured that getting them in is important to us as well.

Brannoc - *Wandering* When will we be able to gain the Ally title with Ironforge?  Its a pain being one writ away from being a Factor.

Beghn - When the new writ sytem for tradeskills goes in we will make sure that people can hit max faction with the respective Tradeskill City factions.

Brannoc - *Banhammer* Let's get this question over with. When do beta invites for Echoes of Faydwer start?

Lyndro - Yes, invites for Echoes of Faydwer beta will be sent out shortly before Echoes of Faydwer launches, which is a little bit before Echoes of Faydwer launches.

Blackguard - And is probably this decade.

Brannoc - *[Xan]Vaanir* Is there any plans in revamping the community window/tool ? Like having options and comment boxes saying what type of group you want :)

Aeralik - Yes the LFG tool is definitely on the list of things to do soon.  There are no real estimates of when it will be done but hopefully in the near future.

Brannoc - *Jetfire* With the change in the Tradeskill system, will we be able to see better armor made from rare drops? Maybe items made from drops that only come from deep in dungeons or something?

Beghn - We are currently in the planning stages of implementing a system to allow for craftable items that come from Raid targets.

Brannoc - *Nixon* Hey, I was wondering, with other MMPORGS(d) introducing measures to stop cheating (with Punkbuster), will EQ2 take that step(e), or are you holding back to wait and see what impact it has?(d)

Gallenite - I read about that too -- It's an interesting decision, and I honestly do hope it goes well for them.  For EQ2, we're not evaluating it specifically.  There are a number of things that we're continuing to do internally to catch and remove cheaters.  I wouldn't rule out going with an external solution like PB at some point, but it's not something on the short term radar.

Brannoc - *TracheaSpider* Can you please let us know if you plan to do something about the huge difference in price for the various spell rares? It seems rather unfair that some classes pay up to and over five times what other classes pay. Or at least if this is your intent, let us know that. Thank you.

Beghn - The major factor that went into what we chose to be used for the rare items used in spell creation was how many recipes use these products.  Rare loam for example is only used to make Fighter/Scout spells.  While gems and precious metals are used to make Jeweler/Symbols/Furniture.

Loams are decently expensive at the moment as there wasn't a surplus of them on the servers as they were just implemented.

Brannoc - *[Xan]Briza* There has been much of discussion about the upcoming non-tradeskill earrings tagged as lore change that is currently on test server. Many consider this as a sign that Norrathians would finally gain a 2nd earring slot, could we get any official word on this subject?

Blackguard - What? Why would we make earrings lore? Man, I better go find out.

* Blackguard walks off

* Blackguard comes back

Blackguard - It turns out that there is indeed a reason that they are lore, and you'll apparently find out why roughly by the timeframe that Lyndro discussed previously.

Brannoc - *Duhme`* whats up with all of the plat sellers invading the trial of the isle ? why cant you guys just either make trial users unable to send tells off of the isle or just disable the trial itsself

Gallenite - We've noticed them too, for sure.  They've been making themselves a nice big convenient target for getting banned.   We're working up the solution that'll put an end to them being able to bug paying customers soon, without having to discontinue the Trial. 

Brannoc - *Giovanni* What do the EQ2 people think about World of Warcraft!?

Blackguard - What's that?

Blackguard - done.

Brannoc - *Recca|BK* are the new AA paths seperate from our current ones or can we attain new total points to fill in current and new AA paths?

Aeralik - Achievements will see a new subclass specific tree along with their own window.  The cap on points will also rise and you will be able to split points between the two trees although each tree will have its own point cap.

Brannoc - *Cowdenicus* where do you see the future of a. soloing b. group instances and instanced content in general and c. raiding and raiding progression going

Lyndro - All 3 (Solo, group, and raid) are all important parts of EverQuest II as a whole.  We'll continute to try to make sure that people have enough to do regardless of their playstyle.  For example in Faydwer we have a solo content path planned through the expansion, a few group instances, and some raids as well.

Brannoc - *Andriella* With the new specific vendor containers in Update 25, will we be able to see what they sell? And how will these work in the broker system?

Blackguard - Yes, you will be able to see what is being sold through the containers both through the consignment system (i.e. via a broker) and in person (walking into someone's home and interacting with the object).

They'll work similarly to a standard bag or box now, except that they are also an object within a player's home.

Brannoc - *cq* for Beghn... will we ever see a max hp food and Max power drink similar to pre LU24 Mental Core Breach...even if it's a quested or dropped recipe?

Beghn - There is a possibility in the future to see a greater diversity of effects on Provisioner made food.  Currently what we have implemented was the base system for Provisioners.  We just want to be aware on balance impacts in the game.

Brannoc - *Cowdenicus* What are your plans for content for the player base that has achieved max level multiple times with the new expansion

Lyndro - Looking at Echoes of Faydwer, you'll have a few other axis where you can improve and develop your character, even at max level.  We are adding armor sets, which will take some work to complete, you may want to pick up one of the secondary tradeskills, or work on adorning your armor sets.  Also the deity system will offer some reusable means of power growth.  There should be a good amount of content for everyone, even without an increase in levels.

Oh yeah.  There will be some zones in there too.

Brannoc - *RadarX* I've seen many complaints about the difficulty of the Nizara instance.  Are any adjustments being made to make it more accessible to a larger part of the playerbase?

Ilucide[EQ2] - There are no plans to decrease the difficulty of Nizara at this time. It's definately a challenging zone, but rewarding to those who can complete it.

Brannoc - *Recca|BK* are the diety choices faction based so we can try them out, or will there be a respec like the AA options?

Ilucide[EQ2] - The deity choices are going to be faction based. Certain deities will only be able to be worshipped by players of a specific alignment. For example: Qeynosians will not be able to worship Innoruuk, and Freeportians will not be able to worship Mithaniel Marr.

Brannoc - *Spiritunicorn* Are we going to see ridable unicorns in the new expansion? ^_^

* Gallenite blinks

Gallenite - Is that question or volunteering for the role?

It's possible. ;)  We're not getting into the specific details just yet on what'll be out there, I'm afraid

Brannoc - *Roarke* At one point there was talk about fixing player made arrows so that they were desirable by the player base, what is the status on that and if you implement that how do you propose the change to keep it from being overly burdensome to rangers who may consume 6,000 arrows a night?

Beghn - Player made ammunition is something that I really want to take a deep look into to make sure that they are more desirable that store bought arrows to give them a market.  It's an issue of balancing them correctly to make them desirable but not "broken".

Brannoc - *Baroque* While we understand the need to constantly improve and change the game I beleive many of us feel that too many changes are being made. Why do you deem it nessecary to change things so dramatically so often e.g. crafting system.

Gallenite - Thanks for asking this.  When we feel that a large scale change like this is a big enough improvement over the long term, we really need to evaluate the change and take the risk if need be.  So far, the changes to the tradeskill systems appear to be having the positive effects that we'd thought they would, and we're pretty confident that we made the right call. 

I touched on this a little bit in the producer's letter this month as well, though, in that the focus for the next year will be more on improvements in content, and in new content, much moreso than continued large scale systems changes.

Brannoc - *Elrund* Will EQ2 every see playable races such as Orcs, Goblins, Minotaurs, Centaurs, Half Ogre, Treant, etc.?

Blackguard - You will definitely see new races added to the game (see also: Fae). What the new races will be hasn't been determined beyond the Fae in Echoes of Faydwer, but I wouldn't rule anything out.

Brannoc - *[DCoL]Drunador* When will LU #25 go live?

Blackguard - Our current plan is to launch Live Update #25 (actually, it will be called Game Update #25 due to a terminology change, so start getting used to that) on July 12th. That's not for sure, but that is currently our target date.

Brannoc - *Anon233* a form of mp3player like the one in eq1 would also be nice to see added soon

Gallenite - It's not absent because we don't want you listening to music.  Promise. :)  EQ2 multitasks and works in a window, and we really prefer to spend time on gameplay features, as opposed to additions of non-game elements that lots of other software does really well. 

Brannoc - *[oobd]Eliv* Will the cloacks featured in EoF have stats to them that will affect anything?

Lyndro - Yes, cloaks will have stats on them.  They will also make you look pretty darn sexy.

Brannoc - *Lunai* What classes will be available to the Fae Race?

Blackguard - As it stands now, the Fae race can begin the game as Good classes, as the city of Kelethin is Good aligned itself.

Brannoc - *Exco* is there going to a quest reward given for the quest "A Vision of the Future"

Ilucide[EQ2] - While Zhen Mei has little to his name, the monks of the Whistling Fist have been working to find a token of gratitude for helping the old man restore his memory. (Read: Soon. One of the monks will show up bearing gifts for those who have defeated Chel'drak.)

Brannoc - *Elrund* How does Blackguard type so fast? =P and *nordstrom* Does Blackguard always brag so much?!

Blackguard - Elrund, it takes practice. Mostly I type all day.

Blackguard - nordstrom: Yes.

I possess an unmatched level of false bravado. It affords me the ability to retain an ego despite my inadequacy.

Brannoc - I think the word is "brevity."

Gallenite - (We bought him a thesaurus for his birthday.)

Lyndro - (We make it a point to cut down his ego at every opportunity though)

Brannoc - That's it for this one folks! Thanks for joining us here on Stratics IRC, the logs will be up on http://eq2.stratics.com shortly.  Be sure to come by next time!

Blackguard - (Believe me, they do indeed cut me down at every opportunity)

Blackguard - (I like talking in parenthetical phrases)

Blackguard - (This thesaurus rules)

Gallenite - Thanks for coming, everyone!  If you ask Lyndro really nice in a /msg, he might go through and answer all of the questions that we didn't get to, like he did last time.

Lyndro - Thanks for coming everyone!  Don't forget our traditional "Spam Blacguard", so let's see how many messages we can get him

Blackguard - Thanks a lot everyone. Hopefully we answered some of the burning questions, and sorry for any we missed.

Blackguard - Oh son of a...

Beghn - Just to let everyone know Blackguard is a Arachibutyrophobic

Blackguard - Why must that become a tradition?

Archonix - Blackguard got a new computer...he's pretty confident it can handle as many message windows as you can throw at him

Beghn - He has the fear of Peanut butter becoming stuck to the roof of his mouth.

Blackguard - Oh noes...

Lyndro - We told Blackguard that he can't leave until he's read every message so be sure to send him one.

Blackguard - I think I hear my computer's fan spinning up faster to handle all of these windows.

They're coming faster than I close them

Beghn - Goodnight all those still here

Blackguard - Okay, I'm headed out so I can get rid of these message windows. :P

Thanks for coming out for the chat!

Lyndro - Night all!

Ilucide[EQ2] - Aye, enjoy the rest of the day. Thanks for coming. ;)