New Armor?Follow

Is this what you where refering to?
Check link http://forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?topic_id=187926

Vinney, it's not that kind of party. This is EQ's way of implementing the cosmetic slot that most newer MMOs already have. Since you can't have a true cosmetic slot because EQ's engine is so old (what is it based on? Unreal Engine v0.2.3.7? ), they have to improvise. It's not actual armor, it's a way of changing the way your armor looks without affecting the stats of the stuff you already have. Thus, a cludgy way of implementing the cosmetic slot. The armor item itself is an aug that changes the look of your existing armor (just like weapon and shield skins). It's slot 21. The reason the marketplace is involved is simple. Whether you like it or not, the marketplace is what gets new features added to EQ. It's a way to allow these things to pay for themselves. We wouldn't have gotten housing if there wasn't a way of producing continuing revenue. They weren't going to make all furniture and housing items tradeskillable. The playerbase is small enough that tying things to expansions isn't enough, especially with free to play (you can't bank on those free players shelling out $40-50 for an expansion when they won't even shell out $15 for gold). For the record, I don't like it. It's like watching an old friend prostitute themselves. But that's the way of the (MMO) world nowadays.

The problem I have is the bean counters not paying attention to things that WOULD make them ridiculous money, like merc skins. The Siren merc is an obvious example. The people who got that for working for free in SoD's beta have had three years to enjoy it. Sell the damn thing in the marketplace already! When they put the Dark Bellikos illusion up in the marketplace, I bought one for every rogue, bard, and enchanter toon on all my accounts (8 total). The only Bellikos illusion I had (Mask of the Doll) was on my necro so it was useless. Let Google show you how much the siren illusion LoN item (Visage of the Siren Enticer) is currently being sold for. There's obviously demand, so duping the existing illusion, recoloring it slightly, adding a minor buff (that most people click off), and renaming it to sell on the marketplace (exactly what they did with the Bellikos) would offer a net profit. Hell, I'd buy it at a minimum, eight times again. The Siren merc skin I'd buy much, much more than eight times. It amazes me how they try to plant an orchard while ignoring the low hanging fruit right outside the bedroom window.

With the addition of this incredible new feature, we’ve seen a lot of questions from the community on how Hero’s Forge will add to their EverQuest experience. With that in mind, we’ve prepared the following FAQ based on your questions:

1. How will I gain access to Hero’s Forge?
Hero’s Forge will be available via the Marketplace on a per character basis. Simply purchase Hero’s Forge for the character you wish to use it on and a whole new world of graphical adornment will be available to you!

2. Why is there an additional charge for this feature?
Development of features for the Marketplace allows us to pursue larger projects that cost more in terms of development time and resources in addition to the release of regular expansions. Because of the very intensive nature of developing features such as Hero’s Forge, by selling this feature in the Marketplace we can make it immediately available to players who desire such content much more quickly and without tying it to an expansion. Additionally, Gold members with a recurring subscriptions receive 500 SC per month, which can be used to obtain this feature for all their characters at no additional cost over time if they so choose.

3. What is included with Hero’s Forge?
As soon as you purchase Hero’s Forge you will receive the ability to use Hero’s Forge items to alter your character’s appearance. You also receive a set of Hero’s Forge items (either Hero’s Forge Plate, Hero’s Forge Chain, Hero’s Forge Leather, or Hero’s Forge Cloth, depending on your class armor preference) to immediately alter your appearance Finally, and most importantly, you will be able to use the huge number of drops throughout Norrath to further customize and refine your own individual look. With more than 10,000 individual Hero’s Forge items created by the EQ art team, and hundreds available to any particular character, you’ll have the freedom to express your individuality in a way like never before in EverQuest!

4. Do Hero’s Forge items provide additional stats or in game power?
We have not added any stats to Hero’s Forge items. Armor obtained via the Hero’s Forge feature functions very similar to appearance weapon augments, and will have a dedicated slot on each piece of armor.

5. How do we acquire additional Hero’s Forge items in game?
Simply by playing! Hero’s Forge items will be available in many different ways, so no matter what you like to do, there will probably be some way to earn Hero’s Forge items. At launch, we’ll have items available through the following methods: achievements, missions in current content, various types of NPC drops, raids, and raid bosses. Additional items will be made through tradeskills very soon after launch. If you take a look at the image below, you can get a better idea of how different sets are tiered much more clearly.



6. Will there be achievements for completing different sets of Armor?
Yes! You will be able to earn achievements in game for completing many of the different sets of armor. These achievements will be available for you to see via the achievements window, like other achievements currently in game.

7. Will there be new robe appearances available via Hero’s Forge?
Yes! We definitely wouldn’t want to leave out our robe wearing brethren.

8. What are the plans for expanding Hero’s Forge after launch?
We definitely plan on continuing to expand the system, especially with more specialty items. We’ve been hearing a lot about wizard hats specifically, items such as these are definitely a direction we will strongly consider. We’re also considering items themed for special accomplishments, in-game holidays, and all sorts of other exciting avenues!

9. What if I don’t take part in Hero’s Forge, how will this feature benefit me?
If you don’t pick up Hero’s Forge (or don’t pick it up right away), you can still acquire these items in your adventures throughout Norrath. It will be your choice; do you save these items for yourself (for when you do decide to purchase the feature) or sell them to your fellow adventurers? The Hero’s Forge system gives a whole new category of items for all adventurers to buy and sell to one another, regardless of your choice to participate in Hero’s Forge directly. Tradeskillers will also be happy to hear that their skills will be in even more demand with their ability to craft Hero’s Forge items for their fellow adventurers!

We hope this helps you all get a deeper understanding of Hero’s Forge. We’re incredibly proud of this offering and can’t wait to see how you all use it in the game! If you have further questions, please post them on our forums and we’ll do our best to continue to answer!

Well.. its a 1-time purchase for a new aspect to the game, something otherwise unavailable, while in an ideal world it would be ideal that new creations to a game are given to us for free, someone from the top wants to make more money, or perhaps even the creators do, now, are they are hard working individuals, don't you think they...(or maybe, unfortunately those who dictate them) deserve to make more money for an added effort to the game? I mean, in all honesty, you don't NEED to buy it, you can not get it, and be groovy.

Personally, I would love to see all the old world zones updated (new graphics in Qeynos.. etc) if this became a feature you could pay for, I know I would.

And I will pay for this hero's forge, because it sounds cool as hell.

Samatman, I don't mean this in a rude way at all but just a word of friendly advice.

Don't ever compare any MMO in existence to WoW. This is especially true with regard to revenue models. Eleventy billion players' sub fees can cover up a lot of ills. WoW has lost over a million subscribers this year....and they don't care. You can have that attitude when you're dealing from a deck of eleven million. If you hearken back to EQ's heyday, do you remember how things went? Every new feature was tied to an expansion. Bank slots and frogs? Legacy of Ykesha. Fast travel (Nexus spires), Vah Shir, Beastlords, and the AA system? Shadows of Luclin. Even faster travel? Planes of Power. Leadership AAs and Berserkers? Gates of Discord. Guild Hall? Dragons of Norrath. Yes, these features were eventually opened up to all but back then, people complained about having to pay for an expansion they didn't want, in order to get features they did want. I said back then, and I still believe (and love) it today: sell those features a la carte. I paid for LoY specifically for the bank slots. I had no interest in the zones and I sure as hell didn't want to roll a frog.

Microsoft sold the first XBox at a loss. Does that mean every console should be sold that way? If everyone had to live by the standards set by WoW, regardless of individual company circumstances, you wouldn't have a quarter of the MMOs you have right now. If you poke around Google a bit, you can find info on team sizes. WoW's art team is (or was) about five times the size of the entire EQ Live team (during the SoF period, which is the last time I checked). Just the art department! Since then, EQ's team has gotten smaller. Do you think WoW's team has shrunk? Basically, the Marketplace is EQ's (and EQ2's and now Vanguard's) saving grace. The ability to immediately recoup the cost of developing new items, new systems, new features, is a major reason "freemium" (I'm not calling it 'free to play' because that's not accurate by standard industry parlance) games have been so successful of late. It also allows you, on an accounting level, to largely ignore subscriber churn because of the revenue being produced from the marketplace.



Actually, it began before LoY. If you wanted to play an Iksar (or advance to level 60), what did you have to do? You couldn't pay to unlock Iksar or raise your level cap....unless you bought the entire expansion. And you didn't really need it either. The first people to hit 60 in EQ (Elduran, the FoH ranger followed shortly thereafter by Furor and Thott and then Nevyn) did so killing dwarves in Butcherblock (Den & friends) and they did it within a week of the expansion's release. So buying the unlock wouldn't have required buying the expansion's content.

But you're right. All of these 'free currency for subscribers' deals are Skinner's boxes. I don't have a problem with it because it nets me a lower subscription price (500 SC is equivalent to $5 so my net is $10 a month if I ever use my SC), at least on paper. But of course, in order to realize that savings, I have to find something of value to me to purchase with the SC. Have I purchased SC otherwise? Hell yes. In MMO parlance, I'm a whale and proud of it. I support the games I like, as much as I can, because the alternative is 'sunset'. WoW hasn't gone this route, because they don't need to. Neither has EVE or RIFT, for the same reason. But seemingly every other mainstream game (I don't count Warhammer and its 58 players 'mainstream') has found better profitability with the a la carte/freemium route. I don't like it (as I said, it's like watching a friend who used to be on top of the world, now working a corner) but that's the way it is. I have my own theories on how 'accessibility' has led to transient communities which negate a game's 'stickiness'. Basically, remember way back when, people would continue playing a game (whether it was EQ or AC or DAoC or AO) after the fun wore off, simply because of their guild or their friends ingame or something else community based. Now, it's easy to quit a game because most communities are toxic or suck in some way so there's no real attachment to the games. As a result of this, the developers had to find a way to continue to profit with people jumping from game to game. In 2000, people tried to keep their reputations clean because to get a bad rep would mean having to reroll to escape it. And rerolling could mean months just trying to get back to where your old character was. Now? Who cares? If you reroll, you can be back to where you were inside of a month (if that!). I think there are a lot of things that have led us to where we are now and this is just one example.

But given EQ's sharply depleted (from its peak) numbers, the marketplace is essentially what's keeping the game alive and receiving updates between expansions.

How do you change the color?

From the patch notes:

- New color variations for Hero's Forge plate, chain, and leather armor are now available. Some can be found on any level 10+ NPCs, and some only in hotzones. Cloth armor variants will be available in the same manner in an upcoming update.
- Hero's Forge ornaments now have new icons to make them easier to differentiate from standard armor.
- Removed the Insidious and Eternal Grove items from the Veil of Alaris raid merchants until those items are ready for release. Any items that have already been purchased will still be valid once the armor sets are available. You may have to remove and replace the augment when this occurs.

From the marketplace: Hero's Forge Armor System (per character) SC1200.

I use pre-luclin character models and the armor doesn't show in preview. Not that I would have expected it to.

Plus, as a caster, you only have one look available to you: Burlap sack with skirt (there are no robes yet, as that patch note points out. Robes are coming in 'a future update' (probably 2013)).

Screenshots? This is the default plate set acquired on launch day: http://img705.imageshack.us/img705/1589/fuhm.jpg

What race is that character? What gender?

Here, let me help you out: http://img546.imageshack.us/img546/3192/fuhd.jpg

Half Elf female, but you could never tell with the nondescript armor and the bucket on her head. It looks like they went with the 'one size fits all' model.

This is the only account I've enabled it on since I wanted to check it out. I don't think any of the other accounts are drowning in SC like that one. I was waiting for them to have a sale on merc slots.

See now that doesn't loook all that bad, it looks better than the dropped irridiscent puprlish piece I drop (at least in the view window). I do agree it looks nicer without the bucket on your head as well. If I felt like wasting the 1200sc on my cleric that would be a nice look for him...all shiny and gold. Thank you for posting those by the way.

Now that gave me an idea. They could have thrown people using original models a bone by letting us have augs that overlayed velious textures on our armor. Seeing as the models and textures are still in game and the aug slot was added anyway it would take close to zero effort to implement.