Easy way to make the game much better - Increase max camera view distance

I thought about this while I was doing a newbie quest that had me hand something to an npc, the npc was a really nicely modeled dragon but you can't actually see that because the client's max view distance is locked in the 90s. This is often the case in EQ. You're staring at mobs knees or other nether regions, neat. I'm pretty sure this would be an easy change based on the fact that when I searched for a solution there were loads of pages about hacks that maybe work or had worked (note that I saw several people in panic when one of said hacks wasn't working so I know it's not just me that wants this). No built in solution though and I think that's what the game needs. Every other mmo i'm aware of has this and it's nice to zoom out a bit to appreciate the environment you're in. I understand you can switch viewpoints but i'm talking about just how many people run normally in overhead 3rd person.

Alternative: Tell the artists to spend extra time on knees and nether regions and don't waste time on the rest. ;-)

I don't think increasing the view distance is going to game much better as you claim, maybe it'll make a few people happy, but you're overstating the importance of your message.

I disagree. The difference vs every other mmo is jarring.

When there is only one cook in the restaurant I am more worried they dont burn the steak , then make the garnish look nice.

curious ,what is the 3rd view you are using? i play 3rd view since 15 years + , there are some 3rd view that i couldn't play , effectively .
for me i press F9 , 4 times to get the higher overhead 3rd view camera . ( or distance if i want ) .

then i keep right click pressed on the mouse while i move the mouse until i get the view i want , either moving the mouse up or down or left or right, once used to it it is very fast to get the view you want to use / see. , you can pull / kite much easier when you can run forward while checking behind with the camera angle to see what's happening.

we got raid with emotes and auras to avoid, it is funny to see some players not even moving from aura.s when they are right at it, or puller / kiters who have no clue what distance or if the mob having bad pathing and need to stop and turn to see where is the mob is to not go oor from the mob who is pulled,{ i guess they can't see them playing 1st view ect. } , or having a mob beating at a player from behind and asking ** something attacking me but can't see it , lol .

i box 6 and can see my toons all the time, i can see if a mob pathing toward me and need to be cc ect.

or hard area like the new dragon necropolis , you can place the camera the way you want and see around a corner to see if there is a see invis mob there ect.

not counting all the collectibles some can't even see and run near them without seeing them. ------------->>> 3rd view ftw.

I think the view distance is absolutely fine for regular play. When you want to admire models/scenery like you said you were trying to do, simply hit f9 and try one of the other camera modes with ridiculously large zoom distances which I guess you were completely unaware existed. *built in solution*

There are times Id like a larger view distance. This should go in the quality of life thread.

Yes, there are already other camera views available.

However, if you go to Sunrise Hills, it lets you scroll the camera back (in the regular, default camera mode) WAY farther back than it does in any other zone. There's obviously just a setting coded somewhere. Should be easy to set it everywhere else to where it's set in Sunrise Hills. Because quickly scrolling the camera back, and then forward again, is so much quicker than messing with the camera modes.

delete

Agreed. It's just so much easier to mouse wheel the zoom in and out to see the action. The other view modes are not ideal for controlling your character. I feel like relative to how much more comfortable it will make people coming from other games as relates to camera perspective this may be a comparatively easy change.

You can already zoom out quite a ways in 3rd person. Camera distance max is also based upon the zone geometry I believe. It won't let you get outside of that geometry or else you would be seeing all sorts of things they don't want you to see like looking through walls to see what's on the other side.

Wouldn't allow you to see through walls, the existing camera code already sets the max zoom when there's a wall behind the camera (or in front of it) regardless of how far out you're zoomed.

What is this, Age of Empires?

WoW, ESO, GW2, lotro, ddo (those are the ones I know) all have this. There's a good chance that players coming to try EQ are coming from one of those. Why not just change it to remove the problem. It has no negative effect and can be configured by a simple ini file entry if need be and not changed for anyone else. The perspective i'm talking about is if you were in first person and scroll wheeled out. Something similar to 3/4 overhead.

Lets get some screen shots so we know how far we are talking

Just go to first person then scroll out to the max it allows. Add 50-75% more to that and it'd be just about right.

There's just nothing wrong with how the camera is currently. You have been spoiled playing modern EQ clones.

current max camera view is 50 just to be nerdy about it
So about 3x max melee distance

Maybe, but, I've Been playing EQ on and off since beta (yeah that dates me pretty hard) so I've been through all the hardcore ui stuff, now, I think it's time for EQ to start taking some things that were done right from other derivative MMOs that, as you said, have cloned EQ or are clones of clones of EQ several nodes down the line. This is a quality of life thing that benefits EQ and makes players coming from other games more comfortable with the camera aspect of the UI. The current client is light years ahead of the original but there's still plenty of room for improvement. Strictly talking UI stuff, the game is great.

I don't really have a horse in the race, I play first person and I couldn't care less which other strange camera angles people prefer. You could scroll out so your character is a dot for all I care.
Where my interest lies, is how feasible is any change to distance restrictions in the first place? Is all that rendering simply done locally on a players computer or will that negatively effect server load? How much dev time would this take to change? If the answer is longer than 30 minutes I say hard no.
If there was a list of critical needs, strong needs, wants, and would be nice to haves, when it comes to our dev time, I would sort any UI or conceptual quality of life changes somewhere below the would be nice to haves.