TFTW - Thought For the Week - 01/01/2007Follow

They will probably continue the trend towards adding new 'old' content. Luclin, Kunark or Velious. Odds on Kunark.

They just released a new race so you probably won't see a new one come next expansion. If anything a new class would be in the works (fingers crossed for Beastlord). If there is a level increase it will be to 75, if not they will just continue the alternate advancement system and perhaps focus on raid progression through KoS --> EoF ---> ???.

EoF as an expansion was a focus on bringing people back to the game or introducing it to them for the first time. Brand new 1-70 content, bringing back EQ1 environments, a new race, etc. The next expac will probably focus more on the end game and keeping the existing player base happy. If SOE follows its normal schtick that is.

Personally I am more interested to see what the next adventure pack caters to.

Edited, Jan 2nd 2007 1:35am by bodhisattva

I agree on a new "Old" continent, kunark is obvious but the disadvantage that Kunark is HUGE, I do not know if they have the resources to pull off another big expansion like that in a year. My money is on Odus that is of moderate size and contains some classic places like the Hole and has space for development and also contains what was one of the best evil towns in Eq1 Paineel. Odus can actually be released as an adventure pack if needed.

Most fun to see would be Kunark or Velious though but the size of any of them puts them up to major expansion and I think we have to wait a bit for another EoF sized expansion again.

Personally I would be happiest if they just released things like Unrest and other download additions for ahwile and instead threw some money and manpower into marketing this excellent product that SOE has now.

Sigtyr 50 Mystic of Secret Keepers Antonia Bayle.

i agree with kunark too, i would love to visit karnors castle again (watch out train coming through). and i hope they continue with the EoF trend in adding places you have to stay and wait for pops ( oh my god am i actualy asking for 'camps' to come back? )

there was some exellent content in eq1 kunark and it was really huge.

one thing i have not found yet and not sure whether i am just missing it if there is none is 'class quested armour' i know they have the dropped sets now, but i would like to see some quested class armour for us more casual gamers. i am not asking for the uber raid armour but just something that rewards you for long involved quests rather than get big group kill boss and get your piece if lucky. my 10 year old son has beter armour than me from group drops. tell me to take 4 weeks killing the same mob to get it i dont care, effort = reward.

velious would be nice too, love the snowy scenary :)

Kunark would be the next logical "big" expansion. The evil counterpart to Echoes. I do like the idea that was mentioned of an Odus adventure pack. The Hole was my absolute hands-down favorite EQ1 zone. Despite that fact that if it ever makes a return it will probably be an x4 raid zone so I'll never actually get to play in it, I would like to see it come back.

Velious was mentioned and while I think it wouldn't be a good time for that particular return, I still think that they should add the blue'ish skin and facial markings of the Thurgadin dwarves as an option to the current dwarf character creation process. I mean, not every single Thurgadin dwarf necessarily had to be stuck on Velious when the cataclysms hit, right?

I'd like to see something aquatic for all levels. A new mer-race would be a nice compliment to such an expansion. Just don't make the aquatic expansion based on Atlantis! Jason and the Argonauts seems like a better premis to work with.

How about a new class!!! Or being able to be duo-class? The tank class could be made a bit more interesting besides just hack and slash.

Badattitude
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You make a really good point about Odus. SOE has said that evil will get it's turn soon. One has to assume that they mean a new city and new race. Odus would be the perfect opportunity to do that. I think that would be a fun ... HUGE adventure pack :)

The resident Faydwer races (wood elves, dwarves, high elves and gnomes) can all start in Kelethin if they choose to.

Oh okay, sorry about that. People in game that I've spoken with said that even though they were wood elves, or whatever, they had to do this whole bind quest just so they could live there.

They have to, the tier system has them painted into a corner.

Every gear item in this totally item centric game, dropped or crafted, is designed to last 10 levels before it's obsolete.

If you're only going to need new gear for 5 or fewer levels some people are going to see less return on time invested to get the new stuff, then they'll get bored and quit.

When you first aquire new gear for a tier you're a little on the overpowerd side, later on, just before you need to upgrade, you're a little weak. If they only do 5 levels then everyone is a little overpowered until the next level increase. If they tune the MoB's and/or the gear to work for 5 levels instead of 10, they'll have to re-tune (i.e. nerf) them when they raise the cap. That would cause uproar.

How would they add new crafted gear content? (spells and arts, bags, furniture etc. don't matter, they can do 5 levels of those without any repurcussions) Every tier currently has 10 levels of new items which pretty much mirror the previous 10. They each have handcrafted items at level 60 and mastercrafted at 62.

What are they going to do, add only half the items, or squeeze them all into 5 levels? If they squeeze them all in what are they going to do when the level cap is increased to 80? No new crafted items this expansion, sorry. Uproar.

I think you're only considering end game raiding, which is a mistake because only 10% or so of the population considers themselves raiders.

Either that or you don't care about crafting. In which case I hate you with a burning anger reserved only for **** terrorists who eat babies. ;) (Actually, I wouldn't blame you entirely, SOE has shown they don't really care about crafting themselves any more. :( )

Edited, Jan 3rd 2007 12:55pm by Lydiaele

I would Love estate of Unrest, now comes the question, is Ghoul-Bane already in the game?


On the note of Kunark being the next big expansion, what race would be included to the evil side with it? The Iksar are already in, so that would leave and indigenous habitant of Kunark. Is it going to be a mob gone PC? I remember the surprise when froglocks where added. That leaves us to think about what race would be added?

Edited, Jan 4th 2007 7:27am by spoonofthebeast

2 things that would be great even though i doubt any of it will happen cause we all know soe does nothing to help their gammers out like to remove hackers, sorry but soe is a bunch of lazy people who can't even fix the petition button on the vox server, or even take care of hackers that hundreds of people have reported, SLACKERS..... anyways now that i got that off my chest, the 2 things i would love to see is that the change the system around so that u can be an evil class and still be a qeynosian, like a good guy necro, i pay 12 bucks a month to play half of the races ? that total bull sht, we can be a rat and turn over from evil to good, but we can't bring our classes with us???? and 2nd the beastlord class, what did they get wiped out when all the good people that brought eq1 to us left soe, now we get stuck with the non existant GM's who aren't there?

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Edited, Jan 4th 2007 10:58am by ezyluv

Expansions tend to follow a certain formula in what they offer.

You never see new races offerred in back to back expansions. One will be a new race the next will be a new class. Odus sounds like a good plan since it offers an evil tinge which the devs promised.

As to the whole 75 vs 80. Well I just dont see them bumping the level up again anytime soon. I think they are working on a static end game with more of a focus on alternate advancement than just straight increasing the level cap. I only mentioned 75 because that is the way they went with EQ1. Like I mentioned they have been marketing the game to ex-wow types who are looking for a more robust game, especially end game. So I would expect to stay at lvl 70 and have lots of alternate advancement and end game progression (PoP style perhaps).

I'd rather see content move sideways instead of upwards. Most new spells/skills are just more powerful versions of older spells, so getting the new and more powerful spell will just mean you are fighting new and more powerful monsters. "Oh look, is that a new monster? Lets damage it until it's health is less than zero." /yawn

EQ1 seemed to do well by not continuously upping the level cap, but by adding content (although some may or may not like particular expansions).

I'd enjoy seeing and exploring new lands with new challenges, but with the current levels. Since we now have clockworks, I hope to someday see a clockwork dungeon where almost all of it moves, rotates, or shifts. Fighting the boss mob might be on a floor that spins, lifts, drops, and changes, either randomly or in an intricate pattern to be studied and learned.

Quests can involve puzzles to be challenging. Like the Frostfell quest, one must carefully read the NPC text to gather clues for success. To prevent a quest from getting "spoilered", random words can be used in the NPC quest to always keep it fresh and challenging.

I'd also like to see new spells brought on, something more utility instead of damage/buff/heal. As a Conjurer I'd like to actually conjure something other than shards and pets. :)