Discord AMA Question Thread

Alright here it is!

Let's set some ground rules.

1. Try not to spam this thread, if you have multiple questions try to include them in your main post.
2. Please ask questions in good faith (there is a better likelihood they get answered!).
3. Please be respectful with your questions.
4. If you have a question for a specific dev please indicate that in your post.
5. Keep your question related to EverQuest.

Please keep in mind not every question is going to get answered and I will be updating this post with the date of the AMA so stay tuned!
Finally if you haven't joined our discord yet take a moment to now!
Click here!
[UPDATE]

AMA Date and time set. Wednesday April 8, 2020 @ 230 PM PDT

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?

Do you feel it is necessary for average players on Selo and Phinny to be able to beat xpac's "in era"? If so, do you see any changes being made to flagging/keying/currency requirements in the later xpacs to facilitate this?

Can you share some insight into some of the software development practices you follow? Such as Agile/SAFe, Pair programming, etc.

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?

Oh and everyones favorite...Necro dot revamp?

1. 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.

2. I would also like to ask if things like Chase loot / evolving items could be looked at to see if accelerated rates of evolution could apply to those items on servers which have accelerated unlock schedules.

3. Would you please consider adding Fragments of Alaran History to the Overseer system?

While I did complete this myself the hard way on my main - on accelerated unlock servers this is an exceptionally grindy thing even after the earlier revision and to try and complete and to do it in a much shorter time-frame on a TLP before the server moved onto the next expansion was a pretty bad player experience, many people even on live servers have not managed to complete this and I think it would be really helpful to have this an an additional option to help people complete this - making it appear on overseer after a server unlocks TDS and not sooner makes sense. I would also ask you consider perhaps increasing the drop rates of the fragments on TLP to match the accelerated unlock schedule better.

From a player's perspective the budget for EQ has steadily decreased over the last ten years, resulting in increasingly less content every expansion. With the change to DPG and the change in top-level management, is that trend going to reverse?




Also, folks may want to look at this very comprehensive AMA thread for possible answers to their questions before they ask it:
https://www.firesofheaven.org/threads/everquest-ama-answered.10980/

Devs may also want to copy answers from that thread too, since you know the same stuff is going to get asked again

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.

1. Will the powers that be consider adding Agents of Change to all live servers?

2. Will the powers that be consider disabling the Truebox ruleset on TLP servers that reach later EQ expansions where pick up grouping tapers off. Seeds of Destruction as an example since mercenaries unlock here?

3. Will the powers that be consider enabling F2P access to TLP servers starting in the Rain of Fear expansion, when EQ originally launched F2P? The AA, prestige, ranked spell, mercenary, etc. restrictions will encourage the players on these servers to maintain their subscription but it may draw in new players or boxes.

A few questions from my post about Overseer here: https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq/index.php?threads/feedback-overseer-tuning-2-0.264144/

4. 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)?

5. Will the developers consider adding older group currency from past expansions, Fragment of Legendary Alaran History, and older powersources to the Overseer vendor for additional paths for players to catch up?

6. 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.

7. 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.

1. Lag, especially in raid instances, has come up increasingly over the past few years. I know work on this is ongoing, and it generally appears that work is being done by coders. Are there any plans to reduce and consolidate lag-causing things – procs and swarm pets, among other things – on the design side? I love the Type 18/19 aug system, but it has added to an already considerable number of individually small procs, and there are a lot of fairly small AA swarm pets.

2. Apart from the above, any updates on progress with addressing zone lag?

3. 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?

4. This question is primarily for Aristo. Are there any plans to simplify the work related to level cap increases for spells in order to allow more time for spell tuning? This could include rolling Type 3 augs into base spells, simplifying spell naming, de-ranking more spells, discontinuing obsolete lines, etc.

5. This question is also for Aristo. On beta we were asked to use /bug to provide bugs with spells. Is this still the best avenue to report bugs with spells on live? What is the best way to give tuning feedback?

6. Is the Community Round Table (CRT) program still a thing, and are there any plans to revisit its members/functionality?

7. 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?

8. On a related note, how has the team felt about ToV raid tuning?

What is the status of Account-to-Account character transfers?

When will we see the next Heritage Crate?

Can we please have Gnome Beastlords and/or Gnome Monks?

Thank you!

In regards to stat food and stat drink - Will future food and drink require foraging and fishing on a massive scale? (Read afk foraging and fishing).

Are the food/drink stats such a luxury that developers believe they warrant endless hours of afk foraging and fishing? By designing food/drink to require such levels of foraging and fishing are they condoning afk foraging and fishing? If so will foraging and fishing be added as an automatic feature much in the way of automatic tradeskill combines?

What is your impression of the official Discord so far?

Could we get more /chatfontsize increments? I'd love one (or more) between the default and the one above that. I know an overall UI revamp is a huge undertaking but this is one change that should help on higher DPI monitors.

Has there been any serious consideration for a seasonal TLP? That is, one that wipes and starts again after a set period of time.

So, before the change, the xp modifiers worked like this:

“2 Characters is 20% bonus (120% xp per kill, divided by 2 so you get 60% of what the mob would have given you had you killed it solo)
3 Characters is 40% bonus (140% xp per kill, 46.67% to each character)
4 Characters is 60% bonus (160% xp per kill, 40% to each character)
5 Characters is 80% bonus (180% xp per kill, 36% to each character)
6 Characters is 116% bonus (216% xp per kill, 36% to each character)”

Can we get the new numbers, after the recent change?

Can we bring back the class representative program?

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?

Will Mercenary AAs ever be autogranted?

Why are some spell lines not upgraded each level cap bump? Enchanters for example, Nights Endless Terror 103, AE Direct damage spell 104, Compliant Lurch 85, I could go back further to Tricksters Augmentation and Boon of the Garou, and Manastorm.

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 armour.....

Will you ever release our final 6 Player Studio robes to the marketplace?

Icesy has 1 and I have 5 robes that were accepted, prepared, and entered in the game files, but never put on the marketplace.

Has any thought been put into increasing Raid Currency drop rates for TLP's with increased release schedules? Namely Phinigel, Selos, Mangler, Coirnav, Agnarr, etc.

On live servers guilds had 12 months to gear up and make use of currency, so encounters dropping 10 was fine. However, 3 month unlock servers have a much more limited window, and increased currency drop amount would help alleviate this.

I could see this being tied in to the increased key drop rate, which is already active for all servers.

JChan: Congrats, Alan: Glad you're still around, Dreamweaver: thanks for setting this up.


Locked doors that require a Bard/Rogue.I thought this would be directed to Niente, but after going back, I saw the dev response I received was from Narlee, who appears to no longer be a red name.

After reading the FoH AMA, and I saw this posting, it encouraged me to throw it out there once more. If no reply, no problem!

6) Why are developer resources being spent on EQ1/EQ2 expansions when a very small portion of your active subscribers will even see that content?

Alan: I think you misunderstand how many of our customers purchase and play our expansions. A very large portion of our customers do so.

Ed: To some extent we’ve always had to consider this question. I personally remember arguing that Vex Thal was unnecessary because of how few guilds would ever get flagged for it. We take the long view that increases in player power over time mean that eventually most players are able to experience what we create, even if it isn’t “in era” when they do it.

Jonathan: Today’s end zone that only a fraction of raiding players will see is tomorrow’s mid-range content.

Mostly because of what Ed, then Jonathan say. -- For me, I originally posted my thread because being locked out by Seb Crypt followed by Chardok Royals. But then I found I was stuck on half of SSRA Temple, and moved on to Vex Thal. -- I was pretty bummed when I realized after I killed the first boss that I could not see the rest of the zone here either.

Maybe at next TLP if my real-life allows for that type of guild commitment. So in other words, I would say to Jonathan that today's end-zone is not tomorrow's mid-range content. (I do not know if this occurs in PoP/GoD/ etc).

The only solutions besides begging someone to help (repeatedly, and every time it was convenient for me, and them at the same time) is to level up my own Rogue/Bard to experience the content, is there not a viable solution that somehow overcomes this problem but does not hurt the TLP servers?

Maybe with AA or maybe with the solution Xianzu has posted about after a certain level, you have the ability to smash the lock once reaching a certain level? (So Level 65 or 70 for VT Door, therefore doesn't hurt TLP). It seems to be something that will continue to have players that want this, but not take too long to fix/implement.

The Original-Thread from 2017 --> https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...-can-no-longer-illusion-through-doors.237106/

My thread from 5 weeks ago --> https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...ad-issue-or-can-we-lobby-for-a-change.263173/


Thank you guys! If my question seems such a small/niche thing, I get it.

1. Can you please make on of the new servers an FV Rule set we have been asking for a long time.
A. can you put items like mana stones , moss , Longsword of EE ETC that were removed.
B. Remove level requirements from all items up to level 75 for a fun new economy
C. Put focus effects back in classic


Is it possible to put all the QOL into the game during classic along with Races / Classes

Are there any plans to update the Sword of Truth Template from the House of Thule Collectors Edition Revival Pack to work in any weapon type? I've heard it was but it didn't come from a Dev so I don't know how much I believe the info.

1. Will EverQuest be offering lifetime memberships again?

2. Is it feasible to create a TLP on a different engine?

3. Have you changed your minds on remote contractors for EQ because of the current ongoing global crisis?

4. Why haven't we seen team based servers that also implement language barriers similar to the Firiona Vie server?

5. 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?

6. 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?

7. I know the PVP TLP community can be very passionate... but do you have anything to suggest that the recent PVP promotion towards the end of February helped raise any awareness for EverQuest leading up to its 21st Anniversary?

8. If a non-PVE TLP is not in the works (aside from breaking our hearts), would you at least design certain zones to be PVP-enabled e.g., Sleeper's Tomb? Mangler's "secret cabal of guilds" had agreed to leave it sleeping in order to kill it out of era. Then someone chose to do their own thing. PVP enabled zone would help mitigate that. But as it stands, the Rallos Zek PVP server is the ONLY official server to kill Kerafyrm.

9. Based off recent patch notes, which dev did it and why have there been two updates made to PVP if there isn't any interest in a Live PVP server?

10. The Official EverQuest discord server was a great idea. What were some of your favorite memes-for-Norrath?