Veil of Alaris - Next Expansion Everquest Fan Faire Begins

[dorfillya]

....... They were not the least bit rude or arrogant. They clearly are very very busy and have to prioritize things.....

I can understand they have to prioritize things, but, when they admit there has been a problem this entire expansion with mage (raid) DPS, I don't see why they can't make at least a couple quick fixes to get us back in the ball game. How hard can it be to increase Clash of Many, since it is nearly a raid only spell anyway, increase FBO timer and increase damage done by mage's fire core even more. I would think about a 15 minute tweak by somebody with access to the right spell tables could fix us in a hurry.

[dorfillya]

The "Goldilocks zone" sounds exactly where I think we should be.

And, as they plan the new expansion, I hope somebody realizes they should put more thought into the 4-5 nukes we actually use, instead of making 10 nukes, half of which never get memmed.

[Danille]

Well here are the panels on today's agenda that are EQ related:

2:00-3:00 - Everquest Systems, Systems, Systems II - All about AA's, Spells, Disciplines, and Rewards. (adam bell- <Ngreth, Lead Designer>; alan vancouvering- <Absor, Assistant Lead Designer>; ed hardin- <Aristo, Designer>; doug cromkhite- <Elidroth, Senior Designer>; jason leo- <Chandrok, Associate Designer>; julie berness, <Ellyra, Associate Designer>; steve klug- <Sklug, Lead Programmer>; jenn chan- JChan, Assistant Lead Programmer>; james rochelle, <Senior Artist>; harvey burgess?; and thom terrazas, <Phathom, Producer>.)

3:00-4:00 - Programming, Finding Ways to Do the Impossible - Q&A about future "Quality of Life" fixes and UI requests. (adam bell, <Ngreth, Lead Designer>; steve klug, <Sklug, Lead Programmer>; jenn chan <Assistant Lead Programmer>; chris black, <Dzarn, Associant Designer>; and thom terrazas <Phathom, Producer>

4:00-5:00 - What ELSE is coming for Everquest? (repeat of yesterday's panel)

5:00-6:00 - General Everquest Discussion! (adam bell- <Ngreth, Lead Designer>; alan vancouvering- <Absor, Assistant Lead Designer>; ed hardin- <Aristo, Designer>; doug cromkhite- <Elidroth, Senior Designer>; jason leo- <Chandrok, Associate Designer>; julie berness, <Ellyra, Associate Designer>; steve klug- <Sklug, Lead Programmer>; chris black- <Dzarn, Associate Designer>; and thom terrazas, <Phathom, Producer>.)

8:00 PM - Grand Banquet - Costume Contest

[Voragath]

Thanks for keeping us posted, Danille. I'm also very grateful, as I'm sure many other mages are, that you are asking questions pertaining to our class. Looking forward to more of your posts.

To those wondering why they can't fix things until post lauch: when beta goes live, devs spend ALL their time on beta. If something critical is broken on live or takes a small amount of work to correct, they'll do that. Pretty much they are on a design lock for live while beta is going on. If they do 2 months of beta, that gives them one month of wiggle room between FF and beta but they are working on beta probably as soon as FF finishes even though no players are.

[Piemastaj]

....... They were not the least bit rude or arrogant. They clearly are very very busy and have to prioritize things.....

I can understand they have to prioritize things, but, when they admit there has been a problem this entire expansion with mage (raid) DPS, I don't see why they can't make at least a couple quick fixes to get us back in the ball game. How hard can it be to increase Clash of Many, since it is nearly a raid only spell anyway, increase FBO timer and increase damage done by mage's fire core even more. I would think about a 15 minute tweak by somebody with access to the right spell tables could fix us in a hurry.

Increasing FBO's time wont change a darn thing to burst. It will increase our sustained some only. However, if it were in my hands I would say F HoT. IMHO it would be in our best interest to just accept what we got and work for making VoA one of the best expansions for mages. Will it suck for the next few months? Of course. But I think if we have that mentality it will benefit us in the long-term. Asking the devs to work something that is on the back-burner now (HoT) will only make it so they might limit what we get in VoA because they are spreading themselves too thin trying to do both.

The thing that made me mad is the post by Dani made it sound like they couldn't fix us in time for VoA to launch. Meaning we wont be getting the upgrades necessary from the new expansion. Which is so wrong on like 8 different levels it isn't even remotely funny. I could have totally misread it or Dani could have mis-typed in something. I do hope it is one or the other.

I will say it again, I think we need to let HoT go. If anyone is talking to the devs or whatever I would just focus on next expansion. Because like Vora said we will roughly have 1 more month to get fixes in before beta is starting. Let the beta mages work their magic and take care of biniss /nod.

[Danille]

Saturday's update....

Veil of Alaris beta starts Tuesday August 30th and the new expansion launches the 2nd week of November.

A few additional lore details learned today....the forth magic is pure magic and the four types of magic conflict with each other. dark vs. light and pure vs. nature. The gods of Alaris who had previously died, can be ressurected by their worshipers so all is not lost.

Features:

- A new aggro/taunt management tool is going to be introduced which will allow all players to see where they are at and adjust their DPS accordingly.

- Players will be allowed to hire all three mercs at once. Cleric, Warrior, and Wizzy. Although they will not be able to play more than one at a time. *

Mage specific stuff:

- The answer on lengthing the duration of RS pet was denied, with the answer being that the pet is too powerful for more than two of them to be up at the same time. (they spoke of the third RS pet to be the deal breaker and they will allow it to be up only shortly, before the first one dies) Both Ed and Doug feel very strongly about this.

- You will notice that they put a mechanic into the game that allows mercs to be suspended. When they announced that in one of the forums, I asked Doug if that will make it possible for mages to have additional ranks of suspend minion which would allow us to swap out different types of fully buffed pets. He smiled and said that there was a very good chance that the mechanic may now exist in the game that would allow our long requested pet swap AA. He promised that he would check into it and let me know. (I will follow up with a reminder in my PM to him once I get back home)

- Mage high end raider DPS increase prior to the next expansion - Doug and Ed both said that they would try top make additional spell/aa tweaks prior to launch but there was no commitment that it would get done. They did say that if it didnt happen that they would take it into account when VoA launches so that the DPS gap would not continue post launch. The new version of Spear will have a type three aug for sure.

- We need all mages to /bug the functionality of the pet command buttons to ensure that when a main pet dies and you summon a new one that the toggle options that you had selected for the pet that died, remain selected for the brand new pet that you summon. That is how it is supposed to work, and it is currently bugged.

Depending upon the content of the banquet tonite, and the accessability of the SoE team, if there is an oppoutunity to ask additional questions and provide mage PoV answers to any they may have I will.

[Piemastaj]

Can you please try and clarify if we are going to be getting a substantial boost so that we should be on-par where they expect us to be when VoA launches? In burst I mean. I could be reading what your posting wrong but every post it seems like they are setting us up to be behind when it launches again....

Long beta period gives us a lot of time to pester the devs!

[Danille]

Can you please try and clarify if we are going to be getting a substantial boost so that we should be on-par where they expect us to be when VoA launches? In burst I mean. I could be reading what your posting wrong but every post it seems like they are setting us up to be behind when it launches again....

Long beta period gives us a lot of time to pester the devs!

Doug and Ed both said that they would try to make additional spell/aa tweaks prior to launch (if they have time) when I asked them about our positioning between wizzys and necros, that the high end raiders are experiencing, during HoTraiding events dps. They said that if the tweaks they have planned to make didn't happen prior to VoA Launch that they would take that gap into account when VoA launches so that the DPS gap would not remain post VoA launch. They both said that the new version of Spear will have a type three aug for sure, which will help close the gap.

[dorfillya]

Thanks to those in attendance at FF. Thanks for asking the good questions and not letting our needs get lost in the shuffle.

[Tweelis]

Not really related to the FF but more towards the level cap increase. Does anybody know (or have a chart) that shows when mobs change con color based on the toons level? Granted I'm getting a bit tired of Beza/Zeka but it'd be nice to know how close to 95 I can get on the roof of those zones.

Trash mobs go to 83 and I'd like to figure out what level I'll have to switch zones.