EQ Never

Dandai_sl said:

I'm still really curious how the fuck they're going to handle inventory and loot distribution when everyone can be anything.

"OMG I've been waiting for that mace to drop so I can start leveling my cleric!"says the warrior.

"But Iama cleric and I could use itright now."

"Sorry dude, I really need that and it's the only reason I'm here."

Is that as much of a denial of service as dark starting areas?

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Probably rng personal loot box get luck or get crap.

Nadili_sl said:

Probably rng personal loot box get luck or get crap.

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Or that works too

Hedeon_sl said:

I mean it's free to play right, what will they be selling, boosts and early access to weapons and stuff like PS2, doesn't that kinda go against dropped loot if you are selling power? I got no problem with vanity items and the like. I mean it wouldn't effect me in a PvE sense as I don't really care what other people are packing but if someone can just buy their way to PvP godhood that seems a little whack.

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I don't see them selling stuff like that - xp boosts sure, but nothing else leveling/character related that isn't cosmetic. Though I could see a gold sub for being able to use certain weapons/items. Plus Player Studio/Templates. Eh we'll see.

Reading this thread made me miss playing a MMOG. I quit EQ1 in February of 2004, and have since played EQ2, Vanguard, WoW, Rift, AOC, TOR, TSW, and I am probably forgetting some.
Except for EQ2 and WoW, I have not stuck with any of the games past 3-4 months before quitting out of boredom.

This time, I decided to try P99. To see if Everquest Classic really was as engaging as I remember it to be, or what. It's fun theorycrafting about what would interest players and hold their attention for longer than 2 weeks, but I pretty much suck at it. I just can't see that there's enough hard data available to form proper hypothesises, and all I am left with are opinions and intuition.

As originally, I rolled a dwarven cleric. And logged in... and I was standing in a corridor. Some guards wandering about. Checked my inventory, equipped a wooden stick and read the GM letter. Fired up the maps on the browser, and remembered the way to the GM temple.

She gave me a dusty tunic and a pat on the back. The vendors around her had lots of nice spells, but I had no cash. So I headed out to BB mountains... and that was it.

For the next few hours, time flew by. I killed snakes, and bats, and at one point I glimpsed a skeleton with a staff in the distance, and some long forgotten instinct told me that was valuable. So I killed in, and wow! More than 1pp for the Cracked Staff - awesome.
Killing scarabs, I vaguely recalled a dude in Kaladim who mentioned he could make me armor. So I looked up the quest, and read that I could swap out my (awesome) Cloth Cap for a cool helmet. Ran back to the dwarf dude, but the quest required me to turn in 5gp. Erh... how do I exchange my 1pp to 10gp? In a bank!?
Eventually got the helmet. 4AC and -1CHA - cool!

Right now, I am sitting at level 4. And I am at work. And I can't wait to get back, to get to 5, and get my undead DD. And play more. And start grouping, and heal in groups - because that is awesome!

(Sidenote: Damaged as we are, I sometimes asked myself - am I having fun now? And often, the answer was "hell, no!" - killing 70 goblin whelps to fill a yellow bubble is no ones idea of fun. BUT! Some mechanism of my brain intervened and basically told me; "who cares if you are having fun right now. This is what it takes to get to level 4. And I WANT LEVEL 4 NOW! JUST KILL 100 MORE SNAKES!")

Don't forget no stats on weapons unless it's rare, which may mean raids or whatnot, so unless it's just a cool ass looking mace nobody cares.

Grumpus_sl said:

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Seems to be the popular thing to do these days. Limit weapon types to classes and sometimes as even as far as only 1 per class. And the same reason too, less animations total which hopefully means higher quality animations for the few they do have.

Won't hurt as much here as you can just play them all one 1 character, but still have to level them, so kinda of like 1/4th of what alt is

1 step forward, 2 steps back.

cinge_sl said:

Seems to be the popular thing to do these days. Limit weapon types to classes and sometimes as even as far as only 1 per class. And the same reason too, less animations total which hopefully means higher quality animations for the few they do have.

Won't hurt as much here as you can just play them all one 1 character, but still have to level them, so kinda of like 1/4th of what alt is

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The Warrior can use a mace + shield and get 4 abilities, or they can use a 2H sword and get 4 abilities for that. If they're not interested in using either of those, they can change class to something that has similar character abilities and use the weapons that class has. So a warrior might switch to a "Guardian" and be able to use a sword + shield, or a 2H battleaxe, but still be able to use most of their warrior abilities.

tad10_sl said:

Who thinks WoW 2 (aka Titan) will be EQ Next but with some additional on-the rail changes? Or maybe you can go 4 levels down, instead of 3.

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I think looking forward Blizzard has lost it's relevance for the genre, they are becoming too slow and unflexible to compete. I expect Titan in like 7 years and mostly featuring "new" stuff that's actually been live in other games for a couple of years by then. No matter if they canned the current version of titan because of one of the E3 reveals, PS2 or EQN, the bottom line is it probably would've blown minds in 2011 but not anymore for the projected release in 2014/15, so they pulled the plug. Same is gonna happen to titan2.0.

tad10_sl said:

@Rolx - just remember that it is theoretically possible to recreate EQ3 in EQN/L if they get the scripting stuff done properly. Bird entrails have told me that SOE does plan on releasing a version of the StoryBricks engine for EQN/L. So building + scripting + SB engine = EQ3.

So there is hope.

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But will it play in a browser

Dandai_sl said:

Actually, you might be onto something. They did a lot of foot stomping that crafting would be super important and that everyone was a crafter. It might be that crafting materials are the common drops and only rarely do we get actually end items from encounters.

With this system you could have a Chunk of Dwarven Enchanted Mithril or something like that which would be useful to anyone because it's the primary component for a mace, breastplate, two handed sword, etc.

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Basicially the answer to "everyone can be everything" is "everyone can use everything".

Loot whore's paradise. You see... it get more and more EQish the more you think about it.

Dandai_sl said:

I'm still really curious how the fuck they're going to handle inventory and loot distribution when everyone can be anything.

"OMG I've been waiting for that mace to drop so I can start leveling my cleric!"says the warrior.

"But Iama cleric and I could use itright now."

"Sorry dude, I really need that and it's the only reason I'm here."

Is that as much of a denial of service as dark starting areas?

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dude that is the same as in every mmo ever. why would loot rule etiquette suddenly change? Also, there is binding. that was stated already. although was not made clear, bind on equip or pickup, or both.

Mr Creed_sl said:

I think looking forward Blizzard has lost it's relevance for the genre, they are becoming too slow and unflexible to compete. I expect Titan in like 7 years and mostly featuring "new" stuff that's actually been live in other games for a couple of years by then. No matter if they canned the current version of titan because of one of the E3 reveals, PS2 or EQN, the bottom line is it probably would've blown minds in 2011 but not anymore for the projected release in 2014/15, so they pulled the plug. Same is gonna happen to titan2.0.

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Blizzard is no longer Blizzard anyway. So no gamer should really give a shit.

arallu_sl said:

Venture to guess that Iksar wont be a starting race since they just ran off the Combine from Kunark, per the new lore.

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They left that door open by saying there were pro-combine elements amongst the iksar that might have joined the other races on their exodus to qeynos.

I hope they do different starting cities, it was in the QA as we dont talk about that, so they might have an interesting solution. What I would really dig is if their closed/open beta would not reset to the ininital state but leave player-caused changes in.

Picture this: In beta you start out in qeynos regardless of class/race, and then during beta testing for rallying calls and through Landmark additions the world is fleshed out with other racial cities, this goes on through closed and perhaps even open beta but it made clear that there will be a final wipe. Now when the servers come up after that wipe everyone expects the world to be reset, but actually they keep everything and just wipe the characters. Maybe put in short video describing 100 years have passed so you can turn actual player towns (assuming they have them) into explorable ruins.

You would have true open development with the player actions shaping the end product and not just testing it, you throw a wrench into any data gathering for spoiler sites and have varied starting cities to show instead of the lame one-city-fits-all idea (can you tell I really dislike that?).

Did anyone catch what the tweet implied?? Essentially it is more important to have unique, personalized animations for those two sets of weapons than to be concerned with gameplay.

Yes I know he said he would "focus on gameplay" but didn't it sound to you guys that the bulk of the development time would go towards the animation portion? Gameplay seemed secondary.

tad10_sl said:

Just Elves and Dark Elves. And DE are just a caste of the Elves.

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I'm not so sure DE are just elves, the visuals are different (horns or more ears or whatever) and the events from that short story were centuries ago leaving them stranded god knows where (PoH is just speculation I think?). Unless you consider EQ1 DE as just elves too, which is a valid view.

ZyyzYzzy_sl said:

So this thread is moving really fast, but in regards to destructible environment and voxels, will they regenerate over time or will things stay permanently destroyed?

It concerns me that in zones that see a lot of player traffic, the landscape will eventually become barren from fights or people just being asshats and destroying everything as they explore.

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Alright, who wants to write a FAQ for the first post? (not it!)

Terran regens. Specifics have not been said.
What has:
1. short term effects (typically things like attacks which cause damage) have short term respawn. Trees, bridges, etc respawn quick.
2. longer term effects. Caves, and the like will reform from "earthquakes". They have not been entirely clear on what Earthquakes are, or how long in between them.
speculation: Some fan theorys have suggested, server resets? maybe weekly? Others suggested maybe more like realm of the mad god. Loading a new world.
3. the world is procedurally generated.
speculation: Its possible, area by area. but it also probably means, when "earthquakes" happen, everyone is ported to the city, and the world is respawned entirely. ala a minecraft, or terraria server.

Muligan_sl said:

Did anyone catch what the tweet implied?? Essentially it is more important to have unique, personalized animations for those two sets of weapons than to be concerned with gameplay.

Yes I know he said he would "focus on gameplay" but didn't it sound to you guys that the bulk of the development time would go towards the animation portion? Gameplay seemed secondary.

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I think you're reading into it a but too much. I think the overall point is that with only 2 weapon sets per class they focus on a good experience all around (gameplay, animations, sounds, etc) then if they had 10 per class.