drychnath

Yes, and based in the Old Republic. I'm imagining a game with lots of jedi and sith, but with different force sensitives being more or less skilled in certain areas (to make the classes) That would be better than the model SWG used pre and post NGE.

And as far as EQ2 goes... we'd all benefit from cloning as is done in TR (or maybe just "poof" now I have a level 50 assassin because I already hit 80 on my shadowknight and got a "make level 50 character" credit from a one-shot per character level 80 only turn in quest I did)

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EQ2: Avenger Drychnath Malcherion -AB

Everything is on a great scale upon this continent, the rivers are immense, the climate violent in heat and cold, the prospects magnificent, the thunder and lightning tremendous, the disorders incident to the country make every constitution tremble. Our own blunders here, our misconduct, our losses, our disgraces, our ruin Are On a Great Scale.
-Lord Carlisle

RonPaul2008

how about just revamping pvp, adding things on the level of DAOC frontiers, and updating quests and loot across the board in all old zones? Then a massive advertising campaign.

aduros

$$$ = no. SoE isn't gonna go on a spending spree this late in EQ2's lifespan. They tried to cut corners in development, and ignored advertising completely to save some money. Now they're paying the price.

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Grindtoof

No- too much money and time sync. It would be more feasible for SOE to launch a new MMO title than re-build EQ2 from the ground up.

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"Behind every good woman is a great slap in the ass!"

Symbiotic

that just creates more problems under the way things are currently set up, that is if you wanted to try and throw something so polar opposite together, you might as well do it with the necro and the conj. for that matter - they both cast lots of spells and have pets, no big differences right? aa spec for conj. or necro - yeah? they're too far removed from each other to justify AA lines to explain a completely different class.

I played eq1 for a little too long i suppose, but i did enjoy the good vs. evil type thing - where it actually meant something.

i.e. you travel the world as an SK and almost every NPC is KoS to you - where as a paladin wouldn't have nearly as many of those problems.

How would you consolidate the armor appearance? just kind of a knight, but not white, not black, nothing too scary, but nothing too holy either.. i see a very vague gray colored boring crusader, and it's not like SK's are defined by harmtouch alone, the playstyle is very different, completely different sets of spells that make the class as a whole just barely pull off semi-compitent.

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Hexus

Why does everyone talk about the fucking NGE like it ruined SWG? The fucking CU prior to NGE fucking ruined SWG and started the mass exodus, NGE was just the final kick in the nuts as most were walking out the door already.

-Hexus-

Pinski

NGE just made more of the people who had still stayed on leave.

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How many times do you hear it? It goes on all day long
Everyone knows everything And no one's ever wrong
Until later...
Who can you believe? It's hard to play it safe
But apart from a few good friends We don't take anything on faith
Until later..

Talonis

Incoming! Large Fundamental Change!

It's not anything near what we were discussing, but I'm leaning 'glass-half-empty' on this one. I see this as epic fail. Forget combat or spell revamp and class consolidation, lets make some fucking money.

R.I.P.

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Zaelen

As a long time player of both Guild Wars and WoW and a former EQ1er, I am happy to report that having 24 classes is what makes something like EQ2 appealing to me (and my guild). I do not think class consolidation is necessary to keep the game interesting because it will only be replaced by different systems which achieve the same effect. Instead, developer time spent on specific game mechanics would be far more beneficial to the game as it is. A perfect example would be Coercers who really need two of their mechanics re-tuned to greatly improve the class. (Reactive Damage procs and Power Drains)

The two big things EQ2 needs to address are

1.) Itemization (or the complete lack of it)
2.) Cleaning up individual class mechanics.

Itemizing for 24 classes is indeed a nightmare, but I believe this is where a lot of improvement could be made. The key here is generalizing the "looted item" and allowing tradeskillers to further specialize the item to suit the character. A Druid chest piece drops with sta, WIS, resists, armor, and room for an adornment. Wardens would get +STR/DA, Furies would get INT and +sDamage/heal. Creating basic loot for each of the classes is not inconceivable.

Cloth - Very easy to cater to all the mages while leaving some key stats available as a choice through tradeskills.. spell crit, spell damage, +casting skills, various procs etc.(Warlocks getting de-aggro procs for the win?)

Leather - Melee gear, caster gear. Let the tanking brawlers add mitigation mods, the caster gear should be +WIS focus and let furies add +sdamage/INT.

Chain - Easy for the scouts and a sub set for shaman

Plate - This one is pretty easy too.. a Smiting Templar and a Battlecleric Inq could both use +str, +sta, +wis, +resists/armor and then add +spelldamage/double attack/MORE +Str/spell crit/heal etc.

Putting item customization in the hands of the playerbase is the key to a game with 24 classes and helps to further incorporate tradeskills

Re: Spell Consolidation

Some ideas regarding this-

1) "Static debuffs", the ones you expect to be up for an entire fight, are stupid unless they are class defining. It's far more interesting to have massively powerful but short duration debuffs that need to be used actively rather than applied and forgetten. Grisly Mark should reduce STR/WIS by 100 for 10 seconds rather than 17 for 72 seconds, encouraging good timing to get the most use of it. I realize that many encounters are likely balanced around current available debuffs but I would imagine that raids would also benefit from good coordination with new powerful but short term debuffs.

2) Why does every class in this game have generic DoTs? Something like Ausprex can be easily reworked into a "DoT" by hitting for less but proccing every swing. There are so many cool mechanics available for doing damage besides "Does X instantly and Y every Z seconds". How about a Templar ability that negates the next hit you take and deals X damage to the target? It all accomplishes the same goal, just with different style.

3) More robust skills = more fun. Spells and abilities that are conditional make combat interesting. Spells that gain bonuses after getting a crit, being crit, being hit, dodging, getting resisted, etc etc etc. The game really needs some enemy ability/spell casting feedback. Interruption is an entirely missed game mechanic from EQ2.

4) There are a lot of great spell mechanics already in the game that are just poorly implemented. Power Drains are a great example. Power Drains simply need to DO something, even if that means have some synergy within the class itself (Power Drains working with Despotic Mind anyone?)

Case in point - my new level 38 necromancer is still wearing all Timmy D gear with maybe one or two exceptions. This has nothing to do with spells or classes.. the itemization is just a mess. Likewise, I have a 30 Coercer that I have a trouble playing because one of our leveling group tanks is a Monk and it basically negates all of my damage. While I'm not saying this is bad - a stun happy Coercer is a good thing to have with an avoidance tank - it certainly begs the question why both with class consolidation to arrive at the same end place but with different semantics?

Ravanos

I have been wanting a revamp to Arena's for the longest time if they added a DAOC frontier style RVR to it i would literally cum on myself.