EverQuest is now officially on the Station LaunchPad.
Read all about it from the patch notes here.
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Thursday, August 16, 2007
EQ Producer Letter - 8/13/07
Clint "Jourdian" Worley, EverQuest Producer:
Commentary: If this is what he considers more meat, then Jourdian must be anorexic.
Hello everyone! Now a Producer's letter that has a bit more meat to it compared to the one that rolled out prior to Fan Faire.The Producer's letter is here.
Commentary: If this is what he considers more meat, then Jourdian must be anorexic.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Fan Faire Report
Here are some issues reported from the latest Fan Faire in Las Vegas.
General Gameplay
* Fizzles – They plan to look into changing the fact that fizzling a spell takes up a gift of mana. Between the MOTP patch and the following one, fizzles didn't use them up and they seemed to agree that fizzles shouldn't use them up.
* AC – Planning to address some issues involving AC caps. They would like to see AC be a more dramatic change than it currently is. Rashere mentioned a few times that visible AC isn't what a players AC actually is.
* Buff Timers – Looking into equalizing buff timers so that some of the fundamental long term buffs will have the same timers.
* % Health – Hopefully they will find a way to put this command into the game. On the wishlist.
* Auras – Code is preventing fixing aura stacking at the moment. Looking into possibly adding a self buff to the aura you cast so that you'll have that on you if you run into an aura stacking issue.
* Rezzes – 1-2 second immunity after rezzes could be possible. They would consider allowing a player to get a couple items looted before they start dealing with the Aes of the zone they're in.
* Hover – The request to have a “no hover” toggle option was mentioned and will be looked into.
* Spell Sets – Possible addition of more spell sets to how many you can have saved.
* Ldon Points – Possible for these to eventually be turned into a currency like newer expansions have.
* Faction / Merchants – It was suggested to link item cost to faction in the case of currency items.
* /Ann – Looking into making this persistent so you don't have to turn it on every time you log on. Also will look into making it channel specific.
* Guild Bank – Possibly adding a coin slot to it
* Guild Lobby – Potentially adding a zone to the bazaar so that players can skip going through PoK.
* Cross Server Instancing – Is not possible and won't be most likely for a long time. This is due to the way the game was created and has nothing to do with people potentially abusing the system. Its a code thing.
* Chaotic Jester – Will not be changed. Its meant to have positive and negative rewards and they have no intention of altering how it works.
* Line of Sight – These issues are code problems and its not something that we can expect to see any changes to soon.
* PVP Recourse Spells – Certain spells may not be used in PVP on normal servers since they have recourses. There was a reason for this initially but since so many spells are now affected by this simple rule, they will look into flagging some spells as PVPable since the reason they weren't allowed doesn't apply.
Class Specific
1. Wizard -
* Cryomancy - Has been changed to unresistable damage and unresistable snare. The snare has been properly set back to 65% which is the maximum amount that you can snare a mob for. Nodyin wasn't sure why it was broken but it should be fixed (if it isn't already in game). Snare immune mobs will no longer have this land on them, however, and that was intentional.
* Spell Changes - The wizard spell changes are still not finalized. The general idea is that you will use a specific nuke to get a proc that will affect only a specific spell so you will need to cast certain spells in order in order to maximize your DPS. This type of casting pattern will appear for the TBS / TSS lines and will be continued with SoF.
* Spell Changes - I pushed both Rashere and Prathun into responding at least twice about the statement Prathun made about burst DPS coming at a higher penalty and sustained DPS being increased. Both of them insisted several times that sustained DPS would be getting an increase and that our burst will not be affected. I'm still very skeptical of this since I still feel that if they start giving us all this sustained DPS...they won't give us the needed burst improvements we need.
* Familiars – I requested a permanent “get lost” feature to be added for the wizards so that they wouldn't have to get rid of them every time they zoned. This was written down to be looked at.
* Burst DPS – Berserker vs. Wizard. In a 2 minute fight where resists and mitigation aren't an issue, Prathun said that a wizard should win when both are equally raid geared. Thats the balance he thinks it should be but that doesn't mean thats the case right now.
2. Shadow Knight -
* Slay ___ - Paladins were never supposed to have Slay Undead in its current form. Slay Undead is WAY too powerful and paladins should be thanking their lucky stars they have what they currently have. They are hesitant to put a Slay humanoid or other such ability in the game since they would do it correctly and SKs would be upset that their ability would be very limited in power compared to the broken Slay Undead. In my opinion they should do it anyways and nerf the paladin one in the process but they didn't say they were going to do either.
3. Warrior -
* Weapon Graphics - These are going to get larger. Merloc doens't like the little swords any more than you guys do.
4. Magician -
* Pet Invis - Removing invis from the air pet.
Misc
* TBS Beta Rewards – There is still no word on these. I believe the difficulty is that they aren't sure if they've got records of who would qualify. They haven't decided completely against them yet.
* Server merges – They feel that EQ has a healthy population right now that isn't drastically changing. Of all of the SoE games, EQ1 has the highest number of subscriptions and while it may seem that the particular niche we play in has a low number, they don't see the numbers to justify any merges at this time.
* Filters – A lot of bugs with filtering text were reported. They will be looking into making pet procs visible and allowing your own spells to be filtered into their own window since that currently isn't functional.
* Caster Armor Graphics – Got no response to this. You can thank Wycca for screwing us here since he got the conversation changed away from this.
* UCS – Going to see if they can get AFK messages to go through for cross server tells and also queuing messages that happen while you're zoning.
* TSS Charm – There will possibly be alternate pieces soon for the charm since raids like Udengar and Ambersnout are rarely done.
* Aug Distillers – Since people were having an issue with buying too many aug distillers and they don't see a reason for them to be no-drop items, they will most likely be making them tradeable.
* Firiona Vie – Rashere is looking into loosening up the rules on the Firiona Vie character transfer rules. This may only affect transfers to Firiona Vie at first but he would like them to be different than they currently are.
Raiding Specific
* Solteris server instability is still being looked at. Nothing new here.
* Level 80 will make TSS raiding content very easy and any guild thats around the demiplane level now should have no trouble with it.
* Powersources - Raid powersources may see a duration increase
* Solteris Spells – Only 19 rank 3 TBS spells have been purchased and they realize there is a problem there. We argued for them to be switched to the phosphite system and they are considering it since there are flags required to buy the spells anyways. They plan on discussing this and possibly adding a third option to solve the problem.
Itemization
* Item Focuses - Will soon be able to have minimums. This could go two ways. Either some focuses could simply just have their minimums raised or potentially you could have to choose between a 10%-75% focus or do a 40-45% focus depending on your playstyle.
* Focus effects – Other than the focus minimums, there isn't any plan to radically change how these work at this time.
* Melee Focuses – Looking into merging Parry and Block. I believe this one got a thumbs up.
* Solteris Focuses – Level cap changes on focuses are possible and likely on Solteris items.
* 2H Weapons – Possible extra aug slot on 2h weapons in the future.
* Caster Weapon Ratios – Will be looked at. He didn't know that there was an interest in seeing the ratios go up but sees no reason not to look into upgrading them.
* Charm Slot Augs – Hopefully will see some new options for this in the next expansion.
* Intelligent Items – Merloc wants to add more of these, just needs the time to do it.
* Gear in SoF - It was said that raiding gear will be nearly 1000 hp and that groupable gear will be near Solteris level. This was a little scary to me since it is such a massive change. It was unclear if this included aug values and powersources or not.
Spells
* Spell Ranks - in TSS and TBS were minimal and smaller than they should be. The concern was that rank 1 spells needed to be an upgrade to their predecessors and they couldn't allow rank 3s to be that much more powerful. With the upcoming expansion there will be much more room to work with and the spells will actually be larger upgrades between the ranks. The rank system will be continuing, no news on if it will be more like TSS or TBS as far as obtaining goes.
* Enchanters - Will be getting an AE knockback + root + mem blur spell in SoF.
* Wizards - Will be getting a Patient Harvest upgrade in SoF since it will be much needed with the upcoming gear changes
Lore
* Sleeper – When he woke up..he ran off to a place called Dragon Scale Hills I believe (someone can correct me..I might have misheard) and he is coming back in SoF. They would not tell us if we will be killing him or doing something like waking him up again.
* Ayonae Ro – Her banishment is what allowed Mayong Mistmoore to escape and attack in Solteris. Now that we have killed him, don't expect to see him back for quite some time but it is possible that he could come back eventually.
-----------------
The full thread is here.
General Gameplay
* Fizzles – They plan to look into changing the fact that fizzling a spell takes up a gift of mana. Between the MOTP patch and the following one, fizzles didn't use them up and they seemed to agree that fizzles shouldn't use them up.
* AC – Planning to address some issues involving AC caps. They would like to see AC be a more dramatic change than it currently is. Rashere mentioned a few times that visible AC isn't what a players AC actually is.
* Buff Timers – Looking into equalizing buff timers so that some of the fundamental long term buffs will have the same timers.
* % Health – Hopefully they will find a way to put this command into the game. On the wishlist.
* Auras – Code is preventing fixing aura stacking at the moment. Looking into possibly adding a self buff to the aura you cast so that you'll have that on you if you run into an aura stacking issue.
* Rezzes – 1-2 second immunity after rezzes could be possible. They would consider allowing a player to get a couple items looted before they start dealing with the Aes of the zone they're in.
* Hover – The request to have a “no hover” toggle option was mentioned and will be looked into.
* Spell Sets – Possible addition of more spell sets to how many you can have saved.
* Ldon Points – Possible for these to eventually be turned into a currency like newer expansions have.
* Faction / Merchants – It was suggested to link item cost to faction in the case of currency items.
* /Ann – Looking into making this persistent so you don't have to turn it on every time you log on. Also will look into making it channel specific.
* Guild Bank – Possibly adding a coin slot to it
* Guild Lobby – Potentially adding a zone to the bazaar so that players can skip going through PoK.
* Cross Server Instancing – Is not possible and won't be most likely for a long time. This is due to the way the game was created and has nothing to do with people potentially abusing the system. Its a code thing.
* Chaotic Jester – Will not be changed. Its meant to have positive and negative rewards and they have no intention of altering how it works.
* Line of Sight – These issues are code problems and its not something that we can expect to see any changes to soon.
* PVP Recourse Spells – Certain spells may not be used in PVP on normal servers since they have recourses. There was a reason for this initially but since so many spells are now affected by this simple rule, they will look into flagging some spells as PVPable since the reason they weren't allowed doesn't apply.
Class Specific
1. Wizard -
* Cryomancy - Has been changed to unresistable damage and unresistable snare. The snare has been properly set back to 65% which is the maximum amount that you can snare a mob for. Nodyin wasn't sure why it was broken but it should be fixed (if it isn't already in game). Snare immune mobs will no longer have this land on them, however, and that was intentional.
* Spell Changes - The wizard spell changes are still not finalized. The general idea is that you will use a specific nuke to get a proc that will affect only a specific spell so you will need to cast certain spells in order in order to maximize your DPS. This type of casting pattern will appear for the TBS / TSS lines and will be continued with SoF.
* Spell Changes - I pushed both Rashere and Prathun into responding at least twice about the statement Prathun made about burst DPS coming at a higher penalty and sustained DPS being increased. Both of them insisted several times that sustained DPS would be getting an increase and that our burst will not be affected. I'm still very skeptical of this since I still feel that if they start giving us all this sustained DPS...they won't give us the needed burst improvements we need.
* Familiars – I requested a permanent “get lost” feature to be added for the wizards so that they wouldn't have to get rid of them every time they zoned. This was written down to be looked at.
* Burst DPS – Berserker vs. Wizard. In a 2 minute fight where resists and mitigation aren't an issue, Prathun said that a wizard should win when both are equally raid geared. Thats the balance he thinks it should be but that doesn't mean thats the case right now.
2. Shadow Knight -
* Slay ___ - Paladins were never supposed to have Slay Undead in its current form. Slay Undead is WAY too powerful and paladins should be thanking their lucky stars they have what they currently have. They are hesitant to put a Slay humanoid or other such ability in the game since they would do it correctly and SKs would be upset that their ability would be very limited in power compared to the broken Slay Undead. In my opinion they should do it anyways and nerf the paladin one in the process but they didn't say they were going to do either.
3. Warrior -
* Weapon Graphics - These are going to get larger. Merloc doens't like the little swords any more than you guys do.
4. Magician -
* Pet Invis - Removing invis from the air pet.
Misc
* TBS Beta Rewards – There is still no word on these. I believe the difficulty is that they aren't sure if they've got records of who would qualify. They haven't decided completely against them yet.
* Server merges – They feel that EQ has a healthy population right now that isn't drastically changing. Of all of the SoE games, EQ1 has the highest number of subscriptions and while it may seem that the particular niche we play in has a low number, they don't see the numbers to justify any merges at this time.
* Filters – A lot of bugs with filtering text were reported. They will be looking into making pet procs visible and allowing your own spells to be filtered into their own window since that currently isn't functional.
* Caster Armor Graphics – Got no response to this. You can thank Wycca for screwing us here since he got the conversation changed away from this.
* UCS – Going to see if they can get AFK messages to go through for cross server tells and also queuing messages that happen while you're zoning.
* TSS Charm – There will possibly be alternate pieces soon for the charm since raids like Udengar and Ambersnout are rarely done.
* Aug Distillers – Since people were having an issue with buying too many aug distillers and they don't see a reason for them to be no-drop items, they will most likely be making them tradeable.
* Firiona Vie – Rashere is looking into loosening up the rules on the Firiona Vie character transfer rules. This may only affect transfers to Firiona Vie at first but he would like them to be different than they currently are.
Raiding Specific
* Solteris server instability is still being looked at. Nothing new here.
* Level 80 will make TSS raiding content very easy and any guild thats around the demiplane level now should have no trouble with it.
* Powersources - Raid powersources may see a duration increase
* Solteris Spells – Only 19 rank 3 TBS spells have been purchased and they realize there is a problem there. We argued for them to be switched to the phosphite system and they are considering it since there are flags required to buy the spells anyways. They plan on discussing this and possibly adding a third option to solve the problem.
Itemization
* Item Focuses - Will soon be able to have minimums. This could go two ways. Either some focuses could simply just have their minimums raised or potentially you could have to choose between a 10%-75% focus or do a 40-45% focus depending on your playstyle.
* Focus effects – Other than the focus minimums, there isn't any plan to radically change how these work at this time.
* Melee Focuses – Looking into merging Parry and Block. I believe this one got a thumbs up.
* Solteris Focuses – Level cap changes on focuses are possible and likely on Solteris items.
* 2H Weapons – Possible extra aug slot on 2h weapons in the future.
* Caster Weapon Ratios – Will be looked at. He didn't know that there was an interest in seeing the ratios go up but sees no reason not to look into upgrading them.
* Charm Slot Augs – Hopefully will see some new options for this in the next expansion.
* Intelligent Items – Merloc wants to add more of these, just needs the time to do it.
* Gear in SoF - It was said that raiding gear will be nearly 1000 hp and that groupable gear will be near Solteris level. This was a little scary to me since it is such a massive change. It was unclear if this included aug values and powersources or not.
Spells
* Spell Ranks - in TSS and TBS were minimal and smaller than they should be. The concern was that rank 1 spells needed to be an upgrade to their predecessors and they couldn't allow rank 3s to be that much more powerful. With the upcoming expansion there will be much more room to work with and the spells will actually be larger upgrades between the ranks. The rank system will be continuing, no news on if it will be more like TSS or TBS as far as obtaining goes.
* Enchanters - Will be getting an AE knockback + root + mem blur spell in SoF.
* Wizards - Will be getting a Patient Harvest upgrade in SoF since it will be much needed with the upcoming gear changes
Lore
* Sleeper – When he woke up..he ran off to a place called Dragon Scale Hills I believe (someone can correct me..I might have misheard) and he is coming back in SoF. They would not tell us if we will be killing him or doing something like waking him up again.
* Ayonae Ro – Her banishment is what allowed Mayong Mistmoore to escape and attack in Solteris. Now that we have killed him, don't expect to see him back for quite some time but it is possible that he could come back eventually.
-----------------
The full thread is here.
Thursday, August 02, 2007
Q & A from Merloc’s Tower – 7/20/07
Throughout the week, Merloc receives questions from various places and answers as many as he can. He wanted to start sharing some of his answers with everyone else so that he wouldn't have to repeat himself.
Here's the fourth edition of Q & A from Merloc's Tower.
Here's the fourth edition of Q & A from Merloc's Tower.
Wednesday, August 01, 2007
EQ Producer Letter - 7/31/07
Clint "Jourdian" Worley, EverQuest Producer, has released his latest letter to players. The link to it is here.
Commentary: This letter basically says nothing. He recently became EQ Producer and upon gaining the position he told us how he would listen to us and he would communicate with us often to keep us informed. Once again, SoE promised us they would be responsive, and once again, they have lied.
Update: Jourdian responded, "I really did mean to shoot out an update instead of a full blown Producer's letter. Once Fan Faire is over I will be at liberty to discuss more about the expansion, new additions to the game and overall concerns and suggestions." Read the entire thread commenting on the Producer's letter here.
Commentary: This letter basically says nothing. He recently became EQ Producer and upon gaining the position he told us how he would listen to us and he would communicate with us often to keep us informed. Once again, SoE promised us they would be responsive, and once again, they have lied.
Update: Jourdian responded, "I really did mean to shoot out an update instead of a full blown Producer's letter. Once Fan Faire is over I will be at liberty to discuss more about the expansion, new additions to the game and overall concerns and suggestions." Read the entire thread commenting on the Producer's letter here.
Friday, July 20, 2007
EverQuest House of Commons Dev Chat - July 18, 2007
Click here for log.
This chat mentions they are aware that the "West" bug began a new breeding season after the last patch. They also mention that the most hated "feature", expendable Power Sources, are going to be in the next expansion and will be increased in power. So get used to even more boring grinding in crappy missions just to have your gear not suck.
This chat mentions they are aware that the "West" bug began a new breeding season after the last patch. They also mention that the most hated "feature", expendable Power Sources, are going to be in the next expansion and will be increased in power. So get used to even more boring grinding in crappy missions just to have your gear not suck.
House of Commons Dev Chat Log - June 20, 2007
I've been slacking with EQ lately but here is the chat log for June 20, 2007, click here.
Friday, July 06, 2007
Knight Summoned Steeds Bug, Fix Due Next Patch
Knights have three separate steeds which they can call up. With the new AA window, they were combined into one.
I'm going to fix that. Next patch all 3 lines will be separated out again.The full post is here.
- Nodyin, EQ Designer
Mage Fire AAs Bugged, Fix Due Next Patch
Mages have AAs that permit them to increase their fire damage. One requires you to assume Fire Elemental form, the other does not. The one that does not require Fire Elemental form appears to be bugged.
Both the "Heart of" and "Core" AAs still exist. The Mage correspondent alerted me that the requirements were set incorrectly on both of them (Requiring rank 3 of the "Elemental Form: X" line instead of the previous rank 1 requirement. I've corrected that bug and it will be fixed in the next patch.Read the full post here.
- Nodyin, EQ Designer
Saturday, May 05, 2007
Careful, or Your Face Will Stay That Way
Making faces really can cause problems. And you thought your parents were just trying to scare you!
i changed my facial features and whenever i zone they revert back to something else. anyone else have this problem? it seems to only happen when i try to use no facial hair and have a bald head.
It's a bug and should be fixed with our next patch.Read about it here.
Rashere, EQ Lead Designer
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
New Expansion Release Dates and More
Clint "Jourdian" Worley, EverQuest Producer, has posted a letter about SOE's future plans for EQ. Among other things, he says:
In this Producer letter I am proud to announce that we're changing our tactics so we can accomplish what we have set out to do and do it with the quality we know we can deliver. Our next expansion will be released in November. This will give us more time to polish the game content and features. I am also happy to announce that November will be the month for all future expansion releases as well.Read his letter to players here.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Upcoming DoT Hate Change
In the near future, we're going to make a change that will reduce the amount of hate generated by DoTs so I wanted to give a head's up. For most damage spells, they generate aggro based on the base amount of damage they do. DoTs do this as well, generating hate based on their damage every tick, but they also generate initial aggro worth one tick of damage when they first land. This means that they basically have one extra damage tick's worth of aggro at all times.The full thread is here.
We're changing things so that you won't gain aggro based on the DoTs damage until it actually does its first tick of damage which will bring them in line with other damage spells for the amount of hate they generate.
- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer
Thursday, April 19, 2007
DoT Shielding Still Broken
Although the April 18 patch message reported some fixes to DoT shielding, it appears there are still a few problems with it. It seems that while it works now for DoTs cast on you, when the mob that cast it dies, it stops working.
The full thread is here.
Just checked with code and they've got a fix for this already.No word on when the fix will go live.
- Rashere, EQ Lead Designer
The full thread is here.
Frostcrypt Trash Mobs on Steroids
Normal mobs in Frostcrypt have been taking steroids, according to reports. Norrath Mob Anti-doping officials have begun an investigation after hearing they were hitting for upwards of 10k.
We've been able to reproduce this problem (as was stated in the Maximum Redfang!!! thread) and it has been given to the coders so they can look into it.The full thread is here.
Thanks for the heads up on this issue! - Maddoc, Assistant Lead Designer
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Massive Changes Coming for Cultural Armor and Tailoring / Smithing
SOE has announced that they will be making some huge changes in Cultural Armor as well as the skill up paths for Tailoring and Smithing.
The changes are too large to detail in this post so you should check out the announcement here.
The changes are too large to detail in this post so you should check out the announcement here.
More Skin to Vines Changes Due
The druid spell Skin to Vines has never worked properly. After several fixes, SOE has announced that they will be making another change. Hopefully, with this change, the spell will finally work properly.
Additional information:
Since Skin to Vines now turns undead and summoned creatures into plants and stops other abilities from working, it seems the cure was more harmful than the affliction. With some new functionality we received a few days ago I was able to change Skin to Vines such that it works on everything except undead and summoned creatures. This should go live in our next major patch. Let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!The full thread is here.
Prathun, EQ Designer
Additional information:
Good point. Changed it to affect everything but Summoned, Construct, and Undead. Thanks! - Prathun, EQ Designer
DoT Shielding Fixed?
Fast updates on this one...The full thread is here.
Code has found and fixed the issue. DoT Shielding was only working if you cast a spell on yourself or in a PvP situation. After the fix, DoT shielding will properly work on any spell NOT cast on you by yourself and will continue to work in PvP.
Rashere, EQ Lead Designer
SOE was not clear it is already fixed in the game or if it will go out in the next patch.
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
Progression Servers To Merge
On March 28, 2007, we will be merging the EverQuest Progression Servers. Characters will be moved from The Sleeper server to The Combine server and The Combine server will retain its name. The Sleeper server will then be closed.The full article is here.
We will not be doing the low level character wipe at the time of the merge. We will re-evaluate the situation after the merge and determine if the character wipe is needed.
The scheduled downtime is from 4:00 am Pacific Time to 12 noon. We will provide the answers to other questions as needed before the merge as needed.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Fabled Augments Bugged
The fabled augments can't currently be inserted, but they should be fixed in the next patch.The full thread is here.
The 35 AC aug from a 55ish level NPC was a mistake, the 35ac is meant to be 35 endurance and it will be changed in the next patch.
- Merloc, EQ Designer
Sunday, March 18, 2007
8th Anniversary Events Live
SOE has announced a number of things to commemorate the eighth anniversary of EverQuest. Of main concern is the Fabled mobs and a new scavenger hunt.
Anniversary In-Game Events - We have introduced dozens of Fabled Luclin NPCs, we brought back all the fabled fiends of years past and there is a new scavenger hunt! Speak with Tyla Filinav in the Nexus if you are interested in helping her collect a few things. These Anniversary Festivities will be available from March 16, 2007 through April 16, 2007.Read all about it as well as some messages from current and former developers here.
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