VeeshanVault

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 11:51 am**

Upcoming for July 9th

By now, you've probably heard that we're working on our next expansion, The Lost Dungeons of Norrath. We're attempting some interesting new technology and some awesome new design ideas. Keep your eyes open for website updates about that.

But, this column isn't about expansions, it's about upcoming Live features, and we have plenty of them for you this month.

We've been working on a lot of zone revamps, both partial and more complete. Nine zones were updated this month for Live servers, and Legends will be getting a new revamp as well. That's a lot of zones! We're addressing issues in those zones that players have had concerns about, with the intent to make them a little more interesting and desirable to play in. Check them out; we think you'll like what we've done with the zones.

Oh, and for those of you that celebrate Independence Day, have a safe and explosive 4th!

Several partial zone revamps coming to the Live servers. Droga and Nurga will be moving from Legends to the Live servers with our next update. Along with those zones, we have completed partial revamps of several other zones: The Deep, Charasis (Howling Stones), Dragon Necropolis, Siren's Grotto, The Hole, The City of Mist, and Velketor's Labyrinth. We chose these zones to update based on feedback from players, and have implemented changes that will make these zones more entertaining to play in. If you haven't been to one of these zones in a while, you may want to go back and revisit them after our next update.

Grieg's End changes going to the Legends server. Grieg's End is one of the more interesting zones in EverQuest, but the original design made pursuing the content in this zone a bit complicated. The redesign includes new encounters, items, traps, and events that make the zone a challenge for the experience group, with plenty of events for a raid group. These changes will revitalize this zone and should make it one of the more popular places for characters of the appropriate level to visit.

Tradeskill trivial failures will be reduced. Obviously even a great master can make mistakes. EverQuest players, however, have expressed that they feel master tradeskillers fail on trivial items too frequently. We have reviewed the trivial failure chances and have made a change to the way they work. The greater the skill of the character relative to the skill needed to complete a recipe; the less likely he is to fail on a trivial recipe.

Damage Over Time Spell Foci update. We have implemented a change to focus items for Damage over Time (DoT) spells. Focus items improve aspects of certain spells when they are cast. Originally, DoT spells were included in a group of other spells that some focus items affected. But the nature of DoT spells is very different than other spells, and the affect of these focus items on DoT spells was not what we wanted it to be. To correct this, we have changed the Extended Affliction line to Burning Affliction, which cause DoT spells to do more damage, instead of having a longer duration.

New Imbue, Enchant, and Thicken spells will be introduced. Certain trade skill recipes rely on magic spells used to make normal items into magical items. To make creating these magical items a little more convenient, we will be introducing new Imbue, Enchant, and Thicken spells that create five magical items rather than just one. These spells require five ccomponents and take longer to cast and use more mana, but they should make creating these items much more convenient.

Newbie quests will be added for Erudites, Trolls and Ogres. New characters, especially if played by new players, need some time to get acquainted with the area surrounding their starting city. One of the best ways to get those characters out into the world is to send them on quests. We have been introducing new quests for new characters to each of the starting cities. The next update will include quests for young Trolls beginning in Neriak, Ogres in Oggok and for Erudites starting out in Erudin, completing the updated newbie quests for all races.

Area of Effect spells that do not affect your group in PvP will also not affect your Raid. Taking on large tasks on a PvP server can be complicated by the fact that Area of Effect spells damage your own raid and not just the monsters. It makes sense that since these spells do not affect your group on a PvP server, they should not affect your raid.

We've updated character creation descriptions. Players will now be able to right-click the class, race or statistic buttons during character creation to see a detailed explanation of the item clicked. This will help folks when making decisions about what they want their character to be.

Droga, Nurga revamp: Get your Chardok faction by then if you're working on it! Although it would be nice if they implemented a similar quest for those who aligned with Goblins over Sarnaks.

Partial revamp of The Deep, Charasis (Howling Stones), Dragon Necropolis, Siren's Grotto, The Hole, The City of Mist, and Velketor's Labyrinth:

The Deep? Removing the invisible bridge would be nice. Or make it easier to get down in the pit to go up the path on the other side. Or make it appear to those who have see invis items/abilities. Or not. Watching people fall was one of the best parts of a Deep raid. Maybe spreading the mobs out a bit so if you try single grouping it you can pull 1-2 mobs.

Charasis: Easily one of my favorite zones in the game. I'm almost afraid of what they're going to do. I'm going to guess more port outs other than the two in there now. They could make it less reliant on needing a rogue as well. I don't mind the dungeon crawl aspect it has now but if you've ever tried it without a rogue you'd see how painful it is. Unless you get lucky on wing bosses being up when you get there. I personally can attest to sitting hours getting placeholder after placeholder just to get a damn key to move on. I wonder if they'll fix the GFlux sploit up east stairs. Or have they done that already? I heard something about gflux nerfed. Although you can still get by with SoE if you watch what you're doing. Making the keys not no rent or addable to keyring would be nice.

Dragon Necropolis: Havent spent a lot of time here in the past 2 years or so... Get rid of the traps. Do unmezzable roamer mobs still gate? I remember that being a big complaint back in the day.

Sirens Grotto: Only good revamp would be for them to drain it. My second least favorite zone after Greigs. Perhaps even a tie between the two for most suck. Now that I think about it perhaps a three-way tie by adding in Plane of Water.

The Hole: This zone is fine other than the initial dropoff. There's really no easy way out at that point for non-gaters. Don't just make it a ramp or something though because then you'd have lots of trains to zone.

Velks: I never really liked that zone much so my list of complaints isn't that large. Allow lev. Or else get rid of that splippery crap up top. It's just annoying in the way the Deep's invisible bridge is.

City of Mist: I actually like this zone although it's a bit laggy in places. My complaint being similar to HS where if you don't have a rogue you're SOL. Although in this case it's even worse than HS since you can't camp the castle key. There was a rumor that it dropped from Captain of the Guard (that Ulak or whatever he has) but I tried that and it doesn't work. There are ways to get up there now without a rogue but people shouldn't have to utilize them. They could work on pathing as well so that ghosting doesn't happen so much. I remember back in the day you could make some nice trains by attacking mobs that weren't really there.

Grieg's End revamp: Is it possible for SOE to make this zone not suck? We'll see! As of now it's easily my least favorite zone in the game. I sorta like the idea with mobs springing up. And the casting illusions on people is fun. But these mobs are seriously out of whack. I was there yesterday and was fighting a green mob, probably level 43 or something, and I had to feign it off because I was close to dying. And I have like 1500ac, 4800hp and 200+ AA. Now I'm not saying people should be able to solo in every zone but that's just ridiculous. Maybe also get rid of the key for Grieg (Or is it Servitor/both?) or make it keyringable.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 2:01 pm**

Half of your idea's make me want to heave. You sound like you're taking half the risks out of the zones that ARE worth a damn.

Removing the invis bridge? You're kidding right? I mean....really, I hope you're not serious. Spacing the mobs out? Sounds like you're just trying to make this another solo zone. The Deep is easily done by 1 group. Get adds, DEAL WITH THEM, geez.

HS. I have to say make the keys easier to get. I don't know if I agree with making them keyringable or campable. It really destroys the walk through dungeon approach.

Dragon Necropolis is one of the best zones in the damn game....still. Why? Cause there is actually RISK. Unmezzable roamers gate and you get lots of adds. Oh no! I may die! You take a group there, you drag out sometimes. This zone has the best risk vs reward (or at least did for its time) and was one of the most challenging zones. Luckily for those players with balls, you didnt find losers past the entrance (at least, not for long). So you could almost always find a place to camp. Oh no, the camps arent safe, you have roamers, thus more the challenge.

Sirens Grotto went from too hard to too easy. The main issue with it really is the whole water deal.

The hole, was....ok. Shrug, maybe raise the level of mobs to make people xp there and up the loot. But decent layout, yeah it had a drop off, but once again, deal with the risk.

Velks was very well laid out once you got past the 'you took my pull I'll pkuinrl' spider entrance. The village was excellent, the pit was excellent, the loots were decent and there was actually risk involved with going deep. Can't lev, so what. Can't walk on slippery, do you ever stop whining?

City of Mist, you need a rogue to get past that door. So? You need clerics in a lot of zones (pre-shaman, druid heal buffs). Nobody found that to be a big issue. You need tanks too. Don't see huge complaints there.

Griegs was a pain in the ass. Green mobs you cant mez, hit like level 50+. But the traps were cool, made people not afk, or follow the tank and everything be ok. I like that aspect of it. But like velks and DN, there was risk, the big issue here was no reward really. Unless you were going to 1 group servitor. But, honestly, almost nobody that would be in that group would want the loot.

I don't know you, and damn I'm glad I never grouped with you. A lot of the things you say appear to make you want to dumb down zones with a challenge or some type of risk. I don't get it.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 2:23 pm**

Dumbing down the game? Making it easier for the masses? Well that's like real life isn't it? Stuff should get easier as time passes. Some people like the challenge and will always look with sentiment at their past when they had to walk to school barefoot, uphill in 2 feet of snow. It doesn't make people who come after them and have it easier any lesser, just because they start late and have the know-how.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 2:42 pm**

I have to agree w/ Aslanna about Charsis.

One of my most favorite zones. The exp back when it was useful was insane.

Be good to see what they do with it.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 2:59 pm**

As long as it's the same team that has done LoY, Veksar, and the various existing zone revamps like Hate, then I am looking forward to seeing the changes.

LoY is the standard to which all future expansions should be measured.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:02 pm**

i havent even zoned into LoY, so i hope that isnt the standard by which all are judged

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:19 pm**

The problem with dragon necro is not so much the traps, it is the fact that some of them can't be disabled. If you really want to get me started on rogues, I could go for hours on why they are fucked up. I hope to Christ that they implement some brains in the new expansion and use non-respawning traps and locked chests galore. I am still seething about the imbecile that designed some of the poisons. What the fuck good is a stun poison that can't stun a goddamn mob in the expansion that it was actually implemented? What species of monkey comes up with this shit?

The Hole would be a very nice zone if they got rid of the drop off alone. I would love to exp there more, but I hate the damn fact that I can't get back out unless I have one of 2 classes with me and hope they don't ever decide they have to leave.

Sirens ghetto is nothing more than Kedge without the epic items. Great place to pass through and that is about it.

Velks, fun the first time you are on the slippery shit, nothing more than an annoyance after.

Howling Stones, deal with the keys or get a rogue. This place was designed as a crawl and is still one of the best crawl dungeons. Dragon Necro is set up as another good crawler IMO, but the non-stunnable gaters are just screwed. If you screw up, you deserve to necro out. Gating mobs are just weak.

A big problem with those old zones is that the loot there is so weak that no one wants to go. They are also in such remote areas that it is more of a pain than it is worth when you can pop into the PoP zones for far better exp. Personally, I love having a good solid group that wants to move through a dungeon in a crawl and doesn't care about the bullshit with "optimizing exp per man hour" or other shit i heard all through Luclin and PoP. Give me a place and a group where we move through the whole place and then back again....then move to another spot to do the same thing. That keeps things fresh.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:23 pm**

The Hole is easily my all time favorite zone, if it had one or two exits it would be perfect. For the sub-60 crowd it's probably better exp than PooP. HS and Chardok are tied for second for me, too bad they nerfed the exp in HS majorly, it's not worth going anymore other than for quest items.

Voro - You ought to check out Nadox and Hates Fury if you bought LoY, both are very well done, as was Veksar.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:24 pm**

The Hole is easily my all time favorite zone, if it had one or two exits it would be perfect. For the sub-60 crowd it's probably better exp than PooP. HS and Chardok are tied for second for me, too bad they nerfed the exp in HS majorly, it's not worth going anymore other than for quest items.

Voro - You ought to check out Nadox and Hates Fury if you bought LoY, both are very well done, as was Veksar.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:37 pm**

HS was my favorite place from level 45 on... I dinged 59 and 60 there. If I had an expert warrior puller, a great cleric and a good wizard, you could do a 4-person AE group and AE an entire wing at a time.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:44 pm**

LoY is just plain fun. Great layout, fun MoBs, and excellent mini events make this whole expansion a great crawl.

Furthermore, many named spawn immediately after killing random MoBs, which can make some very interesting fights. Since the named are random in many locations (especially Nadox), it goes a long way to eliminate item camping.

The items that do drop, while not being Uber, are definately decent. I've gotten a fun 1HB that procs a lifetap and can critical, making tradeskill and greenie farming a lot more fun. My lvl 52 Necro GF has gotten 4-5 very nice upgrades since we've been playng there. The few LoY spell quests were also a joy to achieve. I know my druid Pureblood spell still comes in handy at lvl 64. (removes 18 poison and 18 disease counters for 100 mana)

Anway, I really like LoY and the design team earned back some respect that they lost with PoP, which has an aweful lot of suck.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:45 pm**

Melrin wrote:Half of your idea's make me want to heave. You sound like you're taking half the risks out of the zones that ARE worth a damn.

They are (partially) revamping these zones for a reason. The reason is hardy anybody goes to them. I'm just listing reasons why I see nobody goes to them. In most cases it has nothing to do with risk.

Melrin wrote:Removing the invis bridge? You're kidding right? I mean....really, I hope you're not serious.

Completely serious. It's just a dumb feature there to basically just annoy people after the first time. Especially when you consider CoH is disabled along with Lev.

Melrin wrote:HS. I have to say make the keys easier to get. I don't know if I agree with making them keyringable or campable. It really destroys the walk through dungeon approach.

It was an either/or thing. Make them not as rare or leave them rare but make them not No Rent in some fashion or another.

Melrin wrote:Can't lev, so what. Can't walk on slippery, do you ever stop whining?

It's not really a whine. Just pointing out possible things that they could change in those zones to try and make them more appealing spots for people to go. Frankly I don't think there's much they can do to those zones as long as they lack the PoP xp rate.

Melrin wrote:City of Mist, you need a rogue to get past that door. So? You need clerics in a lot of zones (pre-shaman, druid heal buffs). Nobody found that to be a big issue. You need tanks too. Don't see huge complaints there.

The whole reason Kunark has the abundance of locked doors was to force people to group rogues. Before Kunark was released all the rogues were whining about how they sucked and they could never get groups. So what did Verant do? They added a bunch of zones with locked doors just so people had to group rogues. In XP groups back then you were not REQUIRED to group Clerics. Or Warriors. Other classes could substitute. There's no substitute for 200+ lockpicking. I can assure you rogues no longer have that problem of nobody wanting them. They can get rid of the forced-grouping bullshit.

And the so is that it effectively leaves half the zone unutilized. Which is something they are looking to change. Will they be successful? I have my doubts.

Melrin wrote:I don't know you, and damn I'm glad I never grouped with you. A lot of the things you say appear to make you want to dumb down zones with a challenge or some type of risk. I don't get it.

Again, it comes down to trying to figure out why people aren't/weren't using certain zones. I can assure you I spent lots of time in those "challenging" zones. Ask those that HAVE grouped with me if I'm afraid to take risks. Hell, having risky zones is great because they are uncrowded. When everyone was crammed into Sebilis you could usually find HS available. For half those zones listed I was scratching my head wondering why they would bother to revamp them. But if you look at the list you know that those zones are seldom used.

Kilmoll wrote:Howling Stones, deal with the keys or get a rogue. This place was designed as a crawl and is still one of the best crawl dungeons.

It's not a problem of dealing with the keys. But when you literally sit at the end of a wing for four hours hoping the named will spawn so you can get the fucking key to move on than THAT is a problem. Four hours in one spot is not a "crawl" in any sense of the word.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 3:48 pm**

I don't think Melrin Specclaster has hugged an iksar today!

All of Aslannas suggestions seemed well thought out to me. The bridge is hella gay in the Deep. If playing a Lora Croft type dexterity game blows your skirt up then go play your X-Box. That's not what EQ's about.

Ennia has the right idea. Things should get easier over time. Who wants to waste 30 minutes a night running to XP zones when you've been there and done that 100's of times before. Port Books > Your idea of keeping the game a challenge. Same goes for the keys in HS. I've spent over 200 hours in HS easy and even if you want to do the dungeon crawl as intended it takes 8 hours or more depending on random drops for keys without a rogue. Considering how out of the way the zone is already and how hard the CRs were, who the fuck has time to spend 8 hours straight in EQ? I do! but getting 6 people together for 8 or more hours straight is not easy.

I'd like to turn your comment around and say that Melrin Specclaster is the last person I'd want to group with. You'd be on a boat to ButcherBlock telling your friends how realistic the ride was and how much fun you were having while the rest of us were already halfway though Kedge.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 6:11 pm**

Fuck these pussy zones.

Mistmoore is all that is needed. Add some other towers, dungons, tunnels and such. Make all mobs 54+ that flurry,rampage, enrage. Should have around 15k-20k hps, and dont summon. Add in some good haste items, Damage Focus,Improved Healing items, some Vengence 1 items and bam. Good zone that people in the lvl range of 55-65 would want to exp in.

Shit make the zone a fucking uber dungon. Make all mobs inside the castle *that should be updated to the size of Seblis* lvl 60+. For the semi rare mobs put in the old VP weapons with a slight upgrade.

Relay out spawn points so you dont always have 35+mobs auto agro you. At the bottom near his casket have Maylong Mistmoore there. Make him as hard as Hoshkar or Phara Dar ,same regen, 1 million and a badder AE.

Or someshit. It was the baddest zone ever. Just think of the trains with lvl 65+mobs that dont summon! Omg!@

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 6:19 pm**

a mistmoore revamp would definitely kick ass. castle mistmoore was always too hard for its level range with buggy ass mobs that need a skilled puller and a lot unused areas because they are too hard to penetrate without a really good enchanter or a group of players higher than the zone was intended for.

it would kick ass to see it populated with level 60 range mobs and they could even throw lord mistmoore in as an end boss type encounter. I remember seeing screenshots of him in beta using the maestro of rancor's model, but I guess now he is just a dark elf.

seeing uber trains of level 60 vampire mobs and shit would own.

they would need to add a lesser fay portal to make it popular though.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 6:41 pm**

Never Underestimate the Might of Mistmoore!!!

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 6:45 pm**

Anyone whoever had good or bad experiences in Mistmoore (and I mean the people that started playing in '99) should be up to the challenge...

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 7:01 pm**

All dungeons should be able to be walked out on foot.

All pickable doors should have a key found somewhere with a little difficulty like a named mob or a small quest....that key should be PERMANENT.

Mobs should give exp/loot accourding to difficulty...greigs does not..the mobs are too hard for thier level...aslanna is 100% correct. I could solo 2 mobs in places that had blue mobs, but I would have a hard time with green single pulls in greigs...that's messed up...and what was funny was the loot was WORSE. WTF?

Mobs who ghost or path messed up are bad.

High concentrations of mobs meant for an exp group are bad (make it managable with a good enchanter but it shuoldn't require top end group unless it has nice rewards.

Tons of unmezzables, CH'rs, gaters, HT'rs is stupid.

Here is a zoe that needs revamp..Torment...when I went there it was lame as hell...mobs silenced came 4-6 at a time with fast repop and they gave crap for exp/loot.

Yes Torment is doable by a good group.....BUT, who will do it? THAT IS THE POINT.

They aren't trying to dumb it down necessarily, they are trying to make more zones USED. They hate to support empty zones when people are complaining of overcrowding....those zones are empty because they suck. They are trying to remove the suckiness.

Posted: **July 7, 2003, 9:28 pm**

Bah! to all the people that want to drain all the water zones! I realize not a lot of people like them but a few people do and it isn't like they are a huge proportion of the zones in eq (I understand for those who don't like powater, since it is on the progression path, but the other ones you don't have to go to if you don't want other than the easy swim through sg). They did make Siren's Grotto too easy eventually.

Cheap trick to get around the invis bridge in the deep for an exp group. Bring a bard, get to the end of the ledge near the bridge and do the group shadowstep song, it will adjust for height so unless someone is unlucky enough to randomly stay on the ledge everyone ends up in the bottom of the chasm and can run up the far side ramp.

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 12:31 am**

The pathing and bugs in Mistmoore were great. After spending lvl 19-36 there, never mind how many lvls I had lost. I learned all the pathing and how to solo each room. I think the Bugs there is what made the zone so great.How about getting perma charmed and braught back to the castle.

Remember the 40+ Silver Darkelf bitches, Hunchback Vampires, The casters that seemed to nuke you for full damage no matter what lvl you are, running to zone because someone let one get away, and they jumped off the tower and waited at the zoneline? Oh man I remember doing that each day! To see people slaughtered countlessly. Even better was them bitching in Shout.

Met a ton of great people in that zone. Ill never forget Wandering tring to take my camp:P then becomming buds with him. Along with all you other assholes who always stopped by

Revs shouts " World Wide!"

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 8:24 am**

MM is a cool zone, too small though. I doubt they are going to revamp anything smaller than CT.

Some PoJ-ish mini dungeons you could warp into and have to crawl back out of would be cool.

I don't mind underwater fighting. KK is the only one I have much experience with though and water isn't that zones problem

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 8:45 am**

Much

for Kedge. Had fun exping and raiding there preKunark cos it had a bitchin ZEM and was always empt apart from one notable time

2-3 of us were camping the entrance fish for some long-forgotten reason and another group was on the 2nd floor pulling to the S Room. I guess they had invited more people cos suddenly the brainiac Steelwolfs and Bloodwolfs arrived at the zone (necro + mage ISTR). They asked for directions to the other group which we gave. They then summoned and armed their pets at the zone and swam off to meet the other group. We chuckled, listed to the sounds of dismay and confusion the watched the zone pop dwindle away. Pets in Kedge lol

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 11:13 am**

my favorite ever Mistmoore train was one that i pulled right when Lesser Faydark crashed. Basically there was no way to zone out of Mistmoore, and I got charmed by the negotiator at the zone line. There was much carnage!! Eventually i died.

Got my only soulmark (that i know of) that day, bitching at Solaris to give everybody a GM rez. I thought that was reasonable since everybody died because the zone malfunctioned.

______________________________________________________^^^ eZog!!

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 12:25 pm**

hehe hooray for MM i still love that zone
making that 60-65 zone would seriously kick ass

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 1:18 pm**

vn_Tanc wrote:2-3 of us were camping the entrance fish for some long-forgotten reason

The rare spawn at the back dropped some piece of the pally quest armour, I think.

Posted: **July 8, 2003, 2:19 pm**

There are some gamers that like the tough zones for the challenge. Not everyone wants to sit on a wall in some zone and lather rinse repeat all day.
If not many people go to the rougher zones, that's fine, at least you have the option of going and being a challenged if you want.
Some of the best times I've had are in small groups, tough zones, feeling as if you can't possibly win, knowing that CR will be a pain, and living through it by the skin of your teeth.

VeeshanVault

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