Rumors from the Fan Faire

[KyrosKrane]

Considering that there's a city of Zebuxoruk somewhere on Taelosia, I would figure that's where we'd see a new race appear.

In most of the lore analysis I've seen, people figure Zeb's city is in fact PoK / PoT, not an actual city on Norrath. Of course, this is all just speculation, so you never know.

[KyrosKrane]

Na, gotta be a Beetle class with octal-wield.

This just struck me. Beetles are insects. They have six legs, not eight. I guess they'd have hectal (hexal?) wield, or some such. =)

[Taadieri]

Rumor: The next expansion is due in July, and will raise levels to 70.

I heard this rumor from a player from either Test or Stormhammer. As Kilauea said, the level increase was reportedly intended to be part of the GoD expansion and will be implemented for the next expansion.

Reportedly, the biggest issue preventing it from being done in time is that there will be a level limit based on how many AA points a character has. If this RUMOR is true, you would need to have earned (or maybe spent) 50 AA points to be eligible for level 66, 100 for 67 and so on up to needing 250 AA points to reach level 70. Again, this is a completely unconfirmed rumor.

[Kilauea Bacchus]

Wow, that brings a whole new meaning to "XP grind".

[Nairn Niteraven]

Reportedly, the biggest issue preventing it from being done in time is that there will be a level limit based on how many AA points a character has. If this RUMOR is true, you would need to have earned (or maybe spent) 50 AA points to be eligible for level 66, 100 for 67 and so on up to needing 250 AA points to reach level 70. Again, this is a completely unconfirmed rumor.

So does that mean you still have to grind the level AND spend the AA's or just put 100% into AA's, spend them, and boom! next level? (I realize this is just rumor; trying to sort it out in my mind).

[Liandra]

Hmmm. The way i read it is that 50aa's unlocks the posibility of gaining lvl 66. 100aa's unlocks lvl 67. So you would have to grind both. I hope im reading it wrong though. Grinding the normal lvls is bad enough. /sigh

[Kaysha Soulsinger]

If that is true, they will be separate AA's, new in the new expansion. And maybe they'd purely be AA's to open up the next level, without any other benefit ...

[Verdandi]

If this RUMOR is true, you would need to have earned (or maybe spent) 50 AA points to be eligible for level 66, 100 for 67 and so on up to needing 250 AA points to reach level 70. Again, this is a completely unconfirmed rumor.

I sure hope that's only a rumor. Urgh, I'm feeling ill now....

[dmuerte]

Basically those requirments would just remove the casual players from the higher lvls for a long time. Most of the people i grind with though have around 300+ on average. So these would not be a problem to us.

[Lilosh]

That is possibly the worst idea I've heard recently.


I hope it's only a rumor.

-Lilosh

[Krazick]

I sit here and contemplate this rumor

(Raising Level to 70, but to proceed beyond 65/66/67/68/69... you must have XX AAs spent... increasing at each level)

And I can see some sense in it... Why?

1. When the Upper limit was 60... you could then earn experience and get AAs... and you could earn them starting at Level 51... But did people actually bother with AAs when they reached 51? Only some... and those only for Run 3...

2. When they raised the limit to 65... with more AAs to get... where you had to be level 61+ to get the PoP AA Skills... did most players bother with AAs (other than Run 3) before they pushed to Level 65? Not many at all...

Players tended to consider AA Skills to be "icing"... not critical to success. They always saw increased levels as being more useful than any of the AA skills that were offered.

I admit, I look at some of the Class specific AA Skills for a Monk, and I say "Huh?... why would I want that?" Well... I see only one or two Class Specific AA skills as being useful to the way I play.

I look at the General AA Skills..and say I don't care about increased INT/WIS/CHA on my Monk! (most melee would agree). While caster would say I don't need increased STR/DEX/AGI on my Caster...

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Now with the reverse restriction... You must have ## AA Points SPENT before you can reach Level 66/67/68/69/70... it will encourage players to actually spend TIME at those levels experiencing the content at those levels (the various PoP Zones, the GoD Zones, and the new expansion zones) at the levels SOE intended them to be experienced, rather than simply seeking to ZOOM up to Level 70... then trivialize the content because the characters are overpowered for them.

I am continually annoyed that a majority of the playerbase has gotten so jaded that they believe the only "fun" way to play EQ is when the content is trivial and there is no challenge.

Why would anyone want to go to Blackburrow and beat up gnolls when they reach level 20+? Or why would you want to go to Neth Lair when you reach Level 40+? The reason folks don't is not because they are trivial at those levels... but because they get no experience at those levels. No gain.

The only reason people go back to Rathe Mountains to beat up Hill Giants at Level 60+ (solo) is because of the profit they can make easily (coin/loot).

SOE tried to get you to spend time traveling (boat trips/running across the zones)... and players complained...now we have PoK Books... and Gnome Dock Workers... Magus Porters...
SOE tried "Trivial Loot Code"... and that flopped..
SOE tried "Flag restrictions" (PoP Progression) ... and that worked for a time... but now they added in access if you reached 55/62... because of complaints that not all buddies could join in
SOE tried "LDoN Groups with Level constraints" ... and that has got people complaining because they can't go and take 3 level 65 with 3 level 50s and overpower the adventure. But they haven't broken that yet, since it has gotten a lot of positive response.
SOE tried AA skills as optional after level 50... and players ignore it... they think AAs are too "wimpy" before you reach max level.

SOE WANTS you to take the time and explore the world... and see the content... the player base IGNORES it...

(sorry about the length.... but one though led me to another...)

[uncleshmoozo]

That is possibly the worst idea I've heard recently.

I agree. It's an awful idea.

[Ixiola]

Actually, I'm probably what most would think of as a casual player as I play maybe 20 hours a week and am in a family guild. But I don't think it's that bad of an idea, as long as it's any AA that work. I don't really like the idea of having to 'purchase' AA who's only purpose is to allow you to level as that just means they are making every level past 65 hell levels squared. ) But requiring you to have say 20 AA spent in something to ding 66 doesn't seem unreasonable.

I have delayed leveling to 65 with my cleric because I want to continue to group with my friends / guildmates in LDoNs, and staying within level range of my better half means I have more options to grouping with others. As a result, I've been grinding AAs a lot instead of leveling. But I think people often think that levels are greater than all. This is unfortunately short-sighted. Is my 63 cleric with 62 AAs not as good as a 65 with <6 AAs? I would disagree. My AAs make me a lot more efficient healer. Sure, I could be 65 now, but as I said, I chose to level at the same rate as my friends.

If you make it open to anyone, I guarantee you'll see folk who'll level straight to 70 with virtually no AAs because being higher level means they are 'better'. Why not require just a little investment in other stuff?

What I think this would do is give folks a general idea of what level of player they are getting. (And no, I don't mean skill - that has nothing to do with your level.) When they get a level 66, they know that that player is not only 66, but also has at least XX AAs. Right now, there's a huge disparity in what a '65' means, and short of looking at someone's title (which is dependant not only on how many AA you have but also WHERE you spent your AA) or inspecting their gear, how do you tell?

[Maevenniia]

I don't even have 50 AA yet (working on it!) but I would see nothing terribly wrong with setting # of AAs necessary to "unlock" levels 66-70. (This would be similar to the requirements SOE put in SWG for people to unlock the Jedi character slot.)

I agree with Ixiola though, it should be based on AAs spent, without any restrictions as to where they were spent.

[elty]

It is a good system. Lv 65 is so meaningless now. A lv 65 with 0 AA is much worse than a lv 65 with just 100 AA. 250 AA is not high. It barely covers the essential one. I figure I can stop at 280. By then all I will cover all defense and offense AA and the rest is just eye candy