No snazzy introduction or anything.. It's been a year or two since I've been active on the forums, but never fear.. Your boys been in the lab whippin' the SQL harder than ever. Let's get the hype train moving, shall we?
The bullet list will be a general tl;dr.. I will go into each philosophy a little bit more below for those interested.
General Server Features:- Solo Content & No Bots
- EverQuest+WoW+DAoC+Many More!
- Intuitive Custom Quests, Spells, and Items
- Statistics Tracking
Solo Content & No Bots:
A fairly common question that is normally asked as soon as someone starts a new server is.. How many chars do I need to do all the content on this server? What's the box limit? There are those who prefer no boxing whatsoever and then there are those special players who like to box 54 mages.
At EQNextGen we want to accommodate both types of player as much as possible. Most zones have optional instancing to keep the solo player unaffected by someone boxing around them. You have a choice between going to the public version of the zone or a "duo" instance. This alleviates a lot of issues right off the bat. For our higher-end stuff that players will need to find groupmates to complete we will be giving extra rewards the more "real" players that are in the group.
We are not officially against boxing, but we want to incentivize real grouping. So with all that said the maximum you can box is 5. To clarify you will never be penalized for boxing.. but you will be rewarded for not boxing.
As for bots, they will never exist on this server.
EverQuest+WoW+DAoC+Diablo 3+Many More!:
Find yourself wondering what this even means?
Over the past year or two that I've been inactive from the community I've gone back to many MMO's in the past that I've played (and other non MMO's as well) to objectively look at some of the elements of each game and see what I can transition to EQ.
I won't go over many specifics in this part.. But I will touch on this a bit more in the "Intuitive Spells" section.
Intuitive Custom Quests, Spells, and Items
Quests:
Ever do a Heroic Adventure on Live? Some of these simple "adventure" quests from live have more steps to them than your standard EQEmu custom "epic" quest. This game is called EverQuest isn't it? We will be implementing a WoW-type style of questing (tons of quests in each area). Each of these quests will be given full attention.. No "afterthought" quests.
Spells:
Spells are a
huge part of the gameplay experience. The main thing that I think either makes or breaks a custom server is the developer's use of custom spells.
When you look at most spells I'd say 1-75ish they're all very one-dimensional. The more modernized EQ spells that they have on Live nowadays are a great example of what can now be done. There are so many spell effect mechanics already in the game that can be used to create completely unique spells that have never been thought of before. Think of EZ, Raid Addicts, and THF for good applications of this.
We want to make combat more interactive than just pressing auto attack and 1 or 2 boring spells.
Items
Dem pixels... The whole reason we play this game right? Custom spells can be combined with custom items for pretty cool results but that's old news. What are we doing different here?
Armor Sets & Weapon Rules
Not all gear in the game will follow these rules, but a lot of it will. Armor sets will always be class restricted to their type.. but weapons will be the fun part.
These item sets are designed this way to eliminate some gear overlap.
Guardian (Plate) - War/Sk/Pal
Stalwart (Plate) - Brd/Clr
Aggressor (Chain) - Rog/Bers
Loremaster - Sham/Rng
Fiercepalm - Monk
Lifebrood - Dru/Bst
Essenceweaver - Wiz/Enc/Nec/Mag
The weapons however will be more everquest-like in terms of class restrictions. There will be Fiercepalm Maces, for example, but it may not be the Monk's best choice of weapon for THAT situation. We want people switching out their gear and weapons depending on the situation they need to deal with.
Guardian - Always a defensive (tank-like) bonus
Stalwart - Always a defensive utility spell
Aggressor - Always an offensive melee bonus - Always highest base damage
Loremaster - Always an offensive utility spell
Fiercepalm - Always a flurry proc +/or melee-oriented bonus
Lifebrood - Always a heal or regen of some sort.
Essenceweaver - Always a nuke of some sort
And last but not least,
Statistics Tracking:
A lot of planning has gone into this project, and as such we don't want to be blindly scaling classes or gear. Everything is spreadsheeted and thoroughly thought out before going in-game.
We employ the use of custom systems to track many actions on our server. Once we have actual people playing on it and these systems can do their thing we will review this data on a regular basis. This will allow us to see which zones/classes/spells/mobs/etc are not killed or used as much as others and will be able to balance things objectively.
Well that's it for now guys. Keep on the lookout for us. We are currently aiming for February 1st as an official launch date.
EQNextGen - RoF2 Solo Server - Coming Soon!
~Shin Noir
Linear Mode
