<Destinova> Welcome to today's House of Commons chat with the developers of Everquest!
<Destinova> To submit a question type /msg [QT]LBeff My question here! - questions sent to the developers will not be answered! We'll be doing a general chat today so any questions on the game are welcome.
<Destinova> We'll begin with a brief introduction from our guests and then jump straight into the questions. The full logs will be available at http://eq.stratics.com shortly afterward.
<Destinova> Also, feel free to join #everquest for open chat.

<Rashere> Good evening everyone and thanks for coming. I'm Travis McGeathy, lead designer for Everquest.
<Nodyin> Hello everyone, my name is David Ford and I work on the Alternate Advancement (AA) system.
<Vahlar> Good evening all, I'm Holly Longdale, assistant lead designer of content!
<Ngreth> Hello! I am Adam "Ngreth" Bell, Game designer specializing in tradeskills.
<Merloc> Hello, I'm Keith Turkowski, in charge of items for EverQuest.
<Prathun> Hello all! I'm Jonathan Caraker, the EverQuest designer responsible for spells and melee abilities.
<Maddoc> Hey everyone, I'm Jason Mash, one of the Assistant Lead Designers on the EQ team, handling most of the systems side work! Welcome to the chat!

<Destinova> *Nattican* Greetings. I'm sure you are all aware of the recent problems with servers and zones crashing constantly. Are there fixes in the works to remedy this?
<Rashere> Our code team is well aware of the problem and has been working on a solution, but the root of the problem has been very difficult to track down. Once they’ve got that nailed down, we’ll be able to get a fix in place.

<Destinova> *Nolrog* When are we going to see an update to the new human models out on test?
<Rashere> We don’t have an ETA for another rev on the human models. We aren’t operating under a set schedule for getting the models done, so will just be putting out new revs when we feel enough work has been done on them to justify it.

<Destinova> *Nolrog* Are there any plans for any new servers in the future? (new progression, "classic", discord, or something new?)
<Vahlar> We are always looking for ideas to change things up and add fun new features and even new servers with interesting rule sets. The idea of doing another new rule-set server has come up but we don't have any immediate plans to launch one.

<Destinova> *Lighteagle* the Pathing and Critter warping in new zones (The Serpent Spine and later) is still very bad- can we expect any improvements in this area?
<Maddoc> I investigate pathing issues almost every day, many of which come from bug reports. If there are any areas that are most notably bad, feel free to /bug the issue with the location and a detailed description of the issue.

<Destinova> *sneakattack* Will there be more bank space added in the next expansion , please say yes.
<Rashere> Sorry, we’re not planning on adding more bank space with the next expansion.

<Destinova> *Tharkis* Are there any plans to fix harfange so that he isnt powered up before you engage him without having to sacrifice players to get him to reset?
<Destinova> [18:08] <Zatozia> okay mister funny man 8)
<Nodyin>I just spoke with the designer who created the Harfange raid and that issue is fixed and should already be on Live. Let us know if you're still seeing the issue.
<Vahlar> Ya...what she said.

<Destinova> *Ivor_the_Mad_AB* Hi Question for the team - Will the next expansion have raids for all levels of guild as opposed to concentrating on top level guilds?
<Rashere> The majority of raid content with the next expansion will be aimed at players who have exhausted the current raid content in the game. There are some raids that will be doable by mid-tier guilds as well, but those guilds have a lot of older content still at their disposal so it’s less of a focus.

<Destinova> *Lighteagle* It see,s the Jonas Dagmire aug quest is missing an overarching storyline- was this an oversight, or are we just expected to magically have known why were were collecting all those bones and how to glue them back to gether (or did I just miss the lore part)?
<Merloc> Jonas Dagmire met with an ill fate... unfortunately no one survived to tell the tale of exactly what that fate was; however, we are quite certain it was ill. Figuring out how to join the bones together was meant to be an intuitive puzzle for players solve without any clues.

<Destinova> *Xislaben_The_Rising_Sun* Ngreth - Will we see tradeskill combines with critical failure that do neato things in the near future?
<Ngreth> Unfortunately with salvage the "Alternate Failure" is not currently a good idea for me to use. Since the game treats it as a "Failure" the salvage AA triggers... so you could recover your parts, AND get the item... not good. At some point I will pursue a code change that will make it usable again, but I have not put it as a priority at this time.

<Destinova> *ABInstancesWRU* Any chance of an early Beta (possible Alpha) to try and get some of the issues resolved at an earlier rate?
<Rashere> We're shooting for a longer beta this time around, likely starting sometime in August. It's still in planning, so could change, but that's the goal.

<Destinova> *KyrosKrane* If you could go back and change one thing about the foundations of EverQuest, knowing what you do about the game now, what would it be?
<Rashere> The wonders of hindsight… EQ was really breaking new ground when it came out and there are a lot of things that, given our knowledge today, we’d have done differently. The majority of them focus around systems that were built for the level 50 cap the original game had and weren’t really set up to scale.
<Rashere> As the game has grown, they’ve caused problems because of it. So, given a chance, that’s where I’d focus changes: building those original systems to scale as the game grew.

<Destinova> *Nattican* Are there any current plans to tune Solteris events to bring them more in line with the average guild composition?
<Nodyin>We don't have any plans to retune the Solteris events. Our target was to create challenging raid content and I feel we did very well. We're looking into some tweaks for some of the items in Solteris as well as some minor changes to how some of the items are distributed but overall we're very happy with the zone.
<Nodyin>I get an email every time anyone completes an event in that zone and I've seen a steady rise in the number of servers completing events in that zone and there is steady progress on a number of servers.
<Nodyin>I only expect that trend to continue as we head into November and beyond.

<Destinova> *sneakattack* Any chance of giveing titles to people who have played sense the game started ? or perhaps a special AA ?
<Maddoc> We do reward players who have been playing for lengthy periods of time via the Veteran Reward system, which gives players access to one new ability for each year that they've been continuously playing the game. We currently have no plans to give out titles, but that's something we could do for a future reward.

<Destinova> Send your questions to [QT]Lbeff now as they will be answered in the order they are received! Use /msg [QT]Lbeff My Question Here to submit one.

<Destinova> *QuinnotetiquanBrell* Any update on any ideas to make Beastlords Ferocity useful?
<Prathun> Most of the effects that can increase melee effectiveness are now capped, offer diminishing returns, or don't work for all melee.
<Prathun> It will be difficult to approximate the kind of impact that attack power originally had when Ferocity was introduced, without some serious code / system intervention.
<Prathun> But I will see what we can do to make the Ferocity line, and other spells like it, useful.

<Destinova> *sneakattack* TBS gear has type 13 aug slots, will these type augments be going into the game anytime soon
<Merloc> Type 13 and 14 augments will be going into the game with the next patch.

<Destinova> *Selerra* Since mid-tier raiding is a big topic, is there any chance of mid-tier raiding being part of active progression for the next expansion to avoid the requirement of going through some of the previous tiers in order to reach newer content?
<Rashere> We’re taking a “one step back, two steps forward” approach to raids in the next expansion. The raids will essentially start one “step” back from the current high end and then progress forward so there is a bit of a ramp for mid-tier guilds to use to get into the top-tier areas.
<Rashere> In addition, we’ve got some plans for the single player game that will make transitioning from a primarily single group player to a raider considerably easier. That should go a long way toward helping those mid-tier guilds out.
<Rashere> I'm doing well with black squares tonight

<Destinova> *Nolrog* Will we see more success caps on "the best" (tm) tradeskill recipes in the future to temper the benefit of max skill, aas, and modifier?
<Prathun> They're white squares with my settings.
<Ngreth> I have no plans for the systematic use of success caps on tradeskill combines in anything I have planned for the reasonable future. That said, I reserve the right to continue to use it in specific flavor combines such as the jewelers glass lens and the Sporali skin paper.

<Destinova> *Tamm* Ive seen alot of board discussion re Demi backflagging. Your thoughts on this matter?
<Prathun> I'm planning on adding a backflag to Hatchet and Redfang for the current raiding guilds progressing through Demi-Plane.
<Prathun> This should make it in time for the upcoming patch.
<Prathun> But if it doesn't it's the type of change that's fairly easy to update on the fly.
<Prathun> Thank you for the feedback we've received on the matter. It warms my heart to know that Demi-Plane is still widely used content. =)

<Destinova> *Xislaben_The_Rising_Sun* Any ETA on fixing AE's like Stich's which now both ignore dot shielding and can crit for double the base damage?
<Prathun> We'll take a look into that and have a bug put it on it when we find out what's wrong. Thanks!

<Destinova> *Keluian* Regarding demi Plane. Since it is the only source of epic Pages for 2.0 upgrades. is there any chance of making either Tier 2 DP more accessable or adding the pages to more NPC's?
<Merloc> We've discussed it, and for now there are no plans to make epic 2.0 upgrades easier to get. We are still considering different ideas for the future.

<Destinova> *Aelfin* any chance the druid spell Lunar Light is going to be adjusted any time soon to be worth taking up a spell slot for druid's with reasonable foci?
<Prathun> It's something I need to look into more closely, but assuming it wouldn't break the game I'd be OK with that heal being more effective than it is, currently.

<Destinova> *Nolrog* Any plans for an upcoming tradeskills quest which draws on multiple (possibly every) skills? (e.g., Coldain Prayer Shawl, Protection of the Cabbage (though I'm not sure why the cabbage needed protecting in the first place) and the Aid Grimel Earring.)
<Ngreth> Yes, there actually is. And while I have not finalized my plans, it does include the use of all seven of the main tradeskills.

<Destinova> *Haiden* Any plans to increase the effectiveness of the shaman direct heals?
<Prathun> I've no issues with the healing classes being interchangable in most situations such that the value of a cleric is close enough to a shaman and close enough to a druid that each are considered "healers".
<Prathun> With variations in utility and delivery methods to distinguish them from each other.
<Prathun> However, that's easier said than done and something that will require a lot of time and attention.

<Destinova> *KyrosKrane* On behalf of the entire EQ community, and tradeskillers in particular, please wish Ngreth a happy birthday! Yes, it's today. And we want to thank him for giving us this wonderful gift of a new TS quest! =)
<Ngreth> \Tank yu... i am one.... two... uh... two... ... ... ...
<Ngreth> TWO!

<Destinova> That will wrap it up for tonight. I'd like to thank the developers for coming! The log for tonight's chat will be up shortly on the website.
<Rashere> Happy Birthday Ngreth!
<Zatozia> Happy Birthday Ngreth!
<Prathun> Happy bday, ogre!!
<Vahlar> Happy Birthday!!!

<Destinova> Please feel free to join #everquest for open chat.
<Nodyin>Happy birthday and goodnight!
<Ngreth> Thanks for attending! And thanks for the birthday tell bomb!
<Zatozia> Thank you everyone for joining us! Hi I'm Zatozia! lol
<Merloc> Feel free to wish Ngreth happy birthday more than once if he doesn't respond right away!
<Merloc> Thanks for coming, see you next time.
<Ngreth> Ogres can smash too!
<Ngreth> Not just Absor!