Are we really going to have a mischief server without gnome hybrids? Really?

Discussion in 'Time Locked Progression Servers' started by Batbener, May 24, 2021.

  1. Nolrog Augur


    It's not so much the fear of complaining, but rather the increase in Customer Service petitions for people saying they can't do their epic.
  2. SoandsoForumUser Augur

    Oh no they'd have to select a form response for literally dozens of petitions! What an absolute avalanche of work.
  3. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Yeah and that's why I suggest this message being displayed during character-creation:

    "Take note that this class will not be able to complete it's epic 1.0 quest until the expansion ##### has unlocked on this server because this class was not originally available in EverQuest before that expansion"

    You may not complete character creation (for a Beastlord or Berserker) without acknowledging this.

    Along with an in-game email with the same information sent to you upon first log-in and which may not be moved to trash or deleted until after you have completed the epic 1.0 if you try to move it or delete it before completion of the Epic 1.0 it will give you a red error message.
  4. Neuro Elder

    This may be heretical to say, but I liked the way WoW did new races. Not only does each new race have it’s own starting zone, that starting zone is independent of the expansion it was released in. They could, if they wished, open a WoW classic server that had all expansions locked, but still allow all the new races. They *won’t*, cause of the “no changes” crowd, but they *could*.
    I still would like to see a TLP that started in Luclin but was level capped at 50 for the first 3 months, and had Velious locked as well. After 3 months, up the cap to 60, 2 months later unlocked Velious, then after that, unlock AAs. This would allow the creation of vah shir and beastlords in classic, and also iksar in classic, along with a lot more places to level up.

    But this is a pipe dream, just like a free trade server... wait a minute! Dreams *can* come true!
  5. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Open expansions out of sequence? that's nonsensical.

    Could go with a "Quadrilogy" start (Classic + Kunark + Velious + Luclin are unlocked).

    Alternative would be a fully Level locked server with everything open class/expansion/zone wise and then tie things like Defiant gear to unlocks, so for example defiant doesn't drop until level 71-75 is available.
  6. BreakmanDX New Member

    Barbarian Paladins, Barbarian Monks, Erudite Monks, Halfling Bards, Dark Elf Bards, High Elf Bards, and Troll Necros. These are what I've always wanted and seem incredibly lore-accurate yet we get nothing new for like 15 years then it's like freakin ELF beastlords with ugly lil' trees wtf.
  7. Neuro Elder

    True, but you gotta admit it's different. Honestly I have no idea how Luclin zones affect leveling, I never made an alt during Luclin era and didn't play Selo's server.

    The problem, in my mind, is that Velious and Luclin have no level cap increase. As such, you cannot gate the content with a level cap lock, as you have to open it to 60 for Kunark, so players can just skip right past Kunark and go into Velious and Luclin for the better items. The only reason I suggested opening Luclin was to allow Beastlords in the game; maybe a better solution is to write in code to allow non-Vah Shir beastlords and Berserkers into the game from the get-go, and open the server at Kunark, and just level cap it for the first month at 50. The only real issue is the 1.0 epics for each of them, but this can be solved by making an alternate questgiver in Kunark era, with a slightly different quest line sending players to Kunark locations instead of Luclin/Velious ones.

    Admittedly, this is probably more trouble than it's worth, but obviously these slightly alternate ruleset servers are quite popular. I feel it just might be worth coding the option to turn on berserkers and beastlords at will.

    Alternately, just open a server with Kunark. My first server was Morell Thule, and we launched with Kunark, and it was fun.
  8. Herf Augur

    The reason you're not going to see gnome hybrids is because we Trolls eat gnomes, we don't screw them :) It's not polite to play with your food.
  9. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Unless you have a cohesive logic for doing things differently doing that purely to be different can be mind numbingly stupid.

    There is a progression on gear stats & foci, particularly on raid gear, that takes place within different expansions in order even those without level cap increases.

    And what if the devs do not want to do what would be a lot of work to make those changes & create an alternate pre-Luclin 1.0 path for Beastlords or pre-Gates of Discord path for Berserkers?

    That is why I suggested what I did here:


    The devs have basically made changes that reinforce these two classes being tied to their respective expansions, a Level locked server or one that starts with everything up to GoD unlocked is the only way we are going to have Berserkers & Beastlords on any TLP at launch unless they choose to reverse their position on them being tied to those expansions.

    How does this address Beastlords (let alone Berserkers) not being available at launch?
  10. Doranur_Aleguzzler Filthy Casual™

    I rolled a wood elf BST once. Immediately bought a brownie petamorph wand.
  11. Doranur_Aleguzzler Filthy Casual™

    The dev team could, if they were so inclined and had the time, make the necessary adjustments to not only allow gnome and halfling hybrid classes to go live at a classic launch, but also beastlords and berserkers, AND make the berserker epic stuff live as well. None of the required zones are outside classic/Kunark. This obviously does not address the activation of Vah Shir, which obviously can't happen til Luclin. They COULD also activate frogloks as a playable race early.

    There's a lot of things they could do. But it's not likely any of those things will happen. Who knows, EQ is under new ownership. The new guy might surprise us.
  12. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    Wrong.

    Step 1 of the Beastlord 1.0 requires you to obtain an item in Griming Forest (Luclin Zone)

    Step 6 of the Berserker 1.0 requires an item from Stonebrunt Mountains (Zone opens with Velious on TLP)
  13. Doranur_Aleguzzler Filthy Casual™

    I stand corrected. I still don't see anything on the guide about Grimling, but I did miss that Stonebrunt is a Velious zone. Been many a year since I was there.
  14. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I said Grimling but actually the Beastlord epic starts in Shar Vahl so it requires Luclin right from the start.

    https://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/quest.html?quest=1611
    Doranur_Aleguzzler likes this.
  15. Doranur_Aleguzzler Filthy Casual™

  16. Neuro Elder

    The logic was to find a way to include Beastlords from the start of a new TLP without just dumping everyone in Luclin from the start. However, trying to hodgepodge parts of Luclin in would do a disservice to the "feel" of Classic, since Luclin ports trivialize certain aspects of the game.

    *If* the devs were ok with Berserkers and Beastlords in the game from Classic, I see a way to do it with minimal effort. Since all servers have to share the same code base, this would be a setting in the server.ini file that reads "ClassicBST=TRUE" and "ClassicBRSK=TRUE". If those flags are set, then beastlords and berserkers are class options for any races that can currently use them (with the obvious exclusion of vah shir). This flag would also spawn the guildmasters for each class in their respective cities and vendors to sell any spells that were unique to that class.

    As for 1.0 Epics, that could be solved less easily, but it could be done. First, and this is something I feel should be done regardless, open The Warrens and Stonebrunt at the beginning of Classic. Making people wait until Velious is silly, and arbitrary, these are good leveling zones, and as far as I can tell they don't drop anything gamebreaking. I think Stonebrunt is the only zone Berserkers need that's not in Kunark.

    Beastlords would be trickier. You would have to create an entirely new questline for Beastlords in Kunark, and that would be the sticking point. Especially once Luclin opened up, you then have to remove this questline and revert back to the old one in Vah Shir, and that is probably more work than the devs want to invest.

    To be honest, this is just a pipe dream, I doubt it would be very cost effective for DG to invest the resources into this, but that's how I'd do it. The irony is, I've never played either class, and don't have a personal stake in the issue, other than I wouldn't mind seeing a little more variety. And for the record, I agree with you on the whole "turn truebox off after a certain point".


    Oh it doesn't, I just dislike the fact that Kunark has a wide array of leveling zones that cannot be used in Classic. There's too few zones in Classic once you hit 35 or so, and while pickzones alleviate this to a certain degree, the fact that Kunark has a huge variety of midlevel zones not being used is a shame.
  17. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.



    You literally just argued against Beastlords being allowed in classic here while attempting to find a way to get them in, since Beastlords are a part of Luclin.

    That's not logic, it's a contradiction.
    code-zero likes this.
  18. Skuz I am become Wrath, the Destroyer of Worlds.

    I don't know the inner workings of EQ well enough to say with confidence this would work so I am not sure how you can, I suspect it is rather more tricky to decouple classes from their expansions, as is decoupling race/class combinations.
    On Phinigel Halfling Paladin etc were decoupled from Luclin to begin with, they re-coupled them later so clearly the devs are more interested in keeping the classes tied to expansions.

    I mean in an ideal world the devs could have a system that allows them to switch classes on & off for any server that they choose.
    Then they could have:
    1. a server could be "classic feel" on classes so they retain their current unlock cadence
    2. a server that allows for all classes if not all races in classic
    3. a server that allows all race/class combinations in classic
    But for the third one they either need to address the starting city for Vah Shir being zoneline locked and having a Portal to it from the Nexus or something like that which fits the lore at least well enough to make sense. OR they could have Vah Shir start on the "Kerra Isle" part of Toxulia Forest & move them to Luclin when it opens.

    These options would open more custom ruleset opportunities, the issue is more ideologically if the devs are willing to decouple classes for them or not.
  19. jiri_ Augur

    The obstacle to new monk races, IIRC, is primarily the need for new animations. For troll necros, it'd be robe graphics. But yes, I've always wanted barbarian paladins and wood elf shamans, plus the obligatory iksar berserker (or any berserker, really, except the ones we have).
    Skuz likes this.
  20. Mepps Sr. Community Manager

    We tried to do something here, but ended up breaking gnomes. For now, there are no gnomes available at all on the new TLP servers.
    Yinla, Ions, Skuz and 4 others like this.