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UPDATE Bonus specials and Discord AMA Follow

#1 Mar 23 2020 at 11:26 PM Rating: Excellent
[UPDATE]

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/update-from-the-team.264205/


Hi Everyone! Just one quick note, we wanted to do something small as a token of our appreciation so from 12:00 PM (Noon) PDT on 3/25 until 1:00 AM PDT on 4/1 .

+50% Rare Spawns

50% Lockout Timer Reduction

and we will be increasing the membership discount during this time to 15% (Usually 10%)

We will also be having a dev AMA on discord in the next few weeks and I will be starting a thread for you to put questions in as soon as this is posted!

We appreciate all of you immensely and hope you are staying safe and continuing to be well!

-dw


Discord AMA Question Thread
https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/discord-ama-question-thread.264308/
#2 Mar 24 2020 at 11:29 AM Rating: Excellent
Also check out the anniversary packs which also includes the House of Thule Collectors Edition Revival.

https://www.everquest.com/packs

Edited, Mar 24th 2020 11:29am by Gidono
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#3 Mar 25 2020 at 10:45 PM Rating: Excellent
#4 Apr 06 2020 at 12:40 PM Rating: Excellent
I am going to update the OP as well but wanted everyone to be aware that the answers to lots of these questions has a date and time!

Next Wednesday April 8, 2020, 230 PM PDT!


Which discord channel you using for this ?”

One that is currently still hidden.


I am going to be closing this thread at 5 PM PDT in preparation for Wednesday! Get your final questions in!

https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/discord-ama-
#5 Apr 08 2020 at 5:16 PM Rating: Excellent
dreamweaver at 11:45 AM
Reminder! Our first Discord dev AMA begins tomorrow at 230 PM PDT!

Ngreth at 1:24 PM
Ngreth Smash Answers!

dreamweaver at 3:20 PM
We're about an hour away! Keep in mind everyone, the questions answered by the devs this time around will be the ones pulled from the forum thread which can be found here - https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/discord-ama-question-thread.264308/ We'll be experimenting with different formats for this over the year and we're excited to kick this off! See you all soon.
Discord AMA Question Thread | EverQuest Forums
Alright here it is!

Let's set some ground rules.


Try not to spam this thread, if you have multiple questions try to include them in your main post....

Pip at 4:14 PM
There should be a test at the end of this event to make sure everyone was paying attention. /glares at everyone

Aristo at 4:15 PM
The test is life and it happens all the time.

Pip at 4:15 PM
except when the servers are down. Life has weird lag at times too...
i cant wait, i have so many questions for the devs!

JChan at 4:20 PM
Life is all a test

dreamweaver at 4:22 PM
This is where we are @AbsorEQ

AbsorEQ at 4:22 PM
So... What now?

Aristo at 4:23 PM
Now is everything.

Ngreth at 4:23 PM
We wait 7 more minutes.

Aristo at 4:23 PM
7 minutes from now is everything.

AbsorEQ at 4:24 PM
Did I miss accepting a meeting or something? Or was I just supposed to remember this?

Prathun at 4:26 PM
You're supposed to be escorted in by security while they keep a 6' perimeter around you

AbsorEQ at 4:26 PM
That seems approriate

Pip at 4:26 PM
IS THIS THING ON? /taps microphone, has shocked look
OH GUESS SO, BOY THATS LOUD


there we got that out of the way...every meeting with a microphone starts like that

dreamweaver at 4:27 PM
Welcome to Ask a Dev, where Dreamweaver is actively being punished for crimes committed in a former life, I will be your Ask a Dev Moderator, Dreamweaver. \

Pip at 4:28 PM
i didnt vote for you

dreamweaver at 4:28 PM
You don't get a vote.

Pip at 4:28 PM
:frowning:

AbsorEQ at 4:28 PM
"former life"?

Pip at 4:28 PM
yeah dreamweaver has irl altitis

Ngreth at 4:28 PM
What about the crimes you committed in this life?

dreamweaver at 4:28 PM
I am being punished for those as well.
Okay! Now it is really time! Welcome to everyone that is here watching this channel as it happens and thank you for taking the time out of the day to do this with us!

Pip at 4:31 PM
im not doing anything important anyways :HaroldCringe:

dreamweaver at 4:31 PM
I'll be posting the questions asked on the AMA forum thread and giving the devs time to answer. This is our first time doing this on discord so thank you for your patience.
Please feel free to ignore Pip as well.

Prathun at 4:31 PM
Luckily we have a lot of copy/paste experience to draw from

dreamweaver at 4:32 PM
What features of the new Overseer system do you feel help characters "catch up"? Can you share thoughts on what you feel is a reasonable reward for players to obtain from that system in order to help them catch up?
That is your first question!

Prathun at 4:33 PM
Perhaps "supplement" is a better term than "catch up." The Overseer system is meant to reward periodic interaction over the course of months (and if and when we extend the system, years). I worry that "catch up" conjures up the concept that a few weeks of play will max out your characters' benefits from the system. We want the Overseer system to be an evergreen addition to EverQuest.

dreamweaver at 4:34 PM
Question 2 - Could the team please look at increasing raid currency rates on Accelerated Unlock Schedule Servers. While I / others do not expect currency awards to be made entirely/fully proportionate to the accelerated rate, a 4x unlock speed with 2x currency rate for example increase seems a very reasonable increase to request. Some of the expansions such as TDS onwards will be awarding a lot less currency than RoF for example & we might be lucky to get maybe one item from currency in-era for those guilds that like to remain in the current expansion on their servers.

Ngreth at 4:34 PM
This is already coming to the game in the April patch. It uses the same multiplier as the keys.
See test patch notes for confirmation :slight_smile:

Aristo at 4:34 PM
That's going to work on live servers too!

dreamweaver at 4:35 PM
Question 3 - Will the developers consider having higher level or higher tier missions do anything beyond award additional overseer currency? Like more tradeskill items or more collectible summoners or more ornament summoners or more EXP? It seems like the only reward that consistently is scaling up is currency.

Ngreth at 4:35 PM
(people like that chocolate Ice Cream Emoji!)
They already do. The scaling favors higher tier more than higher level. It also scales with duration. We can have a conversation about adjusting the curve for concrete rewards. The more numerical rewards like Experience and currency will likely stay the way they are.

dreamweaver at 4:36 PM
Question 4 - Are there any concrete plans to adding older expansion tradeskill rewards to the artisan style overseer missions for example TSS global gems, OOW augments, PoP stuff, GoD stuff, etc.

Ngreth at 4:36 PM
Nothing Concrete, but they are under consideration.

dreamweaver at 4:36 PM
(Also...yes...definitely chocolate ice cream...for sure let's go with that.)

Ngreth at 4:36 PM
(I do know what it is... :slight_smile: )

dreamweaver at 4:37 PM
Question 5 - This question is primarily for Ngreth, as it pertains to items. Are there any plans to tweak Heroic Intelligence or another stat to make stats/item upgrades more impactful for DPS casters?

Ngreth at 4:37 PM
There are conversations. We do not yet have concrete plans.

Aristo at 4:37 PM
Yes, we're not satisfied with the current state, but we don't have something solid to talk about right now.

Prathun at 4:37 PM
All this talk of concrete is mixing with my emotions.

dreamweaver at 4:38 PM
Question 6 - The recent issue with T3 notwithstanding, how has the team found the staggered release method to be generally successful? Is there potential to revisit the mechanism by which it unlocks to allow for more granularity in unlock time/dates – e.g. on Sundays?

Ngreth at 4:38 PM
Despite the hiccup, we think this method in general seems to be a good thing. There are things we would like to tweak, but nothing set. A thought is to use the Event system (The events that shows on the EQ calendar). This allows us to set an arbitrary date. No date we choose is going to be good for everyone. This is NOT a promise to change to that system.

Prathun at 4:38 PM
We'd definitely like to revisit the unlock system to give us more fine control over the unlock dates.

dreamweaver at 4:39 PM
Question 7 - On a related note, how has the team felt about ToV raid tuning?

AbsorEQ at 4:39 PM
It seems that we made them too easy. I'm fine with the first tier being "too easy", but I would like to have the later tiers be a bit harder than they turned out to be. There is a challenge tuning these things in beta. The timing of items, spells, and AA completion along with the fact that testers have nothing really to gain by putting in their best efforts can make it extremely hard to gauge the actual difficulty of events like this. We continue to try to improve the process.

Prathun at 4:39 PM
The raids in ToV fell on the "a little too easy" side. Even after the retune bumping up the challenge of tier 2, it's a little easier than I had aimed for.

niente at 4:39 PM
I think it's a good thing to have more accessible raid content.

Ngreth at 4:39 PM
I'm Happy with Servant of the Sleeper!

dreamweaver at 4:40 PM
Question 8 - Can we please have Gnome Beastlords and/or Gnome Monks?

Pip at 4:40 PM
Sadly, as much as I want to open up these options, I will have to defer to the amount of work needed for such an endeavor to my cohorts who knows what they are doing. (Or so they tell me, it's not like I can really argue with them.)

niente at 4:40 PM
My top choice is iksar berserker! Unfortunately adding new class/race combinations is a lot of work.

Aristo at 4:41 PM
All player races that have the monk-specific animations (flying kick, etc) can currently be monks. While we relatively recently got the ability back to make slight modifications to old models, we do not have the capability to add new sets of animations to our player models. So basically no new monk races with our current models.

AbsorEQ at 4:41 PM
Beastlords are animal lovers, they understand the wilderness and the ways of the beasts. Gnomes understand clockworks, magic, and caves. Note that their zoo has one animal in it... Beastlords is a no-go lore-wise for gnomes. As for monks... well... gnome != Yoda. I don't see them having the discipline to go through the training. That being said, I suppose it isn't the worst idea, as far as lore goes. Not the best, but not the worst. From the practical side, it's not very likely that we will be adding classes to races that don't already have them.

dreamweaver at 4:42 PM
Question 9 - Has there been any serious consideration for a seasonal TLP? That is, one that wipes and starts again after a set period of time.

AbsorEQ at 4:43 PM
We tried that with Quarm. The whole point of that server was to explore strange rulesets for short periods then reset. The uptake on that server was, frankly, bad. I am really not sure that EverQuest lends itself to limited lifespan for characters. Part of the appeal of the game is that we identify with the characters that we create and having them disappear after a few months may not appeal to folks. That being said, it might have been the chosen ruleset that made Quarm into a failure, and the idea is brought up in meetings from time to time, but no current plans for such a thing are in the works.

Pip at 4:43 PM
I like to spend my time off hours thinking of fun new ways to mess with players. I thought about a BR server where its open world PVP, cept after 3 months or so it resets, like a season. When it resets, whoever is left alive gets...I dont know, I never got that far when it comes to messing with players... "Whats in it for them?" <thinkingemoji>

Prathun at 4:43 PM
Ultimately, the Quarm server generated less interest than we had hoped for and required more development resources than we had expected.

niente at 4:43 PM
I love this idea. There are a lot of TLP ideas and the competition is fierce. It's not an insignificant amount of work to set them up, so we have to be careful what is chosen. It would be nice to avoid stomping on existing TLPs.

dreamweaver at 4:44 PM
Question 10 - What’s the plan with Overseer? Is it going to see expansions like LoN? Are you happy with it’s iteration? What niche were you intending it to serve?

AbsorEQ at 4:45 PM
There are still a lot of fine-tuning details we have planned for Overseer. There will always be things we want to make better about it. We built the system with plans for possible expansion, and if people seem to be enjoying it then we will certainly look into making more content for it. The first content was centered on Faydwer, and we have a lot of other places to send agents, and a lot more agents that could help the Overseer in their task... I don't know that we were aiming at any particular niche. It's probably better to say that we were trying to make something that everyone could engage with and various levels. Folks can just send a few agents on missions when they log in, then just go back to their regularly scheduled EverQuest, or they could spend time delving into the best strategies for the agents they have and in getting the ones they don't.

dreamweaver at 4:46 PM
Question 11- Are the overseer merchant prices going to stay really high? At the moment it’s going to take months to get one piece of plate armor.

Ngreth at 4:46 PM
The prices are changing in the April patch.
As the patch notes say, mostly down, two items up.

dreamweaver at 4:47 PM
More of a statement than a question 12 - JChan: Congrats, Alan: Glad you're still around, Dreamweaver: thanks for setting this up.

AbsorEQ at 4:47 PM
I'm not dead yet!

Pip at 4:47 PM
I'm super glad Absor is still around. I'm terrified of the idea of having to even come close to having to do his job. Jenn has always been amazing so I can't say anything more on that other than I'm happy to have to deal with her patience. Who is Dreamweaver? This is like Jeopardy! Why am I asking the questions here?!

Aristo at 4:47 PM
You'll be stone cold in a moment.

AbsorEQ at 4:48 PM
Pffft!

Pip at 4:48 PM
(absor is leaking)

dreamweaver at 4:48 PM
Concerning... but will be addressed later.
Question 13 - Can you please make one of the new servers an FV Rule set we have been asking for a long time.

AbsorEQ at 4:48 PM
Well, to be fair only a few people are asking for it, they are just doing so with an admirable frequency... From my point of view, FV rules do not make good gameplay. Here's a question for those that say they want it, what if you could never transfer onto or off of the server, and it never merged with another? Is that still appealing?

niente at 4:49 PM
An FV rulset TLP would be great, and players definitely have a lot of interest in one. Currently this type of ruleset invites a lot of fraud and CS intervention, which we can't support at this time.

Prathun at 4:49 PM
Free trade rulesets bypass the primary game loop, which isn't ideal from a game design PoV.

dreamweaver at 4:51 PM
Question 14 - Alan, are you and/or DarkPaw Games now convinced that people do want to play PVP TLP as opposed to PVP Live? Are you aware there is a PVP trilogy fanbase playing on private servers? You mentioned before that new TLP types are possible. I believe that the PVP TLP appeal has been underestimated. Can we talk about this further?

AbsorEQ at 4:51 PM
I hate to say it, but I am more convinced now that not enough people want it to justify setting up such a server. The high population on the day that everyone was supposed to show up on Rallos was, frankly, very low. Certainly not enough to support a server. This would be my answer to most of your other questions about PVP things.

Aristo at 4:52 PM
There's definite passion out there. We just haven't ever seen the numbers. :(

dreamweaver at 4:53 PM
(This next question is a follow up to the last) Question 15 - Is it feasible to create a TLP on a different engine?

Pip at 4:53 PM
"Welcome to EverQuest, now download that other game if you want to play it". "Possible"? I mean, I didn't think I'd be ever in a position in my lifetime to be answering these questions, so anything is possible. However, "feasible", hard no.

AbsorEQ at 4:53 PM
Anything is possible. However, this isn't. Rebuilding the entire game just to stand up one progression server just isn't practical at all.

niente at 4:54 PM
I think an engine upgrade would be an enormous amount of work, sort of like rebuilding your house. Would be nice but probably isn't worth it.

Ngreth at 4:54 PM
To @niente 's point, it's like rebuilding your house while you're living in it and there's a constant hurricane during an earthquake.

dreamweaver at 4:55 PM
Question 16 - Can we have a discussion about removing/reducing all the really harsh racial NPC abilities on TRASH mobs?

AbsorEQ at 4:55 PM
I can look at those again, sure.

dreamweaver at 4:56 PM
Question 17 - How’s the work from home situation? Are you finding it easier or more difficult to get things done? I’m finding it difficult at home with coordinating, communication, and then family obligations.

AbsorEQ at 4:56 PM
Working at home, for me at least, hasn't been bad at all. I don't have anyone here to pester me, and I ate all my pets the first week, so disturbances are lower here. Also, I have tried to keep the experience working at home as much like being in the office as possible. Same routine, no television... stuff like that. Some things are a little awkward, but over all it isn't that bad. Of course it helps that we have great tech folks and our business is online and all that.

Aristo at 4:56 PM
For some things it's better. I have a lot more uninterrupted thinkin' time, which is good for deep solo projects like DoT consolidation. For other things, it's a lot more difficult. It's putting kinks in our ability to train and collaborate, for sure. Our artists are having a more difficult time being productive because they have more hardware constraints. I'm glad to have the capability we have to keep as productive as we are right now. But I also miss talking with my friends.

Pip at 4:56 PM
I'm a bit of an introvert, which is ironic if you've ever gotten to see our team meetings. I like my home, all my stuff is there. The biggest problem is yeah, I tend to get easily distracted and trying to be motivated to do stuff for work when all of my games are a button press away...it can be frustrating. After I'm done with work for the day, I take my dogs for a walk or something to try and "clear" before I go back to the same area and play. I hate to say that I'm kind of thriving nonetheless, but I am. I have a hard time tuning people out so being able to just close my door and pet my cat while I work so I dont get too distracted, thats nice.

niente at 4:57 PM
I like it but I am very stressed out by current events. People at the grocery store are physically repulsed by me like I have the plague, and I was forced to order cheese on the internet (from Wisconsin, which is great).

Ngreth at 4:57 PM
I'm a small percentage more effective at home, So it's working well for me. There are communication hurdles to overcome, but overall it's working great. I like the commute, and I love having daylight (I get Seasonal Affective Disorder in the cave office)

Prathun at 4:59 PM
I'm enjoying the very brief commute and the spacious window office, but you're right that coordinating is more difficult. I think we're getting better at this as we adapt to the work from home situation. My wife and I are working side-by-side and we are having to navigate what to do if we're both on a meeting at the same time. I can't imagine trying to wrangle children and have a virtual meeting at the same time. Eep!

dreamweaver at 5:00 PM
Question 18 - I know this was asked during the FoH AMA. Will we see The Burning Lands Part 2 for the next expansion or thereafter?

niente at 5:00 PM
That's classified

AbsorEQ at 5:00 PM
I hope that means that you liked it. I had a lot of fun with the concepts involved. And there certainly are more things to explore there. I can't tell you what's in the future, but I would love to explore that little world again.

Pip at 5:00 PM
You may not know this, but I came in during that expansion, so technically that was my first expansion, even though I introduced myself during this expansion. I still didn't feel like "part of the team" at that moment so I didnt feel...worthy? To come out right away and be like "IM HEEEEEERE". However, I learned A LOT during that expansion. Also, what @niente said, I could tell you what's coming, but then she will have to kill you.

dreamweaver at 5:02 PM
Question 19 - Is there a zone/ quest/ raid event/ expansion that you guys are particularly proud of or liked a lot?

AbsorEQ at 5:02 PM
I really enjoyed making the Al'Kabor's nightmare event for House of Thule. It gave me a chance to explore what a megalomaniac would fear and how he really views his companions.

Aristo at 5:02 PM
I was so thrilled to see how our art team brought Gorowyn to life. I designed some points to force perspective and it was really neat to see that work in 3D the same way it did in my head.

Ngreth at 5:02 PM
I'm probably the most proud of A Formal Dinner party, making a clue game work in EverQuest was a significant challenge. I wish I had thought of every possible exploit before it went live! I also enjoyed Cacophony of Oratory, the Simon says mechanic was fun to create. And overall, it was great being the Lead Designer during Veil of Alaris.

Pip at 5:02 PM
The Tower of Frozen Shadow in TOV. I knew going into that zone that there is already a ton of history behind it, and if I ***** this up, it could be a huge deal. Luckily, the vets here are really good at patience and showing me how to do things in our game. Jonathan helped immensely but after that got out on beta and I was seeing everyones comments about it, I was thrilled. All of the work I do I am insanely happy to be a part of. The hardest lesson for me was to learn what IS "EverQuest", and to spin that in a new, yet familiar way. I also love telling people some of the inspirations for my quests. I like to tell Niente about my inspirations and she gets a huge kick out of the stories. Things like, how I named an NPC after Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson, or how I saw a meme and made a whole quest off of one panel of said meme. The amount of story behind the story is why I'm in this industry and couldn't be happier being a part of one of the most storied MMOs in existence.

niente at 5:03 PM
zone: Plane of War, quest: Artisan's Prize, raid: Tris Wallow III expansion: LDoN (I didn't make these)

dreamweaver at 5:03 PM
Question 20 - On the flip side, is there a zone / quest/ raid event/ expansion that you guys regret or wish you would have done differently in hindsight?

AbsorEQ at 5:04 PM
As Dzarn and I have often discussed, the King Odeen raid event in Valdeholm might be the absolute worst thing I ever made. Not that any of the specific parts of it were bad, but because there were way, way too many parts. I was a young(er) fool back in those days. Today if I did all that again I would make that into five or six events. But I was trying to impress people. That's my excuse.

Ngreth at 5:04 PM
I'm not changing it, but I wish I did not make Ambleshift's Amazing Automated Amalgamator so complex. I was thinking "Crazy gnome" but think it ended up being "Crazy Dev." Like the other designers, part of it was me overthinking as a new designer.

Pip at 5:04 PM
Bruh, I don't even know what I did wrong on a normal day, how can I know what I regret!? There are a lot of times I had to change how a quest plays out because of restraints. For instance, at one point, I was going to have the players chase a cat around Eastern Wastes in TOV, but due to several reasons, I couldnt have 20 PCs following an annoying slow cat cause they are all stuck on the same quest step. So now Orctooth is a corralled around a specific area.

Aristo at 5:04 PM
While I'm really proud of how The Brothers Zek came out, especially as my first raid, it was far too complicated for where it fit in progression and I took too long to implement it. Also the Murdunk part, which is more important story-wise, feels like an afterthought and his potion mechanic is too complicated.

dreamweaver at 5:04 PM
Question 21 - If the game ever sunsets, who would you want to be the final boss and why?

Prathun at 5:38 PM
We do want there to be a meaningful reward for doing the expansion content progression as it's much more logistically difficult than farming NPCs. And we definitely don't want farming easy NPCs from older expansions to be the best way to level. (for question #39)

dreamweaver at 5:38 PM
I think Prathun was responding to question 39
Question 41 - Are there any plans to increase heroic character levels? I don't believe a level 85 will be able to group with a level 120 and get xp when the next level increase happens.

Ngreth at 5:39 PM
Plans, yes. Details or a timetable, no.

dreamweaver at 5:40 PM
Question 42 - Raid loot in general. with tradeskill gear being the best option these past couple expansions and the growing theme. is it possible to just have chests drop Muhbis (tradeskill gear), Spells, then maybe add more currency reward per event win (currently 10 currency per win) perhaps increase the currency per win or instead of a bunch of random items extra in the chest, just drop 1k currency in the chest that could be distributed. so raid chest drops Tradeskill Raid item, Spells, 1k currency. I say this because it would be much easier to distribute 1k currency (or a currency = to RNG items in chest, however you would wanna do it to add to the randomness of item costs)

Ngreth at 5:40 PM
Interesting idea, but at this time I say: No.

Aristo at 5:40 PM
The psychological impact of going currency-first instead of item-first is why we don't want to do this. Essentially you no longer hope the thing you need drops, you now are certain it won't, and you will just have to grind through it X times to earn the points to buy it. We get a lot of flack whenever we say one way is more fun than the other, but there are studies on this.
That may not sound like much of a distinction but it's a huge difference in feel.

dreamweaver at 5:42 PM
Question 43 - For Pip or any other new dev/designer. What do you do to get caught up with the vast codebase and disparate systems that make up EQ?

Aristo at 5:43 PM
Step 1: Stop drowning!

Pip at 5:43 PM
Lotta crying, I've often told people that it's like puff pastry. When you make something with puff pastry, the recipe always says "go buy some'' because making it is super hard and tedious and you need the right tool to do it well. Well, we take time and energy to ensure that we make the puff pastry for you all. I know out there, there is probably an easier way to do everything, but doing it the way EQ does it is amazing in the idea that I get to live in history. This is the closest I'll get in my career to time traveling or working in a museum. I love it, though there are a lot of times when I'm sitting with my head in my hands playing out that scene from "Wedding Singer" where the main character yells "This information would have been useful to me YESTERDAY!" over and over. Luckily, these people have worked with 20+ years of noobs showing up and trying to prove themselves, so they already know how to deal with me if I ever became one of "those guys", which is good, cause I welcome all criticism and teaching opportunities. The vets made me feel more comfortable about my work than I ever have within the first like...2 years. I was told from the get-go "We don't expect you to be useful for at least 2 years." to which I said "nuh uh, imma be useful right now!" They were right, and patient with me, and I wouldn't be nearly as happy in my career if I didn't have the support from all of the vets. Ultimately, imagine looking at a painting that has been painted on for the last 20 years, and then have someone say "now make it better". That's 20+ years of work done, what if I undo or mess up people's favorite parts? It's like that George Carlin joke, "What wine pairs well with Cap'n Crunch(tm)?". I feel like the Cap'n Crunch(tm) in this metaphor.

niente at 5:43 PM
When I was brand new on the code team I basically drowned in >30k line files for several days. I later learned that was not The Way. The game is huge and with a large codebase, mostly I don't go browsing for things - there has to be a specific issue and you can look for every place where that is mentioned. I will say IDEs and plugins do a lot of handholding that helps navigate that wasn't around when EQ was first made. Mostly I've learned from experience with solving new problems I haven't seen before (i.e. a real estate problem, or an item bug, or adding something new to the quest system for design).

AbsorEQ at 5:44 PM
Print it all out, put a bedsheet on it, learn through osmosis.

dreamweaver at 5:44 PM
Question 44 - LOYALTY VENDOR: Why is there a cap on how many Loyalty Tokens aka Crowns that you can have (not to be confused with Earning them), if this is a little bonus and encouragement for long term paid subscribers? And will there ever be better, even if more costly, items added? Like bigger bags (they are 16 slot atm), or more bags of alternative currency options, etc.?

Aristo at 5:45 PM
The maximum cap is to encourage you to spend the crowns you've earned once in a while, rather than collecting them infinitely and creating runaway inflation in the process.

Ngreth at 5:45 PM
As for more items, we added luck recently! That aside, This question sparked me to create a ticket to look at what we can add.

dreamweaver at 5:46 PM
Question 45 - Has there ever been consideration to selling the individual Expansion Only Bonus items in the marketplace? Or sell the "upgrades" for those expansions for the purpose of getting those items? Then again, some items (i.e. Mark of Brell) was only give 1 per account (I would love to have one on all my toons, not just one).

Ngreth at 5:46 PM
Check back soon :slight_smile:

Pip at 5:46 PM
Lots of it

Aristo at 5:47 PM
Yep. Lots of consideration. Don't have more details.

dreamweaver at 5:48 PM
Question 46 - And how about rotating items through Marketplace categories we don't see anymore? There are a number of mounts, familiars and / or illusions that we never seem to have a chance to buy.

Ngreth at 5:49 PM
This is in the plans, but it does not have highest priority. The priority might change, but that is predicting the future, which is a task I do rather poorly.

dreamweaver at 5:49 PM
Question 47 - With the recent tier 3 launch snafu, have safeguards been put into place to ensure this cannot happen again?

Ngreth at 5:50 PM
Yes. Nothing is as foolproof as we think. It's also based on server time, and that is not accessible for the average designer to manipulate.

Aristo at 5:50 PM
We are VERY good fools.

dreamweaver at 5:51 PM
Question 48 - On a more general note: Did you ever figure out why Fragments of Alaran History don't drop from grey con mobs? At 115 I am finding it really hard to find mobs that drop the fragment.

Ngreth at 5:51 PM
Yes. It is designed that way. There is a setting we can add to loot that only allows it to drop when the NPC is in a certain con range, and that setting is used on these drops.

dreamweaver at 5:51 PM
Question 49 - Will you bring back bard only weapons? Rogues still get their daggers, rangers with their bows and wars with their weapons. Monks/Beastlords share but no love for the bards.

Ngreth at 5:52 PM
No. But I will consider being more consistent with the instruments.

dreamweaver at 5:53 PM
Question 50 - Can pure casters get a tunic for once to match their other gear slots, robes have become very boring and repetative and it would be nice to show off how lovely the soft silk looks underneath my robe!

Ngreth at 5:53 PM
This is a no win for me. If I do tunics, I'll get an equal amount of outrage for not doing it as a robe.

Pip at 5:53 PM
I remember playing late game WOW (at the time) and the end game mage gear was not a robe, but a pair of pants and a shirt. I was livid. My point is that changing too much from what is expected can cause issues, even unintentionally.

Ngreth at 5:54 PM
Also, Tunic ends up being leather, not cloth (for looks)

dreamweaver at 5:54 PM
Question 51 - Can we have an increase on the drop rate for Diamondized Precious Velium Ore please? Or at least have an instance drop at least 1 guarenteed? We cleared GD, ToFS and EW trash yesterday and the only drops we got was 2 luck augs and some tradeskill stuff, zero ore to make the augments, the NPCs didn't even drop PP.

Ngreth at 5:54 PM
No, I will not increase the drops. BUT, data is already set to roll a second time when the expansion is six months old. I can consider adding plat to the trash mobs, but that will be a team conversation, so I will not promise this.
I.E. when you kill a mob that can drop it, it will roll twice.

dreamweaver at 5:56 PM
Question 52 - (Overseer) Will the developers consider enabling current expansion rewards (tradeskills/collectibles) after a set period of time in that expansion. For example 6 months on Live servers or 1.5 months on TLP servers (about halfway through the expansion lifetime)?

niente at 5:56 PM
If Overseer is a catch-up system, how do we justify giving current era rewards for (effectively) standing in PoK? Also, every time something on TLPs has a sub-expansion period launch date, there are various problems and that work is added to each new TLP and existing TLPs (see Phinny RoF, CotF launches). I would say it has a greater cost to do this work than it's worth (just my personal opinion).

Ngreth at 5:56 PM
And as an aside, our minimum time interval on the requirements we can use for these rewards is a month, so it would be 1month or 2months not 1.5. (end even 1 month leaves out Selo... though they'll be "live" soon enough :slight_smile: ) But, overall, Lucy's opinion is shared by the team.

dreamweaver at 5:57 PM
Question 53 - Do you think that there could be a way that community groups could design a themed set of items for the cash shop. Not for them to profit off of but in order to leave their mark on the game and let their players sport a certain look. For instance I am sure that Fires of Heaven might like to make an avenging celestial looking set for heroes forge and weapons.

niente at 5:57 PM
Your specific idea would be a lot of logistics and work, you might have more luck trying to convince Dreamweaver and/or Ngreth to do a player contest of some kind for an item name, or that type of thing.

Ngreth at 5:58 PM
Baring legal issues, Item naming is much more feasible than item art.

dreamweaver at 5:59 PM
Question 54 - Any updates on progress with addressing zone lag?

niente at 5:59 PM
We've added additional diagnostics for zone lag, right now we are mostly working on server merges. I think later in the year more work can be done. It's hard because this is very important, but fixing server crash issues and patching out new changes / necessary things for expansions, etc are also still going on.

dreamweaver at 6:00 PM
Question 55 - Have any of you ever played on either of the four original Zek servers (Rallos, Sullon, Tallon, Vallos)? If so, what's your most memorable moment from it?

niente at 6:00 PM
I played on Zek for about 2 weeks (I was playing someone else's cleric). This was during SoF, so I'm not sure it counts. We raided Crystallos. To me the most memorable thing was this wizard who had a decked out, $2.5k gaming PC spec'd to zone quickly. If he could zone first he would kill people before they finished zoning. The other really memorable thing was that no one on the server had completed the face aug because playing in open zones was so dangerous. To me, that was sad. I was really impressed with PVP style play and pretty much everyone I've met who was from a PVP server has been an amazing player. You can't be bad and survive on a PVP server (or can you?).

dreamweaver at 6:02 PM
Brutal.

Alright everyone, I have devs that need to head to meetings and animals that won't stop pestering me. That is it for today, stay tuned for announcements about different formats and/or the next time we will be scheduling one of these. There were a ton of questions we didn't have time to get to and still need to be answered and I am sure some of these answers gave you more questions.
Thank you for taking the time to read along with us today and if your question didn't get answered yet I am genuinely sorry. I know if we had the time we'd get through them all eventually.
And for those of you faithfully using the emojis to spell out TLP I see you.


Edited, Apr 8th 2020 5:27pm by Gidono
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