A certain Laerwyn Dahrchet was lucky enough to be present at a social gathering held by Verant at a local Milwaukee bar last night and had this to report...
Last night Verant held a social at a local Milwaukee bar,
Bucky Bradleys. Yes, there was free food and drinks,
however, there was also easy access to three of the four
persons I most wanted to ask questions of. The only one
missing was Mr. Zatkin.
From 7pm to 10:30pm we deluged Verant bigwigs with
questions concerning EQ. To our astonishment and
pleasant surprise we were given direct, concise answers
to all questions. These guys even did it with a twinkle in
their eyes. Personally I was very impresses with how
they handled themselves. There were approximately 100
to 125 players there all wanting to bend Verant's ear. I
think no one was disappointed.
Of course there was a machine gun type atmosphere of
questioning. Here is what I found out.
* Camping is a major priority with Verant at this time.
Smedley's thought is the world is overcrowded. He leans
towards making similar items available in other areas. An
example of this would be Jboots (call them Tboots for
travelers boots) and put them somewhere other than
Najena. Much is in the works here.
* When told that we maxed our characters in under 30
days /played time Smedley suddenly was Very
interested in us and queried us on how. He called us the
Milwaukee guard killers and said to pay attention to them
after the next patch. (and started dialing his cellphone :-()
* Plane of Fear (PoF). Why is the God CT was such a
wimp. Smedley told us to drink to our characters tonight
because in a week, upon entering the PoF they would not
be around. * Smedley said the 16hour respawn time was
due to the economics of high level items in the game. (He
thinks the PoF is WAY too easy) * Smedley said the
penalty levels (divisible by 5 levels) was an uncontrollable
error and was unavoidable.
* Smedley said that the Shaman was one of the most
difficult classes to balance. He also stated that they were
going to get an entertaining revamp to their much nerfed
disease spells.
* Smedley said the tracking screen probably will never
get a scrollbar and yes, Druids only get track to 20%
skill.
* McQuaid said that outdoor shrink was not going to be
implemented because he thinks shrunken PCs outdoors
look terrible.
* McQuaid said that personal gate was probably going to
be removed as a way out of the PoF.
* McQuaid hinted at there not being ANY way out of the
PoF in the future other than a Zone line he himself places
in there.
* McQuaid said he is considering putting a 200 to 400HP
damage effect just from zoning into the PoF.
* McQuaid smiled mischievously when we asked if the
portal out was in the Temple in PoF. He said the Hate
plane opening is not yet on the schedule.
* McQuaid is disappointed at how the ranger turned out.
He wanted him to be the master of Dual Wield.
* McQuaid said there wouldn't be an Improved Spirit of
the Wolf. He thinks the world is too small already.
* McQuaid said they forgot to place the shield icon on the
Barbarian class (WHOOPS) and that it is a 10meg library
file that controls that so no fix soon.
* McQuaid said he wanted warriors to be jazzed up just a
bit more. Perhaps weapon specialization....
* McQuaid said there is a marked difference in
experience required according to class and race. He also
said that they would not give out formulas and to question
what the rumor mill says about this. Obviously, there is a
huge spreadsheet somewhere detailing class experience
charts and penalties.
* Butler said there is no correlation between Charisma
and one's saves. Your charisma is related to how well
you interact/affect creatures. He also mentioned that
Bard's singing skill has a check against charisma.
* Bulter gave me a 20 minute history of the Guide
program. He explained what Verant's position and
policies on exploiting were and that there have been quite
a high number of banned players. The golden rule here is
that if you are decreasing another player's enjoyment of
the game you are going to be in trouble. If you do same
to multiple players you will be starting over.
As you can see there is a ton of information here.
Unfortunately a bar atmosphere is not the most
conducive for question/answer. However, I think we did
fairly well. Thank you Verant!
Laerwyn Dahrchet
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