Kungao

coercer/illus yes, dunno about the rest, the mages would create super hybrid classes which are well unstoppable, guardians/zerkers wouldnt matter i guess. They are pretty much similar anyway already, with rok

Kojo

Speaking as one who lived through the NGE and left SWG because of it, i vote no in a big way on major changes to the game.

I have a lot more faith in the ability of the devs to put through incremental changes over time than to do a sweeping and drastic one.

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He is a retarded dumbfuck cuntbag, shit-eating, monkey-spanking cock gobbler. -Malvekiar

Prof

A warlock with FD and Lifeburn? I'd be unstoppable! And after the merger they'd remove Nil Crystals. That'd rock.

Where does this system leave class betrayal? You're down to 12 classes, but these new 12 are distinctly different from each other where the original subclasses were not always so. Do neutral classes that get merged into faction classes get hosed? I'm a qeynos warlock... would I be deported due to the necro blood I inherited? I am then forced to buy a new house in FP for major plats but I was happy with my Hall in SQ.
Perhaps these are minor disruptions needed for the greater good, but what is really so wrong with 24 classes that can't be fixed with better itemization, and a clear focus for what each classes role is to be. (such as the warden's melee/caster issues)

Class consolidation never ends well. I really hope they don't choose that route.

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Shinzul

Won't happen... And if it does, I'd quit.

Steveaux

Having played SWG from launch until the initial Combat Upgrade and returning a few months prior to the NGE and playing for a month during that horror I shudder at the thought of ever wanting that sort of overhaul to a game system.

The NGE didn't combine professions it gutted them. SWG initially allowed one toon per server with the option to change professions and remake your toon or mix and match professions as long as you had the skill points.

EQ2 launched with fewer bugs/issues than SWG probably has even now. Obviously the game has changed a lot since launch but a complete overhaul this late in the game is I hope not in the cards. Better to start fresh than gut the current system. Sure fewer classes would be nice but I suspect those mergers would piss off established players more than help the situation.

I enjoy EQ2 but then again I haven't the time invested that the long term posters here have accrued. My hope is that improvements that do come cause growth in the game and make it more fun for folks. But the sad truth is at least some of changes in the last 3 years were in part a response to the runaway success of World of Warcraft. One of the nice things to me though is that EQ2 never lost it's flavor during all that time. If you look at SWG pre NGE and now other than cosmetics they aren't even the same games.

Obviously the folks asking for spell changes know way more about this game, especially the high end than I probably will ever commit to learning. But asking for a complete overhaul of the game system/mechanics this late is I think begging for a brutal buttfucking.

Talonis

You guys get so easily hung up on the small details. Why can't a magic user live in the city of qeynos and know a few 'evil' tricks. You've sworn your allegiance to Heather Graham and she let's you live in her town. What the fuck should she care if you can smite the enemies of her town with drain-o or a block of ice? Rangers are Q-only yet they get to use poison! OMGZ! Wait it's been that way since launch. Aw, fuck it.

Stop thinking small.

Anyways, the fear instilled from the failures of the past is evident. Enjoy the comfy corners you've built yourself and GL on your gear rant of the week if that is all you can see is possible. We can go in circles for a few hundred pages of why it cannot be done, but I'd rather discuss how it could be done. Maybe a nugget of goodness would get plucked and coded into something useful. Pessimism is a good check and balance, but none of your reasons so far are insurmountable.

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quasigenx

No sweeping changes. Learn from your mistakes and incorporate the changes in EQ3. Quit fucking with big stuff in a live game.

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Petgroup

They can't get there servers right after 3+ years, they won't get this right either.

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Originally Posted by RadarX
Go play another game and wake up. SOE's Community Team does more than ANY other company.
Flames now has 0 support from anyone. No TTH, no Zam (although I'm not sure how much there was), no SOE, no one.

Calbiyum

If they let me help design the game they will!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Domona

I'm not really for class consolidation. I'm more for hiring the personnel needed to polish up the classes we have. "Too much work" is a sad excuse, imo. However, I don't think we have a choice. We're getting consolidation now, the way I see it. It's just half-ass consolidation.

I mean, from my immediate perspective, all the druid gear screams fury, that I've seen. I take that to imply we wardens should wander around pretending to be furies, without the fury spells and buffs to back it up. Soooo, if given a choice between lame ass consolidation and true consolidation. I guess I'd have to pick the real deal and pray for a decent mix in the end. Unfortunately, I don't think we get to vote until it's too late.

Oh, and I wouldn't give more customizable AA's, btw. As has been said more than once, if you make tunes truly customizable with them, you haven't gotten away from the "too much work" to itemize for all the possibilities and we fail again after ticking everyone off for changing them in the first place. If you make things generic enough to just move your crits from melee to spells or ca's to ranged, whatever, via AA's, then I don't see how you aret any different from the guy next to you anyway. You just have different graphics showing to do the same things. Why go through the effort to begin with?

I almost agree with Pinski in his "damned if you do, damned if you don't" judgment and I think his logic may be justified in the end, but I think it will be because of the lack of dev investment in the game instead of a true, well, we just can't go anywhere from here without screwing ourselves. I believe they could take nice small steps, one at a time to reincorporate the uniqueness for the 24 existing classes.