Brekkee - *dispatch_stromm* Are they going to look at the cultural armor combine drops, aka the droprate? I know if I want to attempt making my barbarian cultural at the master level I need pile of gravel, which drops only from golem mobs in Rcod, while High elfs and some others use small bricks of ytrrium ore. I have spent countless days in rcod and have only been able to acquire 4 piles of gravel. while yttirum ore is found in mulit
Maddoc - The drop rates for the Cultural Armor is something that we're definitely going to keep an eye on. The expansion's been out for around two weeks, so it's too early to really make any solid decisions on which are too low and which are too high quite yet. Rest assured, if we do increase the drop rates on any of them, we'll make sure it's posted on the boards and in the Update Message.

Brekkee - *Dracious* um this question slightly partains to the topic of the new expansion but more or less to EQ in general i know that DoN has no dragon race but will one become available in later editions like not a pure dragon race but like a dragon cross breed or something along those lines
Rashere - I'm assuming you're asking about PC-playable races. Right now, we don't have any plans to add a new race, but its definitely something that might happen in the future. What it would be is something that is open to a lot of different opinions.

Brekkee - *FurorXev* You've just announced the first non pvp server mergers. What are the plans in the near future for additional blue server mergers?
Brenlo - Our plan is to do the mergers we have planned, let the folks who want to move off do so, and then see how well the merger accomplishes our goal as well as seeing where people end up after the merge. So we will be taking a wait and see approach to any additional server merges.

Brekkee - *Rhett* With EQ2's existance causing EQ to be obsolete, are there any plans for shifting players allegiance over to EQ2 and dropping EQ altogether?
Prathun - EverQuest1 and EverQuest2 are distinctly different games that will appeal to different audiences. Neither one of them is going anywhere anytime soon.
Prathun - EQLive still has a very strong following and we're going to continue to provide new features and content for our playerbase.
Brenlo - EQ is doing very well. We have lots planned including some nice Anniversary stuff coming up next month. We are not going anywhere.

Brekkee - *Cinexa* Grats to all on the raids / missions in this expansion - we are loving it ~ but those dragons?? Why are they so easy Prathun?!
Prathun - Haha, I'm glad you asked Cinexa! The two dragons that have been felled so far are Tirranun and Rikkukin. They are aimed at PoTime and MPG raid trial difficulty, respectively.
Prathun - I expect that it won't be long before Kessdona is defeated... but after that come some VERY challenging raids.
Brenlo - A mouse tells me that you asked Cinexa to ask that question . . . Say it ain't so Prathun
Prathun - Be prepared for the fury of Yar`Lir the storm dragon, she won't go down without a fight. ;)

Brekkee - *Loral* The mission system adds a lot of excitement to typical hunts. Are there any plans to add more missions anytime soon?
Rashere - We have lots of plans for using the mission system in the future. It's a very strong system with a lot of flexibility. What you're seeing right now is just the tip of the iceberg.

Brekkee - *Cmer* Are there any plans to make the guild bank easier to use? Right now it's a nice feature, but a big headache for guild leaders to organize.
Rashere - We're always looking for ways to improve the way things work. I can't give any firm examples right now, but we've been getting a lot of feedback on the guild banks which is tremendously helpful and I encourage you to keep sending it in.

Brekkee - Remember to get your questions in to [QT]Ishu or [QT]Phineus , questions will be answered in the order they are received, so send them in now!
Brekkee - *Cinexa* Love the expansion guys - but one piece bothers me some =- why do evils lose their aa with ONE raid with their "good" guild =-( or is that only if they turn in their "tear" ?
Maddoc - The AA rewards are given for completing missions and gaining faction with the two different camps. If you lose enough faction with your chosen camp, you will certainly lose the AA rewards as well. With the way that the faction tokens work, the faction hits are optional, which means you won't ever be "forced" to lose them.

Brekkee - *Loral* I love Dragons and I think it shows just how far EQ has come...but why are these Dragons so hard!!!
Prathun - I guess hard / easy is relative.
Brenlo - Wow that's a great question Loral. Did Prathun ask you to send that in?
Prathun - Historically, dragons have been end-game content in EverQuest
Prathun - From Vox and Nagafen in original EQ, to Trakanon Gorenaire and Talendor in Kunark
Prathun - Dragons of Norrath's dragon fights are no different - though their difficulty spans the range from Planes of Power to Anguish (OoW)
Prathun - I have faith that a large subset of the playerbase will have the opportunity to face the dragons if they choose to do so. The entry requirements to see them are not strict
Prathun - and today's endgame content will be tomorrow's midgame content. It's only a matter of time before these fights are easier simply due to new levels / spells / AAs / etc.

Brekkee - *Loral* can you explain more about The Nest? When will we see it open?
Rashere - The Nest is full of secrets...the biggest being where it is and how you get into it. At this point, I'm not going to spoil the surprise but I'm pretty excited about what is in store.

Brekkee - *Nolrog* One thing that EQ is lacking is with some kind of quest journal. Are there any plans to move more of the old quests into the task/quest system? I think that would give a whole new dimension to doing quests.
Rashere - Part of the new task functionality that was added with Dragons is a quest journal. This journal tracks a specific type of task that we designate as a quest. There aren't many out there right now, but we have plans to use this a lot in the future.

Brekkee - *Anwyn* Can you explain this new Faction AA thing? If we don't like the AA provided by one faction, can we switch easily or do we have to double the work since we would have lost faction with one camp?
Maddoc - The AA's offered by both sides are fairly similar, but in the event that you would like to switch factions, whatever the reason may be, you are able to do so.
Maddoc - If you've earned the AA from one side and decide to switch factions, you'll lose the AA from the favorable side and have to earn the AA's from the opposite faction.
Maddoc - You'll end up having to prove yourself to both sides that way, but it is allowed. :)

Brekkee - *Cinexa* what's the idea behind lockouts on the smaller raids (24) ? only 6 people get quest pieces and 18 are locked out from completing theirs ~ wondering what the thinking is behind this
Rashere - Lockouts for events and raids are basically a replacement for the NPC only spawning once every few days. It allows us to control how fast loot comes into the world as well as the effort required to obtain special rewards such as the AAs.
Rashere - We've been pretty loose with the requirements to do the raids and with how many people are rewarded. In the past, a typical small event NPC would only drop a single item and maybe allow a single person to progress on their quest. These ones give out a full group's worth of progression items on top of their normal treasure.

Brekkee - *Nolrog* The e-mail system was a great addition to the game. However, it's a bit limited right now in the implementation. Are there plans on adding functionality for guilds, so that the leader can send one message to the entire guild, or to all officers? What about the ability to make our own mail lists. That would be a great addition too.
Maddoc - We're definitely planning on adding more features to the in-game e-mail system. The things you've mentioned are just a couple of the features that we've received feedback on and are looking at in terms of new features. :)

Brekkee - *Loral* is there any chance we might see a tiered loot system added to Dragons or in future releases?
Rashere - We don't have any plans to change the way the vendor loot works right now, but its something we might do for future releases.

Brekkee - *reptile1z* What new graphics engine upgrades are planned for this year?
Prathun - Our team is currently looking at graphics engine changes, both for performance reasons and to add new features. I've seen glimpses of what's ahead for the lighting system and it looks pretty amazing.

Brekkee - *sore* is there any more work being done on the GoD backflag implementation? it is very complicated compared to the time solution.
Prathun - One thing we are looking to change with the Gates backflagging system is allowing the Qvic Backflag and Inktuta to combine to allow access to Txevu (currently you have to either do the entire backflag quest for Txevu or the entire normal progression. You can't mix and match)
Prathun - As far as them being more complicated, I implemented them with the goal of giving players several small manageable steps instead of 2-3 bottleneck steps.
Prathun - So the complexity may have had to do with that granularity.

Brekkee - *Aina* Hi, I have a question about the level 70 tradeskill cap for culture tailoring, I was wondering if it would be possible to have it lifted?
Brekkee - *Aina* Currently there is a level 70 restriction on culture smithing / tailoring as you know, I was wondering if there was any chance it could be lifted, or lowered to 65 even, so many tradskillers are pre 70 and it really creates a lot of hardship for people with less time to play this game, any chance it will be removed, or changed to a skill based, or possibly add a skill check of 300 tailoring or smithing, as a skill check t
Maddoc - This is something that I've been reviewing feedback on and, while the level restrictions are not going to be removed or changed to skill-based, they *may* be relaxed slightly. I'm still in the process of evaluating these quests, but when I've decided what changes we're going to be doing, I'll make sure we post them.
Brenlo - So far Loral is winning for most questions, While Prathun holds the title for the longest answer.
* Prathun flexes. *

Brekkee - *Loral* Are there plans to add more content for people with limited time? (best friend has a third kid on the way, Tunare help him)
Rashere - Add another point to Loral's total... For Dragons, we designed the mission system to appeal to players with a limited amount of time. Missions are built to take roughly an hour to an hour and a half to complete. It's gone over very well and I'm sure its something we'll continue to explore in the future.

Brekkee - *Nolrog* Are there any large scale tradeskill quests, along the lines of the Coldain Prayer Shawl or the Aid Grimmel quests included with the expansion? Those were some great events. The ring war as well. Can we look forward to any epic type TRADESKILL quests (besides the cultural of course) or epic battles?
Maddoc - The majority of the time spent on the DoN tradeskills was getting all of the cultural armor recipes and storyline in and working (and of course, making sense!) As of right now, there's no large-scale tradeskill quests, but I've got a few ideas in store for you guys for a live-update in the future. *hint hint* :)

Brekkee - *Anwyn* Will the email system also block emails from people on your /ignore list?
Prathun - Yes, absolutely. /ignore should block e-mails as well as tells, etc.

Brekkee - *Vincalis* The FV event rocked! Is that a harbinger of things to come? Are we going back to the old days of lots of GM events? That would be so very cool.
Rashere - The FV event was the culmination of a month's worth of events leading up to the launch of the Dragons expansion. The feedback we've received has been overwhelmingly positive and its definitely something I'd like to do more of in the future.

Brekkee - *Nolrog* Speaking of graphics engines, I heard a rumor (I know, I know) that EQ would be moving to the same graphics engine that EQ2 uses. Is there any truth to this? If so, what would be the benefits over the current engine?
Brenlo - We just put in a new engine last year. The new engine allows to do the quality of graphics we put into DoN without raising system specs. There are no plans to intigrate the EQ2 engine and we are not even sure it could be done seamlessly and without raising system specs.
Brenlo - Or is it integrate? Where's my dictionary

Brekkee - *Aina* It looks to me like DoN is a tradeskillers paradise, and being almost in the 2100 club I've been doing tradeskills from the day it came out, is there any chance that since the cap from modifers will be dropped, there could be added an augment or item with +15% or higher, and for all tradeskills in one, to be found in the near future, or quested for?
Maddoc - It's certainly not outside the realm of possibility, though I've got no plans to add them right now. One of the things that tradeskillers have (sometimes incessantly) requested are some upgraded tradeskill trophies, and I think additional, higher percentage mods would fit quite well there.

Brekkee - *Vincalis* Will EQ have a revamp of the player character models anytime soon? The Goblins look better than we do. :(
Brekkee - *Nolrog* Brenlo mentioned the qualtiy of graphics. That reminded me of the summit last year, and the new character models and revamps to the old zones. Is this something that we'll see "soon (tm)"??
Brenlo - Well as far as goblins looking better than you. You should have played a Halfling.
Brenlo - As far as new PC models, that is actually a HUGE undertaking. Much more so than redoing a Goblin
Brenlo - PCs models have hundreds of animations, armor sets, attachment points, etc . . . that NPCs do not. So
Brenlo - We will not have new PC models anytime soon. It is something we would like to do but is such a large project we are not sure how best to tackle it yet.

Brekkee - That will wrap it up for tonight. I’d like to thank the folks from EverQuest for coming! The log for tonight’s chat will be up shortly on http://eq.stratics.com
Brekkee - Thank you all for joining us! You can join #EverQuest to chat more about the game.

Brenlo - Thanks folks. Have a good night and avoid the Mongoose.

Rashere - Have a great evening all!

Prathun - Thanks for coming, everyone!

Maddoc - Thanks everyone for coming! :)

Brekkee - Rashere will be joining #everquest for a bit.. feel free to join there to continue chatting

Rashere - be gentle