EverQuest Producer’s Letter April 2023

Time to banish the shadows.

Greetings, Norrathians! As we're already heading into April, there are still so many exciting things on the horizon that we can't wait to reveal. (Expect us to drop a hint or two along the way, of course. We usually can't completely contain our excitement.) Before that though, in keeping with our 2023 Roadmap, let's rattle off some of the things we've already accomplished. We’ve unlocked all of the Night of Shadows raids (which has been going very well so far with the new content being tackled by many and several new raids unlocking), added new content to the Erollisi Day event, "ship'ed" completely new content for Brew Day, and, of course, celebrated our 24th Anniversary. If you haven't gotten all your party gifts from the anniversary celebration, be sure to login before April 20, 2023, 11:00 p.m. PDT. <Jchan launches fireworks into the air.>

As we enthusiastically embrace springtime and move forward toward the summer months, we have so much planned that will both improve the game and entice all of you. Let’s look at what we’ve accomplished so far here in 2023.
Completed:

• January
  • Night of Shadows Tier 1 Raids Unlocked
• February
  • New Content for Erollisi Day
  • Night of Shadows Tier 2 Raids Unlocked
• March
  • Night of Shadows Tier 3 Raids Unlocked
  • New Content for Brew Day
  • EverQuest's 24th Anniversary Celebration - New quests and a mission.
  • Bristlebane Day Returned
  • Stomples Day Returned

And now I get to share with you what’s happening in the coming weeks and months. First, the new UI Engine is almost here. In the beginning, it's going to launch with the engine running with a few windows already ported. This will allow us to make sure the base of the engine works and is hooked up with everything it should be. Once that is stable, we'll continue porting the remaining windows until every part of the original engine has been ported. That porting process is expected to take a while. Second, Tempest Festival will receive new content. June will see the return of Pride Month familiars with a new set of friends.

Upcoming later this year:

• April
  • New UI Engine Initial Launch - Full engine launch with some of the windows ported to the new engine.
• May
  • New Content for Tempest Festival
  • New Evolving Ruleset Progression Server - Oakwynd
• June
  • New Pride Month Familiars
• Throughout the Year
  • Porting More Windows to the New UI Engine
  • Zone Performance Improvements

And now, what many of you have been waiting for, our brand-new Progression Server named Oakwynd will launch on May 24, 2023, at 12:00 p.m. PDT.* as an Evolving Ruleset Progression Server.

"What does that mean?" you ask. As mentioned in passing before, this will be a truly experimental year. It starts out at launch with something we call Legacy characters and encounter locking. Then at each expansion unlock, an additional bonus will be added to the server. Note: the details of these rules are under development and may change before release.

Legacy characters allow your characters on the same account on the server to receive a semi-permanent experience bonus.

• When players reach max level (for the current era) with a character, their account receives an experience bonus for all characters on that server.
• e.g., When a player has 1 max level character, their account receives a 10% bonus EXP buff.
• When a player has 2 max-level characters, the buff stacks. They now get 20% bonus EXP.
  • This bonus caps at a 100% bonus.
  • When the server's level cap increases, players will lose the buff until they get one of their characters to max level again, and the bonus starts again at 10%.

Additionally, this server will be our first attempt at encounter locking. In short, once an NPC is engaged, it will be locked to that character, group, or raid. Characters not part of the lock cannot contribute damage. Spells from outside characters will not land on the NPC. If an actively locked NPC loses aggro for a short time period, the NPC will go home, reset, then unlock.

Now onto the Evolving part. For each expansion unlock, we're planning on adding the following benefits to the server. Each benefit will add to the existing instead of replacing the benefits active on the server (unless it's a higher value of an existing benefit). For example, using the list below, when The Scars of Velious unlocks, Legacy Characters, Encounter Locking, and a 125% modifier to the normal loot rate will already be unlocked and with the unlock a 125% modifier to the normal faction changes will be added. These are currently what we have planned for the unlocks:

• Classic - Legacy Characters and Encounter Locking
• The Ruins of Kunark - Loot Modifier - 125%
• The Scars of Velious - Faction Modifier - 125%
• The Shadows of Luclin - AA EXP Modifier - 125%
• The Planes of Power - Coin Drop Modifier - 150%
• The Legacy of Ykesha - Lowered spawn timers on all NPCs - 85%
• Lost Dungeons of Norrath - Alternate Currency Modifier - 150%
• Gates of Discord - Tribute Donation Modifier - 200%
• Omens of War - Rare Spawn Modifier - 200% - Relax Truebox to 3
• Dragons of Norrath - Faction Modifier - 200%
• Depths of Darkhollow - Evolving Item EXP Modifier - 150%
• Prophecy of Ro – Chance to Increase Skills Modifier (includes Tradeskills) - 200%
• The Serpent's Spine - Loot Modifier - 200%
• The Buried Sea - Alternate Currency Modifier - 200% - Remove Truebox
• Secrets of Faydwer - Faction Modifier - 300%
• Seeds of Destruction - EXP Modifier - 125%
• Underfoot - Tribute Use Reduction - 75%
• House of Thule - AA EXP Modifier - 150%
• Veil of Alaris - Alternate Currency Modifier - 250%
• Rain of Fear - Collection Spawn Time Modifier - 75%
• Call of the Forsaken - Mercenary AA EXP Modifier - 200%
• The Darkened Sea - Lowered spawn timers on all NPCs - 70%
• The Broken Mirror - EXP Modifier - 150%
• Empires of Kunark - Rare Spawn Modifier - 300%
• Ring of Scale - AA EXP Modifier - 175%
• The Burning Lands - Luck Modifier - 125%
• Torment of Velious - Evolving Item EXP Modifier - 200%
• Claws of Veeshan - AA EXP Modifier - 200%
• Terror of Luclin - EXP Modifier - 200%
• Night of Shadows - Rare Spawn Modifier - 400%

Oakwynd will have the "Standard Unlock" schedule as many other progression servers. This is where new expansions unlock automatically every 8-12 weeks with the early expansions unlocking faster.
Unlock Schedule:

• Eight weeks after launch: Ruins of Kunark
• Eight weeks later: Scars of Velious
• Eight weeks later: Shadows of Luclin
• Eight weeks later: Planes of Power and Legacy of Ykesha
• Twelve weeks later: Lost Dungeons of Norrath
• Four weeks later: Gates of Discord
• At this point the schedule becomes consistent. Enjoy expansions for twelve weeks when a new level cap is unlocked, and eight weeks in expansions where the level cap stays the same.

Truebox:

• This server starts with standard Truebox. Only one EverQuest client may be run per computer.
• When Omens of War unlocks, we will move to a Relaxed Truebox. You may have up to 3 clients per computer logged into the server at the same time.
• When The Buried Sea unlocks, Truebox will be removed.

Did you know we're hiring? Have you ever dreamed of building something amazing in Norrath? Darkpaw Games is recruiting! We are a content-creation guild on the San Diego server! We raid Monday through Friday (times vary) and use a DPH (Dollars Per Hour) Loot System. We are currently looking for aspiring Equilibrists (systems designers) and Bards (artists), but all classes are encouraged to apply! If you’re interested in joining, please contact our recruitment officer here. We look forward to meeting you!

We can't close this Producer's Letter without acknowledging our 24th Anniversary. What an absolute thrill to celebrate two dozen years of bringing our EverQuest family entertainment that has sustained so many for so long. Regardless of when you joined us, we sincerely appreciate all of you. Here’s looking forward to our Silver Jubilee! (Fun fact: A 25-year anniversary is also referred to as a quadranscentennial. We probably won’t use that term next year.)

Time to get back to working on the things listed in our Roadmap and the next expansion!

Be the heroes Norrath needs,

Jenn Chan
Head of Studio
*Convert to your local time.

Be sure to follow us on social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Discord.

I look forward to hearing how "encounter" locking works out!

Please provide clarification with bonuses... there's a frequent track record of switching back and forth the meaning of %'s when describing bonuses... ex: 125%, does 125% mean 2.25x or 1.25x the normal rate? are we getting 25% more loot or 125% more loot?

Cool concept!
Questions:

1. Does the exp bonus from having a max level character work on AAs, or regular experience only?
2. Will the exp limits for AA and Regular EXP be removed? (5aa/kill, 10%exp/kill, iirc)
3. Will mobs in the process of 'resetting' attack people - or does this 100% remove the ability to train people?
4. These sound like a lot of extra calculations for the server - is it going to be a lagfest?
5. Can outside characters cast beneficial spells on characters engaged in combat? (aka - can I use a high level priest to ensure a group never dies without risk of ever taking agro)

[NM, I answered my own question - reading is hard]

This may prove interesting. The forums are going to be VERY busy when this launches.

Oh boy, fastest trigger finger and spells to take rares. As a ranger with 0.5s and instant cast spells can't wait to see how that doesn't get abused when other classes have long cast times or time to start melee.

Call of Flame 0.5s in classic. Sure HT is instant but thats once an hour.

Encounter locking is a red flag. Fundamental change to how the game works. Worrisome if plans exist to implement on all servers.

I am interested to see how folks will mess with others to get around the encounter lock. Not looking forward to seeing but interested in seeing.

Conflicting info

• Gates of Discord - Tribute Donation Modifier - 200% - Relax Truebox to 3
• The Serpent's Spine - Loot Modifier - 200% - Remove Truebox

True Box:

• This server starts with standard True Box. Only one EverQuest client may be run per computer.
• When Omens of War unlocks, we will move to a Relaxed True Box. You may have up to 3 clients per computer logged into the server at the same time.
• When The Buried Sea unlocks, True Box will be removed.

Encounter locking sounds like it'd be great for griefers, which sucks, but terrible for AE PLers, which is awesome.

My Mage has long casting times, but..she also can Throw, and has the Dusty Soriz Pouch. But yeah there are a few ways I can see where the greedy will exploit this Encounter Locking.

Now add Free Trade, Random Loot, and Recommended level (remove required level) on loot and you have a server that will not be able to hold all who want to play on it.

how is it terrible for ae plvlers?

TBH, I like the ruleset. I like the compounding bonuses. I think what would really make a big improvement is the addition of Free Trade though.

Edit -- I guess I would also like to see the bonus for max level characters increased too. 20% per max character up to 100% bonus would be a bit better.

Maybe not free trade but heirloom everything no trade so you can share it on your account but not others

This server is very bad on many levels.
1st - The bonus for xp needs to link to accounts not just one account because we box in this game. Leveling multiple characters on one account is silly. You are literally penalized for this.

2nd - FTE is a terrible idea remove it entirely or else people will exploit it in many different ways and I'm sure people will find a way around the negative sides of it and mainly use it to grief.

3rd- The unlocks are WAY to slow. 20 weeks of Planes of Power is completely awful. People will get bored and stop playing your game. Cut these down by a few weeks or maybe even in half.

Personally (as someone who just recently purchased a TLP subscription so that I could get up to speed with the new client and interface before the release of the new server), this server release announcement is really disappointing. I didn't pay for a yearly subscription to be a beta tester. Encounter locking feels like a TLP version of p99, only worse because it's a FTE race on literally every NPC in the game. This will certainly be exploited by every try hard on the server, locking out casual players from any meaningful content. I also was hoping true boxing would be at least limited at server launch.

What's stopping people from running around zones, tagging other people's named before they can engage to secure the kill? And it's not even possible for said group to contest it. I don't see how this rule is supposed to prevent people KSing when there is clearly other ways to still abuse this...

Personal feedback:

1. Scope out the ways encounter locking can be abused. Easier said than done but even things such as a 1-3 second invulnerable debuff on rares/raid targets prevents automation heavily. The old Ragefire days of NPCs being killed before they even had time to render, or were technically 'un-targettable', infinite kiting, etc.

2. Free trade and/or random loot is just fun and I like it.

Sounds like a terrible idea. This is now 2 years without a TLP ruleset that interests me. Well.. See you next year same time.