Because this is the first installment of Upcoming for EverQuest, I'll be reaching back further than the just our last update. Here are a few of the highlights from updates in the recent past.
1) Over the last month or so we have been working on making the EverQuest experience a little more pleasant for our growing number of new players. We understand that EverQuest can be a little overwhelming for someone new to the genre. We feel that once a player has the chance to learn how the basics work they'll discover a wealth of excitement in the world of Norrath. Recently we have:
a. Reduced the time it takes low level characters to memorize spells.
b. Improved the availability of low level monsters in starting areas.
c. Added food and bag merchants in starting areas to reduce the hassle of finding such merchants deep inside towns.
2) We have introduced a completely new Plane of Hate to the Legends server. The Plane of Hate is an old favorite of many players, and we were careful to retain as much of its old charm as possible. At the same time we created all new geometry for the zone that both looks and plays better. The new Plane of Hate is being released to all servers some time in the near future. You'll also notice that the price for the Fuligan Soulstone of Innoruuk, which is required to enter the plane, has been cut in half.
3) We also recently revamped Acrylia Caverns, Grimling Forest and Hollowshade Moor. These zones offer extensive quests and zone-wide events. If you haven't visited these zones recently, you may want to explore them again.
4) For those of you playing Magicians, we recently improved the power of The Servant of Ro Alternate Advancement ability. The summoned servant is now much higher level and has a more potent attack.
5) Monks were recently given a boost in their defensive abilities. Their ability to mitigate damage was increased to improve their ability to survive dangerous situations.
6) Pathfinding (pathing for short) is the term used to explain how a non-player characters (NPC), including pets, determine how they get where they want to go. We recently introduced the first part of our brand new pathing system. You should already be seeing a noticeable improvement in the way NPCs move about the world.
7) For player vs. player (PvP) combat we adjusted the damage done by missile weapons and spells. With some of the more powerful abilities recently introduced to the game, archery and direct damage spells had become a bit too powerful for player vs. player combat. To correct this, archers moving while shooting now have a reduced chance to hit. Also, damage done using archery is reduced to 66% (which is the standard damage reduction to most PvP damage).
Direct damage spells can now only do up to 75% of the target's maximum hit points in a single hit in PvP combat. For example, if a player character has 1000 hit points when fully healed, no direct damage spell will do more than 750 damage to him in a single hit. This reduces the chance that player characters will be killed in a single shot, making PvP combat more competitive.
For those that have purchased The Legacy of Ykesha, we added two much requested features to the Guild Management System. There is now a button on the Guild Management window, named "Dump", that creates a text file containing all of the information in your Guild Management window. The file will appear in your EverQuest directory with the name of your guild as the name of the file (with a .txt extension). Our hope is that this makes updating your guild web pages much easier. We also added a Show Offline button to the window. This button determines whether or not you see guildmates that are off line in the window.
Upcoming for May 14th, 2003
Here are some of the items we plan to include in the update for May 14th, 2003.
1) More improvements for new players are in the works. We're opening up the Legacy of Ykesha map system for newbie zones to all EverQuest players. This should be very helpful to new players trying to learn their way around the cities of Norrath. Context tips will become available. These are helpful tips that pop up when a player performs certain actions to help our new players to more easily understand the gameplay and controls for EverQuest.
2) The new Plane of Hate will be available on all servers!
3) Veksar will be introduced on Stormhammer. This ancient city was a hub of the Iksar Empire before it fell. There are plenty of interesting things for daring adventurers to discover there.
4) We've fixed an issue with the Divine Intervention line that caused a character's hit points to get out of sync. This should be a boon to all players that cast or receive that spell.
5) We have increased the power of the Child of Bertoxxulous Necromancer pet. We'll be increasing its offensive power as well as giving it a useful spell ability similar to Banshee Aura.
6) We've remedied the long-standing situation that caused characters to lose all their buffs if they zoned with fewer hit points remaining than the bonus hit points provided by their items.
7) We have increased the maximum amount of mana that can be gained through the use of items by an additional 50%. This should provide a noticeable increase in the mana available to many spell casters.
We have completed what we hope will be the final adjustments to the Rathe Council encounter. The encounter should be at just the right difficulty level now, and should provide an interesting challenge to those that undertake it.
9) Travel in two zones should be a little easier now. We will be removing the restriction on Call of the Hero that existed in the Plane of Water, as well as removing the restriction that forbid the casting of Gate spells in Veeshan's Peak.
10) Due to player concerns (and to make the zone a bit more fun to play in), we will be removing the ability to summon player characters recently added to some NPCs in the Halls of Honor. We have introduced another mechanism to address the challenge level in that zone.
11) There will be a couple of improvements to Alternate Advancement abilities as well. We will be giving Beastlords access to the Mass Group Buff ability. This is an ability that many Beastlords feel would be very useful to them and make some of their buffing tasks a bit easier. We will also be reducing the reuse timer for the Magician Elemental Form ability from 72 minutes to 15 minutes. This will allow a Magician to keep the Elemental Form up for as long as he wants.
12) We have corrected a problem that was causing some people to be unable to log back into the game quickly if the were disconnected. This has been a complicated problem to correct, and we're glad to have found and fixed it.
Also, as a heads up to players that have created their own user interfaces for EverQuest, these are the interface files that we expect to change next week.
Targetwindow.xml
Playerwindow.xml
Groupwindow.xml
EQUI.xml
Further Down the Line
In the next month or so we will be implementing some changes designed to bring more fun back into the game. Our experience with Planes of Power has taught us a lot about what we did right and what we should avoid in the future. Building an online game like EverQuest offers us the unique opportunity to see how customers react to our ideas and to adjust them if needed. We'll be taking the opportunity to put some of our experience to work to improve the play experience in EverQuest.
1) Partial Zone Revamps.
These consist of improvements in the experience gain, monster density and/or item rewards in some of the older zones. The goal is to improve the playability and reward for adventuring in these zones without completely remaking the contents of the zone. We plan to do several of these, and we'll keep you updated as we move through these. Currently we are working on a partial revamp of Veeshan's Peak.
2) Experience Range Adjustment.
When Planes of Power was released and the level cap was raised from 60 to 65, the range of NPCs that characters in the new levels could kill to gain experience was smaller than it is for characters of lower levels. This was done to encourage characters to fight more challenging enemies and allowed us to increase the experience reward given for that increased challenge. Unfortunately, this has limited the locations available to 61+ level characters for experience gain, as well as making it more difficult for solo players to gain experience.
This is something that we don't like, and it has had a negative affect on the "fun factor" involved in playing in Planes of Power. To correct this, we will be increasing the level range of NPCs that will give 61+ level characters experience. They will have approximately the same range of NPCs available to them as they did at level 60, and should be able to gain experience in some of their old hunting grounds, as well as in Planes of Power zones.
3) Planar Progression.
Planes of Power has provided us with valuable insight into the group and guild dynamics that are involved in large scale games. The way that we had expected guilds to advance through the story of Planes of Power has become a roadblock for some guilds, and some members have fallen behind and found it difficult to catch up. Obviously this was not our intention. We want players to play with their friends and guild mates.
To correct this issue, we will be removing the flag requirements for entry into the following Planes of Power zones:
Bastion of Thunder
Plane of Tactics
Halls of Honor
Plane of Nightmare
Plane of Storms
Plane of Torment
Plane of Valor
Crypt of Decay
This will make the majority of Planes of Power zones available to everyone, and should allow most guilds to travel and adventure together. We understand that those that have already earned the entry flags for these zones have put some effort into that accomplishment. We will be giving a reward to those that have done so, though you'll have to wait to see what that reward is.
4) Items in the Planes of Power
We will be looking at the quality of Planes of Power item rewards and improving them where appropriate. Items for many of the lower tier gods will be upgraded and more rare items and NPCs will be added to the following zones as needed:
Crypt of Decay
Plane of Torment
Halls of Honor
Plane of Tactics
Plane of Innovation
Bastion of Thunder
5) Class Balance
We are going to look at improving the damage capabilities of melee classes, as they've fallen behind their magic-using counterparts at the very high end of the game. Some options being considered are:
Improve melee damage-increasing disciplines
Improve Planes of Power melee weapons
Additionally, we're looking at the concerns from players about their spells, and changing them where appropriate. The goal here is to remove annoying issues with spells, not necessarily to increase caster power overall.
We'll be back on Wednesday the 14th with another Upcoming and with a message from John Smedley, who will have some special news for EverQuest players.
