My thoughts and questions

[karoo83]

Hey hey all, here's my post, its mainly questions. But, hey, its something to think about. Ok, I read the FAQ a few times and I am mainly posting questions to unclear stuff, maybe these questions can give people some ideas, I don't know.

Ok I was reading some stuff about DAoC(Dark Age of Camelot), and this seemed like a good idea. Putting character created player association symbols on your various peices equipment.(cape, cloak, breastplate, shield, etc...)

I was wondering about talking, if there is going to be /say, /groupsay, /tell <person's name>, /guildsay, and /shout.

Since there are no classes like EverQuest, I'm curious about character generation. You don't click on monk or cleric and a different set of stats pop up. Is it going to be 50 across the board and we just plug points into the different stats from 30 training points.

One thing I don't see much of is race differences. When you choose a Barbarian(or any large race) the only difference from an elf is that the large race is(roughly) +10 strenght, -10agility, -10 intelligence, +10 stamina and the elf is -10 strength, +10 agility, +10 intelligence, -10 stamina. I don't know what or how, but there needs to be a bigger difference than just minor stat manipulation, and at later levels there are so many stat manipulating items that your beginning stats almost don't matter.

Ok two things about the world, I'm assuming that it's going to be huge, I can maybe see a problem with this. When you play in a huge game world, the producers of the game boast that it takes you X amount of time to run straight from one side to the other. Whoopie, thats what I want to do, run 30 minutes, to wait for the boat ride that takes 20 minutes, and then run again for another 30 minutes just to get somewhere and do stuff with friends. I have a lazy necro friend and I like to do stuff together but we don't, why you ask? Because its so mind-numbingly boring to meet up at a dungeon or zone to hunt in. I read about the transportation system for Arcanity and seem good and useful. I'm just curious if there are going to be teleports to shorten the time to get from point a to point b. Also I wouldn't mind spending a good portion of time to get from one part of the world to another if it was interesting.

Maybe I didn't read the CM stuff and quests carefully enough, but this is what I got from it. For quests you'd have to talk to a CM to start/finish a quest. I would think that that would create a huge backlog of people who like to do alot of quests. I would hate to wait to start a quest because the CM is busy starting of another person, but I do want to do quests that really are quests so I don't know if I can have it both ways.

Another thing about CM's; is that they will be able to show up as gods, deities, and other npcs. Would we or could we expect a CM to amass an army of goblins that would raid towns overwhelming the guards and the pc's in the town would then have to defend the it.

The one server is really cool, because you can't mess up and join the wrong server and not play with your friends. But wouldn't this creat major overcrowding in newbie and lower level areas.

Just clearing up on this one, the FAQ says that you can have a warrior mage, so I'm assuming you have a clerical mage. Another "class"(for lack of a better word) question. It seems to me that hybrids and warriors(in this game, people who train to be warriors and hybrids) at later(again people who train alot, I know there are no levels) levels are at a big disadvantage to to pure magic users. How is this going to work out.

The FAQ says that we or groups of people can kill deities and the temples will change to our image. But to what extent can players control the npc's that worshiped him.

Are we really going to be able to listen to mp3's while we play. Maybe you can do that in EverQuest, but I don't know how to do it.

Ok this is a big deal for me. I know its a MMORPG, but I love to solo(because with my luck I always get into groups that are comprised of idoits that get me killed). How is Arcanity catering to or penalizing players that like to solo.

I think that weapon and armor decay is a good thing. First of all, if you're looking at it from a realistic perspective it needs to be in the game. But it will help make an economy. In my realitively short time on EverQuest I've notice the price drop on tons of items, and not just by alittle bit either. Reason why, players that can camp the spawn and pretty much rape it do just that. Then there is a flood of that item and the price drops. I know there are no static spawns, but without decay the same thing will happen, just slower. Decay is good in both respects.

Another big thing with me is twinking. I hate it when I see a lvl one newbie warrior decked out in complete crafted armor swining a Wyrmslayer. Or a monk with a pair of knuckle dusters. Again this is an idea that I heard from DAoC FAQ. Their way with dealing with twinking is good. They have the high level weapon be equal to weapons that that character wielding it can get. Plus it decays alot faster than it normally would.

I would really like to know about the tradeskills if any in Arcanity. I love tradeskills, it helps to make a functioning economy.

The FAQ says that the npc AI is smart, but how smart is it? If someone is killing a goblin, and another goblin sees this, is he smart enough to run back to camp which isn't too far away for reinforcements to come back and kill you. That would be awsome if they were that smart.

Are there any pictures of the different races.

Is there any sort of a spell list out.

Ok thats it... like I said its mainly questions, I know left out question marks, but they are question statements I guess. I hope this is useful and not just clutter for the boards. See ya around the boards, Karoo

[Kintoun]

The different types of communication haven't been decided on yet as far as I know (no response from Devs yet)... But there is a thread on it if you want to check it out and post your own ideas.

On character creations that a good question. Will we be allowed to spend lets say 10exp points before we even enter the game world? Or is a brand new char the same as everyone else to start with?

It was either Rolfe or Rich who said that it would be silly to have a pixie with as much STR as a giant. And it was also said that Acks are better suited for shaman type skills. So my assumption would be that race does determine your starting stats. But it would be difficult for a Ack to be thru-and-thru trained a warrior.

One of the Devs said that the gameworld will be as large as Faydwer(sp?) from EQ to start with. And thats not really that big at all. As for other forms of transportation than foot, this would most likely be later in the game much like being able to build structures. Teleport shrines isn't a bad idea, but when you can cross the world in 15min (to start with at least) you might as well do it on foot to save the costs.

Quests will be offered by NPC's as well as CM's. When the CM's offer quests, they will most likely be the larger ones that require a group, and be talked about on these message boards for days. If the Devs really will make NPC's give a different quest each time (thus a unique item each time) then they could just have tons and tons of scripts waiting to be attached to a NPC for quests.

A CM will be able to take control of 1 NPC or a mass of NPC's. This will most likely be done quite a bit for the CM given quests. So expect anything =)

Heh at first the newbie areas for the most popular races (humans) will be very crowded. But that doesn;t mean you can travel to another races newbie area and hunt there too. Also the servers will have a dynamic server load. So they will use their "comp power" where it is needed most. So it won't be THAT bad on lag (in theory).

A pure class has the advantage of much more powerful spells or attacks. The hybrids will either suck at one or the other, or be so-so in both. It goes hand in hand.

Being able to kill a deity is something pretty far off, so there hasn't been much clarity on exactly how religion or killing one affects the player. But there is a thread called "religion" if you want to read some of the other players thoughts, and add your own.

I remember someone saying how once you start up Arcanity you won't be "trapped" and not allowed to Alt-Tab out of the game. So as long as you have the resources I bet you'll be able to play MP3's, but you might have to disable in-game music or even sound as to avoid conflicts. But a option of being able to play MP3's thru the game would be awesome! Who doesn't have mp3's? The Devs could even include a set of MP3's of the ingame music. And if you want to hear your own music than replace those.

One big thing about MMORPG's is trying to force the playing in groups and getting him/her to make friends to better enhance the gaming experience. Noone yet knows how complicated the combat system will be, or how easy exp will be to obtain, let alone know what the penalty of death is. So I guess we're going to have to wait until Beta to see how well solo'ing works.

In Arcanity there will be both regular items and unique items. The regular ones will be the ones you can buy from NPC's pretty much anywhere. Where as the unique were said to be TRUELY unique. So if you have the Harbringer of Doom Axe, your probably the only person who has one (if it's unique). So first it would suck to have that decay. And second the economy will be fine as there will be no flooding of the same item. Of course this is speculation. (Just my thoughts)

I'm not sure on twinking. Some people like it, some don't. I won't argue here for or againt it, as I am kinda neutral to both sides. But nothing has been said about twinking beyond having a lev req for a item or decay as far as I know.

I'm pretty sure we can expect the main tradeskills, Blacksmithing, Tailoring, and Alchemy. I am looking forward to these as I love alternate ways to advance ones character besides just fighting/questing.

I would like to know about the AI scripts also. This is something that either died a while back, or hasn't been touched upon. We'll see about getting a thread dedicated to this question.

Races: Elves, Humans, Acks. Those are the for-sure races so far. But there are no pics besides the Acks yet.

Spells: Nope no spell lists yet, but we can assume the basic ones. Like the DD's, AE's and defensive spells.

Whew, man that was fun!

[karoo83]

I was just wondering about this one, have any of you played a text-based mud call Gemstone 3? It's pretty big, so I'll be surprised if all I get are strange looks. Well anyways, back to the game. They had a cool idea, if I can remember it. Rogues, Clerics, and Empaths(healer/cleric) could do perform stuff that would give them exp with going out and killing stuff or questing(there wasn't really any quests). The rogue class could pick the locks on chests, lockboxes and various containers. Clerics could heal, they could rez people, and depending on what level they were and what level the person being rez'ed was they would get exp from doing this. And finally the empaths were the healers of the game. Depending on the were the injury was and the type empaths would get exp from healing the person.(They didn't just healing spells) I know doing stuff very similar would be hard for a game like this, but having people able to gain exp outside of combat and questing would be awsome for this game. see ya around the boards, Karoo

[Kymeri mac An Iolar]

I haven't played Gemstone, but I have heard of it from others around here. Rich and Rolfe have stated that you will be able to get exp from healing.

[Morte]

About flooding the economy, I think if the system is set up properly, that needn't be a problem. In a lot of RPG's, merchants will just buy whatever you offer them. That is very strange, because I don't see what a merchant would want twenty rusty swords for, let alone a blacksmith. I think that the system should be more realistic, so that an adventurer can't just load off all his loot to the nearest street merchant. I think it is amazing that a street merchant has the need and the large sum of money for all those gems you found. Gems could maybe be loaded off at jewelers, to a certain extent, because they too have no endless need and coin for gems, and banks, if they are in the game. I do think that there should be jewelers in the game, because someone has to make all the jewelry you can find, magical or otherwise.

/emote finds it hard to believe that adventurers can even carry so many swords.

[karoo83]

Well you have a good point Morte(as good a point as any floating skull atleast). But the smart people don't sell items to merchants when they can get huge sums of money from people. I like your idea, but I'm talking about more of the player economy. Maybe the no static spawns will help... I don't know, and I'm late I'll see ya around the boards. Karoo