It would be nice if the in-game EQ2 Beastlord Animal Families could be "reorganized" into more concise catagories that better parallel their real-world equivalents. I understand that naturally some Animal Families in EQ2 are made to be broad catagories (Aquatic, Rodent) while others are designed to be a bit more narrow in their scope (Canine, Feline). I feel that overall the closer the EQ2 Animal Families can be made to mimic their real world counterparts the better the class will be going forward as it will be much easier to integrate new "tameable" animals into those families. Ultimately I would like to see existing Animal Families organized into something like this: (Normal Warders) Amphibian: Frogs, Toads, Salamanders, Newts, Caecilians. Aquatic: Crabs, Lobsters, Sharks, Swordfish, Piranha, Octopus, Squids. Avian: Birds, Hawks, Falcons, Eagles, Parrots, Owls, Vulrich. Bovine: Cows, Bulls, Antelope, Goats, Sheep. Cameline: Dromedary Camels, Bactrian Camels, Llamas, Alpacas, Guanacos, Vicunas. Canine: Dogs, Wolves, Foxes, Jackals, Coyotes. Cervine: Deer, Elk, Moose, Reindeer. Chiropteran: Bats, Stirges. Feline: Cats, Tigers, Lions, Jaguars, Leopards, Cougars, Cheetahs, Lynxes, Ocelots. Hyenine: Brown Hyenas, Spotted Hyenas, Striped Hyenas, Aardwolves. Insect: Ants, Beetles, Bees, Wasps, Centipedes, Spiders, Scorpions, Moths. Pachyderm: Pigs, Boars, Rhinoceros, Brontotherium, Elephants, Mammoths. Reptile: Alligators, Crocodiles, Caimans, Chokidai, Lizards, Snakes, Turtles. Rodent: Mice, Rats, Squirrels, Porcupines, Beavers, Armadillos. Simian: Apes, Great Apes, Monkeys, Marmosets, Gibbons. Ursine: Brown Bears, Black Bears, Grizzly Bears, Cave Bears, Polar Bears, Giant Pandas. (Exotic Warders) Draconic: Drakes, Dragonnes, Faerie Dragons, Psuedodragons, Wyverns. Dire Beast: Dire Bears, Dire Boars, Dire Wolves, Sasquatch, Yeti, Sabertooths, Raptors. Enchanted Beast: Hellhounds, Dreadsnouts, Flying Snakes, Phoenix, Chimera. Mystical Beast: Manticores, Cockatrices, Rust Beasts, Displacer Beasts, Owlbears, Griffons, Sokokars.
It seems that all your proposal would really accomplish is adding Pachyderm and Insect, neither of which are currently available to beastlords, split the Bovid family into 3 separate families, split the canine family into two families, and adopt Latin names for bears and bats. Bovid is already one of the least interesting warder families, so I don't think it would be a good idea to turn it into three separate, even more boring families. Canine has a decent selection of creatures, and I fail to see how splitting it up would make it more fun, nor how the resultant families could be mechanically differentiated. Finally, while Latin is cool and everything, it's generally better to make your gameplay elements more approachable by the layman, so that you don't intimidate the average player. In other words, I can't see how this suggestion makes playing a beastlord any more fun.
I too don't really understand what you're trying to achieve. We already have a lot of categories, and they will likely add insects at some point once they have sorted the animations (they have already mentioned this). A lot of the animals you mention do not exist in game either and it would have no benefit re-classifying everything in this way. Also noting that your aquatic category would not work - piranhas, sharks etc fighting on land?
The_Cheeseman wrote: I was hoping this post wouldnt really warrent further explanation but since you guys basically asked for it... First off you make a fair point with the latin style naming conventions for ease of understanding BUT I would like to point out the fact that the word "Bovid" is a Latin naming convention already... with the full word being "Bovidae" which is the scientific name for real world family of cloven-hoofed animals of which often have unbranching horns. In reality many animal families are named with latin style naming conventions, which is why we currently have Bovid in there in the first place. In that point I agree though, it would make more sense to simply refer to them as "Bovine" in EQ2 which simply means of or pertaining to characteristics of the family of "Bovidae". Most people understand what Canines and Felines are... Bovines would fit in there a little easier for the layman to understand I would think. As for how Bovine and Cervine would be mechanically different? I would see Bovine being more offensive based with Cervine being more defensive based. Pachyderms would also be considered defensive warders (as pigs are now) and include a much wider range of "fun" tameable options then the game currently allows. Canines would still have a broad range of creatures available within it and Hyenas themselves are just too biologically distinct in reality from Canines OR Felines to be considered in either one of those families which is why I suggested the different sub-families of Hyena be allowed in their own warder group. They could be a defensive warder family, opposite to the Canine and Feline which are offensive. Ursine, like Bovine or Feline is just another catagory name that would 'make sense" to the layman. Ursid, or Ursidae is actually the scientific (latin) name for this animal family. Why break precedent when you already are going with Feline (not Felidae), Canine (not Canidae), etc path for family names? Its also worth pointing out that currently Alligators and Turtles are listed under Aquatic and Amphibian respectively. In reality both Alligators and Turtles are REPTILES and deserve to be in their proper family. Insects flat out just deserve to be an animal family in game and Im fairly sure in the next few months this one will be coming to Beastlords anyways. As for "bland" or "boring" animal families, thats really Sony's fault isnt it? How hard would it really be to reskin the Dreadsnout model and make it into a useable Boar or Warthog model for the Pachyderm family? How about reskins of the collectors edition Warboar into a Dire Boar model for the Dire Beast catagory? How about actual Bulls or Oxs for the Bovine family? In alot of these "revised" animal families I also listed additional creatures which currently arent allowed but would make sense, Stirges under Chiropteran (Bats) for example. Snakes under Reptiles. Dreadsnouts, Chimeras under Enchanted Beasts. Griffons, and Sokokars under Mystical Beast, etc etc. In regards to the "Aquatic" family, as I explained in my original post this is obviously meant to be a broad range of creatures, there is ALOT of life that resides in the sea or in water and to break them down into individual families would be asinine. I do believe though that creatures from this Warder family should be those that spend the vast majority of their life in the water, because of this not all of them would be allowed to be used on land. Crabs are one of the few exceptions in the Aquatic family that could be used both above and below water. If you had a "Shark" tamed (or any other aquatic creature not normally allowed on land) you would simply just not be able to summon him while on dry land and you would get a message telling you so if you tried it, but it would still be "fun" to have those options in this family none the less.
You are solving a problem that doesn't exist. The current warder families work for their intended purpose, which is to provide a selection of varied pet choices for beastlords to choose from. Your suggestion would add complexity without increasing entertainment value, which is not good game design. How would your proposed change make playing a beastlord more fun? Keep in mind that the purpose of the warder families is not to taxonomically classify the species of Norrath, but to create a limited selection of mechanically diverse pets for Beastlords to choose from. Adding additional families is not a good thing unless the new families can provide some novel play experience that is not currently offered by the existing families.
The_Cheeseman wrote: So if the Warder family entitled "Felines" included Dogs, Wolves, Jackals, and Coyotes you wouldnt see a problem with that? Because thats essentially how some of the other animal families currently function. Really what is so intrinsically complex to you about correcting a few of the Warder family names and fixing a few animal classifcations that are out of place with the current system anyways? And who says the option of new families wouldnt offer any kind of "novel" play experiance in the first place? Sony is more then likely adding the Insect family soon (and others) as indicated by various Developer posts and yet you are automatically assuming they wont be able to accomplish such a task with those kinds of assertions. Why flat out reject a perfectly reasonable idea out of hand? The changes I have proposed would simply: 1) Fix and refine the current Warder families in a orderly fashion. 2) Add exactly 4 new Warder families, which would offer 4 new learnable abilities. 3) Add many new tameable Warder options and appearances between the original and those new families. 4) Balance out the amount of defensive and offensive Warders available to Beastlords. To Me these ideas are considered "fun" which is why Im offering this feedback in the first place. Im sure there are others out there that would also agree that having the opportunity to master a few more Warder families, gain a few new Warder abilities, and aquire some new unique looking Warder appearances (Snakes, Elephants, Spiders, etc) is a "fun" propostion, and worth the suggestion.
Yeah, I have been preaching the Pachyderm family for a while only because they could keep the pigs and boars in there but add a little bit more variety as well. I don't know how many posts I have put that idea on lol.
I will say I understand what you are trying to accomplish but I do have to disagree really. Camelidae - Ok so two camels that are currently in the game thats it. Not much of a selection. Aquatic - You took the alligators and crocodiles out sooo now they only have Crabs in the category because the others need water. Cervine - I agree this would be very boring. Yay stags. Hyaenidae - Not much of a selection in the game. Insects - They already came out and said they were working on it. Snakes - They came out before and said it was something with the animation that wouldn't work but they are trying to work it out. Again, I see what you were trying to do but in the end you would have less selection. Hyenas should be with the dogs because theres not much of a selection otherwise. Aquatic needs the alligators and crocs or there would just be crabs. Two camels in the game so they shouldn't be in their own category. Deer having their own category would be a very boring idea. I agree to the point of what's not really broken, why try to fix it? Do we need a little more selection in some categories like bears? Yes. But you went in the wrong direction. The only thing I agree with obviously is the Pachyderm because pigs and boars are techinquelly Pachyderms but I have preaching that idea for a while now. Again, not trying to completely bash you because I see where you are coming from, but wrong idea really.
CleeGrahamx2099 wrote: Thats a reasonable assessment, but I still have to point out that alot of these animal families seem bland purely due to the lack of model or skin variety in-game, its not the families themselves. This is the case with the Bats catagory as it is, where only one actual model is currently available with a few reskins- but they still got their own family, Bats are very unique creatures so this makes sense. Alot of the current animal families could have additional life breathed into them by simply offering more reskin options for many of the existing models. Other animals would need new models or slightly tweaked models though (Antelopes, Moose, Llamas, Alpacas, Bulls). Diversity among camel-like, hyena-like, and deer-like creatures would benefit from this kind of treatment alot. Quick reskins of the Hyena for example could create Striped and Spotted varieties (Red of Brown). As another example, the Crab model itself has something like 6 or 7 different skins available to them, giving this one model alone a pretty good level of diversity. The primary reasoning behind having the animal families properly organized now though would be for content going forward, as future content may well fill out some of these families better, so why not get it done right? I could see maybe Sea Lions, Otters, or perhaps Walrus showing up as wildlife in Velious at some point in the future, those animals for example would certainly be considered Aquatic but still be able to function on the land.
Yes I understand what you mean, but the problem I see in what you are saying is that you are trying to manipulate the categories for science's sake, rather than to actually add value to the class. We are all aware that the categories are not completely scientifically accurate, but are also aware that this is a fantasy game (you say otters, I say Othmir) and they have categorised them according to the animations that were ready for release. This has resulted in such situations as the crocs just to even out warder species. E.g. your comment: "I do believe though that creatures from this Warder family should be those that spend the vast majority of their life in the water, because of this not all of them would be allowed to be used on land." There would be no functional purpose of using a warder that can only be used in water. Whilst they will make more species tamable as time goes on, they will be species that already exist in game and just need animation tweaks, as opposed to creating a whole new species just for the sake of taming.
Skyefall@Splitpaw wrote: Obviously this is a game and gameplay should be a priority anyplace where design is concerned Im not debating that, but beyond that point I would have to disagree with you in the idea that any of these additional families wouldnt have a function and would be there purely for the "sake of science" - because thats just not the argument Im making. Anyone who would think that just isnt thinking hard enough. We could have a family that offers a rooting option (we currently have others that offer snares), one that helps with stuns or knockdowns (handy for rear or stealth combos), one that offers attack skill debuffs, another could offer casting skill debuffs, one that offers a group strikethrough buff, and then the "purely" water based Aquatic pets could offer the players party a permanent waterbreathing buff like Priests have while they are active. These are just some quick possibilies off the top of my head. And for shame, comparing an Othmir to a common Otter, thats like comparing a Human to a Chimp. If I were an Othmir I might take offense to that... Supposing for the sake of argument I actually did agree with you in the idea that any additional families wouldnt have any useful place in game (which I cant honestly say that I do)... I do see the reasoning behind why Sony decided to combine some animal families into the others. They combined Cameline and Cervine into Bovine (Bovid), plus they combined Hyenine into Canine, then moved Alligators into Aquatic and Turtles into Amphibian- the only thing this move accomplished in-game was offering some more cosmetic appearances for those animal families anyways, which really has no true "gameplay" impact beyond that when you think about it, had they seperated those families though they would/could have. Even if they didnt add any additional families I would still urge Sony to at least have some naming and creature consistancy for their Warder animal families. The Bear family should be named Ursine, the Bovid family should be named Bovine, the Bat family should be named Chiropteran, and the Boar family should be named Pachyderm (to open up additional variety) this would follow the same naming style as all the other current Warder animal families. I also still think they should move Alligators and Turtles into the Reptile family where they belong, they are currently in Aquatic and Amphibian. They could then offer more taming options (Sharks, Piranha, Octopus, etc) in the Aquatic catagory for truely sea based creatures and offer the waterbreathing group buff to that family for utility. That right there would be your functional purpose for the warders that could only be used "under water".
Again, I do not believe your suggestion actually add anything to the playability of the Beastlord. You are talking about further splitting out the categories which is really unneccessary; 16 families (17 when insects are ready) is plenty of choice for players. Even now, there are a fair number of families that go largely unused aside from achieving their endline. Again, if you look up to your original list, a lot of the species there do not exist in game. You may say "they can at some point" but none of us really know how much more content will be added to EQ2 before EQNext comes out. We've only heard talk of a place housing dragons. Each warder already has endline abilities that add different primal buffs, DD and regens (aside from our own options), and their individual abilities are all different. Some have debuffs, some heals, some purely DD. People have chosen their favourite options depending on what they are looking for from their warders. Your aquatic category still adds no benefit. Breathing underwater is not a necessary part of the game (I have done plenty of quests where you have to gather underwater and swim through tunnels) so again you are talking about the EQ2 team coding new species to be tamable, given new animations, abilities, AA abilities and stats just to limit them to water use (where little to no gameplay takes place) and breathing underwater ability. You're obviously passionate about what you're talking about, but it just doesn't come across as practical or beneficial. Sorry.
Skyefall@Splitpaw wrote: Well its clear that youve taken a stance from the very start that has put you totally against anything Ive suggested so any further discussion beyond this post would seem to be pointless. Furthermore I believe I have made a completely salient point in all my replies thus far offering sound reasoning to support these ideas and you still say "it doesnt add anything to the playability of the beastlord" despite me giving specific examples for where it would. Its obvious Im not going to change your personal opinion on this with a stance like that and youve simply not made a reasonable enough argument for me to suddenly change mine, but I will leave you with this- just because EQNext is coming down the pipe is not a good enough excuse for Sony to suddenly take a lazy developmental stance in which they abandon all future EverQuest 2 content. Thats why I took the time to make this feedback post for the developers of EQ2. I use to play the original EverQuest for example at launch and upto like the nineth expansion and that game is now on its EIGHTEENTH expansion pack, Veil of Alaris released back in November; that was only a couple of months ago. My old raid guild there is still raiding even! Summarily I see no reason for Sony to suddenly drop all support from this game. The EverQuest series has essentially become their flagship MMO franchise, and they are very likely to continue their work on it until the wheels fall off; recent posts from the developers discussing the future of this series have essentially said that themselves. So while its true we dont know "exactly" where the future of EverQuest 2 will take us we do know for certain that development on this game is going to continue and the second half of Velious is what is on the plate for the near future. It is likely to include the Western Wastes, Skyshrine, probably a greater portion of the Wakening Lands, Dragon Necropolis, Temple of Veeshan, and certainly Siren's Grotto which I have to point out was primarily an underwater zone in the original EverQuest...
