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This part finishes up my writeup on info at least, I'm going to do one more on the rest of the trip experience. I cover tradeskills, trade, graphics, guilds and quests in this one, with a bunch of information! Enjoy!
At this point I took a break and let Hannar keep up with the note taking for a bit, so if something is wrong, blame him. The next session was all about artisans, definitely a topic we all wanted to know more about.
The basic idea of trade skills is to be a system similar to the combat encounter system. One engages the encounter (in this case, the item to be created), and progresses with the player’s skills while avoiding losses in quality. This includes the usage of skills during item creation to apply different techniques to increase the quality of the item. A really cool thing we found out was that there would be a system of Heroic Opportunities during the tradeskill encounter. Special events related to a player’s profession will bring up a combat wheel, which will further enhance the item building process. All in all, much like combat’s damage vs. delay, trade encounters will be about success vs. failure, including critical successes and failures.
Creation of items will typically come from creation of multiple small components, and then combining them into the larger piece. This gives a chance to create items of many varying qualities and durability by each piece’s respective quality or durability. Trade skill items, because of the time put into them, typically are a bit more powerful than regular items, and the most powerful items in the game will be combinations of quest, drop and crafting items.
Trade skill workshops will be available in the cities and as you progress through the artisan levels, you will have access to better ‘drops’ at the workshop without having to adventure. However, there will always be components that need adventuring, creating that interdependence between crafters and adventurers.
Artisan recipes will be obtained through the same processes as most of the magic spells: basic core recipes will be granted through leveling, and more advanced and rare recipes will be dropped or quested.
All of this comes along with our new Artisan class tree, created to promote more interdependence between crafters, as well as more specific crafting differences:
Artisan
o Craftsman
. . o Provisioner
. . o Woodworker
. . o Carpenter
o Outfitter
. . o Armorer
. . o Tailor
. . o Weaponsmith
o Scholar
. . o Jeweler
. . o Alchemist
. . o Sage
Closely related to the trade skills topic was the topic of trade markets. EQII is attempting a unique setup. When a user wants to put an item on the market, they go to their house or guild house, and enter a ‘merchant mode’. This mode locks down the house and allows others to come in and browse you for the items you have for sale. One cannot leave the house or adventure while in this mode, however. This gives an opportunity for the buyer to see your house setup while buying the item. Buyers can find these people by browsing the city market through a broker. The broker will have a listing of all the items on the city’s market. A player can buy the item directly through this broker (for an added cost, taken by the city), or they can ask for the address of the seller, and visit them in person to purchase the item. Each city therefore has their own market with separate brokers. To facilitate cross-city trade, a black market is also available. When an item is put up for sale, it is also listed on this black market, and those brokers (hiding in less savory places in the city) will list all the items available in both cities. Players can buy from this market for a considerably higher price (to pay for transport and risk of the market existing in general).
Sadly, I did not catch all of the talk about guild and the systems there, but I will relate what I did learn. Players really have three lines of advancement in EQII: adventuring levels (Fighter, Mage, Predator, Fury… etc etc), crafting levels (through that tree), and guild levels. Now here’s the problem: that’s like, all I heard. Woohoo? Anyway, Guilds will get their housing, with everyone getting the basic, instanced setup, and more advanced and or wealthy guilds getting an actual 1 to 1 physical inside to outside house for their guild. This is a big prestige thing, for sure.
One of the next sessions went over graphics and art in EverQuest II. I missed a good portion of this session too, so I’ll say: the graphics are great, hehe. The artists are blessed with a very powerful and versatile engine, with the capabilities to easily change effects and art. One of the things I really liked hearing about was the powerful particle effects engine. While the artists complained a little about the cryptic nature of the commands, they were still very appreciative of the power built in, which can tweak an effect based on a huge number of factors, in game and client side. Particle sources can be placed nearly anywhere, and there can be numerous sources.
Of course the issue of skin and hair textures was brought up. Skin is looking better and better in the game, because it has been one of their priorities. Hair, on the other hand is not on top of their list of things to handle before release, but it will not be forgotten. They know what needs to be done; it is just a matter of time available before release. The priority really is to get everything necessary done before release.
With only a few minutes left before we were to be ushered off to dinner, our last session was a quick one. Questing was the topic, and immediately we barraged the poor developers with questions about the city betrayal quests. These quests are NOT going to be easy. In fact, they will be hard, and if one sees a dark elf hanging out in Qeynos, it will be known that the player really dedicated themselves to the game. Parts of the quest will be soloed; parts will require groups to complete. During the quest, neither city will allow the presence of the player undergoing the betrayal, and the former city will place a curse to slow progress. The betrayer will also be unable to level during the quest. Tough stuff, but it is all a matter of risk vs. reward, and making it a very important quest.
The number of quests in the game will be astounding. Players in their low levels are already finding themselves completing upwards of 50 quests, with 50 quests still to complete just in their home city. This kind of density will continue throughout the game, and for each type of player. There are a large variety of types of quests, not just ‘kill x monsters’ or ‘grab this item’, but specific tasks that may take some strategy, tactics and teamwork to pull off. Of course, the voice over system plays a big role in the quest system, and it is sure to make a big impact in the way quests are thought of in EverQuest II.
So... thats pretty much what we got out of the devs. Of course, we tried to squeeze more, but I think at that point they were as dry as a Colorado summer. The rest of the trips' experiences are upcoming!
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