EverQuest: Empires of Kunark-- expansion for EverQuestFollow

New expansion announced! We have about a month probably until beta opens up. We need that item collector fixed ZAM!

<-- This is me "liking" Sippin's post!

Kunark was current when I started EQ, back in 2000. I am really excited about this. I hope they don't ***** it up.

Oh, it's also the second expansion that I will be starting at max level when it comes out. The other was PoP. Which I got layed off two weeks before it came out, and pretty much missed :( So I >really< hope they don't ***** this one up. I want it to be fun :)

Tat

Will there be levels?

Hmmm... Not a lot of information, but this could be really cool. I always liked Kunark in terms of game lore (and honestly, some of the best dungeon designs in EQ are in Kunark). Assuming they keep to their tick/tock methodology, this should be a level increasing expansion. And, of course, the 64 million dollar question is whether we'll get Sarnaks as playable races. Cause that would be really really awesome!

I can accept the small-size expacs if they are solidly done. Touching Kunark is a great idea, but also brings a huge burden of expectations. I hope they succeed.

I also strongly suggest they STAY in Kunark for at least 1 more expac if this one is only going to do 1/5 of Kunark content. They could even do a patch or two that adds more content along the way.

I am saddened by the lack of willingness to do even a minimal new coding new race. Sarnaks or Goblins could be made with no armor models (as part of the race) and just use the existing looks for appearance variety. They could start in a little refugee hut outside of Crescent Reach, with one new NPC that explains why they are there. Is this ideal? No... but it gives all trainers, and a levelling path with no new coding. Would I prefer a "hard start" where you begin in Misty Thicket or Field of Bone? Absolutely. Even just put a racial teleport NPC that sends them to PoK.

Oh. And since I missed this. Are they upgrading existing Kunark zones (which, if some of their past upgrades are any indication may not be so great), just adding new zones to the continent, or adding some new "alternate time/dimension/whatever" versions of Kunark zones (like HoT and RoF did). I can see pluses and minuses to all three methods, but honestly I'd most like that they add new stuff and not change too much of the existing stuff.

As to the "new content for less than maxed characters", I do get that to a point. But I also get that there's already a pretty massive amount of zones and content for people to level up in. I can see the dev need to focus most on the highest 5-10 levels in any new content. Especially when it's a level increasing expansion. When you've got 5 continents worth of content to take you to level 60, and 3-4 expansions worth of content to take you from 60-80, and 2-3 expansions worth of content that will cover every 5 level range from there to 105, but zero content (yet) that'll take you from 105-110, you kinda can't blame them for focusing on that 5 level range at the end. Doubly so when probably 90% of the current regular player base has at least one main in that maxed range.

I wouldn't mind them putting in more stuff for the 85-105 range though, to help that process (and clean up some gaps for some classes that can make things difficult), but I wouldn't expect that in this expansion. I've honestly never had a problem with any class I've played up to that point in the game (and, of course, there's always HCs if you just don't want to do it). It's the range after that where I've occasionally leveled up a character and then struggled to find a new hunting ground to go to. I can usually find something, but it's tricky. HAs are a decent alternative, but that does get boring pretty quick.

I think Fronglo's point is that, if there isn't anything for lower levels, there's no reason to buy the xpac. I've been there, as a perpetually behind the curve player, until recently. In the past, however, they always managed to throw enough new features into the mix, that I would buy the xpac (x3) anyway. However, TBM was REALLY thin on features (were there ANY?), so if it wasn't that I was getting close to max, I wouldn't have bought it (and as it is, I didn't get to any of the zones til last month anyway, LOL).

We all understand that there are places to level if you have a lower level main. But there has to be something to attract those who aren't max level, or don't like to play in the latest content (to make things easier). It doesn't have to be content (I think we all agree, the content HAS to be focused on the higher levels), but there has to be something to attract the other players. TBM failed that, big time.

Looking back:
TBM had the illusion keyring and level scaling raids. yeah, LOL
TDS had the mount keyring. Wow (/sarc)
CotF had HAs. Now that's turned out to be very popular, so score a win there. On top of that merc AAs and gear, and more shared bank slots.
RoF had aggro meter, collections, offline trader/buyer, hunter system. Some nice features there.
VoA had improved hotbars, parcel & coin delivery, new guild halls, guild trophies
HoT had player housing and trophies. A little thin, but if you're into housing, it's huge.
UF had achievements. Don't remember what else.
SoD had mercs, a fairly huge addition.
SoF had heroic stats.

As you can see, most of the recent xpacs had some nice new features. Except for the last two. So if that continues, I understand Fronglo's point. No reason for some to buy the xpac, unless you add some new features to make it desirable,

Tat

Ah. I get what you're saying Tat. So even if the content level wise is for 106-110, if they add in new features to the game that apply to everyone, it'll make more people want to buy it. So things like more shared slots, bigger bank bags (seriously hate the idea of spending big bucks on big bags just to have more bank space, or buying housing just to store stuff). Hah. One of the thoughts I saw posted on the EQ boards was the idea of being able to click and drag buff icons around inside your buff box. Which seems like a trivial/silly thing, but I'd actually love it. I'm also one of those who will click off spells and recast them in a set order to as to arrange my buffs (which, of course, gets all screwed up when you die and folks just spam you with buffs). For folks with shortish term buffs that they have to recast regularly, being able to glance at the spot where the buff is to see if it's up or not is helpful. Having to figure out where it is this time is not. Something like that would honestly justify the cost for me right there (silly as it is).

Oh. As to TBM? I honestly bought it primarily for the AA benefits. The extension of the repel ability alone was worth the price. It's a combat ability that reduces the damage on the next 2 (or three if you have rk III) hits by 90% (so yes, you take 10% of the damage each hit would have done). TBM introduced an line of AAs that increase the number of hits it'll block by up to 3 (so 5 or 6 hits depending on the base level you have). With a recast time of 15 seconds, that make a *huge* difference. And for a paladin using chain stunning tactics, timing the use of the ability for the gaps between the chains makes for absurd single target damage mitigation. If I'm just single pulling and killing mobs in an HA or Chapterhouse, between this ability and various heal procs (some proc on hits, some proc on stuns), it's not uncommon for me to chain pull until I run out of endurance and realize I haven't cast a single heal spell the whole time. There were a few other nice AAs in there too, but that was the most important "must have" ability for me.

Oh. And I also bought it for the clicky port item. When you don't have gate these things are like gold.

Yes, you got my point :)

I just wanted to mention, you don't have to spend big bucks on bank bags. There are two ways of making the tailored bags, and the one way is WAY cheaper. The bags weigh something like 800 pounds, so you can't use them anywhere but in a bank, but they're less expensive that way. For housing, I've bought all 12 of my houses with Loyalty points, which I don't really spend on anything else, anyway, so that's worked out nice.




I would buy an xpac just for this, as well :)



Yeah, but you had to be high level to get those AAs, correct? I'm mainly referring to things that helps lower levels, as well.



hehe, spoiled druid here, so I've never even /claimed the port items that they give out :)

Tat

What if they added sortable tabs to a bagless guild bank interface? These tabs could be user assignable (so they give you 10 tabs and if you want 1 of them to be augments you assign that... from say a list of 20 options). It could even have a hybrid aspect of 8 bag slots you can force items to be stored in. They would still show up in your tab searches, but would have a note (bagged) beside them. So they would work like luggage that is prepacked to pick up and go.

What I do is just gather mats for a while (just stuff I loot while hunting). When I feel I have enough to make it through a run to get me to 300, I use a Draft of the Craftsman on an alt, and make all the bags, without losing any mats, and get an alt to 300 tailoring. The two caveats here, I don't have mats JUST for 20 slotters, but also 14 and 16 slotters. Further, on-character and in-bank storage is not an issue for me at all, so there's no hurry for me to get more of these quickly.



OK, here's a quick run-down of my approach. First I'll note that all my houses are owned by my three mains that I box, and my three Bazaar merchants. All have a hotkey for /outputfile, and I just use the Cygwin app (UNIX like window with some nice functionality for the Windows PC) with a window open to my inventoryfile directory. A quick "grep" quickly finds where the mats are. And I have all 12 houses right in the same area, so that helps.

Also, on a more useful side-note, I saw you say this above: "This sounds useful but I'd hate to have to keep zoning into different houses to dump my recently acquired mats". Yeah, I wouldn't have this setup if I had to zone in to the house to access mats. The good news is, you don't. You walk up to the house, but still in the neighborhood zone, and right click, and select "manage items" or something like that. It brings up the UI for accessing the items. So no zoning required. I actually zone into a house to place a trophy, or something like that, and many of the houses I have, I have never zoned into.

So, first, my philosophy. After housing came out, I saw a way to NEVER have to swap alts to access any mats I might need (or any other item). So I store NOTHING that might be needed by another char in any of my chars' banks or inventory. Everything is in a house or the guild bank. I have all my chars in my own guild, and set the houses to allow guild senior officers (i.e. all of my chars) full access. Banks only hold quest items, gear, NO DROP items, etc for that char. So, except for my three mains, a bank and inventory full of deluxe tool boxes works fine. Every chars also gets 1 Dream Weave Satchel (16 slot /claim), and if that char actually gets played to hunt/kill, they get 1-3 Extraplanar Satchels.

So, when I play (usually the three mains), the one char loots everything, and has three extraplanar satchels. Depending on what I'm doing, I can go several days to a week before I unload. Almost everything goes to the guild bank, because it's all stackable, and the GB stacks it for me. When a stack fills up, I take in to the houses to store. For more unusual items, that either don't stack, or are less common (lower level TS mats, because I don't hunt in lower level zones that often), I dump all of those to TS only bags in my bank, just to park for a bit. Once those fill up, I take those, and whatever full stacks I've made from the GB, and take it to the houses. I don't have a super strict way of organizing the mats, and certainly not by TS, but I follow an informal way of organizing them, and with being able to quickly search (grep) for what I want, it works pretty well, and doesn't take a lot of my time in overhead.

One lesser known advantage of using housing to store stuff is, you can keep NO RENT items there, and they don't poof. So, if you have a mage, you can make a bunch of gear and weapons, and put it in a house. Then if you have other pet classes who need pet gear, you just go and grab it :)

Tat

24 bag slots in the bank, plus 4 shared slots, so 280 slots total with Deluxe Tool Boxes. And, yes, at 1pp each, they are essentially free. The only bad part used to be when you couldn't put an empty container in another container. So multiple runs of 10 tool boxes between the tinkering vendor and the big bank in PoK. Now you can just grab everything in one trip :)

Housing's not that inconvenient. I put my secondary anchor at one of my houses (anchors are a loyalty item), so one click and I'm there. My primary anchor is at the guild hall, so that's also one click away, even if you're not a druid or wizzy. And the GH has a banker, so that's right there as well. Also, a banker in Sunrise Hills, and if your house is near the intra-neighborhood teleport pads, that's a pretty quick trip. And if you're a long-time vet, you can use the AA to call up a banker wherever you happen to be.

For upkeep, I've been using old currency that I'll never use (Chronobines). That's worked for the last three years (started with over 15,000 total), and there's about two more year's worth left. Once that runs out, you can get the currency in bags of 100 for ~14 loyalty points. Twelve houses plus a GH makes 13 "coins" a day, so 14 loyalty pays for ~8 days. And you get 120 loyalty a week (and possibly on more than one account), so upkeep is essentially free.

Tat