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| December 12, 2006 House of Commons Log |
Preston - Welcome to the Stratics house of commons with the developers of EverQuest II! Tonight’s chat is Echoes of Faydwer and anything else, so all questions are welcome.
Preston - Please send your questions to Preston by using /msg Preston My question here. Questions sent to the developers will NOT be answered so please do not send them to us. You only need to send your question one time. Sending it multiple times will not increase the likelihood of it being answered.
Preston - 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 Preston!
Lyndro - Hi I'm Akil Hooper (Lyndro), I was design supervisor for Echoes of Faydwer.
Gallenite - Hi there! I'm Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer for EverQuest II. We'll try to take as many questions as we can, and will be storing up the ones we don't get to or don't have the experts here for, and will be replying to those after the chat. :)
Dymus - Hello, I'm Jason Roberts, Lead designer for Everquest II.
Owlchick - I'm Tracy Seamster, designer and not a singer.
Saavedra-EQ2 - I'm Steve Kramer, a designer
Preston - *Banhammer* So, now that more of the old world is returning to Shattered Norrath, what are the chances of seeing Kunark appear in a future expansion? Maybe even the next one
Gallenite - It's a little early for us to be talking about the specifics of what's coming up next. But, we're definitely interested in making sure we can show off what's gone on in the parts of Norrath that people care about the most, both in live and expansion zone releases. That's all I'll be able to hint at for now. :)
Gallenite - (d)
Preston - *KrakenDavram* This question concerns drops on PvP servers. Are there any plans to provide an in-game service (along the lines of Master transcribing) to translate Qeynos/Freeport no-drop set items from EoF instances into something usable for raiders of opposing factions?
Dymus - With the addition of transmuting and deity item sacrifice even those items which are not immediately useful can be turned into something a bit more so. There aren't any plans to change the way those items work at this time since there are other options for their use.
Preston - *Faefan* Will there be Fae betrayal and what is the timeframe for implementation if it is going to happen?
Lyndro - Right now we are looking at Game Update 32 or 33 for Fae Betrayal, but that isn’t a date that’s written in stone. We want to make sure that is done before we push it live.
Preston - *Arthik* What happened to my AA? I was half way through 73, and now I'm back to the beginning.
Gallenite - For those that aren't aware, there was a period of a few hours this morning where the internet around here...exploded. Well.. Okay, maybe "stopped working" would be a better way to put it. During that time, some folks who logged in lost partial progress through their current achievement point. CS is working through fixing those folks up right now, and if you're one of the people impacted, please do send in a petition. People are bein
Gallenite - g fixed as we speak.
Gallenite - (done)
Preston - *Nick* Hello, what are devs going to be doing with gmworker.com and the other sites that spam players dayly?
Gallenite - We hate this as much as you do. We've restricted free trial accounts from being able to do this a while ago, and since then, the spammers have moved on to using paid Gamecard accounts for this, which we're banning daily as they get reported. We're actively working on a way to throttle that kind of behavior without impacting legitimate paying customers. For now, petition them and ignore them as best you can. This is important to us to
Gallenite - get addressed also.
Gallenite - (done)
Preston - *Pantz* So whats up with unrest? Is it an instance? A raid zone? Both? When is it due?
Lyndro - Unrest is a instanced single group dungeon. Its pretty heavily scripted, with lots of character. It should be a scary place. Right now its due GU 32, but again it'll go out when its done.
Preston - *Gene27* why cant we get to nek dock and ts dock easy from the new city
Dymus - The best place for the large ships was to come in via Butcherblock, that's also the traditional route and the easiest to get to Faydwer. As for a non-lore / world answer, it gives the feeling of travel and that Faydwer is an entirely new and unique continent which is what helps make the distances between it and the older continents more real.
Preston - *Blythe* Could you confirm some tinkering questions? 1. that it is intentional most combat-related items are tinker-usable only, 2. why are many items no-trade and need to be made for others using the new commission system, and 3. when will we see mana batteries?
Gallenite - Long answer...
Gallenite - 1. Yes, combat-impacting items are there for people who've levelled up tinkering. The idea wasn't to make new cross-class abilities available to all classes, but rather to tinkers who understand the mechanics of how these often-times fragile items work. (And make an active choice for how they choose to progress the characters' secondaries.)
Gallenite - 2. We're going to be evaluating some of these in the coming weeks - Wish I had a better answer for you, but I'm not the expert on that detail.
Gallenite - 3. We're also evaluating whether or not we want to take these in the direction of using rechargeable mana batteries and keeping them at the same high resource cost, or instead possibly lowering the resource cost and making them expendable.
Gallenite - (done)
Preston - *Ninsanna* Will there ever be status housing in Kelethin?
Lyndro - We don’t have any plans to add status housing to Kelethin, but its not something that’s out of the realm of possibility. I’ll see if I can get it one "the list" somewhere. If it ever comes it would use the same geometry as the existing housing.
Preston - *ellshep* Is anything going to be done to better the current state of mitigation, or is it working as intended?
Dymus - There have been a few issues we've fixed with mitigation (and avoidance) within the new combat system. As a whole the new system is very close to what we were aiming for. There are likely a few things that still need some attention here or there but overall it is having the effect we were looking for and diversifying some choices in equipment and abilities rather than always making mitigation increases the obvious choice.
Preston - *WolfmoonCT* will the Fae be able to join the general world chat channels for crafting and trading? And will they be able to change their good city with the Tie that binds quest?
Lyndro - It’s a bug that they don’t have the world channels available as a default. I’ll get it added to the bug queue.
Lyndro - Right now Fae can get the bind spell through the citizenship quest, the only way to change their city will be through betrayal (which won’t be a full betrayal when going from Kelethin to Qeynos, just a re-citizenship), which is coming soon.
Preston - *Anti-Nark* when will server transfers to Vox be permitted?
Gallenite - There are two hot PvP server structure topics that we hope to be able to talk about resolutions to in the short term. 1) Server transfers for PvP in general and 2) populations of the Euro PvP servers. These are both topics that we plan on bringing to the forefront to get a resolution on. On the latter, it was very important for us to show our committment to players in those time zones and locales when it came to introducing PvP earlie
Gallenite - r this year, and while it's worked out exceptionally well in the US, it hasn't worked out quite as well over there. We want to get a good solution out there as soon as we can. Now that we're past the expansion launch, we can focus more of our efforts in that direction.
Gallenite - (done)
Preston - *Dante* Question - Are the developers considering unlocking the class based mitigation restrictions and fixing the problem by making temp mitigation buffs percentage based instead
Dymus - There are no class based mitigation restrictions other than what equipment that class can wear and what their defensive stances (if they have them) will offer. We thought about using percentage based mitigation buffs instead of the method we use now. However, percentage based systems have an inherent limit to them and it would require us to make upgrades through the different spell qualities (adept, master, etc.) very minimal because of t
Dymus - the compounded effect of high mitigation benefits more through a percentage. It would a a rich get richer scenario which is what we'd like to avoid.
Preston - *Frurry* when will catalog and lore and legend books be added for EoF zones and mobs?
Owlchick - The catalog quest books are being done now. We anticipate they'll be implemented with update 32. Lore and Legend may take slightly longer to do, but should also be somewhere around that time frame.
Gallenite - (Note - There are a bunch of PvP questions coming in that we're going to hold off on and address in the post-chat wrapup post. We just can't get them all right here. Not ignoring them, so please do keep sending them.)
Preston - *IS|kushinagi* Now that we have Faye on Good, any hints on what will be our next evil race?
Lyndro - Yes. You’ve already seen it... at least some of it... And I bet if you opened up the channel about 50 people would guess and 49 would be right.
Owlchick - I know they'll be evil!
Lyndro - Bitter evil!
Preston - *Raven65* What do you plan to offer players like myself, transistioning from games like WoW and looking for endgame content suitable for solo and small group players not wanting to raid 24/7?
Dymus - For small group play many of the higher end zones (in the low to mid 60's) make very good locations to play. For the solo players we're typically adding more quests and some special instances to support those as we go along. There are a couple high end zones dedicated nearly entirely to solo play within Kingdom of Sky and Echoes currently.
Preston - *Daggart* Im concerned about the new online petition system. It seems customer support never reaches the players now. Numerous petitions from our guild have just been closed without any resolution. Has this been a occuring issue with others?
Gallenite - I wanted to take at least one question about the new EQ2 petition system. I know it's a concern, and don't want to ignore it.
Gallenite - The EQ2 team members here, myself included, work on the EQ2 game proper. We aren't the folks who can speak knowledgably about why theticketing system was changed or were involved in the evaluation of alternatives. The best way to make your opinions known is by continuing to comment on the appropriate forums.
Gallenite - There've been reports both positive and negative in terms of turnaround time and responsiveness, and ease of use. As our customers, your opinions on how well the company as a whole is taking care of you are absolutely vital to us. So please, do send feedback. Do post. It all gets read and discussed whether or not you see replies.
Preston - *Grrrrrrrrl* will inquisitors ever get healing lovings from the devs? :)
Saavedra-EQ2 - Sure, if any inquisitors get into my group, I'll heal them!
Preston - *Dimble* Why did you guys choose to use No-Trade Class Specific Sets instead of the molds like in KoS? It will take a Hardcore raider like 10 Months to get his Full class set.
Dymus - It allows for a long term goal and what should be a very rewarding full set of armor at the completion of one of these. Many people felt that the relic armor within Kingdom of Sky was too easy to obtain and did not offer a long term high-end goal, that is what these new armor sets are meant to achieve.
Preston - *SyntaxVenekor* Miracles are currently overpowered in pvp fights. Will these be fixed in the near future?
Gallenite - Definitely -- Expect them to be evaluated continuously for balance throughout live. We're not looking for a situation where every class/religion combination is the same as every other (that's homogenous and boring), but neither are we looking for the one-shot-one-kill goodness of an I-WIN button. Somewhere between those two extremes lies "fun," and that's where we're aiming.
Preston - *Mistify* Is there anything you can tell us about what Mayong Mistmoore has been up to in the past 500 years; is there any lore quests implimented into the game revolving around him (such as Kingdom of Sky's claymore line) or any quests about Mayong that will be implimented?
Lyndro - There are already clues in game if you know where to look for them. There will probably be more revealed about what he’s been up to in the future, but there is information out there now.
Lyndro - And there is a central storyline quest coming for Echoes of Faydwer, which may answer some of the lore questions that have been pestering away at people.
Preston - *Xietsu* Another thing, many have been speaking of another potential Freeport race, and was wondering if the adoption of one would happen, or whether we would just be able to betray Fae to Freeport.
Lyndro - One of the things we've been trying to hammer home is that Good != Qeynos and Evil != Freeport. So a new evil race doesn't have to mean a new race to Freeport... Of course there are no other evil cities... hmm... interesting...
Preston - *uberfuzzy* (gonna sound dumb) why is the sorting on the sales log so broken? it doesnt sort by any normal/functional way (if any at all)
Gallenite - Yeah, alphabetically is likely not the most useful method. :) It's on the bug list. Promise.
Preston - *Felishanna* Are there plans to add any more transmuter recipes? A few tradeskill classes have, shall we say, very few recipes, and in some cases, completely empty recipe books?
Gallenite - Yes - The same pass in which I discussed tinkering above, should also be handling the issues you describe. :)
Preston - *Zenithan* There piles of "outdated" bugs in the game like carpets/clouds not working, specific spells with very old known bugs, broken quests, etc things that have been around before DoF. In many cases the players themselves have to find work arounds. Will at any time SoE consider going back and cleaning up these old bugs? It seems the goal is always on the right now stuff
Dymus - We hate bugs, yet they don't seem to all go away. We do fix everything we can every chance we get, some of the older outstanding bugs like the carpets/clouds for instance are also very elusive and difficult to reproduce and consequently, fix. Every update contains a lot of fixes both to new and old bugs and we make it a point to clean up old bugs as often as possible.
Preston - *Dragowulf-Nagafen* As mentioned earlier in an older Stratics Chat, you all stated there will be new mounts, as well as "cat" type mounts...Is this something you will implement in later LU's or did you back down on that idea?
Lyndro - There was the tinkered mount in EoF, and there will be more new mounts coming in the future. When I mentioned the cat mount it was as a "maybe", it ended up falling off on the "not" side. But you can expect to see more mounts coming in the not-so-distant future...
Preston - *Xehlwan* Is there anything you can reveal to us about the rumours of changes to character skeletons?
Gallenite - This is a really long term project for us. A couple weeks ago, I posted a brief status on it on our boards, which was: "We're still working on it, and we'll let you know when we have more details." We don't want to get into too many details just yet, but the overall goals are to improve rendering speed and also improve our ability to create new gear appearances for people to wear. While not negatively impacting any of the visuals in t
Gallenite - he game.
Preston - *Nick* are dyes going to be implemented anytime soon?
Lyndro - We don’t have any plans to implement dye right now. We really want to focus on armor being recognizable, so you see someone in a specific armor and you can tell where they’ve been and what they’ve done. Allowing a full pallet dye would be counter that intention. Not to say that it’ll never happen, but right now it doesn’t fit what we’d like to do character appearances.
Preston - *covesh* Are there any plans to change the way avoidance works against epics to place brawlers on a more level field with other fighters as tanks. Since EoF I have seen many "looking for plate tank" advertisements. Brawlers would like to remain a viable option as tanks.
Dymus - We've added a portion to brawler defensive stances which gives them a floor on their deflection. In addition, we've retuned several of the epic mobs to have more reasonable skill levels which makes a brawler tanking them much more viable than previously.
Preston - *relix* Question, noticed linkdead issues reviving in raid zones..sometimes u
Gallenite - Regarding a recurrence of an LD/Critical shutdown issue in some raids, Autenil isn't here right now because he's actually working on this problem. We've got a good line on it, and as usual, I'm sure he'll post on the current thread when he's got an answer. :)
Preston - *Kurai* Recent additions have withthe Achievement system in EoF have enabled several calls it equal or exceed Bard run speed at earlier levels and with far less AA cost. Originally our selo's lvl 55 upgrade was removed in DoF beta due to being too fast for the game. With the top run speeds achievable by classes far exceeding that have you considered relooking at this decision or coming up with another solution to bards losing out on run speed?
Dymus - We're taking a look at the bard classes currently, in specific their run speed abilities, but also several other aspects of the classes to make sure that they are where they should be. I'm sorry I can't be specific on it right now but more detail will be forthcoming soon.
Preston - *Ozymundas* Are there plans to allow the transmutting of no-trade items via the commission system?
Gallenite - Not at the moment -- We want those items to be valuable as cash loot also. If in the longer term there needs to be more tradeable items available due to the demand driven by Transmuting, and I suspect the economy will even out in a way that leads us to that conclusion, we're more likely to look toward tweaking with the Trivial Loot mechanics that most of us aren't particularly fond of in the first place as a way to ensure a sufficient s
Gallenite - upply of Transmutables.
Preston - *Anon2364* I have seen the race "Arsai" while searching races in the community window. What might this be?
Lyndro - It "might be" a lot of things... right now it IS a bug ;)
Preston - *hebo* Do you guys have any plans to bring back wereforms for plays like in EQ & EQOA
Dymus - Perhaps. Though, if we're to do something that allows that sort of change in character we'd like to make sure it fits within the game and has everything it needs to support it and make it rewarding. But, with that said, it has a lot of potential to be very interesting it just needs to be done correctly for EQ2 and that takes time.
Preston - *Xiane* I love a lot of the furnishings I am seeing in EoF. Will carpenters be able to make any of these items? Especially items like the grand piano in Castle Mistmoore and some of the Faydwer type furniture?
Gallenite - In our perfect world, we'd be able to make many, many more objects that you see in the game into things that people can craft and place in their homes. The cost of doing that is a raise in the download size for everyone, because all those files must then go to people whether or not they own a given expansion. That's the big limiter for us - We have to offer enough items to be interesting and fun, but not to push already long download t
Gallenite - imes over the edge to intolerable for the person who just goes out and buys the base game tomorrow. As more people migrate toward owning all the expansions, we're able to put more items out there. Hope that makes sense. :)
Preston - *dragonarmy1004* This question regards Racial Changes, will theyre be a race revamp to balance with the Fae or will the race's stay the same?
Dymus - Yes, we are planning at looking at other races and giving them some abilities that are more geared for the race and more meaningful than what we have now. The Fae were the first race which shows a bit of the new direction we've been taking with the game and trying to look at what is unique and fun.
Preston - That's it for this one folks! Thanks for joining us here on Stratics IRC, the logs will be up on http://www.stratics.com shortly. Be sure to come by next time!
Saavedra-EQ2 - Happy Frostfell Everyone!
Lyndro - Thanks for coming everyone!
Owlchick - Happy Frostfell! :)
Lyndro - After this Saveedra will be more than happy to answer any and all questions. He is a fountain of knowledge! So please send your questions that weren't answered to him. ;)
Gallenite - Thanks a lot everyone. :)
Owlchick - Heh
Saavedra-EQ2 - *chokes*
Dymus - Thank you for coming everyone.
Gallenite - Yes, please /msg Saavedra-EQ2 with all available window spam.
Saavedra-EQ2 - I am a font of jokes and merriment... noooooooooooooooo
Lyndro - Sorry, Blackguard is gone. It had to be someone!
Owlchick - At least it wasn't me!
Lyndro - Ciao all!
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