I attended Fan Faire and am rather excited about playing more when the new expansion comes out. (I have been playing VG for majority of my time and feel like some of these changes will bring me back to EQ for more then 2 days every two weeks where as I used to play every night.)

1. Skin of Reptile is said to be getting upgrade
2. Mask line is getting upgrade
3. I asked if we could get spell casting time reduced and he said maybe (like NWB)

Spell degradation will likely be lowered to 5% instead of 10% which will be nice.

Lots of group stuff to be had in the next expansion and 6-8 step type quests vs. faction. (we got to speak with dev at banquet for about 10minutes and he is very excited bout the new gear)

group gear will be 3 tiered: you get tier 1 and it will be archtype but then tier 2 you combine it with a symbol and get class specific.....you will get power increase but all tiers will have full mod2's and focus from the beginning. Tier 3 will take teir 2 one step further and you add a crystal (will be 4 to choose from or combine them all for prismatic) and this will further enhance your gear and can be 500hps/mana total for best group gear.

Hope this updates make a few druids smile.

Cibby

500hps on group gear? Whats the point in mid level guilds raiding then when group stuff is better than the demiplane/Deathknell stuff?

A guildy came back from Fan Faire and the only comment he had about druids was something very very vague (he obviously heard druid and didn't pay much attention) about Direwild II and III and stacking. Able to shed any light on that or was he just drinking a bit too much while there?:Eyecrazy:

I think either one of two things will happen with the group gear, the hp/mana value will be lowered alot because i dont see the game being balanced when the best groupable gear is only beaten by 2 expansions' raidable gear. Or the later tiers of the gear will require raided pieces.

No they won't require raid pieces....I spoke with Merloc himself and he explained to me that it will not be easy to get but will be tiered....you use tier one plus item (that you earned progressing to tier 2) and combine it with it to make tier 2. etc same with tier 3

Remember this is supposed to keep us groupers busy for 1year. I could easily see Demi folks breaking into tss once they have more levels and push past their roadblocks.

Aye but even so, all that work to flag for TSS and stuff, when the group stuff will be equal to or maybe even better? I agree in making the gap between raiders and casual smaller, but still need to make raiding worth it for those who arent in the top end guilds.

I am going to agree with Kalsari on the concerns I have with such high powered groupable gear. There are several LOOOONG threads on the Sony boards about the possible effects on so-called "mid tier" raiding guilds, so I am not going to rehash what is being said there.

But as the GL of one of those guilds (we need Queen to be in Demi, Vule killed repeatedly), I would be very concerned if the opportunity for such powerful gear pulled even more numbers away from our raids.

i was at fan faire and we were told getting into tier 2 or 3 will take substantial amounts of time ... think mini pop style progressive questing that could take substantial time to complete