Trivial Loot Code
JeffDo
best place to post this since the Everquest.com forums were taken down but,
my thoughts below are why I think the trivial loot code is a bad idea.
My first thought is why does Verant want to do this? The biggest reason appears
to be to prevent higher level characters from camping lower level items for
twinks and depriving those who can still get experience from these mobs and
their items.
The problem is frequency of this happening is fairly low. A recent tour of
current newbie to mid level zones such as Nurga, Droga, Frontier Mountains, Sol
A, Najena, Paws, Dalnirs, etc etc showed them to be completely empty during
prime time hours, no newbies or high levels getting items for twinks.
Why is this? Three reasons that I can see. Travel time to location, possibility
of finding a group once getting there and most importantly the quality of loot
you will find.
As the server populations get older and older, the items they are going to want
to camp for get better and better. As an example no one will camp for an FBR now
and deprive some newbie when they can obtain an Oracle robe with the same ease.
This also benefits new players as the items that were once considered rare and
expensive become common place and cheap for them to buy.
Any player, new or old wants the best available stuff, it's a simple fact.
Why elminate the reasons for anyone going to particular dungeons when eventually
the low-mid level dungeons are going to be empty anyhow by loot deflation?
The only way this would be a decent idea is if it could be implemented in a way
to work based on zone population and use. In other words, plain silly to cut
anyone out of a zone that no one goes to.
Cutting off high levels is simply bad for the game, because the migration to
high levels is coming sooner and sooner and the newbie population is becoming
not only less and less but more capable. It took me more than a year to get my
first level 50+ (Been playing since beta) but my newest level 50 was done in
less than two months and I'm hardly a powergamer.
Thanks for your time.
Jeff
Dream King
>Ok, I'm not sure if this has been beaten to death yet or not, nor if this is the
>best place to post this since the Everquest.com forums were taken down but,
>my thoughts below are why I think the trivial loot code is a bad idea.
We debated this not too long ago. I also think it's not a good idea but
I'm only a player of this game so what do I know?
The SoL expansion is not on my holiday shopping list at this time.
Dan Harmon
"JeffDo" <JeffDo...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:9mfh1...@drn.newsguy.com...
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you saying that trivial loot code
is a bad idea because high levels won't care about it anyway?
Doesn't sound like much of an argument to me.
"Trivial loot su><><0rz maan...not like I'd go there anyway!"
And if a high level player wanted to start farming that zone ("Hey, I pays
my $10/mo, I have a fucking RIGHT to farm that shit away from your n00bie
azz. Who gives a SHIT if you'd get expo, and theses bitzes were green to me
20 levels ago! I PAY $10/MO, THEREFORE I AM A G0D SO FUCK OFF") then that
would be a reason FOR the code.
Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
clear to me, so please reword it.
Joe D
> Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
> range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
> clear to me, so please reword it.
I think he's saying it's a bad idea because there isn't a lot of high-level
farming of low-level zones going on.
It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
The only consistently farmed camp I can think of is the ancient crocodile in
Upper Guk, and that's because there aren't any other +INT sleeves attainable
in the game before level 45 or so.
It doesn't harm the level-appropriate players at all.
But it does penalize me and other high-level players for getting to said
high level, especially when they add the "feature" long after the level was
attained.
Now let me ask you: how does this HELP the level-appropriate players, given
that there is negligable high-level camping going on?
Joe D
--
BEER! I don't want it for breakfast anymore.
John M Clancy
> best place to post this since the Everquest.com forums were taken down but,
> my thoughts below are why I think the trivial loot code is a bad idea.
>
> My first thought is why does Verant want to do this? The biggest reason appears
> to be to prevent higher level characters from camping lower level items for
> twinks and depriving those who can still get experience from these mobs and
> their items.
>
> The problem is frequency of this happening is fairly low. A recent tour of
> current newbie to mid level zones such as Nurga, Droga, Frontier Mountains, Sol
> A, Najena, Paws, Dalnirs, etc etc showed them to be completely empty during
> prime time hours, no newbies or high levels getting items for twinks.
Umm it has been my experience on my server that the Shroud of Nature is camped
24/7 in the Temple of Droga. Najena usually has some farmers in it. Dalnir always
has someone farming on my server. SolA Is farmed 24/7 on my server, especially
the for the Impskin gloves, charred guardian shield, and the Molten cloak.
You must be on some weird server because Frontier Mountains on my server usually
has 30-40 people in it during prime time, mostly at the giant fort.
> Why is this? Three reasons that I can see. Travel time to location, possibility
> of finding a group once getting there and most importantly the quality of loot
> you will find.
Don't forget the number one reason people don't hunt some dungeons. Trian Death.
Runnyeye, kerra Isle and Infected Paw(old splitpaw lair) were all redone but the
main problem with these dungeons was never fixed. They are train spawning grounds.
Changing the Mob names and making different loot spawn doesn't change that.
Mobs are too close together and the dungoens overlap levels and have too many
rooms too close together. Mobs aggroing and casting thru the walls make these
dungeons unplayable by the appropriate levels unless you invade them with a large
raiding party/guild.
John M Clancy
"Joe D" <jo...@cws.org> wrote in message news:v6Pi7.26973$4b5.7...@news6.giganews.com...
> Dan Harmon <deha...@bigfoot.com> wrote:
> > Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
> > range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
> > clear to me, so please reword it.
>
> I think he's saying it's a bad idea because there isn't a lot of high-level
> farming of low-level zones going on.
>
> It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
>
> The only consistently farmed camp I can think of is the ancient crocodile in
> Upper Guk, and that's because there aren't any other +INT sleeves attainable
> in the game before level 45 or so.
Plus the gatorscale legs are the best druid legs for a long long time.
The legs are good for monks as well since they are good AC and add 15
hit points and are lightweight.
> It doesn't harm the level-appropriate players at all.
>
> But it does penalize me and other high-level players for getting to said
> high level, especially when they add the "feature" long after the level was
> attained.
>
> Now let me ask you: how does this HELP the level-appropriate players, given
> that there is negligable high-level camping going on?
>
> Joe D
> --
> BEER! I don't want it for breakfast anymore.
Scotch?
Dan Harmon
> Now let me ask you: how does this HELP the level-appropriate players,
given
> that there is negligable high-level camping going on?
Runnyeye. SolA. Both zones are still farmed on occasion (hell, I farm SolA
when bored and no level-appropriate folks are there).
Does it help the level-appropriate people? Dunno, but the original poster
said it was a Bad Idea, though beyond your rewording ("a solution for a
problem that doesn't exist") I don't see much point in debating the topic.
So they added code that doesn't hurt anything...who cares?
All it does is piss off the high level players that won't be able to loot
the latest newbie ph4t l3wt in Luclin. Golly, that's a damned shame. I
think that Verant NEEDS to piss off the high level characters on
occasion...many of them take themselves wayyy too seriously. Knock 'em down
a few pegs...like high level characters are somehow more IMPORTANT than low
level. Like high level characters are somehow SMARTER (there are so many
really DUMBASS 55+s out there...I mean, CRUSHBONE dumb, and I'm not talking
about sold accounts) or BETTER LOOKING than low level characters. Screw
'em. Do something to piss 'em off on occasion...it's not like the low level
zones are in any way, shape or form the business of high level characters
anyway.
Luclin low level zones will give NEW players a chance to discover something
not yet discovered on their server. Eh, of course, not all that likely,
since most of us have low-mid level twinks (myself included) but still
possible.
(52 dru, 54 enc, and occasionally 57 cle)
Wolfie
> > Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
> > range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
> > clear to me, so please reword it.
>
> I think he's saying it's a bad idea because there isn't a lot of
high-level
> farming of low-level zones going on.
>
> It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
The problem is that there's only so many ways to encourage
players to move to other zones. Either you make the experience
so good (and the risk of dying low) that people flock there (see
Oasis, LoIO, OT, etc.) or you make the loot so good that groups
will form elsewhere and go there to hunt (dungeons in general.)
VI tries the experience factor by adding zone bonuses, but that
doesn't do anything about the risk of dying, especially in the
dungeons that are underutilized. That leaves the item carrot,
but if they do that, higher-levels effectively remove the motivation.
I didn't try the new Runnyeye, for instance, because a simple /who
in zone the first week showed quite a few 40s and 50s in zone.
Why fight my way in - at risk of death - just to see a 58th druid
camping the item I went there to get?
(Yes, the PnP says camps are to be shared, and a GM would
certainly support any /petition. But who wants to share a
camp you're barely able to hold for a rare drop that you now
have even less chance of getting? Besides, when my toon is
58, I just may not want that druid to remember me and stop
be from getting into a raid/guild/etc.)
> The only consistently farmed camp I can think of is the ancient crocodile
in
> Upper Guk, and that's because there aren't any other +INT sleeves
attainable
> in the game before level 45 or so.
>
> It doesn't harm the level-appropriate players at all.
Harm? No, of course not. Stop them from getting something
they can because they can't get better themselves? Yes, at
least without buying it.
> But it does penalize me and other high-level players for getting to said
> high level, especially when they add the "feature" long after the level
was
> attained.
Would you agree a group of level ones should be able to take
down Sleeper's Tomb? Level-appropriate content is aimed
at the appropriate levels, surprisingly enough. A 60th level
warrior has a much business in Unrest, for instance, as a 20th
level warrior has in Sleepers. I suspect VI cares as much for
50's saying they can't hunt the Warrens as they do for 10's
saying they can't hunt Cobalt Scar.
More appropriately: would you whine to McDonalds about not being
able to play in the playground if they built it after you were too old?
The difference between real life and EQ, of course, is that you can
always be young again if you want.
> Now let me ask you: how does this HELP the level-appropriate players,
given
> that there is negligable high-level camping going on?
That assumption doesn't seem to be true, at least in my experience.
Items which can be sold for a decent pp/hr are farmed, and almost
always by people too high to be getting experience.
But, again, if VI wants to encourage lower-levels to use a zone (which
is a "good thing"), they've only got limited ways to do that. And, of
those ways, making the loot desirable is the best way to do that.
The Trivial Loot Code just allows VI to use that method without
knowing that higher-levels will simply move in.
Just to be clear: we're not talking about quest items, just normal
loot. As far as I'm concerned, it should be applied across the
board. So what if that 56th druid I saw quad-kiting kodiaks in WC
can't get her own bear pelts? It's a good way to encourage a
player economy that has some flow from lower-levels to the
higher-levels, instead of being almost always the other way.
Dan Dutra
"Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:OMPi7.86251$Lw3.6...@news2.aus1.giganews.com...
> All it does is piss off the high level players that won't be able to loot
> the latest newbie ph4t l3wt in Luclin. Golly, that's a damned shame.
It also kills almost any means of faction questing in Luclin for high level
players. It also breaks many quests for higher level players. There are
some Erudite cleric friends of mine who are peeved that they can't get their
Diety symbols because some of the quest items drop in the Warrens.
> I think that Verant NEEDS to piss off the high level characters on
> occasion...many of them take themselves wayyy too seriously. Knock 'em
down
> a few pegs...like high level characters are somehow more IMPORTANT than
low
> level.
Checking /who lists, there are many more 50-60 players logged on Fennin than
1 - 30. Alienating them will only hurt Verant.
Ken
"Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
news:OMPi7.86251$Lw3.6...@news2.aus1.giganews.com...
>
> think that Verant NEEDS to piss off the high level characters on
> occasion...many of them take themselves wayyy too seriously. Knock 'em
down
> a few pegs...like high level characters are somehow more IMPORTANT than
low
> level.
Do something to piss 'em off on occasion...it's not like the low level
> zones are in any way, shape or form the business of high level characters
> anyway.
Ok, how about this...The cleric spells of healing have been repalced with a
1 point DD spell that will immediatly put you on top of a mob's agro list.
Pissed off yet? VI has already done enough to piss off the upper level
people ,thank you very much.
And yes, the higher level characters ARE more "important", if you have
bothered to look around you in game you will notice that the population of
level 50+ players accounts for about 80% of server populations, and most of
us have multiple chars in the 50+ range. So you see WE are paying verant the
majority of their money, and pissing off the "longterm customers" is not a
wise thing to do.
And their "trivial loot code" is a piece of crap, Think about if it were
implemented from the start of EQ...that nice little glowing black stone that
drops off of a level 15 necro??? Nope, sorry trivial loot, the platnium
ring for the paw quest? By the time people get to do the quest the mummy is
very green to them. The fishbone earring? Yeah right. The list goes on and
on.
Trivial loot code is a load of steaming shit. And yes the low-mid level
dungeons ARE the business of high level chars, its called game content that
we have paid for. All places in the game are the "business" of everyone, it
is part of the product you bought and continue to pay for.
James
Dan Harmon wrote in message ...
>"Joe D" <jo...@cws.org> wrote in message
>news:v6Pi7.26973$4b5.7...@news6.giganews.com...
>
>> Now let me ask you: how does this HELP the level-appropriate players,
>> given that there is negligable high-level camping going on?
>
>Runnyeye. SolA. Both zones are still farmed on occasion (hell, I farm
SolA
>when bored and no level-appropriate folks are there).
>
>Does it help the level-appropriate people? Dunno, but the original poster
>said it was a Bad Idea, though beyond your rewording ("a solution for a
>problem that doesn't exist") I don't see much point in debating the topic.
>So they added code that doesn't hurt anything...who cares?
I disagree about it doing nothing. Other than the chance to screw up
quests, and make portions of the lore of SoL unavailable to be experienced
by everyone, it also turns green aggro into one massive PITA - for everyone.
Example: before, if a snow dervish aggroed me in Velious, I'd kill it on the
off chance it would drop something amusing, like the Frozen Mantle I gave to
my necromancer. Now, I'm training it to whatever zone I'm heading to - not
worth my time to kill. You're coming through that zone? Here's a present.
If you don't want me to kill mob X, fine - don't have it try to kill me
first.
>All it does is piss off the high level players that won't be able to loot
>the latest newbie ph4t l3wt in Luclin.
If you think a snow dervish is a newbie mob, let one of your two
characters stand beside one for a minute. When I hit level 60 (Brell
willing), then level 44 and lower mobs will be off-limits to me. Even though
the average level 44 mob would either tear me apart or make me empty my mana
bar to kill it. If instead the level limit is 20 levels as I've heard it
might be, then 39 and under is off-limits - that's what, Sonic Bat / Lava
Beetle levels? Again, no slouch and something I'd have to deal with if it
aggroed on me - too bad I don't get anything for the hassle. TRAIN TO ZONE!
>Golly, that's a damned shame. I
>think that Verant NEEDS to piss off the high level characters on
>occasion...
Disagree with them, sure. But piss them off? Why would VI do something
JUST to get high level players angry, when eventually everyone becomes one?
Note that I'm not using the "uber" definition of high level - if you get
over 40, you're high level.
>it's not like the low level
>zones are in any way, shape or form the business of high level characters
>anyway.
So I'll never be forced to travel through one of these "low level" zones
by linear design to get to the zones I "belong" in? There will be NO content
in these zones that I cannot discover that reveals the backstory to SoL in
any way, shape, or form? The items coming from these new zones will in no
way, shape or form be better than any equipment I currently posess? How much
would you like to bet that all three of these will be broken in SoL? Given
the content in the Warrens, I can imagine the loot that will drop in a
Droga-level dungeon in SoL - and I can't upgrade myself by going there.
>Luclin low level zones will give NEW players a chance to discover something
>not yet discovered on their server.
What does it matter what they discover, if there's only a narrow window
in which to go get it? It's empty content - the empty zone that is The
Warrens shows us that. You remember The Warrens - the zone the top guilds
descended on with twinks in tow, and got the spoilers to first? Ah, but the
Warrens Loot Code will be refined for SoL, you say! Then let me ask you
this - tell me how the "New, Improved Warrens Code" can tell the difference
between:
(A) A twink with high-level buffs from a friend, and a legitimate player
that had a high-level cast a "grief buff" on him to force him out.
(B) A mob being snared to help a twink, and a "grief snarer" there to force
out a low-level group so he can move his twink in.
(C) The equipment of a twink, and the equipment of a shrewd trader.
(D) A player getting non-buff aid (eg. heals) from a friend, and a player
getting "grief heals" to move them along?
These are some of the criteria I've seen that would trigger the new
Warrens code - do you get the picture yet? It will be a customer relations
nightmare trying to separate the well-intentioned from the malevolent -
unless it becomes harassment to buff someone. Won't all the low-levels love
THAT - "I'd buff you, but you could /petition me. Go without, n00b." And if
these triggers aren't in place, then it will be business as usual - the
first people in the new content zones will be PLers who will suck the spawns
dry until their twink is done there.
James
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
|range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
|clear to me, so please reword it.
There are no characters of appropriate level range for these zones,
because such characters do not go there.
I've pharmed Runnyeye like a wheat field in Kansas, and I just spent two
levels in the Warrens with a low-level Necro. There is hardly ever anyone in
either zone that gains EP for being there. Simply put, there is no reason for
them to go. Those zones are too difficult for most characters that gain EP
for mobs of those levels. (My Necro made it because he's pretty heavily
twinked -- http://interealms.com/profiles/profile.cfm?ID=11724 -- and Necros
are gross anyway.)
Improving the loot -- with or without the aegis of the TCC -- is not the
answer. Runnyeye has loot on the 4th floor that level 50+ characters want and
30+ characters can get. Droga has Idol of the Thorned, an item worth 20K pp
on E'ci and I'm sure more on younger servers, dropping off a level 35 mob.
Item drops in the Warrens are pretty much pathetic (most of the "interesting,
powerful items" Verant is protecting with the TCC are garbage not even worth
putting on a twink) but the coin drops and vendor trash are quite high for the
level. Yet the zones are empty.
Improving the zone experience multipliers isn't the answer either. Kerra
Island has a whopping 20% ZEM. My Necro has the place to himself.
People do not go to dungeons (until they have to for EP) because they are
buggy train-ridden deathtraps. They don't care how big a carrot you wave
under their nose, there are easier places to hunt. The only thing the TCC
does is cut down on the number of people using the zones affected by it, and
that's the last thing the game needs at this point.
What Verant needs to do is to stop trying to tell people how to play the
game. They need to make the parts of the game people don't like resemble the
parts of the game people do like, instead of trying to bully the players into
doing things Verant's way.
But that's just not the kind of behavior you get from 15-year-old
power-mad DMs.
Dennis F. Heffernan EQ: Venture Fletcher(E'ci) dfra...@email.com
Montclair State U #include <disclaim.h> ICQ:9154048 CompSci/Philosophy
"It's better some times if we don't get to touch our dreams."
-- Harry Chapin
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|I didn't try the new Runnyeye, for instance, because a simple /who
|in zone the first week showed quite a few 40s and 50s in zone.
And if you'd went back the second week, you'd have found only yourself in
the zone. The "pharming" issue is a canard, the problem is simply not
prevalent enough to require such extreme countermeasures.
|at the appropriate levels, surprisingly enough. A 60th level
|warrior has a much business in Unrest, for instance, as a 20th
|level warrior has in Sleepers.
It is, or should be, a prerogative of level to be able to go obtain minor
items yourself instead of having to rely on others to do it for you. You
already went through that, after all.
|But, again, if VI wants to encourage lower-levels to use a zone (which
|is a "good thing"), they've only got limited ways to do that.
How about fixing the damn bugs, so that one screwup in a dungeon doesn't
result in fifty mobs casting through the walls (or just running through them)
to kill you?
How about NOT putting items level 50 characters will want in level 30
dungeons? You want to bleat about "level appropriate content", well, the
content ain't level appropriate!
|The Trivial Loot Code just allows VI to use that method without
|knowing that higher-levels will simply move in.
The higher-levels will move in ANYWAY. I got to watch a high-50s Warrior
and Mage or Wizard (/anon, couldn't be sure from the spells) kill every dog in
the Warrens. I got to watch a 34 Druid show up like clockwork to solo the
Muglwump.
There can't be a better reason not to use a thing than IT DOESN'T WORK.
|Just to be clear: we're not talking about quest items, just normal
|loot.
Since the TCC blocks quest items we ARE talking about them.
|As far as I'm concerned, it should be applied across the
|board. So what if that 56th druid I saw quad-kiting kodiaks in WC
|can't get her own bear pelts? It's a good way to encourage a
|player economy that has some flow from lower-levels to the
|higher-levels, instead of being almost always the other way.
Rather, it's a good way to piss off your most dedicated customers for no
real benefit.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|It also kills almost any means of faction questing in Luclin for high level
|players. It also breaks many quests for higher level players. There are
|some Erudite cleric friends of mine who are peeved that they can't get their
|Diety symbols because some of the quest items drop in the Warrens.
AFAIK, *all* of the quest items for the Symbols drop in the Warrens. The
guy who posted the quest to EQClerics had to de-level repeatedly to finish it.
And this is post-TCC content, voiding McQuaid's claim that the TCC would
be taken into account in new quest design.
Dan Harmon
"Ken" <hies...@home.com> wrote in message
news:cHRi7.122606$w5.12...@news1.rdc1.ga.home.com...
> And their "trivial loot code" is a piece of crap, Think about if it were
> implemented from the start of EQ...that nice little glowing black stone
that
> drops off of a level 15 necro??? Nope, sorry trivial loot, the platnium
> ring for the paw quest? By the time people get to do the quest the mummy
is
> very green to them. The fishbone earring? Yeah right. The list goes on
and
> on.
If if if. Well, the thing is, I'm not talking about trivial codes for
existing zones, I'm talking about the brand NEW zones.
>
> Trivial loot code is a load of steaming shit. And yes the low-mid level
> dungeons ARE the business of high level chars, its called game content
that
> we have paid for. All places in the game are the "business" of everyone,
it
> is part of the product you bought and continue to pay for.
So since you pay $10/mo goddamnit you deserve everything,
andscrewthenewbies?
Dan Harmon
"James" <jamesg...@home.com> wrote in message
news:2GRi7.840$JH4.1...@news1.telusplanet.net...
> I disagree about it doing nothing. Other than the chance to screw up
quests,
Screw up brand new quests from brand new zones? Maybe you're a Warrens
expert, I certainly am not, but are screwed up quests a problem there? I
haven't heard of any, but I may have missed those posts. If my suspicions
are correct, what makes you think that they'll screw up a bunch of quests in
the new land?
And if they do screw up quests...which ones will be affected? It ain't
gonna be high level quests, so the Trivial Loot code shouldn't come into
play at all.
> So I'll never be forced to travel through one of these "low level"
zones
> by linear design to get to the zones I "belong" in? There will be NO
content
> in these zones that I cannot discover that reveals the backstory to SoL in
> any way, shape, or form? The items coming from these new zones will in no
> way, shape or form be better than any equipment I currently posess? How
much
> would you like to bet that all three of these will be broken in SoL? Given
> the content in the Warrens, I can imagine the loot that will drop in a
> Droga-level dungeon in SoL - and I can't upgrade myself by going there.
I can't think of any particularly interesting pieces of Warrens loot. What
did you have in mind?
Dan Harmon
"Dan Dutra" <d...@awais.com> wrote in message
news:9mginb$35l$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>
> "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
> news:OMPi7.86251$Lw3.6...@news2.aus1.giganews.com...
>
> > All it does is piss off the high level players that won't be able to
loot
> > the latest newbie ph4t l3wt in Luclin. Golly, that's a damned shame.
>
> It also kills almost any means of faction questing in Luclin for high
level
> players. It also breaks many quests for higher level players. There are
> some Erudite cleric friends of mine who are peeved that they can't get
their
> Diety symbols because some of the quest items drop in the Warrens.
You don't think it's likely they'll learn from their mistakes? I mean, I
think that even most VI detracters will say that the game is better now than
it was 2 years ago, and you don't improve by making the same mistakes over &
over & over again.
> Checking /who lists, there are many more 50-60 players logged on Fennin
than
> 1 - 30. Alienating them will only hurt Verant.
Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years. I
think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC or
another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
people that're leaving anyway?
Richard Melvin
<jo...@cws.org> writes
>I think he's saying it's a bad idea because there isn't a lot of high-level
>farming of low-level zones going on.
Now, there is not all that much, though it still happens.
On the other hand, does anyone else remember the first few months after
the release of Velious? A level 40 would zone into Crystal Caverns, find
they were the lowest there by some way, and run out scared.
And CC is almost entirely green to a level 40.
The same with ToFS, Runneyeye after the revamp, etc.
Really, the trivial code, or something like it (it would be better if
there were just zone-specific hp/atk/ac soft caps) is the only way
Verant has of making it worthwhile for lower levels to buy the
expansion. There are already plenty of zones to hunt in and quests to
do, the expansion has to offer unsolved quests and unexplored zones.
And the only way to keep lower level stuff unexplored and unsolved for
more than 4 hours after the expansion is turned on is to put some kind
of restriction or disincentive on higher level players hunting in newbie
zones.
Richard
Dan Day
>> The only consistently farmed camp I can think of is the ancient crocodile in
>> Upper Guk, and that's because there aren't any other +INT sleeves attainable
>> in the game before level 45 or so.
>
>Plus the gatorscale legs are the best druid legs for a long long time.
>The legs are good for monks as well since they are good AC and add 15
>hit points and are lightweight.
The legs are also good for any class that wants to boost WIS,
since +WIS legs are hard to come by. My Paladin has been trying
to get a set for his "WIS kit", which he puts on while practicing
tradeskills. So far I have decent WIS-boosting items for every
single item slot, except legs and feet.
James
Wolfie wrote:
>"Joe D" <jo...@cws.org> wrote:
>>
>> I think he's saying it's a bad idea because there isn't a lot of
>high-level
>> farming of low-level zones going on.
>>
>> It's a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
>
>The problem is that there's only so many ways to encourage
>players to move to other zones.
This cannot be done. In a game based around grouping, people will go
where they can get a group, or quickly relocate to another place where a
group can be obtained. Zone geometry, the port system, and the binding
requirements of melees prevent the sort of freedom of movement you want.
>VI tries the experience factor by adding zone bonuses, but that
>doesn't do anything about the risk of dying, especially in the
>dungeons that are underutilized.
They also don't factor in that players can't get XP if they cannot get a
group, by and large. Players know that - why isn't Kaesora packed? Awesome
XP is available there, and the drops are really top-notch for the level.
There's even a bind point right outside! But... if nobody's in there, you're
stranded way the hell away from anything else. You've WASTED your play time
on running around instead of doing the things you WANT to do - gain XP and
loot. So nobody goes there, because they don't want to be stranded.
The one serious way VI tries to move people using experience is by
greening mobs out. And that, in general, works well - except where items are
introduced....
>That leaves the item carrot,
>but if they do that, higher-levels effectively remove the motivation.
Higher levels don't require a group. That's the big difference. If I
travel to Kaesora, and nobody's there, there's several item camps I can take
without needing anyone else. I don't get XP, but I do get some reward
(items) for being there. I can plan ahead as to what I want to do with my
gaming time.
If you want to get flowthrough of high levels in an item camp, the two
surefire ways are:
(A) Make the item No Drop, which will deter many from going. No Drop items
create economy problems, though - they negate it. So not a good general
solution.
(B) Make the item drop frequently, so it has no intrinsic value other than
play value. Orc Fang earrings are a good example there - we're talking about
an earring that is amazing for a mid level melee, but it costs 50 pp or less
because they drop frequently. People don't farm stuff for sale when they can
make better money elsewhere. But because Verant is concerned about players
having "unique, cool" gear, this is not likely to happen.
>I didn't try the new Runnyeye, for instance, because a simple /who
>in zone the first week showed quite a few 40s and 50s in zone.
>Why fight my way in - at risk of death - just to see a 58th druid
>camping the item I went there to get?
Funny you'd use that as an example, given how many of the drops in
Runnyeye are random rare drops, which cannot be "camped" to exclusion
generally. ;-)
>> The only consistently farmed camp I can think of is the ancient crocodile
>in
>> Upper Guk, and that's because there aren't any other +INT sleeves
>attainable
>> in the game before level 45 or so.
>>
>> It doesn't harm the level-appropriate players at all.
Because the item is useful and appropriate to someone pre-45, I would
claim that one of two things is wrong:
(1) The item has been placed on a mob too low for the power of the item.
Raise the level of the AC above 31, to properly reflect the value of the
drops.
(2) VI has completely and utterly dropped the ball on placing lower-level
alternatives in other places. No other INT sleeves in game before level 45?
HUH? Where are the 1 INT, 2 INT, 3 INT sleeves that SHOULD be in game
instead of some of the garbage that IS out there?
That's one of the BEST solutions. Make a series of intermediate items to
cover gaps in the gear progression, like 1 INT sleeves or 2 WIS pants. Have
them be random rare drops in one or two of the more appropriate-level
dungeons. Then they can't be camped to exclusion, they can be traded with
folks who went through levels elsewhere and got other random rare drops
(like 1 STR 5 HP sleeves with ringmail AC for tanks, say), and people will
be MUCH less likely to camp things like the AC when it's green if all
they'll get out of it is a 1 INT boost.
>> But it does penalize me and other high-level players for getting to said
>> high level, especially when they add the "feature" long after the level
>> was
>> attained.
>
>Would you agree a group of level ones should be able to take
>down Sleeper's Tomb?
I agree that someday that group of level ones, if they put in the time,
will be able to go to Sleeper's Tomb.
>Level-appropriate content is aimed
>at the appropriate levels, surprisingly enough. A 60th level
>warrior has a much business in Unrest, for instance, as a 20th
>level warrior has in Sleepers.
Funny. A 50th level paladin should be in Unrest according to VI - one of
his quest spell drops is there. A level 59 cleric should be there according
to VI - that was my level when I got the pieces for my Disciple's Symbol of
Brell Serilis from mobs on the first floor.
>I suspect VI cares as much for
>50's saying they can't hunt the Warrens as they do for 10's
>saying they can't hunt Cobalt Scar.
Which is to their detriment, as they're not only alienating people they
should be keeping happy, but they're not listening to any of the root causes
of this discontent.
>More appropriately: would you whine to McDonalds about not being
>able to play in the playground if they built it after you were too old?
I would if McDonald's put game pieces for the latest "Win a Million
Dollars" game in the playground.
>> Now let me ask you: how does this HELP the level-appropriate players,
>> given that there is negligable high-level camping going on?
>
>That assumption doesn't seem to be true, at least in my experience.
In my experience there are very few farms where (1) there WOULD be a
lower level group there if it weren't camped, and (2) the item is not
superior to any other item that person could get with the same effort
expended.
>Items which can be sold for a decent pp/hr are farmed, and almost
>always by people too high to be getting experience.
Then put in alternatives. INT 4 sleeves are only valuable because of a
lack of alternatives - if INT 2 MANA 10 sleeves dropped off of Drelzna in
Najena, or off some_random_mob in Stonebrunt, with enough frequency that
people that levelled there would get a pair, then people won't pay through
the nose for Gatorscale. The other alternative is to admit that Gator
Sleeves were placed on too low a mob and move them to somewhere more
appropriate (replace Serp Bracers - those are junk) - but the farmers would
really cry then. ;-) But don't blame the players for finding the highest
reward/lowest risk areas in game, then make some massive changes to all
future content to try and correct the problem - it won't work.
>But, again, if VI wants to encourage lower-levels to use a zone (which
>is a "good thing"), they've only got limited ways to do that. And, of
>those ways, making the loot desirable is the best way to do that.
Now if only they knew how to design loot that IS level-appropriate. *If
every zone had items drop in it that players knew were tradeable for items
they could use and that were level appropriate, players would spread
themselves out because no one zone would be better than another!*
>The Trivial Loot Code just allows VI to use that method without
>knowing that higher-levels will simply move in.
No, it allows them to place massive carrots in zones and annoy the
higher-levels. My favourite example, again: how should a higher-level feel
about not being able to get the three INT back slot item from The Warrens,
when NOTHING is available as an alternative until they hit Sol A/Crystal
Caverns levels?
>Just to be clear: we're not talking about quest items, just normal
>loot. As far as I'm concerned, it should be applied across the
>board. So what if that 56th druid I saw quad-kiting kodiaks in WC
>can't get her own bear pelts?
It means people leave EQ, that's so what - although common pelts
wouldn't be affected by Warrens code anyways. Players are upset enough at
the obstacles placed in front of them that prevent them from even playing -
the requirement for a group. Even as a cleric, I spend 15 to 20 minutes at
the start of each play session looking for a group. And if I can't find one
then it's time to camp to an alt, because I cannot rely on other players
being available to help me get to another zone where I might find a group -
and travel without ports is boring and far, far too long. *I want to improve
my characters, and any time spent NOT doing that feels wasted and frustrates
me.*
Now, imagine the theoretical pelts situation. As a 56th druid, now, I
have to find players that COULD loot the pelts that want to hunt them. The
only way I can influence their decision is to offer plat well in excess of
anything the player could otherwise get (using loot to get players to move),
and that only works if the pelts have value to many folks so the value of a
pelt is well-known. So now what could have taken a few minutes of time
(quadding the bears) takes a great deal more time (raising the cash in Rathe
Mountains, then finding a seller), AND depends on other people doing
something I need to have done. This is the OPPOSITE of flowthrough - it's
requiring a character to spend MORE time on a task than before.
>It's a good way to encourage a
>player economy that has some flow from lower-levels to the
>higher-levels, instead of being almost always the other way.
This makes no sense. The economy is based on trade of useful items. If
those lower levels are part of it, then they have something useful - in most
cases, cash. It's also optimally efficient - having a farmer camp something
in Sol A as opposed to a group means less man-hours spent per item, and this
will be reflected in the price. It also means the group can go someplace
else and do XP in the most efficient way possible, knowing that they can
still get the items they want because someone is collecting them and because
they're getting cash for trade as they get XP.
Look at Warrens-world. Players scramble from item camp to item camp,
hoping to get what they feel they need before it's Warrensed out of reach.
This means they aren't getting XP as efficiently as possible, by definition,
so they level slower. Furthermore, because level-appropriate camps generally
require more people than green camps, the number of items being camped is
lowered. So the number of items coming into the world per unit time is
lowered. So items raise in value as they get rarer. So cash is devalued. NOW
you have the exact opposite effect as before - everyone has left all the
loot-poor areas like Lake of Ill Omen because they can no longer hunt there
and equip themselves.
Basically, the system needs a complete overhaul. ;-) The designers have
to decide what armour options a character should have from mob-looted items
at every level, what range of weapons, what amount of plat assuming
six-person groups, and then adjust ALL drops and drop tables to match. If an
item is available off a "normal opponent" at level X, there had better not
be a better item off a mob level X-Y. If an item of a given class is made
available, then by the time that mob goes green a better item of the same
class MUST be available. Then, once all that has been adjusted, start
modifying tradeskill items based off of target market and assumed level to
be able to craft such items. Finally, set vendor prices on item drops such
that REASONABLE prices can be obtained by sale to vendors. THEN you could
justify the Warrens Code.
James
James
Dan Harmon wrote:
>"James" <jamesg...@home.com> wrote in message
>news:2GRi7.840$JH4.1...@news1.telusplanet.net...
>
>> I disagree about it doing nothing. Other than the chance to screw up
>quests,
>
>Screw up brand new quests from brand new zones? Maybe you're a Warrens
>expert, I certainly am not, but are screwed up quests a problem there?
Talk to your local cleric of Quellious - most of them can't even start
their Holy Symbol quests because the pieces drop off low-level mobs in The
Warrens. The quest was put in after Warrens was live - they knew about the
code, and did it anyways.
>If my suspicions
>are correct, what makes you think that they'll screw up a bunch of quests
in
>the new land?
History. That, and complexity and assumptions. There's presumably going
to be a lot of quests - likely ones will get "oopsed". They also have to
make assumptions about what level of player would benefit from the quests -
and any time they guess low, problems will result.
>And if they do screw up quests...which ones will be affected? It ain't
>gonna be high level quests, so the Trivial Loot code shouldn't come into
>play at all.
For a quest to be adversely affected by Trivial Loot it HAS to be of
value to higher level players, doesn't it? ;-)
>> So I'll never be forced to travel through one of these "low level"
>zones
>> by linear design to get to the zones I "belong" in? There will be NO
>content
>> in these zones that I cannot discover that reveals the backstory to SoL
in
>> any way, shape, or form? The items coming from these new zones will in no
>> way, shape or form be better than any equipment I currently posess? How
>much
>> would you like to bet that all three of these will be broken in SoL?
Given
>> the content in the Warrens, I can imagine the loot that will drop in a
>> Droga-level dungeon in SoL - and I can't upgrade myself by going there.
>
>I can't think of any particularly interesting pieces of Warrens loot. What
>did you have in mind?
The three INT cloak and two INT belt come to mind rather quickly.
James
James
Dan Harmon wrote in message ...
>news:9mginb$35l$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>> "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com> wrote in message
>> news:OMPi7.86251$Lw3.6...@news2.aus1.giganews.com...
>>
>> some Erudite cleric friends of mine who are peeved that they can't get
>>their
>> Diety symbols because some of the quest items drop in the Warrens.
>
>You don't think it's likely they'll learn from their mistakes?
I don't think they CAN learn from that. Dan - if I show you an item, can
you tell me off the top of your head, or even with a bit of work, what level
ranges should be able to get it for each race/class combo on it, and what
the next best item is in that slot for those race/class combos? And if
there'll be an extra "desire" factor, like appearance? That's an involved
task - yet every quest item HAS to be evaluated that way to determine what
level mob it should drop from. Put it on a mob too high, it's "vendor
trash". Put it on a mob too low, and now you have a bunch of REALLY angry
folks where before you just had farmers.
>I mean, I
>think that even most VI detracters will say that the game is better now
than
>it was 2 years ago
By leaps and bounds, and it's the best thing I've ever seen. I have yet
to hear of a game that even mildly made me want to leave EQ.
>> Checking /who lists, there are many more 50-60 players logged on Fennin
>than
>> 1 - 30. Alienating them will only hurt Verant.
>
>Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years.
I
>think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC or
>another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
>people that're leaving anyway?
Because they don't want people to leave after a few years. They want
people to be so hooked they'll linger on for years and years. And the people
most likely to have the emotional attachment necessary to force that are
people with well-developed characters that cannot be quickly replaced should
the person come back to EQ.
James
TwoHead
Are all these items in your examples No Drop? The INT items, the quest
items, any items you as a higher player desire from the zone? If they
are not No Drop then they can be purchased from those who hunt them. If
they are No Drop does the TC prevent you from looting them from the
corpse after the appropriate level character has killed them? If they
are No Drop but lootable if the mob has been properly killed then they
can be acquired by hiring a char of the proper level to do the hunting
and allow you to loot. The only way I see an issue is if the items poof
if the corpse is accessed by a player of too high a level no matter how
the mob was killed. Well I guess if you were the sort who never wanted
to interact with those smelly n00bs there would be an issue, but other
than that it seems to all work out ok. So just how does this TC work if
a lower lvl char kills the mob and a higher lvl char accesses the
corpse?
th
Dennis Francis Heffernan
wrote:
|And the only way to keep lower level stuff unexplored and unsolved for
|more than 4 hours after the expansion is turned on is to put some kind
|of restriction or disincentive on higher level players hunting in newbie
|zones.
In your dreams.
I'm going to run amok in every TCC zone they publish, just because I can.
I'll kill every damn mob I can solo just to see if I get a TCC message when it
dies. If I have to be the one to map them, I will. (Doubt it though; I
expect Stonebrunt has already been mapped by people on Test and will be
published to web sites as soon as it goes live. I expect all the low-level
Luclin zones to be mapped and published within a week, two tops, of live.)
Meanwhile, better organized and/or equipped pharmers (ones who can
two-box) will circumvent the TCC and find out what the drops are.
The TCC *DOES NOT WORK*. It just pisses people off by forcing them to
cheat to get around it.
Dan Day
>at the appropriate levels, surprisingly enough. A 60th level
>warrior has a much business in Unrest, for instance, as a 20th
>level warrior has in Sleepers.
You might say the same thing about a level 49 in Unrest --
except for the fact that Verant puts stuff there that
a Paladin needs for his level 49 quest spell.
JeffDo
>
>Please correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't you saying that trivial loot code
>is a bad idea because high levels won't care about it anyway?
I'm saying that the newbie and mid level zones are too bloody empty as it is
now, to shut anyone off from them. I'm saying that the fact that the newbie
zones are empty shows that there are very few A. true newbies left and B. that
it is a waste of resources to preserve zones for a vanishing class.
I'm also arguing that since the newbie loot eventually becomes worthless, anyone
should be able to farm it. If some 60 wants to go farm a FBR when nobody wears
them anymore, what's the bloody harm?
>And if a high level player wanted to start farming that zone ("Hey, I pays
>my $10/mo, I have a fucking RIGHT to farm that shit away from your n00bie
>azz. Who gives a SHIT if you'd get expo, and theses bitzes were green to me
>20 levels ago! I PAY $10/MO, THEREFORE I AM A G0D SO FUCK OFF") then that
>would be a reason FOR the code.
Sure, but how often does this happen? The fact the zones are empty implies to me
that it doesn't happen as often as some people whine it does.
Jeff
Ken
>
> "> If if if. Well, the thing is, I'm not talking about trivial codes for
> existing zones, I'm talking about the brand NEW zones.
The same applies to all zones, use a bit of imagination,
> So since you pay $10/mo goddamnit you deserve everything,
> andscrewthenewbies?
I've noticed you like taking what people say out of context, and here again.
hughes
> range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
> clear to me, so please reword it.
Because if they want that item they now have to go camp it themselves . No
more buying from someone else .
There will no longer ever be high level characters in the zone to deal with
bad trains or catastrophically bad decisions or even just very bad luck.
It takes a group of appropriate level characters days and many deaths to
explore . High level characters do it faster and put the results on the net
. Net result is that newbies will have no clue of where to go get equipment.
It encourages the creation of level appropriate farmers with multiple
computers . A really hideous breed of miscreant I want nothing to do with .
It destroys the role playing enviroment . If this game is reduced to just a
video game then it rots , there are many really high quality video games
available and eq just cant make the cut as a video game .
And the number one reason ! It pisses me off if even just once I want a
piece of equipment or a quest item from a lower level zone that I cant go
get . If I get pissed off I leave . If enough people are like me then the
game folds and the precious newbie we are oh so trying to protect gets to
play alone .
P.s . Its also very true that there isnt a problem to begin with . All these
reasons are negative and try as hard as I can I can see no positives for
trivial loot code that are not already handled by reputation and the play
nice policy . This leaves me in a quandry about why anyone wants it . The
only reasons understandable to me are greed and envy .
JeffDo
>24/7 in the Temple of Droga. Najena usually has some farmers in it. Dalnir
>>always has someone farming on my server. SolA Is farmed 24/7 on my server,
>>especially the for the Impskin gloves, charred guardian shield, and the Molten
>>cloak. You must be on some weird server because Frontier Mountains on my
>>server usually has 30-40 people in it during prime time, mostly at the giant
>>fort.
How new is your server? That might have something to do with it. Mine has been
up since phase 4, which is why I figure the newbie population is slowly
decreasing to almost nothing.
Of course if you're on a maxed population server (Mine isn't) that could be the
reason, too. You said they always have someone farming, any idea the level range
of the farmers?
40 people in FM seems a bit much even for a high population server considering
their are easier zones with better exp and items available.
Eventually though I think quality of loot is what will make or break a zone. I
don't think there is anything in Najena as an example that a level 60 can't get
better and just as easy elsewhere.
Jeff
JeffDo
>think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC or
>another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
>people that're leaving anyway?
Don't kid yourself, Verant isn't doing this to make it so the poor newbies have
an easier time of it. They are doing it to increase the overall difficulty
further and make it so you have to start yet another twink if you want
something.
They certainly aren't becoming pro newbie, Velious just obliterates that idea.
Where were the newbie zones in Velious? (They don't exist.)
Odds are the additional character advancement methods being introduced with
Luclin will keep alot of people in the end stages of EQ, interested.
My problem is Verant increasingly wants to make the high level game more
difficult. They added the green mob aggro, they added no drop so you couldn't
easily pass stuff off to twinks, soft codes to make items less useful on twinks,
now they're making it so you have to be a certain level just to get the loot.
Where does it end? Isn't the idea behind leveling that you get more power and
gain more abilities? As opposed to nothing ever getting easier? Are they next
going to say you can only get items if you're in a full group?
Jeff
Brian Hance
wrote:
>Runnyeye. SolA. Both zones are still farmed on occasion (hell, I farm SolA
>when bored and no level-appropriate folks are there).
Runnyeye isn't all that camped anymore. Most of the camping was in
the first couple of weeks while people got a handle on the drops from
there.
SolA I have little experiance with though, being a druid and all.
Nothing like a whole DUNGEON that can resist all your best spells.
:-)
--
Brian Hance - bha...@micro-net.com
==================================
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself.
They're pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings."
Humphrey Bogart from THE BIG SLEEP
Brian Hance
>Are all these items in your examples No Drop? The INT items, the quest
>items, any items you as a higher player desire from the zone? If they
>are not No Drop then they can be purchased from those who hunt them.
Yeah, cuz lord knows how many people hunt in the Warrens and have
stuff like this to sell. Suprised the market isn't totally saturated
with them yet.
Brian Hance
wrote:
>So since you pay $10/mo goddamnit you deserve everything,
>andscrewthenewbies?
No, not 'screwthenewbies', but my level 50 druid shouldn't get screwed
for the newbies sake either.
Brian Hance
wrote:
>Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years. I
>think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC or
>another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
>people that're leaving anyway?
I've been playing for over 2 years now, and just barely got 50. I'm,
frighteningly enough, not quite burnt out yet. Still lots more for me
to do, I hope.
That is, of course, unless they keep doing things like this.
Wolfie
"hughes" <hugh...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:I%_i7.2907$Fv3.2...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> > Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
> > range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
> > clear to me, so please reword it.
>
> Because if they want that item they now have to go camp it themselves . No
> more buying from someone else .
No, it would mean no more buying from a level 50 who sat there
for hours with zero risk. Level-appropriate players would still
sell the items they get if they have better or if they stay long
enough to get multiple drops.
> There will no longer ever be high level characters in the zone to deal
with
> bad trains or catastrophically bad decisions or even just very bad luck.
Really? When I'm bored and just talking in guildchat, I'll sometimes
go to Oasis to help out at the docks. I'm not there farming anything,
just helping out. Or sometimes even just go to LoIO and help derail
trains at the windmill.
> It takes a group of appropriate level characters days and many deaths to
> explore . High level characters do it faster and put the results on the
net
> . Net result is that newbies will have no clue of where to go get
equipment.
As has been repeatedly pointed out, high-levels will certainly have
alts (or can get them to the appropriate level quickly) and will
escort those alts through zones looking for the drops. TLC doesn't
stop that, although it can put at least require some risk for the
twink (some, not a lot.)
> It encourages the creation of level appropriate farmers with multiple
> computers . A really hideous breed of miscreant I want nothing to do with
.
Yep.
> It destroys the role playing enviroment . If this game is reduced to just
a
> video game then it rots , there are many really high quality video games
> available and eq just cant make the cut as a video game .
Role-playing being "I can farm all the really good stuff out of this
zone because I'm 30 levels higher than the highest mob"? That's
not role-playing.
> And the number one reason ! It pisses me off if even just once I want a
> piece of equipment or a quest item from a lower level zone that I cant go
> get . If I get pissed off I leave . If enough people are like me then the
> game folds and the precious newbie we are oh so trying to protect gets to
> play alone .
So do what you expect the newbies to do: buy it.
> P.s . Its also very true that there isnt a problem to begin with . All
these
> reasons are negative and try as hard as I can I can see no positives for
> trivial loot code that are not already handled by reputation and the play
> nice policy . This leaves me in a quandry about why anyone wants it . The
> only reasons understandable to me are greed and envy .
People don't enforce the PnP as it regards camps. "The only reasons
understandable to me are greed and envy" is a perfect description of
why a lot of people see the need for TLC, by the way.
Greed: I'd rather make 1k pp/hr sitting here farming the ogres in
WK than actually fighting something that might -- god forbid -- be
risky. The people who could actually get XP off these guys can just
go somewhere else.
Envy: That damn newbie got the cool, katana-style blade from the
Warrens that I want to run around EC wearing with this outfit. Damn
him! I can't get it, but he can.
Morelyn
wrote:
>> Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of appropriate
>> range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it wasn't
>> clear to me, so please reword it.
>
>Because if they want that item they now have to go camp it themselves . No
>more buying from someone else .
>
That's a good thing, not a bad thing. The game is about adventuring,
not auctioning.
>There will no longer ever be high level characters in the zone to deal with
>bad trains or catastrophically bad decisions or even just very bad luck.
>
Oh, as if they do now. The high level farmers in a zone are typically
stuck way in the last room, paying absolutely no attention to anything
going on elsewhere.
>It takes a group of appropriate level characters days and many deaths to
>explore . High level characters do it faster and put the results on the net
>. Net result is that newbies will have no clue of where to go get equipment.
>
I hope you're not one of those people who think anyone below level 50
is a newbie...
>It encourages the creation of level appropriate farmers with multiple
>computers . A really hideous breed of miscreant I want nothing to do with .
>
This is very true and is your one valid point, IMO. But there's
really not much of a change in the status quo.
>It destroys the role playing enviroment . If this game is reduced to just a
>video game then it rots , there are many really high quality video games
>available and eq just cant make the cut as a video game .
>
Run this one by me again?
>And the number one reason ! It pisses me off if even just once I want a
>piece of equipment or a quest item from a lower level zone that I cant go
>get . If I get pissed off I leave . If enough people are like me then the
>game folds and the precious newbie we are oh so trying to protect gets to
>play alone .
>
You're right, I think, this is your number one reason, and the number
one reason of many posting in these threads. It isn't a terribly
admirable one, you know.
You apparently believe that the fact that you're 55 or 60 or whatever
you are gives you the *right* to go anywhere in the game and grab any
piece of loot your little heart desires. Never mind whether you're
fighting something even remotely challenging -- "I'm effin' 55 and by
God if I want that Helmet of Swollen Head I'll take it! Stand aside,
noobs!"
In Asheron's Call many dungeons are restricted by level. Once you
pass the upper limit, sorry Charlie, you can't go there anymore.
Being level 60 gives you no rights. It gives you the *ability* to
face the toughest mobs in the game, that's it.
>P.s . Its also very true that there isnt a problem to begin with .
Sure there's a problem. Dungeons are very underpopulated. People
cram into safe-leveling zones like Omen and Overthere.
Now. All that said, I don't really think the TCC will do much to
ameliorate the problem. The problem is much more with poorly designed
dungeons than with farmers.
But there is a problem, farmers DO exist, and TCC might help a little.
Obviously, No Drop quest items that a high level needs should not be
put in these zones. But if Runnyeye, say, were Warrens loot rules and
some upper level had to buy a BA Medallion from a mid-level, I see
absolutely nothing wrong with that. You have no RIGHT to camp
whatever loot you want, no matter what level you are.
> All these
>reasons are negative and try as hard as I can I can see no positives for
>trivial loot code that are not already handled by reputation and the play
>nice policy . This leaves me in a quandry about why anyone wants it . The
>only reasons understandable to me are greed and envy .
>
Well, then we're even. The only reason I see for complaining so
bitterly about TCC are greed and envy.
Dan Dutra
"Brian Hance" <bha...@micro-net.com> wrote in message
news:7ihpot49ptos9l4u1...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 21:10:05 GMT, "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years.
I
> >think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC
or
> >another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
> >people that're leaving anyway?
>
> I've been playing for over 2 years now, and just barely got 50. I'm,
> frighteningly enough, not quite burnt out yet. Still lots more for me
> to do, I hope.
>
> That is, of course, unless they keep doing things like this.
I've been playing for a little over a year, and I've managed to get a
character to 60, and 2 more to the mid 50's, and I'm not burnt out yet. I
don't go to the Warrens because none of my characters are of non-trivial
level, and I don't have any more room on my account to create a newbie just
to explore a new zone, so I effectively get locked out of any new content
in there. And no, I won't be starting a new character on a new server,
because starting out naked with a guild tunic and rusty weapon isn't my cup
of tea. I've been through that hell once, and once was enough for me. I'm
not looking to quit EQ, but if they present m with a new expansion in which
I don't have access to half the content, chances are I'll move on if
something better comes along, and those who I associate with have the same
feeling. At the very least, if the TCC is in place, have the mobs not aggro
me if they're too weak to drop loot for me.
Jim Monk
>
> feeling. At the very least, if the TCC is in place, have the mobs not aggro
> me if they're too weak to drop loot for me.
I can definatly agree with this bit.
It would actually make the zones better for the right level people too.
Humm.
Jim
Dan Harmon
"TwoHead" <t...@2omar2world2.com> wrote in message
news:3B8C134C...@2omar2world2.com...
> > The three INT cloak and two INT belt come to mind rather quickly.
> >
> > James
>
> Are all these items in your examples No Drop? The INT items, the quest
I don't know about the 3 INT cloak but I guess I'll go research it...sounds
like a nice lowbie item (there's lots of alternatives for higher levels...no
need to go to Warrens).
I do know that the 2 INT belt is NOT no-drop...I've done the quest a couple
of times and have given one away to my high level enc.
Yes, with WARRENS loot code (don't know if they'll adjust it for SoL) anyone
can loot the items.
I see ZERO wrong with forcing a level 50 player from BUYING a quest reward
from a lower level player. The THOUGHT of some level 45 camping the critter
that drops the belt quest piece pisses me off.
Dan Harmon
Talk about taking things out of context, you CANNOT...repeat CANNOT even
THINK about applying this to zones which will not and do not have Trivial
Code rules. Comparing them is silly. Quit being silly.
Dan Harmon
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 20:48:19 GMT, "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com>
> wrote:
>
> >So since you pay $10/mo goddamnit you deserve everything,
> >andscrewthenewbies?
>
> No, not 'screwthenewbies', but my level 50 druid shouldn't get screwed
> for the newbies sake either.
So you have no problem with stealing xp from lower level folks. Lots of
people share your view. I do not.
Dan Harmon
> >Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years.
> I
> >think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC
or
> >another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
> >people that're leaving anyway?
>
> Because they don't want people to leave after a few years. They want
> people to be so hooked they'll linger on for years and years. And the
people
> most likely to have the emotional attachment necessary to force that are
> people with well-developed characters that cannot be quickly replaced
should
> the person come back to EQ.
Although we often have negative things to say about Verant and their
sometimes dimwitted ideas they'd have to be insanely stupid or insanely
egotistical to believe that people will continue to play one particular game
forever. One might argue that they're both stupid and egotistical, but
insanely?
Besides, high levels that get pissed off will sell their accounts and get
decent cash (an ex-guildy sold his 57 CLE for $800). Even though that's
against policy that's still more cash in their pocket, which is generally a
Good Thing. Even if they weren't so damned cheap when providing customer
service I don't think they'd ever actively look for people who shouldn't be
paying them.
And, of course, many people DID leave UO for EQ and there's little reason to
believe that there won't be a number of high level players who leave AND
TAKE THEIR FRIENDS WITH THEM when The Next Big Thing comes out. It won't
kill EQ but I'm sure they'll feel the dent. And this'll happen even if they
DON'T tick off the high levels.
Dan Dutra
It's hard to steal exp from newbies who refuse to hunt in the zone.
Dan Harmon
"JeffDo" <JeffDo...@newsguy.com> wrote in message
news:9mi9n...@drn.newsguy.com...
> >Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years.
I
> >think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC
or
> >another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
> >people that're leaving anyway?
>
> Don't kid yourself, Verant isn't doing this to make it so the poor newbies
have
> an easier time of it. They are doing it to increase the overall difficulty
> further and make it so you have to start yet another twink if you want
> something.
That would be true if that was their mission. I don't agree with that. Is
Vox or Naggy harder now than before? No. Is Gorenaire harder now than
before? Kinda doubt it, but I wouldn't know.
Velious was added because (besides for the cash influx that expansions
typically give) there was a shortage of high level zones. Hell, so was
Kunark.
I'm guessing but I think that Verant has decided that there's now enough
zones for everyone (I would agree) but another influx of cash would be cool,
and kitties are cute.
Dan Harmon
> On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 21:10:05 GMT, "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com>
> wrote:
>
> >Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years.
I
> >think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC
or
> >another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
> >people that're leaving anyway?
>
> I've been playing for over 2 years now, and just barely got 50. I'm,
> frighteningly enough, not quite burnt out yet. Still lots more for me
> to do, I hope.
>
> That is, of course, unless they keep doing things like this.
"This" being BUYING loot drops instead of farming them. *shrug* That's up to
you.
Dan Harmon
> feeling. At the very least, if the TCC is in place, have the mobs not
aggro
> me if they're too weak to drop loot for me.
That'd be nice. Getting tired of being aggroed in SolA while heading to
SolB, for instance.
Dan Harmon
> feeling. At the very least, if the TCC is in place, have the mobs not
aggro
> me if they're too weak to drop loot for me.
Oh, forgot to mention something that may be of interest to you. In the
Warrens this IS the case. Except for the named kobolds, as long as you
don't sit down in their aggro range you won't aggro them. Feel free to
explore The Warrens with any of your 40+ characters. At least in the King
area the aggro seems to be pretty small on the named. I haven't gotten
around to wandering the other half.
So, who knows, maybe Verant HAS learned. Nah, must be a fluke. :p
Dan Dutra
No, they haven't. This is not something new, it's carried over from the
nonTCC zones. Most mobs excluding undead, will never aggro if it won't give
you exp, unless they are over a certain level. I believe 20 is the cutoff.
So basically, anything over 20 will aggro me no matter how green it is, if I
get within range. So let's say that Stonebrunt is akin to LoIO. Away from
the newbie area of Ill Omen a lot of mobs are over 20. So if Stonebrunt is
similar, then high level characters who wish to explore the zone will be
forced to kill green trash which will aggro them, but will give no exp and
drop them no loot. Seems fair.
NECP
newbies
> have
> > an easier time of it. They are doing it to increase the overall
difficulty
> > further and make it so you have to start yet another twink if you want
> > something.
>
> That would be true if that was their mission. I don't agree with that.
Is
> Vox or Naggy harder now than before? No. Is Gorenaire harder now than
> before? Kinda doubt it, but I wouldn't know.
>
> Velious was added because (besides for the cash influx that expansions
> typically give) there was a shortage of high level zones. Hell, so was
> Kunark.
I have a theory along these line about why TCC the new expansion full of new
nwebie zones...
Give the kitties a head start. With TCC, they can put some truely uber
items in the kitty newbie zones, and not worry a wit that they'll be farmed
by the higher level guys (like me) who learn of a new plus resists/int hands
item... which have been utterly lacking from every other zone in the game.
Now this will get some disproportionately good equipment in the hands of
brand new race and class really quickly... and it WILL cause resentment
amongst some higher level characters who don't want to start a beastmaster.
Basically it's like VI twinking the new cats. Much like they did the snake
heads when kunark came out. After a week or two when there's a couple of
level 60 cats per server, the loot will settle down some... of course the
TCC will still be in place, and already have caused all the resentment
(depending on how good that new lute is) it needs to.
Better ways to accomplish this? (oh I don't know... kitty only items,
maybe?)
I figure with my luck the new wizard pet spells will be mob drop in new cat
zones... and probably in reverse order... the 39 will drop in a level 1-5
zone where TCC is designed to encourage cats to play their wizards until
they can actually use the spells... while the level 5 one will be placed on
Ragar Na'Halas the cat gawd of space combat in the Kilrah Prime zone...
requiring 75 guilds of not less than 100 people per to kill him, and a zone
cap of 6 players.
I've tought about TCC quite a bit since it was introduced... ultimately I do
not like it, because of the disparity in levels which many of MY quests
require... can you imagine doing the Coldain Shawl quest if bunnies wouldn't
drop meat for people to whom they are green? (to save you the thought... the
quest would then be litterally impossible).
-
TwoHead
> They certainly aren't becoming pro newbie, Velious just obliterates that idea.
> Where were the newbie zones in Velious? (They don't exist.)
>
This has to be one of the silliest things I've read lately. You mean
there are no newbie zones in the continent that was specifically added
to create high level content? I am shocked!
th
Richard Melvin
hughes <hugh...@earthlink.net> writes
>
>P.s . Its also very true that there isnt a problem to begin with . All these
>reasons are negative and try as hard as I can I can see no positives for
>trivial loot code that are not already handled by reputation and the play
>nice policy . This leaves me in a quandry about why anyone wants it . The
>only reasons understandable to me are greed and envy .
You talk about role playing. Can you imagine an Ad&D GM letting a bunch
of level 18 characters play in a level 5 dungeon unmodified? Do you
think, if they did, anyone would be having any fun after the first 5
minutes?
/Shrug, if you want to play a game of boring mindless levelling followed
by boring mindless camping for items, then whine loud enough and I am
sure Verant will listen.
Personally, I want to play a game of exploration and raiding.
If anyone out there doesn't see why the current pro-framing code (it is
much much easier for a single level 50 to do some camps than for a full
group of level 40s, purely because of the reduced aggro distance that
the higher level has) has to do with raiding, I will explain.
Look at the similar level Kunark zones, Droga and City of Mist. Both are
set up as raid zones, both have good loot.
City of Mist raids are common, Droga raids are rarer than hens teeth.
Droga is designed as a raid zone, like Chardok, Kael and the planes. But
noone raids there.
Why?
Because Droga is soloable, whereas City of Mist is the lowest zone in
the game whose boss mobs can't be killed by a single shaman, necro or
mage.
So the reavers and Lords in CoM are on a fast spawn, and drop loot
commonly. Meanwhile, in Droga, the Chief has a placeholder and drops his
valuable stuff rarely. So there is no point gathering together 20 people
to raid him, when he is probably not even up.
Of course, you might think this could be fixed by making him more
common, and drop the idol every time. But then the law of economics
kicks in, something common and easy to get is not going to stay
valuable, no matter what its stats. The idol drops to the price of the
shoulders from Gullerback (maybe 100pp). So the net result is every tank
in the game over level 30 has a 10AC range slot item, mobs maybe die a
bit faster (or maybe get made harder to compensate).
And still no raids for anyone under level 45.
Richard
Richard Melvin
Heffernan <dfra...@email.com> writes
>
> What Verant needs to do is to stop trying to tell people how to play the
>game. They need to make the parts of the game people don't like resemble the
>parts of the game people do like,
Please, please, please NO NO NO.
If I wanted to sit in a Karnor's north wall camp for 60 levels, I would
play AO, where I would have the prospect of another 140 levels of the
same thing to look forward to.
I am not saying such places shouldn't exist, though I think they should
probably have a lower exp modifier than they do. I am saying that the
part of the game I like is taking a 6 person group crawling through ToFS
or Kaesora. You can't do it every week night, but then I don't play
every single week night.
Half the problem with the game is that people play it for so long (16
hours at a stretch is not uncommon, I had someone in a pickup group once
claim that they had been playing 44 hours straight) they are literally
too tired to do anything other than the simplest gimp pull single blue
mob, kill, leave loot to rot cos it had none, repeat x 400 group that is
all too common these days.
Richard
James
TwoHead wrote in message <3B8C134C...@2omar2world2.com>...
>> >
>> >I can't think of any particularly interesting pieces of Warrens loot.
What
>> >did you have in mind?
>>
>> The three INT cloak and two INT belt come to mind rather quickly.
>
The belt is the result of a quest where you give Azzar Habib his
Dreadful Hat back. The Hat is No Drop.
>The INT items, the quest
>items, any items you as a higher player desire from the zone?
The quest items of Quellious are also No Drop. The cloak is tradeable.
>If they
>are not No Drop then they can be purchased from those who hunt them.
Yes. But why? Why add an extra step in trying to obtain an item that
wasn't there before? Why annoy customers more than they are now?
>If
>they are No Drop does the TC prevent you from looting them from the
>corpse after the appropriate level character has killed them?
No, I imagine the appropriate-level character would do that all by
himself. If the bank beggars are any guideline, the high level will be asked
for half his gear and his first born child to loot a quest piece. Lord, look
at what the parasites that get the cloak from Quillmane ask for! And that's
assuming there WAS an appropriate-level character there who could kill the
mob in question.
I've levelled my Necro to 20 in The Warrens, and trust me, it's a barren
place. Half the time it was just me, or friends I had to ask to log in the
alts to play there - mostly, just me. Now imagine our questing cleric - he
has to go to the Warrens, FIND SOMEONE to help him, and THEN get lucky with
the drops? Why would anyone want to keep a player in a low-level zone for
any longer than necessary?
>If they
>are No Drop but lootable if the mob has been properly killed then they
>can be acquired by hiring a char of the proper level to do the hunting
>and allow you to loot.
WHY DO YOU WANT HIGHER-LEVEL CHARACTERS TO LINGER IN LOWER-LEVEL ZONES?
Every impediment you place in their way, like having to find someone to help
them, only makes them stay longer and screw around even more. I've seen the
people who start pulling rares to zone and hoping their "helper" can kill
it - no, your little level 12 buddy can't kill Muglwump. Oops, everyone
dies. I would MUCH rather the person zone in, gack Muglwump himself, and
zone out.
>The only way I see an issue is if the items poof
>if the corpse is accessed by a player of too high a level no matter how
>the mob was killed.
That's not the case.
>Well I guess if you were the sort who never wanted
>to interact with those smelly n00bs there would be an issue,
Um, WHAT n00bs? They don't go there. Even if they DID, they don't stay
long because, surprise surprise, they tend to level pretty quickly. And then
THEY can't get loot, and have to leave. Here's some of the fun scenarios we
have to look forward to in SoL in the lower-level areas:
"Hello, PC_LFG. We need to know your exact level before you can join us, so
we know if you'll poof our phat lewt. One level too high for one of our
nameds? Get lost!"
"Mr. GM, it's unfair. Those high levels are pulling just about every mob in
the dungeon to their low-level friends whom they might as well PL anyways
since they have to be here to get the loot!"
"/auction WTB party of adventurers to go to some hellishly remote place so
you can kill a mob for me. No, I cannot bind you there as I'm a melee, I
can't res you back if you die, I can't port.... aw, forget it."
>but other
>than that it seems to all work out ok.
<smirk>
James
Dream King
>If anyone out there doesn't see why the current pro-framing code (it is
>much much easier for a single level 50 to do some camps than for a full
>group of level 40s, purely because of the reduced aggro distance that
>the higher level has) has to do with raiding, I will explain.
>
>Look at the similar level Kunark zones, Droga and City of Mist. Both are
>set up as raid zones, both have good loot.
>
>City of Mist raids are common, Droga raids are rarer than hens teeth.
>Droga is designed as a raid zone, like Chardok, Kael and the planes. But
>noone raids there.
>
>Why?
>
>Because Droga is soloable, whereas City of Mist is the lowest zone in
>the game whose boss mobs can't be killed by a single shaman, necro or
>mage.
That sounds like an assumption to me. For one thing, I don't think
either of these two are set up as "raid zones".
Nobody is in Droga because it's poorly designed and the risk isn't
worth the rewards to those of the appropriate level to get xp there.
These aren't "similar level" zones, either. Droga tops out at 35. The
top mobs in CoM... I'm not sure since it's been awhile since I've been
there. Definitely over 35. City of Mist is the place you go _after_
Droga starts to green out.
The reason City of Mist raids are common is because a few classes have
epic components there. Before epics came along City of Mist would see
only a few groups. You'd have someone pulling to zone and you'd maybe
have a group on one side of the courtyard. That was about it.
Basically I'm having trouble following you here. Are you saying Droga
would be more populated if the mobs were not soloable or what?
Thomas R. Pennington
newbie content in any expansion, even one that was advertised as being for high
level content. Not a far fetched assumations in argument about Verant being "pro
newbie".
Personally, I believe Verant is neither "pro newbie" or "pro high level". I think
they are more "pro Verant" and "pro standard company profit lines". This is natural
of any company that is catagorized as a non-Not-for-Profit company.
-Wadin Pureheart of Quellious
Ranger, 56 summers
TwoHead
Well I guess as an alternative to the alternatives VI could introduce
the "gift package". When new content is added to a TLC zone all chars
above the cut off level log in with a "gift package" in their inventory
which contains all phat lewt applicable to their class. No need to even
go gimp the zone, saves time and stress while making sure that no high
level goes w/o the requisite loot.
(Note, the above post is served without seasoning, sprinkle with ;)s
and <eg>s to taste)
th
James
Brian Hance wrote in message <9tgpotcb82cb2qi05...@4ax.com>...
>On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 16:37:02 GMT, "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Runnyeye. SolA. Both zones are still farmed on occasion (hell, I farm
SolA
>>when bored and no level-appropriate folks are there).
>
>Runnyeye isn't all that camped anymore. Most of the camping was in
>the first couple of weeks while people got a handle on the drops from
>there.
>
>SolA I have little experiance with though, being a druid and all.
>Nothing like a whole DUNGEON that can resist all your best spells.
Sol A is perma-farmed on my server, and I imagine on yours as well. This
is typically what happens: players of level 35 and up zone into Sol B,
aren't insta-killed by a train. A few inquiries reveals that Pool is being
camped by a solo monk with a second account cleric healing him, King has a
small group of four in it that doesn't want others "slowing our XP", Bats is
camped by a Fungi Soloist, as is Bugs (two soloists in Bugs - they're tough!
:-/). Ragefire is camped so the Giants aren't up, and unless you have all
the components of a balanced group with you Efreeti isn't an option. So you
go to Sol A, pick a camp, and kill for items so your night isn't a total
waste. Especially since many of the items there will last you well into your
50's.
If you WERE a legitimate group zoning in, you'd find:
(A) That you'd have to fight your way in just to get to a zone that can be
pulled to without flying headfirst into lava, and that if you had to USE
that zone it would drop you in a Greater Kobold's lap. Why are you pulling
to a zone? Well, because....
(B) If ANYONE dies, the group is shut down for the 10 to 15 minutes it'll
take them to get back to the group. Hope you brought a cleric, and that the
cleric wasn't the one to die....
(C) That half the goblins are crazy casters, and all the goblins are
runners - did you bring Snare?
(D) That doing the gnomes is nothing short of suicide.
Upon finding this all out, you'd leave and go to OT with everyone else.
James
TwoHead
>
> Actually the point was that if Verant was "pro newbie", they would have placed
> newbie content in any expansion, even one that was advertised as being for high
> level content. Not a far fetched assumations in argument about Verant being "pro
> newbie".
>
Actually a contention could be made that VI evidenced a pro newbie
stance by NOT putting low level content on Velious. Imagine trying to
get through SG to get to a lvl 6 hunting ground. Now that would be anti
newbie, so by not doing that it must have been a pro newbie statement.
ROFL, logic, just add salt and twist. Just about any shaped pretzle can
be created if you are creative enough. I repeat, the lack of low level
content in a high level expansion does nothing to indicate VI's stance
regarding newbies... unless you really want it to, in which case it can
mean anything you want it to.
th
Richard Melvin
<morp...@cent.com> writes
>
> Basically I'm having trouble following you here. Are you saying Droga
>would be more populated if the mobs were not soloable or what?
If the mobs were not soloable, then they could drop valuable loot
commonly.
Not _good_ loot, valuable loot. Put a 12/15 30 AC sword with 50% haste
on a fast spawning soloable mob and it would sell for 500pp within a
week or so, and probably bottom out at 100pp.
Without valuable loot, there are no raids. Raids are, for some people,
fun. Fun, well, if I need to explain why fun is good, then I guess I am
talking to the wrong person.
You will hear a lot of complaint from high level characters who like
raiding, but end up playing a class that is not to their tastes in the
raid game. But they don't want to restart, because they will have to get
through at least 45 levels of sitting and exping before they can join
the lowest level raids. So they stick to their existing class, and whine
asking for the class balance to tweaked for the 400th time, as if that
had something to do their problem.
Richard
Dan Harmon
"NECP" <sp...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:9mj8a2$oui$1...@unix2.broadviewnet.net...
> Give the kitties a head start. With TCC, they can put some truely uber
> items in the kitty newbie zones, and not worry a wit that they'll be
farmed
> by the higher level guys (like me) who learn of a new plus resists/int
hands
> item... which have been utterly lacking from every other zone in the game.
LOL somehow I don't think they're going to put uber stuff in a newbie zone.
:)
James
Dan Harmon wrote in message ...
>
>"TwoHead" <t...@2omar2world2.com> wrote in message
>news:3B8C134C...@2omar2world2.com...
>
>> > The three INT cloak and two INT belt come to mind rather quickly.
>> >
>> > James
>>
>> Are all these items in your examples No Drop? The INT items, the quest
>
>I don't know about the 3 INT cloak but I guess I'll go research it...sounds
>like a nice lowbie item (there's lots of alternatives for higher
levels...no
>need to go to Warrens).
The only alternative with equal or better INT are the Molten Cloak, and
that rare quest cloak that starts in Unrest. The Prince drops this cloak -
he's level 18. Between the time he greens and the time when one could get
the Molten, Kunzar, or Ry'Gorr Oracle cloak is a fair pile of levels, no?
>I do know that the 2 INT belt is NOT no-drop...I've done the quest a couple
>of times and have given one away to my high level enc.
And the hat you had to hand in to Azzar is No Drop. And drops in The
Warrens.
>Yes, with WARRENS loot code (don't know if they'll adjust it for SoL)
anyone
>can loot the items.
Only if someone who's deemed worthy is there to help them.
>I see ZERO wrong with forcing a level 50 player from BUYING a quest reward
>from a lower level player.
That's only part of the issue, Dan, and you know it. (It is a big part,
though. You've seen what folks charge mages to MQ the Pegasus Cloak - you
can imagine what'll happen with restricted phat lewt.) The philosophical
thing that gets folks angry is that the code is counter to everything we've
always thought. If you're good enough, you can achieve your goals in EQ. If
you can't achieve them now, you can work towards them. I can't work towards
that belt - I can only HOPE that people are camping the quest item, and
doing the quest.
Compare this issue to melee binding. In both cases, other players must
be present and want to take the time to help you, and you can't do a thing
towards your goal until that happens. If I want a port, and nobody is
available, I can walk. If I want my XP back from dying, and nobody can res,
I can start killing mobs again. If I want a bind, or to camp a Coded item, I
MUST wait on others.
>The THOUGHT of some level 45 camping the critter
>that drops the belt quest piece pisses me off.
The thought that there's so few alternatives available in EQ that
camping that belt is actually profitable for a level 45 pisses ME off.
James
Dan Harmon
> get within range. So let's say that Stonebrunt is akin to LoIO. Away
from
> the newbie area of Ill Omen a lot of mobs are over 20. So if Stonebrunt
is
> similar, then high level characters who wish to explore the zone will be
> forced to kill green trash which will aggro them, but will give no exp and
> drop them no loot. Seems fair.
In Stonebrunt's particular case, if the zone line is where I heard it was,
there's only one possible named (errr, maybe 2) that you have to go past,
and he'd be pretty close to the zone line and easily ignored (both are, if
the zone line is up there ^^^ and over <<< there).
NECP
Richard Melvin asked:
> You talk about role playing. Can you imagine an Ad&D GM letting a bunch
> of level 18 characters play in a level 5 dungeon unmodified? Do you
> think, if they did, anyone would be having any fun after the first 5
> minutes?
Reverse the levels, same question.
Same answer though:
No. Not the way you seem to think that the game is/should be played.
But, if played properly... any level char in any level dungeon (what do you
mean "unmodified" do you mean one I didn't write? Why the hell would THAT
be any fun?) can, should, and will have fun.
Of course, push a properly played 5th level character to stand toe to toe
with a Vampyre "Lord" and the proper player runs as fast and as far away as
he can...
Unless of course she has a suicide complex...
"The assassin's on the street three stories down? Gee, I wonder how he got
down THERE so fast... Is the window open?"
DM: "yes."
"I'll jump out. Can I land on the assassin? To break---"
DM: "His back?"
"---my fall."
DM: "You can try... uh... roll."
"Oh, and sword down... I want to pin him to the sidewalk."
The "battle" lasted about one tenth of a second... I "won" handly on a
single die roll. But ask any of the people who were there... that was a FUN
night. And they still talk about a battle that lasted a tenth of a second.
Thomas R. Pennington
> But there is a problem, farmers DO exist, and TCC might help a little.
>
What few farmers exist will not be stopped by a TLC. In fact, TLC does not stop
any farming what so ever. The existance of farmers is soly because of
in-appropiate loot on mobs. We all talk about this concept of "appropriate level
players killing appropiate level mobs". That is a falacy. If the loot on a mob is
not appropriate for that level, then the mob that drops it is not appropriate
level for that player. What needs to be done to stop farming is place items are
the correct level of mob. Past history shows that this is a difficult thing to
achieve. Rune Bone Fork, Fish Bone Earring, Idol of Thorn, Gator sleeves and legs
are example of both old and new items that clearly show that in-appropriate loot
is going to be placed on in-approprate mobs. TLC will not stop the farming of
these items by high levels.
>
> Obviously, No Drop quest items that a high level needs should not be
> put in these zones. But if Runnyeye, say, were Warrens loot rules and
> some upper level had to buy a BA Medallion from a mid-level, I see
> absolutely nothing wrong with that. You have no RIGHT to camp
> whatever loot you want, no matter what level you are.
>
Yet, are we not trying to saw that a low level has the RIGHT to camp whatever
loot they want with this justification of the TLC? I mean, that is exactly what
we are stating. "Mr. High_level, you are not allowed to camp a loot because we
deam this loot belonging to Mr. Low_level that is why we are placing the TLC on
this zone." What is the difference? Furthermore, we are stating that Mr.
High_level has to be forced to buy the medallion from Mr Low_level. How is that
any different from the current case that Mr. Low_level has to buy it from Mr.
High_level?
In fact, I believe the second way would be better (ie. low_level buying from
high_level) because the price would be cheaper. The value of items are based on
the supply of the items. Lower the supply and you increase the cost. Increase the
difficulty to obtain the items, you decrease the supply and thereby increase the
cost. Currently, you can get a thing like the Rune Bone Fork for about 400pp.
Make something like that only be obtained by groups of lower levels, the value
will sky rocket to 10kpp. And guilds will go into the area and farm the items
with twinks. That means your newbies will still not be able to camp that item but
now will also not be able to buy the item.
Thomas R. Pennington
Dan Harmon wrote:
Past experience and history clearly shows that they often do. And that they do
some repeatably. See: Rune Boned Fork, Fishbone Earring, Gatorscale sleeaves.
Then look at Shurken Goblin Skull Earring, Idol of Thorn, Medician Totem. Then
look at Cougar Fang Earring, Orc Fang Earring, Black Crystalline Robes
Magpie13
Here's the truth
Spent the morning in SBM with my 25 Iksar SK, 25 Human Mage and 24
Enchanter. Met a 22 Halfling warrior there. Our group killed tons of blues,
a few yellows and a couple whites. EXP rocked!
No higher lvels their tried to KS us, take our camp etc. etc.
That is a fact. I was there. We got some nice items! I camped there and am
planning on gaining levels there (goodbye Lake of Ill Manners!)
New loot rules are great! Thank you Verant!
Skayle (AKA Drywit)
"Wolfie" <bgbd...@tampabay.rr.com> wrote in message
news:Vn4j7.1372$Fu5.9...@typhoon.tampabay.rr.com...
>
> "hughes" <hugh...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
> news:I%_i7.2907$Fv3.2...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> > > Now, if you'd like to explain why it's bad for characters of
appropriate
> > > range for that zone, please explain why. If you did already, it
wasn't
> > > clear to me, so please reword it.
> >
> > Because if they want that item they now have to go camp it themselves .
No
> > more buying from someone else .
>
> No, it would mean no more buying from a level 50 who sat there
> for hours with zero risk. Level-appropriate players would still
> sell the items they get if they have better or if they stay long
> enough to get multiple drops.
>
> > There will no longer ever be high level characters in the zone to deal
> with
> > bad trains or catastrophically bad decisions or even just very bad luck.
>
> Really? When I'm bored and just talking in guildchat, I'll sometimes
> go to Oasis to help out at the docks. I'm not there farming anything,
> just helping out. Or sometimes even just go to LoIO and help derail
> trains at the windmill.
>
> > It takes a group of appropriate level characters days and many deaths to
> > explore . High level characters do it faster and put the results on the
> net
> > . Net result is that newbies will have no clue of where to go get
> equipment.
>
> As has been repeatedly pointed out, high-levels will certainly have
> alts (or can get them to the appropriate level quickly) and will
> escort those alts through zones looking for the drops. TLC doesn't
> stop that, although it can put at least require some risk for the
> twink (some, not a lot.)
>
> > It encourages the creation of level appropriate farmers with multiple
> > computers . A really hideous breed of miscreant I want nothing to do
with
> .
>
> Yep.
>
> > It destroys the role playing enviroment . If this game is reduced to
just
> a
> > video game then it rots , there are many really high quality video games
> > available and eq just cant make the cut as a video game .
>
> Role-playing being "I can farm all the really good stuff out of this
> zone because I'm 30 levels higher than the highest mob"? That's
> not role-playing.
>
> > And the number one reason ! It pisses me off if even just once I want a
> > piece of equipment or a quest item from a lower level zone that I cant
go
> > get . If I get pissed off I leave . If enough people are like me then
the
> > game folds and the precious newbie we are oh so trying to protect gets
to
> > play alone .
>
> So do what you expect the newbies to do: buy it.
>
> > P.s . Its also very true that there isnt a problem to begin with . All
> these
> > reasons are negative and try as hard as I can I can see no positives for
> > trivial loot code that are not already handled by reputation and the
play
> > nice policy . This leaves me in a quandry about why anyone wants it .
The
> > only reasons understandable to me are greed and envy .
>
> People don't enforce the PnP as it regards camps. "The only reasons
> understandable to me are greed and envy" is a perfect description of
> why a lot of people see the need for TLC, by the way.
>
> Greed: I'd rather make 1k pp/hr sitting here farming the ogres in
> WK than actually fighting something that might -- god forbid -- be
> risky. The people who could actually get XP off these guys can just
> go somewhere else.
>
> Envy: That damn newbie got the cool, katana-style blade from the
> Warrens that I want to run around EC wearing with this outfit. Damn
> him! I can't get it, but he can.
>
>
>
Thomas R. Pennington
>
> The reason City of Mist raids are common is because a few classes have
> epic components there. Before epics came along City of Mist would see
> only a few groups. You'd have someone pulling to zone and you'd maybe
> have a group on one side of the courtyard. That was about it.
This is so true. In fact, prior to the epics City of Mist was very
under-populated. It was one of the best zones for level 40-52 to get XP. It
had one of the better ZEMs and was an easy zone once you knew the pathing and
way things worked. Yet, it was seldom have that many people in it.
NECP
> > items in the kitty newbie zones, and not worry a wit that they'll be
> farmed
> > by the higher level guys (like me) who learn of a new plus resists/int
> hands
> > item... which have been utterly lacking from every other zone in the
game.
>
> LOL somehow I don't think they're going to put uber stuff in a newbie
zone.
> :)
Read about some of the drops that were on level 2-4 Sarnaks in Ill Omen
when Kunark opened.
Read about all the things that DON'T drop anymore in Kunark, and where
they were obtained...
True "Uber Loot?" No.
Seriously over powered for the iksar's that were of levels to be hunting
those mobs? I was 22 and slaughtering Sarnak Hatchlings to get one of the
damn staves they used to drop... before I learned that they stopped dropping
them after a week.
But I'm not KOS to the gate guards of Cabalis any more.
My statement was not one of pure supposition... it was a suggestion based on
previously demonstrated behaviour.
Lee
umber Twinked 30th level chactor, the twinked charactor may have an
advantage but at least the non twinked guy has a chance. Where as if he's
competing against a 60th level charactor he might as well go else where.
"Thomas R. Pennington" <to...@cmhcsys.com> wrote in message
news:3B8D5FCB...@cmhcsys.com...
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|Oh, forgot to mention something that may be of interest to you. In the
|Warrens this IS the case. Except for the named kobolds, as long as you
|don't sit down in their aggro range you won't aggro them.
Not true. This is simply the usual agro rules.
Greens below a certain level will not agro on anyone unless a) they are
flagged as undead or b) the prospective target is weakened, either low on HP
or sitting.
Greens above that level will agro on anything. Most of the dogs in the
Warrens are below it.
Dennis F. Heffernan EQ: Venture Fletcher(E'ci) dfra...@email.com
Montclair State U #include <disclaim.h> ICQ:9154048 CompSci/Philosophy
"It's better some times if we don't get to touch our dreams."
-- Harry Chapin
Dennis Francis Heffernan
wrote:
|I am not saying such places shouldn't exist, though I think they should
|probably have a lower exp modifier than they do.
They already HAVE a nerfed EP modifier. It would have to zero EP to get
people to stop.
|I am saying that the
|part of the game I like is taking a 6 person group crawling through ToFS
|or Kaesora. You can't do it every week night, but then I don't play
|every single week night.
And it seems that 300,000 other players don't swim up your stream.
You could not PAY me, in real money, to set foot in ToFS again, for
instance.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|"Hello, PC_LFG. We need to know your exact level before you can join us, so
|we know if you'll poof our phat lewt. One level too high for one of our
|nameds? Get lost!"
/anon and /role PCs are going to be reaaaaaaal popular in TCC zones.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|So if Stonebrunt is
|similar, then high level characters who wish to explore the zone will be
|forced to kill green trash which will aggro them, but will give no exp and
|drop them no loot. Seems fair.
I was in Stonebrunt today and the agro on most of the green trash is just
as bad as the Snow Dervs in Iceclad/EW.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
wrote:
|You talk about role playing. Can you imagine an Ad&D GM letting a bunch
|of level 18 characters play in a level 5 dungeon unmodified? Do you
|think, if they did, anyone would be having any fun after the first 5
|minutes?
The equivalent of this happens all the time, actually; Monty Haul gaming
isn't exactly "rare".
|Personally, I want to play a game of exploration and raiding.
So go ahead. No one can take away your right to plunge headfirst into the
buggy train-ridden deathtraps that are EQ dungeons.
Oh, what's that? No one wants to go with you?
Well, that should tell you something. And that something is not "Verant
should change the rules to encourge my style of play".
|City of Mist raids are common, Droga raids are rarer than hens teeth.
The *only* reason CoM is a major target is epic components. Otherwise it
would be as underutilized as the other dungeons.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
wrote:
|Without valuable loot, there are no raids. Raids are, for some people,
|fun.
Raids are fun for the pull team, and absolute excruciating boredom for
everyone else.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
wrote:
|Spent the morning in SBM with my 25 Iksar SK, 25 Human Mage and 24
|Enchanter. Met a 22 Halfling warrior there. Our group killed tons of blues,
|a few yellows and a couple whites. EXP rocked!
|
|No higher lvels their tried to KS us, take our camp etc. etc.
That's funny, on E'ci there were all the Usual Suspects from the munchkin
guilds, twinks in tow, killing everything that moved to see what it dropped.
I'm including the entire population of the Kejekan town here.
And the EP in the zone suXXors, btw. The zone has the standard outdoor
penalties, if not worse.
Morelyn
<to...@cmhcsys.com> wrote:
>>
>> But there is a problem, farmers DO exist, and TCC might help a little.
>>
>
>What few farmers exist will not be stopped by a TLC. In fact, TLC does not stop
>any farming what so ever. The existance of farmers is soly because of
>in-appropiate loot on mobs. We all talk about this concept of "appropriate level
>players killing appropiate level mobs". That is a falacy. If the loot on a mob is
>not appropriate for that level, then the mob that drops it is not appropriate
>level for that player. What needs to be done to stop farming is place items are
>the correct level of mob. Past history shows that this is a difficult thing to
>achieve. Rune Bone Fork, Fish Bone Earring, Idol of Thorn, Gator sleeves and legs
>are example of both old and new items that clearly show that in-appropriate loot
>is going to be placed on in-approprate mobs. TLC will not stop the farming of
>these items by high levels.
>
Let me ask you a very simple question. Why do you care what the rule
is? It seems to me the only answer which makes any sense is, "So I
can farm stuff." It's not as though you can't *go* to the zone. It's
not as though you can't *kill* green stuff to your heart's content.
It's not as though you can't get money and other loot from the mobs.
What is the *one thing* that's affected? Your ability to get pH47
1337 from a mob that probably couldn't hit you once in 30 tries.
Let's at least have the honesty to call a spade a spade.
>>
>> Obviously, No Drop quest items that a high level needs should not be
>> put in these zones. But if Runnyeye, say, were Warrens loot rules and
>> some upper level had to buy a BA Medallion from a mid-level, I see
>> absolutely nothing wrong with that. You have no RIGHT to camp
>> whatever loot you want, no matter what level you are.
>>
>
>Yet, are we not trying to saw that a low level has the RIGHT to camp whatever
>loot they want with this justification of the TLC?
Yep.
> I mean, that is exactly what
>we are stating. "Mr. High_level, you are not allowed to camp a loot because we
>deam this loot belonging to Mr. Low_level that is why we are placing the TLC on
>this zone."
Precisely.
> What is the difference?
The difference is that the low or mid level gets experience. The
difference is that for the low or mid level, a major investment of
time and resources is required before he can even dream about getting
an item which is to him marvelous, and to you, an extra 1k in the bank
account. Contrary to what you may have heard, it isn't meant to be a
game about getting uber gear. It's meant to be a game about brave
battles, barely won.
I think some of you need to step back a bit. Do you honestly think
that when VI goes to all the trouble of adding a new (or revamping an
old) dungeon, they say to themselves, "Well, no one will come here,
but we've made the farmers happy."
They want people to come to the dungeons. I do too. My most
memorable times in EQ have been in dungeons and not in the endless
grinding outdoor xp camps.
JeffDo
>
>JeffDo wrote:
>>They certainly aren't becoming pro newbie, Velious just obliterates that idea.
>> Where were the newbie zones in Velious? (They don't exist.)
>
>This has to be one of the silliest things I've read lately. You mean
>there are no newbie zones in the continent that was specifically added
>to create high level content? I am shocked!
>
>th
Maybe simple concepts are hard for you to grasp? If it was specifically added to
create high level content as you say, it must mean that they didn't see a need
to add content for low levels correct?
Which means that 6 months ago they thought everything was fine and dandy for low
levels?
Jeff
dstep
<rme...@radm.demon.co.uk> wrote:
Think about what you are saying, you are comparing a game which
is by its DEFINITION fully dynamic and everchanging with a STATIC
mmorpg. In fact a game like Everquest is the DEFINITION of a static
enviornment. They hardly EVER add new content and when they do,
like the green crap in NK, they leave it in for so damn long unchanged
that it becomes STATIC.
>In article <I%_i7.2907$Fv3.2...@newsread2.prod.itd.earthlink.net>,
>hughes <hugh...@earthlink.net> writes
>>
>>P.s . Its also very true that there isnt a problem to begin with . All these
>>reasons are negative and try as hard as I can I can see no positives for
>>trivial loot code that are not already handled by reputation and the play
>>nice policy . This leaves me in a quandry about why anyone wants it . The
>>only reasons understandable to me are greed and envy .
>
>You talk about role playing. Can you imagine an Ad&D GM letting a bunch
>of level 18 characters play in a level 5 dungeon unmodified? Do you
>think, if they did, anyone would be having any fun after the first 5
>minutes?
>/Shrug, if you want to play a game of boring mindless levelling followed
>by boring mindless camping for items, then whine loud enough and I am
>sure Verant will listen.
>
>Personally, I want to play a game of exploration and raiding.
There is no reason why you can't do both though. If you've been
in the 50 plus game you do see that things become very static since
you are NOT going to be enjoying raiding new areas and such unless
you are in a SUPER DUPER UPER MEGA UBER GUILD. The reason
why I insert so many goofy adjectives there is that a plain Uber guild
won't cut it. A plain uber guild, as mine did, will get stuck in the
rut of doing the same planes and dragon encounters over.. and over..
and over.. and over again forever. These are kind of new the first or
second time then get old hat. I bet sleepers or TOV or such are old
hat for super duper uber guilds like FOH and what not now, to them
they are the equivalent of the orc camps in the east commons.
>If anyone out there doesn't see why the current pro-framing code (it is
>much much easier for a single level 50 to do some camps than for a full
>group of level 40s, purely because of the reduced aggro distance that
>the higher level has) has to do with raiding, I will explain.
>
>Look at the similar level Kunark zones, Droga and City of Mist. Both are
>set up as raid zones, both have good loot.
>
>City of Mist raids are common, Droga raids are rarer than hens teeth.
>Droga is designed as a raid zone, like Chardok, Kael and the planes. But
>noone raids there.
>
>Why?
>
>Because Droga is soloable, whereas City of Mist is the lowest zone in
>the game whose boss mobs can't be killed by a single shaman, necro or
>mage.
Actually you've kind of missed something though, no lower level people
who are of an appropriate level to do droga raid it.. EVER. That one
person on my server who camps the idol of the thorned is CERTAINLY
not preventing them from doing the dungeon either. No one does it
because of the risk involved who is of an appropriate level to do it,
ever.
>So the reavers and Lords in CoM are on a fast spawn, and drop loot
>commonly. Meanwhile, in Droga, the Chief has a placeholder and drops his
>valuable stuff rarely. So there is no point gathering together 20 people
>to raid him, when he is probably not even up.
That is true yes. CoM is a nightmare zone too where even a 50's level
group or two can get totally wiped out.
>Of course, you might think this could be fixed by making him more
>common, and drop the idol every time. But then the law of economics
>kicks in, something common and easy to get is not going to stay
>valuable, no matter what its stats. The idol drops to the price of the
>shoulders from Gullerback (maybe 100pp). So the net result is every tank
>in the game over level 30 has a 10AC range slot item, mobs maybe die a
>bit faster (or maybe get made harder to compensate).
>
>And still no raids for anyone under level 45.
>
>Richard
I don't think anti farming code is the answer though. In case you did
not notice, if you went into the warrens like last week or the week
before that on the live servers you probably saw no one in the zone,
maybe one or two very low eruds who could only do the entrance kobolds
if even that. The Anti farming code was put in that zone but due to
where that zone is it was a total waste. No one bothers to go there it
is so dang far out in the boonies and ESPECIALLY when it has anti
farming code. Sometimes you get bored at high levels, it is going to
happen. When that happens my druid might feel like going to the
warrens at 2 am (my druid is level 55) and kill mugglewump to see if
it drops that one actually good holdable that is like 3 ac and some
wis. That holdable could argueably be pretty dang good for a druid or
cleric up until a pretty high level (since it can be used in the
primary hand) Maybe i'd sell it or use it on another character, but
the point is that I should have the freedom to do so when the zone is
completely empty.
Right NOW stonebrunt is crowded because its new, with many players of
an appropriate level ( as was the warrens at first) However, Mark my
words, just like the warrens in 5 months stonebrunt will be a
ghostland yet my druid or some other character just figuring on
raising faction with quests (trivial) or getting a couple items
(trivial) will have no reason to go there either when otherwise they
WOULD. Check out the revamped kerra ridge for yet another zone that is
totally empty nearly 24/7 since they removed mitty as being the gold
ring dropper (which was the only reason anyone was there before) Its
the area. Tox is a black hole on the EQ landscape which no one goes to
unless they are high enough level to do the hole. Verant compares
stonebrunt to lake of ill omen, but they miss why lake of ill omen is
so popular .. its geography. Lake of ill is near a city which is
pretty good, its very near for iksars especially, and its a gateway
earlier zone to some other good ones like FM and overthere.
Stonebrunt is still way the hell over on the otherside of the world
and one DANG long trip unless you are getting a port since most people
wanting to go there or to the warrens would not want to be doing the
qeynos area also.
Unless you are getting a port, Lake of ill omen is even closer to
butcher and EVEN freeport than the toxula area is to freeport. Trivial
loot code is a poor band aid solution to the real problem and putting
it in areas which will be very underused eventually is both gutless
and backwards assed. They could have put trivial loot code in the high
traffic areas where the problem existed in the first place such as
droga (but not a huge issue there since no one low enough would be
going on a raid to get that thing, I agree) or somewhere like solb and
lower guk. They'd be scared to upset what players have come to
know as the status quo. I tend to think of a band-aid fix to the real
problem, which is staticness and camp centric design to just not be
the best solution in any event.
The real problem is not that someone who won't get xp from X creature
is camping it for an item keeping 4 guys who ARE of a level to get xp
from camping it (and really from what I've seen that happens a lot
more rarely than pro trivial combat code people make out) but that ANY
of them are camping X creature because they know it drops X item. That
old underlying design is at fault, not the players themselves. Trivial
code is a way of saying "shame on you!" when they are really the ones
who made the problem (they being verant) In fact verant's entire
static design ENCOURAGES the behavior that some see as bad.
ydst...@yhome.ycom remove y's
Brian Hance
> "Brian Hance" <bha...@micro-net.com> wrote:
> > That is, of course, unless they keep doing things like this.
> "This" being BUYING loot drops instead of farming them. *shrug*
> That's up to you.
If they pretty much do away with No Drop items in the new zones, I'll
be ok with it. I won't like it, but I can deal. If they make it
impossible for me to complete quests just because I've had the audacity
to get to level 50, then I'll be quite pissed.
--
Brian Hance - bha...@micro-net.com
==================================
"I don't mind if you don't like my manners. I don't like them myself.
They're pretty bad. I grieve over them on long winter evenings."
Humphrey Bogart from THE BIG SLEEP
up to you.
Brian Hance
wrote:
>"Brian Hance" <bha...@micro-net.com> wrote:
>> No, not 'screwthenewbies', but my level 50 druid shouldn't get screwed
>> for the newbies sake either.
>So you have no problem with stealing xp from lower level folks. Lots of
>people share your view. I do not.
Yes, I love stealing experiance form lower level folks. Heck, every
chance I get I go clean out Blackburrow just so nobody can hunt there.
My evil knows no bounds. *sigh* Must feel good to be so morally
superior.
Anyway, I have all 8 character slots full for my server. It's a nice
old server, always pretty packed, and I have yet to be unable to find
a place to camp for experiance. And three of those characters are
pure melee (monk, rogue, warrior).
Here's a question, how many level appropriate groups are going to be
able to handle a dungeon like the new Runnyeye? Even the exp modifier
won't be able make up for the what they lose from mulitple train
deathes.
Brian Hance
wrote:
>"This" being BUYING loot drops instead of farming them. *shrug* That's up to
>you.
One other thing, I have NO problem buying items. Generally speaking,
I'd rather do that than sit on my ass for hours at a time at a single
spawn point waiting for an item to drop. Best money I ever spent in
EQ was for my GEBS.
Getting plat for me is a damned site easier than camping. Granted,
all those level appropriate people are going to be getting less exp
from Hill Giants as I kill the hell out of them.
Sang K. Choe
<dfra...@email.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 29 Aug 2001 22:18:55 +0100, Richard Melvin <rme...@radm.demon.co.uk>
>wrote:
>
>|Without valuable loot, there are no raids. Raids are, for some people,
>|fun.
>
> Raids are fun for the pull team, and absolute excruciating boredom for
>everyone else.
Well it's boring while they try and pull.
But those "whoopsie" pulls of Lord Vyemm was quite exciting. I doubt
there was a single sleepy person after that one.
-- Sang.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|Let me ask you a very simple question. Why do you care what the rule
|is? It seems to me the only answer which makes any sense is, "So I
|can farm stuff." It's not as though you can't *go* to the zone. It's
|not as though you can't *kill* green stuff to your heart's content.
|It's not as though you can't get money and other loot from the mobs.
|What is the *one thing* that's affected? Your ability to get pH47
|1337 from a mob that probably couldn't hit you once in 30 tries.
|Let's at least have the honesty to call a spade a spade.
What gauls me here is that I can't do the quests. The story of the game,
such as it is, is told through its quests. Locking high-level PCs out of the
quests is a near-mortal wound to anyone who enjoys exploring or roleplaying.
BTW, there is a quest in Stonebrunt that should be damned near impossible
for anyone to complete, at least not without cheating. It requires
Crystallized Shadow stuff from ToFS, and drops from "spiritlings",
multi-colored and very low-level Wisps in Stonebrunt. If you're low enough to
get the spiritling drops, you ain't gonna last thirty seconds in ToFS. The CS
stuff is not NoDrop, AFAIK, but if you can afford to buy it you probably
aren't low enough level for the spiritlings, either....
I wouldn't give a rat's ass for anything that drops in the Warrens in
terms of loot, and so far the only interesting item I've seen come out of
Stonebrunt is Footpads of the Tiger, which is at least equal to and maybe
better than Monk PLANAR boots. And they're on a mob my guild's Monks would be
TCC'd out of.
|I think some of you need to step back a bit. Do you honestly think
|that when VI goes to all the trouble of adding a new (or revamping an
|old) dungeon, they say to themselves, "Well, no one will come here,
|but we've made the farmers happy."
They MUST, because that's all that ever happens.
TwoHead
>
> In article <3B8D3621...@2omar2world2.com>, TwoHead says...
> >
> >JeffDo wrote:
> >>They certainly aren't becoming pro newbie, Velious just obliterates that idea.
> >> Where were the newbie zones in Velious? (They don't exist.)
> >
> >This has to be one of the silliest things I've read lately. You mean
> >there are no newbie zones in the continent that was specifically added
> >to create high level content? I am shocked!
> >
> >th
>
> Maybe simple concepts are hard for you to grasp? If it was specifically added to
> create high level content as you say, it must mean that they didn't see a need
> to add content for low levels correct?
Incorrect. I think I see the problem here, you really don't see
logically. Let me elaborate so you can see where you went wrong in your
thesis. If we take the assumption that Velious was added specifically
with the intention of adding high level content as a given (which is
pretty safe since VI said that's what they were doing.) we can surmise
that the developers felt there was a need for adding high level
content. There is a direct relationship here, a need for the content
provided by the expansion. Trying to relate the addition of high level
content to a lack of concern or desire to please lower level players
does not find support in the simple fact that Velious was designed to
add high level content. The fact that the expansion was of a high
level nature neither proves nor disproves the theory that VI has no
concern for low level players. As such your statement attempting to
relate the two concepts made me laugh, as does your insistence on
reasserting the point.
>
> Which means that 6 months ago they thought everything was fine and dandy for low
> levels?
mmmmmmm pretzels
th
James
Dennis Francis Heffernan wrote in message
<114sot09rkfcs8at2...@4ax.com>...
>On 29 Aug 2001 22:11:23 -0500, Morelyn <m...@mor.com> wrote:
>
>|Let me ask you a very simple question. Why do you care what the rule
>|is? It seems to me the only answer which makes any sense is, "So I
>|can farm stuff." It's not as though you can't *go* to the zone. It's
>|not as though you can't *kill* green stuff to your heart's content.
>|It's not as though you can't get money and other loot from the mobs.
>|What is the *one thing* that's affected? Your ability to get pH47
>|1337 from a mob that probably couldn't hit you once in 30 tries.
>|Let's at least have the honesty to call a spade a spade.
>
> What gauls me here is that I can't do the quests. The story of the game,
>such as it is, is told through its quests. Locking high-level PCs out of
the
>quests is a near-mortal wound to anyone who enjoys exploring or
roleplaying.
Honestly, I think it's the brand new "feature". Question: how can you
make a quest take every player that wants to do it a long time, making it
"epic" in some way? Answer: force them to complete it over the course of
several levels. The Crystallized Shadow Weapon quest in Stonebrunt is a
great example of this - you have to kill the spiritlings at low level before
they green, and you're nowhere near ready to go to ToFS at that point. So
you HAVE to delay completion of the quest.
But yeah, last night in SB was frustrating for a lot of people. They
came to the zone hoping to at least do the quests, and were locked out. The
shouts of frustration were rampant last night. Then add in how poor the
hunting will likely be, and I imagine they just made a zone where the
Snowbeast will be camped, and not much else.
To elaborate on the hunting: to get there, one must get through the King
room in The Warrens, and out the back of the dungeon. Many classes will be
unable to do this solo, period. And once the classes that CAN do it solo get
into SB, they'll find a zone where half the hunting near zone was in camps
that cannot be soloed, and the other half is the usual mixed bag of mobs
with mobs blue to a level 42 wandering in the same spots as rabbits and
spiritlings. No hunting unless you bring a group - which excludes most of
the people in the damn game.
> BTW, there is a quest in Stonebrunt that should be damned near impossible
>for anyone to complete, at least not without cheating. It requires
>Crystallized Shadow stuff from ToFS, and drops from "spiritlings",
>multi-colored and very low-level Wisps in Stonebrunt. If you're low enough
to
>get the spiritling drops, you ain't gonna last thirty seconds in ToFS. The
CS
>stuff is not NoDrop, AFAIK, but if you can afford to buy it you probably
>aren't low enough level for the spiritlings, either....
>
> I wouldn't give a rat's ass for anything that drops in the Warrens in
>terms of loot, and so far the only interesting item I've seen come out of
>Stonebrunt is Footpads of the Tiger, which is at least equal to and maybe
>better than Monk PLANAR boots. And they're on a mob my guild's Monks would
be
>TCC'd out of.
Those shouldn't be too hard to get, actually. Snowbeast is up a lot,
from what I saw. (Could be nerfed later, we'll see.) He was reported to be
blue to a 55, and blue to a 41, making him level 40 dead on. So anyone up to
55 can hunt him - your guild should have someone 55 or less that can go farm
him. He apparently also can be talked to, but I doubt he'll be up more than
ten seconds before dying after seeing the stats on the Footpads of the
Tiger.
>|I think some of you need to step back a bit. Do you honestly think
>|that when VI goes to all the trouble of adding a new (or revamping an
>|old) dungeon, they say to themselves, "Well, no one will come here,
>|but we've made the farmers happy."
>
> They MUST, because that's all that ever happens.
And farmers will love Snowbeast....
Other tidbits from the zone: I completed one quest and heard the results
of a second last night. The one I completed was Miranda's lost bag of dice,
which drops in The Warrens off a level 18 mob (Lore, No Drop). The result
was an all/all, zero weight, No Drop Ball of Yarn with 4 charges of snare,
casting time 5 seconds or so. Since the character that I had in the area was
level 42 and unable to get the bag of dice herself, I had my rogue kill
every mob between Prince and Foodmaster/Smithy, brought a level 15 monk
friend down, and we killed Prince like that while I looted the dice. I took
the HT, the monk was buffed and healed during combat by a level 40 druid
friend. Yay, Warrens loot code.
The other quest done was the "kill the named kobold" quest. Apparently
after killing a level 37 kobold the reward is a 6/24 one hander with 5 HPs
and AC 2. Blech.
Oh, and I haven't mentioned the broken scripting yet! Talk to Miranda, a
little kitty, and she mentions how one of the elders gave her Chocolate
Covered Cherries and Pixie Powder Cinnesticks. Well, even though Cinnamon
Sticks have been unforagable since the patch that put Morning Dew on the
forage table in GFay, I figured I'd still like to know the new recipes. So I
asked the named elder about those two items. Both prompted her to tell me
the sad tale of her people, just like her normal [bracket-encased text] did.
BAH!
James
dstep
wrote:
Actually this is not true. If you wanted to do that
quest you'd simply go with lower level buddies/guild
twinks you knew and have them kill the spritlings while you healed
and buffed. That is one of the main problems with what is basically
just a verant "pat yourself on the back" public relations propaganda
code which in reality does nothing except irritate the casual high
level player who just wants to get on for an hour or so and get some
lil tiger quest drops for the same of doing something different.
>Dennis Francis Heffernan wrote in message
stuff cut
>> What gauls me here is that I can't do the quests. The story of the game,
>>such as it is, is told through its quests. Locking high-level PCs out of
>the
>>quests is a near-mortal wound to anyone who enjoys exploring or
>roleplaying.
>
> Honestly, I think it's the brand new "feature". Question: how can you
>make a quest take every player that wants to do it a long time, making it
>"epic" in some way? Answer: force them to complete it over the course of
>several levels. The Crystallized Shadow Weapon quest in Stonebrunt is a
>great example of this - you have to kill the spiritlings at low level before
>they green, and you're nowhere near ready to go to ToFS at that point. So
>you HAVE to delay completion of the quest.
Any time you throw a brick wall, especially one that makes no game
world sense, in front of an innate ability to do something that a
character has in a game like this it makes no sense. Things have stuff
to drop, the thing does not care who is killing it. Do you think that
the panda or whatever sees my more uber druid and turns its back to me
while sweating and rapidly destroys any loot it has? That hardly makes
sense. What you have here is a band-aid solution to the real problem
of too much staticness. You also have something else, you have the
solution being applied to zones where it will make absolutly no
difference in 2 months or so when stonebrunt is empty as warrens was
empty before stonebrunt was added. People get in these areas RIGHT
after they go up and go "ooooh 56 people ooh trvial combat code good..
ooohhh!!" they don't come back though in 3 months when my druid is the
only person in the zone and thinks its pretty darn stupid that I can't
mess around and kill a couple things and do some drop item quests for
faction or whatever.
> But yeah, last night in SB was frustrating for a lot of people. They
>came to the zone hoping to at least do the quests, and were locked out. The
>shouts of frustration were rampant last night. Then add in how poor the
>hunting will likely be, and I imagine they just made a zone where the
>Snowbeast will be camped, and not much else.
Yeah. One other thing is that these zones are in no way "power loot
camping/farming" zones. Stonebrunt has some boots that are like 0.1
weight and 8 str, 6 ac and monk and beastlord as basically the only
thing worth even getting there. That item might seem to kind of be
okay for a monk now before it has better, but I don't see one item as
ruining the entire zone for lower levels. Also I believe that item
comes off something which is blue to a pretty high level. I heard one
thing there is blue up to level 59.
> To elaborate on the hunting: to get there, one must get through the King
>room in The Warrens, and out the back of the dungeon. Many classes will be
>unable to do this solo, period. And once the classes that CAN do it solo get
>into SB, they'll find a zone where half the hunting near zone was in camps
>that cannot be soloed, and the other half is the usual mixed bag of mobs
>with mobs blue to a level 42 wandering in the same spots as rabbits and
>spiritlings. No hunting unless you bring a group - which excludes most of
>the people in the damn game.
Ahaha yes, my 37 cleric went there and could not do a damn thing. My
32 sk could probably do a lot more alone and ironically would have a
better chance at getting a group. When my cleric was there it was
"tank wanted" for groups late 20's early 30's which was being called
out. I saw some groups and it was funny because they were mostly
druids. Think about why they would mostly be druids or druid heavy for
a moment or perhaps wizard ... yep, exactly, toxula port. Tanks are
going to have the hardest time there since they can only be bound in
paineel I believe.
>> BTW, there is a quest in Stonebrunt that should be damned near impossible
>>for anyone to complete, at least not without cheating. It requires
>>Crystallized Shadow stuff from ToFS, and drops from "spiritlings",
>>multi-colored and very low-level Wisps in Stonebrunt. If you're low enough
>to
>>get the spiritling drops, you ain't gonna last thirty seconds in ToFS. The
>CS
>>stuff is not NoDrop, AFAIK, but if you can afford to buy it you probably
>>aren't low enough level for the spiritlings, either....
And if I really wanted it my druid would just have some low levels
help me kill them so I'd get the drop. I'd then have no trouble with
the ToFS part either. Also that is not cheating. Cheating is when you
have a card up your sleeve or crib notes during a test. Cheating is
not when you just do what the game engine allows in response to a
stupid rule.
>> I wouldn't give a rat's ass for anything that drops in the Warrens in
>>terms of loot, and so far the only interesting item I've seen come out of
>>Stonebrunt is Footpads of the Tiger, which is at least equal to and maybe
>>better than Monk PLANAR boots. And they're on a mob my guild's Monks would
>be
>>TCC'd out of.
>
> Those shouldn't be too hard to get, actually. Snowbeast is up a lot,
>from what I saw. (Could be nerfed later, we'll see.) He was reported to be
>blue to a 55, and blue to a 41, making him level 40 dead on. So anyone up to
>55 can hunt him - your guild should have someone 55 or less that can go farm
>him. He apparently also can be talked to, but I doubt he'll be up more than
>ten seconds before dying after seeing the stats on the Footpads of the
>Tiger.
He must be dead a lot cause my druid never saw anything with that name
or that was blue to her (55) I will keep my eyes open though since it
is blue. I heard one thing there was blue to a 59 even.. maybe that
was him? What else would be blue to a 59? My other lower char did hear
someone mention the boots once, as though they had looted them.
>>|I think some of you need to step back a bit. Do you honestly think
>>|that when VI goes to all the trouble of adding a new (or revamping an
>>|old) dungeon, they say to themselves, "Well, no one will come here,
>>|but we've made the farmers happy."
>>
>> They MUST, because that's all that ever happens.
>
> And farmers will love Snowbeast....
No, actually they don't care. As I said above this is more or less of
a code test and a "we care so much and are so forward thinking" bunch
of pr propaganda. The thing is, this actually fools many players. Many
lower players actually thinks this makes a difference, I heard them
saying so in the zone. Yeah, watch out, if that code was not in my
druid would have been KSing them like mad for some 28 spd 6 dam magic
POS. Verant, however, does not care that it makes no difference. They
only care that some people THINK it does and that they can claim it as
a "verant cares" piece of propaganda.
See, if verant gives a CNET interview and they talk about stuff like
that the CNET reporter will go "Verant is so forward thinking as to
put in a trivial combat code to solve higher level farming problems..
blah blah blah" The CNET or whatver person is never going to bother to
investigate this claim themselves or even with a flunky who possibly
even plays Everquest though. The CNET person is never going to
investigate such a claim at all, but instead as often is done in the
mainstream media when reporting about video games is just going to
report what the maker said. You won't ever hear such a reporter say,
"But in actuallity this loot code is nothing more than a pat on the
back for themselves from Verant and accomplishes JACK CRAP in a zone
that will be empty in 2 months anway due to its remoteness and being
over in the toxula vortex of SUCK unless you happen to be in a high
level guild doing a hole raid for some specific items. "
> Other tidbits from the zone: I completed one quest and heard the results
>of a second last night. The one I completed was Miranda's lost bag of dice,
>which drops in The Warrens off a level 18 mob (Lore, No Drop). The result
>was an all/all, zero weight, No Drop Ball of Yarn with 4 charges of snare,
>casting time 5 seconds or so.
Ahaha kitties, ball of yarn, ahaha.
>Since the character that I had in the area was
>level 42 and unable to get the bag of dice herself, I had my rogue kill
>every mob between Prince and Foodmaster/Smithy, brought a level 15 monk
>friend down, and we killed Prince like that while I looted the dice. I took
>the HT, the monk was buffed and healed during combat by a level 40 druid
>friend. Yay, Warrens loot code.
Exactly. Once some people find the items there other people decide
whether or not to bother with getting around the stupid useless code.
> The other quest done was the "kill the named kobold" quest. Apparently
>after killing a level 37 kobold the reward is a 6/24 one hander with 5 HPs
>and AC 2. Blech.
AAHHA what I was talking about above only I think I said 8 damage.
Yeah, exactly. See many of those quests I would not bother to do
anyway, or might do for faction when no one else is ever there just
for the heck of it.
> Oh, and I haven't mentioned the broken scripting yet! Talk to Miranda, a
>little kitty, and she mentions how one of the elders gave her Chocolate
>Covered Cherries and Pixie Powder Cinnesticks. Well, even though Cinnamon
>Sticks have been unforagable since the patch that put Morning Dew on the
>forage table in GFay, I figured I'd still like to know the new recipes. So I
>asked the named elder about those two items. Both prompted her to tell me
>the sad tale of her people, just like her normal [bracket-encased text] did.
>BAH!
I saw another error there in text quest giving. One kitty talks about
stuff and if you ask it the further bracketed items, it speels out the
same stuff as originally you saw those bracketed items in. So in other
words its kind of a loop with no end. Evidently its not quite finished
(ooooh surprise...)
ydst...@yhome.ycom remove y's
Dream King
>Bah!
>
>Here's the truth
Thanks, Sculley! Or Mulder, depending on your gender.
>Spent the morning in SBM with my 25 Iksar SK, 25 Human Mage and 24
>Enchanter. Met a 22 Halfling warrior there. Our group killed tons of blues,
>a few yellows and a couple whites. EXP rocked!
>
>No higher lvels their tried to KS us, take our camp etc. etc.
And this happens to you a lot elsewhere? I've been playing this game a
fairly long time and I've never had a higher level try to KS me or steal
my camp. Although I'll grant the fact that on new zones everything seems
to die rather quickly and perhaps not everyone is as nice as they
normally would be. This is why I wouldn't mind the Trivial Loot Code on
new zones if it wasn't a permanent thing. I could understand it's
purpose a lot more if it was on zones for 2-3 months and then removed.
>That is a fact. I was there. We got some nice items! I camped there and am
>planning on gaining levels there (goodbye Lake of Ill Manners!)
>
>New loot rules are great! Thank you Verant!
Yeah, thanks Verant! I haven't been there myself (and don't intend to)
but from those I've heard from so far they report back greeny aggro,
annoying trains, and buggy/incomplete quests. Thank god you spent all
that time making it right before bringing it live (and late). At least
you got your precious TLC right and that's the most important part.
Dream King
>In article <3c334d44....@news.erols.com>, Dream King
><morp...@cent.com> writes
>>
>> Basically I'm having trouble following you here. Are you saying Droga
>>would be more populated if the mobs were not soloable or what?
>
>If the mobs were not soloable, then they could drop valuable loot
>commonly.
There are a lot of mobs already in existence that aren't soloable and
drop valuable loot. So I guess your argument is that any mob that
happens to be soloable should not drop valuable loot?
>Not _good_ loot, valuable loot. Put a 12/15 30 AC sword with 50% haste
>on a fast spawning soloable mob and it would sell for 500pp within a
>week or so, and probably bottom out at 100pp.
>
>Without valuable loot, there are no raids. Raids are, for some people,
>fun. Fun, well, if I need to explain why fun is good, then I guess I am
>talking to the wrong person.
But you're under the assumption that people are raiding CoM due to the
'Valuable loot'. If that means finishing epics then maybe you're right.
If that means the random drops such as Wu's Trance Stick then you're not
since those things are still easily soloable. I'm going to contend than
95% of the people killing Reavers and the Lords are after epics and not
the other stuff that is dropped.
>You will hear a lot of complaint from high level characters who like
>raiding, but end up playing a class that is not to their tastes in the
>raid game. But they don't want to restart, because they will have to get
>through at least 45 levels of sitting and exping before they can join
>the lowest level raids. So they stick to their existing class, and whine
>asking for the class balance to tweaked for the 400th time, as if that
>had something to do their problem.
?
I'm not really sure why that's there but OK.
Dennis Francis Heffernan
| Honestly, I think it's the brand new "feature". Question: how can you
|make a quest take every player that wants to do it a long time, making it
|"epic" in some way? Answer: force them to complete it over the course of
|several levels. The Crystallized Shadow Weapon quest in Stonebrunt is a
|great example of this - you have to kill the spiritlings at low level before
|they green, and you're nowhere near ready to go to ToFS at that point. So
|you HAVE to delay completion of the quest.
Do they seriously expect people to keep stuff in the bank for thirty
levels? So they can get, what, pocket change and faction in a zone they can't
hunt in any more?
| But yeah, last night in SB was frustrating for a lot of people. They
|came to the zone hoping to at least do the quests, and were locked out. The
|shouts of frustration were rampant last night. Then add in how poor the
|hunting will likely be, and I imagine they just made a zone where the
|Snowbeast will be camped, and not much else.
I expect that once the blossom is off the rose, Stonebrunt will be home
only to a handful of Druids and Necros, with a population way under what a
zone of that size could support.
| To elaborate on the hunting: to get there, one must get through the King
|room in The Warrens, and out the back of the dungeon. Many classes will be
|unable to do this solo, period. And once the classes that CAN do it solo get
|into SB, they'll find a zone where half the hunting near zone was in camps
|that cannot be soloed, and the other half is the usual mixed bag of mobs
|with mobs blue to a level 42 wandering in the same spots as rabbits and
|spiritlings. No hunting unless you bring a group - which excludes most of
|the people in the damn game.
Not putting a BIND POINT in Stonebrunt was the death blow for this zone.
A fighter who dies in Stonebrunt can't get back to his corpse alone, and
getting even a Revive will be difficult with the zone's level restrictions.
| And farmers will love Snowbeast....
Oh yeah.
| Other tidbits from the zone: I completed one quest and heard the results
|of a second last night. The one I completed was Miranda's lost bag of dice,
|which drops in The Warrens off a level 18 mob (Lore, No Drop). The result
|was an all/all, zero weight, No Drop Ball of Yarn with 4 charges of snare,
|casting time 5 seconds or so.
Cool, an item suitable for exactly no one. If you have five seconds to
cast Snare, you didn't need a Snare....
| The other quest done was the "kill the named kobold" quest. Apparently
|after killing a level 37 kobold the reward is a 6/24 one hander with 5 HPs
|and AC 2. Blech.
Does not compare well to the Ranger's Short Sword of Morin, at least for
the Rangers.
| Oh, and I haven't mentioned the broken scripting yet! Talk to Miranda, a
|little kitty, and she mentions how one of the elders gave her Chocolate
|Covered Cherries and Pixie Powder Cinnesticks. Well, even though Cinnamon
|Sticks have been unforagable since the patch that put Morning Dew on the
|forage table in GFay, I figured I'd still like to know the new recipes. So I
|asked the named elder about those two items. Both prompted her to tell me
|the sad tale of her people, just like her normal [bracket-encased text] did.
|BAH!
Oh, I figured that was like the baked goods in Cabilis, they just TALK
about them with no new recipes.
Robert
wrote:
>
>"Dan Dutra" <d...@awais.com> wrote in message
>news:9mj8fj$2c0$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
>
>> get within range. So let's say that Stonebrunt is akin to LoIO. Away
>from
>> the newbie area of Ill Omen a lot of mobs are over 20. So if Stonebrunt
>is
>> similar, then high level characters who wish to explore the zone will be
>> forced to kill green trash which will aggro them, but will give no exp and
>> drop them no loot. Seems fair.
>
>In Stonebrunt's particular case, if the zone line is where I heard it was,
>there's only one possible named (errr, maybe 2) that you have to go past,
>and he'd be pretty close to the zone line and easily ignored (both are, if
>the zone line is up there ^^^ and over <<< there).
>
Seems like there could be an alternative Warrens & Stonebrunt. If
you're X level, you zone into the alpha version. You loot & get EXP
in the alpha version with the trivial loot code. If you're Y level,
you enter the beta version & be able farm from items from the green
mobs. Then compare the zone use. Are newbies getting exp and the +3
Wis item from the Warrens? How many newbies use the alpha zone
compared to farmers in the beta zone? The comparison of zone use
would be most interesting since there's the other issue of
underutilized zones.
Even if someone never left the Warrens but perma-camped an item,
they'd not get the levels to make combat rediculously easy. It'd be
easier to farm the beta version, especially since the loot rules
wouldn't be in the beta version.
James
dstep wrote in message ...
>>came to the zone hoping to at least do the quests, and were locked out.
The
>>shouts of frustration were rampant last night. Then add in how poor the
>>hunting will likely be, and I imagine they just made a zone where the
>>Snowbeast will be camped, and not much else.
>
>Yeah. One other thing is that these zones are in no way "power loot
>camping/farming" zones. Stonebrunt has some boots that are like 0.1
>weight and 8 str, 6 ac and monk and beastlord as basically the only
>thing worth even getting there. That item might seem to kind of be
>okay for a monk now before it has better,
If you look at what monk boots are out there (and Dream King, our
resident leeezard can comfirm this), you'll see that these are pretty damn
slick. To put it in perspective, a lot of mid-to-higher level monks were
estatic when Wu's Fighting Slippers came out, and these things drop-kick
Wu's. I could almost get my 38 MNK's STR over 100 with these (Iksar, almost
all starting points went to STA).
>Also I believe that item
>comes off something which is blue to a pretty high level.
Snowbeast, level 40 if people's /ooc's about "It's blue to me" can be
believed.
>I heard one
>thing there is blue up to level 59.
I think that's the named panda. I'd heard the original plan was for
there to be Titans, a mob of each of the animal types out there that was
just massive. So far the only titans I've heard of are the panda and the
Snowbeast (ape?).
>> And farmers will love Snowbeast....
>
>No, actually they don't care.
You're mis-reading. I think it's a bit ironic after hailing the loot
code as stopping farming that a solitary mob, of a level such that nobody
normally hunting there will take him, which drops uber loot, is placed in
the loot coded zone. He is a PRIME target for the level 50's soloists.
>> Other tidbits from the zone: I completed one quest and heard the
results
>>of a second last night. The one I completed was Miranda's lost bag of
dice,
>>which drops in The Warrens off a level 18 mob (Lore, No Drop). The result
>>was an all/all, zero weight, No Drop Ball of Yarn with 4 charges of snare,
>>casting time 5 seconds or so.
>
>Ahaha kitties, ball of yarn, ahaha.
It DID bring a smile to my face. I posted the drop, which is about the
power level you'd expect given what the quest piece drops from, specifically
to give Dark Tyger a smile. ;-) Oh - the quest bumped up faction for
PeaceKeepers and KejekanVillage.
>> Oh, and I haven't mentioned the broken scripting yet! Talk to Miranda,
a
>>little kitty, and she mentions how one of the elders gave her Chocolate
>>Covered Cherries and Pixie Powder Cinnesticks. Well, even though Cinnamon
>>Sticks have been unforagable since the patch that put Morning Dew on the
>>forage table in GFay, I figured I'd still like to know the new recipes. So
I
>>asked the named elder about those two items. Both prompted her to tell me
>>the sad tale of her people, just like her normal [bracket-encased text]
did.
>>BAH!
>
>I saw another error there in text quest giving. One kitty talks about
>stuff and if you ask it the further bracketed items, it speels out the
>same stuff as originally you saw those bracketed items in. So in other
>words its kind of a loop with no end. Evidently its not quite finished
>(ooooh surprise...)
I think that might be the same cat.
James
>
>
>ydst...@yhome.ycom remove y's
Dennis Francis Heffernan
|Actually this is not true. If you wanted to do that
|quest you'd simply go with lower level buddies/guild
|twinks you knew and have them kill the spritlings while you healed
|and buffed. That is one of the main problems with what is basically
|just a verant "pat yourself on the back" public relations propaganda
|code which in reality does nothing except irritate the casual high
|level player who just wants to get on for an hour or so and get some
|lil tiger quest drops for the same of doing something different.
As you say, though, it is a major PITA.
|Yeah. One other thing is that these zones are in no way "power loot
|camping/farming" zones. Stonebrunt has some boots that are like 0.1
|weight and 8 str, 6 ac and monk and beastlord as basically the only
|thing worth even getting there. That item might seem to kind of be
|okay for a monk now before it has better, but I don't see one item as
|ruining the entire zone for lower levels.
HAHHAAHAHAHAHA...dude, the Monk's don't GET anything better until they hit
Skyshrine/Kael quest armors. Those boots are better than their PLANE armor.
Monk loot is seriously FUBAR. There are better all/all items than the
entire set of Shiverback. Azure Sleeves are better than any Monk sleeves
except Kael and Mischief quest armors.
|Also I believe that item
|comes off something which is blue to a pretty high level. I heard one
|thing there is blue up to level 59.
Highest level mobs are the Titans, and I think the highest of them is the
Panda. I've heard that one is blue, barely, to 55 (it was to me).
|Tanks are
|going to have the hardest time there since they can only be bound in
|paineel I believe.
Tanks are screwed. A brave Ranger could solo here in from 22 on,
fearkiting animals, but would have to operate under "I Can't Die" protocols.
No heroics, no toughing out borderline fights, etc.
|Cheating is
|not when you just do what the game engine allows in response to a
|stupid rule.
It's cheating in the strict sense that you are circumventing the rules.
James
>On Thu, 30 Aug 2001 17:14:22 GMT, "James" <jamesg...@home.com> wrote:
>
>| Honestly, I think it's the brand new "feature". Question: how can you
>|make a quest take every player that wants to do it a long time, making it
>|"epic" in some way? Answer: force them to complete it over the course of
>|several levels. The Crystallized Shadow Weapon quest in Stonebrunt is a
>|great example of this - you have to kill the spiritlings at low level
before
>|they green, and you're nowhere near ready to go to ToFS at that point. So
>|you HAVE to delay completion of the quest.
>
> Do they seriously expect people to keep stuff in the bank for thirty
>levels? So they can get, what, pocket change and faction in a zone they
can't
>hunt in any more?
Apparently so. It has yet to be seen if these quests result in something
worthwhile or just crystallized shadow weapons with one less delay or one
more damage, or if the KejekanVillage faction will ever lead somewhere.
>| But yeah, last night in SB was frustrating for a lot of people. They
>|came to the zone hoping to at least do the quests, and were locked out.
The
>|shouts of frustration were rampant last night. Then add in how poor the
>|hunting will likely be, and I imagine they just made a zone where the
>|Snowbeast will be camped, and not much else.
>
> I expect that once the blossom is off the rose, Stonebrunt will be home
>only to a handful of Druids and Necros, with a population way under what a
>zone of that size could support.
I don't even think that many druids and necros will be there. The spawn
mix is horrible in many places, and people were reporting heightened resist
rates (yeah, they do every patch, but still). The Elder Granitebacks were
still almost all blue at 42, meaning they'd green likely around 44 - but
they hit in the low 70's. Greater Kobolds in Sol B hit for barely more than
that - 76 max? - and don't green entirely until low 50's (start to green at
46). Why do more work than I have to? Unless the stackable pelts that were
dropping have tailoring uses, the zone will calm down quickly to the
Snowbeast farmer.
>| To elaborate on the hunting: to get there, one must get through the
King
>|room in The Warrens, and out the back of the dungeon. Many classes will be
>|unable to do this solo, period. And once the classes that CAN do it solo
get
>|into SB, they'll find a zone where half the hunting near zone was in camps
>|that cannot be soloed, and the other half is the usual mixed bag of mobs
>|with mobs blue to a level 42 wandering in the same spots as rabbits and
>|spiritlings. No hunting unless you bring a group - which excludes most of
>|the people in the damn game.
>
> Not putting a BIND POINT in Stonebrunt was the death blow for this zone.
>A fighter who dies in Stonebrunt can't get back to his corpse alone, and
>getting even a Revive will be difficult with the zone's level restrictions.
I imagine they didn't want to make the bind point be the logical Kejekan
Village, as then evil tanks that wanted to kill cats would complain how
"unfair" it is.
>| Other tidbits from the zone: I completed one quest and heard the
results
>|of a second last night. The one I completed was Miranda's lost bag of
dice,
>|which drops in The Warrens off a level 18 mob (Lore, No Drop). The result
>|was an all/all, zero weight, No Drop Ball of Yarn with 4 charges of snare,
>|casting time 5 seconds or so.
>
> Cool, an item suitable for exactly no one. If you have five seconds to
>cast Snare, you didn't need a Snare....
You're spoiled by always having it, Dennis. ;-) My warrior bandage-solos
the dead side of Dead Zone-in in Lower Guk. She'd LOVE snare - I could do
the top live frog as well if I had that thing. It's a neat item, and
level-appropriate. I don't know why they made it No Drop, though - I can't
imagine farming the Prince exclusively for this, but I can imagine a class
with snare (like a necro) wanting to sell this to a class that doesn't have
Snare.
>| The other quest done was the "kill the named kobold" quest. Apparently
>|after killing a level 37 kobold the reward is a 6/24 one hander with 5 HPs
>|and AC 2. Blech.
>
> Does not compare well to the Ranger's Short Sword of Morin, at least for
>the Rangers.
The person who reported the stats actually bought it off one of the
merchants, after the player who'd quested it sold it in disgust. Sold for
the price of Fine Steel, was purchasable for 13 pp. No mention if it had an
interesting graphic or not.
>| Oh, and I haven't mentioned the broken scripting yet! Talk to Miranda,
a
>|little kitty, and she mentions how one of the elders gave her Chocolate
>|Covered Cherries and Pixie Powder Cinnesticks. Well, even though Cinnamon
>|Sticks have been unforagable since the patch that put Morning Dew on the
>|forage table in GFay, I figured I'd still like to know the new recipes. So
I
>|asked the named elder about those two items. Both prompted her to tell me
>|the sad tale of her people, just like her normal [bracket-encased text]
did.
>|BAH!
>
> Oh, I figured that was like the baked goods in Cabilis, they just TALK
>about them with no new recipes.
IIRC, in the thread on EQTraders it was discovered that some of the
Iksar recipes that Klok mentioned were for quests, so you couldn't make the
dish but you could get it someplace. In any event, these were simple recipes
to experiment with - Chocolate Covered Cherries would be chocolate, Marr
cherries, and perhaps frosting, with the Pixie Powder Cinnesticks being
pixie dust, cinnamon sticks, and again perhaps frosting or clump of dough. I
just wanted an exact recipe to report to EQTraders, since both sounded like
really neat recipes for foragers. (My baker is a dwarf, so no experimenting
for me.)
James
Dream King
> HAHHAAHAHAHAHA...dude, the Monk's don't GET anything better until they hit
>Skyshrine/Kael quest armors. Those boots are better than their PLANE armor.
>
> Monk loot is seriously FUBAR. There are better all/all items than the
>entire set of Shiverback. Azure Sleeves are better than any Monk sleeves
>except Kael and Mischief quest armors.
Eh well if you just count raw AC then Azure Sleeves still beat Kael
armor. AC11 on Kael arms. Pathetic. Priests' Kael armor almost has
better AC than Monk. I only wear them because the resists and HP are
worth giving up 1 AC.
I'm not sure there is any other class out there that skips most Kael
armor pieces because those pieces are viewed as substandard compared to
other things out there. Legs aren't bad. Arms are fairly decent. Feet
aren't great but they used to have an effect (Firefist) that stacked
with epic. Worthless now. Hands? Crown? No thanks. Ah well, saves me the
trouble of farming for gems.
Richard Melvin
Heffernan <dfra...@email.com> writes
> Raids are fun for the pull team, and absolute excruciating boredom for
>everyone else.
Damn, I only thought I was having fun on them. I am glad you corrected
me.
Perhaps you would like to tell me what flavour ice cream I should eat
to?
Richard
Richard Melvin
<ds...@babaloo.com> writes
>
>The real problem is not that someone who won't get xp from X creature
>is camping it for an item keeping 4 guys who ARE of a level to get xp
>from camping it (and really from what I've seen that happens a lot
>more rarely than pro trivial combat code people make out) but that ANY
>of them are camping X creature because they know it drops X item.
Why is that bad?
As far as I can see, there are a few alternatives to static loot:
No loot. This is the approach taken by AO, nothing in that game is
in any way worth having. If for some reason you prefer that, play AO (or
just play EQ and never loot anything you kill).
Random loot. This is done in many EQ zones, such as Chardok and CoM. The
problem with this is that you have just as much chance of getting the
item at the zone line as you do deeper in, so noone ever learns how to
fight deeper in. Most zones can only support one or two groups at the
zone-in, which isn't a viable population for a pickup group zone. So the
dungeon ends up unused.
Quest loot. A lot of the best equipment in velious is quested, like the
Eyepatch of Plunder. In practise, however, once the quest is solved, it
becomes just a matter of multiple camps, which is not obviously better
than a single camp.
Which of these would you prefer? And why? Or do you have some other
idea?
Richard
Drake
news:tkp0CAAb$nj7...@radm.demon.co.uk...
Crap, he will too ya know!
Silverlock
wrote:
>On Tue, 28 Aug 2001 21:10:05 GMT, "Dan Harmon" <deha...@bigfoot.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Why? Those who are level 50-60 have already been playing a couple years. I
>>think many of us are fairly well burned out and are just waiting on DAoC or
>>another of the upcoming games. Why would Verant care if they alienate
>>people that're leaving anyway?
>
>I've been playing for over 2 years now, and just barely got 50. I'm,
>frighteningly enough, not quite burnt out yet. Still lots more for me
>to do, I hope.
>
>That is, of course, unless they keep doing things like this.
That's because you just got to 50. Every level after 50 is a hell
level. The greens begin to proliferate amazingly in the early 50's
restricting your hunting grounds. They never should have raised the
level cap.
--
Silverlock, ICQ 474725,
Household Pests? The SW-404 'SpitFire' APRL cleansing system
will remove them, we Guarantee IT! Not responsible for damage
to persons or structures from use of this product.
Dial 1-800-FRY-THEM for info and a home demonstration.
Richard Melvin
<morp...@cent.com> writes
>
> There are a lot of mobs already in existence that aren't soloable and
>drop valuable loot. So I guess your argument is that any mob that
>happens to be soloable should not drop valuable loot?
Not should not, could not. How could it?
Richard