Brad McQuaid went into great detail answering several common questions that are on many people's minds these days about the future of EverQuest. Here are the questions and answers from his Usenet postings...
1. Instead of taking rubicite out of the game, why not make it spawn on more random NPC's across Norrath?
Because we don't want mid-high level special items to appear randomly and without context throughout the world.
2. Will you be putting in a replacement chest armor that doubles regen? It's one of rubicite's biggest benefits.
Doubtful. The new armor has similar stats to Rubicite as well as some other magical attributes, but it's not a clone.
3. Who has been complaining that Rubicite is a problem? Other than the spawns being camped so much? I have not heard any complaints (on my server) about rubicite itself being a problem.
Literally hundreds if not thousands of players who complain about the frustrations involved with too much camping, as well as my customer service people who have to deal with the kill stealing and other frustrations and crowding in heavily camped areas like Cazic Thule.
4. Does there exist, or will there be made available any armor for a ranger, level 12 to 35 that's better than banded that is attainable? (after rubicite is gone, and not peice-meal this and that, talking full set).
Yes.
5. If there is new armor coming for rangers, rogues, shamans, paladins, clerics, etc...When? How long will we have to wait? This is kind of frustrating now that I finally got a character high enough to try for the Rubicite, and now you are taking it away. So much for having goals ;-)
At the same time Rubicite is set to no longer spawn, all the class specific quests will be activated. There are new sets of armor for every class that could wear Rubi.
6. Why is it almost impossible for an upper 20's group to go deep into Permafrost, where most things are green to them? If all the mob casters there can see through camo and invis, how do you expect people to actually get to the areas where they will get experience? Even a high level enchanter would have trouble memsmerizing all those mobs within time needed for a group to get through to areas where they get exp. Unfortunately, we led several trains back to the entrance last night that killed several lower levels. Trains of all GREEN things...which promptly killed the lower levels at the entrance (even with warning shouts). I brought a group of my friends all the way from Lesser Faydark to hunt Perma, but after multiple deaths, and numerous trains, we gave up. All of the members were level 25-30.
Depends how far you go in. Groups of 25-30 get pretty far in, certainly far enough to obtain the items meant for 25-30 level characters to obtain (silver war axe, etc.) It IS a hard dungeon though, harder than others. It takes quite a bit of strategy, organization, and knowledge. It's never been our intent that each dungeon targeted at certain level rangers be exactly the same difficulty.
7. When is the spell Sense magic going to be replaced? It's been "in development" since pretty much release.
We're still working on a viable replacement. No ETA.
8. When are the Plane of Hate and Airplane going to come online. I have their files wasting space on my harddrive. Why can't I go there?
PoH in about a month (it's in combat testing on Test). PoS in about 1-2 months (it's waiting on an AI upgrade that will also enable us to itemize Kedge Keep).
9. When are Paineel and The Hole going to come up? They were in development right along with Sense magic.
Paineel in about 1-2 months, the Hole another 2 or so months after that.
10. Why don't monks get crit hits with Hand to hand and thier special attacks. Warriors are masters of blades and get crits with them, Rangers masters of bows and get crits, Monks masters of hand to hand and get to wear gloves...
Monks do more damage than any other class as it is. NOTE: Brad added later on... "Oops, insert 'melee' between 'other' and 'class'."
11. Why don't monks (I like monks) have gloves with some abilities like swords, IE random spells going off, poison, etc. Would make sense.
I'd like to see more of that to an EXTENT, but I don't want to go far, lest we dilute and blur the identity of a monk.
12. Why are rogues still the mini-me of warriors. They need a personality developed through viable skills.
This is a controversial issue. We are committed to upgrading them slowly but surely (read: in a balanced way), but they already have skills that create their personality, including backstab and the ability to sneak/hide. I don't believe they are 'mini-me' warriors.
13. When is there going to be a money sink on the older servers to get the bazillion plat roaming around? Corrupt bankers? Quest? Pay everytime you enter a zone(like Temple of Sol Ro, gotta pay tides to the gods).
You'll see more and more money sinks as time goes by. Some recent ones include expensive but powerful potions, and quests that require a significant monetary component (precious stones and such). We certainly agree there is a need for more money sinks at the higher levels.
14. When is Brad going to Update his Producer letter?
Probably early this week, at which time we're going to address some customer service issues. I tend to find myself answering posts all over the place, perhaps because they are more specific, and not focussing as much on the letter. Obviously I should do both, and I will increase my efforts to do just that.
15. When is the In Development page going to actually represent whats in development.
It does, and we updated it just a couple of weeks ago. There are all sorts of fairly new things we're working on under General Issues on that page.
16. When is there going to be a player wipe...heh heh, thought I'd throw that in. That would rule, screw all tose E-bay powergaming pricks way up into arms. Blame it on massive hard disk failure and cerfnet spys or something..
Heh.
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