Pharone
Trakanon Raider
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Meh... it's a game. I shall lose zero sleep over you calling me a rando rogue. Just saying. There's a million things in life more important than EQ.
EQ TLP - Mischief (Free Trade / Random Loot)
- Thread starter Zaide
- Start date
There's no reason you couldn't add another class, race, or deity in a 32-bit application. EQ could have done this years ago. There's probably just simply too much code you'd have to change in a reasonable amount of time, and doing so is error prone when you don't have a team of engineers working with quality assurance, artists, designers, etc - plus bean counters would have to see a reasonable return on investment for having developers spend time that way.
Technical explanation below:
You can still use int64 in a 32-bit program, it is the same as doing char bitmask[8] and making helper functions to compare classes or races.
EQ has had int64 health in a 32-bit application for many years now, because the keyword doesn't care what arch it is running under.
64-bit only means you have a 8-byte pointer type, and can address allocations of memory up to 0xFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF (8 bytes), instead of 0xFFFFFFFF (4 bytes), as well as the instruction set supporting better ways of handling floating point math, intrinsics that natively parallelize instructions through the instruction set, and other optimizations that EQ will likely never utilize.
The only reason to do this is the reason outlined in JChan's post; they are simply running out of addressable memory for the application, even with a 4GB ceiling - and this is commonplace for most 00's-10's games that want to push graphic fidelity and utilize modern GPUs, but cannot because the textures and other addressable elements required to store data are simply too small.
The other issue which will likely follow is an upgrade of DX9 -> DX11/12, but that would require a complete rewrite of their graphical engine because of their heavy usage of the fixed function pipeline versus shaders that drive the game's integration. It's why DX9 was a simple upgrade for EQ, but DX10/11/12 is 'out of reach' for most teams that have downsized their staff but still use in-house engines. So seeing Daybreak do this, unless it's already done for them, is likely out of the question and this is the next best option.
The reason for the above comment is that EQ has historically 'gotten away' with tricks that allow them to bypass the need for that graphics engine / directx api rewrite. DX7/8/9 are 'pretty much' interchangeable... if all you use is the fixed function graphical pipeline. However, you're missing out on modern optimizations like texture pooling, caching, and other GPU-offloaded tasks such as render call batching. EQ doesn't suffer as a result of not using those.
However, they hit a roadblock with graphics fidelity and memory - if there's too many different assets loaded 'on-demand' and they run out of addressable memory (GPU or otherwise, it doesn't matter if the application cannot tell the GPU where it resides in memory), they cannot work around this without converting the entire application to use a 64-bit address space.
This is, of course, a workaround - it will still require users to have more memory to run the game. Thankfully most have 8GB of ram or more in 2021, as Windows 10 simply requires that to run these days. And whatever you can't put in physical memory, putting the game's assets into the paging file ('swap file', if you would) becomes a viable option, and the OS will natively handle putting the assets it can't store in physical memory into swap memory as the game can address that memory, even if it's on the disk drive temporarily.
I think it's a brilliant solution, personally, and it's the one I would pick if I was in their situation. In fact, I am actually in a situation like that right now in my professional day to day, and I'm doing it alone - at least Daybreak has a team doing it with them, I'm doing it alone!
EQ doesn't require a demanding GPU currently, it's a bit heavy on draw calls at most. So they can use the DX9 solution for now, and maybe stuff a lead or two in a room together, or hire external talent to write that graphics upgrade, and in the meantime, the game won't crash due to out of memory - it may just be 'laggy' for those with 6GB or less RAM on Windows 10.
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Rajaah
Honorable Member
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Yeah. I don't know if any devs still read this board, but if so, hit up me and
Fight
and let's do some theory crafting. I'll draft up spell/ability/AA list ideas fo' free, pro bono.I think the "jack of all trades" type class really got popularized with Skyrim. Seemed like everybody played a battle-mage type character in that game.
War Wizard, Battlemage, War Mage, Mageknight are all possible titles. Not sure if they'd use leather/chain/plate, depends on how much the devs want them to lean in the tank direction or the DPS direction. Would most likely go with chain to keep them in line with Ranger/Rogue. The main challenge would be setting them apart from the Ranger class.
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Rajaah
Honorable Member
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I'd definitely say Ogres should be included on the race list for Battlemage. It's fun to go with strong-yet-dumb races for SK and Shaman so it'd be the same here, and evil/big races being able to play Battlemage would also be a way to set the class apart from Ranger.
From "more battle, less mage" to "more mage, less battle"
Ogre
Troll
Dark Elf
Barbarian
Human
Gnome
For starters. Once you let Ogres use wiz/mage abilities the door is pretty much open for everyone, even Dorfs.
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Rajaah
Honorable Member
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I was thinking about having it be proc-based or enchant-based. Though Rangers already have abilities like that, and if you make a melee version, it's close to what Rogues already have with poisons.
However I think you can get pretty inventive with this class, from proc enchants to miniature mage pets.
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Tuco
I got Tuco'd!
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2021 bards are battlemages with how strong heir dots are.Yeah. I don't know if any devs still read this board, but if so, hit up me and
I think the "jack of all trades" type class really got popularized with Skyrim. Seemed like everybody played a battle-mage type character in that game.
War Wizard, Battlemage, War Mage, Mageknight are all possible titles. Not sure if they'd use leather/chain/plate, depends on how much the devs want them to lean in the tank direction or the DPS direction. Would most likely go with chain to keep them in line with Ranger/Rogue. The main challenge would be setting them apart from the Ranger class.
I don't know what a battlemage would look like that isn't already conflicting with existing classes.
Vanessa
Uncle Tanya
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LachiusTZ
Rogue Deathwalker Box
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Just open all races to all classes.
Make class armor all races.
Let people figure the rest out.
Maybe your ogre monk can't finish the epic quest because of whatever reason.
Who gives a shit. Not like any EQ players expect customer service at this point anyway.
Make class armor all races.
Let people figure the rest out.
Maybe your ogre monk can't finish the epic quest because of whatever reason.
Who gives a shit. Not like any EQ players expect customer service at this point anyway.
Sterling
El Presidente
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Fight
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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Here is a start. It needs a lot of work.
In general, I would say races that could be Wizards, Mages, or Shadow Knights would qualify for the Battle Mage. That gives you a pretty unique and fun list of races that can play the class.
Next, I think you are right that it should be a Cloth, Leather, Chain class. It should be a 1H weapon and Shield focused class.
It could fill the role of a tank in a pinch, but it should do it through reactive rune mitigation more than AC/HPs.
In general, I would say races that could be Wizards, Mages, or Shadow Knights would qualify for the Battle Mage. That gives you a pretty unique and fun list of races that can play the class.
Next, I think you are right that it should be a Cloth, Leather, Chain class. It should be a 1H weapon and Shield focused class.
It could fill the role of a tank in a pinch, but it should do it through reactive rune mitigation more than AC/HPs.
| Races | Armor | Weapon Skills | Key Abilities |
| Dark Elf | Cloth | 1H Blunt | Reactive Runes: Chance to proc when damage is received |
| Drakkin | Leather | 1H Slashing | Strong & Unique Weapon Proc Buffs |
| Erudite | Chain | Piercing | Self Teleportation: To zones and more predicable Shadowstep lines that gain or lose agro |
| Froglok | Shields | Spell Eater Lines: Mitigate incoming spells and gain mana | |
| Gnome | Hand to Hand | Telekinesis: Pull party members or Mobs to you | |
| High Elf | Throwing | Temporary Pets (swarm pets) that fill different roles other than just damage | |
| Human | Fire Nukes: Add damage over time and Agro | ||
| Iksar | Ice Nukes: Add slows, snares, or roots | ||
| Ogre | Electrical Nukes: Make mobs vulnerable to Group members nukes or jump to additional mobs | ||
| Troll | Silence, lessens a mobs chance to cast, do periodic abilities, or proc |
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I could probably add a new class using the framework I did for Classless 3.0 on the RoF2 client. This class concept was actually very similar to the Wizard idea we had for the dungeon crawl server we did prior to classless 2.0. Adding mitigation would have been a great addition to its toolkit. That's what Kinetic Barrier was, I think. A toggle stance for mitigation (but without threat)
I already have the ability to limit gear/spells based on data incoming from the server, and I've been dying to implement better tooltips using the overrides I already have in place.
Might play around with this idea and see if I could put it on an emu server just for a proof of concept to see if it could be done.
Also, here's a list of custom 'effects' we had for Edge's Insanity -> Classless3.
They were all reused/shared between server iterations and could be applied individually, or alongside another effect.
Here's the clientsided tooltips for each:
It wouldn't take much to get this working on emu, though I think Daybreak would take a while to do it without massive hacks like I did to workaround client limitations.
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If I had to guess, they may be storing collision data or caching data on the serverside that they really shouldn't be needing to. I don't know, I am not Daybreak Games and I don't have insight on how they cache stuff, or manage memory on the server side. Only limited information from shared client libraries that contain partial functions.
In theory, they could run out of memory if they keep a single 32-bit process online for extended periods of time for the same reason the client can run out of memory.
EQEmu used to work around this for most servers by killing the 32-bit zone processes after the zone 'sleeps'. But EQEmu is largely 64-bit servers already as the Perl 64-bit compatibility issue was worked around.
Rift Chloromancer was a cool and unique class
Reminder that Prathun confirmed that the "separate" loot table is just a myth that Rogues made up, to be fair most groups are mainly concerned about xp gains but if you invite a Rogue there's a good chance your split and the end of the night will be somewhat lighter than usual.
Pickpocket seperate loot table? | EverQuest Forums
Ive heard from many people that pickpocket is a seperate loot table, can any1 confirm this with a source other than "yes it is" ? hope i will get...
forums.daybreakgames.com
I haven't seen much of a presence of Greed is Good on the server anymore, anyone know if a ton of people quit or something?
Zaide
TLP Idealist
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I'm not actually, I am in a guild called Hoosker Doos which is made up primarily of many current/former members of Triton and is quite small (max we have in raid nights is 15 people including boxes).
I only ask because I have a theory that can probably be discarded or perhaps substantiated. I'll just lend out my theory which comes from more anecdotal observation then "inside information" but here it goes.
My theory is a little over a week ago a ton of Greed is Good cashed out all their plat/gear for krono in preparation for next TLP/whatever. I can only imagine a combination of the keying with no longer really being able to scalp people on prices of high end loot because of the bazaar made a lot of people begin to lose interest. Perhaps some DPS race losses against The Faceless was the tipping point and many people had enough and after the 44M in plat was distributed amongst the guild on 10/25 - many people went to the bazaar to cash out. This mass cash out caused krono prices to go from 40K to 110K in just 3 days.
Whatever the cause I figured 10 days after the fact the market would at least get somewhat back to normal. For a week now krono prices have been almost completely stable hovering around 90k consistently. The spike of course caused many of the top end Luclin items up for sale to be bought or taken down (I admit myself liquiding some krono to a barterer at 110k to buy a couple pieces I was saving for). Despite krono prices stabilizing, and there being much more time to farm top end Luclin raid mobs, prices of top end raid items are still 2-3x what they were the first 2 weeks of Luclin and the availability of the top end items is literally 4-5 times less than what were consistently up for sale in the first 2 weeks of Luclin.
For me this is all indicative of a fallout in Greed is Good. You still have a handful of Frank's crew selling items for 500k-1Mpp, but the prior flood of raid items you would regularly see the market filled with at competitive prices no longer exists.
I only ask because I have a theory that can probably be discarded or perhaps substantiated. I'll just lend out my theory which comes from more anecdotal observation then "inside information" but here it goes.
My theory is a little over a week ago a ton of Greed is Good cashed out all their plat/gear for krono in preparation for next TLP/whatever. I can only imagine a combination of the keying with no longer really being able to scalp people on prices of high end loot because of the bazaar made a lot of people begin to lose interest. Perhaps some DPS race losses against The Faceless was the tipping point and many people had enough and after the 44M in plat was distributed amongst the guild on 10/25 - many people went to the bazaar to cash out. This mass cash out caused krono prices to go from 40K to 110K in just 3 days.
Whatever the cause I figured 10 days after the fact the market would at least get somewhat back to normal. For a week now krono prices have been almost completely stable hovering around 90k consistently. The spike of course caused many of the top end Luclin items up for sale to be bought or taken down (I admit myself liquiding some krono to a barterer at 110k to buy a couple pieces I was saving for). Despite krono prices stabilizing, and there being much more time to farm top end Luclin raid mobs, prices of top end raid items are still 2-3x what they were the first 2 weeks of Luclin and the availability of the top end items is literally 4-5 times less than what were consistently up for sale in the first 2 weeks of Luclin.
For me this is all indicative of a fallout in Greed is Good. You still have a handful of Frank's crew selling items for 500k-1Mpp, but the prior flood of raid items you would regularly see the market filled with at competitive prices no longer exists.