ROK info from Fan Faire

This was all just said from the EQ2 VN Boards. Alukan is the one who originally posted this so cheers to them for remembering it all. I just copied and pasted.

Without further ado, info from the VN Boards. Once again curtosy of Alukan
* You will reach Kunark by boat. When asked about druid and wizard ports the dev literally said OOPS ... he had forgotten all about that
* Sarnak were discovered by the Spiroc in a deep lab and accidentally woke them up 50 years ago
* Two of the racial abilities of Sarnak are Dragon Breath (they breath fire) and Super Jump ... I guess they can jump far
* Metrics of SOE show that folks hate grouping to gain XP in overland zones so nearly all mobs in overland zones will be solo mobs
* There will not be an increase in AAs .. so if you are already level 100 ... no change. But he did say that you can store two templates of how your AAs are allocated and swap back and forth via an item in your house. So you can have a Raid setup for AAs and a Solo setup for AAs.
* New mounts and titles for increase in guild level ... examples were a Rhino and the glowing dog things in Neriak .
* There will be no new Heritage Quests since all the work needed to make the 24 class Epics. Class Epics quests will be like the Sword of Destiny style. You can get the first version of the Epic via grouping (the Legendary version) and to make it Fabled, you need to do Raid.
* 3 new gods will be brought back ... Bertoxx ... Karana ... The Tribunal. There will be one more god release via a Live Update between now and the expansion release.
* The current gods will raise in level and so will the loot they drop.
* Raid progression is linear ... there will be 3 entry level raids and it will grow from there. All raids will be persistant. As a matter of fact all instances (even group instances) will be persistant.
* Timmorous Deep will be level 1-20 and then all other zones will be level 65 and up.
* The Sarnak starting city is now Evil (not neutral as originally released).
* Mounts will be available that will go faster than any that are currently available.
* Chardok zone will have the bottomless pit.
* There will not be any 3 group raids ... there may be a couple of 2 gorup raids but the devs clearly don't think they bring much to the game.
* There may or may not be contested mobs. The devs don't feel they bring much to the game for the amount of development needed to create them (eg, less than 1% of 1% of players will fight them).
* Veeshans Peak is one of the raid zones ... currently has 11 named with Trakannon leading them.
* Exiles can level past level 70 (not sure what that question was asked for).
* There will be some Raid progression that requires you to have completed Raid Zone A before you can progress to Raid Zone B. Not everyone in raid will need to have completed the first to progress to the second.
* Zones are huge ... the Kylong zone is 3 kilometers by 4 kilometers in size ... that is over twice the size of The Commonlands. That one zone will have Field of Bone, Kurns Tower, Lake of Ill Omen, Swamp of No Hope, Karnors Castle.
* They have a new graphics ability that allows the look of the area you are in to change as you go from one part of a zone to another. So field of bone can be hot bright sun overhead and the swamp can be very dark and dreary.

Oh that is great information. I wonder which God will be coming back in the update before the expansion. Maybe Bristlebane? EDIT: nevermind it IS Bristlebane. :-D

There are so many things wrong with this I don't know where to begin...

Whats wrong with it?
Missed the panels today.

Josgar wrote:

Not wrong as in inaccurate, wrong as in wtf are they doing to this game?

Nayukhuut wrote:

Overall, I like the features that they are adding and I dont really see how it would be messing the game up... Some of the stuff may seem bad... but once you get it you realise that its not all that bad anyways.

No heritage quests.... :thumbdown:

Bottomless pit? that aught to keep me entertained for a good year.

Iad wrote:

So, there are plenty of hertiage quests in the game. I would rather they make the epic class quests enjoyable and diverse than spend time on coming up with more heritage quests. Besides, there is nothing to stop them from putting in a heritage quest for the 70-80 range after the expansion goes live through a live update. They have said that the updates would be bringing in more content. This seems to be true given what they have given us (e.g. Neriak) and what they plan to (e.g. new deity to worship)


I am a bit confused on the comments about the 3 group raids and 2 group raids. I do not raid much but I thought raids were almost exclusively 4 group with a few two group. Is it saying that they are going to try to make the raids 2 group or make them all 4 group.

Nayukhuut wrote:

No contested is something that is troubling for the raiders among us. Granted, only a small share of people are raiders, but they are also some of the most ardent fans of the game, and are the ones that are less likely to just migrate over to the next game. These statements are too vague to pass judgment on, but they do not sound encouraging.

It really makes you wonder what their master plan really is, when you think about the Combat Revamp that has also been mentioned. Where are they trying to take the game? And who do they want playing it?

They gave a great reason why no Contested Mobs: (eg, less than 1% of 1% of players will fight them)

In fact the contested Epic dragon in CL, I only seen once in two+ years. Why have him if he is that rare?

Anyway if you want more updates by Alukan take a look at the original thread from VNBoards here:
http://vnboards.ign.com/eq2_general...03994815/p1/?18

Nayukhuut wrote:

Nayukhuut wrote:

So the jump that Scott did really was their racial ability? YAY!!!

Lets see, I took the liberty of putting all the stuff on the vn forums and compiled them into categories for yall. took a while. enjoy

EDIT: BTW i found these here

Legends of Norrath card game:
* The new game that is being released (Legends of Norrath) is a built in card game that is linked to both EQ and EQ2 (think Magic the Gathering but Norrath lore). You can challenge other players (even across games .. eg EQ guy can challenge an EQ2 friend). Starter packs are free. You can buy more packs OR get them as loot drops (depending how patient you are). As you win, you can accumalate real game items that you can use while in game(Cloak of Water that gives safe fall and water breathing), XP potions, mounts, etc.. So think of it as the modern version of Gems that you can play when bored that can give you real items.

* The new card game will be hitting test any time now with expected formal rollout at the end of August. One point that was made is any items you get in beta test you can keep after beta ends! He must have meant that you can keep it on the Beta Server though he didn't specifically say.
* Cards and entire packs will drop as loot from mobs. Cards will be sellable on the broker. The claim items will not be though.

* Check out http://legendsofnorrath.station.sony.com/ ... I want to win the beer stein that teleports you back to the bar of your home city !!

Gameplay/Mechanics/Engine/Graphics/MUSIC:* You will reach Kunark by boat. When asked about druid and wizard ports the dev literally said OOPS ... he had forgotten all about that
* The new skeletel model system looks nice (we have nostrils now!!) but still far away from release. Does look neat and a lot more realistic.

* Zones are huge ... the Kylong zone is 3 kilometers by 4 kilometers in size ... that is over twice the size of The Commonlands. That one zone will have Field of Bone, Kurns Tower, Lake of Ill Omen, Swamp of No Hope, Karnors Castle.

* They have a new graphics ability that allows the look of the area you are in to change as you go from one part of a zone to another. So field of bone can be hot bright sun overhead and the swamp can be very dark and dreary.

* After Kunark, there will be a new Map system to replace what is in game now. Will come in two modes ... full screen high color mode and a permanant mini map. They are working with EQ2 Maps to coordinate compatibility.

* There will be an all new adaptive music system for combat. It will be dynamically created as you fight and will change as you are winning or losing as well as how long the fight is and how hard it is. So no more mundane looping music. They gave two examples ... one where you win a fight and one where you lose. Sounded very nice!
Lore:* Sarnak were discovered by the Spiroc in a deep lab and accidentally woke them up 50 years ago
ZONES/MOBS:* Two new zones are planned as Live Update Releases ... the Shard of Fear (group based zone) and the Shard of Hate (raid zone)!!
* Metrics of SOE show that folks hate grouping to gain XP in overland zones so nearly all mobs in overland zones will be solo mobs

Quests:* There will be no new Heritage Quests since all the work needed to make the 24 class Epics. Class Epics quests will be like the Sword of Destiny style. You can get the first version of the Epic via grouping (the Legendary version) and to make it Fabled, you need to do Raid.

Spells/RACIAL TRAITS/AA:
* There will be changes to spells that will reduce the number of individual spells classes may have by combining similar functions into one icon; eg, if you have two debuffs they could be removed from game and replaced with a single spell that does both. Intent is to reduce the icon clutter (eg, 5 hotbars etc). Still lots of questions on how concentration slots would be affected and hate gain if multiple debuffs get sent in at once.

* The progression for new spells in Kunark will change such that all spell trees for a class will be upgraded in the 10 levels to 80 (no more waiting for 14 levels). Also upgrades for some of the ancient abilities from DoF will be introduced where appropreiate.

* The topic of player cast power drains came up and how they are worthless now. The dev responded that unfortunately the power drain concept is just one of those things that didn't quite work out the way they had hoped. As people may recall, at the release of EQ2, you could neutralize most named mobs by draining all their power ... thereby trivializing a lot of content. Well in response, mobs now have nearly limitless power pools. So the dev mentioned that as time goes on, any player spells or CAs that have power drains in them would be replaced with something else. No ETA given though.

* Two of the racial abilities of Sarnak are Dragon Breath (they breath fire) and Super Jump ... I guess they can jump far

* There will not be an increase in AAs .. so if you are already level 100 ... no change. But he did say that you can store two templates of how your AAs are allocated and swap back and forth via an item in your house. So you can have a Raid setup for AAs and a Solo setup for AAs.
Items/Armor/Weaps:* There will be 3 sets of armor for all classes as part of the Kunark expansion. One legendary and two types of fabled. The top tier fabled will have abilities embedded in it that is only useful during T8 raids; such as the ability to avoid the crit damage mentioned earlier ... since only raid mobs will crit, will only have a value to raiders. Basically they are trying to make fabled armor more unique and powerful without overpowering base content.

* Mounts will be available that will go faster than any that are currently available.
Guild HALLS/GUILD:* New mounts and titles for increase in guild level ... examples were a Rhino and the glowing dog things in Neriak .
* Guild Halls are now being actively worked on with completion sometime after Kunark ... say first Quarter of 2008

* Guild Halls would be islands placed just offshore from Antonica and the Commonlands. They would be instances so I imagine they will work similar to how apartments work, you click on something and enter your guilds own hall.

* Exile based guilds in PvP server would not have guild hall ... concern is that Exile guilds on PvP already get the best of everything ... no desire to give them even more of everything.

* Guild Halls will be HUGE ... bigger than deathfist citadell huge. Courtyard ... over 40 rooms can be unlocked and purchased. There will be two initial themes of look and feel. One very stately and following the style of Qeynos architechure. The other would be more foreboding gothic look.

* As your guild levels you can get more rooms (I imagine like how you get more bank slots in guild bank) and your guild can choose what that room will function as ... ideas include ... Guild Vault ... Mender ... Brokers ... Crafting Supply Merhcants ... Binding Rooms to call to ... rally points to launch to raids to ... the devs want folks to post ideas for rooms on the forums since they have a ton of rooms to fill

* There is customization to a degree for the halls ... banners ... statues ... your guild crest (from the cloak) on things ... etc.

* Will probably be able to get your first guild hall at guild level 10.
Gods:* 3 new gods will be brought back ... Bertoxx ... Karana ... The Tribunal. There will be one more god release via a Live Update between now and the expansion release.

* The current gods will raise in level and so will the loot they drop.

* The other god that will be appearing between now and the Kunark expansion will be Bristlebane ... devs mentioned something about one of the miracles involved droping anvils on targets head
Raiding/Grouping:* Raid progression is linear ... there will be 3 entry level raids and it will grow from there. All raids will be persistant. As a matter of fact all instances (even group instances) will be persistant.
* There will not be any 3 group raids ... there may be a couple of 2 gorup raids but the devs clearly don't think they bring much to the game.

* Veeshans Peak is one of the raid zones ... currently has 11 named with Trakannon leading them.* There will be some Raid progression that requires you to have completed Raid Zone A before you can progress to Raid Zone B. Not everyone in raid will need to have completed the first to progress to the second.

* Two new zones are planned as Live Update Releases ... the Shard of Fear (group based zone) and the Shard of Hate (raid zone)!!
* There may or may not be contested mobs. The devs don't feel they bring much to the game for the amount of development needed to create them (eg, less than 1% of 1% of players will fight them).
Misc.:* Timmorous Deep will be level 1-20 and then all other zones will be level 65 and up.
* The Sarnak starting city is now Evil (not neutral as originally released).* Chardok zone will have the bottomless pit.
* They will be adding a new functionality to how clothing works. They are going to add a new layer of clothing that will fit over top of your armor so that you can control how you look regardless of how unmatched your armor is. This can be turned on and off.
* One dev commented ... "wouldn't it be cool if the cities were all one zone"!
* Tik Tok language is not in game and was never intended to be. Found that strange but that is what they said.
* Ventrilo or Teamspeak will not likely ever be built into the game ... why waste resourses when folks already have something they really like.
* None of the raid / heroic zones will be scaleable based on raid numbers or level. Takes just as much effort to do that as make all new zones.
* They would like to have a new character slot with expansion but can't promise since character slots are also tied into the Launcher and such which controlled by another division of SOE.
* Characters will not be sitting in chairs. The base code to scale body sizes and chair sizes just isn't there. Not like SWG where it was in there from day one.
* All avatars will be on the same timer like they are now (even if more are added).
* Rare item shinies for collections are not working out the way they wanted. Rares are too rare so probably won't repeat what they did on that with EoF for Kunark.
* If for some reason the Sarnaks are changed back to Neutral city, their class choices will be based off the Evil choices.
* One dev liked the idea of tintable furniture for rooms but tintable armor will never ever make it in game if he has any say
PVP:* The topic of PvP came up and how to keep new folks joining the server from immediately getting slaughtered as they hit level 10 by the overpowered twinked level 14s with a billion AAs. Basically the dev said he was aware of the problem and is trying to think of ways to help such as making it easier to get purchased armor faster at lowest of levels and the AA cap was put in based on a players level. One thing he said they would NOT do was force players to level. Just not going to happen. Basically he said the PvP community needs to step up and protect the new folks.
Launcher:
* There will be a new launcher system that will replace the launchpad allowing you to easily launch any of the SOE games you own. There will also be background patching while you are not playing. So if you havent played for a while, when you log in, everything will be up to date (think of how MS Windows does the auto update thing). There will also be linking of ALL you friends lists (past and present) for all games allowing you to see who is online (even if on another game). You can go invisibile if you don't want to be seen online by your friends.

Dragowulf2 wrote:

Oh please let the SK epic be Greenmist. If I can't have it as an HQ, please as an epic!

No more than 100 AA'S? *sniff* Boo!

Please Please let the map system not be useless like the one in LOTRO for example (or from my play of that game I found it so).. where the minimap is not zoom or adjustable and is too close to be any use, and the full map is not windowable, has no detail, and is too far out to be any use.

wow, the card game seems like a rad idea. I would like to see gameplay of it.

[p]Quote - "There may or may not be contested mobs. The devs don't feel they bring much to the game for the amount of development needed to create them (eg, less than 1% of 1% of players will fight them)."[/p][p]This makes sense to me, if only due to it is true only 100 to 200 people on each server will generally have the time, energy, call lists, etc to do them. (Of course all the hard core raid guilds will have a different opinion on this one, but really no surprise there.[/p][p]If the lack of contested is off set by having to complete Raid Zone A before going to Raid Zone B, then that seems to be a better use of resources.[/p][p]And no, we do not do contested, unless we happen to stumble across them on the way to a raid zone . [/p]

LAME! contesteds are some of the best raid content not to mention add some sort of real competition between guilds. Anyone can kill instanced content.