Dev Chat March 18 2010  

Introductions

Kain: Good evening, and welcome to the SOE Developer chat hosted on ZAM's own IRC network! I am your host, Kain, Raven will be taking your questions (hence the QT by her name), Calthine will be panicking while Cyliena lurks and Looker is our FFA moderator! Now I shall hand over to the developers to introduce themselves.

Brenlo: I am Alan "Brenlo" Crosby, Producer of this fine game and manager of the best dev team in the UNIVERSE

Frizznik: My name is Paul Carrico, I work on mechanics related system. Hi!

Gninja: Hello! Carlos "Gninja" Mora : Zone design, quests, live events, etc, etc :)

Domino: Hiya everyone! I'm Emily "Domino" Taylor, game designer on the best dev team in the UNIVERSE, responsible for wrangling tradeskills, and whatever else needs wrangling.

Rothgar: Hiya, I'm Greg 'Rothgar' Spence, Lead Programmer on EQII.

Kaitheel: I'm Nathan "Kaitheel" McCall -Live events wrangler and all around quest monkey.

HaohmaruEQ2: Yo me llamo Timote Heydelaar and I make art, for everyone but Gninja.

Rothgar: *hands Kaitheel a banana*

Gninja: !

Olihin: My name is Juan Cardenas, I work with mechanics and content but focus on PVP.

SOECronyn: Heya all! Paul Molina - Content, quests, lore, that kind of thing.

Brenlo: Timote?

Kiara: Omg... Haohmaru wins the chat. We're done now.

Gninja: *cries*

Domino: it took me a week to remember how to spell Haohmaru ...

Xelgad: Hi! I'm Xelgad. I work with the fun mechanics for Spells, Alternate Advancements and Class Balance...

Kiara: I still can't spell it. I have to look it up every time.

Questions and Answers

Many folks are confused by Brenlo's statement that it is planned to "move away from" Qeynos and Freeport as starting cities. Could you please expand on that?

• Brenlo: Well when I said that, I had been drinking . . . Seriously though, we plan to only allow new characters to start in the newer player areas. Timorous, Greater Fay, Darklight and Soon Halas. THe new player experience in Qeynos and Freeport are just not up to snuff anymore and do not provide as solid an experience when you enter the game for the first time

For many a year, female gendered swashbuckler alts have been reduced to wearing an easter bonnet instead of the proper swashbuckler hat that male gendered alts get to wear with pride. What type of culinary or stuffed animal bribes would be needed to encourage the team to allow choice on hat style for those who want to use this class representative version of the swashbuckler hat instead of the easter bonnet?

• HaohmaruEQ2: Culinary bribes would be anything with the words "red meat" in them. As for why this was setup as such - honestly I can't say. I'll have to talk to our character lead and the guy who set them up originally to find out why. I'll have an answer on the boards before too long.

In the area of class balance, would you guys consider having the first Game Update AFTER an expansion focus on many of the new and un-finished concerns that players have with class balance? Especially those that arise DURING the expansion that were not really as big an issue during beta?

• Xelgad: We don't want to focus on just one update right after the expansion as the team wants to move away from bulk adjustments once per year. We intend to make class balance adjustments with every game update as they are warrented. The first update following an expansion launch will be no exception, and is definitely likely to see such adjustments. In short - yes, you should be seeing class balance adjustments with the Game Update following an expansion

Can we have some heirloom type way to have Lore items be tradable to alts as well as other players? Or even a trade-able Lore-equipped tag like the Heirloom Lore-Equipped tag.

• Rothgar: My head hurts just trying to understand that question!
• Rothgar: If I understand correctly you want more items to be tradable to alts which is already do-able with the tags we have. Perhaps we can re-evaluate some of the item tags in the future to see if more items can be made tradable. This is something we'd have to discuss though. If I don't understand the question correctly, just PM me a clarification on the forums. :) Perhaps give a few item examples and we can take a look at it.

On Nagafen, would it be possible to have areas where crafters are located made PVP free zones much like Moors currently is?

• Brenlo: Really? Really? More PVP free areas on the . . . PVP server? Care Bear crafters you would be called. You would be teased mercilessly. More than Gninja even. Do you really want that?
• Brenlo: We will talk about it though.
• Gninja: *sigh*
• Kiara: You're a gnome... what do you expect?

What happened to the Avatars?

• SOECronyn: Actually, the reason the Avatars left Norrath is explained in the signature quest line "Whispers from the Past". Anashti gives you guys an explanation... from her point of view. ;-)

A lot of people have asked about the new mythical quest. What is the dev's reasoning when making Mythical buffs available to all even for those who did not complete the mythical epic quest?

• Frizznik: The main reason was to make it more available was to level the playing field at 90. It would become very difficult to get a raid together to go back to do old content to complete the mythical version so we made it so that the fabled was the only required part in the later quest. Another big reason was to pop the spell effects off of the mythical so that we could once again itemize that equipment slot again with something different.
• Frizznik: We wanted you guys to keep those awesome effects, but we wanted you to have the option of going after different items too. So that's is where it ended up.

Any thoughts of top-end craftable gear to compete with top-end Legendary or low end Fabled loot? And don't say Mark of Manaar gear, that doesn't count.

• Frizznik: We do have thoughts on this, we were just talking about a few things in our mechanics meeting a few hours ago about it. I don't want to make any promises about what it will be exactly right now, but I bet you see a bump in mastercrafted stuff as soon as we can get to it.

Rangers are the only class who are completely dependent on ammo, and it can be a struggle to keep yourself stocked. Is there any thought on alleviating that? Some ideas include: increasing the crafted arrow yield so Woodworkers are more inclined to make them; ginormous or "endless" quivers; or an improvement to summoning arrows.

• Rothgar: We have no plans to eliminate ammo. We reduced this quite a bit a couple of years ago when we made combat arts not use ammo. We've recently made it so that you can use ammo going back about 20 levels so it should be pretty easy to find cheaper arrows without taking a damage penalty.
• Rothgar: We've discussed some of those other options though so we definitely won't rule out other "options" in the future.

Will we ever see a "player created" content event like players helping design a new spell or item, possibly through forum voting or other method of participation? Having players submit ideas and vote on, for example, their level 100 spell might be a great way to get people involved.

• Brenlo: That is an interesting idea and while I do not see us opening it up for voting, perhaps a contest in general, perhaps at Fan Faire could be a good move. We will chat about it with legal, marketing and community and see what folks think

Will there be appearances for mounts? e.g. i would like to hide my mount or use the appearance of another one.

• Frizznik: We do have plans for something for mounts. We are looking into different ideas and want it to be a really cool feature. I don't have a time of when it is coming though, there is a bunch of work to do with it. It is certainly on our minds though!
• Brenlo: Indeed. Frizznik and I are exchanging emails on mounts as we do this chat.

Some house items like the miniature griffon tower were retired. Will they return, even if only available through the Marketplace?

• Gninja: somehow I am betting gnomes have something to do with it...
• HaohmaruEQ2: i thought you were getting us coffee?
• Domino: Some house items were special rewards for very special events, and it doesn't necessarily make sense for them to become generally available. However, we are always looking into which items are desirable (both old and new items) and I'm sure we'll continue to see desirable house items becoming available in the future. I can't promise anything on specific items though, but if there are particular ones that are highly in demand we could discuss it i
• Gninja: I didn't get a paycheck this week... they said something about a payroll error and that it would just work itself out... shrug
• Brenlo: I will take 20
• Brenlo: cups of coffee

We received several questions regarding the server lag on AB. Can you tell us if you have any plans to fix this and do they involve enforcing it as a roleplay server?

• Rothgar: We have some short-term plans to help lag by increasing the number of servers that can service zones for AB as well as other servers in that data center.
• Rothgar: Long term we want to do something about the population. We don't want to restrict where you can transfer to, so we're going to try to make some of the other servers more desirable by considering some mergers to increase their populations as well.
• Rothgar: This is a big task though and must be coordinated with database upgrades. So its certainly a high priority for us, but it will take some time to implement. Meanwhile we're still looking at performance improvements to the code.
• Rothgar: But specific to your question, we don't have any plans to do anything with enforcing roleplay.

How feasible is it to allow guild hall administrators (i.e. guild leader) to decide if they want all of their guild hall declared "inside" when it comes to mounts, thus suppressing them for people while they are there?

• Brenlo: While feasible, I am not sure it is necessary and not perhaps the best use of our time. We can discuss it though, to see how much work it would entail and where it would fall on the priority list.

Why specifically can't we use a 2-handed weapon appearance when using 1handed weapons or a shield?

• Brenlo: Because Haohmaru-kichan hates us
• Gninja: true story
• HaohmaruEQ2: So most weapons were built with a specific purpose. The weapon influences the stance and how the weapon is rigged determines how it attaches to the character. We -can- use 2handers for 1handers. It just means setting them up as such if size/purpose isn't an issue.

How hard would it be to have a moderate (less than full subscription price) fee each month that would allow us to log in more than one alt from that account at the same time?

• Brenlo: Not without significant rework at the account and subscription level. This is not something that could be done easily and would be a great resource drain for us. So I do not see it happening any time soon. Sorry =(

Is there a chance the Research Assistant's will lose the one character at a time restriction? The current implementation runs counter to the trend of making the game more and more accesible to alts and it looks like the world ended as much as it could with the initial introduction of RA's. As now, the restiction unfairly impacts people who have multiple characters on a server and would be best changed to keep with the idea of alt support.

• Rothgar: Yes.
• Brenlo: There is always a chance
• Frizznik: You fought with me to answer that one, and your answer is "Yes." ?
• Olihin: Si
• Rothgar: Originally this was meant as an account-based reward for keeping your account subscribed. The idea was that everyone should receive the same benefit, like a once-per-account vet reward.
• Kiara: pft. I was gonna say no. You're no fun, Rothgar.
• Rothgar: But at this point we can certainly see that using it on multiple characters would just be more fun and wouldn't really break anything, so those changes are underway as we speak.
• Rothgar: lol @ Frizznik
• Frizznik: I would add that also, right at this second in fact, I am evaluating the time spent to research at lower levels and decreasing it.

Lets say a player completes quest lines, unique to both Freeport and Qeynos (Example : Will of the Tyrant). Will we eventually receive a unique achievement such as Champion of Norrath (in addition to Champion of Bayle / D'Lere)?

• SOECronyn: New achievements along these lines are always something we're looking at doing. This sounds like a pretty good idea, so we can take a look at it and see if it's something we'd like to add. :-)

Are there any plans to open a progression server for EQ2, ala Sleeper/Combine for EQ1?

• Brenlo: Yes

Are there plans to change how how the teleporters work in Neriak (where they bring up a zoning screen) to more like how they are in Kelethin (with no zoning screen)?

• Gninja: We can see if its feasible to change the teleporters to be more uniform like the ones in Kelethin as long as there are no art loading issues etc. We will take a look :)

For some fabled items, have transcription errors occurred? For instance, in Sara Greenheart in Perah'Celsis Abdominable Laboratory, drops Bangle of Seamless Strikes +146 Ability Modifier, also drops Bracelet of Removed Lands +14 Ability Modifier. Has a decimal place gone errant, or is the +14 ability modifier intentional?

• Frizznik: Anything is possible! We are doing a lot of evaluation on raid items right now, so it will be easy to take a look at this one in particular. We do have some strict stat budgets so it may be that this item did have some left over points that spilled into 14 ability mod, but I kind of doubt it. We will take a look. I may be inviting a world of hurt on myself, but if there are other items that look out of line feel free to PM me on the forums.

Will harvest boxes get more slots, now that we have an additional range of them. Would be sweet to be able to store all ressources rather than a selection.

• Rothgar: We never planned for these to be magically-expanding boxes that just got bigger with every expansion, but we will consider it. :)

How likely are we to see a world-revamp that would allow the use of true flying mounts?

• Brenlo: Hmm . . . Are you a betting man?
• Rothgar: Why would we do that when we don't have flying mounts? lol
• Frizznik: Haha
• Domino: for the batonga?
• Gninja: lol
• Domino: oh, but he has a keg backpack now, so cancel that!

Is there any hope on the horizon for us loyal Erollisi worshipers? The slow evolution of her story culminating in a tragic result has been maddening to those of us whose character concepts at launch were tied closely to the Queen of Love. At this point, it's gone on so long that it feels like you're just stringing us along, with no intention of ever letting one of the most popular EQ deities back into the game.

• Kaitheel: Erollisi's story has not seen its end. There is still hope!

Is level 60-69 gear going to get revamped to fit more in-line with item progression, similar to how level 1-60 gear was revamped? What about Tier 5 Fabled loot that had special effects on them?

• Frizznik: I have been playing through on my 15th alt and just experienced this too. From 1-59 you get a bunch of really nice stuff as far as quest rewards and drops. Then you hit the overrealm and still get nice quest loot but the drops are so bad they are comical. They are so bad they don't even drop in proper treasure chests, they only get the little wood ones! So the answer is yeah, I want this to get this in the log of things to check in the near future. I am not sure about tier 5 fabled loot, but at least the things on the golden path need to see an upgrade.

And now the one everyone has been waiting for... Many, many players asked: "WHEN IS NEW HALAS?!?!?!????"

• Rothgar: After Beastlords.
• Brenlo: Soon! Well okay somewhere between 2009 and 2012. But hopefully before December 2012 because that is the end of the world.
• Gninja: After Halfings can throw their summoned pie
• Xelgad: Rothgar, those are supposed to be a secret.
• Kiara: Oh buuuuurn
• Brenlo: (New Halas is coming in the Mayish time frame. . . We hope)

Are we going to see a UI patch that allows brawlers to see their minimum block chance? We used to be able to see minimum deflection, but can no longer tell what our uncontested avoid is.

• Olihin: only available in pvp servers. don't forget.
• Rothgar: We can take a look at adding it back, sure.
• HaohmaruEQ2: it's kinda cool.
• Gninja: .....
• Gninja: the actual answer is 42... sheesh
• Brenlo: Who woke up the Gnome?
• Gninja: someone threw a pie at me
• Rothgar: Is that dunce cap on par with legendary gear?
• Gninja: I know it wasn't you...

With STA being planned now as the Resistance stat to protect against Arcane/Noxious/Elemental instead of WIS, and WIS not giving anything beneficial to Fighter classes when that change is made; will WIS be taken off of Fighter gear or will it give some other kind of utility? It would be a bit counter-productive to keep it on Fighter gear when it doesn't affect us in any way, shape or form while it takes away the value of said gear.

• Xelgad: Stamina only affects your outright chance to resist a spell and only in PVP Combat - such as a player casting a spell on another player. Wisdom still affects your magical mitigations. Casting spells on NPCs and NPCs casting spells on you has not been changed.

Will Tinkerers ever be given explosive devices with knockback?

• Domino: I can't currently comment on the exact stats of the next items tinkerers will be getting, but I definitely agree that tinkering should involve more explosions, and we can certainly expect to see some more excitement in tinkering in the future, generally speaking =) *evil*

Rather than homes within the city, can players have homes or guilds on boats?

• Rothgar: I'm on a boat!
• HaohmaruEQ2: Maybe you should attend Fan Faire and find out!
• Brenlo: When is Fan Faire?
• Calthine: August 5-8!
• Brenlo: In Fabulous Las Vegas??
• Rothgar: Be thaire or be squaire.
• Kiara: And where is Fan Faire?
• Gninja: I totally see what you did there Hao...
• Calthine: Las Vegas, yay!
• Kiara: you mean thair Gninja :p

Mandatory Total Fluff Question and Farewells

Any chance at having more cowbell in the game?

Rothgar: Can one ever have enough cowbell?

Domino: nerf cowbells!

SOECronyn: No, there is no lore reason for more cowbell.

Brenlo: We have asked our audio team to really explore the space with cowbell.

Gninja: I think we are already at our cowbell quota with the cow on the newbie island...

Rothgar: Would a cowbell get a red adornment slot?

Kaitheel: They are considered fluff

Kiara: Brenlo has a fever.

Brenlo: and the only cure . . . is more cowbell

Olihin: I will request for it to be added upon death in PVP.

Rothgar: There's no cure for what Brenlo has.

Brenlo: Thanks for coming folks. Thanks for playing. Mostly, thanks for being silent during our bad jokes

SOECronyn: Jokes?

Kiara: They didn't have a choice but to be silent during the jokes :)

Rothgar: Thanks ZAM for having us!

Kiara: Thank you all!

Brenlo: Thanks Calthine and staff!

HaohmaruEQ2: Yar!

Gninja: Take care all :)

Kain: Thank you for turning up all! :)

Frizznik: :)

Gninja: Thanks for playing!

Looker: thank you for dropping by

Kaitheel: Have a good night, and enjoy Brewday and the upcoming Bristlebane Day celebrations!

Domino: What's brown and sticky? .... a stick!

Raven: Thank you for joining us

Frizznik: Domino told that joke and 15 people left the chat room. Well done.

Calthine: Thank you everyone! I'll un +m this channel in a minute

Calthine: LOL

Domino: woot!

Cyliena: There wasn't enough Tinkering in it

Cyliena: Or marmite

Kiara: what's grey and has a trunk and is called an elephant?

Cyliena: :)

Looker: too hard Kiara

Raven: erm... a bee?

Calthine: ROFL

Kain: And that folks, is how you clear a chat room Kain points at Domino's joke

Calthine: LOL

Domino: if that fails, marmite will get the rest

Kain: Marmite is evil

Kiara: thanks for coming everyone! and thanks for throwing us a bunch of questions that made us think :)

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