Customization Quest
 

Hello! Yet another new server. This one is pretty different though.

First and foremost: there are no classes.

Instead, everything comes down to one thing: gear. The gear you wear defines what you can do, and how good you are at doing it.

While the familiar roles will exist -- tank, melee, healer, nuker, cc, hybrids -- no one will ever be consigned to any particular role. What defines a tank is that they wear tank gear. If they join a group that already has a tank -- or they just don't feel like being a tank anymore -- all they have to do is swap their gear to become a melee DPS or a healer or a nuker or a CCer. Or anywhere in between: hybridization is also a matter of gear. If you want to be a healer/nuker hybrid, the extent to which you are a nuker versus a healer is a simple matter of how much nuker gear you wear versus how much healer gear you wear.

On CQ, combat mechanics are greatly simplified in order to facilitate the customization process. Auto-attacks always hit, and the damage is minimally randomized. Dual wield always succeeds. Spells are never fully resisted.

The core stats are all important, determining which roles you will be effective in. Their effects are highly standardized:

STR: increases auto-attack damage by 2.5% per point.
AGI: increases combat ability damage by 2.5% per point.

INT: increases spell damage by 2.5% per point.
WIS: increases spell healing by 2.5% per point.

STA: increases guaranteed melee mitigation by 0.2% per point. Also increases the effectiveness of some tanking-related (i.e. +aggro) abilities by 2.5% per point.
AC: increases potential melee mitigation by 0.1% per point.

COR: increases guaranteed non-melee mitigation by 0.2% per point.
Resists: increases potential non-melee mitigation by 0.1% per aggregated point. Resists are aggregated so that the matching resist -- Magic if you're hit with a Magic nuke, for example -- counts for 40% of the total resist value while the other resists are averaged to provide the remaining 60% (15% each). So SvDisease is always useful rather than in just a handful of zones, basically.

CHA: increases crowd control/debuff duration and/or effectiveness by 2.5% per point (application varies by spell). Also mitigates crowd control/debuff duration/effectiveness against you by 0.35% per point.

DEX: replaces AGI/INT/WIS/STA/CHA when using a proc or clicky.


Finding the best balance of stats is a large part of the fun of the game. Most items will provide both bonuses to some stats and reductions to others -- an item may provide +3 INT, but at the cost of -2 AGI and -1 STR, for example. A casual player should be able to progress quickly by only picking up the loot that suits their preferred role (maxing WIS for a pure healer, for example), but a more hardcore player will be free to pick up multiple gear sets to switch to whatever their current group might need, or to min/max with no regard for roles, instead looking for the absolute best available combinations of stats and abilities they can find.

Gear will have enough variety to enable some interesting combinations in the long run. You needn't automatically have low AGI if you build heavy INT, but you'll need to make careful item choices to maintain a healthy amount of both.

Another thing: there are no permanently learned spells or combat abilities. Instead, they come from gear. If you equip an item listing "Ability: Minor Heal", you'll learn Minor Heal (and instantly memorize it if you have a space). If you take off that item, and no other items are providing Minor Heal, then you will forget it, and it won't be available to cast. This adds another dimension to gear choices and character customization.


It's also worth mentioning that there is no required grinding. Everyone begins at level 20 with 430 HP, 300 Mana and 300 Endurance, and that's it. Everything else is items. There is no leveling. There is no skill or faction grinding. This also means there is no early game/late game distinction, so raiding zones can start right away. Go get some items!

Not to say that killing things that don't drop items is a complete waste. There is exp. It is designed to be quite slow and not worth deliberately grinding out. When you exp bar fills, you receive a token (flag) which can be spent towards upgrade augs for the Charm you receive upon completing the newb quest. These augs are separated into upgrade paths -- a tanky path, a melee dps path, a nuker path, a healer path, and a CC/proc path. These represent the only "permanent," hard-choice-to-make type increases. You will eventually be able to complete every path, though, so don't worry. It'll just take a long time.


The rest of it:
*no long-term buffs (and therefore no laborious rebuffing)
*everyone has +80% movespeed by default
*respawn times are faster when there are more people in a public zone
*no food and drink
*no economy and no item trading
*no bank-cluttering quest items, but still some quests to do
*no need to bring the server down for mere content changes/additions



That's the main spiel, I guess! There isn't a lot of content yet, but once some more people start playing and giving feedback I should be motivated to churn out some more.

There is a website but it is still very much under construction. You'll want to grab the patch before you start playing though, as the server uses a custom spell list and plenty of custom text.

Oh, and a note about character creation: obviously, on a server with no classes, class choice isn't important. You still have to pick one though. Just pick whatever name, race, and appearance you want. The rest will be discarded when you finish.

nicely written, descriptive announcement. will be checking this one out. :)

Agreed, I am fairly interested to see how this pans out.

Very interesting! Going to jump on now heh

Played it. It rocks. Can't wait to see where this server goes.

What client is this on? I am trying to log on but it wont even go to character select screen. I tried on UF and RoF

UF. One other person seemed to be having trouble, but most people have gotten on fine. Not sure what's up with that.

< Worked fine with UF.

Awesome server, very unique. Loving it so far. Thanks for putting it up! :-D

I'm enjoying it. i think it is a little on the hard side. With a full group you can venture into crushbone, or into kelethin, if you are solo, you can't even take on 2 blues at once, a lot of the time, even 1 blue will kill you.

Oh yeah, its definitely ment to do with a couple friends. We just downed Crush a little bit ago. Has a nice sexy pet belt, rune BP and good melee (more rogue for ability) helm

http://i49.tinypic.com/2pqop68.jpg

we didn't do so hot on this run, but we did eventually get the bastage! :D

I'd recommend anyone that hasn't already, to give this server a whirl -- if for nothing else, but to experience a server that's been modified in such a manner that it offers a complete unique experience not found on any other.

Don't expect to roll over mobs and don't be intimidated by the number of corpses laying around (that's more a setting and fact that you don't have to loot them)... you start in gfay, you fight the outside camps, kelethin but finally earn your way into crushbone. Sound's a bit 'meh' right? Not so. Unless you expect to totally dominate solo'ing, I feel that most that experience this server for themselves will enjoy it.

My selfish reasons to post this? I'd like to see more people, albeit, I'm aware of how long it typically takes to see population increase to the 50+ point. However, this isn't your typical server either. ;)

I will second Ghanja's post! The devs are doing something pretty special on that server. Worth your time checking it out. Just step over my corpses :p

New player tip: the big nuke (Blaze) destroys stuff in gfay pretty quick. Other roles become more important/viable in crushbone.

Dat LUA.....pretty keen things you got going Zae.

This server is really pretty damn cool. The tough part is it is very group dependent. As of this post (and up to the 2 hours before I posted this) the population was zero. I don't bother logging in because of this reason. No players, no groups.. no groups, why bother?

I'm hoping Customization Quest catches on and over time this will be "the place to be" as a semi-legit alternate to classic. Otherwise, the mobs might need to made soloable with the right gear, and that right gear should be soloable- with some tactics and patience.

My 2 pennies.

Yeah. I realize that the population is likely to be low for quite a while -- I'm just starting work on another zone (lfaydark) and intend to make it mostly solo content, stuff that can be done more or less out of the gate and eventually get you enough gear (and maybe a few rare abilities) to solo your way through kelethin/the newb quest.

Won't be a free lunch though!

This is great!
Keep up the great work, I can't think of any suggestions though, it's perfect as it is.

my 2plat worth:

I have not checked extensively this server out, but IMHO idea of gear-to-spells implementation is an interesting innovation. In a way it reminds me of Guild Wars 2 where type of weapon you wield alters your skill set.
I can't tell how well it would work in the long run with pseudo-class balancing etc, but generally, this is a great innovation that could lead to a whole different type of MMO game, and of course a ton of great coding work!
Best of luck!

Got to say I LOVE this server! Great job man!

so i have to wonder.. are there no pets?

First pet is available from Crushbone. Its HP is flat but its mitigation is based off the higher of your STA or WIS and its damage is modified by the higher of your AGI or INT -- tanks and healers get tanky pets, melee dps and nukers get fragile dps pets, in other words. There is a penalty to AGI and INT while the pet is up (currently 20% -- trading some burst damage for sustained damage, essentially). Not sure if it's well balanced yet, but there's not a lot of people to test it out or much to test it out on yet. My attention has been elsewhere recently...

But yes, pets.

Not trying to necro an old thread, but I have noticed this server showing up as locked and not down all the time. Does that mean it might be making a comeback? Loved the idea behind it when it was around.

Oh, no. I just use it as a test server sometimes, like for the editing tools I've been working on recently. And a sane implementation of live item patching a month or two ago...

The whole server concept didn't really fit in the confines of EQ, and was too foreign for EQEmu players in any case. Was not a well-thought-out idea.

edit: If you like overly complicated server ideas, though, I had another one a few months back that you can read about here. More EQ-like. I know better than to blow any time on it now, though.

Alright, thanks for the quick update!

you should open a server with your starcraft map and turn on pvp.

I'd play.

lvl 5 max, boxing allowed, gain xp through pvp, discord rules.

drunk post?

Serious post. A lot would play