Question about future custom content

[tanknspank]

Originally Posted by Taminy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Everything that shrunk and eliminated the old world. Nexus spires would be ok if the timers were longer and druids/wizards were instantly able to port up there. Using spires as a short cut from WC to EW was stupid. Maybe have one spire only (as mentioned before) OR make it so you can only port down to the same spire you came up with.

Interesting idea. I'm not sure how doable it is to give unremovable, persist-through-death buffs to someone and if they could be coded to not count against the buff limit. But the spire effect from say Dreadlands could debuff you with "Teleportation Resonance: Dreadlands" for 3h. While you have that you can only only use spires to port down to the DL spire.

Originally Posted by Taminy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I hate trading in EC but Bazaar just wasn't classic no matter how you slice it. Changed the game entirely.

As big as EC is, /auc trading exists in other places too. People hawk their wares as they travel / play. GFay serves as a small trade hub for Faydwer. In classic even Qeynos/QeyHills acted as a mini trade hub for Qeynos/SFG/Halas.

Originally Posted by Taminy [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

What PoP did wrong

I agree with all you said. Also:

• Removed the danger of travel. Not just the books, but in the planes as well. All extremely quick to get to (super short run from your bind PoT/K) and extremely safe to get to (no risk running through PoT). Zone-ins were much safer areas than typical classic dungeons.
• Hub or not, I think MGB is a great idea for raids, but a shitty one for general use. I think it needs a limiting factor so it's used on raids, but not tossed around willy nilly in any hubs. I would put on it a costly reagent that drops in limited amounts on raids. Maybe something similar to ruby crowns (so as not to conflict with gems' use in JC gear). Maybe a new item that drops from the mobs right before a raid boss.
• Good/evil/race distinctions. This is an extension of the HUB issue, but it goes beyond that. In classic your race often changed where you XPed, what you killed, what quests were within your reach and so on. It made for a different play experience across various alts. PoP removed that. It didn't matter if you were a dark elf, a gnome or a barbarian, you hunted in the exact same zones and hunted the exact same things.
  
  Yes, this dilution started in high level classic (everyone to LGuk/SolB!), but Kunark and Velious made use of factions to shake it up a some (OT outpost faction loss, Dorf/Giant/Dragon choice, PoG)

[Taminy]

Originally Posted by tanknspank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Interesting idea. I'm not sure how doable it is to give unremovable, persist-through-death buffs to someone and if they could be coded to not count against the buff limit. But the spire effect from say Dreadlands could debuff you with "Teleportation Resonance: Dreadlands" for 3h. While you have that you can only only use spires to port down to the DL spire.

Yep perfect.

Originally Posted by tanknspank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

As big as EC is, /auc trading exists in other places too. People hawk their wares as they travel / play. GFay serves as a small trade hub for Faydwer. In classic even Qeynos/QeyHills acted as a mini trade hub for Qeynos/SFG/Halas.

Of course. EC was still not the same hub as PoK/PoT in terms of its close to all your experience areas. Other than SOLB or if you got a port.

Originally Posted by tanknspank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I agree with all you said. Also:

Removed the danger of travel. Not just the books, but in the planes as well. All extremely quick to get to (super short run from your bind PoT/K) and extremely safe to get to (no risk running through PoT). Zone-ins were much safer areas than typical classic dungeons.

Come to think of it, PoP zones were essentially just South Karana or other crappy outdoor zones on steroids for the most part with a few exceptions they weren't really even dungeons. Off the top of my head, Plane of Water was the main exception to this rule. Maybe Solro and Plane of War to an extent as well, but even there was quite a bit of kite room. That's another reason why they sucked IMO.

Originally Posted by tanknspank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hub or not, I think MGB is a great idea for raids, but a shitty one for general use. I think it needs a limiting factor so it's used on raids, but not tossed around willy nilly in any hubs. I would put on it a costly reagent that drops in limited amounts on raids. Maybe something similar to ruby crowns (so as not to conflict with gems' use in JC gear). Maybe a new item that drops from the mobs right before a raid boss.

Agree 100%. Or just make the timer a lot shorter.

Originally Posted by tanknspank [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Good/evil/race distinctions. This is an extension of the HUB issue, but it goes beyond that. In classic your race often changed where you XPed, what you killed, what quests were within your reach and so on. It made for a different play experience across various alts. PoP removed that. It didn't matter if you were a dark elf, a gnome or a barbarian, you hunted in the exact same zones and hunted the exact same things.

Yes, this dilution started in high level classic (everyone to LGuk/SolB!), but Kunark and Velious made use of factions to shake it up a some (OT outpost faction loss, Dorf/Giant/Dragon choice, PoG)

Even that dilution is not so bad at least for Lguk. Selling, binding, porting etc mattered there. Less so for SolB since it was so close to both good and evil cities and there was always the red wine quest....

But yes I loved the idea of siding with or against the dwarves, giants, and dragons in Velious.

And not only that, but faction was so irrelevant in PoK and PoT it was nonsensical. Ogre and Gnome guards in the same zone. Barbarian and Dark Elf merchants and quest givers that sell to everyone.

[Invoke]

Questing for some class specific AAs sounds interesting as long as I can still grind out some of the more basic AAs like run3 and regen3.

[Mblake81]

The idea of questing or camping mobs is fine instead of AA being what they were.

Please no horses ever, It's sow or bard song and you sit your butt down to med.

Any rings or spires are druid/wiz teleport only. Never allow auto porting NPC's (add some rings to everfrost..perhaps the gnomes and dwarves got together and built a few more.)
-Hespect to Dial a Port.

No bazaar, No kats - frogs- faeries, all races up to iksar only. Maybe no moon but connected on land like others have said.
Also would redoing kunark and velious to make them look classic be going too far? Giants don't look dopey in kunark or velious... something heartwarming is lost.
Add content to old zones, for example a dungeon on Kerra Isle to increase traffic to an otherwise unused zone.

Please add more things to tradeskill, variety is great and its something to do.

Keep it Classic.

[sox7d]

Nothing to make the game easier or more convenient.

[Mblake81]

Also can we get our classic character selection/creation screens back and keep it please?

The good background for the good races, bad background for the bad with your toon spinning so you can check your gear out.

Take away all the races we won't be using, make it more professional looking [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

[Danyelle]

Originally Posted by Mblake81 [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Also can we get our classic character selection/creation screens back and keep it please?

The good background for the good races, bad background for the bad with your toon spinning so you can check your gear out.

Take away all the races we won't be using, make it more professional looking [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

I already know how to do this...kinda:

Originally Posted by Nirgon

I miss the old char select with the good or evil backgrounds depending on race/religion. Old UI, my old friend, where have you gone.

Originally Posted by Danyelle

The character select zone is actually just that...a zone. It isn't part of the UI. You can get it back again, both the Classic and Luclin versions, by deleting clz.eqg and renaming load1.s3d or load2.s3d (Classic and Luclin character select zones respectively) to clz.s3d including text files and _chr/_obj files. HOWEVER, it will always place you at 0, 0, 0. Not in the appropriate spots (there's tiny little "rooms" for each good/evil/class/race etc in one giant zone that you would go to depending on character choice, since that's no longer the case it defaults to 0 cords now and that can't be changed.)

Originally Posted by Nirgon

So my dark characters will start in that cave with the lava and shit instead?

Originally Posted by Danyelle

Nah, you'd be in the right zone, but due to the placement of modern character select it'd put you at 0 cords which i believe is dead air. you can see all the rooms floating around you though :P

Basically in your install there is 3 sets of files:

clz.eqg
clz_EnvironmentEmitters.txt

This is the current loading 'zone' used from Dragon's of Norrath onward.

load2.s3d
load2_obj.s3d
load2_switches.s3d

This is the Luclin loading 'zone' used from Planes of Power - Omens of War

load.s3d
load_obj.s3d

This is the original loading 'zone' used from Classic-Luclin

Now... The client is currently coded to look for clz, not load or load2. BUT it doesn't differentiate between .eqg or .s3d it will simply attempt to load .eqg files first, then default to an .s3d file if available. So you can rename the load or load2 files to clz and remove clz.eqg and clz_EnvironmentEmitters.txt from your install and it will use them instead.

The problem is, the new clz loading zone doesn't use different 'rooms' for races. It's just the one big platform built around the 0, 0, 0 coords in the 'zone'. It will do the same thing in the load/load2 zones because that's how it's hardcoded. Putting your characters up in dead-air and the rooms being so far away they aren't even visible.

Theoretically someone (probably Secrets) could force the client to place each race in different rooms, the load/load2 zones can be explored on any Emu server so you can #goto around them and find the appropriate coordinates to place particular races. as this would likely involve .dll injection it's currently beyond me however [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.] I may start researching or leeching knowledge off Secrets and one day see what I can do though.

[Zaela]

Make custom content excrutiatingly difficult so you could at least tell anyone who refuses to try it out of hand b/c classic they're a pussy.

IMO luclin and beyond should only be looked at for the lessons they contain about what not to do. Don't be held back by anything they did. Kind of inevitable that players in this thread will only be able to think about the stuff they already know. Don't be like them.

Try to avoid making old content redundant. I remember going out to LOIO a month or two after luclin launched and seeing it deserted for the first time. Everyone just went to paludal or whatever for their far-more-convenient teen-to-twenties exp. Sad day.

Plan. A lot. And if you do fuck something up, being willing to change it (or remove it entirely) post-launch. Nothing makes a mistake worse than feeling you're obligated to build on it for the next 13+ years. Making content right is far more important than any players who'll threaten to quit if you take away their new game-diluting toys or whatever. (Don't think that'll be a problem here, though!)

Have fun with it, obviously. Making script-heavy raid zones and encounters is a blast. Making stuff more complex than classic eq isn't exactly difficult, but think big!

Originally Posted by nilbog [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Hey Zaela; didn't know you were around here.

Burn, ears, burn! Great work on those tools so far.

Would be happy to collaborate to make the tools better/make more tools if you do decide to make use of them. Now that I know you're considering custom, seems like this server is my best chance to see my tools put to good use. I can see you'd be willing to make a concerted effort, at the very least.

Still need to make a tool for importing animated models. Knowing something significant might happen with the other ones is pretty motivating.

[Clark]

Velious then Luclin once expended.

[Daywolf]

Originally Posted by Clark [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Velious then Luclin once expended.

Well, already read the thread before posting, think I recall you already mentioning that. No comment... but Vikings is the best thing going on TV for sure [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
EQ needs more Vikings. Always needed longboats at least. If Luclin had Vikings... [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Yes... there is Halas, but common... Vikings weren't landlubber giants living in the mountains for the most part [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]