It’s the Year of Darkpaw AMA time!

Can berserker decapitate be changed to be more powerful? It’s sad compared to assassination and headshot abilities.

What language, host OS, and tools are EQ written in. If that's too secret for a current answer, how about a dated answer? Back in the late 90's/early 2k's I was told by a former Sony employee it was run on Windows NT boxes.

i notice there is a modified and unmodified button on gear that can be used for charms, and also for power sources. I am wondering if there has been any talk about having a similar button that would allow us to be able to see a piece of gear with and without augs? For the purposes of easy comparison. thank you

Are you actively working on fixing the pet weapon bug, were the pets DPS gets greatly reduced if you give it proc weapons? And what is the ETA on this?

Is there any way for players that have ingame concerns (balacing, etc.) to reach the devs to inform them of their concerns without having to post in the forum (which seems to be ignored a lot)?

Is there a chance that you guys would be looking into clerics being able to do damage.
Right now the best way to do damage as a cleric is to log off and log in another toon even on undead cleric damage is very low.

Is there any way we can get items to have new focus effects? Many of them have stayed the same since 2007 (Secrets of Faydwer) when they were "standardized" and item development has been VERY stale for a long time. (No disrespect intended toward Mrtyu, he's great, this problem started LONG before he took over making items).

Things that haven't changed (much) since 2007:

1. Helm = Faerune + Magic damage focus (SPA 124).
2. Arms = Fire damage focus (SPA 124)
3. Hands = Ice damage focus (SPA 124)
4. Wrist = Poison/Chromatic damage focus (SPA 124)
5. Range = Disease/Corruption damage focus (SPA 124)
6. Face = Range Extension (SPA 129) [Casters]
7. Finger = Mana Preservation (SPA 130)
8. Feet = Beneficial Spell Haste (SPA 127)
9. Legs = Detrimental Spell Haste (SPA 127)

Numbers 1-5 the damage focus could all be combined into ONE (1) item, (make Faerune an AA), which would free up 4 slots for NEW focus effects.

Numbers 6-9 could all be made into (or combined with) AAs. The values for these have been the same for 17 years. It is time to clear them out for something new.

NEW focus effects (SPAs) that could be added to replace the ones above:

• 413 = % Base value increase. Most powerful damage focus, so baby steps. Was used on Eyes of Life and Decay and Restless Ice Aug.
• 461 = % Value add. Similar to 302 but is more powerful.
• 302 = % value add. Similar to 124, but crits for DoT AND DD. Used for some BP focus.
• 507 = % value add. Similar to 124, but values are in tenths of a percent. (E.g. 1000 points of 507 = 100 points of 124).
• 303 = Flat damage add. DOES crit. Used on Irae Type 3 augments.
• 462 = Copy of 286 for stacking purposes.
• 399 = % Chance Twincast.
• 170 = % Increase Critical Damage.
• 294 = % Chance to Critical Hit.
• 501 = % Cast Time decrease. Is NOT capped at 50%.
• 500 = Flat cast time decrease.
• 520 = % Luck increase.
• 519 = Flat Luck increase.
• 513 = % Max Mana.
• 97 = Flat Max Mana.
• 214 = % Max HP.
• 69 = Flat Max HP.
• 130 = % Reduce Spell Hate. Was used on Wizard Epic 1.5/2.0/2.5.
• 326 = Increase Spell Slot. (We've been waiting for the 14th spell slot for 5 years now).

1. Any funny/cool bug stories?
2. What is your favorite thing you've worked on recently / something you're really proud of?
3. What is something you worked on that was really difficult to do? What made it difficult?
4. What quest or thing did you make that you wish you hadn't added because of the problems it caused or difficulty of fixing it?
5. Are there any game changes that were made to EQ that you would not have made, in retrospect?
6. There are a lot of bug reports in the forums that have been marked Confirmed for years, but seem to be somewhat forgotten. Can we get some of these older bugs looked at again?
7. Any chance of seeing EQIM again or something like it (mobile presence)?
8. Would it be possible to make raids (maybe just T2 or T3?) more difficult at launch temporarily, and have a systematic way of doing so sort of like the guild banner buff, but in reverse? (i.e. a zonewide debuff, maybe not exactly like Uqua or Demiplane but a similar idea, maybe sort of like Mitigation of the Mighty) And then after a certain amount of time has passed, the debuff could be reduced or disabled?
9. Any chance we can ease the returning player leveling process specifically related to obtaining spells and combat abilities / disciplines? It can be challenging and frustrating to find and scribe spells from all over Norrath for a new/returning player (they also get quite expensive if you're new). Something like automatically granting/scribing the ability when players level up would be amazing (perhaps not on TLPs until a certain time). Along those lines, adding more spell levels to the PoK library would help.
10. Any chance we can see some armor sets that are not super good, but easy enough to obtain for a new/returning player? Perhaps on the Overseer merchant? Specifically for level 90+. I've been leveling personas and there is a draught of easily obtainable armor from level 90-115 (soon 120 as well). This is probably frustrating for returning players who aren't on a persona as well - any armor available is really expensive, if there's even any for sale. And the actual group armor for that level is pretty challenging to get once its old - when it's current content, it makes sense but when it is a lot older it becomes prohibitively difficult (i.e. expensive/plat sink components, pieces only drop from rare spawns in 10 year old expansions, etc).
11. Any chance of seeing some new class-specific primary/secondary again, sort of like Rain of Fear had(Possessed Dreadstone items)? They don't have to be epics, just neat items.
12. Any chance of seeing customizable focus items again for raids sort of like the old cultural armor (but not just one race or etc)? TDS armor would be an example. We had raid drops for them and they were not quite as good as the other armor, so it was great for alts (TS made). Maybe even mix things up a bit and make the TS armor 2nd best for a year (ex: RoS Flawless Conflagrant Diamond armor)
13. Any chance of seeing a new throwing item? I know throwing sucks but the last time we got one was VoA (2011 - Mysterious Belt of Daggers).
14. Any chance of another new mega TS quest like Eron's Jewelry, Crestra's Earring, Earring of Rallos Zek, Artisan's Prize? Along those lines, another mega aug quest like the Model XLII Spatial Temporal Oculus, Jonas Dagmire's Skeletal Hand, Jonas Dagmire's Skeletal Parrot, the SoD augs for each theme (Bayle's Heraldic Crest) would be great. They are/were very time consuming so it would give people something to chew on.
15. Any chance of seeing something like the Luminous Restless Ice damage % augment in a future expansion? Maybe something that we get a new one for every year for finishing group (or raid) content?
16. Any chance of seeing something like the LDoN charm aug again, maybe as an evolving item (Adventurer's Stone)?
17. Any chance of a special merchant or charm that works off of earned achievement points?
18. SoW please?

Thanks for doing this, and all the other stuff too. EQ is still a great game.

What are 2 projects you would like you would like to see finish implementation this year? (UI, Stability..)

If you could add 2 projects regardless of scale or difficulty to be finished this year, what would they be?

1. There has been a very positive response to Laurion's Song story arc, style, and design. Will we see more diverse expansions in the future (e.g. The Burning Lands Part 2 and other ideas shared in the Lore Feedback thread)?

2. Could we see more class-specific weapons and quests such as upgrades to 'Possessed Dreadstone' weapons? I understand that Epic quests are currently considered unfeasible due to labor and time constraints.

3. Will we see a successor to the racial heritage crates? I previously made a thread about elemental themed crates. https://forums.daybreakgames.com/eq...e-successor-to-racial-heritage-crates.272803/

Where is Bidl Frugrin?
What has Carson McCabe done with Lumi Stergnon's High Guard Battlestaff?
It is time for answers!

1 would you ever consider bring back 1.0 zones as a mission or such for items no longer avail.. or even timed events like the war as a mission..

2 would you ever bring back paladins of underfoot faction ha ha i recently got an item but had to persona to do it

3 and finally can you make a way to delete personas without having to delete you character even if ya have to buy a deleter from market place

Can you please move disconcerting to its own timer so that it does not share with mangling. Disconcerting is not an OP disc but would allow better zerker sustained viability in a long dps event. It seems silly if you fire mangling at the start of an event that you cannot use disconcerting for 20 minutes.

Will epic 1.0 ornaments ever be released on Agnarr or even tie them to the achievement of completing the epic?

Will you ever be adding new weapon ornaments to the store?

I generally think you guys do a good with the game considering the game engine is old. Here are some of my questions and comments.

Difficulty- Underfoot is beloved for its difficulty, can there be some considerations from the dev team to align the next expansions raids to this kind of style of difficulty? People love Dark Souls for this very reason.

Epic weapons- can there ever be considerations for maybe implementing a line of special quests for each class? It doesn't necessarily have to be an Epic line of quests, it could be something unique.

Itemization- Itemization is somewhat bland , it's literally been the same slotted equipment for over 15 years now. Can we see something different in the future? Unique items like from the Plane of Growth would be nice.

In game Events- The Lanys in game event is one of the best events ever in Kithkor Forrest, is it a possibility to see significant in game events like this again? (Note I'm not talking about small guide events in POK)

Will we be able to order pizza from the in app game again!?

Two questions:

1. Could you make it so items equipped in the primary/secondary slots can be made into ornaments and used in newer weapons? I really like the looks of certain weapons from older expansions, but the stats are terrible. It would be great to put them in as ornaments so we keep the looks, but upgrade to the new weapons for stats.

2. Could we have a primary and secondary fellowship? Much like we have primary and secondary anchors? When grouping with people, having that secondary fellowship would be really helpful.

Thanks!

Lilderiel (Xegony Server)

1. Are there any plans to announce the new TLP soon? Will player feedback be taken into account?
   
   
2. Are there any plans to allow Beastlords and Beserkers at lvl 1 on new TLP launches?
   
   
3. Will the devs consider backfilling unity buffs for QoL on TLP? Or allowing group buffs that already exist to be purchased earlier?
   
   
4. Now that Personas are a thing, is it possible to ease the restrictions on buffing lower level characters?

The devs were not given enough time to finish the Alternate Personas feature, which launched unfinished in December. By the looks of the latest test patch, it won't be feature complete in the January patch either (example: no mention of sharing Hero's Special AAs).

While I do genuinely applaud the heroic efforts to get anything out given the complexity and the time constraints, it appears from the outside that there was a major failure in planning here. It may be too soon since it's still not actually done yet, but has the team done any sort of "post-mortem" on what happened? Are there adjustments in place to minimize the chance of this happening again in future expansion releases?

Is there any plan to retroactively update the weapon damage from NOS raid weapons to be better than LS group weapons? As it stands group weapons are better and ultra rare weapon drops are essentially worthless. Thanks for the AMA!