Fan Faire 2009

[Orrernoeth]

We didn't actually run into each other but we were there.

Next post will be some items that I found out while there.  Read on if you are interested or stop if you want to be surprised.  Maybe Renei can add some thoughts of what she found out too.

[Orrernoeth]

I tried to put these in some type of order but you know things go when you do that, hehe.

New Shader 3.0
- Better lighting
- Light in radius (torch type bonderies, and darker beyond)
- Torch on/off option so you don't have to carry a torch in your charm slot all the time.

Quest journal
- Quest journal is suppose to be changing to look more like Profit, where the quest names are in one column, and what ever quest you have selected will be in another column.
..-- They are looking at possibly allowing you to put multiple quests up at one time.

Auto mentoring
- Experience zones at the level they were meant to be run, without having to find a person at that level range.
..-- While you get additional AA when you mentor regularly, you will not when you auto mentor.
- There will be mission zones for people to auto mentor in, to get them back into the older zones.

Achievements (Not AAs)
- Will be able to check a person's achievements when you examine them (will have an additional tab to the traditiional examine window).
- Some achievements will be retroactive (like Heritage Quests) but others will not.
- Achievements are currently suppose to be account wide not just by the character, they are thinking of having a way to check the achievements of just that character also.

Next game update is suppose to be the Shard of Love.  What has happened to Erollisi Marr!?!
-  Game updates will be every three months until the next expansion (Feb 2010).  They will be like the old adventure packs that were sold (Splitpaw & D'Morte).

The suggested that people go back and look at the three new Mistomore zones as they redid the loot tables.

Suggestions that they will be looking at:
- Better ways to look at lock-out timers
- Defaulting your voice chat to what you want to auto log into.
..-- More than one voice chat going at once
- giving status points for signature quests
- Still working on picking a voice for voice chat (ogre sounding voice for an ogre, female voice for female characters, etc)>
- Changing it so raid zones will not require certain classes to be succesful.
- In game voice mail
- officer only mail to kiosks
- In game tells and voice chat sent to the email associated with the account
- Way for you to call into the voice chat channel outside fo the game (ex.  You are running late to a raid, you can call the channel and let them know you are running late  etc.)
- They are going to relook at fighter class.  Said they want them to be more like the healer classes, where they all do the same job but in different ways.

In connection with the new expansion (feb 2010) they will be releasing a free update that will be introducing a new good starting city of Halas.

New Expansion will be called Sentinel's Fate where Odus will be rediscovered.
- New zones of Paineel and The Hole will be brought back.
- We will finally find out what happened to the Erudians that made their look change from what they look like in EQ to what they currently look like.
- 10 more levels
..-- Experience
..--  Tradeskill
..-- Guild
- 50 more AAs (not sure as yet how they will be split up).
- they will introduce more two-group raid zones.  They will be the same as the regular raid zones, but a four group raid will have harder mobs and better loot.
- Suppose to be working on keeping the mythicals appropriate and usable for the level increases.
- More contested raid mobs.
- More guild amenities
- Will try to make the new expansion to meet everyones play styles.  Where you can solo, small group or  perfectly made up groups.

[Wayena]

- Will try to make the new expansion to meet everyones play styles.  Where you can solo, small group or  perfectly made up groups.

When you work to please everyone, you please no one. Sad but true.

I hope they get the fighter classes straightened out.

[Jasyn]

When you work to please everyone, you please no one. Sad but true.

Actually, I think "When you strive to please anyone at all, you please no one" should probably be SOE's new corporate slogan.

- Torch on/off option so you don't have to carry a torch in your charm slot all the time.

/cheer

[Anaris]

So....did Domino reject my marriage proposal?   

I know Prop 8 was upheld here in CA where we both live, but there's always Iowa....   

[Corsair]

 

Ahhh Iowa, where Californians of a progressive mindset and alternate lifestyle can go to make it official. Who's have ever thunk-it? Iowa, bastion of progressive social change!

Or is it officially Californicators now?

Sheesh.

[Namae Nai]

If by rejecting your marriage proposal you mean she smiled when I explained that Anaris wanted to say hello, then yes. Otherwise pack your bag for Ohio, baby. She also said to tell Ank, "Thank you."

Sorry I missed you Noehy! I was at the panels most of the time, or at the computers in game getting ideas for questions to ask at the panels. It was kind of a last minute thing, and I was only there on Thursday night and Friday until 6 pm. I wanted to stick around longer, but it wasn't in the cards this time.

Stuff I learned:

The Devs are procrastinatin' on any sort of changes to HO's. There are a ton of cool ideas they have, but it hasn't gotten past that stage. One of the lead programmers mentioned that they were talking about it in a meeting when he realized that he had written a design document on HO's already. He looked it up to discover it was two years old.

/sitting on chair is something they desperately want to do. Virtually every Dev looks with longing on games where sitting is easy to do. Unfortunately, it's not something easy to do well with the EQ2 engine. If they can ever figure out how to implement it without taking metric @$$loads of processor time, then you'll see /sitting on furniture in the next update.

New /dance emotes: No one is working on this. It's expensive to do motion-capture and working in the existing models would be a huge problem. Sorry, I really wanted this too.

/smile: will always be dorky. No change here.

The Illusion bug: was caused by some of the new Kunark mobs. They are trying to solve this ASAP, possible with a new system for controlling illusions. Personally, I hope they just put it back the way it was.

Oh, and if anyone wants to see the hour long address from Friday night, here's a link to it!

[Erendrel]

- 10 more levels

- 50 more AAs (not sure as yet how they will be split up).

<groans>

[Jezerai]

Halas!  Boudeccai starts packing ...

[Orrernoeth]

The title of the panel was "To Infinity and Beyond" so I thought they were going to be sending us back up to Luclin, but then they talked about it being all icy, so I thought....Velious.....so I was totally caught off guard when they announced that the next expansion was going to be Odus....guess they want us to find all the lost continents before sending us off world.  But that is when they announced the free download that was going to come with the next expansion (time wise) of the city of Halas.