posted 2005-12-09 19:20:40 (CST-2), discovered 2005-12-09 19:20:40 (CST), 47.5 months old

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Welcome to Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Can you add more searching options for the /Barter window?  If there are more than 200 buy lines, you can't view them all.  It would be nice if we could at least search by /Buyer name and see all buy lines posted by that buyer.

This stuff is technically feasible.  When the feature was first designed it was assumed that, since you had the item, you'd be able to specify it by name when looking to see if anyone wanted it.  More and more people seem to be doing vendor diving for barter buyers, though, which makes these requested features more useful.

Since we now have a button to turn on/off helms in options, why can't this be done for switching between tunics and robes for monks?

From a purely technical standpoint, these are 2 completely different things.  Turning helms on and off merely is a flag to determine whether we should display the helm model associated with the item, or just display as if you weren't wearing a helm.  This is why it didn't add helm graphics to helms that didn't already have them, as that would require going through all those items and specifying a graphic look.  The tunic/robe thing would require adding a new field to the items specifying their "alternative" model, and a designer would then have to populate that field for everything.  Why can't it be done?  Well, it probably can, but it would take a lot more time than the helm thing did, and not just programmer time.

Will the Spell Research skill get a trophy, now that it's a "real" tradeskill?

One of the things that we've been discussing lately has been the possibility of extending the current line of trophies to be tiered, instead of just one trophy at 250 skill. The benefits of this would allow us to upgrade the trophies if / when we increase the tradeskill caps again, as well as reward those who have attained the higher skills with more stats and bigger modifiers. This extension would also include adding trophies for the skills that do not currently have any.

Seriously though for tradeskilling many classes are not able to forage which means you either make an alt or pay massive bazaar prices. Why can’t there be more recipies that contain vendor drop items at the higher skill levels?

Foraging is a beneficial skill that gives us a means of creating specific recipes aimed at a smaller section of the tradeskill community, however... It also should not be the gating factor for gaining skill points in any one specific tradeskill.

In many cases, the items that can be obtained via foraging are also able to be obtained via other means. This is a trend we plan on continuing as we move forward with as we introduce more recipes into the game. In the situations where a skill-up recipe does use foraged items, we'll make sure there's an equivalent recipe that uses a dropped counterpart.

Why don't Troll Blacksmithing have the ability to make some old world cultural armor like the crimson darkscale or the fulvous darksplint or the blackened darkscale armor which are wearable by Trolls but can only be made by Ogres.

This racial-gap in the 'old cultural' was one of the main concerns and causes of introducing the new cultural armor with Dragons of Norrath. We saw a number of gaps with the old cultural, as well as a need for upgrading the armor to something that more accurately reflected the content that players currently encounter in EverQuest. The new cultural fills in these gaps very well, so we currently have no plans to add any 'old cultural' recipes to the races that do not currently have it.

Is fletching going to be fixed for non karana followers and/or foragers?

We have several ideas on how to extend fletching beyond its current usefulness and limitations -- This includes adding additional means to obtain 300 skill for everyone, as well as adjusting the recipes which make it far too easy for certain races and / or classes to raise their skill. Without delving too deeply into the details, expect some changes in the near future (January / February timeframe).

Can we get some details on the plans to address the tradeskill issues with regards to skill up paths?  Specifically, tailoring for non-karana worshipers and fletching for non-wood elfs or non-karana worshipers have nearly impossible skill up paths to 300.

This, much like the question asked above, is also on the board to be addressed by adding additional recipes as well as adjusting any of those recipes which are far too easy for certain races to gain skill with. 

posted 2005-12-07 21:22:00 (CST-2), discovered 2005-12-07 21:22:02 (CST), 47.6 months old

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In a discussion about gearing up for raids, Rashere joins in.

Compliments are always nice to hear.  If you would like to share your positive comments regarding something the Devs have done to EQ recently that is worthy of praise we'd love to hear it!

Tnexus, a tenatious ranger on Prexus, set out on a quest to complete all the epic quests he could.  It took him a month and over 300pp but he managed to do all but one.  Check out his report (and give him an idea for some other crazy quests to occupy his time if you have one)!

We have a new game on the Just for Fun board called EQ Survivor.  Come join the fun and help vote one of the contenders off the proverbial island!

If you could design a quest what would it be about?  Come share your ideas in Ky's Chatter Box.

posted 2005-12-07 21:22:01 (CST-2), discovered 2005-12-07 21:22:02 (CST), 47.6 months old

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Welcome to Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Can you add more searching options for the /Barter window?  If there are more than 200 buy lines, you can't view them all.  It would be nice if we could at least search by /Buyer name and see all buy lines posted by that buyer.

This stuff is technically feasible.  When the feature was first designed it was assumed that, since you had the item, you'd be able to specify it by name when looking to see if anyone wanted it.  More and more people seem to be doing vendor diving for barter buyers, though, which makes these requested features more useful.

Since we now have a button to turn on/off helms in options, why can't this be done for switching between tunics and robes for monks?

From a purely technical standpoint, these are 2 completely different things.  Turning helms on and off merely is a flag to determine whether we should display the helm model associated with the item, or just display as if you weren't wearing a helm.  This is why it didn't add helm graphics to helms that didn't already have them, as that would require going through all those items and specifying a graphic look.  The tunic/robe thing would require adding a new field to the items specifying their "alternative" model, and a designer would then have to populate that field for everything.  Why can't it be done?  Well, it probably can, but it would take a lot more time than the helm thing did, and not just programmer time.

Will the Spell Research skill get a trophy, now that it's a "real" tradeskill?

One of the things that we've been discussing lately has been the possibility of extending the current line of trophies to be tiered, instead of just one trophy at 250 skill. The benefits of this would allow us to upgrade the trophies if / when we increase the tradeskill caps again, as well as reward those who have attained the higher skills with more stats and bigger modifiers. This extension would also include adding trophies for the skills that do not currently have any.

Seriously though for tradeskilling many classes are not able to forage which means you either make an alt or pay massive bazaar prices. Why can’t there be more recipies that contain vendor drop items at the higher skill levels?

Foraging is a beneficial skill that gives us a means of creating specific recipes aimed at a smaller section of the tradeskill community, however... It also should not be the gating factor for gaining skill points in any one specific tradeskill.

In many cases, the items that can be obtained via foraging are also able to be obtained via other means. This is a trend we plan on continuing as we move forward with as we introduce more recipes into the game. In the situations where a skill-up recipe does use foraged items, we'll make sure there's an equivalent recipe that uses a dropped counterpart.

Why don't Troll Blacksmithing have the ability to make some old world cultural armor like the crimson darkscale or the fulvous darksplint or the blackened darkscale armor which are wearable by Trolls but can only be made by Ogres.

This racial-gap in the 'old cultural' was one of the main concerns and causes of introducing the new cultural armor with Dragons of Norrath. We saw a number of gaps with the old cultural, as well as a need for upgrading the armor to something that more accurately reflected the content that players currently encounter in EverQuest. The new cultural fills in these gaps very well, so we currently have no plans to add any 'old cultural' recipes to the races that do not currently have it.

Is fletching going to be fixed for non karana followers and/or foragers?

We have several ideas on how to extend fletching beyond its current usefulness and limitations -- This includes adding additional means to obtain 300 skill for everyone, as well as adjusting the recipes which make it far too easy for certain races and / or classes to raise their skill. Without delving too deeply into the details, expect some changes in the near future (January / February timeframe).

Can we get some details on the plans to address the tradeskill issues with regards to skill up paths?  Specifically, tailoring for non-karana worshipers and fletching for non-wood elfs or non-karana worshipers have nearly impossible skill up paths to 300.

This, much like the question asked above, is also on the board to be addressed by adding additional recipes as well as adjusting any of those recipes which are far too easy for certain races to gain skill with. 

posted 2005-11-29 16:49:44 (CST-2), discovered 2005-11-29 16:49:44 (CST), 47.9 months old

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Welcome to Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Can you add more searching options for the /Barter window?  If there are more than 200 buy lines, you can't view them all.  It would be nice if we could at least search by /Buyer name and see all buy lines posted by that buyer.

This stuff is technically feasible.  When the feature was first designed it was assumed that, since you had the item, you'd be able to specify it by name when looking to see if anyone wanted it.  More and more people seem to be doing vendor diving for barter buyers, though, which makes these requested features more useful.

Since we now have a button to turn on/off helms in options, why can't this be done for switching between tunics and robes for monks?

From a purely technical standpoint, these are 2 completely different things.  Turning helms on and off merely is a flag to determine whether we should display the helm model associated with the item, or just display as if you weren't wearing a helm.  This is why it didn't add helm graphics to helms that didn't already have them, as that would require going through all those items and specifying a graphic look.  The tunic/robe thing would require adding a new field to the items specifying their "alternative" model, and a designer would then have to populate that field for everything.  Why can't it be done?  Well, it probably can, but it would take a lot more time than the helm thing did, and not just programmer time.

Will the Spell Research skill get a trophy, now that it's a "real" tradeskill?

One of the things that we've been discussing lately has been the possibility of extending the current line of trophies to be tiered, instead of just one trophy at 250 skill. The benefits of this would allow us to upgrade the trophies if / when we increase the tradeskill caps again, as well as reward those who have attained the higher skills with more stats and bigger modifiers. This extension would also include adding trophies for the skills that do not currently have any.

Seriously though for tradeskilling many classes are not able to forage which means you either make an alt or pay massive bazaar prices. Why can’t there be more recipies that contain vendor drop items at the higher skill levels?

Foraging is a beneficial skill that gives us a means of creating specific recipes aimed at a smaller section of the tradeskill community, however... It also should not be the gating factor for gaining skill points in any one specific tradeskill.

In many cases, the items that can be obtained via foraging are also able to be obtained via other means. This is a trend we plan on continuing as we move forward with as we introduce more recipes into the game. In the situations where a skill-up recipe does use foraged items, we'll make sure there's an equivalent recipe that uses a dropped counterpart.

Why don't Troll Blacksmithing have the ability to make some old world cultural armor like the crimson darkscale or the fulvous darksplint or the blackened darkscale armor which are wearable by Trolls but can only be made by Ogres.

This racial-gap in the 'old cultural' was one of the main concerns and causes of introducing the new cultural armor with Dragons of Norrath. We saw a number of gaps with the old cultural, as well as a need for upgrading the armor to something that more accurately reflected the content that players currently encounter in EverQuest. The new cultural fills in these gaps very well, so we currently have no plans to add any 'old cultural' recipes to the races that do not currently have it.

Is fletching going to be fixed for non karana followers and/or foragers?

We have several ideas on how to extend fletching beyond its current usefulness and limitations -- This includes adding additional means to obtain 300 skill for everyone, as well as adjusting the recipes which make it far too easy for certain races and / or classes to raise their skill. Without delving too deeply into the details, expect some changes in the near future (January / February timeframe).

Can we get some details on the plans to address the tradeskill issues with regards to skill up paths?  Specifically, tailoring for non-karana worshipers and fletching for non-wood elfs or non-karana worshipers have nearly impossible skill up paths to 300.

This, much like the question asked above, is also on the board to be addressed by adding additional recipes as well as adjusting any of those recipes which are far too easy for certain races to gain skill with. 

posted 2005-11-18 13:20:55 (CST-2), discovered 2005-11-18 13:20:58 (CST), 48.2 months old

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Rashere joins in a conversation with the community about monster missions.

Oshran assists with some problems in the War Machine monster mission.

Prathun assures the community that rewards from defeating Hatchet were not intentionally changed.

What is the best "in character" insult you have heard in EverQuest? Join the conversation in Ky’s Chatter Box.

EQ Survivior!  Join in the fight and keep your favorite alive.  This week’s challengers – the cities of EverQuest.

Show your creativity in The Rascal’s Tabloid and participate in the Alphabet Saga.

posted 2005-11-16 16:30:54 (CST-2), discovered 2005-11-16 16:30:55 (CST), 48.3 months old

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If you participated in the Depths of Darkhollow Beta and you received at least 5 beta tokens that you TURNED IN, please ensure that the email address we have on record in your EverQuest account registration is current.  On Monday, November 14th, we will be sending an email notification to everyone who is eligible, according to our records, for a beta reward.  If you do not receive the email notification because your email address is not current, you WILL NOT receive the beta reward for which you are eligible.

posted 2005-11-09 19:20:29 (CST-2), discovered 2005-11-09 19:20:30 (CST), 48.5 months old

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If you participated in the Depths of Darkhollow Beta and you received at least 5 beta tokens that you TURNED IN, please ensure that the email address we have on record in your EverQuest account registration is current.  On Monday, November 14th, we will be sending an email notification to everyone who is eligible, according to our records, for a beta reward.  If you do not receive the email notification because your email address is not current, you WILL NOT receive the beta reward for which you are eligible.

posted 2005-11-03 13:20:04 (CST-2), discovered 2005-11-03 13:20:05 (CST), 48.7 months old

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Welcome to Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Why do master's level augs require crushed diamond dust to make the water? Because a Mistake was made! Purescale ore for the GM augs is much, much, much more common.

Can you change the required component to something more in line like blue diamonds? Or add a recipe for making crushed diamond dust? Making it an item that shares drop tables with all the other velious gems doesn't seem to make much sense. We are currently looking into this and the cultural drops in general. There is no ETA at this time.

Is there any plans to adding fixed tradeskill containers for tailoring (cultural etc), Jewel craft and  spell research along with a mixing bowl somewhere in PoK or somewhere in the new expansion where it starts to exist, so Tradeskillers don't have to have all the many different containers to do their combines in? We currently have no art assets for this. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but there are no plans to do this currently.

If you cannot add stationery containers can you at lease change them all to be 10 slots and allow giant things to go in them? No.  While we understand that it is “inconvenient” it does not make any sense for a BOWL to hold 10 giant items… nor a mortar and pestle, or many of the other tradeskill items.  Yes many things do not make sense… but we are not going back and changing them, we just do not want to make the same mistake again.

When are you going to address the at range stun agro for paladins? Paladins are getting a bit of a boost to their stun aggro at the high end with the next patch.  The issues with paladin aggro were primarily at the high end, so we've increase the hate generation on the stuns above level 65 to compensate.

I have read that shrouded toons aren't intended to get armor/weapons as they should be tuned with those things already in mind. If that is the case, and understanding that their original/main intent is to allow grouping with lower levels, do they represent a certain baseline and what was that baseline tuned to as far as progression? In other words, if a level 70 (pick class) shrouds down to X should the hp/AC/DPS/mana etc represent what the devs think a (raiding | non-raiding | best baz geared | mid range baz geared) lvl X (pick class) looks like? The shrouds are aimed at being a bit less powerful then your average level X character based on player data collected from live servers.  They aren't meant to be an indication of what the dev team feels a certain level character should be.  They're meant to be a decent substitute in a pinch, but should never be a better choice then a similar level main character. 

Are there new rogue poisons using the master sketch or a continuation of that quest in the works? There was a minor correction to some of the ones that used it.  The names in the container’s list were wrong, though the recipes worked.  Currently there are no new recipes, and none currently planned.

Currently, buyer mode in the bazaar only allows you to buy a single item in exchange for some combination of cash and zero or more items. Would it be possible to add an option to buy multiple items in exchange for compensation?  Possible?  Maybe.  I wouldn't look for it soon, though, as it would require a pretty in depth overhaul of the system, as well as a more complex UI. 

Can buy/done buttons on merchant window be swapped? The Done button was placed where it is (and used to be) based on user feedback from when the new merchant window was put in.  The lower right corner is "where done buttons go", and where it used to be before it was removed in the first place.  Players will get used to it again.  As to why the buy button was placed all the way on the other side, that was so people with "laggy mice" wouldn't accidentally hit Buy instead of Done.

Are there any plans to bring back the raid-level version of Mistmore, be it through instancing, a chardok a / chardok b situation with both zones up at the same time, or through a temporary event, such as reverting it back for several weeks in conjunction with the fabled aniversary happenings? Mistmoore was reverted to its previous state largely because very few players were using the new form. For the same reason, we don't currently have plans to reinstate that content although it is something we may look at again in the future.

Is there an ETA on when pets will once again recive the AC Stats and Hit Points from the gear given to the pet? This was fixed in the last update on October 27^th.

Is there any plans to do anything about the Cleric AC cap? The return on AC over the cap was increased for clerics levels 50+ in the October 12^th update.

What is the status on fixing the PoTime instancing bug that is affected a ton of people? We diligently tried to reproduce this problem with no luck and even followed some cooperative guilds while they ventured through the Plane of Time with no issue.  Finally we did see the problem occur and it was fixed in the October 27^th update.

Cheers for making ranged items stackable to 100! Any possibility that bandages might receive the same treatment? Right now there is no intent to increase the stacking for other items.

When can we expect some changes to the Guild Bank to make it more user friendly? The Ovtober 27^th update did include a few alterations to the guild bank to make it more user friendly.  There is now a new filter option on the guild bank to narrow your search.  We have added a "guildbank" argument to /outputfile, allowing a player to dump the guild bank to disk. (NOTE: This can only be used in the Guild Hall.)  Guild Bankers should also now be able to withdraw items from the Guild Bank deposit area.

posted 2005-11-03 13:20:05 (CST-2), discovered 2005-11-03 13:20:05 (CST), 48.7 months old

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Jasazick - Fennin Ro

Where were you born? Lake Forest, Illinois    

What is your middle name? Douglas

What is your occupation? Computer Technician

Where will you retire? A quiet home in Northern Virginia.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Ron Moore, the creator of the new Battlestar Galactica. He has created such a terrific show I would have so many questions for him!

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes

What kind of clothing would you never wear? I don't like clothes that act as political or social statements. If I cared about your beliefs, I'd ask.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Outside of telling my wife, I don't know if I would tell anyone - ever. I can only imagine the unwanted attention that winning the lottery would bring.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Either Paris Hilton or Camryn Manheim - they are both obnoxious and have absolutely no place on television (or in a room with me!)

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Honestly I wouldn't appreciate any luxury cars, I'd be content with a Jeep Cherokee.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Juggle (badly)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Any kind of large bird, I think it would be wonderful to be able to fly.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Breaking a bone on the ball of my foot playing tennis.

What foods do you dislike? Lima beans, Yams, Cherry Pie.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? A quiet island in the Caribbean with a great view completely without technology or human interferences.

Lloren - Saryrn

Where were you born? In the back of a '63 Ford Galaxy on the way to the hospital.

What is your middle name? K - just the letter.  No idea what the parents were thinking there.

What is your occupation? Computer Systems Infrastructure Architect for a state university.

Where will you retire? Somewhere that is warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and is out of the line of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. If such a place exists, let me know! I'm still looking.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens). I would have loved to hear about his life and travels during that era.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes. Several times. The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read but only one page.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Polyester, rayon, man-made fibers -- ick! Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? They would know the next day as I would be at my office packing up my goodies, and heading out to travel the world. ;-)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Lyman Tuttle. I'm afraid I would have some not so nice things to say to him for never getting back in touch with me about my 5th year anniversary account issue that I finally gave up on.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A 1991 Mustang GT, white, with a sun roof.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play EQ! What else? ;-)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Real: dog    Fantasy: gnoll

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having 4 wisdom teeth extracted in dentist one session.

What foods do you dislike? Watermelon, black berries, blue cheese.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would like to go on one of the San Fransisco <-> Alaska cruises. I have never explored that side of the US; I think that would be a fun trip.

Ginormus - The Rathe

Where were you born? Montpellier - France

What is your middle name? I am called Fabrice, Marc, Gilles, Roland

What is your occupation? Financial IT Engineer.

Where will you retire? I won't leave  Paris (France)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Joël & Eathan Cohen.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes: Europa, Africa, America.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Baggy pants.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? I never ever played the lottery.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Brigitte Bardot

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A blue Maserati roadster. And a yellow Voxan CafeRacer (it's a bike).

What do you do most often when you are bored? I am never bored.

If you could be any animal what would it be? A city cat.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Death of my kitty.

What foods do you dislike? Industrial standardized food.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Italia or Greece.

Jenneth - Maelin Starpyre

Where were you born? Ohio

What is your middle name? Lee

What is your occupation? Department Manager

Where will you retire? Ohio

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Head

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? No

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Preppy

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? 30 days

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? People I work with

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 58 Plymyth Fury

What do you do most often when you are bored? Computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? Horse

What was your single biggest intense pain? Losing my daughter to Leukemia

What foods do you dislike? Sushi

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Ireland

Axxius - Bertoxxulous

Where were you born? Russia

What is your middle name? Victorovich

What is your occupation? Computer programmer

Where will you retire? Some place nice and quiet... Canada :)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Trent Reznor

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? I've been living outside of my home country for 11 years now

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Tights!

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Not before I would actually receive the money :)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Kanye West  >8-I

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Ferrari

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? A cat. Napping 16 hours a day 8-)

What was your single biggest intense pain? I once had a root canal done, and they must have missed the spot with the anesthetic shot... /cringe

What foods do you dislike? Hot and spicy

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tahiti

Coercer Omad Rashodd - Tunare

Where were you born? Phoenix, Arizona

What is your middle name? Ferrari

What is your occupation? Customer Service Representative II (according to the systems at work)

Where will you retire? Probably Hawaii

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Willy Mays (I actually played craps with him once)

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes, if Canada counts.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? A band's t-shirt. I never like to advertise stuff like that.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? about 30 seconds.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Ashlee Simpson. Dont think I need to explain why.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 1998 Toyota Supra TwinTurbo, 6 spd manual transmission with Targa top, with sky blue paint and Sparco seats.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Solve my rubik's cube. I can do it in 5 minutes.

If you could be any animal what would it be? African big cat. Would be nice to not have to worry about anything except eating, sleeping, and mating.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having a friend smash my pinky with a waffle-head framing hammer.

What foods do you dislike? any types of vegetables. Its the texture I dont like.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Hawaii. Everything there is beautiful. And I've always wanted to try surfing

Crystilla – Morrell Thule

Where were you born?  Wisconsin (U.S.A.)

What is your middle name?  Marie

What is your occupation?  Marketing research

Where will you retire? Albuquerque if I can help it

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?   My mother (she died at a young age when I was 8).  But for the living, I’d rather sit back and just listen to a bunch of famous folks chatting, fly on the wall sort of thing.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth?  Yes, thanks to Teen Magazine back in the 80’s (when I was a teenager), I developed pen pals from around the world.  Canada, France, Denmark and Holland are the 4 countries where I have gone to visit those friends.  (Still in touch with most of them after 20 years.)

What kind of clothing would you never wear?  Cowboy hat

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people?  Maybe 10 minutes?  Good news is hard to keep in

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with?  Anyone who doesn’t know the value of silence

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive?  Any type of American made, 4-door sedan

What do you do most often when you are bored?  Read, work on my scrapbooks or watch movies from Netflix

If you could be any animal what would it be?  Golden retrievers for sure (they’re intelligent, smart, lovable, liked by everyone, wonderful temperaments, versatile, beautiful animals, etc.)

What was your single biggest intense pain?  When I injured my hip during my martial arts training.  (When I moved from Wisconsin to the big city Chicago, as a woman, I took self defense classes which were combined with martial arts training.  When I got high enough belt wise – forget if it was green or blue, whichever is higher – I injured myself.  I took pain meds but eventually had to give up the sport all together.

What foods do you dislike?  Indian/German

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?  Either back to Maui, Hawaii where my husband and I had our honeymoon OR Greece/Italy (always wanted to know if the food there was as good as it was here)

posted 2005-10-31 17:30:45 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-31 17:30:46 (CST), 48.8 months old

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Welcome to Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Why do master's level augs require crushed diamond dust to make the water? Because a Mistake was made! Purescale ore for the GM augs is much, much, much more common.

Can you change the required component to something more in line like blue diamonds? Or add a recipe for making crushed diamond dust? Making it an item that shares drop tables with all the other velious gems doesn't seem to make much sense. We are currently looking into this and the cultural drops in general. There is no ETA at this time.

Is there any plans to adding fixed tradeskill containers for tailoring (cultural etc), Jewel craft and  spell research along with a mixing bowl somewhere in PoK or somewhere in the new expansion where it starts to exist, so Tradeskillers don't have to have all the many different containers to do their combines in? We currently have no art assets for this. It's not outside the realm of possibility, but there are no plans to do this currently.

If you cannot add stationery containers can you at lease change them all to be 10 slots and allow giant things to go in them? No.  While we understand that it is “inconvenient” it does not make any sense for a BOWL to hold 10 giant items… nor a mortar and pestle, or many of the other tradeskill items.  Yes many things do not make sense… but we are not going back and changing them, we just do not want to make the same mistake again.

When are you going to address the at range stun agro for paladins? Paladins are getting a bit of a boost to their stun aggro at the high end with the next patch.  The issues with paladin aggro were primarily at the high end, so we've increase the hate generation on the stuns above level 65 to compensate.

I have read that shrouded toons aren't intended to get armor/weapons as they should be tuned with those things already in mind. If that is the case, and understanding that their original/main intent is to allow grouping with lower levels, do they represent a certain baseline and what was that baseline tuned to as far as progression? In other words, if a level 70 (pick class) shrouds down to X should the hp/AC/DPS/mana etc represent what the devs think a (raiding | non-raiding | best baz geared | mid range baz geared) lvl X (pick class) looks like? The shrouds are aimed at being a bit less powerful then your average level X character based on player data collected from live servers.  They aren't meant to be an indication of what the dev team feels a certain level character should be.  They're meant to be a decent substitute in a pinch, but should never be a better choice then a similar level main character. 

Are there new rogue poisons using the master sketch or a continuation of that quest in the works? There was a minor correction to some of the ones that used it.  The names in the container’s list were wrong, though the recipes worked.  Currently there are no new recipes, and none currently planned.

Currently, buyer mode in the bazaar only allows you to buy a single item in exchange for some combination of cash and zero or more items. Would it be possible to add an option to buy multiple items in exchange for compensation?  Possible?  Maybe.  I wouldn't look for it soon, though, as it would require a pretty in depth overhaul of the system, as well as a more complex UI. 

Can buy/done buttons on merchant window be swapped? The Done button was placed where it is (and used to be) based on user feedback from when the new merchant window was put in.  The lower right corner is "where done buttons go", and where it used to be before it was removed in the first place.  Players will get used to it again.  As to why the buy button was placed all the way on the other side, that was so people with "laggy mice" wouldn't accidentally hit Buy instead of Done.

Are there any plans to bring back the raid-level version of Mistmore, be it through instancing, a chardok a / chardok b situation with both zones up at the same time, or through a temporary event, such as reverting it back for several weeks in conjunction with the fabled aniversary happenings? Mistmoore was reverted to its previous state largely because very few players were using the new form. For the same reason, we don't currently have plans to reinstate that content although it is something we may look at again in the future.

Is there an ETA on when pets will once again recive the AC Stats and Hit Points from the gear given to the pet? This was fixed in the last update on October 27^th.

Is there any plans to do anything about the Cleric AC cap? The return on AC over the cap was increased for clerics levels 50+ in the October 12^th update.

What is the status on fixing the PoTime instancing bug that is affected a ton of people? We diligently tried to reproduce this problem with no luck and even followed some cooperative guilds while they ventured through the Plane of Time with no issue.  Finally we did see the problem occur and it was fixed in the October 27^th update.

Cheers for making ranged items stackable to 100! Aany possibility that bandages might receive the same treatment? Right now there is no intent to increase the stacking for other items.

posted 2005-10-27 14:18:21 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-27 14:18:22 (CST), 49.0 months old

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Welcome to the very first Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Will future updates to the game (whether in the form of an expansion or in the form of a storyline such as the Age of War) introduce new class/race combinations, such as a Vah Shir Monk, a Wood Elf Beastlord, or a Froglok Magician and Enchanter? It’s something that comes up from time to time, but we don’t have plans for more at the moment.  Racial diversity is part of the charm of the game.

Post Mistmoore revamp, Ring of Scale faction is MUCH MORE difficult to raise.  Could you add a viable way to raise Ring of Scale faction? We added a quest to the new Mistmoore a bit ago to allow players another route to raise Ring of Scale faction.

Is there ever going to be a way to opt out of the jester's illusion effects? It’s not likely.  The jester doesn’t actually cast illusions, but rather does a forced shape shift similar to what you’d see in various raid encounters.  That being said, it is probable that his effects are going to be changed so they only affect the group of the player who cast it.

Given the success and popularity of Unrest and Hatesfury missions, are there plans for more such missions, both in the Unrest and Hatesfury zones and in other zones?  Those missions were done as a precursor to the type of content we are adding in Depths of Darkhollow.  Many of the monster missions with the expansion take you back to old world zones to experience their story from a different perspective.

When can we expect some more old world zones to be re-envisioned with new graphics and possible difficulty/level adjustments? It’s definitely something we intend to continue doing.  In fact, a new version of Nektulos is on the way with Depths of Darkhollow.  The zone’s difficulty isn’t changing, but it’s has undergone a complete graphical revamp similar to Lavastorm.

Are "stances" still considered for druids, and if so, will damage over time spells be affected too or only nukes? They’re still on the plate, yes, but the specifics haven’t been worked out yet.

Are there plans to update the Froglok Cultural armors to include the new classes? Yes

Have you thought about this issue (older zones being unpopulated making obtaining rare tradeskill items hard if not impossible) and ways to keep 'old' tradeskill recipes viable or are you content with how it works now?  There are many changes being discussed that may impact this that have not been fleshed out at this time.

Are there any plans to implement a "Max # of combines" threshold, so that if you did not get a skillup after this threshold value, example: 150 combines, you would automatically get a skillup on combine 151 (and then the counter would reset for the next run of combines.)? The same as above, many changes are being discussed that may impact skillups but have not been decided upon at this time.

In the past, spells from older expansions appeared on vendors INSIDE the new expansion because fewer and fewer people went to those old locations. An example would be spells sold in the Abysmal Sea, can we please have this happen for Lost Dungeons of Norrath and Planes of Power spells in Depths of Darkhollow and Gates of Discord in the next expansion at the latest? There will be a host of new Research based recipes in Depths of Darkhollow which will allow players to research spells from Planes of Power and a spell or two from other, newer expansions.  The expansion will also have areas where you can obtain the spells originally include with omens of war.

Can the developers tell us what they have decided Manaburn will be? What time frame they have on getting it live?  We've currently working on unraveling the manaburn code. We are hoping to get this addressed shortly after the launch of Depths of Darkhollow.

Will a command to remove headgear graphics ever be implemented like in EQII? We currently have no plans to do this with our existing character models.

Is the extremely prevalent line of sight issues in most zones since Planes of Power, where a player can see and target an NPC, but you receive a Cannot See Target message when attempting to cast, an intentional design decision, or a bug?  If it is a bug, should these be reported? This is a known issue that we plan to correct. Basically, the line of sight checks need to do a few more ray-casting samples to allow for a bit more leeway in what we consider visible. Right now only one line of sight ray-cast is performed, and it is done too low to the ground and the floor can sometimes interfere with it. It's high on the list of things to improve when we get a chance.

Why does the chat function often eat the last character of a message? Type "/gu Hello" and guild sees "Hell" or "/rs Stay here Group 1" and raid only sees "Stay here Group".  We have not narrowed down the exact cause of this issue due to the lack of examples.  In order to be able to fix this issue we would really need to get specific cases from the community.  If you could /bug the text and what you typed, it would go along way to solving this issue.

Will the shield gfx bug (shield turned upside down and arm going thru it) for Dark Elves and High Elves on drogmor, ever get fixed? There are currently no plans to fix old graphics bugs.  This includes the old bugged animations and equipable items.

With the change made to the quantity of AMMO to allow the player to stack to 100 from 20, can we expect the same change to be made for Bandages? Also, could we expect this change for Food and Drink as well? We have no plans on changing any other item types to be stackable over 20 for now. A big reason why we chose to only change ammo slot items is due to the fact that the items are expended much more rapidly than food, drink, and bandages.

Is there any chance that we can get trader bags (for bank and trader use) that have say, 20 slots? Larger bag sizes aren’t currently possible due to some limitations in the original game code.

Are you still intending to change the Bard Vishimtar Ring effect into something more substantial or keep it in its current form? We don’t have any plans to change the item at this time. The feedback after the resist mod went in was that the item was inline with other effects.

Is there the possibility to increase the necessary epic drops so as to prevent farming, or make those needed items no drop? There’s definitely a possibility, though it would have to be a global change to all epics, instead of a specific one. It’s something to keep in mind for the future, though there aren’t any immediate plans to change them.

Is there a plan to fix the links of an item that has the BiC augment in it?  Maybe either fix the links or add a turn in of the final augment that is linkable.  Yes. The plan is to have this fixed in next month’s patch.

Is there any work being done to repair, replace, and automate the Server Status page off the EQLive site so that it will once again show individual server up/down status information? That's not our department, unfortunately. We would like to see this automated too. 

 I really appreciate the "link all" button on looted corpses' inventory. Would it be possible to replace it with a "loot all" button while looting one's own corpse? We've heard the many requests for this feature and we agree that it's a good idea and something we would like to do, it's just a matter of finding the time to do it at this point.

Are there any plans on adding endurance regeneration to existing Bard Mana/Hit Point songs? Endurance was built and tuned around the innate regeneration so that endurance using classes weren’t even more beholden to spell casters than they already were.  Adding endurance regeneration to spells goes against this principal so we don’t see it happening anytime soon.  Items… sure.

posted 2005-10-27 14:18:22 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-27 14:18:22 (CST), 49.0 months old

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Jasazick - Fennin Ro

Where were you born? Lake Forest, Illinois    

What is your middle name? Douglas

What is your occupation? Computer Technician

Where will you retire? A quiet home in Northern Virginia.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Ron Moore, the creator of the new Battlestar Galactica. He has created such a terrific show I would have so many questions for him!

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes

What kind of clothing would you never wear? I don't like clothes that act as political or social statements. If I cared about your beliefs, I'd ask.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Outside of telling my wife, I don't know if I would tell anyone - ever. I can only imagine the unwanted attention that winning the lottery would bring.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Either Paris Hilton or Camryn Manheim - they are both obnoxious and have absolutely no place on television (or in a room with me!)

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Honestly I wouldn't appreciate any luxury cars, I'd be content with a Jeep Cherokee.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Juggle (badly)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Any kind of large bird, I think it would be wonderful to be able to fly.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Breaking a bone on the ball of my foot playing tennis.

What foods do you dislike? Lima beans, Yams, Cherry Pie.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? A quiet island in the Caribbean with a great view completely without technology or human interferences.

Lloren - Saryrn

Where were you born? In the back of a '63 Ford Galaxy on the way to the hospital.

What is your middle name? K - just the letter.  No idea what the parents were thinking there.

What is your occupation? Computer Systems Infrastructure Architect for a state university.

Where will you retire? Somewhere that is warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and is out of the line of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. If such a place exists, let me know! I'm still looking.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens). I would have loved to hear about his life and travels during that era.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes. Several times. The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read but only one page.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Polyester, rayon, man-made fibers -- ick! Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? They would know the next day as I would be at my office packing up my goodies, and heading out to travel the world. ;-)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Lyman Tuttle. I'm afraid I would have some not so nice things to say to him for never getting back in touch with me about my 5th year anniversary account issue that I finally gave up on.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A 1991 Mustang GT, white, with a sun roof.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play EQ! What else? ;-)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Real: dog    Fantasy: gnoll

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having 4 wisdom teeth extracted in dentist one session.

What foods do you dislike? Watermelon, black berries, blue cheese.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would like to go on one of the San Fransisco <-> Alaska cruises. I have never explored that side of the US; I think that would be a fun trip.

Ginormus - The Rathe

Where were you born? Montpellier - France

What is your middle name? I am called Fabrice, Marc, Gilles, Roland

What is your occupation? Financial IT Engineer.

Where will you retire? I won't leave  Paris (France)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Joël & Eathan Cohen.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes: Europa, Africa, America.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Baggy pants.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? I never ever played the lottery.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Brigitte Bardot

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A blue Maserati roadster. And a yellow Voxan CafeRacer (it's a bike).

What do you do most often when you are bored? I am never bored.

If you could be any animal what would it be? A city cat.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Death of my kitty.

What foods do you dislike? Industrial standardized food.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Italia or Greece.

Jenneth - Maelin Starpyre

Where were you born? Ohio

What is your middle name? Lee

What is your occupation? Department Manager

Where will you retire? Ohio

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Head

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? No

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Preppy

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? 30 days

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? People I work with

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 58 Plymyth Fury

What do you do most often when you are bored? Computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? Horse

What was your single biggest intense pain? Losing my daughter to Leukemia

What foods do you dislike? Sushi

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Ireland

Axxius - Bertoxxulous

Where were you born? Russia

What is your middle name? Victorovich

What is your occupation? Computer programmer

Where will you retire? Some place nice and quiet... Canada :)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Trent Reznor

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? I've been living outside of my home country for 11 years now

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Tights!

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Not before I would actually receive the money :)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Kanye West  >8-I

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Ferrari

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? A cat. Napping 16 hours a day 8-)

What was your single biggest intense pain? I once had a root canal done, and they must have missed the spot with the anesthetic shot... /cringe

What foods do you dislike? Hot and spicy

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tahiti

Coercer Omad Rashodd - Tunare

Where were you born? Phoenix, Arizona

What is your middle name? Ferrari

What is your occupation? Customer Service Representative II (according to the systems at work)

Where will you retire? Probably Hawaii

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Willy Mays (I actually played craps with him once)

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes, if Canada counts.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? A band's t-shirt. I never like to advertise stuff like that.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? about 30 seconds.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Ashlee Simpson. Dont think I need to explain why.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 1998 Toyota Supra TwinTurbo, 6 spd manual transmission with Targa top, with sky blue paint and Sparco seats.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Solve my rubik's cube. I can do it in 5 minutes.

If you could be any animal what would it be? African big cat. Would be nice to not have to worry about anything except eating, sleeping, and mating.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having a friend smash my pinky with a waffle-head framing hammer.

What foods do you dislike? any types of vegetables. Its the texture I dont like.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Hawaii. Everything there is beautiful. And I've always wanted to try surfing

Crystilla – Morrell Thule

Where were you born?  Wisconsin (U.S.A.)

What is your middle name?  Marie

What is your occupation?  Marketing research

Where will you retire? Albuquerque if I can help it

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?   My mother (she died at a young age when I was 8).  But for the living, I’d rather sit back and just listen to a bunch of famous folks chatting, fly on the wall sort of thing.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth?  Yes, thanks to Teen Magazine back in the 80’s (when I was a teenager), I developed pen pals from around the world.  Canada, France, Denmark and Holland are the 4 countries where I have gone to visit those friends.  (Still in touch with most of them after 20 years.)

What kind of clothing would you never wear?  Cowboy hat

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people?  Maybe 10 minutes?  Good news is hard to keep in

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with?  Anyone who doesn’t know the value of silence

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive?  Any type of American made, 4-door sedan

What do you do most often when you are bored?  Read, work on my scrapbooks or watch movies from Netflix

If you could be any animal what would it be?  Golden retrievers for sure (they’re intelligent, smart, lovable, liked by everyone, wonderful temperaments, versatile, beautiful animals, etc.)

What was your single biggest intense pain?  When I injured my hip during my martial arts training.  (When I moved from Wisconsin to the big city Chicago, as a woman, I took self defense classes which were combined with martial arts training.  When I got high enough belt wise – forget if it was green or blue, whichever is higher – I injured myself.  I took pain meds but eventually had to give up the sport all together.

What foods do you dislike?  Indian/German

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?  Either back to Maui, Hawaii where my husband and I had our honeymoon OR Greece/Italy (always wanted to know if the food there was as good as it was here)

posted 2005-10-13 23:17:44 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-13 23:17:45 (CST), 49.4 months old

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Greetings Norrath,

This week we have an update for you from the Lead Designer for EverQuest, Shawn Lord.  Shawn was with the team for Planes of Power until the start of Gates of Discord and recently returned to us after a brief hiatus. 

Hello everyone,

 I've been back on the team for about a month now and I can honestly say that I've never seen so much going on at one time.  As I'm sure you can tell from our recent updates and announcements, the Design Team has been working overtime to make changes based on the excellent feedback we've received from all of you.  Many of your ideas and concerns have been factored into our plans for both the Live game and the development of the Omens of War expansion.

 As you may have noticed from Cory Rohlfs' post last week, the Omens of War expansion is definitely benefiting aesthetically from our recent engine changes.  On the Design side we hope to complement those advances with content that's benefited from the lessons we've learned from our earlier expansions.  Making new content that is compelling, fresh, and capable of catering to the dozens of play-styles that our hundreds of thousands of friends and customers fall into is challenging... and exciting... and why we're here.

 When I see all of the hard work that's being poured into the game the Live changes; Epic creation; Omens content right now, I can't help but be excited.  As developers, players, and as an industry, we're living in some of the most exciting times in gaming.  There are bound to be missteps, skeptical jaunts into the unknown, and thrilling victories for all of us.  It wouldn't be an adventure if there weren't.

 Thank you for playing and thank you even more for listening to me blather on.  It's great to be back in such excellent company.  I think I can speak for the team when I say that we all look forward to seeing You in game, in beta, and eventually in Omens of War.

-Thanks

Shawn Lord
Lead Designer
EverQuest

Thanks for the update Shawn!  Next week we will hear from our Environmental Art Team so stay tuned!

posted 2005-10-13 17:19:51 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-13 17:19:51 (CST), 49.4 months old

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Jasazick - Fennin Ro

Where were you born? Lake Forest, Illinois    

What is your middle name? Douglas

What is your occupation? Computer Technician

Where will you retire? A quiet home in Northern Virginia.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Ron Moore, the creator of the new Battlestar Galactica. He has created such a terrific show I would have so many questions for him!

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes

What kind of clothing would you never wear? I don't like clothes that act as political or social statements. If I cared about your beliefs, I'd ask.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Outside of telling my wife, I don't know if I would tell anyone - ever. I can only imagine the unwanted attention that winning the lottery would bring.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Either Paris Hilton or Camryn Manheim - they are both obnoxious and have absolutely no place on television (or in a room with me!)

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Honestly I wouldn't appreciate any luxury cars, I'd be content with a Jeep Cherokee.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Juggle (badly)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Any kind of large bird, I think it would be wonderful to be able to fly.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Breaking a bone on the ball of my foot playing tennis.

What foods do you dislike? Lima beans, Yams, Cherry Pie.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? A quiet island in the Caribbean with a great view completely without technology or human interferences.

Lloren - Saryrn

Where were you born? In the back of a '63 Ford Galaxy on the way to the hospital.

What is your middle name? K - just the letter.  No idea what the parents were thinking there.

What is your occupation? Computer Systems Infrastructure Architect for a state university.

Where will you retire? Somewhere that is warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and is out of the line of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. If such a place exists, let me know! I'm still looking.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens). I would have loved to hear about his life and travels during that era.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes. Several times. The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read but only one page.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Polyester, rayon, man-made fibers -- ick! Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? They would know the next day as I would be at my office packing up my goodies, and heading out to travel the world. ;-)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Lyman Tuttle. I'm afraid I would have some not so nice things to say to him for never getting back in touch with me about my 5th year anniversary account issue that I finally gave up on.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A 1991 Mustang GT, white, with a sun roof.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play EQ! What else? ;-)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Real: dog    Fantasy: gnoll

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having 4 wisdom teeth extracted in dentist one session.

What foods do you dislike? Watermelon, black berries, blue cheese.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would like to go on one of the San Fransisco <-> Alaska cruises. I have never explored that side of the US; I think that would be a fun trip.

Ginormus - The Rathe

Where were you born? Montpellier - France

What is your middle name? I am called Fabrice, Marc, Gilles, Roland

What is your occupation? Financial IT Engineer.

Where will you retire? I won't leave  Paris (France)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Joël & Eathan Cohen.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes: Europa, Africa, America.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Baggy pants.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? I never ever played the lottery.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Brigitte Bardot

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A blue Maserati roadster. And a yellow Voxan CafeRacer (it's a bike).

What do you do most often when you are bored? I am never bored.

If you could be any animal what would it be? A city cat.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Death of my kitty.

What foods do you dislike? Industrial standardized food.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Italia or Greece.

Jenneth - Maelin Starpyre

Where were you born? Ohio

What is your middle name? Lee

What is your occupation? Department Manager

Where will you retire? Ohio

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Head

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? No

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Preppy

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? 30 days

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? People I work with

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 58 Plymyth Fury

What do you do most often when you are bored? Computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? Horse

What was your single biggest intense pain? Losing my daughter to Leukemia

What foods do you dislike? Sushi

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Ireland

Axxius - Bertoxxulous

Where were you born? Russia

What is your middle name? Victorovich

What is your occupation? Computer programmer

Where will you retire? Some place nice and quiet... Canada :)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Trent Reznor

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? I've been living outside of my home country for 11 years now

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Tights!

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Not before I would actually receive the money :)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Kanye West  >8-I

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Ferrari

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? A cat. Napping 16 hours a day 8-)

What was your single biggest intense pain? I once had a root canal done, and they must have missed the spot with the anesthetic shot... /cringe

What foods do you dislike? Hot and spicy

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tahiti

Coercer Omad Rashodd - Tunare

Where were you born? Phoenix, Arizona

What is your middle name? Ferrari

What is your occupation? Customer Service Representative II (according to the systems at work)

Where will you retire? Probably Hawaii

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Willy Mays (I actually played craps with him once)

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes, if Canada counts.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? A band's t-shirt. I never like to advertise stuff like that.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? about 30 seconds.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Ashlee Simpson. Dont think I need to explain why.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 1998 Toyota Supra TwinTurbo, 6 spd manual transmission with Targa top, with sky blue paint and Sparco seats.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Solve my rubik's cube. I can do it in 5 minutes.

If you could be any animal what would it be? African big cat. Would be nice to not have to worry about anything except eating, sleeping, and mating.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having a friend smash my pinky with a waffle-head framing hammer.

What foods do you dislike? any types of vegetables. Its the texture I dont like.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Hawaii. Everything there is beautiful. And I've always wanted to try surfing

Crystilla – Morrell Thule

Where were you born?  Wisconsin (U.S.A.)

What is your middle name?  Marie

What is your occupation?  Marketing research

Where will you retire? Albuquerque if I can help it

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?   My mother (she died at a young age when I was 8).  But for the living, I’d rather sit back and just listen to a bunch of famous folks chatting, fly on the wall sort of thing.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth?  Yes, thanks to Teen Magazine back in the 80’s (when I was a teenager), I developed pen pals from around the world.  Canada, France, Denmark and Holland are the 4 countries where I have gone to visit those friends.  (Still in touch with most of them after 20 years.)

What kind of clothing would you never wear?  Cowboy hat

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people?  Maybe 10 minutes?  Good news is hard to keep in

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with?  Anyone who doesn’t know the value of silence

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive?  Any type of American made, 4-door sedan

What do you do most often when you are bored?  Read, work on my scrapbooks or watch movies from Netflix

If you could be any animal what would it be?  Golden retrievers for sure (they’re intelligent, smart, lovable, liked by everyone, wonderful temperaments, versatile, beautiful animals, etc.)

What was your single biggest intense pain?  When I injured my hip during my martial arts training.  (When I moved from Wisconsin to the big city Chicago, as a woman, I took self defense classes which were combined with martial arts training.  When I got high enough belt wise – forget if it was green or blue, whichever is higher – I injured myself.  I took pain meds but eventually had to give up the sport all together.

What foods do you dislike?  Indian/German

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?  Either back to Maui, Hawaii where my husband and I had our honeymoon OR Greece/Italy (always wanted to know if the food there was as good as it was here)

posted 2005-10-12 14:19:01 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-12 14:19:02 (CST), 49.5 months old

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Jasazick - Fennin Ro

Where were you born? Lake Forest, Illinois    

What is your middle name? Douglas

What is your occupation? Computer Technician

Where will you retire? A quiet home in Northern Virginia.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Ron Moore, the creator of the new Battlestar Galactica. He has created such a terrific show I would have so many questions for him!

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes

What kind of clothing would you never wear? I don't like clothes that act as political or social statements. If I cared about your beliefs, I'd ask.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Outside of telling my wife, I don't know if I would tell anyone - ever. I can only imagine the unwanted attention that winning the lottery would bring.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Either Paris Hilton or Camryn Manheim - they are both obnoxious and have absolutely no place on television (or in a room with me!)

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Honestly I wouldn't appreciate any luxury cars, I'd be content with a Jeep Cherokee.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Juggle (badly)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Any kind of large bird, I think it would be wonderful to be able to fly.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Breaking a bone on the ball of my foot playing tennis.

What foods do you dislike? Lima beans, Yams, Cherry Pie.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? A quiet island in the Caribbean with a great view completely without technology or human interferences.

Lloren - Saryrn

Where were you born? In the back of a '63 Ford Galaxy on the way to the hospital.

What is your middle name? K - just the letter.  No idea what the parents were thinking there.

What is your occupation? Computer Systems Infrastructure Architect for a state university.

Where will you retire? Somewhere that is warm in the winter, cool in the summer, and is out of the line of hurricanes, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. If such a place exists, let me know! I'm still looking.

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Mark Twain (aka Samuel Clemens). I would have loved to hear about his life and travels during that era.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes. Several times. The world is a book, and those who do not travel have read but only one page.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Polyester, rayon, man-made fibers -- ick! Makes my skin crawl just thinking about it.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? They would know the next day as I would be at my office packing up my goodies, and heading out to travel the world. ;-)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Lyman Tuttle. I'm afraid I would have some not so nice things to say to him for never getting back in touch with me about my 5th year anniversary account issue that I finally gave up on.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A 1991 Mustang GT, white, with a sun roof.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play EQ! What else? ;-)

If you could be any animal what would it be? Real: dog    Fantasy: gnoll

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having 4 wisdom teeth extracted in dentist one session.

What foods do you dislike? Watermelon, black berries, blue cheese.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? I would like to go on one of the San Fransisco <-> Alaska cruises. I have never explored that side of the US; I think that would be a fun trip.

Ginormus - The Rathe

Where were you born? Montpellier - France

What is your middle name? I am called Fabrice, Marc, Gilles, Roland

What is your occupation? Financial IT Engineer.

Where will you retire? I won't leave  Paris (France)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Joël & Eathan Cohen.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes: Europa, Africa, America.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Baggy pants.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? I never ever played the lottery.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Brigitte Bardot

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? A blue Maserati roadster. And a yellow Voxan CafeRacer (it's a bike).

What do you do most often when you are bored? I am never bored.

If you could be any animal what would it be? A city cat.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Death of my kitty.

What foods do you dislike? Industrial standardized food.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Italia or Greece.

Jenneth - Maelin Starpyre

Where were you born? Ohio

What is your middle name? Lee

What is your occupation? Department Manager

Where will you retire? Ohio

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Head

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? No

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Preppy

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? 30 days

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? People I work with

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 58 Plymyth Fury

What do you do most often when you are bored? Computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? Horse

What was your single biggest intense pain? Losing my daughter to Leukemia

What foods do you dislike? Sushi

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Ireland

Axxius - Bertoxxulous

Where were you born? Russia

What is your middle name? Victorovich

What is your occupation? Computer programmer

Where will you retire? Some place nice and quiet... Canada :)

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Trent Reznor

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? I've been living outside of my home country for 11 years now

What kind of clothing would you never wear? Tights!

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? Not before I would actually receive the money :)

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Kanye West  >8-I

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? Ferrari

What do you do most often when you are bored? Play computer games

If you could be any animal what would it be? A cat. Napping 16 hours a day 8-)

What was your single biggest intense pain? I once had a root canal done, and they must have missed the spot with the anesthetic shot... /cringe

What foods do you dislike? Hot and spicy

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Tahiti

Coercer Omad Rashodd - Tunare

Where were you born? Phoenix, Arizona

What is your middle name? Ferrari

What is your occupation? Customer Service Representative II (according to the systems at work)

Where will you retire? Probably Hawaii

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be? Willy Mays (I actually played craps with him once)

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth? Yes, if Canada counts.

What kind of clothing would you never wear? A band's t-shirt. I never like to advertise stuff like that.

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people? about 30 seconds.

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with? Ashlee Simpson. Dont think I need to explain why.

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive? 1998 Toyota Supra TwinTurbo, 6 spd manual transmission with Targa top, with sky blue paint and Sparco seats.

What do you do most often when you are bored? Solve my rubik's cube. I can do it in 5 minutes.

If you could be any animal what would it be? African big cat. Would be nice to not have to worry about anything except eating, sleeping, and mating.

What was your single biggest intense pain? Having a friend smash my pinky with a waffle-head framing hammer.

What foods do you dislike? any types of vegetables. Its the texture I dont like.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Hawaii. Everything there is beautiful. And I've always wanted to try surfing

Crystilla – Morrell Thule

Where were you born?  Wisconsin (U.S.A.)

What is your middle name?  Marie

What is your occupation?  Marketing research

Where will you retire? Albuquerque if I can help it

If you could eat lunch with one famous person, who would it be?   My mother (she died at a young age when I was 8).  But for the living, I’d rather sit back and just listen to a bunch of famous folks chatting, fly on the wall sort of thing.

Have you ever traveled outside your country of birth?  Yes, thanks to Teen Magazine back in the 80’s (when I was a teenager), I developed pen pals from around the world.  Canada, France, Denmark and Holland are the 4 countries where I have gone to visit those friends.  (Still in touch with most of them after 20 years.)

What kind of clothing would you never wear?  Cowboy hat

If you won the lottery, how long would you wait to tell people?  Maybe 10 minutes?  Good news is hard to keep in

Who would you hate to be stuck in a room with?  Anyone who doesn’t know the value of silence

If price were not an object, what kind of car would you drive?  Any type of American made, 4-door sedan

What do you do most often when you are bored?  Read, work on my scrapbooks or watch movies from Netflix

If you could be any animal what would it be?  Golden retrievers for sure (they’re intelligent, smart, lovable, liked by everyone, wonderful temperaments, versatile, beautiful animals, etc.)

What was your single biggest intense pain?  When I injured my hip during my martial arts training.  (When I moved from Wisconsin to the big city Chicago, as a woman, I took self defense classes which were combined with martial arts training.  When I got high enough belt wise – forget if it was green or blue, whichever is higher – I injured myself.  I took pain meds but eventually had to give up the sport all together.

What foods do you dislike?  Indian/German

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?  Either back to Maui, Hawaii where my husband and I had our honeymoon OR Greece/Italy (always wanted to know if the food there was as good as it was here)

posted 2005-10-11 13:26:13 (CST-2), discovered 2005-10-11 13:26:14 (CST), 49.5 months old

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Welcome to the very first Halfling HodgePodge Extreme!  Your resident Community Halflings collected questions from the EQ Community then presented a selection of these questions to the EQ Developers.  Here are the questions we selected and the responses to those questions!

Will future updates to the game (whether in the form of an expansion or in the form of a storyline such as the Age of War) introduce new class/race combinations, such as a Vah Shir Monk, a Wood Elf Beastlord, or a Froglok Magician and Enchanter? It’s something that comes up from time to time, but we don’t have plans for more at the moment.  Racial diversity is part of the charm of the game.

Post Mistmoore revamp, Ring of Scale faction is MUCH MORE difficult to raise.  Could you add a viable way to raise Ring of Scale faction? We added a quest to the new Mistmoore a bit ago to allow players another route to raise Ring of Scale faction.

Is there ever going to be a way to opt out of the jester's illusion effects? It’s not likely.  The jester doesn’t actually cast illusions, but rather does a forced shape shift similar to what you’d see in various raid encounters.  That being said, it is probable that his effects are going to be changed so they only affect the group of the player who cast it.

Given the success and popularity of Unrest and Hatesfury missions, are there plans for more such missions, both in the Unrest and Hatesfury zones and in other zones?  Those missions were done as a precursor to the type of content we are adding in Depths of Darkhollow.  Many of the monster missions with the expansion take you back to old world zones to experience their story from a different perspective.

When can we expect some more old world zones to be re-envisioned with new graphics and possible difficulty/level adjustments? It’s definitely something we intend to continue doing.  In fact, a new version of Nektulos is on the way with Depths of Darkhollow.  The zone’s difficulty isn’t changing, but it’s has undergone a complete graphical revamp similar to Lavastorm.

Are "stances" still considered for druids, and if so, will damage over time spells be affected too or only nukes? They’re still on the plate, yes, but the specifics haven’t been worked out yet.

Are there plans to update the Froglok Cultural armors to include the new classes? Yes

Have you thought about this issue (older zones being unpopulated making obtaining rare tradeskill items hard if not impossible) and ways to keep 'old' tradeskill recipes viable or are you content with how it works now?  There are many changes being discussed that may impact this that have not been fleshed out at this time.

Are there any plans to implement a "Max # of combines" threshold, so that if you did not get a skillup after this threshold value, example: 150 combines, you would automatically get a skillup on combine 151 (and then the counter would reset for the next run of combines.)? The same as above, many changes are being discussed that may impact skillups but have not been decided upon at this time.

In the past, spells from older expansions appeared on vendors INSIDE the new expansion because fewer and fewer people went to those old locations. An example would be spells sold in the Abysmal Sea, can we please have this happen for Lost Dungeons of Norrath and Planes of Power spells in Depths of Darkhollow and Gates of Discord in the next expansion at the latest? There will be a host of new Research based recipes in Depths of Darkhollow which will allow players to research spells from Planes of Power and a spell or two from other, newer expansions.  The expansion will also have areas where you can obtain the spells originally include with omens of war.

Can the developers tell us what they have decided Manaburn will be? What time frame they have on getting it live?  We've currently working on unraveling the manaburn code. We are hoping to get this addressed shortly after the launch of Depths of Darkhollow.

Will a command to remove headgear graphics ever be implemented like in EQII? We currently have no plans to do this with our existing character models.

Is the extremely prevalent line of sight issues in most zones since Planes of Power, where a player can see and target an NPC, but you receive a Cannot See Target message when attempting to cast, an intentional design decision, or a bug?  If it is a bug, should these be reported? This is a known issue that we plan to correct. Basically, the line of sight checks need to do a few more ray-casting samples to allow for a bit more leeway in what we consider visible. Right now only one line of sight ray-cast is performed, and it is done too low to the ground and the floor can sometimes interfere with it. It's high on the list of things to improve when we get a chance.

Why does the chat function often eat the last character of a message? Type "/gu Hello" and guild sees "Hell" or "/rs Stay here Group 1" and raid only sees "Stay here Group".  We have not narrowed down the exact cause of this issue due to the lack of examples.  In order to be able to fix this issue we would really need to get specific cases from the community.  If you could /bug the text and what you typed, it would go along way to solving this issue.

Will the shield gfx bug (shield turned upside down and arm going thru it) for Dark Elves and High Elves on drogmor, ever get fixed? There are currently no plans to fix old graphics bugs.  This includes the old bugged animations and equipable items.

With the change made to the quantity of AMMO to allow the player to stack to 100 from 20, can we expect the same change to be made for Bandages? Also, could we expect this change for Food and Drink as well? We have no plans on changing any other item types to be stackable over 20 for now. A big reason why we chose to only change ammo slot items is due to the fact that the items are expended much more rapidly than food, drink, and bandages.

Is there any chance that we can get trader bags (for bank and trader use) that have say, 20 slots? Larger bag sizes aren’t currently possible due to some limitations in the original game code.

Are you still intending to change the Bard Vishimtar Ring effect into something more substantial or keep it in its current form? We don’t have any plans to change the item at this time. The feedback after the resist mod went in was that the item was inline with other effects.

Is there the possibility to increase the necessary epic drops so as to prevent farming, or make those needed items no drop? There’s definitely a possibility, though it would have to be a global change to all epics, instead of a specific one. It’s something to keep in mind for the future, though there aren’t any immediate plans to change them.

Is there a plan to fix the links of an item that has the BiC augment in it?  Maybe either fix the links or add a turn in of the final augment that is linkable.  Yes. The plan is to have this fixed in next month’s patch.

Is there any work being done to repair, replace, and automate the Server Status page off the EQLive site so that it will once again show individual server up/down status information? That's not our department, unfortunately. We would like to see this automated too. 

 I really appreciate the "link all" button on looted corpses' inventory. Would it be possible to replace it with a "loot all" button while looting one's own corpse? We've heard the many requests for this feature and we agree that it's a good idea and something we would like to do, it's just a matter of finding the time to do it at this point.

Are there any plans on adding endurance regeneration to existing Bard Mana/Hit Point songs? Endurance was built and tuned around the innate regeneration so that endurance using classes weren’t even more beholden to spell casters than they already were.  Adding endurance regeneration to spells goes against this principal so we don’t see it happening anytime soon.  Items… sure.

posted 2005-09-21 13:18:27 (CST-2), discovered 2005-09-21 13:18:28 (CST), 50.1 months old

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Welcome to the first edition of Halfling Hodgepodge RiffRaff, THE place to get to know your fellow EQ Community members better!  If you would like to participate watch the EQLive Forums for information about this feature every month.

Earthchild

When did you start playing EQ? it was either late 2000 or early 2001. Hard to remember. I know I've been playing my enchanter since april of 2001.

Do you play EQ on a laptop or desktop computer? Currently on a desktop computer but I've played eq on all kinds of computers.

Do you play on dial-up, cable, or DSL? Like above I've played on all types of connection but currently have a cable connection

What was the race and class of your very first character? Wood elf/ranger. Ran into the forest was killed by an orc and couldn’t find my body so I deleted the character and made another. I think I was on my third character when someone finally told me about the /corpse and /loc commands.

Was EQ your first online game? No I used to play muds a lot even worked as a coder and builder on several.

What is your highest level in EQ? My 67 enchanter

Do you prefer to solo or group? As an enchanter? Never knew we had much choice. Enchanters are a pretty group dependent class so I almost always group. Every time I've tried to solo unless I'm going against green or lt blue mobs I die or have to run.

What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character? I love turning chaos into order, I live for those moments when the group makes a mistake and I have to step in. other than that I feel like a burden to a group.

Is your main character in a guild? As of Sunday yes

How many characters do you have on your main server? Including mules 6

Does your main character worship a deity? No

Which classes in EQ have you NOT played? Shaman, cleric, bard.

What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? The cost of my drogmor

What is your favorite expansion? All of the expansions have good qualities and bad qualities so to say one if my favorite wouldn’t be right.

What is your favorite zone? Any zone that I can get a group in to get experience

What is your favorite npc? I like most of the npc's involved in the enchanter 1.0 epic it was fun getting to and talking to them

Which expansion do you like the least? GoD, I think it was the expansion that content progressed to a point where enchanters became a problem for designers

Which zone do you like the least? There is no individual zone I dislike as long as I can get a good group of people with me there. there are circumstances I dislike

Which npc do you like the least? Any that is immune to both slow and mezz. With as little damage as my nukes do it make me feel insignificant

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons? If so what is it and why do you keep it? Not really my bank is full of tradeskill items and partially completed quests.

Elemer

When did you start playing EQ? My first character was born on Oct 99', he was a dark elf necromancer.  I wandered around the forest scared to death for the first two days playing, I thought the world was huge....imagine my surprise when I encountered my first zone line....

Do you play EQ on a laptop or desktop computer? Both, though 98% of my /played time has been and always will be on a desktop.

Do you play on dial-up, cable, or DSL? I started in 99' on dial-up.  I still have it just in case.  But for the last three years I've been on DSL.

What was the race and class of your very first character? Darkelf necromancer... Blargh! Death Death Death, Fear me!

Was EQ your first online game? Nope, and this dates me, my first 'online' game would have been Trade Wars 2002.  My first internet online game was Total Annihilation.

What is your highest level in EQ? Level 66 on four characters now.

Do you prefer to solo or group? Grouping is always best.  I play MMOG's after all because of the social interaction.

What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character? Well, my "main" is my enchanter, he's parked and not leveling, I won't go into why.  Right now I'm leveling up a shaman, whom I love because it's a widely loved class to group with, so getting a group is fun.  The ability to take a hit, melee some, have a pet, both buff and debuff, heal, it's a great jack of all trades class.  In many ways you could say a shaman is my new "main", but in my heart I'll always be an enchanter.

Is your main character in a guild? Definitely.  Guilds, be they small or large, raiding, casual, family or just a bunch of drunken friends on Saturday night, are the backbone of EQ I think.

How many characters do you have on your main server? /blush well I used to have 24 on the Nameless, I'm down to 10 or 11 now, with the goal being to get down to 8 by the end of the year.

Does your main character worship a deity? Originally yes.  I my enchanter was an erudite enchanter of Quellious.  The idea of an peace loving erudite from a role playing perspective really clicked with me.  About 18 months into the game though, I deleted the original Elemer (level 38 at the time), and re-rolled him as an Agnostic.  Unfortunately religious faction and role playing didn't mesh well with the game mechanics.  Oddly no matter what illusion I took, the NPC's seemed to know what my religious tendencies were.  Maybe I should have worn looser fitting pants?

Which classes in EQ have you NOT played? Um, none.  I've at one point or another played every class to at least 30th level.

What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? 18kpp in the Bazaar for a PoP robe pattern.

What is your fa vorite expansion? Kunark was and still is my favorite expansion.  It brought a real sense of "new" that none of the others have since.  The continent as a whole was living and breathing.  The need to travel to it by boat.  The feeling of exploring a lost world.  Rolling an Iksar and knowing the rest of the world hated me on site.  The sense of challenge that brought.  It took real time to just travel to Kunark.  Once there, you really were in a strange and distant land.  It was a great feeling.

What is your favorite zone? This may sound masochistic but I really loved Karnor's Castle.  It was a great place to play with friends.  The best thing about the zone was it really helped weed out those people that where thin skinned and the best of the players both in play skill and personality stood out there.  Nothing like a little adversity to bring out the best in people.

What is your favorite npc? I'm sorry, I have to have some fun on this one.  Fippy Darkpaw, hands down.  I mean, can you think of any MoB that shows a better sense of optimism.  I mean, he's failed like 8 quadjillion times to single handedly storm Qeynos.  But does he give up?  No!  Wait 7 minutes and he'll be back again.

Which expansion do you like the least? Gah, Gates of Discord without a question.  That expansion more than any created dissent between the have and have-not crowd.  It seemed like it created a huge rift between the player bases and made entry into the higher end guilds unattainable for a lot of people.  More than any other I think GoD created a wall between play styles.

Which zone do you like the least? I'd have to say the current implementation of The Grey.  While I understand the reasons why the changes where made (traps, etc) due to a mechanic in the way AoE spells worked at the time, it resulted in making what would other wise be a fun and challenging group and solo exp zone into what is effectively a wasteland that no one wants to go to.

Which npc do you like the least? Hmm does the Jester count?  No?  Okay, well in all seriousness I'd have to go with any and all enchanter NPC's in the LDoN expansion.  One NPC locking down a full group and then sicking the group members onto each other is just crazy.  You'd think that enchanter NPC's should face at least some of the drawn backs of PC enchanters, low hp, and low AC, and the ability to be interupted reliably by melee combat.

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons? If so what is it and why do you keep it? Okay this is pure sentimentality; I'll deny it later I'm sure.  I still have a slice of the Wedding Cake that was passed around at the in game wedding of Kuwen and Wylderness on the Nameless at Lake Rathetear.  It was the last time I think that all of my old EQ friends where together and happy.  It was a very cool moment in time and a singularly great moment of in game role playing.

Ethyre

When did you start playing EQ? About four years ago.  Several coworkers and I had been playing some network games and one of the Engineers started playing EQ.   He got me to try and I was quickly hooked.

Do you play EQ on a laptop or desktop computer? I play on two laptops since I travel a lot on business.  Modern laptops are surprisingly capable machines and I get very good quality game play, at high resolutions, while sitting on my deck having cold one :)

Do you play on dial-up, cable, or DSL? I play through a Wireless Access Point to a cable modem.  When cable service is up, the connection and game play are excellent..

What was the race and class of your very first character? My first character was a Wood Elf Druid, named Fazool.  This was my characters name for several years and throughout several games.

Was EQ your first online game? No, actually I played a text based Multi User Dungeon game at the University called "Monster".  In its time, it was an amazing game with upwards of a a hundred people playing at a time.  We had "guilds" with wars and raids on other guilds.  We even had cheaters and exploits so all the same culture existed even back then (fifteen years ago).

What is your highest level in EQ? My Main character is a 68 Enchanter.  My sig file says "There is no high score" because I don't really believe in grinding to 70 (or the limit du jour) just to be high level.  I play a lot of character, do a lot questing, tradeskills, exploring and (recently) a lot of raiding so my leveling is probably lower than most people who put in as much time as I do.

Do you prefer to solo or group? It really depends upon the situation.  I two box mostly so I like that if I am camping a quest mob or farming, etc.  When playing certain characters I really like contributing to a group.  Being unable to play when you can't find or form a group is, however, terribly frustrating.  In general I like grouping.  I have a regularly scheduled ("static") group of rl friends and we have several pre-made groups ready to go three times a week.  In situations like that, where we don't waste time LFG or waiting, I love group play.   LDoN's were great fun for pick up groups.

What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character? I am in the midst of a character identity crisis and probably changing main characters (only second time in four years). 

Five levels ago, I would have said my Enchanter was amazing because of the way he could make order out of chaos and how he thrived on a hectic pull where everyone else panicked.  Recent content makes this type or role not as important, so my enthusiasm for this character has waned somewhat.  Now, I would say my Magician is my favorite character and I love using an awesome pet for clever group and raid help, like off tanking, pet pulling, etc.

Is your main character in a guild? For a long time I was an officer in an outstanding guild on Xev called Lions of The Heart.  This was a true family style guild and, at one time,  we had 996 characters enrolled in the guild.  I have wanted to see some of the "end game" content in EQ and joined most of my EQ friends who moved over to a semi0raiding guild called In Via Damnum (now on Druzzil Ro).  This is a great guild, with a great approach to non-mandatory raiding that enjoys really great participation in events.

How many characters do you have on your main server? I only play on one server where I have nine characters (five very active) along with two mules across my two accounts.

Does your main character worship a deity? No, he is agnostic, which I greatly regret and wish I could quest for a change.  I think a religious journey or quest would be great in the storyline of EQ, and allow characters to change deities.

Which classes in EQ have you NOT played? I have never played a Warrior, Berzerker, Shaman, Ranger or Wizard.

What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? About 120,000 for one item.  I also spent about 110,000 on a shopping spree in the bazaar, where I bought thank you gifts for my epic 1.5 completion party.

What is your favorite expansion? Kunark by far.

What is your favorite zone? Revamped Plane of Hate - great gothic design, excellent storyline, spooky immersive feeling and good quests.  Kedge Keep and Plane of Mischief come in close second for being very non-traditional zones with completely immersive feel.

What is your favorite npc? There are too many to list.  Some NPC monsters are really impressive, I love the actions and dialogue of some NPC quest characters.  Some are just goofy fun.  I think I was most awe-inspired when my druid first saw Tunare.

Which expansion do you like the least? GoD - ugly zones, non-convincing mob graphics, convoluted storyline, unenjoyable solo/group play.

Which zone do you like the least? Any boring caves, such as the BB ldon caves.  Lazy curving tubular design.  When running through these, I know what a tapeworm feels like.

Which npc do you like the least? Wuoshi - My two highest characters are non-KOS by now, but I can't tell you how many times I ported and died while zoning because he camped the druid rings. 

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons? If so what is it and why do you keep it? I do so much questing and item-camping that my bank accounts are chock full of such items.  My most useless first item was "essence of a graveyard knight" form my first GM event on Halloween.  I always kept it hoping it was for some undiscovered quest, but now its just for sentimental reasons.

Fiach_AB

When did you start playing EQ? January 2003. It took me 5 minutes to become addicted, and 6 minutes to get killed when I targeted an NPC and tried to type H-A-I-L in full.

Do you play EQ on a laptop or desktop computer? A desktop. Need power. Desktop > Laptop.

Do you play on dial-up, cable, or DSL? DSL. Need speed. DSL > Dial up.

What was the race and class of your very first character? Barbarian Shaman, of course!

Was EQ your first online game? No, in the ‘80s I played the original text-only MUD created by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw (known as “British Legends” in the US, I think). The tag line was “You haven’t lived ‘til you’ve died in MUD”. I often played an entire weekend without sleep, and nearly lost my job over it. I’m married now, though.

What is your highest level in EQ? 53 *Puffs out his chest with pride*

Do you prefer to solo or group? Unless I can get a LDON or a raid, I prefer to solo. Some of the time. When I’m not in a group. Or working on my epic. Or lonely.

What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character? The versatility. I can be a tank, a healer, a nuker, a buffer. I love being asked for SOW, it gives me something to complain about.

Is your main character in a guild? Yes, Everwatch – a role-playing guild on Antonius Bayle.

How many characters do you have on your main server? 7 – I keep the extra slot free “just in case”.

Does your main character worship a deity? Fiach is a follower of the Tribunal. I think “worship” is too strong a word in his case.

Which classes in EQ have you NOT played? Bard, Beastlord, Berserker, Cleric, Druid, Enchanter, Monk, Rogue, Shadowknight. I’m having too much fun playing my others.

What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? 10K, for a horse (of course)

What is your favorite expansion? Velious. Love it to bits.

What is your favorite zone? Blackburrow! My first dungeon and still my favorite. Very few people there now, so sometimes I stand at the top of the pit and tickle the gnolls at the bottom with a slow, just to remind me what the trains were like.

What is your favorite npc? It simply HAS to be Fippy Darkpaw! I have tried to get him past the Qeynos city gates a few times. No luck yet, but one day when the zone is empty and I can distract the guards…

Which expansion do you like the least? Gates of Discord. ‘Nuff said.

Which zone do you like the least? Paludal Caverns. But I’ll keep going back there with every new toon, I guess..

Which npc do you like the least? Vengeful Composer. He deserves to die. And he does. Every time I see him. Sometimes slowly, gotta love root-rot. *Frowns and looks fierce*

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons? If so what is it and why do you keep it? Testament of Vanear. I don’t need it any more, but it was my first “hard” quest, and it took me SOOO long. I remember the excitement and the corpse runs, and the thrill when I got it. How could I give it up?

Froguelok_of_Drinal

When did you start playing EQ? October 2002 (as a PS2 EQOA Beta Tester)

Do you play EQ on a laptop or desktop computer? Desktop

Do you play on dial-up, cable, or DSL? Cable

What was the race and class of your very first character? EQOA – Dwarven rogue named Gwarric

Was EQ your first online game? Nope I had XBand modem for SNES and played a lot of Streetfighter II online

What is your highest level in EQ? 53 beastlord Vah Shir

Do you prefer to solo or group? Solo

What do you like the most about the class you have chosen for your main character? I love the Bengal tiger pet of Vah Shir BST

Is your main character in a guild? Yes

How many characters do you have on your main server? 8

Does your main character worship a deity? No

Which classes in EQ have you NOT played? None – I have characters on 5 servers!

What is the most platinum you have ever spent on purchasing a single item for one of your characters? 300PP

What is your favorite expansion? Lost Dungeons of Norrath

What is your favorite zone? The Twilight Sea

What is your favorite npc? King Raja Kerrath

Which expansion do you like the least? Scars of Velious

Which zone do you like the least?  Cobalt Scar – hard to get to and died many times enroute

Which npc do you like the least?  Turepta – Pretty much anything on Taelosia

Do you have an item you no longer use but keep around for nostalgic reasons?  If so what is it and why do you keep it? Yeah even 52 BST kept newbie gear – Gulam armor – for corpse runs and now I have outgrown it.  It’s a souvenir of favorite hunts.