The Official Why Everquest 2 does not have (insert feature) thread [Archive]

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Johnhostuk1

03-03-2008, 10:27 AM

I thought I would start this thread to answer those burning questions people have about the game and why certain features are not included. And also why certain features are the way they are.Why not make it so characters can sit and sleep in beds? Dev Rothgar ResponseThe biggest problem is that we have characters of all different shapes and sizes from ogres to fae to frogloks. No single chair would fit all characters. This is made even more complicated by the fact that you can customize the size of your character when he is created as well as modify his size larger or smaller with many different items and spells in the game.It might seem easy to make a character look like they are sitting in a chair, but trying to align them properly so that their feet didn't go through the floor or that they weren't hovering above the chair would be really difficult. This would be a fun feature to have, but for the amount of time it would take to do it right, you guys would probably rather have guild houses or something like that. Why can't we have flying mounts?(couldn't find Dev post)The game is made in such a way that free flying mounts would mess up the graphics you see. Much of the world is built using as little 3D hills and rocks as possible in order to keep frame rates down. The griffon mounts and other flight paths are specifically designed so the environmental graphics are correct. Games like Vanguard that let you fly anywhere have been designed as such from the conception.Why don't they add more classes?Dev response (Moorgard again I think) When all of the classes already in existance are perfectly balanced, and no one complains about any one of them, then we might consider a new class. Until then, we will do new races, but no new classes. I'm combining different posts in this paraphrase.Why don't the devs spend more time fixing bugs and less time creating new stuff?Too many hands in the kitchen is part of it. Second, it is the release of new expansions that draws in the new accounts. So they need both. It's like food and water.Why does EQ2 FPS suck? I get 100 FPS in (Fav FPS game) but less than 30 in EQ2.This is a compilation of many Dev posts. Even though EQ2 looks like the same engine as an FPS, it is actually quite different. EQ2 has far more procedure calls than an FPS ever would. So contrary to first appearances, this is comparing apples to oranges. For example, Lets say all items are rendered the same wire diagrams.Character Models:FPS game renders whole body + a weapon or two. The body is perhaps 12 units that move independently. Head, trunk, upper arm, lower arm, So lets say 12 for the body and 5 items. That's 17 items to render digitally. Since the player models are stored locally, a model call would look like UseHumanModel5. Since there are few items to wear, there are fewer effects to draw. Glowing eyes for night scope etc.. Rendering in a 3D environment means that the relative positions of these 17 items must be continuously updated. Maybe a few more. The number of unique avatars and items in an FPS is also lower so it can usually all be uploaded into ram.EQ2 renders much more of the body. For example, both eyeballs, teeth and eyelids are drawn for greater expressiveness. Eyelids open and close. The mouth opens and closes so the jaw is also drawn separately. Since the character is customizable, a value substitution is not enough to draw an avatar. Instead every single customizable feature exists as a separate value that must be calculated and rendered. Avatars have facial expressions, /happy /sad, etc, that incur another set of values and calculations to make and render. Then on top of this, there are worn items where each item is also drawn separately and might have its own effects. Then there is clothing. Flowing clothing is actually a particle effect. So if you turn on the flowing cloth option, your skirt is rendered as a cloud of particles that the position of each particle must be calculated. I'm not sure if capes follow this rule or not since I read this before capes came out. Since there are so many more unique items in EQ2 than an FPS, all of the unique items are NOT in ram. When you walk around a corner suddenly see a bunch of avatars, frame rate plummets as the HD starts spinning to dig out all the information on the unique items they are wearing that weren't stored in ram.Environment:The environment is also rendered differently than an FPS. Ever noticed how sometimes you can click on an item and others you can't? How sometimes you can see an item or NPC and others you can't? In EQ2, your character file is an ever expanding behemoth that keeps track of every quest you've ever done, every quest place you've ever been, every customer support issue you ever submitted, etc.. In an FPS, you see two trees that look alike, it's because it's the same tree, rendered twice from a placeholder on the environment grid that is because the environment is essentially static. The EQ2 environment is essentially interactive. Those two trees or NPCs are two different items with the same model, but different stats. One is clickable if you have done or are doing a certain quest, or you are a certain race, class or whatever the other is not. In other words, in FPS, the engine sees placeholder and renders the item automatically. In EQ2, the engine sees the placeholder, then calculates how to interact with it based on your character history. Which is a much bigger file than an FPS, if an FPS even bothers to have a character file at all. Also, this character file is not stored locally where it can be hacked but on the server. Thus server sends out the zone carats, the client determines what is viewable based on your settings and line of sight, then sends an inquiry for all interactive objects back to the server. which replies true/false as appropriate. Thus network lag also affects rendering performance in a way that does not affect FPS games. Devs also stated once that the Character file, is not a file, but a conglomeration of character information in different locations. Presumably to improve performance by not having the server load ALL of your character information with every query, just the most pertinent subsection.In short. The number of calculations that EQ makes compared to and FPS is not even comparable, except to say that it is far, far higher. Your EQ2 framerate will never compare to your FPS frame rate, no matter what you do.(Credit to Naexahnya)Please feel free to post any additional ones.

03-03-2008, 11:25 AM

<cite></cite>Sorry posted in Wrong thread

LordPazuzu

03-03-2008, 11:57 AM

On the flying mount thing- I spoke to Blackguard at the Fan Faire in Atlanta and specificially made it a point to corner him outside and ask about flying and levitation. His response was something along the lines of that the game engine itself was coded in such a way as to make these mechanics unfeasible. He said they'd tried several times and just couldn't get it to work right. The game engine simply does not allow for true freedom of movement along the z-axis. If you notice, the game has never allowed anything to truly fly. All of the griffins and flying NPCs have set flight paths from which they don't deviate.... ever. Even that annoying dragon that flies over Halls of Fate conforms to preset flight parameters.

Mordith

03-03-2008, 12:12 PM

1. A better quest tracker, such as the trackers you see in LOTRO and WoW (and some other games as well) where you can have multiple trackers up.2. Much more terrain and structure detailed maps.3. Levitation. The addition of glide seems to make some of the prior concerns obsolete.

interstellarmatter

03-03-2008, 04:00 PM

A LFG and instance system that spans servers.Sure it would be a lot of work, but it would have great payoffs. It would enable you to put a groups together cross servers. After zoning in, you'd all be in the same instance together. So, it wouldn't work for shared dungeons. Would this be a lot of work in the backend for SOE? Probably, but would be nice investment in the future. I think WoW does something similar with their Battleground System.

firexcracker

03-03-2008, 06:42 PM

<cite>Johnhostuk1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why not make it so characters can sit and sleep in beds? Dev Rothgar ResponseThe biggest problem is that we have characters of all different shapes and sizes from ogres to fae to frogloks. No single chair would fit all characters. This is made even more complicated by the fact that you can customize the size of your character when he is created as well as modify his size larger or smaller with many different items and spells in the game.It might seem easy to make a character look like they are sitting in a chair, but trying to align them properly so that their feet didn't go through the floor or that they weren't hovering above the chair would be really difficult. </blockquote>that sounds like such bull to me. WoW does it, and they have everything from 2 foot tall gnomes to 8 foot tall cows.

LordPazuzu

03-03-2008, 06:53 PM

<cite>firexcracker wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Johnhostuk1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why not make it so characters can sit and sleep in beds? Dev Rothgar ResponseThe biggest problem is that we have characters of all different shapes and sizes from ogres to fae to frogloks. No single chair would fit all characters. This is made even more complicated by the fact that you can customize the size of your character when he is created as well as modify his size larger or smaller with many different items and spells in the game.It might seem easy to make a character look like they are sitting in a chair, but trying to align them properly so that their feet didn't go through the floor or that they weren't hovering above the chair would be really difficult. </blockquote>that sounds like such bull to me. WoW does it, and they have everything from 2 foot tall gnomes to 8 foot tall cows.</blockquote>Wow uses a different game engine. Apples and Oranges...

erin

03-03-2008, 07:40 PM

<cite>Sulan@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>firexcracker wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Johnhostuk1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why not make it so characters can sit and sleep in beds? Dev Rothgar ResponseThe biggest problem is that we have characters of all different shapes and sizes from ogres to fae to frogloks. No single chair would fit all characters. This is made even more complicated by the fact that you can customize the size of your character when he is created as well as modify his size larger or smaller with many different items and spells in the game.It might seem easy to make a character look like they are sitting in a chair, but trying to align them properly so that their feet didn't go through the floor or that they weren't hovering above the chair would be really difficult. </blockquote>that sounds like such bull to me. WoW does it, and they have everything from 2 foot tall gnomes to 8 foot tall cows.</blockquote>Wow uses a different game engine. Apples and Oranges...</blockquote>People don't get that, they won't get it in this thread, they won't get it in any other thread, however many people (devs or players) say it. Don't bother.

Cadori Seraphim

03-03-2008, 07:54 PM

<cite>firexcracker wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Johnhostuk1 wrote:</cite><blockquote>Why not make it so characters can sit and sleep in beds? Dev Rothgar ResponseThe biggest problem is that we have characters of all different shapes and sizes from ogres to fae to frogloks. No single chair would fit all characters. This is made even more complicated by the fact that you can customize the size of your character when he is created as well as modify his size larger or smaller with many different items and spells in the game.It might seem easy to make a character look like they are sitting in a chair, but trying to align them properly so that their feet didn't go through the floor or that they weren't hovering above the chair would be really difficult. </blockquote>that sounds like such bull to me. WoW does it, and they have everything from 2 foot tall gnomes to 8 foot tall cows.</blockquote>Not only did someone remind you that EQ2 uses a different game engine, but the comment you see highlighted in orange is also another difference. WoW character creation does NOT allow you to size your game characters.

Ama

03-03-2008, 08:13 PM

<cite>Sulan@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite><blockquote>On the flying mount thing- I spoke to Blackguard at the Fan Faire in Atlanta and specificially made it a point to corner him outside and ask about flying and levitation. His response was something along the lines of that the game engine itself was coded in such a way as to make these mechanics unfeasible. He said they'd tried several times and just couldn't get it to work right. The game engine simply does not allow for true freedom of movement along the z-axis. If you notice, the game has never allowed anything to truly fly. All of the griffins and flying NPCs have set flight paths from which they don't deviate.... ever. Even that annoying dragon that flies over Halls of Fate conforms to preset flight parameters.</blockquote>Actually Sulan to shoot a hole in that theory think about the Quest for that dragon in The Bonemire. At the very end the player gets shot up into the air and they can control their movements even though they are slowly decending. Another point to be made is the invention of the gnomish parachute. Sure just like the item in the HQ you are slowly decending, but you control your verticle movements. If you can get knocked UP and decend downward then the coding is there. Have feeling it doesn't come to "unfeasibility", but "Practicality" like the time I asked about original cities being upgraded. I believe it was Moorguard that said it is possible to Qeynos and Freeport all one zone, but at the time of posting it wasn't practical. The same could be said for now, because devs would have to go through a mountain of coding to revamp the city. I will have to say that practicality takes the front when dealing with alot of issues. Like rothgar said with players having their toons sitting/sleeping in beds. You want time spent on minor things or have something fun from scratch that devs know is doable.

Nulad

03-03-2008, 08:55 PM

Ishnar

03-03-2008, 09:30 PM

<div align="left">Why cant Mounts fly?The dev explanation I read concerning lack of flight had to do with control. Flight would allow players to go places that the devs didn't want people going, or bypass content the devs didn't want people bypassing. Also, Devs want, or at least wanted, overland travel to be relatively unsafe, and flight would allow people to have carefree travel.Also, lets keep in mind that some Dev responses might have been bull at the time, because they were told to lie. Like with the Frogloks. Blackguard at that time probably was still told to keep a lid on the cause, but Moorgard did say the control thing in a post way back. Too much trouble to find though. I remember when Moorgard apologized about lying about the frogloks. Also, some reasons might have once been valid but no longer be valid. There have been a few changes to the engine for example to make some things possible today that were not in the beginning. No if someone gives a Dev response that sounds like bull, it might have been true at the time it was said.Just wanted to remind the OP to edit any new points in the OP, because most people will only read the first post. Unfortunatly, fishing up the original dev responses is too much trouble, so I'll put here what I recall.Why don't they add more classes?Dev response (Moorgard again I think) When all of the classes already in existance are perfectly balanced, and no one complains about any one of them, then we might consider a new class. Until then, we will do new races, but no new classes. I'm combining different posts in this paraphrase.Why don't the devs spend more time fixing bugs and less time creating new stuff?Too many hands in the kitchen is part of it. Second, it is the release of new expansions that draws in the new accounts. So they need both. It's like food and water.Why does EQ2 FPS suck? I get 100 FPS in (Fav FPS game) but less than 30 in EQ2.This is a compilation of many Dev posts. Even though EQ2 looks like the same engine as an FPS, it is actually quite different. EQ2 has far more procedure calls than an FPS ever would. So contrary to first appearances, this is comparing apples to oranges. For example, Lets say all items are rendered the same wire diagrams.Character Models:FPS game renders whole body + a weapon or two. The body is perhaps 12 units that move independently. Head, trunk, upper arm, lower arm, So lets say 12 for the body and 5 items. That's 17 items to render digitally. Since the player models are stored locally, a model call would look like UseHumanModel5. Since there are few items to wear, there are fewer effects to draw. Glowing eyes for night scope etc.. Rendering in a 3D environment means that the relative positions of these 17 items must be continuously updated. Maybe a few more. The number of unique avatars and items in an FPS is also lower so it can usually all be uploaded into ram.EQ2 renders much more of the body. For example, both eyeballs, teeth and eyelids are drawn for greater expressiveness. Eyelids open and close. The mouth opens and closes so the jaw is also drawn separately. Since the character is customizable, a value substitution is not enough to draw an avatar. Instead every single customizable feature exists as a separate value that must be calculated and rendered. Avatars have facial expressions, /happy /sad, etc, that incur another set of values and calculations to make and render. Then on top of this, there are worn items where each item is also drawn separately and might have its own effects. Then there is clothing. Flowing clothing is actually a particle effect. So if you turn on the flowing cloth option, your skirt is rendered as a cloud of particles that the position of each particle must be calculated. I'm not sure if capes follow this rule or not since I read this before capes came out. Since there are so many more unique items in EQ2 than an FPS, all of the unique items are NOT in ram. When you walk around a corner suddenly see a bunch of avatars, frame rate plummets as the HD starts spinning to dig out all the information on the unique items they are wearing that weren't stored in ram.Environment:The environment is also rendered differently than an FPS. Ever noticed how sometimes you can click on an item and others you can't? How sometimes you can see an item or NPC and others you can't? In EQ2, your character file is an ever expanding behemoth that keeps track of every quest you've ever done, every quest place you've ever been, every customer support issue you ever submitted, etc.. In an FPS, you see two trees that look alike, it's because it's the same tree, rendered twice from a placeholder on the environment grid that is because the environment is essentially static. The EQ2 environment is essentially interactive. Those two trees or NPCs are two different items with the same model, but different stats. One is clickable if you have done or are doing a certain quest, or you are a certain race, class or whatever the other is not. In other words, in FPS, the engine sees placeholder and renders the item automatically. In EQ2, the engine sees the placeholder, then calculates how to interact with it based on your character history. Which is a much bigger file than an FPS, if an FPS even bothers to have a character file at all. Also, this character file is not stored locally where it can be hacked but on the server. Thus server sends out the zone carats, the client determines what is viewable based on your settings and line of sight, then sends an inquiry for all interactive objects back to the server. which replies true/false as appropriate. Thus network lag also affects rendering performance in a way that does not affect FPS games. Devs also stated once that the Character file, is not a file, but a conglomeration of character information in different locations. Presumably to improve performance by not having the server load ALL of your character information with every query, just the most pertinent subsection.In short. The number of calculations that EQ makes compared to and FPS is not even comparable, except to say that it is far, far higher. Your EQ2 framerate will never compare to your FPS frame rate, no matter what you do.</div>

Ishina

03-03-2008, 09:56 PM

One thing I always wondered, since I came from WoW to here:Why is group content (for example, Crushbone Keep) not instanced? I mean one instance per group. Not only do you have to compete with other groups for bosses (if the bosses are even there at all, I might add), but you also have to deal with other groups respawns... What's that all about?

Lonestryd

03-03-2008, 11:37 PM

Rijacki

03-03-2008, 11:37 PM

<cite>Ishina wrote:</cite><blockquote>One thing I always wondered, since I came from WoW to here:Why is group content (for example, Crushbone Keep) not instanced? I mean one instance per group. Not only do you have to compete with other groups for bosses (if the bosses are even there at all, I might add), but you also have to deal with other groups respawns... What's that all about?</blockquote>There are two types of dungeons (and raid mobs, too), instanced and contested. Contested means you might have to interact with others on your way to thus and so location and won't automatically have access to thus and so Named unlike instanced where things are always (or almost always) exactly the same and all available every time you enter. Contested generally means there is better loot because there is competition for the best loot of the location, while instanced is a guaranteed number of thus and so chances for the best loot of that location. Contested has no lock out timers because the chances of the best loot being available is varied and the competition aspect coupled with the spawn rate is the gating factor in how many of thus and so item enters the world. Instances have lockouts to prevent constant farming since their spawns are instantly up each time the instance is started anew.Persistent instances was newly added a short time before RoK, it allows a slower "progression" through the area (dungeon or raid zone). Persistence actually decreases the difficulty level of the dungeon (or raid zone) since you aren't constrained by a number of deaths, the time you have available, the classes you have at the beginning, etc.

dawy

03-03-2008, 11:42 PM

<cite>Rijacki wrote:</cite><blockquote><cite>Ishina wrote:</cite><blockquote>One thing I always wondered, since I came from WoW to here:Why is group content (for example, Crushbone Keep) not instanced? I mean one instance per group. Not only do you have to compete with other groups for bosses (if the bosses are even there at all, I might add), but you also have to deal with other groups respawns... What's that all about?</blockquote>There are two types of dungeons (and raid mobs, too), instanced and contested. Contested means you might have to interact with others on your way to thus and so location and won't automatically have access to thus and so Named unlike instanced where things are always (or almost always) exactly the same and all available every time you enter. Contested generally means there is better loot because there is competition for the best loot of the location, while instanced is a guaranteed number of thus and so chances for the best loot of that location. Contested has no lock out timers because the chances of the best loot being available is varied and the competition aspect coupled with the spawn rate is the gating factor in how many of thus and so item enters the world. Instances have lockouts to prevent constant farming since their spawns are instantly up each time the instance is started anew.Persistent instances was newly added a short time before RoK, it allows a slower "progression" through the area (dungeon or raid zone). Persistence actually decreases the difficulty level of the dungeon (or raid zone) since you aren't constrained by a number of deaths, the time you have available, the classes you have at the beginning, etc.</blockquote>Great post and as i understand it 100% correct <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />Instancing has its place but nothing turns me off more in an MMO is almost total instancing in EQ2 they have the balance about right between the 2

Guy De Alsace

03-04-2008, 10:02 AM

<ul><li>Why is there no "Hunter of Beavers" title <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></li><li>I dont like killing Rhinos and Elephants. Can they be replaced by slavering, evil looking monstrosities?</li><li>Not enough fauna that doesnt immediately try to kill you (birds, voles, wombats, etc...)</li><li>An option to resize your weapon. I'm getting increasingly worried about the high end templars sporting monstrous looking sex-aids for weapons (epic)</li></ul>

Seolta

03-04-2008, 06:41 PM

The whole FPS section is about 75% bunk.Reason #1. EQ2 is VERY heavily dependant on *raw* CPU speed but is not optimized(read: does not natively make use of) multi-core processors.Reason #2. EQ2 makes very little use of the advanced processing power of todays powerful video cards (it was designed around the notion that people would be running it on super fast single core CPU's w cheap low performance video cards)Summation: Games like Crysis Bioshock and the upcoming Far Cry2 feature incredibly detailed and interactive environments (to the extent that you can shoot a tree, break off a limb, and it will regrow over time etc). These games feature INCREDIBLY complex graphics, physics and situational awareness, but are also heavily optimized and "future proofed" in a way that EQ2 never was. The final analysis is that EQ2 pushes a good portion of video related processes through (a single core of) the CPU - along with all the normal game computations, instead of using the power of the video card(which can do the computations much much more efficiently).

Ishnar

03-05-2008, 11:47 AM

Actually, A more recent--and thus easier to find--Dev response to the Class issue in the OP.When will we get a new character class, or renew an old EQ1 class.SpyderBite: What is the chance that you'll re-introduce the long forgotten and well enjoyed Thief to the game? At least on the PvP servers.Even on the PvE servers I can see that it would be a class or profession or racial trait that would be enjoyed as it has in past MMO's. <ul><li>Lyndro: Add a new class? You get my canned response (With an additional caveat now): We have 24 classes. I donâ€™t see the need for another. However weâ€™ll consider adding a new class when all 24 classes are well balanced and have unique roles. . .And we can add a 25 th epic quest (That is the new caveat).</li><li>Lyndro: And they were rogues in EQ 1, not thieves... They are on the list right after Beastlords. <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></li><li>Froech: and balance the 25th class with the other 24....</li></ul><a href="http://eq2.allakhazam.com/wiki/Dev_Chat_Feb_28_2008" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2.allakhazam.com/wiki/Dev_...hat_Feb_28_2008</a>

Laralma

03-06-2008, 04:14 PM

Has there ever been an official developer response explaining why healers cannot see in-group pet health at all times? I know for a fact that this feature is available in WoW and I think maybe in EQ1 too, but it was so long ago that I really don't remember. I know that you can toggle between a person and his pet, but in a tough group situation, that prevents you from seeing who the main mob is attacking and it takes too much focus away from everything else you need to be paying attention to.