LoN Item: Rune of Portals

Why does this item have charges? Every loot item I have received so far is forever, but this one. The mug is far more useful and infinate, so why not the rune?
The effect is not unique as Tinkerer's already get it and it makes travel easier for all. Please consider making this like the mug so we can all tie it to Kunzar Jungle and avoid 15min of travel for people every time somebody wants to do an instance.

First, this item is reasonably rare for LoN players, let alone all EQ2 players. Second, without charges it becomes a huge advantage for the less than 1% of players that would have it. Despite the 5 charges, this item is quite steep as far as the price it commands in trades. For those that don't know what this is, it let's a player cast a druid ring portal to any ring to which the player has attuned.

The item is only rare, and expensive because it is new. I only paid what I paid because I had no idea it was charged. I consider that a weakness in the trade process as much as my own fault for not reading up more before picking it up.
My suggestion is to be more like the mug. Let me attune it to one ring and remove the charges. Regardless if you did that or not, 90% of the usage would be to KJ just like 98% of mug usage is to TG. The items are already in game and it's just a pain in the bottom for druids as it is. Why not?

I was stoked about the Rune of Portals because I thought it would be what I have been asking for forever now, a way to open the druid rings you have harvested without having to be a druid. BUT no....

I found out, luckily before I traded for it that the card is attuned to a single ring and is a 5/5 charge item. No way I was going to do that. The stein is one of my fav items in the game. It has become a fun thing to try and find all the bars it can be linked to in game. I agree though - for the time it has become my defacto mode of transport to TG.

I still use a warden alt on another account as a travel agent though for portaling to wherever.

Wish we could just get a silly teleport shard and quest for each location we wanted to open. If we have been there enough to finish a quest for it, we probably dont want to run there again for immersion, we want to get to the content. Time sinks <> Fun or Challenge.

AFAIK, this is the loot card with the least amount of value attatched to it.
Even an xp potion trades for at least a couple of booster packs, whereas the Rune of Portals is up on posted trades for a single booster pack, and is sitting.
Even the paintings, which have 0 effect on gameplay, trade for more then the Rune of Portals is.

It really wouldn't be an unfair advantage to make this more useful considering how many ways there are to port already. No more unfair then tinkering or mugging, as Diotrum said. I'd be in favor of this change.

Choatley@Mistmoore wrote:

This comment coming from a warden that has nothing to gain or lose by other having the ability to open a druid ring portal. /boggle (players just get it ya know)

Its travel (which is the largest PITA in the game IMO). There is no unfair advantage.

Why is it that only druids can open portals in the first place? Are others just too stupid to learn to do it? Couldnt the Celestial Watch teach their allies how to use those devices? Why wouldnt they?? Wouldnt it be in the best interest of the Celestial Watch for their allies to be able to move throughout the world quickly? Shouldnt there be a questline that opens once you have max ally faction with the city priest guild to learn to use those things?

Couldnt the Concordium teach their allies to use the spires teleports?

Couldnt the Qeynos Guard teach their allies to better train their mounts and run them better so they would be faster?

Couldnt the Tunarian Alliance teach their allies to be stealthy?

Oh, the logic that escapes me sometimes.

Nitz@Permafrost wrote:

Wouldn't changing this item to have unlimited charges make it "must have" for high end players and raiders? I'd really hate to see that from any item that is essentially bought with real world money. Spend 5 minutes on the trading screen in LoN and you'll see that it's a not a true card-trading game. Booster packs, bought with real money, are the true currency there. Like Exchange servers, it's a way for Sony to get you to buy in-game items with real money.

<rant>This kind of thing is **DANGEROUS** to our continued existence!! Free and easy travel to the far points of Norrath smacks of the Plane of Knowledge and its books to almost every zone.
After that, Norrathians got all Cosmopolitan and started questioning the 'Natural Order' - killing the gods - breaking Time - all that nonsense. And then what happened?? A huge war that ended up with Luclin being cracked and thrown down on our heads. We're all lucky to be alive!! </rant>
That being said - yeah, a loot card that poofs with nothing left behind is pretty lame. Even the Recipe cards let you create a couple of permanent Steins. Porting in EQ2 never really reached the 'business' stage that it was in EQ, different mechanic and a later introduction I suppose - prolly why there arent posts by the 'porting' classes looking for blood. Last I read tho, the some Dev (Elidroth) posted that they didn't believe that the loot cards should give something useful to the game (EQ or EQ2). He didn't want to 'force' people to play LoN...

Make it a 24 hour recast and its fine.

personally i would like to see more stein of the alesmith recipes dropping in game.

Zannah wrote:

That last part makes me smile considering nearly everyone I know had to log in and buy one pack to enable the ability to trade for a stein.
Simply make the item attunable to a single ring and put a recast on it and it is the same exact item as the stein or tink item.

i happen to agree.
change the item so you have to bind to a druid ring (most will use it to get to the jungle anyway).
put it on a 1 hour recharge timer. and make it unlimited charges.

then this item will be worth something.
atm it is not worth the digital paper it is printed on.

Umm... Loot cards aren't suppose to be valuable >.> Thats why people argued against them in the first place. People thought that said loot cards would ruin the EQ2 game by becoming so valuable that you would HAVE to have them in order to join a raid or something.

loot cards should not break the game. thats why they changed the power regen "bottle of intellect".
and that change was needed.

but how can a port be something that breaks teh game. the stein of recollection was not able to break teh game. and it was never required by any guild. it was something you could use to ease the pain of travelling a little.
i got it still set to lp. the only zone i would like to have a call to now would be either fens or jungle.
so if this item would be changed it would make my day
i still hope they will change the item. i still got one in lon. and will hold on to it.

loot cards should be usefull to the game and be a nice thing to have. but not a must have.

I'm not really an active participant in this discussion, but I've read through it, but I think if it had a 1 hour reuse timer and a 30 second cast time it would be fine.

Choombatta wrote:

No it isn't. The Jester's Cap is MUCH more useless. It has got the same firework effect as the 3 month veteran reward and its on a 3min recast AND has to be equipped. The free for all veterans reward has no recast and does not have to be equipped. Thus the Jester's Cap is just wasted inventory space ...

Still the Rune of Portals really should have unlimited charges to be useful. You loose a card in the booster, so you should at least get something worth this card. One ring and 24 hour recast would be fine. Even 48 hours would be useful, but 5 charges are just annoying.

could we perhaps get a dev respong on this issue ?

the changes that some of us posted would not overpower this item.

- bind to a druid ring
- one hour recast
- direct port or portal only visible to caster
- unlimmited charges

pls think about changing this item at least.

As someone who plays 2 wardens, a fury, and a warlock (all of whom can portal), I would not be opposed to removing the charges from this and making it unlimited... with restrictions. I udnerstand that the point is not to make it feel like LON is necessary to play the game. That was a lot of players' biggest fears when LON was introduced, and to be perfectly honest, I don't play LON. I want nothing to do with it.
However, I see no harm in making this card bind to one ring and giving it a 12 or 24 hour recast with unlimited charges. If anything, it would save my girls from the endless, "Could you give me a port to <name destination of your choice>?"

Belaythien wrote:

I did not say the Rune was useless, I said it was the least valuable loot card.
Even the Jester's Cap trades for 3 or 4 boosters, while the Rune, posted up for only 1 booster pack, is sitting on posted trades.

They already have enhanced travel means available via LoN as mounts.
This isn't that big of a step beyond that.
Stein of the Alesmith is a good comparison with unlimited charges and 1 hour recast.

Also would like to see the rune of portals made worth having.
1 hour recast seems very fair.