Summit and Fan Faire 2006

[Aryse Andenter]

Some links to get you started:

http://www.mobhunter.com/001473.html
http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?article=10462
http://eq.crgaming.com/viewarticle.asp?Article=10470


Key points:

Progression server
AA discussion
Level Increase
More complete expansion - new starting city


Edit: more links

http://eqvault.ign.com/ (a few articles)

[Hellandra]

I'm really torn on another level increase. Somewhere in that article a possible raise to 80 instead of 75 was mentioned.

As a retired raider atm, my intention was to knock off a few more hundred aa's across my toons and get back into the raiding scene. This is exceedingly difficult on my server, since requirements to join current high end content guilds are far out of my reach.

They seem to be building a gap that grows and grows with every expansion as far as being able to get into the existing high end content. The only consolation would be, and this is a big "if" it still holds true for when I raided up until GoD. When they did the level raises on caps, our raid leaders tended to take a few more nights off so players could top off levels, and produce some more aa's to take advantage of the new ones released with the expansion.

They really dropped the ball not introducing more aa's in PoR, I know a lot of people maxed on AA's and can't bank any more. Now those people will have almost wasted how much time not gaining aa's that could have been a stepping stone to the new ones to be released in the upcoming expansion.

All in all, the sheer amount of new content kind of outweighs the existing playerbase to some extent. I remember when they took away the ability to see the number of people on any given server at the time you logged in. This coincided with the steadily declining playerbase at the time. The merging of servers was inevitable at that point to repopulate the dwindling numbers.

They mentioned content that would be appealing to NEW players, but let's face it, there is hardly an influx of new players coming to the game. There may be a slight trickle here and there, but in the current dynamic, these new players are literally lost in an ocean of content to explore. SoE comes up with the ability to take a level 1 toon and smash out 70 in a matter of weeks with little effort. This leads to people who literally have zero clue about how to play their class, since they fast tracked to level 70.

I hope we can get some more solid information about the new expansion soon. I think some massive amounts of feedback might sway SoE to not screw this one up like the last couple. There really hasn't been a solid expansion since PoP imho. Sure new toys, new spells (which are hardly worth the rvr factor lately), shiny new lag laden zones are all fluff for any of us who have played for years, but if they don't do something a bit more drastic to cater to us, they will slowly lose more and more people to games like WoW simply because people are straight bored with the new content. There's too much "been there done that" when it comes to the last few expansions aside from a few isolated areas. Hell, I can't even manage to get 69 or 70 OoW spells much less quest the new ones. Now I may face being 7 or 12 levels behind on spells? Major bummer. :(

Just an initial outlook, but man, as much as I like new content, I'd like to see some of the current stuff before the raid guilds move on yet again to the new zones. The snowball is getting bigger, and trying to find guilds doing Anguish flagging decreases more and more.

[Jebasiz]

I'm going to read those articles soon. I didn't mind GoD after they tuned it right. Beating Barxrt early on was a rush, unlike much else I've experienced in EQ.

I'm not really *high* on OoW and DoN. I don't feel comfortable commenting on DODH or PoR atm, although they don't seem bad.

Level increase. This is really a doube-edged sword. Anytime they raise the level cap they get closer to the end of the game/new content. They can only go so high, once they get there, it's over..well shortly after that.

- The flipside, without increasing the level cap..it's hard to introduce new stages of growth/power etc and bring in new content. OoW was a good bit of time ago, and we're at the same level for 4 expansions now. Normally a level increase would of been done already. How many level 70 spells do we have (for instance), compared to other non-cap levels? I find it odd that our best poison dot is level 69, when we have a level 70 of the same line(albeit, the level 69 dot does have a different mechanic to it).

AA's. What a topic. They're better be a LOT of new aa's with the next expansion. I'm close to that whole, have every aa thing, and can't save anymore that Hellandra described, and I don't exp. The arcs in DODH yield WAY to much exp. As long as situations like that exist, exp will be to easy to gain in huge amounts and the AA totals people will attain will be to great for the developers to keep up with. The PoR missions for ToB were more inline with what they should be IMO.

EQ is complex and hard to balance. I don't see too much of a population of "new" players, I think EQ can kinda take that horse out to the barn and shoot it. There's already WAY to many paths a new player can take, the diversity makes it harder, in the sense that 1) they don't need anyone's help(or to group) 2) they level to quickly 3) they don't run into anyone their level.

Anguish flagging isn't anything remarkable, Hellandra. You could recruit for an anguish raiding/farming guild with only signets farmed and turned in and loot a complete seal off any of the anguish bosses and be fully flagged.

Edit: They brought up Necromancer DPS at Fanfaire, and the microphones went dead...Guess the dev's didn't want to hear the jealous bastards complain.

[mr_pain]

I read something about them planning to package this expansion more as EQ 1.5 to try and reinvigorate the game - not a bad idea actually since WoW has brought an influx of new people interested in the genre. Sadly no doubt their international distribution will suck so it will fail in that regards (***** ubisoft).

I just hope they take their time of this one and if raising the level cap, attempt to solve some of the issues with getting spells for older levels. Ive still only 1 of 3 of the DoDH and missing OoW runes (I got into PoR early and managed to get all those spells in the first week). Sadly, no doubt they will just make them researchable and thus as hard for newbie/casual players to get as ever *sigh*
________
Nasty_Girl_Squirt (http://camslivesexy.com/cam/Nasty_Girl_Squirt)

[Aryse Andenter]

Ngreth's comments on tradeskills on the progression server:

This is as far as I know. Not all plans have been finalized so this *may* change. Also, I could be flat wrong in some cases But in many cases, I do not expect them to change from a feasibility standpoint. Maddoc can correct me if I am wrong.

Basically there will not be anything special for tradeskills, except the AA's

Cap will be 300, but without AA's only one will be able to exceed 200.

All recipes that exist will be available, but for many you will not be able to gather the parts until the appropriate expansion is available. The recipes data does not have an "era" flag. So there is not a good way to say "you can only do these because you only have X expansion open"

In a similar fashion, all trivials will be the same. This does mean that due to the availability of components, not all skills will be able to get to 300, nor will all races be able to get skill levels to an equal degree (like in the "classic way"). As above, there is just not a feasible way to adjust trivials for just this server. The old data in many cases is just not available, and in the end, having multiple data sets like that would be is very problematic.

The New UI will be available from the get go.

The merchants will have their current merchant inventories as they are.

The AA's will be available as the expansions are opened.

On a side note. From what I have heard, the re-vamped zones will be as they are right now. So the new freeport, Ro Desert, Nektulos(v3), and lavastorm (and any other revamped zone I did not mention) will be the revamped versions.



http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/...essage.id=12426 (http://eqforums.station.sony.com/eq/board/message?board.id=Trade&message.id=12426)

[Ewasx]

Originally posted by Hellandra@Apr 9 2006, 05:54 PM
I'm really torn on another level increase. Somewhere in that article a possible raise to 80 instead of 75 was mentioned.

I really can't imagine them doing more than a 5 level increase. Given how huge the difference in power between a 60 nec vs a 70 nec is...

I wouldn't be supprised if they did a 5 level increase over the course of a few expansions. Something like 2 more levels for the Sept one would put quite a bit of DoD mobs at even cons, raising our power, but not completly trivializing much of OoW/DoN/DoD (por? don't have it yet)

As for the progression server... I can't even imagine wanting to start over with just the basic eq again, but that's me. And not that I ever had one, but there will be no pre-nerf CoS to be had at all I bet.

[Xislaben]

Progression server = waste of resources

[shraklor]

as far as raising the level, for those that think it trivailizes older content, who cares? When they raised the cap to 60 it trivialized everything pre-kunark, how many people remember needing a group in LGuk? Now our pets solo in there ALL the named. When Velious came out, to kill AoW or any other big named in Kael, required a raid, and many of those raids wiped, now they are single groupable, and some named are soloed by clerics!!!
An easy (albiet annoying) solution to upping the level to 75/80 would be put code in like Naggy/Vox where aggro from certain MOBs boots you from zone. Think about how many level 70 people farm the named in Dranik Scar for augs, or sellable loot.

People forget that everytime they add more AA's or better gear they are trivializing old content. At one point Crushbone was good exp for all of us, but you don't see many lvl 70 there anymore.

bump the level to 75 or 80, just means that 69.1 will be busy for a few weeks, but even that would die off since you would lose the 5 level benefit. Afterwards, I can go solo WoS named for what....runes? (lvl 80's don't need), loot? ( might not sell for much after next expansion), so why would I go visit that trivial content? Sure some people would just to say I soloed Velkitor, but after that I wouldn't go back, instead I would be grouping/soloing in the new expansion or zone that catered to easy AAexp for lvl 80.

[Jebasiz]

Heh, for the most part, if OoW isn't trivial already for you/your guild..you should welcome the level increase. It'll open more content up to you, without you having to change guilds, or your guild changing. There's one encounter in OoW that isn't trivial for raid guilds presently, and that's pretty much a crap shoot..as to who's put in the work to figure it out, and then nail it into everyone's heads..so the raid can win and who hasn't put in the work.

DoN..is trivial now. Every single bit of it. DODH..not trivial, yet. It should be before september for much of the community. PoR..interesting events, from what I've seen, but nothing has been a "holy fuck, we're not going to beat this anytime soon" mob yet. There may be some, but noone has run into one yet.

I really don't think it'll change a lot of the ways much of the eq guilds do business. It'll take less gearing, and less people to break and clear anguish..possibly killing Ture and keldovan with ~25 at that point. Ya'lir and Rikkukin..perhaps the same, pending dps increases and mitigation advances.

It always happens. If the content I did with 4-6 people 5 years ago (read Guk) was still that hard today, I'd of quit a long time ago. That'd represent a complete failure on the dev's programing to such an extent that you can't advance your character.

Kunark was an example of huge mudflation, I'll give ya that..possibly the largest in the history of the game. 10 more levels, 10/19 weapons..hps on gear! It was game changing. I also LOVED it. Don't fear change. It's a good thing. Stagnation..is a killer. Anywhere, anytime, in any venue.

[Xislaben]

Ok waste of resources was a bit harsh, it may well bring some new blood and old blood back to the game, but since they'll be on an entirely seperate server this does nothign for me, and in fact as some on my server may leave to go play there in can only in fact hurt those ofus on existing servers I believe.

[Schaeffer]

but since they'll be on an entirely seperate server this does nothign for me, and in fact as some on my server may leave to go play there in can only in fact hurt those ofus on existing servers I believe.

Which means more server mergers...


yay