June 11th Patch

[Itzena]

I'm trying desperately to think of a way to reply to Farnyr's post without it soundling like a personal attack, and failing.

So I'll just say that I think that occupational tags for vendors are a Good Thing, IMO.

[Tobin Itharel]

I want a shared PLAT slot too - Make keeping a trader mule easier

[Shere Khaan]

In addition, NPC merchants as well as other notable folks will have a title that will explain what their jobs are. For example, a baking supply merchant can be recognized as such by the description beneath his name.

*sigh* So much for the mystery and adventure. Welcome to Everquest, where if its not handed to you, then its bugged. Please petition so we can make things even easier for you...

Well it's no different from opening the map and seeing the description there (presumably they will be the same). This is something that's already implemented, it's just you don't have to look at the map anymore.

Shere Khaan

[Borofin]

The trivial fail combines can be MADDENING. For me they often seem to happen more than the infamous 5%. We should not be failing stupid combines that went trivial more than 200 points ago.

[Tobin Itharel]

OMG... The new spell system is on the test server and is GREAT.

8) A new method for memorizing spells. There was a day when casters only needed 32 pages in their spell books, with only 5 spells per page. These days spell books have 50 pages and 8 spells per page. Frankly, that's a lot of spells. We've come up with a new method for finding and memorizing spells that will make things easier for the overburdened spell caster. Right-clicking an empty spell gem will open a list of spell categories. Pointing your mouse at a category will display a list of spells. Selecting a spell from that list will make your character sit down, memorize the spell and stand back up.

This makes it easy to find any spell with the category system. Took a little time to get a handle on the system but it works well. It opens the spell book and sits you down to mem the spell and you stand when done.

9) Spell Favorites. Spell favorites are an easy way to memorize a full set of eight spells without the tedious book searching. Right-clicking on the spellbook icon in your spell window will open up the spell favorites menu. You will be able to save your current spell lineup as a favorite, delete a favorite or memorize all the spells in one of your already saved spell sets. As with the new spell context menus mentioned above, this will not replace the spellbook, it is meant to make memorizing large numbers of spells more convenient.

As a test I made 10 sets of spells in different orders, some with the same spell in the same gem spot. The system would fill my favorites in the fastest manor possible. It allowed me to type in a name for each set. It was simple to switch sets or even delete a set. (Right Click the spell book icon to access the spell sets.)

The ONLY thing they could do to make this better would be to enable the XML code for the spell book to memorize a page. That code is in the XML but was never made active. I think having both the new menu system and a page based system in the spell book would make all users happy.

[Prizzle]

On trivial combines, I'll say what I've said before: Can you imagine a car factory having to deal with a 5% failure rate on EVERY car part they could do NOTHING about?

That is stupid.

Especially on things you need tons of (*cough* sacred tunare silk *cough*)or in Pottery where the 5% failure hits you twice.

Thank god celestial essence and swatches dont fail or I would kill myself.

[Itek]

Tobin said "shared plat" ....

Why? Buy storebought and /bazaar items with your mule and transfer them.

Except for a VERY few purchaseable NO DROP items. (LoY shear molds and the alcohol for the old Stein of Moggok quest come directly to mind)

You would only need to get the cash from your mule / trader-mule once in a great while for buyable NO DROPs and NPC training in your class.

Under a thread about "saving buffs in the bazaar" I pointed this out, and if you NEEDED to transfer cash... buy Peridots with the mule. 20 stacks would cost 4200 plat and then could be sold for 3800. Yes you would lose 400 plat in the transfer. So you wouldn't do it often, or would do it on an item you found with an exact buy / sell price. (Like a cheaper gem, maybe pearl or jasper or something.)

Handmade backpacks. Never understood those. 8 gold for 8 slot backpack, unlimited availability. 50 plat for 10 slot, very limited availability. Even before deluxe toolboxes I wouldn't have used handmade for bank vaults. With the deluxe toolboxes.... well, when LoY went live I spent nearly an hour hauling around toolboxes from Iceclad with my taxi twink. Between my wife and I we bought over 100 for our bank vaults for all our characters and mules.

But to rant on further... handmade backpack... 10 percent weight reduction. Weight ... 3

Large tailored bag .... 10 percent weight reduction.... Weight ... 6/10th

Both, if I remember correctly, hold large, neither hold giant I know.

To make up for the additional 2.4 pounds each of those extra 4 slots in the backpack would have to hold a 6 pound item.

10 slots at 6 pounds is 60 pounds. Less 10 percent is 54 pounds. Plus 3 is 57. If -one- of your bags weighs 57 pounds... you probably need to run to the bank ANYWAY... (my poor enchanter can only carry 73 pounds... and his basic equipment weighs 29 pounds... thank everyone who's listening for tradeskill trophy bags.)

Oh, the 'spell favorites' ... thought I was going to need rubber underwear when I read that. (Enchanter = changing spells faster than bards twist songs)

Nope, you have to MANUALLY wipe ALL 8 spell slots, and then select a "spell set up" and wait for them ALL to mem and refresh. I had been hopeing it would compare your existing memmed spells and only wipe and mem "differing" spells in the new line up.

Root
Nuke
Nuke2
Mezz
AE Mezz
Charm
Rune 3
Gate

Root
Nuke
DoT
Mezz
AE Mezz
Mem Blur
Rune 3
Swift Like the Wind

would be great if it just pulled out Nuke 2 and replaced DoT, then pulled out Charm and replaced Mem Blur, finally wipeing Gate and putting up Swift.

Not so.

*sigh*

Still pretty nifty. Can go from "traveling" to "soloing" to "grouping slower" to "grouping shaman in party so haste only" to "raid buffing" to "just been rezzed, need to self-re-buff" when I need to completely change spell line ups and have the time to wait for learning all 8 spells. But for "ok Swift on the tanks, now switch to Insight for the Cleric who's KEI dropped, now to Brilliance for the SK who didn't get KEI before we left, back to Swift for the replacement tank who just arrived, now to Mem Blur cause the MA doesn't understand to taunt before breaking Mez on the mob I have already slowed while we waited...."

If I had one copper for every time I have changed a spell memmed .... I would have bought the 100k mount.

Still I think I will enjoy the 6/11/03 patch.

SOE: "We are changing a bunch of things..."
Itek: "Hold up, I heard we were getting 'shared bank space' on the live servers and 80 percent group exp bonuses? True?"
SOE: "Yes, and we are also..."
Itek: "You had me at yes, thanks. See you on the 11th."

Again, these are my opinions, some people LOVE handmade backpacks. My wife still uses 4 on her alt. (Passed them down to the alt when her main got a tradeskill trophy.)

[Marteeny]

well, when LoY went live I spent nearly an hour hauling around toolboxes from Iceclad with my taxi twink. Between my wife and I we bought over 100 for our bank vaults for all our characters and mules.

I hate to break it to ya, but the 10 slot toolboxes are vendor sold right in PoK.

[kiztent]

On trivial combines, I'll say what I've said before: Can you imagine a car factory having to deal with a 5% failure rate on EVERY car part they could do NOTHING about?

Can you imagine a car factory with the type of quality control that would be available in a reduced technology society like Everquest? How about a car factory that kills miners, empties their bags and tries to smelt the results into steel.

There are many advances in technology that are held back not by inability to understand what needs to be done, but an inability to do it as a result of limitations of the technology.

I'd say that having a skilled craftsman review materials that were obtained in the field during battle and determining that 95 percent of them were usable is much too high. Of course EQ would need a mechanism for 'failing' individual pieces of the combine instead of the whole combine, but hey.

[Shjinn]

Failures

I was going to respond in the same vein as Kiztent but in a different angle.

Like the days of old, Tradeskills are an art more than a science. Even when you look at the historical Grandmasters of old, they never truly understood why processes occured. They just understood that when they did a certain process a certain result occured (i.e. combining in our tradeskill containers).

In fact, both the bad (falures or below par) and the good (success beyond what was predicted) occured often. Take an art such as pottery. Can you truly say that any two pieces that are handmade are exactly the same? I can't honestly say so. There are always subtle differences at the least.

We are not machines and we are not a manufacturing plant. We do not undertstand and then manipulate the molecular properties of materials to get certain results (tempering irl vs tempering in EQ, e.g.).

Should the chance of a trivial failure of something that is 100+ below our raw skill be lowered? I think yes. Should this ever be eliminated? No way. Even irl there are failures that you dont' normally hear about in the factories that shut down production for small or long periods of time. These are not reported because they are a normal occurence.

With the present tradeskill engine, I don't think mass changes are in store. But it would be more roleplay to never have failures that lose all the components. Instead a "failure" would result in a subpar final result, such as half of stats or missing the nice focus effects that certain items have, etc.

Shjinn

[Tobin Itharel]

Tobin said "shared plat" ....

Why? Buy storebought and /bazaar items with your mule and transfer them.

Please port my level 1 trader mule to Stonebrunt 20 times so I can fill the trader with Dye items in LoY from the "PLAT" I could not transfer.

Oh! and since I do not hace 110 CHA like my main then I'll charge more for the dye when YOU want to buy it to make up for the difference. Plus, PAY ME for bringing my skill up on the trader mule to make the dye.

[kiztent]

Tobin said "shared plat" ....

Why? Buy storebought and /bazaar items with your mule and transfer them.

Please port my level 1 trader mule to Stonebrunt 20 times so I can fill the trader with Dye items in LoY from the "PLAT" I could not transfer.

Oh! and since I do not hace 110 CHA like my main then I'll charge more for the dye when YOU want to buy it to make up for the difference. Plus, PAY ME for bringing my skill up on the trader mule to make the dye.

Assuming the money is on the trader and your main is broke but can travel.

Buy enough peridots to cover the cost with trader, put in shared storage, sell with main and buy dye. Make vials and transfer finished product to trader (or put raw materials in shared slots if your buyer isn't the one making the dye). There's no excuse for not having 105 CHA with any character you have (unless you are an ogre).

I know I'll be planting my tinker in the lighthouse until geerloks are trivial. And I know I'll use peridots to transfer money to him if I need to. 200pp a stack, 10 stacks a bag, 2 bags, 4k transferred at a time.

[Tobin Itharel]

Untill SOE makes an item that sells for the same as you buy it - I will still want a PLAT slot. I will NOT transfer MONEY with GEMS if I lose 5% to 10% each time. Unless YOU want to GIVE me the money to do that.

[Braeorn]

I agree with Tobin, having shared plat makes sense...I mean, if you are going to share items, why not money?

Braeorn

[Calabar]

I agree that a car factory may not have been the best analogy, but I would still prefer to have low trivial items, based upon your skill, be no fail combines. It has less to do with reality and more to do with fun. There are certain realities the game sidesteps in the name of fun. Plagues should be fairly commonplace in an EQ like environment, but I’ve yet to see one in two years of playing. Our characters eat and drink but somehow manage to avoid the end product of that biological process. The reason for these and hundreds of other omissions is because adding them wouldn’t enhance the quality of fun the game designers hope to provide.

I feel the same is true for failing trivial combines far below your skill level. Does failing several of the seemingly countless sub combines when making Halas Pies increase the enjoyment of the game for the 250 baker? Does having one’s pottery trophy go poof in the kiln increase the enjoyment of the game for the 250 potter? I can’t speak for everyone, but I can tell you that neither of the above nor any of the other dozen upon dozen other examples out there improves my enjoyment of the game. In fact it does just the opposite. I don’t feel it’s unreasonable for a player who has put in the time, money and effort into mastering a trade skill to be able to be proficient at that trade skill’s fundamental functionality. And no fail combines for long since mastered skills would be a nice perk for a player’s hard work.