View Full Forums : EQ Guild Summit Facts Consolidation (Updated 6/9/2004)


Stormhaven
06-07-2004, 06:12 PM
<H2>Everquest Summit Consolidation Thread</h2>
The items below were a consolidation from all of the Everquest sites which have posted an update. This topic is locked, but will be updated as new items and updates are found. This is not a discussion thread. Discussion should be posted <a href="http://forums.thedruidsgrove.org/showthread.php?t=8094">here</a>.

Thanks to Chenier, Thornsong, The Runes.net, The SteelWarrior, Mobhunter, GuComics, The Safehouse, Paladins of Norrath, Caster's Realm, Graffe's, and The Shaman's Crucible

<b>Last Updated: June 10th, 2004, 12:00pm PDT</b>

<b>General Everquest Gameplay Issues Mentioned</b>
- Spelldrops in GoD will be changed to have each spell a "questable" item
- WIP: Mana and Exp as turn on/off numbers instead of bars. Mana level for group.
- WIP: GM Events - Best of the Best, Test of Tactics coming back
- WIP: Working on the "collision system" - mobs running into walls, players getting stuck, etc.
- "54" will be the "official number" for Everquest raids.
- WIP: High-end elemental level equipment will become available on the LDON adventure merchants.
- WIP: Single-group parties will be able to participate in GoD content without Time/Elemental level access.
- Omens of War will only have one flagged zone, although some high-end zones may be locked (aka: Veeshan's Peak).
- Uber players like to get drunk.
- OoW will be tuned for all classes to help level to 70.
- WIP: Exp in Tipt, Vxed and the Sewers will be returned to closer resemble zones like the Plane of Fire. (Edit: See Footnote 1 below)
- Epic 2.0 will be for "powerful raiders," while Epic 1.5 will only require "one or two groups"
- WIP: Removal system for augments is still being worked on. Leaning towards tradeskills for removal process.
- WIP: AA to increase buff slots (!?)
- Casual players like to get drunk.
- No ability to change religion or gender in the near future.
- WIP: "New" new "Veeshan's Peak"
- Most of SOE likes to get drunk.
- WIP: Instance any/all progression targets
- Changes to mobs are "systematic" rather than "specific" due to coding limitations.
- "Rain" spells are limited in efficiency to limit kiting efficiency
- WIP: Better "AI" system.
- WIP: More buff slots, period.
- Get all players drunk, possibly avoid many class vs class discussions.
- Fewer Endurance augs.
- Class by class itemization to make more sense. (example from Safehouse: Defensive procs on rog only piercers = bad)
- WIP: Add in more custom graphics. Players like being unique. Players will use an obsolete item because "It looks cool." Level 65 players should not be using level 15 gear because it has the best graphic in the game.
- Player Req: More content based around 2-3 groups.
- Player Req: Soloing abilities for all classes.
- Better stacking with Druid's Hand of Ro and Shaman and Bard magic debuffs (as per Rytan)

<b>Guild and Raid Items:</b>
- Some sort of incentives for guilds helping "beta test" new raid content
- Guild bank, possible guild housing
- Raid leader given ability to move players from group to group via Raid Window (drag and drop)
- Raid leader specific chat (color/labels/tabs?)
- Better Raid XP
- In-game DKP tool
- Make Guild wars useful/fun again.
- Raid "Notes" system
- Multiple corpse dragging ability
- Moving LDON raids over to new instancing technology - would allow players to be swapped in and out changing the mission difficulty
- Encounters being made less cryptic (less what do we do now?)

<b>Petitions and Customer Service: </b>
- New Petition system - still a large backlog of past petitions, however new system is streamlining the process.
- Final goal to have petitions addressed in less than one to two hours. Current petition time average is 33hrs.
- Possible "Guild petition" for "Guild Critical" issues to get bumped to the front of the petition queue. [<b>More information from the <a href="http://forums.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?p=146556">Safehouse</a>:</b> "guildwide" petitions cause massive petition backlogs - one guild is trained by another guild - can cause 100's of petitions. One guild doesn't get loot from a mob - 60 more petitions. Instead one petition from the GL or Guild Officer for the entire guild. Est. resolution target time: 15-30min when live.]
- Platinum warning "popup" message for GM/CSRs if an account has large amounts of platinum transferred through the account.
- Petition levels from the <a href="http://forums.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?p=146556">Safehouse</a>: Level 1 - simple issues, sent to India office. Easy issues, can usually be answered by canned scripts. Level 2 - ??? Handled by the UK office (not much detail). Level 3 - Profit.... err... Handled in San Diego by experienced GMs - most "difficult" petitions.
- Players do not have to be online for petitions to be answered, they are saved as instant messages.
- Items can be restored to offline accounts.
- Many GM policies have been made more flexible, allowing GMs to make their own judgment calls. Item restoration will also be on a "benefit of the doubt" basis, assuming the player is telling the truth. This is not to say that investigations will not be performed and each such restoration is logged and soul marked.
- 40% of the 47,000 petitions the CS department receives monthly are lost items and 70% of these are scams of some sort. A lot of CS's day is chasing ghosts.
- GM "overnight" shift

<b>Stormhammer Specific:</b> (from the <a href="http://forums.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?p=146556">Safehouse</a> thread)
- Possible changes including global xp modifier (like Sullon Zek), "welcome packages" for new users on SH server, more high level quests/events, personalized quests, more SH only items, pricing options for multiple account holders.

<b>Tech Schtuff:</b>
- EQ runs on Windows NT from 8 years ago while EQ2 and all the other games are on Linux.
- The server room is cool. Old servers were about 2 1/2 racks currently. Each server handles around 5 zones and with 300 zones in game, its cumbersome. They are currently installing Bladestrike servers which will shrink EQ servers down a ton. Only one server is currently on that now. They also have a backup diesel generator to keep the game going during power outages. Some of the servers are in a remote location so that if they go down someone has to drive over to that location to reboot them. The Bladestrikes will solve that issue.
- 55,355 people were playing EQ, 2,912 in Planetside and 35,000 something in SWG
- Models and much of the character art will be outsourced to another company

<b>"Immediate" Issues:</b>
- Add scripting to shut off empty instances of Plane of Time
- Raid messages of the day
- Improving how we handle beta and the testing process
- Increase the number of debuffs allowed on the MOBs
- Increase buffs on players through AAs
- Note field on raid window
- Improved consent & drag for raid, group and guild
- Improve corpse drag radius
- Make charms not no-drop
- Guild and individual rewards for guild beta testing

<b>"Future" Items:</b>
- Plane of Time instancing and other issues
- Back flaggings solutions to help with High-end guild atrophy
- Improved raid and guild functionality
- Auto loot all for your corpse
- Improvements to Raid XP
- Review the Epic 2.0 quests
- No more alien NPCs ;-) (focusing more on familiar Norrathians themes)
- Solo LDoN-stype instances or similar content
- Issues with item augmentations
- Possible enhancements to Guild Wars
- Possible "Guild DKP" built in tool
- New melee animations / player models by end of year
- Possible solo LDON quests to allow casual players a "log-on, play, log off" opportunity

<b>Tradeskill Items:</b>
- More items to be added in GoD and OoW

<b>Druid Issues:</b>
- SoTW: As per Rytan, the AA Code is in a freeze state, so this will not be changed in the near future, however it may be looked at later on.

<b>Paladin Issues:</b>
- Ikkinz "retuned" to allow Paladin tanking.

<b>Cleric Issues:</b>
- Possible future path - allowing clerics to have large undead nukes, temporary archetype changes (warrior-mode). Make clerics more "fun"
- Requested invisibility - got the idea that it won't happen, but Improved Invis potions might start popping up.

<b>Enchanter Issues:</b>
- Charm - leave mobs charmable, but reduce their damage output. However, once the creature breaks charm, does it do the massive amount of damage again? Unknown resolution. <i>(<b>Edit:</b> As per Madrone - "Thats a false rumor, asked a dev about it, and said that they just dont want to touch it basically, very old bug")</i>
- Mob is immune to spell, but spell still generates aggro - being addressed. [<i>update: </i> known issue, will probably not be addressed due to current spell system and problems it would create for other classes]
- More tunics and robes.

<b>Warrior Issues:</b>
- Boots of Despair - taunt mod does not work, as per Maddoc, but was fixed recently and either is or will be on test soon

<B>Mage Issues:</b>
- CoH across zones - being considered, but must balance with possible exploit issues. Should be "all or nothing" with necros (ie: if a Mage can COH, a necro should be able to summon).

<b>Rogue Issues:</b> (See <a href="http://forums.thesafehouse.org/viewtopic.php?p=146556"> the Safehouse thread</a> for more details)
- Poison system revamp in the works - making poison more viable.
- Assassination - WIP (speculation that the level will be raised to 51 at 65, maybe higher at 70 - not substantiated)
- Weapon Itemization - (rog/mnk) dps of melee vs casters will be kept in line with by taking availability vs availability of weapons as a baseline. (ie: spells can be bought, many "good" weapons are no drop)

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FOOTNOTES:
(1) From EQ Dev Lyndro on the EQLive Leader Board:
I wouldn't call fire's experience a bug, more of an oversight. Its not the only zone that gives more exp than it should (Storms is the other that stands out). Tipt and Vxed got their exp increased once already, I don't think they will again. I can't speak specifically about the sewers right now, but I imagine we'll look into it. The problem with Fire is unless we change it (Which we have no intentions to do currently), we have to tune all experience around that. So you'll see the same problem with newer AAs and newer levels - they'll need to be designed and tuned with Fire in mind. To counter this we'll probably increase what is the "standard" experience modifier for newer zones to compensate for Fire. Again none of this is written in stone currently, but this generally how our discussions have gone on experience mods. (Chenier - italics are mine for emphasis)