64-bit potential: Original new race & class ideas for future xpacs

With the development and (hopefully) successful release of a 64-bit client and 64-bit servers, maybe it's a good time to talk about brand new races & classes (other threads exist for adding an existing class to an existing race). Maybe DB could release 1 class or 1 race each xpac and evaluate for balance?

A few (unoriginal I know) new race ideas to start:
-Demon/hybrid: Strong innate fire & fear immunity, weak vs cold, heat vision
-Mechatronic (a gnomish mechanical creation)
-Orc (c'mon we gotta get this one!)
-Dragon (would be cool to play as a dragon I think?)

A few (unoriginal) new class ideas to start:
-Ninja (rogue/monk hybrid)
-Vampire (necro/druid hybrid)
-Tamer (kin to beastlord but actually tames animal npcs from a zone and makes a pet of them. Tamer uses no magery and all skills devoted to support of pet for hunting etc. Pets can be resurrected (like players) suffer xp loss, can be equipped, etc

Fey of course!

Can we shelf this for about 3 years from now, or some time after we can get fully functional expansions released on a yearly basis?

Class balance is already bad adding new classes would just make it worse. This is of course ignoring that the class/race limit isn't 32 bit related.

It's not my understanding that the class limiations are due to 32-bit architecture, but rather a design decision regarding the data storage for class.

They should wait until they have upgraded the 3d engine to handle new high-tech character models.


And then introduce Shadowed Men as a playable race...

Racial ability: SoS?

Or just skip it totally. If they make a new race with super powers, then they would need to make it so the old ones also get super powers. + they would need to make starting areas from them and newbi quests ++++ loads of work. So better to get the ones that exist sorted. Upgrade gfx and make huger expansions ++++

And this one. Please tell me the definition of overpowered....

Instead of adding new classes/races:

• Delete the Drakkin race
• Delete the Berserkers/Cleric/Wizard classes
• Compensate players of those classes with a choice of rog/mnk for berserkers, a sk/cle/war for pals and a mage/enc/nec for wizards
• Add iksar berserkers and gnome beastlords

To be honest this sounds similar to how beastlords used to be where they summoned a low level pet and increased its levels with buffs. They could even charm animals and buff them up with the same buffs and if I remember right people would do that to low level mobs in newbie zones which could cause problems for low level players.

We have 16 classes and 16 races. 16 is 4 bit computing, not 32 bit.

As far as I can see from an internet search, there are no direct 4 bit integers in C++, which is what I assume EQ is written in. Although, some people claim it is possible to use an 8 bit one to hold two 4 bit values.

As you mention, the issue could be data storage.

In any case, there is the issue of creating a new race or class is a huge undertaking. Class balance and the fact that the current 16 classes cover most playing styles, as well as many other issues mean that another class it not trivial.

Also not trivial would be a new race, but I assume it would be easier. Still, it means creating a new starting city, artwork (race and animations, although if an existing NPC race is used there would be fewer, but still some), quests, and items. Especially involving is that except for items that are open to all races, every race restricted item needs to be adjusted.

Really a huge amount of work. Still, if we are dreaming, I think a racoon race would be cool. Since pandas have already been taken by WoW. The racoon race would have great rogues.

Only if they get clockwork warders.

Likely any new races would be put in crescent reach but there is still a lot of work to make sure they can use all the items that already exist in the game.

As little as I understand about coding I know that the 64 bit potential does not change the 16 class & 16 race limit, those are hard-coded in at a pretty fundemental level, and you have to think of just how many things depend upon the class & race registers to work properly, AA, Gear, epic quests, factions....the list goes on.

The cost of the work involved to change those limits in coder hours & the potential for it to cause massive problems and bugs that could take years to fix (and these changes may even have the potential to stop parts of the game, or even the whole game from functioning) is a big reason to not make them.

How would players cope if say no loot was able to be worn by any class on any server because changing the class register broke all loot items being able to recognise what class a player is?
How much would the next expansion be impacted by the fix requiring having to put in tons of extra hours fixing that bug because every piece of loot had to be reclassified by hand one piece at a time?

I'm not sure that it would be worth it at all.

More combinations of race/class I could see being feasible though.

I don't have the matrix anymore, but if you look at an items info site with an advanced search you can see evidence of this; classes that are allowed to equip an item are stored as a single number that gets indexed, rather than a 1,0 field for each class. So maybe classes=32 means druids, but class=30 is PAL/RNG/SHD.

You can have 8 bit, 16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit , 128 bit values in a "32 bit" progam.

The major advantage to moving to 64 bit really has to do with how much total system memory they allocate/use before having to result to a paging system.

I personally would rather see them devote the resources needed to create a new race/class combo to making content for all of use to explore, and/or addressing the lag problems, total number of debuf slots, etc.

Spellsword aka War Wizard
(In remembrance to the game WarWizard from Brad McQuaid and Steve Clover)



Wizard/Warrior hybrid with medium armor. Balanced between DPS and tanking, spell casting and melee damage. The most balanced class in all aspects.

Races

• Dark Elf
• Drakkin
• Froglok
• Gnome
• Human

Combat

• Defense ++/++++: A fighter wizard that can equip leather AND chain armor. No cloth armor and robes. Does tank like a ranger but cannot equip a shield as it does need the primary hand for the sword and the other one for spell casting.
• Melee DPS ++/++++: 1HS and 1HP only, no dual wield, double attack, maybe also tripple attack
• Range DPS ++/++++ : Throwing weapons. Much better than a wizard but not as good as a rogue.
• Spell DPS ++/++++: Better than ranger nukes but not as good as wizard nukes. 50% wizard power.

Abilities and Spells:

Basically a mix of warrior and wizard spells/abilities.
Just a few as example that should be integrated:

• Kick and taunt combat abilities
• Dodge, parry, riposte
• Stun spells
• Snare spells
• Root spells
• Gate, Portal and Translocate spells (limited to one location per expansion and continent whatever is higher)
• Evacuate spells
• DD and AoE DD spells
• Shielding AC HP buff
• Shieldskin rune buff
• O'Keils Radiation DS/fire resist buff
• Elemental Shield buff
• Invisibility and See Invisibility buffs
• Levitate buff

We don't need new classes. We need to reverse the homogenization of the ones we already have, and then ACTUALLY balance them.

But actual class balance is as far-fetched an idea as introducing a new class. Neither will ever happen.

A 64-bit game client is revolutionary to a game like EverQuest, but it doesn't reduce the amount of artist/coder/developer/QA work that goes into changing the content of EverQuest.

A new race is just a new skin over an avatar skeleton, we already have hundreds of variations thanks to hero's forge and illusions. Only thing needed would be some updated animations.

As for the file system, I think that may be a moot argument seeing they got rid of flat files for storing character data years ago and now keep it all on a modern data base.