New Spell/CA Animations/Effects

[Phaso]

<p>I'm not entirely sold on the new particle effects appearance-wise yet, but they do seem to perform better than the old ones.  That being said, are the AA abilities most classes have going to receive updated effects as well in the near future?  They don't mesh well at all with the new ones.</p><p>And I have to say it... it seems like a lot of effort was invested in unique appearances for buff-type spells and less effort put into the damage spells most of us frequently cast and see.  I can't speak for everyone, but most of my buffs are never cast unless I change my AA spec at a mirror, meaning they won't really be seen much anyway.</p><p>Case in Point as a coercer: The animation you've done for Breeze (and I assume Epiphany)... I would rather see that (possibly a shorter or partial version) used on Mana Flow (instead of the giant blue ring that makes everyone hover in the air).</p>

[iceriven2]

<p>I have only checked out my wizard new spell graphics so far... and my feelings are mixed.  All my buffs except AA ones shar the same spell cast and graphic... which isnt too bad.  However nukes are a mixed bag.</p><p>Ice comet - Better then live BUT still disappointing.  For our biggest bang eq1 still kicks eq2 out of the water.  Theres is a HUGE comet you summon then it crashes at an angle to the mob.  The new one "looks" to be the same size as the old, just an minor explosion of white when it lands... and it falls from the sky.   I would recommend making the comet bigger and maybe add some animation of it forming as you cast it.</p><p>Ball of fire - much better, you can actually see it go across screen.</p><p>Pircing icicles/flames of velious - allso kinda nice, see the iclces stream across, although bigger ... slightly bigger may be better</p><p>Everything else is ok, but honestly didnt find them too exciting.  Round casting rune that appears on my wizard everytime he cast is super annoying.... pls take it out, dont mind on buffs but it appearing on everything.. bad idea.</p>

[iceriven2]

<p>one more thing i wanted to add is casting ring... i actually enjoy seeing them, they arent there when casting the new spells.  they being taken out(hope not)  or being replaced?</p>

[Xand]

<p>I just tried out the new partikle effects on a couple of toons.</p><p>I understand they are new on test and likely to change... but...</p><p>In comparison to the old ones they seem pale.</p><p>-the spell ring around the characters feet when they cast is missing</p><p>-the color sheme is not the same e.g. Shadowknights had mostly purple/blue/black as spelleffects, now it is green</p><p> when you play for 5 years  you want to see what you are used too, especialle when you liked it</p><p>-the new standart spell effekt has green swirly  lines around the shadowknight - that looks cartoony, not (bad choice of word maybe) realistic like all the old eq2 spell effects...</p><p>-expecially the new taunts remind me of WoW *shudders* (red lines around the targets head)  i always found the flames around the targets head a nice idea.</p><p>-the old spell effects were spectacular, organic.   an example: when a conjuror cast "root" you would see</p><p>chains binging the target to the floor, now you see some yellow circle under the mob... nothing else</p><p>All in all the effects seem to move from opulent  to "icons"...  which i don't like at all.</p><p>The most important question for me</p><p>-because after  taking away 200+ quests in Q/F, killing Qeynos and Freeport Newbe Isles</p><p>and making assasins good,  monks and templars evil *facepalm*  i really fear that this game won't  stay the gem it was, but rather become a  "everything goes, even if it destroys the integrity of the lore / story / feel of the original game"  </p><p>Which is WHY i play it and not something else - for the lore, for the looks, for the storylines (not the quest rewards - the story behind them,  "fendriks heart" as a great example) for the feeling to see a real world.</p><p>So the most important question is:</p><p>Will the new spell effects be <span style="color: #ff0000;">OPTIONAL</span>  or will we habe to life with cartoony icons instead of spell animations ?</p><p>It would be nice to have an answer for that from the devs <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Kain-UK]

<p>I actually didn't mind them too much...</p><p>However, when I was testing in Stonebrunt Highlands, I did find that my FPS dropped by 20 or so (from 60 to around 40) while I was fighting. I expect a little drop while casting spells and such, but this seems a little TOO severe. Normally I don't loose any more than 5 while fighting, and typically only loose closer to 20 in a raid situation.</p><p>Not sure if this means optimization is needed.</p>

[Armawk]

<p>They have to have done it for performance.. the old particle effects are in fact immensely advanced.. full 3d normal mapped and animated instanced objects combined with sophisticated volume lighting effects and complex transparencies. I never understood why people arent more impressed with them as they are one of the best things in the game. Only in the area of flames and such were they sometimes less than fantastic</p><p>The new ones are often simple procedurals and mapped textures. look at the wizard area fire spell... would have been bad 5 years ago, beyond belief now. An entire generation technically behind the old ones as far as I am concerned and I am frankly appalled to see the change. I can only assume the programmers who understood the old ones are long gone, or it was a lot of work to optimise them and noone wanted to do it.</p>

[Frogsley]

<p>The old particle effects never quite meshed in my opinion, so much could have been done with the particle engine, yet wasn't. I never quite understood the tying animations to spell effects thing, either.</p><p>I've only tested the new effects briefly on my Mystic but they're so... anaemic. It's a whole bundle of 'meh' so far. Nothing special or impressive. They may well perform 'better' than the old ones but if this is the best you can come up with, leave the old ones in until there's something <em>worth</em> replacing them with. Please.</p>

[Kamimura]

<p>I'm mixed on the new spell effects. I liked most of my troub's, but then was pretty underwhelmed with my templar, then my warden... and all the other characters I took a look at. They all feel very flat. :/</p>

[Garnaf]

<p>I'm torn on this.  They do PERFORM better, but they don't actually LOOK better.  I rather liked the subtle (well for SKs all ours were subtle) ones I had before rather than these which look like they came out of a bad anime.</p><p>I'd be interested in seeing what this would do to mobs where you have to watch for a certain casting animation / particle effect (Varsoon, or for me, soloing anything that charms.)</p>

[Barx]

<p>Part of the reason behind why they wanted to change particle effects is that they were overkill -- even little spells would have big effects, meaning the size of the effect was disproportionate to the strength of the spell.</p><p>With that said, toning most down is a good thing. Even grouping with particles turned up could be a crazy light-show in the old system, while raiding with them on was almost a guarantee that you'd see everything (except the mob underneath it all <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" />). Given the use of things that require you to see the mob (the named in Vigx2 being the easy example), having less flashy particles without having to turn them off entirely is a good thing.</p><p>To my knowledge it wasn't really a performance thing for the top reason. If you want better performance, you could already turn them down or off. With that said, it would be nice to see some of the long-recast, high-impact abilities retain their flashy effects. (FD: I have not tested particles on Test yet, so I cannot fully comment on how the new ones look).</p>

[Morghus]

<p>I am not amused by Apocalypse looking nearly identical to dissolve, and I have no idea [Removed for Content] distortion is meant to represent.</p>

[Styrkarr]

<p>Oh man, thank Cod they did these new particle effects.  They're awesome!  Much MUCH better than the old ones. </p><p>Primary reason why the old particle effects were (for the most part) completely frickin' ridiculous was the absurd amount of overkill.  I used to laugh back in the day when I'd play this game, where even at low levels, with all the pyrotechnics and HUGE explosions of light and gas and every other [Removed for Content] thing you'd think it was these world-changing immortals reshaping reality for miles or something.  Oh, nope...just some 15th level guys fightin' a goblin.  *rolls eyes*</p><p>Always hated that about EQ2.</p><p>Plus, most of the old animations just plain looked dumb (and kinda cheap).  Ohh, my buff spells that buff mitigation create a ghostly shield that drops over my head?  Really?</p><p>I mean, with the old effects you had to [Removed for Content]' turn 'em off just to see what the hell was goin' on in the middle of a fight!  They were ridiculous.  Always an embarassingly tacky part of EQ2 (imo).</p><p>I get where they're going with most of these effects (I think), from a design perspective, and I think it's pretty cool.  Most spells have glowing runic magical glyph type themes swirling around, little runes of power.  Very magical spell-like.  Very much how I personally would imagine that kinda thing.  I didn't try out enough classes yet, but I want to say that this design theme will be sorta class specific?  For example, my Warlock seemed to have a persistant theme of a spinning, sorta dark purple and greenish glowing disc of glyphs with several of his spell casts, at least the offensive types.  If like the Wizard and/or Conjurer for instance had a very notably different recurring theme to their spells, I think that's cool as hell.</p><p>I was also seeing a theme where spells of a certain element had some definite continuity in their effects?  Is that right?  Like ice spells definitely showed some very clear icey particle stuff flyin' around, and fire definitely had some nice fiery glow stuff goin' on, things like that.  That kinda stuff was <em>sorta</em> there in the original animations, but it just didn't seem like it was as recognizable with alotta spells.  I recall looking at spell descriptions on alotta spells and kinda goin "Really?  This does Cold damage?  Weird.  Doesn't look like it". </p><p>Oh, which brings me to a big gripe: sweet lord, even though it may not be possible with this engine, do <em>something</em> about the horrible way in which your graphics engine renders fire effects.  Och!  Cod, it's so weak.  A red and orange glow?  That's supposed to be fire?  Needs work.  At the very LEAST slap a very brief black smoke effect on it as well (which would help tremendously with making the connection in your head that it's fire you're seeing, and not just a pretty orange glow).</p><p>Great, great job on the new effects!  Love it.  *cough*but work on the fire stuff*cough*</p>

[Qinwena]

<p>I do really hope they make this optional for performance reasons. I am one who loves the current spell effects, I like that they feel epic.  To this day, I can't get enough of buffing my warden just for grins and giggles, or my coercer who it feels like an epic battle and I just find it super fun to watch the spells.</p><p>If they could make Shader3.0 optional, I really hope they can make this optional as well. :</p>

[iceriven2]

<p>Had some more time to try out more of my alts effects.  Wizard, Warlock, Warden, Illusionist, and Coercer.  (Only the warden heals look interesting to me) As one of the poster above said, they all look flat.  feels very 2D and bland.  </p><p>I understand something needed to be done with every spell being a "big bang" with particles but these new particles look dull no matter what you cast.  Wizards  ice comet, warlock rift and coercers shockwave are there big spells.  The particles were adjusted, but they are both poor attempts.  They litterally feel  half a**.  Warlock as stated above, one of there big spells Apocalypse shares a graphic with disolve, very lack luster.  All the spells that have a beam going to the mob the color is muted, effect is small, and its up very brief.  I would change that.  Use more virbrant color, keep it up for longer so you see it.  I hate to say it but WoW has beams and they make them work wonderfully if ya need a referance.</p><p>Small minor spells i like the idea if them be less graphically intrusive.  I dont mind them have small minor effects, but the big spells for each class however  need some adjusting.</p><p>So my over all feedback, less 2D feel, go through and readjust the big spells to be vibrant and exciting looking.  Make those spells like ice comet and shockwave more awe inspiring, ( in there case more particles and bigger is better) The magic round casting rune that appears in front/back of mage's so needs to go, its annoying to see that thing pop up.  casting rings, i enjoyed seeing them, they played there roll (know the class by the ring, good visual on pc's and npc's)  And finally If new particles  arent being adjusted,  I want the old ones back,  New ones are annoying enough where i'll turn them off if i have the option.</p>

[Thistleknot]

<p><cite>Moha@Innovation wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-the old spell effects were spectacular, organic.   an example: when a conjuror cast "root" you would see</p><p>chains binging the target to the floor, now you see some yellow circle under the mob... nothing else</p></blockquote><p>I haven't gotten a chance to get on test since the update but... They're taking away the root graphics?? My Warlocks roots were one of my favorite spell effects (the boney hand and the chains). Is it just the conjuror change or everyone?</p>

[Styrkarr]

<p><cite>Thistleknot wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Moha@Innovation wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-the old spell effects were spectacular, organic.   an example: when a conjuror cast "root" you would see</p><p>chains binging the target to the floor, now you see some yellow circle under the mob... nothing else</p></blockquote><p>I haven't gotten a chance to get on test since the update but... They're taking away the root graphics?? My Warlocks roots were one of my favorite spell effects (the boney hand and the chains). Is it just the conjuror change or everyone?</p></blockquote><p>Ya, I would agree that the new Root effects are a pretty big step back.</p><p>Best root/mez effects ever: City of Heroes.  There's your inspiration.  Probably way too much work for this engine, but man I always just flipped over CoH's cool as hell CC effects.  Hearing that rumble of earth and stone and them WHAM, your target is suddenly encased in solid rock, just a few body parts sticking out.  Pretty [Removed for Content] clever actually working a meaningful, semi-plausible (relatively speaking) change to the environment around your target to explain how he's been CC'd (ie encased in rock, or ice, etc).  The closest EQ2 got was those tangling roots.</p><ul><li>I would argue that only the Druids (maybe the Shaman's) should get that tangling roots effect (or a new version of it, personally I always thought there were way WAY too many squiggling little roots).  </li><li>Necro's could mebbe get the ghostly chains (fits more with their idiom).  </li><li>Wizards need the City of Heroes encased in ice thing.  Ya really don't have to go crazy on this one from a programming stanpoint.  A big block of semi-translucent bluish ice that automatically sizes to fit the size of the model, and just freeze the movement of the mob inside it while it's up.  Seems easy enough (relatively speaking).</li><li>Perfect world: Conjurers would get the same thing as Wizard's, but it'd be a big block of stone (but with the mobs head and arms sticking out, like CoH) but that'll never happen.  Too bad, really, as it's perfect for their class.</li><li>Warlocks should mebbe just be a persistant cloud of gas at the targets feet, along with the choking animation?  They're choking too much to move forward, know what I mean?  In a perfect world it would be a "dropping to your knees" choking animation, but I don't think they have a canned version of that (I'm trying to avoid stuff that requires new character animations).</li><li>Illusionists/Coercers need the prismatic effect over their head and maybe the mob does a "dizzy" character animation (is there one?  I forget) and/or the "sleepy" mood animation.  Make it seem like they're hypnotized by the colors.  Oh-oh; better yet do an effect of those black and white spiral spining thingers that are the classic cliched "You'll get hynotized if you stare at this spinning black and white spiral thing".</li><li>All melee class CC needs to be a simple knockdown.  Too bad there isn't a "hobbling/limping" character animation, as that'd be perfect for all melee snares (ie you kicked 'em or shot 'em in the leg or something).</li></ul>

[Morghus]

<p><cite>Thistleknot wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Moha@Innovation wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-the old spell effects were spectacular, organic.   an example: when a conjuror cast "root" you would see</p><p>chains binging the target to the floor, now you see some yellow circle under the mob... nothing else</p></blockquote><p>I haven't gotten a chance to get on test since the update but... They're taking away the root graphics?? My Warlocks roots were one of my favorite spell effects (the boney hand and the chains). Is it just the conjuror change or everyone?</p></blockquote><p>No, I saw the skeletal graphic still. The single target root didnt have it, but the group root specifically called 'skeletal grasp' had it. Personally, as far as new effects go I would prefer that warlocks had less noxious oriented effects. If I recall, warlocks by the game lore are just as much about void energy as they are noxious.</p>

[iceriven2]

<p><cite>Morghus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Thistleknot wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Moha@Innovation wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>-the old spell effects were spectacular, organic.   an example: when a conjuror cast "root" you would see</p><p>chains binging the target to the floor, now you see some yellow circle under the mob... nothing else</p></blockquote><p>I haven't gotten a chance to get on test since the update but... They're taking away the root graphics?? My Warlocks roots were one of my favorite spell effects (the boney hand and the chains). Is it just the conjuror change or everyone?</p></blockquote><p>No, I saw the skeletal graphic still. The single target root didnt have it, but the group root specifically called 'skeletal grasp' had it. Personally, as far as new effects go I would prefer that warlocks had less noxious oriented effects. If I recall, warlocks by the game lore are just as much about void energy as they are noxious.</p></blockquote><p>Most of the temp buffs and debuffs for a warlock are void based and they redid most to have some kind of black swirly effect, like a black hole, either on the mob or you.  Warlocks over all isnt too bad, just think Apoc/dissolve beam should look more like green magical energy instead of a romulan Distruptor.  Rift, right idea, the energy should be black since its a void based spell not a earth based and the rocks coming above should be bigger.</p>

[TheLopper]

<p>They're extremely reminiscent of Vanguard's minimalistic particle effects.</p><p>I like both styles equally well, one for it's <em>relative</em> subtlety, and the other for it's flagrant display of epic, bold magic.  I think the logically designed original particle effects fit in much better with EQ2's graphics, given the new ones seem so much more . . .dull, Vanguard forgive me, in comparison to the world graphics.  I enjoyed casting a root and seeing giant chains bind the mob to the ground- that was intensely AMAZING the first time I saw it, and the feeling of "realism" in the interpretation of spell animations was a nice change from the usual meaningless flash of color.</p><p>Granted, certain spells were rather lacking, but on the whole, one of the main features of EQ2 for me has always been it's awesome particle effects.  They currently have a very robust array of spell effects in place, and I've only marginally seen the new effects, but I truly hope they either rethink this, or make it optional.</p><p>My conjuror will not be pleased <span style="font-size: 11.6667px;"><img src="/eq2/images/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" />Being able to conjure some rocks out of thin air was always one of the "signature" appearances of this class, imo.  I haven't seen the spell yet, but from what I've seen, I assume this new system wont have any fully 3D boulders toppling out of nowhere like the old system does.</span></p>

[seamus]

<p>Please tell me these new graphics are optional. SK iconic spells are all gone. Sure they're more functional but they look horrible.</p><p>I expected them to clean up some of the animations which were over the top and maybe clean up some of the spam but instead they gutted them. Makes the game a lot less fun for me.</p>

[EposX]

<p>Leveled a few classes (Fury, Necro & Wizard) to level 6 or so to test out the new spells. I thought for the most part they were very bland and 2D looking. The only ones I really cared for was the Fury. I'm not to fond of the rune plate style in front of your hands when casting; it doesn't seem to fit for me.  I hope there are some tweaks that can be made to make them more visual appealing.</p>

[Kenrod]

<p>I copied over my Inquis to see what my new spell graphics will look like.</p><p>Wow. I can't really describe how uninspiring and just...bland and ugly I find them. Especially when casting reactives. The glowing afterwards looks like something off a PS1. Tried my warlock out too, and all the beams and stuff just don't fit with the game. Like they aren't using the same color pallette or something. It just seems...off.</p><p>The little symbols that display overhead for some buffs now? Warcraft. EXACTLY like Warcraft. I'm sure these changes are soley based on the F2P, so they can attract the kiddies to something that looks familiar to them. For the first time in years, I just don't know if I want to play this game anymore. The looks of spells in this game were what initally made me grab it at launch, just looked so epic and amazing. Don't dumb this down to a pure wow clone, because that's where we're going. It's obvious to me, and others will take notice eventually.</p><p>When this goes live, expect another backlash. A HUGE backlash from your paying customers that don't WANT a WoW clone. If I wanted to see horrible spell effects, i'd sub over there. I don't. If this is truly the direction that smokeblower and others want the game to go in, i'm not sure i'll have a place in Norrath much longer. The animations are better, i'll give you that. But this atrocity? Please make it optional. Please.</p>

[iceriven2]

<p>I actually find WoW graphics better than the new ones.  New Effects give a feel of 2d vanguard.</p><p>I dont think they will be well recieved on live at all.  Should have done a poll or discusion on the forums to see what players would have liked to seen.  Just thinking of all the man power and time to make these new effects and very few find them interested or good.</p>

[Buneary]

<p>can we please have the option to keep the "old" partical/spell effects when this goes live?</p>

[xpraetorianx]

<p>I will have to agree with those saying the effects atm are very anti climatic..  It is good that the change is happening but there really needs to be more substance.</p><p>The coercer effects for example are very anti climatic for the most part.   Hostage and Spell Curse are the exact smae spell animation and its like the toon is swinging a tennis racket with epilepsy hehe.  <img src="/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Shockwave is a step in the right direction for sure but I really dont get a feel for it being our biggest nuke.. no accompanying sound or big bang or anything really sounding like a shockwave.  Infact, what would be a cooler effect, if i may,  than just a big blue bubble expanding is instead if the bubble collapsed in on itself and then you saw a shockwave (you know like in the movies) ring blow outwards as it blew up with some nice particle effects of course (Think Deathstar explosion from the re-released movies!!!).  =)   Ive played a coercer for a long time now and I have all sorts of ideas floating in my head.   =)</p><p>All of the coercers single target attacks are the same for the most part.  I really dont get a feeling of being this strong adventurer that no one should mess with with the way the current particle effects are set at. </p><p>I like Chronosiphoning, the explosion of art is very cool, i think that has to be my fav...sadly  =)  But its all good Im sure its a work in progress.  =)</p>

[seamus]

<p>Roth, I have to ask, what was the motiviation for changing the spell graphics. Especially so dramatically. Was the team getting bombarded with requests to change the graphics?</p><p>For me the spell graphics were one of the best features this game had over others. This will not go well on live.</p>

[Morrias]

<p>I havent got a chance to play around much, still waiting for profit to update and a buffer on Test Copy but a couple things based on the toons I copied and leveled to around 10-15..</p><ul><li>Brigands... The buffs look cool (except the stances) esp Amazing Reflexes looks awesome but why are my CAs like that? I mean I can hardly see the mob under all that blackness and redness, except when I Dispatch it and it turns all kinds of pretty colors........ O.O</li><li>Scout / Brawler stance animations are.. horrible.. compared to what they were..</li><li>The SK effects arent good enough, even though they look decent, they're the opposite of what the spell effects were and overall just not as good..</li><li>The Wizard effects seem very dull and underwhelming..</li><li>The Warden heals are great, but everything else is very.. dull..</li><li>The root/snare effects need redone, I think everyone can agree on that..</li></ul><p>Overall everything just feels very.. dull.. these new effects are gonna need some love before they are better than the old at any rate, if they arent gonna get the love they need, can they atleast be optional?</p>

[Skywarrior]

<p>The spell particle effects were one of the most annoying aspects of EQ2.  Yes, they were/are spectacular and beautifully done.  But they were waaaaaaay over the top and there was no really effective way to turn them down (or off) without losing the visuals that were often absolutely necessary in successfully raiding.  And in a raid ... 24 characters unloading on the same target, even if it didn't cause stutter frame, just completely obliterated the sight of the target. </p><p>I like well-done particles but keeping them to some reasonable (yeah I know that is completely subjective) level of detail should be included in the design.  My favorite MMO for spell effects is still DAOC - distinctive, spectacular, yet not over-whelming.</p>

[seamus]

<p><cite>Skywarrior wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The spell particle effects were one of the most annoying aspects of EQ2.  Yes, they were/are spectacular and beautifully done.  But they were waaaaaaay over the top and there was no really effective way to turn them down (or off) without losing the visuals that were often absolutely necessary in successfully raiding.  And in a raid ... 24 characters unloading on the same target, even if it didn't cause stutter frame, just completely obliterated the sight of the target. </p><p>I like well-done particles but keeping them to some reasonable (yeah I know that is completely subjective) level of detail should be included in the design.  My favorite MMO for spell effects is still DAOC - distinctive, spectacular, yet not over-whelming.</p></blockquote><p>These new particle effects look worse then a game from the cga era. I agree with you DAOC did a great job balancing form and function. These new particle effects are very low quality and cartoonish.</p>

[Writer Cal]

<p>I love the new Storm of Arrows and Stream of Arrows effects for rangers.</p><p>The rest are just kinda eh.  Not really any worse than the old ranger effects, not really any better.  But I do love my AoEs now.</p>

[NViDiaFReaK]

<p>AS an Illusionist i LOVE throwing spitballs and snowcones, all day long at the disco party.  I hope w/e they do its an improvement over that!</p>

[789mkii]

<p><cite>seamus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Roth, I have to ask, what was the motiviation for changing the spell graphics. Especially so dramatically. Was the team getting bombarded with requests to change the graphics?</p><p>For me the spell graphics were one of the best features this game had over others. This will not go well on live.</p></blockquote><p>/agree.If devs today don't have development skills, devs should not touch this part. It is very well-made. But, if devs are willing to offer more Motivation to us, it needs whole new design and some cost.Like this.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq2zc4wUhJc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq2zc4wUhJc</a></p>

[789mkii]

<p>Additonally, if devs concern about raid play and PC performance than motivation and looks,What should be thought is Method of natural erasing of the former effect when overlap. Or the order of priority in a large of group.Motivation or PC performance, in either case, hard-core gamer will erase everything. Thinking that I am important recently is Peculiar mortion and particle effect of each creature.Almost creature use the same effect as player. Dragon's kinds are the same all motions. But we are always looking forward to watch new Peculiar attack from new creature. Best regards.</p>

[iceriven2]

<p><cite>789mkii wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>seamus wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Roth, I have to ask, what was the motiviation for changing the spell graphics. Especially so dramatically. Was the team getting bombarded with requests to change the graphics?</p><p>For me the spell graphics were one of the best features this game had over others. This will not go well on live.</p></blockquote><p>/agree.If devs today don't have development skills, devs should not touch this part. It is very well-made. But, if devs are willing to offer more Motivation to us, it needs whole new design and some cost.Like this.<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq2zc4wUhJc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq2zc4wUhJc</a></p></blockquote><p>ooo now those are nice... feels epic without all the particle effects</p>

[Armawk]

<p>I have just got through trying my conjuror on test. I am.. and I mean this.. lost for words. From the coolest effects in the game to almost literally nothing.</p>

[Thistleknot]

<p>I have to say, out of my three main characters I've moved to testcopy, two are pretty much completely horrible.</p><p>Paladin:This is by far the worst set of animations I've seen so far.</p><ul><li>My ward, which once looked like an actual ward, now looks like I curl up in the fetal position  then stand up</li><li>Consecrate now doesn't have ANY effect if there are no targets in range... the only indication it's even up is the "no targets in range" text.</li><li>Castigate no longer has cool blue beams of light, they made some weird yellow beam come down on you.</li><li>My group heal looks like a buff, not a heal!</li><li>My STR/Health buff looks like a heal!</li><li>Apparently someone thought it was a good idea to copy the WoW pally effect color scheme and make everything yellow. My two blue AoEs, Holy Circle and Ancient Wrath even have the same effects now. Castigate and Consecrate looked 100x better in the old version.</li><li>Stances... Really?! I just stand there and an icon appears above my head. Ugh.</li><li>About the only good effect is blessed weapon</li></ul><p>Warlock:</p><ul><li>The pentagram effect has GOT to change... it looks terrible... 2D effects?! Really?!</li><li>Acid and all spells that share the same animation  look terrible, the "Stream" needs to be made to look a little cooler if this is the effect you want to use. Right now it looks like a solid green mass with no real shape or design.</li><li>Rift... The rocks looked 1000x better, though I do like the actual rift in the ground cracking... needs to be bigger though, and some sort of cooler effect on the mobs.</li><li>Cataclysm. Old effect was cool gas clouds for all mobs in range... now this generic PS2 game bubble forms around me and the mobs glow a little. Terrible.</li><li>Noxious debuff... used to make postules grow on them, turn green and some coughed... now they just shine green and sparkly and do the cower animation.</li><li>Single target root... chains removed. Total lameness. Nothing was as epic as rooting your first giant mob and seeing the giant chains grab them. Now theres just a shiney circle under them for a second or two. At least the group root is still the skeletal hands.</li></ul><p>Fury:This was by far the best out of the three, but there were still issues I had:</p><ul><li>Starnova... and sort of weight to the spell is gone because comets don't smash down on their heads anymore. This was my favorite visual non-AA attack on my fury. The new one doesn't look completely horrible, but there's no weight to the visual effect.</li><li>My heals seem too close to looking like each other. It seems like they're all the same (even group heals), except for the actual end effect.</li></ul>

[Anastasie]

<p>Fury perspective:</p><p>Starnova and Thunderbolt now look very wimpy. These are our big hitting spells and the new animations are just weak.</p><p>I am very disappointed that you took the lion animation from Back Into the Fray and put the *#!@#$* tree growing out of our head on it instead - the same lame animation that is on Hibernation.</p><p>We have hated the tree animation associated with Hibernation since we received the ability and now you took away a much nicer animation (the Lion) from our Back into the Fray spell.</p><p>First of all, Hibernation shouldn't even be a tree - it should be an animal graphic (preferrably one that hibernates such as a bear)</p><p>Secondly, Please give us back our lion graphic associated w/ Back into the Fray - I HATE that stupid tree.  I mean our self-buff form is even a lion, so this change makes no sense.</p>

[jimibar]

<p>I really really really hope that they gonna propose an option to keep the old system.</p><p>I loved this huge particle system and removing that is just a huge step back.</p><p>Please, we need a dev answer regarding the option to keep or not the old system ?</p>

[Rael]

<p>Conjy particle effects:</p><p>I liked the elemental swirls for the pet summoning, but you forgot the Hydromancer. (Not like anybody uses it, but it's there!)</p><p>Earthquake and Shattered Earth both have the same graphic now, just centered in different places. I miss the rocks falling from the sky.</p><p>Winds of Vellious and Ice Storm have the same particle effect. Is there any way to get the mobs to freeze over again?</p><p>Communion... I can totally understand toning this way down, but I liked the [Removed for Content]!?s when I dropped that giant black portal on the group/raid.</p><p>Sacrifice... is an odd choice wiith the skull/crossbones, and there's a casting animation every time it ticks again, fortunatly moving and casting other spells doesn't prevent it from ticking this time.</p><p>Call of the Hero... Very understated... on the other hand my pet auto accepts it and it doesn't cost pearls anymore, so that's a step up.</p>

[Aurel]

<p>I sent in a /feedback but I wanted to voice my opinion.</p><p>The dev(s?) that worked on this are most likely very happy with what they've done, so let's all please try to keep that in mind and be respectful of their work.</p><p>In my mind, if this game were one of the more cutesy variety free-to-play MMOs (Wizard 101 comes to mind), they would be awesomefuly befitting.  In of themselves, they're nicely done and look cool.  I could see them working very well in a game of a different visual genre.  On the other hand, EQ2's graphics have slowly been shifting more toward that visual genre so perhaps, in due time, these graphics won't seem to stand out so terribly much.</p><p>However, to put it simply -- I don't think they fit in EQ2.  There are aspects of them that are nice.  For example, the necromancer's Dooming Darkness has a neat effect of darkness seeping into the enemy.  Neat!</p><p>Our Bloodcoil has been changed from green plague bubbles to bright green skulls.  That struck me as odd.  And when I say bright, oh boy do I mean bright!  Our main spells also invoke an equally bright green skull with crossbones to appear over our heads and cackle.  I think Lifetap is a spell that currently, pre-change, invokes a skull, but somehow it was more subtle.</p><p>Also, I am not fond of the rune that appears in front of me (or behind me when I somehow bugged it).  Something about it is off.  Nor do I care much for the summoning graphics, but these are not something I cast often, so they can be ignored.</p><p>In short:  the dev(s) did a good job.  Possibly a great job.  The problem is, I don't think this is the right game for this style.  It's very, very showy and almost gaudy (I say this with a nice tone that doesn't come across in text).  EQ2 has always had a different style than most other games and these graphics don't blend well with it, in my honest opinion.</p>

[Nevao]

<p>Played around with it a bit and my initial thought is a mixxed bag. For specific classes:</p><p><strong>General:</strong></p><ul><li>Sneaking: It seems counter intuitive that if I'm trying to stealth I'm first going to cover myself in a bright white light.</li></ul><p><strong>Brigand:</strong></p><ul><li>Dispatch/Murderous Rake: The animation for these two spells feel much more like something I would find on an Enchanter. They just don't feel appropriate for a Brigand. If you're trying to give a strong visual queue when dispatch has landed I can respect that (though I really wish it was a different effect) but if that's the case can we get a different animation for Murderous Rake?</li><li>Barroom Negotiations: This again feels really flat and we could probably do with out the giant circle, unless of course it's adjusting to the range of the AE? If so that would be a very nice touch.</li><li>Double Throw: This feels very off. The normal ranged animations are on an arch so the straight flying daggers jars a bit.</li></ul><p><strong>Ranger:</strong></p><ul><li>Ok, I have to say I love the new AoE animations.</li><li>Most of the rest felt ok, but rangers never really had that animations to begin with.</li></ul><p><strong>Warlock:</strong></p><ul><li>The aninmations for the warlock felt very, very 2D and cartoonish. The Symbol that was sometimes in front and sometimes in back looks cheap and distracting and a lot of the spells just don't feel like they have any weight behind them.</li><li>Rift: This spell is supposed to be tearing up the ground around you. It now feels like some ants are throwing rocks up.</li><li>Acid: This felt like the most significant attack available based solely off the animation. While it is nice, that does not say good things for Absolution, Apocalypse, Rift or Distortion.</li></ul>

[Anastasie]

<p>Could the OP retitle this thread - it's a bit misleading and I fear people aren't paying attention to this thread because of it.  This is really about the new spell/ca animations rather than just about particle effects.</p>

[Maergoth]

<p><span ><p>This is absolutely terrible. I hate to completely go the negative nancy route with this, but holy crap.</p><p>I was looking forward to the spell animation improvements people were talking about, come to find out they were more nerfs than anything else. Pretty much all my combat arts were just lightning around my weapon as I swung it, which made no sense.</p><p>I logged onto test copy, pulled a guard in Paineel and began whacking on it. Okay.. my weapons are still zapping things with righteous lightning, but ALL OF MY COOL LOOKING SPELLS LOOK HORRIBLE.</p><p>Castigation - The single most amazing looking spell in the game. The paladin assumes a "rock and roll he-man power stance" with his sword in the air. He's struck by a cleansing beam of blue light which extends endlessly into the sky. That's AWESOME. This delayed orange beam thing with the newly generic glowy ground around me is a sidestep, definitely not an improvement.</p><p>Doom Judgement - This ability looked so cool I spammed it in my free time. A gigantic purple and black cloud envelops my character as he swings his weapon in a circle, burning away any buffs on targets it hits. They are temporarily covered in black flames as I see my window spam the ridiculous amount of awesome it just removed from my enemy. It's not a tiny little panzy purple twister that appears for a split second on my character. I've seen better effects in Pokemon Red.</p><p>Consecration - I'll admit, the little pirouette every tick was a little quirky, but it still had animation every tick. Consecration has suddenly become my character initially siezing like an idiot for a second, complemented by the same sound every other AOE has been tagged with, and then nothing. If I'm pulsing an AOE, the animation should be reoccuring. Countless times do I leave this ability up by accident and run past non-aggro mobs which, had I not noticed ahead of time, would have massacred me and my party members.</p><p>Amends - This ability is class defining, according to most. It's also something that the recipient should be aware of, yet there is zero animation for this beyond some supersonic waves coming out of MY MOUTH. I don't understand this one at all, therefor I dislike it.</p><p>ALL of the new spell effects seem very.. abrupt. There's zero flow to any of them. A lot of them just come and go in under a second, no lingering energies, no time to "ooh" or "ahh", let alone reason to.</p><p>Other than that..</p><p>All of my group buffs and self buffs look practically identical. Some slighty variation in color and symbol, but animation beyond particle effects is absolutely indistinguishable. The stance animation changes are pretty cool. None of my AA abilities seem changed, which is fine. Faithful cry is still the most disappointing looking spell I've ever seen, next to Sprint. As powerful as it is, I can't believe nothing was done with this yet.</p><p><strong>A lot of my spells are simply LAZORS shooting out of my hand like the death star.</strong></p><p>I was really looking forward to a new set of spell effects, something really cool. Improvements on old styles to match the new shaders would have been fantastic, but instead we're fed poor quality particle effects which leaves me with one serious question:</p><p>How do we turn them back?</p></span></p>

[Phaso]

<p><cite>Annelise@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Could the OP retitle this thread - it's a bit misleading and I fear people aren't paying attention to this thread because of it.  This is really about the new spell/ca animations rather than just about particle effects.</p></blockquote><p>Good point, I changed the topic name... Thanks!</p>

[Phaso]

<p>Some more feedback on mine (Coercer): Buffs: Some of these are okay, but like most buffs, the only time I ever cast them are when I use my Mirror of Reflected Achievement, so they're borderline wasted assets in my opinion. Damage Spells: For one, they all look almost the same. For another, I don't care for the rainbow of color effect surrounding the mob -- I'm not an illusionist. Control Effects: These are by far the worst, I think. The root appearance of chains was very visible and easy to see from a distance... you could tell your mob was rooted. The new magical binding (or whatever it is) is only visible if the mob isn't very far away, which is counter-intuitive to the purpose of the spell. The mesmerize effects aren't terrible, but unfortunately after one cycle, they never re-appear that I've seen. This means there's no visual way to see that a mob has been mesmerized other than to look at its detrimental effects. Enchanters have always had a ridiculous fight to try and keep something mesmerized if that's what was called for... this can only make that worse, not better. Sound Effects (for All): Speaking as someone who used the sound effects when casting quickly as a cue that something landed or missed, I'm feeling a bit out of sorts casting now on test server. I cast damage spells and hear what I've come to know as the "mesmerize" sound effect. Is there a particular reason you opted to jumble these sound effects around? It's only added another layer of adaptation and confusion to this change. Animation: My character's weapon abruptly shifts into its "sheathed" state whenever I cast a spell, whether I have my auto-attack engaged or not -- that shouldn't be happening since it looks bizarre to say the least.</p><p>I'm not against new animations/effects for spells and combat arts, I think they could breathe a bit of new life into the game... but these with their symbols, out of place sound effects and underwhelming lack of creativity in some places just aren't doing it for me.</p>

[Darkonx]

<p><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><p>This is absolutely terrible. I hate to completely go the negative nancy route with this, but holy crap.</p><p>I was looking forward to the spell animation improvements people were talking about, come to find out they were more nerfs than anything else. Pretty much all my combat arts were just lightning around my weapon as I swung it, which made no sense.</p><p>I logged onto test copy, pulled a guard in Paineel and began whacking on it. Okay.. my weapons are still zapping things with righteous lightning, but ALL OF MY COOL LOOKING SPELLS LOOK HORRIBLE.</p><p>Castigation - The single most amazing looking spell in the game. The paladin assumes a "rock and roll he-man power stance" with his sword in the air. He's struck by a cleansing beam of blue light which extends endlessly into the sky. That's AWESOME. This delayed orange beam thing with the newly generic glowy ground around me is a sidestep, definitely not an improvement.</p><p>Doom Judgement - This ability looked so cool I spammed it in my free time. A gigantic purple and black cloud envelops my character as he swings his weapon in a circle, burning away any buffs on targets it hits. They are temporarily covered in black flames as I see my window spam the ridiculous amount of awesome it just removed from my enemy. It's not a tiny little panzy purple twister that appears for a split second on my character. I've seen better effects in Pokemon Red.</p><p>Consecration - I'll admit, the little pirouette every tick was a little quirky, but it still had animation every tick. Consecration has suddenly become my character initially siezing like an idiot for a second, complemented by the same sound every other AOE has been tagged with, and then nothing. If I'm pulsing an AOE, the animation should be reoccuring. Countless times do I leave this ability up by accident and run past non-aggro mobs which, had I not noticed ahead of time, would have massacred me and my party members.</p><p>Amends - This ability is class defining, according to most. It's also something that the recipient should be aware of, yet there is zero animation for this beyond some supersonic waves coming out of MY MOUTH. I don't understand this one at all, therefor I dislike it.</p><p>ALL of the new spell effects seem very.. abrupt. There's zero flow to any of them. A lot of them just come and go in under a second, no lingering energies, no time to "ooh" or "ahh", let alone reason to.</p><p>Other than that..</p><p>All of my group buffs and self buffs look practically identical. Some slighty variation in color and symbol, but animation beyond particle effects is absolutely indistinguishable. The stance animation changes are pretty cool. None of my AA abilities seem changed, which is fine. Faithful cry is still the most disappointing looking spell I've ever seen, next to Sprint. As powerful as it is, I can't believe nothing was done with this yet.</p><p><strong>A lot of my spells are simply LAZORS shooting out of my hand like the death star.</strong></p><p>I was really looking forward to a new set of spell effects, something really cool. Improvements on old styles to match the new shaders would have been fantastic, but instead we're fed poor quality particle effects which leaves me with one serious question:</p><p>How do we turn them back?</p></span></p></blockquote><p>One of the primary reasons I continued to play this game after reaching max level at 50, was because of how amazing a shadowknight looked launching purple glowing skulls. These abilitys have had the same appearances for years, it's really shame to drop them, and downgrade them in favor of cartoon graphics. Please, allow us a way to maintain our current graphics, instead of forcing us to use the new ones.</p>

[Morghus]

<p>This is copied from the other thread:</p><p><span><p>As I only play a Warlock, my feedback is limited to that class. All spells listed are master or grandmaster level 81 - 90.</p><p>Apocalypse is terrible, looks just like dissolve. Doesn't even come close to matching what one would think from hearing the spell's name.</p><p>Distortion, Terrible. Definitely doesnt come close to what I think of when looking at the name.</p><p>Dark Pyre, looks the same as acid now....lame.</p><p>Cataclysm, not bad but could be better.</p><p>Netherous Bind, decent but could use a larger effect, and should last until the spell fades.</p><p>Acid Storm, only issue is the final casting effect where one hand is raised doesnt match the previous hand motions, should just switch it so the end result has the two arms raised animation. Dumbfire though so minimal use.</p><p>Rift, good but could use a bigger effect when it hits enemies. Could also use black/pruple energy coming out of the cracks.</p><p>Dissolve, looks awful but then again no warlock ever casts it so w/e.</p><p>Concussive, decent but could use a different hand motion.</p><p>Void Contract, too neutral of a spell graphic, doesnt match the spell name.</p><p>Mana Trickle, passable.</p><p>Gift of Bertoxxulous, good.</p><p>Netherealm, good.</p><p>Curse of Darkness, good.</p><p>Absolution, pretty good.</p><p>Dark broodlings, decent, though broodlings could be changed to look different, more like the shadow beasts/necro slime pet but scaled down. Still a bad spell but that is another issue.</p><p>Netherlord, there was an animation to this? Also I think it would look better summoning a void ripper rather than a nightblood. Also a bad spell due to being a dumbfire.</p><p>Skeletal grasp, good but same issue as netherous bind, the graphic fades before the spell actually fades.</p><p>Dark siphoning, decent but animation is too bright looking though..should be more evil.</p><p>Encase, decent, but effect would be slightly larger and I miss the entire enemy getting frozen.</p><p>Flames of Velious, nice but effect could be larger.</p><p>Dark Nebula, again look at the name...I know it deals poison damage but still.</p><p>Curse of Void, not very good.</p><p>Aura of Void, looks like a green poison effect spell, granted it deals disease damage but look at the name.</p><p>Nullify, decent.</p><p>Overall, color scheme should be more black/purple rather than all green.</p><p>Also, all AA granted spells, along with master strikes still have old spell appearances.</p></span></p>

[Thundy]

<p>I used to love the tentacle-effects that my coercer's DM, hostage and spell curse had, spinning up and wrapping around the target.</p><p>Now my DM turns me into a rainbow and my nukes are 2D effects that are all exactly the same.</p><p>Give me a break!</p>

[Cythera]

<p>I am really liking most of the fury spell animation changes. The new leafy effects fit nicely with a druid.</p><p>Thank you for finally changing the hibernation graphic. The new tree looks so much better!</p><p>Changing the starnova graphic to the shining orange ball over the fury's head is rather anticlimactic. We go from a nice new swarm of bugs, to some ice, to thunder and lightning, and then get an orange ball that hovers overhead of the caster? Would much prefer a giant fireball plowing into the mobs.</p><p>When casting the group buffs the leaves appearing around the hands is a bit much. Looks like I'm wearing giant leafy oven mitts. The leafy graphic while casting Untamed Shroud is much nicer.</p><p>Can the bright, flashing light that occurs while casting heals be turned down some? It's distractingly bright and hides the nice, but subtle leaf blowing around the healed person. I wouldn't want to inadvertently cause someone a seizure by chain casting heals and flashing lights at them repeatedly.</p><p>This is more sound than animation, but for Thunderbolt, the clap of thunder is so much fainter than on our other storm spells. I was wondering if this could be turned up a bit.</p><p>All in all, I think the new changes look very nice. Good work.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Removed comments after next post made me look more stupid than I normally do.</p>

[Xelgad]

<p>The below information is directly from the Art Team.<strong>Spell FX Revamp</strong>We are updating, optimizing and standardizing every class spell visual in the game.  AA and Entertainment spells are next on the list and will be revealed in a later game update.The purpose for these changes are primarily to optimize and individualize as many spells as possible so there will be more uniqueness to each class.   Also we would like for more players to have the ability to keep the spell FX active during group and raid content and still be able to tell what is going on.We analysed the text and effects of each spell and made every effort to standardize the type of damage being done or the type of buff, heal, summon, etc.  Also since we picked a single name for the spells instead of getting a new name with every spell upgrade, we tried to give the spell a visual that not only matched the damage done, but also the name of the spell.  These are still a work in progress and we are open to constructive feedback before they go to the Live servers.  Currently the class based casting rings are deactivated and will be reactived after they are updated and optimized.When you start a new character you will have Apprentice spells.  This spell tier along with Journeyman will have a beginner level of FX in both size and quantity.  Later when you acquire Adept or Expert versions of the spells the level of FX will increase.  Finally when you acquire Master and Grandmaster versions of the spells you will experience the full FX force of that spell.  One of the unique features of spells in EverQuest II is the leveling of spell skills.  As you cast destructive spells your skill in Disruption increases.  Healing spells increase Ministration.  Buff and debuff spells increase Ordination and Crowd Control and Summon spells increase Subjugation.  Other than the chat window there was no real indication which spell increased which status.  Therefore we created the spell wheel.  Mages, Bards and Priests will see the spell wheel spin while casting and the corresponding Rune will show up when that skill is used.  Attacks will show in front of caster, buffs and debuffs behind the caster and Heals and summons at the casters feet.Finally we set up Icons for the various other buffs in the game to show players when they are getting an increase or decrease to Intelligence, Wisdom, Focus, etc.Again, we invite constructive feedback.  If you feel one of your favorite spells has been altered or removed please let us know so we can discuss whether or not a change is possible.  Also when giving feedback please list the class, spell name and tier to help us expedite any changes.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>That sounds more like it. Yeah all my spells were app 1 since its on test. I was shocked they were so weak. In SM3 by the way if that makes any diff.</p>

[Seda Xir]

<p>First off let me say.. I never post.. but.. you drew me out on this one.</p><p>I play mostly a Zerker, Coercer and Wizard and I do not like most of these changes.</p><p>A lot of people expressed how I will feel with the changes.. completely weak. So many class defining graphics are just.. gone and replaced by underwhelming effects. Also they just seem very lazy and completely unoriginal, almost all abilites do the same exact animation. Its boring to watch 6 of my coercer spells do the exact same effect. Why was the variation taken out? /confused</p><p>Biggest issues I have for each is:</p><p>Zerker,</p><p>-What's with that ugly 2D red face I do with 75% of my CA's?-Rampage looks lame now, before it looked like a calm before a storm.. feel less powerful watching the new one.-What's with the stream of rectangles that appear with my threat abilites? - Juggernaut. Biggest problem lies with this one.. The graphic was a white horned ghostly helmet that lasted the duration   of the buff, the new one is completely different with jumbled graphics it also does not last for the duration of the buff. It was one of the coolest looking graphics, and one of the class defining animations to bite the dust. =(</p><p>What I did like: That my kick is no longer a MONK kick.. THANK GOD!!! Now I can stomp things like I should have been doing for the 6 years I have been playing.</p><p>Wizard,</p><p>-For being a T1 DPS class.. I wouldnt know it by looking at my spell effects. I would understand if this was all done to tone down spells like Glacial Wind, even I can admit that one is a bit much.. I still love it though! I dont see why the ice shards could not have just been made smaller and spread out a little. Everything is too small. Playing a Wizard like this would be the equivalent to a roman candle about to go off and all you get is a puff of smoke.</p><p>What I did like: Furnace of Ro appears to remain unchanged. And thats about it. =(</p><p>Coercer,</p><p>-Hemorhage, Simple Minds, Brainshock, Asylum, Silence, and Shock Wave all use the same effect. Its very lazy and boring. -Destructive Mind, Spell Curse, and Hostage are HUGE let downs. These are by far some of the best spell graphics in the game and are what makes a Coercer look and feel powerful. =(</p><p>What I did like: Minds Eye no longer has a streak of blue energry shooting out from under my left [Removed for Content], and no more ring. This effect will not be missed by me.</p><p>Honestly I hope these changes will be an on/off setting. I think most of what I have seen is very ugly, lazy, boring and unoriginal.</p>

[Dreyco]

<p>There are so many of these threads it's hard to tell where to put the feedback!  Being there is a red name here, i'll copy/paste my feedback here!</p><ul><span ><li>For Inquisitors<ul><li>Some of the new sound effects, specifically on a few of their buffs and heals, are a bit too "loud" compared to the other effects.  Consider toning down the default volume of these just a hair.</li></ul></li><li>For Shadowknights and Necromancers<ul><li>A particular part of the l</li></ul></li><li><span ><p>In regards to invisibility...</p><p>The "vanishing" effect that comes while the effect animates is cool.  However, then the see-through image of your character just "pops" into view.  Perhaps consider making it so that the see-through model fades into view instead, so it transitions better.</p></span></li></span></ul>

[Seda Xir]

<p><cite>Xelgad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The below information is directly from the Art Team.<strong>Spell FX Revamp</strong>We are updating, optimizing and standardizing every class spell visual in the game.  AA and Entertainment spells are next on the list and will be revealed in a later game update.<strong>The purpose for these changes are primarily to optimize and individualize as many spells as possible so there will be more uniqueness to each class.   Also we would like for more players to have the ability to keep the spell FX active during group and raid content and still be able to tell what is going on.</strong>We analysed the text and effects of each spell and made every effort to standardize the type of damage being done or the type of buff, heal, summon, etc.  Also since we picked a single name for the spells instead of getting a new name with every spell upgrade, we tried to give the spell a visual that not only matched the damage done, but also the name of the spell.  These are still a work in progress and we are open to constructive feedback before they go to the Live servers.  Currently the class based casting rings are deactivated and will be reactived after they are updated and optimized.When you start a new character you will have Apprentice spells.  This spell tier along with Journeyman will have a beginner level of FX in both size and quantity.  Later when you acquire Adept or Expert versions of the spells the level of FX will increase.  Finally when you acquire Master and Grandmaster versions of the spells you will experience the full FX force of that spell.  One of the unique features of spells in EverQuest II is the leveling of spell skills.  As you cast destructive spells your skill in Disruption increases.  Healing spells increase Ministration.  Buff and debuff spells increase Ordination and Crowd Control and Summon spells increase Subjugation.  Other than the chat window there was no real indication which spell increased which status.  Therefore we created the spell wheel.  Mages, Bards and Priests will see the spell wheel spin while casting and the corresponding Rune will show up when that skill is used.  Attacks will show in front of caster, buffs and debuffs behind the caster and Heals and summons at the casters feet.Finally we set up Icons for the various other buffs in the game to show players when they are getting an increase or decrease to Intelligence, Wisdom, Focus, etc.Again, we invite constructive feedback.  If you feel one of your favorite spells has been altered or removed please let us know so we can discuss whether or not a change is possible.  Also when giving feedback please list the class, spell name and tier to help us expedite any changes.</p></blockquote><p>Uniqueness to each class? We already had that though.. now all thats happening is we are given new animations that all look the same within our class. I cannot speak for anyone else, but its going to get boring watching the same animation being cast 6 times in a row.. Also this statements does not really make sense because all the tank stance buffs I was able to check out on test look EXACTLY the same.. O.o</p><p>I understand though being able to keep the graphics on a higher setting, but please take an on/off toggle into consideration before changing years of work to these new changes. The effects are a large part of why people play the game.. or what makes them gravitate to certain classes.</p>

[jimibar]

<p><cite>Xelgad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The below information is directly from the Art Team.<strong>Spell FX Revamp</strong>We are updating, optimizing and standardizing every class spell visual in the game.  AA and Entertainment spells are next on the list and will be revealed in a later game update.The purpose for these changes are primarily to optimize and individualize as many spells as possible so there will be more uniqueness to each class.   Also we would like for more players to have the ability to keep the spell FX active during group and raid content and still be able to tell what is going on.We analysed the text and effects of each spell and made every effort to standardize the type of damage being done or the type of buff, heal, summon, etc.  Also since we picked a single name for the spells instead of getting a new name with every spell upgrade, we tried to give the spell a visual that not only matched the damage done, but also the name of the spell.  These are still a work in progress and we are open to constructive feedback before they go to the Live servers.  Currently the class based casting rings are deactivated and will be reactived after they are updated and optimized.When you start a new character you will have Apprentice spells.  This spell tier along with Journeyman will have a beginner level of FX in both size and quantity.  Later when you acquire Adept or Expert versions of the spells the level of FX will increase.  Finally when you acquire Master and Grandmaster versions of the spells you will experience the full FX force of that spell.  One of the unique features of spells in EverQuest II is the leveling of spell skills.  As you cast destructive spells your skill in Disruption increases.  Healing spells increase Ministration.  Buff and debuff spells increase Ordination and Crowd Control and Summon spells increase Subjugation.  Other than the chat window there was no real indication which spell increased which status.  Therefore we created the spell wheel.  Mages, Bards and Priests will see the spell wheel spin while casting and the corresponding Rune will show up when that skill is used.  Attacks will show in front of caster, buffs and debuffs behind the caster and Heals and summons at the casters feet.Finally we set up Icons for the various other buffs in the game to show players when they are getting an increase or decrease to Intelligence, Wisdom, Focus, etc.Again, we invite constructive feedback.  If you feel one of your favorite spells has been altered or removed please let us know so we can discuss whether or not a change is possible.  Also when giving feedback please list the class, spell name and tier to help us expedite any changes.</p></blockquote><p>Thanks for the feedback Xelgad.</p><p>I checked the wizard spells with a 89 wizard with all Adept III/Master spell.</p><p>These changes are fine for raiders due to performance increase but honestly most of the wizard spells are just bland.</p><p>The root effect is totally flat and invisible, Ice Comet is a joke compared to Ice comet in EQ1, it's one of our biggest spell and the effect is totally bland. Fusion looks like a spell in EQ1 10 years ago.</p><p>So yeah these changes are good for performance increase during raid, groups etc ...</p><p><strong>But can we have an option to KEEP the old graphic particles system ?</strong></p><p>This one is boring in my point of view, I levelled a wizard to get some huge explosions, fire balls, I loved to explode things like the old spells clearly showed ! Now my wizard is spreading small ray of light for 75% of my spells.</p><p>So please can we have the option to keep the old system like for SOGA models / regular models.</p>

[katalmach]

<p><cite>Xelgad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>These are still a work in progress and we are open to constructive feedback before they go to the Live servers.  Currently the class based casting rings are deactivated and will be reactived after they are updated and optimized.</p></blockquote><p>Here's some constructive feedback: make the new spell effects optional, like SOGA.</p><p>The way the spells look in game is very important to a lot of people. You may think it's silly, but my mystic is dressed to match the colour of her wards - that's how much I love them, and how much I care about how I look casting them. I haven't been able to log onto test with anything higher than a level 7 yet, but I can tell you right now that if the beautiful, subtle, serene shielding cone of aurora borealis that is the current ward graphic is gone, I will be incredibly upset. Same goes for Bolster's gorgeous stars and some of my buffs' cool animal effects.</p><p>As for my fury, heck, the only reason I even HAVE a fury is because I was jealous of some of the fury spell graphics. If Starnova and the heals change, I'm basically not even interested in playing that class anymore.</p><p>Sure, some current effects are maybe not the greatest, but some ARE awesome and do not deserve to be "standardized". Acid Storm, Castigate, Consecrate, Rift, Communion, Spirit of Bats, Bolster, mystic wards, Ancestral Sentry, Starnova, wizard ice spells.. etc. These are all amazing to me and I cannot see ever wanting to change what in my mind is already perfect.  From what I've seen so far of the new graphics, I am not impressed and it could very well be a game breaker for me.</p>

[Ashmen_Skimmerhorn]

<p>They changed all this so that when EQ2X draws all the kids in (F2P is always 90% kids) their cheap systems will be able to actually play with animations and spell effects on. They now want low end systems to be able to run all the bells and whistles this game has so that they can hook all the new people (kids) on EQ2X.</p><p>That is one of the reasons WoW is so popular, any cheap system can play on max settings. EQ2 didn't care before if only the most extremely built machine could play with spell effects on 8 per and animation slider all the way to the right but now that F2P is going to attract a lot of new players they do. I guess this is good but it means simpler particle effects and animations than we are used too which sucks.</p>

[Kordran]

<p>Okay, I just logged into Test Copy to check things out on my Paladin. Guys, seriously, what in the world were you thinking when you changed the animation for Demonstration of Faith, our ward?</p><p><img src="http://eq2images.station.sony.com/000/001/754/044.JPG" width="450" height="400" /></p><p><p><span style="color: #ff0000; font-size: medium;"><strong></strong></span></p>How does going into a defensive crouch with your hands covering your head show, in any form or fashion a "demonstration of faith"? Seriously. In fact, why should there be <strong>ANY</strong> combat art or spell that uses this particular animation? Explain this to me like I'm a 6 year old, because I'm just not understanding how anyone could think that this even remotely resembles an improvement.</p>

[Seda Xir]

<p>Arandar.. one of my Zerker's CA does the same thing.. I honestly do not think this position is suited to a Warrior at all.</p><p>Cowering like a child does not a Warrior make.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Seda Xir wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Arandar.. one of my Zerker's CA does the same thing.. I honestly do not think this position is suited to a Warrior at all.</p><p>Cowering like a child does not a Warrior make.</p></blockquote><p>Absolutely. And not just for the fighter classes. I don't think this "cowering" animation should be used in conjunction with any player's combat arts/spells. Even at level 1, you're supposed to be the brave hero, cunning scout, wizened mage, whatever. And when this update is all about new players, why in the world would they want to use an animation that makes that player look cowardly and weak? It doesn't make sense on a lot of different levels.</p><p>Either this was simply a mistake and someone associated the wrong animation type with a set of spells, or someone in the art department is seriously clueless about the whole fantasy genre and how players want to see themselves (and be seen by others) in the game.</p>

[Thistleknot]

<p><cite>Xelgad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>We are updating, optimizing and standardizing every class spell visual in the game.  AA and Entertainment spells are next on the list and will be revealed in a later game update.</p></blockquote><p>So we have drab effects to look forward to for our only cool spells left. I'd hate to see what the new FX system is going to do to cool spells like the fury's "Wrath of Nature".</p><blockquote>The purpose for these changes are primarily to optimize and individualize as many spells as possible so there will be more uniqueness to each class.   Also we would like for more players to have the ability to keep the spell FX active during group and raid content and still be able to tell what is going on.</blockquote><p>The spell effects already looked unique enough for each class (Starnova on a Fury for example). This update has done nothing but make the spells look drab and boring. Look at the Coercer line for example... every spell is exactly the same as each other. Particle effects rarely affect my performance in group situations, and for the amount it does happen, it didn't warrent a full redo of the effects. In raids, I'd safely bet it'll still cause lag and people will turn their settings down anyway.</p><blockquote>When you start a new character you will have Apprentice spells.  This spell tier along with Journeyman will have a beginner level of FX in both size and quantity.  Later when you acquire Adept or Expert versions of the spells the level of FX will increase.  Finally when you acquire Master and Grandmaster versions of the spells you will experience the full FX force of that spell. </blockquote><p> I'd rethink the idea of making spells look better graphically depending on having masters or not... honestly, if I were to play the game as a new person, and I saw half these spell effects on my character, they look like Playstation2 graphics and I'd probably stop playing. Also, the idea of having it based on level falls into the problem if I have a previous tier at master, I get a new version of a spell (Even at Expert), it looks like it's weaker than my old spell.</p><blockquote>We analysed the text and effects of each spell and made every effort to standardize the type of damage being done or the type of buff, heal, summon, etc.  Also since we picked a single name for the spells instead of getting a new name with every spell upgrade, we tried to give the spell a visual that not only matched the damage done, but also the name of the spell.</blockquote><p>This explains why a paladin group heal looks like a buff, and our str/health buff looks like a heal. /boggle  It also explains why my pally ward (which previously had shields floating around him clearly indicating a ward), has him crouching down into the fetal position.</p><blockquote>Attacks will show in front of caster, buffs and debuffs behind the caster and Heals and summons at the casters feet.</blockquote><p>This is fine... but surely we can get better effects than the 2D casting circles that are used now... some other effect that didn't look like a stencil pasted in frame.</p><blockquote>Again, we invite constructive feedback.  If you feel one of your favorite spells has been altered or removed please let us know so we can discuss whether or not a change is possible.  Also when giving feedback please list the class, spell name and tier to help us expedite any changes.</blockquote><p>Please refer to the posts before and after yours with specific class problems... I think they outline nicely what we're not liking in the new system.</p>

[Thundy]

<p><span style="font-family: verdana, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 1px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 1px;">"So now graphics are now controlled by whether we raid or not."</span></p><p>I don't mean to nitpick here, but I have to disagree with you. You can do easy T9 instances and get TONS of masters. I have seen 3-4 drop per instance (though that's on the high side but you do usually get 1-2). You can take those and sell them to buy your own, or trade them, combined with the research asst. you can master up pretty quickly. I am a regular raider and honestly I have maybe looted one master from a raid.</p>

[Eveningsong]

<p>Not to mention the researched masters.</p>

[Thistleknot]

<p><cite>Thundy wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I don't mean to nitpick here, but I have to disagree with you. You can do easy T9 instances and get TONS of masters. I have seen 3-4 drop per instance (though that's on the high side but you do usually get 1-2). You can take those and sell them to buy your own, or trade them, combined with the research asst. you can master up pretty quickly. I am a regular raider and honestly I have maybe looted one master from a raid.</p></blockquote><p>Yea, I dont know what I was thinking at that part... I corrected my original post to just refer to the reasoning for not having Masters show better FX that I stated at the end of the post instead of the raid thing. I think all the HTML editing to get multiple quotes got to my brain.  <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/69934afc394145350659cd7add244ca9.gif" border="0" /> We really need a "blockquote" button.</p>

[Carpediem]

<p>I love the new particles for Stream of Arrows, Triple Shot and Storm of Arrows!</p>

[Javosk]

<p>I like the new effects, and I feel they are all an improvement over the originals.</p><p>However, on my Inquisitor, who is my main, there are a few things I want to mention.</p><p>The biggest issue for me is the casting effect. It is a grainy yellow star-like pattern that looks like it is recycled from an old effect. Also, the rune that appears beneath the Inquisitor's feet when casting heals is mulled out with a blackish brown color that makes it look like a coffee stain. The rune used for casting Cure doesn't have that problem. I think replacing this effect with something matching the quality of the Mystic casting effect would make all the other Inquisitor spells look better by far.</p><p>And the lesser issue for me is the reactive heals, Penance and Malevolent Diatribe. They are the trademarks of the Inquisitor healing spells yet they don't appear very unique compared to the rest of the healing spells. A minor complaint compared to my primary concern, but something to be considered. </p><p>Great work otherwise and I look forward to seeing more!</p>

[Sedenten]

<p>Here's my general thoughts on the<span style="font-size: small;"> <span style="font-size: x-small;"><strong>Tier 9</strong> <strong>Defiler</strong></span> </span>spell animations on test (changes/critiques highlighted in <span style="color: #ff0000;">red</span>):</p><p><strong>Spiritual Circle</strong> was changed--it is now a big totem.  <span><span style="color: #000000;"><span style="color: #ff0000;">Can this be shrunken down a bit?  It's quite large compared to the old pyramid.  Maybe 50-75% of it's current size would be perfect I think.  </span><span style="color: #ff0000;">If it's not too lag inducing, including a ring that spans the range of the spell around the totem would be cool (like Ring of Fire, only not as intense).</span>  </span></span><span>I'm fine with the idea of a purple-shrouded totem over the old pyramid, though.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Defile</strong>'s animation was very bland.  The initial graphic isn't really anything special (the same as our normal nuke/dot spells from what I can tell) and there was no "reoccurring" graphic as the spell ticked damage around me.  It would be nice to have some passive "aura-like" animation going on while the spell ticks.  It's one of our class defining spells, so I was really hoping for something special as far as animations go.</span></p><p><strong>Absolute Corruption</strong> surprised me--the animation rocks.  the green skulls snaking their way in the air towards the target and surrounding it are an improvement over the acid rain like effect that it currently has on live.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Putrefy</strong>'s noxious splatter is cool, but way too cartoony (at least on my screen).  I like the idea of a splatter or splash effect, but the current change doesn't really do it.</span></p><p><strong>Imprecate</strong> is fine.  It's nothing fancy but the animation when the spell lands fits the spell itself.  <strong>Fulginous Sphere</strong> has the same animation from what I can tell.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Maelstrom</strong> is odd.  I see where you're going with the effect (beams of red shooting out to hit the target along with group members/pets), but this new animation seems kind of "loud" for the spell.  Maybe if the beams were changed to be more tendril/rope-like (think the beams from the Ghostbuster packs, if that makes sense)</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Nightmares</strong> (mythical clickie effect) isn't special at all.  I can't tell that anything was done.  If this could be given a unique effect, that would be great, though admittingly this is a mythical effect.</span> </p><p><strong>Soul Cannibalize</strong> was cool.  I like the blue "draining" effect from the target to me.</p><p><strong>Carrion Warding</strong> & <strong>Ancient Shroud</strong> are the same animation but I kind of like them.  Dark and forboding, without too much flashiness to muck up the screen. </p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Tendrils of Horror</strong> lost a lot with the new animation.  I remember it having snaking tendrils on live (I'd have to log over and check), but the new animation is very bland and doesn't represent the spell very well.</span></p><p><strong>All of the debuffs</strong> looked fine.  They each have something unique, which is nice and nothing is too busy to clutter up the screen much.</p><p><strong>Ancestral Avenger</strong> didn't look special at first, but the aftereffect is cool (bones coming up from the ground all around the target). </p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Ancient Terror</strong> and <strong>Terror Chant</strong> are lackluster and look to be the same exact animation.  They seemed to have lost a lot of the oomph of the original animations. </span></p><p><strong>Cure</strong> and <strong>Cure Curse</strong> what I would expect.  Cure Curse had an extra little animation to set it apart which I liked.<strong>  </strong></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"><strong>Deathward</strong> was very bland (like Ancestral Avenger but without the bone effect after).  I do think this one should be given something more unique.  The current animation gives it the impression of a death save (which it really isn't).  An animation that seems to draw from the energy of the target and then form into a protective barrier would seem more appropriate.  Right now the coloring is also too "divine" for a defiler.  Something darker would be better.  Bonus points if the animation grows more intense as it lands on a lower health target <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/8a80c6485cd926be453217d59a84a888.gif" border="0" /></span></p><p>The <strong>rest of the buffs</strong> (aside from Tendrils, mentioned above) were to be expected.   They weren't too flashy but then again I really don't want them to be.</p><p>Whatever I didn't mention I either forgot to check or had the same animations (or close to) what's on live.</p><p>The main one I'd like to see changed would be Defile.  It should be one of those abilities I use and turn heads with. </p>

[Irgun]

<p>Conscerate (Paladin) is hardly noticable its running - the "aura" effect is totally gone - annoying</p><p>Replacing the old animations? no!</p><p>Offering new animation as a replacement like SOGA-Models? yes!</p><p>It`d be a shame if nice old animations would just disappear - give us the choice - I mean: after all people can turn them off totally if they got a too much impact on their pc systems. (this choise was always available, right?)</p><p>While the BEST solution would be if you could set an animation for each spell individually to pick out the ones you like best (old one / new one) - giving you maybe the opportunity that some spell combinations look like a beat-em-up-game-combo.</p><p>You could also use these animated combos to connect them with a revamped heroic opportunity system - but I think I`m asking too much now.</p>

[Ballads]

<p>So more animations to render ? I guess it will be fine for all the soloers on Extended but for raiders the last thing we want is more forced redering of animations.</p>

[Irgun]

<p>Dont think a new button /disable animations on raid would be such a difficult task to implement</p>

[katalmach]

<p>Okay, I've been to test on my level 89 mystic now, and the wards HAVE GOT to change back to what they were. The new graphic is nowhere near as nice as the old cone - the soft, gentle shield has been replaced by extremely bright lights. The animation, which used to be this nice gentle hand movement/bend, has been replaced with my character pressing her hand into her head like she's got a migraine. The worst thing however, is the sound. Instead of the low sort of rumble we get on live, there's now a sharp ringing sound. You do realize that I'm casting these spells constantly, right? My wards are always either on or being casted, and I honestly don't think I can stand looking at the BRIGHT lights and listen to the SHARP sound that long.</p><p>Bolster has lost its beautiful stars (do you realize how desperately I wanted that spell since I first saw it? I grinded so hard to get to level 65 just so I could have the stars!) and like the wards, is now bright and accompanied with that sharp, grating sound effect.</p><p>Seriously, for a game design perspective, could the artists please log onto the game as a mystic, turn the volume up and chain cast the wards. It's a constant ringing rattle and bright, in-your-face blinking lights - it's not a pleasant experience (no wonder my mystic looks like she's got a migraine!). On live, chain casting wards is nice - the effects are subtle and beautiful and the sound is low and soft. Please change the mystic wards back! Or make the new effects optional like SOGA.. because I can't play with spell effects that give me physical discomfort.</p>

[Morghus]

<p><cite>Irgin@Valor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Dont think a new button /disable animations on raid would be such a difficult task to implement</p></blockquote><p>There actually is a command that does that already. The problem however is that it cannot be used on some fights as there are parts of the fight that require you to see some form of graphic. The tiles that blink and fall on Roehn Theer for example require particles to be on or the tiles all appear grey.</p>

[MrWolfie]

<p>I have to echo what's being said above.</p><p>There's characters who are wielding arcane energies, their hands bleeding the raw power of magic and then they go and stick their hands in their own face!</p><p>It looks daft.</p><p>I can also foresee the excessive casting sounds becoming annoying after a couple of hours of continuous spam casting. It might sound cool when you do it once, but really, developers need to sit for a good five/ten minutes pressing that spell button over and over, and then decide whether it's "cool" or not.</p><p>On the whole, I'm conflicted. I think the changes are probably going to result in less load on our machines, and they don't necessarily look BAD.</p><p>BUT, this game was supposed to be the more mature MMO. These changes are not mature. They are cartoony and lack realism. I got the impression of a console RPG when I was watching these new casting animations - and believe me, from my perspective, that's a negative.</p>

[Bosconi]

<p><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span><p>This is absolutely terrible. I hate to completely go the negative nancy route with this, but holy crap.</p><p>I was looking forward to the spell animation improvements people were talking about, come to find out they were more nerfs than anything else. Pretty much all my combat arts were just lightning around my weapon as I swung it, which made no sense.</p><p>I logged onto test copy, pulled a guard in Paineel and began whacking on it. Okay.. my weapons are still zapping things with righteous lightning, but ALL OF MY COOL LOOKING SPELLS LOOK HORRIBLE.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Castigation - The single most amazing looking spell in the game. The paladin assumes a "rock and roll he-man power stance" with his sword in the air. He's struck by a cleansing beam of blue light which extends endlessly into the sky. That's AWESOME. This delayed orange beam thing with the newly generic glowy ground around me is a sidestep, definitely not an improvement.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Doom Judgement - This ability looked so cool I spammed it in my free time. A gigantic purple and black cloud envelops my character as he swings his weapon in a circle, burning away any buffs on targets it hits. They are temporarily covered in black flames as I see my window spam the ridiculous amount of awesome it just removed from my enemy. It's not a tiny little panzy purple twister that appears for a split second on my character. I've seen better effects in Pokemon Red.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Consecration - I'll admit, the little pirouette every tick was a little quirky, but it still had animation every tick. Consecration has suddenly become my character initially siezing like an idiot for a second, complemented by the same sound every other AOE has been tagged with, and then nothing. If I'm pulsing an AOE, the animation should be reoccuring. Countless times do I leave this ability up by accident and run past non-aggro mobs which, had I not noticed ahead of time, would have massacred me and my party members.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Amends - This ability is class defining, according to most. It's also something that the recipient should be aware of, yet there is zero animation for this beyond some supersonic waves coming out of MY MOUTH. I don't understand this one at all, therefor I dislike it.</span></p><p>ALL of the new spell effects seem very.. abrupt. There's zero flow to any of them. A lot of them just come and go in under a second, no lingering energies, no time to "ooh" or "ahh", let alone reason to.</p><p>Other than that..</p><p>All of my group buffs and self buffs look practically identical. Some slighty variation in color and symbol, but animation beyond particle effects is absolutely indistinguishable. The stance animation changes are pretty cool. None of my AA abilities seem changed, which is fine. Faithful cry is still the most disappointing looking spell I've ever seen, next to Sprint. As powerful as it is, I can't believe nothing was done with this yet.</p><p><strong>A lot of my spells are simply LAZORS shooting out of my hand like the death star.</strong></p><p>I was really looking forward to a new set of spell effects, something really cool. Improvements on old styles to match the new shaders would have been fantastic, but instead we're fed poor quality particle effects which leaves me with one serious question:</p><p>How do we turn them back?</p></span></p></blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The issues highlighted in red need to be reverted. Visuals replacing the above are just...simply far worse.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only problem is, will our consumer feedback be heard and applied?</span></p>

[x82nd77]

<p>As someone who plays mages please stop this now.  These effects have been in place for the 6 years I have been playing this game and I have made upgrades to my computer over the years to handle these changes. I understand that you want to compete with other games that have a larger population and not the heavy system requrirements but the people who are already playing this game chose to play THIS game... not WoW.  If you follow through with actually DOWNGRADING our graphics and making things look dull and uninteresting like it is on test currently it will be a mistake on your part, at least give us an option to keep the nicer looking spells. Otherwise your new advertising slogan will be as follows...</p><p><span style="font-size: xx-large; color: #ff0000;">Everquest 2 - Thousands of quests removed since launch and a complete downgrade of our graphic spell system.</span></p>

[skidmark]

<p>Monk CA Arctic Talon has a kick animation, it is a punch though.</p>

[Powers]

<p><cite>Dreyco wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><ul><span><li><span><p>The "vanishing" effect that comes while the effect animates is cool.  However, then the see-through image of your character just "pops" into view.  Perhaps consider making it so that the see-through model fades into view instead, so it transitions better.</p></span></li></span></ul></blockquote><p>Not everyone sees the see-through model, though.  So what would look better for the caster and his groupmates will look worse for others who don't have see-invis.</p><p>Powers  &8^]</p>

[Kenrod]

<p><cite>Bosconi wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The issues highlighted in red need to be reverted. Visuals replacing the above are just...simply far worse.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only problem is, will our consumer feedback be heard and applied?</span></p></blockquote><p>Lol. No, they won't. They very rarely are.</p><p>I mean, the F2P thing was thrown down without us knowing it was in the works. I didn't know there was a animation/spell graphic update being worked on till it was in the patch notes.</p><p>The decisions have been made, and the paying customer isn't part of the process here. Never has been, never will be.</p>

[Sydares]

<p>I'm absolutely thrilled, myself. I always ran with spell effects off because they were just sparklebursts that obscured any and all action. Now I get to see stuff like this.</p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yYZZHsSgUTw&fmt=22" target="_blank">Stream of Arrows</a> (Full screen it or it's difficult to actually see. ;p)</p><p>Everyone's a critic, but I personally love what you're doing with the spells and CAs.</p>

[Morrias]

<p><cite>Durzin@Crushbone wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Bosconi wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The issues highlighted in red need to be reverted. Visuals replacing the above are just...simply far worse.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">The only problem is, will our consumer feedback be heard and applied?</span></p></blockquote><p>Lol. No, they won't. They very rarely are.</p><p>I mean, the F2P thing was thrown down without us knowing it was in the works. I didn't know there was a animation/spell graphic update being worked on till it was in the patch notes.</p><p>The decisions have been made, and the paying customer isn't part of the process here. Never has been, never will be.</p></blockquote><p>They announced the spell visual revamp awhile ago but I think most people just assumed it was scrapped after several GUs went by and we heard nothing more about it..</p><p>---</p><p>I believe I posted this before but im gonna post it again since I have had a chance to look at more of the spells, the revamp feels very.. flat and reused.. there are so many reused effects, some of which dont match the classes at all (shadowknight AEs).. I hate talking down on someones work that im sure they put a lot of effort into, but these look like they were made for a nintendo 64 game, they need to be less flat and have more detail.. (at any rate the SK AEs are just terrible and need looked at and redone imo..)</p><p>I personally though the old system was perfection, dont you guys think it would have been smart to ask the players if we even wanted this  revamp? I wouldnt have minded an option to..tone down the old ones so I could run them in raids but this is just too far..</p>

[Rykairn]

<p>I tested the new animations out on my 90 Inquisitor as well.  In general, I found them to be less impressive and inspiring compared to what we have now.  Too simplistic and lackluster compared to what exists now.  Impressive graphics, including spell effects, is one of the major reasons I'm drawn to a game.  Please don't dumb them down.  Or at least, as others have said, offer us the option to maintain old effects if these are definitely going to be put on live.</p>

[EndevorX]

<p><span style="color: #ff6600;">Consensus says that the new particle effects shouldn't be default, because they just aren't as good.</span></p><p><span style="color: #ff6600;">If these are going to be a forced "augmentation", they should be optional</span> <span style="color: #ff6600;">(put in an option under "Options > Display > Particle Effects"), to properly manage the liberties your players desire.</span></p>

[Dimgl]

<p>I logged onto test to do my own looking around. I have a computer that can handily run 4 copies of EQ2 at once on max settings, so it should go without saying that I am running with everything turned up to the max, and never lag from the old particles anyway. However, I have friends who do, and I am sympathetic to their concerns as well.</p><p>Here's a top to bottom animation review from a Paladin, with side by side comparisons of old spells, new spells, and upgrade progression of each spell, followed by my own personal rating and comments:</p><p>Faith StrikeWas: A swimple sword swing with a red aura growing out of your body.New: Same swing animation. Your armaments glow golden, then golden (spiderweb) rings flow down your body. Upgrades: Increases the number of golden rings.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Upgrade. This fits Paladins better and also represents the minor healing occuring.</span></p><p>Penitent KickWas: A simple kick animation with no particles/effects/anything.Now: You perform the same kick, but the enemy gets a small shockwave effect at the point of impact. Stunned enemies have little swirly stars.Upgrades: Imperceptible changes if any.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Upgrade. Minor but good.</span>Divine VengeanceWas: Lightning arced across your weapon and you chopped into the enemy triggering an explosion of energy alongside a satisfying thunderclap like noise.Now: Same swing animation. Your armaments glow golden. A yellow orb explodes on th enemy. Stunned swirly stars appear. No more lightning, no more thunderclap on hit, no more explosive particles. Upgrades: Adds the orb explosion. Low levels don't have this.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Major downgrade. This ability had a very satisfying BZZZ-CRUNCH sound to it alongside a very characteristic explosion that fit it being the second most powerful on command move paladins really had for spike damage. The umph is gone from this move.</span></p><p>Heroic DashWas: Blue sparkles surround your weapons and you shoulder charge the enemy.Now: Your weapon and shield glow gold. The enemy also glows when struck. The sound effect is more satisfying.Upgrades: The amount of glow only.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Big upgrade. The animation is much cleaner making it more visceral due to visibility. The sound effect is great.</span></p><p>Power CleaveWas: Your weapon was surrounded in a blue-white holy energy, then you slash the enemy.Now: Same animation. Your weapons turn golden, a red aura flies off the enemy.Upgrades: Aura flashiness improves.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Downgrade. This ability looks entirely boring and is the single blandest animation paladins have now. It was a unique animation, it may have been very minor as far as being simple particles, but it was unique.</span>Holy StrikeWas: Lightning arcs across your weapon and flows into the enemy, infusing them with holy energy. Fitting for a DoT.Now: Same swing animation. The lightning is gone, but the enemy flashes golden repeatedly after being hit. Like a strobe light.Upgrades: More flashiness. Literally. More flashes. Epilepsy sufferers beware.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Downgrade. Frankly the original animation wasn't very good, but it had the lightning graphic and sound effect, setting it aside. Now it is simply a stobe light attack. This move looks ESPECIALLY bad when used in a chain of attacks that causes flashing, we're talking serious rave type strobe effects.</span>Refusal of AtonementWas: You fired a ball of purple energy from your hand.Now: You shoot a golden laser beam from your hand. A very thin tiny one. The enemy is then covered in golden cowspots.Upgrades: Gotta have more cowspots?</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: As much as I hate to call it an upgrade it is better than the original, which was incredibly bland. This move needs some extra power added to it though. May I recommend adding a shockwave or otherwise some more impacting animation over cowspots? Cowspots HAVE to go. And please add a better sound effect on hit. Maybe you could take the golden orb from Judgement and reuse it here, but add an impact animation. A conjuror I saw on test had some neat looking earthquake effects. Try one of those to emphasize the fact that this is the Paladin's ultimate single target attack.</span>Judgement:Was: A buzzing of energy as you charged/cast the spell followed by a white-orange lightning bolt that kicked up dirt and distorted the air around it.Now: You perform the same casting animation. A golden ball shoots from your hands, like you threw a fastball. The enemy flashes gold of course.Upgrades: Without upgrades you simply point and the enemy blinks gold once.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Major downgrade. We just went from calling thunder from the heavens to throwing baseballs at the enemy. I can cede that the animation vastly overstated the power of the attack, but this is quite the nerf. What part of chucking a baseball is a judgement? The sound impact is also a significant downgrade (nothing) versus the previous awesome thunderclap.</span>Ancient WrathWas: A buzzing of energy as you charged/cast the spell followed by a white-orange lightning bolt that struck every nearby enemy and kicked up dirt and distorted the air around it. Visually and aurally stunning.Now: You throw your hands in the air, your armaments magically disappearing (fix this.) The enemies around you flash golden.Upgrades: Without being upgraded the enemies don't even flash. In other words there's no way to visually confirm a hit?</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Major downgrade. See the above argument but apply it on a massive scale. Putting a 2d flat golden spiderweb on the ground vs dropping 8 awesome thunderbolts on enemies is a -HUGE- visual downgrade. Please consider reinstating lightning type animations to at least SOME extent.</span></p><p>Holy CircleWas: You spun around and blue/green particles came out of your weapon.Now: You still spin around, but now you put golden spiderweb all over the ground. No big surprise, enemies flash golden on hit.Upgrades: Affects the size of your spiderweb.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Upgrade. This is moving closer to the idea of Holy Circle. What you need to do though is make a higher resolution circle, something that isn't "spider web." Maybe a solid golden circle with runes or scripture running around the edge and some kind of holy symbol in the middle. May I suggest wings, a lion, or a generic plain cross of some kind?</span>Doom JudgementWas: You spin around while whipping a black/purple cloud of particles around. One of the most unique attacks in EQ2.Now: Performs the basic 1h + spin animation with a tiny purple whirlwind.Upgrades: I can't tell. Size of the whirlwind?</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Major downgrade. The whirlwind is pathetic.</span>DecreeWas: Purple blobs shot out of your hands and stuck to targets. But it made a lightning noise/impact.Now: Tiny thin yellow laser followed by golden cowspots. Exact same as Refusal, except AoE, with no sound to go with it.Upgrades: No impact?</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. Only because purple orbs were too generic. I highly suggest that you make this ability into a multi target of the current Judgement golden orb, and have the golden orbs track like the old decree blobs. This would look much cooler. Add a sound effect to it that isn't so anemic.</span>CastigateWas: A blue laser from the sky followed by blue lasers striking all nearby enemies.Now: A giant golden beam from the sky blasts the paladin, and nearby enemies get a golden orb explosion, like Divine Vengeance.Upgrades: Without levels the orb explosion is miniscule.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Major downgrade. This move was one of our class defining visuals. The golden beam itself is fine looking. But the orb explosion affect is frankly pathetic. Put golden beams on the enemies too if you must.</span>ConsecrateWas: Explosions of blue fire wreathed enemies, causing them to wince and tremble in pain as their body was cleansed by holy fire. You would bend down and pull up the fire with every pulse. The sound of a roasting rush of fire accompanied every blast. It was very satisfying.Now: You have a rush of energy around you as well as a golden spiderweb, then immediately after that enemies around you get golden orb explosions for every tick. There is barely any sound effect at all involved. You no longer have an animation for every tick.Upgrades: Size of the orb explosion.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Major downgrade. This was the other class defining visual. Now don't get me wrong, this move flat lagged people out. It was WAY too flashy. My suggestion is simple. Go back up to Holy Circle. Make that Holy Circle graphic. Stick that holy circle graphic under the paladin the entire time consecration is ticking. That solves the visual cues issue. As for improving the attack animation, how about using one of the new earthquake shockwaves or something similar "from the ground" on every hit?</span>Wrath StanceWas: Red fire/aura and stance change animation.Now: A tiny golden beam pops out of your head, then two red crossed swords appear.Upgrades: Nothing?</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. Other people can now determine which stance you're in easier.</span></p><p>Knight's StanceWas: White/blue aura and stance change animation.Now: A tiny golden beam pops out of your head, then a blue shield appears.Upgrades: Nothing?</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Same as above.</span></p><p>Divine InspirationWas: Cast: Your weapons glow blue/white. Very soft humming noise.Proc: A red/white orb and then explosion hits the enemy. Makes a pop sound.Now:Cast: Your weapons glow VERY golden for a brief time, as do the group's. Makes a screeching sound.Proc: Orb explosion.Upgrades: Orb explosion progression.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Minor downgrade. The visuals are fine, but the sound effect is seriously bad. Both on cast and on hit. Keep the orb if need be. Bring back the pop. And get rid of the screech for the hum.</span>Blessed WeaponExact same as Divine Inspiration in every way.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: See above.</span>Blessing of the PaladinWas: A golden hand pours light particles all over you, causing you to glow gold very brightly.Now: A golden hand drops cowspot powder on you, making you glow in golden cowspots, then to top it off a red bull icon appears above your head! Golden cow power!Upgrades: Flashiness.</p><p><span style="color: #ff0000;">Comments: Minor downgrade. The particles were mostly just toned down, so of course it looks slightly worse. Really minor impact.</span>CrusadeWas: Red bulls surrounded the party/raid.Now: You perform the dual wield stance change animation, stabbing the ground and purple shockwaves shoot out. A purple icon appears above everyone's heads.Upgrades: Shockwave size.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. I recommend changing the casting animation back into a spell effect or into a more normal animation for Paladins. We can't dual wield so this looks flat out bizarre. The purple effect I imagine is for wisdom. Just change the casting animation.</span>Holy AidWas: Tiny particles of light would rise out of the ground and circle around the target.Now: Same cast animation. Golden light rises from the ground around the target and then golden rings wrap around them as they are encased in cowspots.Upgrades: Number of rings and flashiness.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. This is the change I am most happy with. Good job! This spell went from invisible to cool looking.</span>Demonstration of FaithWas: Blue shields surrounded the target then spun faster and faster until they disappeared inside the target. The target's skin turned a shiny blue color, to show they were covered.Now: You duck and cover your head like a wimp and then a golden aura/bubble/shield surrounds the target before shrinking down and solidifying. The bubble itself is too small, it ends up "inside" my body as a Barbarian, looks fine on Elves.Upgrades: Flashiness and number of pulses of the shield.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Very happy with this. Make the bubble bigger so it doesn't get swallowed by large bodies in platemail. We paladins are known to be like that.</span>Prayer of HealingWas: A lattice of holy energy spiked up around the paladin then a beam of light would descend onto all healed.Now: You perform the old stance change animation (stab the ground with a 1h sword for example) and a golden spiderweb bursts from beneath your feet. All allies healed by this move get golden rings moving down their body.Upgrades: Size of spiderweb, number of rings.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Fix the golden spiderweb into something better, ideally something different than the above magic circles suggested, so it is visually different, and change the rings into the golden light from the ground from holy aid and you have a HUGE winner on your hands. This would be my favorite spell if you could do that.</span>Devout SacramentWas: A skimpy lightbeam and a tiny golden aura.Now: Same casting animation. Same spell animations as Holy Aid.Upgrades: Same as Holy Aid.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Old animation was anemic. Even recycled from Holy Aid this is good.</span>Lay on HandsWas: A lattice of energy on the Paladin and a lightbeam on target.Now: Two golden hands gently land on the target's shoulders, and golden sparkles/aura/rings cover them.Upgrades: Flashiness of sparkles/aura/rings.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. One person I used this on said it was totally creepy, because it was touchy feely, but I feel like this looks fantastic.</span>Clarion:Was: A small flame on the enemy's head.Now: Same animation, but golden soundwaves shoot out of your mouth. Red attention lines shoot out of the enemy's head. No flame effect on enemies.Upgrades: Size/number of soundwaves.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. Allies can see taunts more cleanly.</span>Righteousness:Was: A small flame on the enemy's head.Now: Same animation, but golden soundwaves shoot out of your mouth. Red attention lines shoot out of the enemy's head. No flame effect on enemies. The enemies flash golden.Upgrades: Size/number of shockwaves. Flashing of enemies.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. Allies can see taunts more cleanly.</span></p><p>Sigil of Heroism:Was: A red aura surrounds all allies.Now: A massive cone of golden soundwaves shoots out of your head then a ton of red arrows shoot into your head from right above you.Upgrades: This spell only one version, I have master of it so I can't tell you what low levels look like.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. I was unable to test this ability on an ally. There might be more to this move.</span>Rescue:Was: Small flame on enemy's head.Now: Soundwaves and red attention lines.Upgrades: Can not tell you, I have it mastered. I would guess size/number of soundwaves as it is "plain taunt" animation.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Minor upgrade. Just to see taunts cleanly.</span>Holy GroundIs the exact same.Divine Favor:Was: Nothing.Now: Golden bubble, just like Demonstration of Faith.Upgrades: N/A</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Bubble is too small though. Up the size.</span>AmendsWas: Orange swords encircled the enemy before flying away.Now: You shoot soundwaves out of your mouth. The ally gets attention lines. Orange colored though.Upgrades: No idea.</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Comments: Major stupidity. This animation made no sense the first time, and now we yell at our friends. Please come up with something better.</span>InterceptWas: A dull blue shield pops up in front of your ally after you perform a stance change animation.Now: Same animation but the shield effect is significantly more awesome looking, a shield of lightbeams surrounds the target.</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. The shield effect is MUCH better looking.</span></p><p>Resolute FaithWas: A dull blue shield pops up in front of your ally after you perform a stance change animation.Now: A white shield animation plays above both of your head's along with a white aura.Upgrades: N/A</p><p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Easier to tell if this move is on the right target. Cleaner animation all around.</span>Pledge of Armament:Was: A blue shadow/shockwave on yourself and ally.Now: A blue shield appears above your head. Nothing on the target. A completely out of place slashing noise is made.Upgrades: Size of shield?</p><p><span style="color: #ff9900;">Comments: Stupidity. This animation makes no sense. It looks like I mitbuffed myself but I am mitbuffing an ally. The noise it makes is COMPLETE nonsense.</span>Elixir of ResuscitationNo one would die for me on test.</p><p>All in all I feel you guys are actually making some improvements. But please consider the following:</p><p>You chose to lock Paladins into a theme that is NOTHING but golden colors and glows/orbs/lights/spiderwebs Variety is almost nil. Please consider reinstating a little holy thunder and lightning and a little holy fire back into the moveset. Some color variation with our old blue would also help to bring in some variety. Particularly for a few melee attacks so as to limit the golden weapon + golden flash disco rave party that happens when you mash out CAs in a row. This is terrible looking right now on test because it is nothing but golden strobe effects. The sound effects were very anemic throughout, please add the pop back to the Paladin's procs, and maybe add some of the lightning and fire sounds to other places. But you guys did do a great job making some invisible spells more visible, particularly my heals, and I am very happy with those. I feel that my allies will be better able to appreciate my heals now. (Unless they get nerfed by 50%.)</p><p>The #1 thing you could do to help Paladins is create a high res flat texture to replace that current garbage spiderweb you're using for so many moves. You would be able to improve a LOT of moves solely by fixing this, and it is a rather cheap fix in terms of art development. Fixing this and the "cow spots" effect that some monsters get when wrapped in the golden texture would almost instantly smooth out most of the glaring visual issues. Once you fix the sound issues and tweak a few others you have a complete winner on your hands here. The sky isn't falling animation wise, despite what most people are saying. (Though the bug with the cowering and covering your head like the sky is falling when casting my ward is pretty bad too!)</p>

[Nakash]

<p>All the new spell animations that i have seen on test my SK at Level 90 all Master are subpar to the old ones.All displayed with max graphic settings.</p><p>The new effekct dont fit into the EQ2 i know cause they look like they where made of plastic in neon colours or taken from Mario Brothers or what ever.</p><p>They look bad.</p><p>I dont like to critic artwork cause people put work and love behind it. But i cant find that here compared to the animations in game before.</p><p>examples:</p><p>Unending AgonyBefore: A disease cloud that surounded you and your enemysAfter:A ugly Neon Green circle with some boubles pops up to your feet</p><p>Doom Jugment:Before: An black cloud tentacel with a violett demonic glow swirls around you in an aura of drakness.After: An pink and light blue Spiral that looks likes some paper streame pops around you (other spells re use this paper streamer spiral btw.)</p><p>Liftaps Spells (Siphon Strike,Devour Vitae)Before: Purple energies sparkle around your hands, youre surounded in a blood cloud and a stream of orange glowing life force emerges to a big Green skull who devours it.After: Your Hand lights up neon green an a small cartoonish looking Pirate skull symbol in neon green yawns over your head...</p><p>Mana Sieve:Before A large cool looking swirl of energy is drain from the enemy to the Shadowknight.After: Hands glow blue, a hardly visible bue line without animation conects enemy and Shadownknight.Deathmarch:Before: SK raises his hands and floats of the Ground while firy energys suround him.After : White circles soounds SK while some Space Invader looking incons in "pink!" starts from the SKs head. Aditional a neon blue symbol pops over your head.</p><p>I could go on and on. One looks more bad then the other.I hope they will never go in. An if i pray you can switch back to all old animations.If they force them it will be a nail in EQ2s coffins.</p><p>If someone wants to play a mmorpg with cartoonish looks there is already another.Realistic cool looking animations was one of the things that hilights EQ2 from other games.disappointed...</p>

[Dimgl]

<p>I forgot this in my previous post, but remember that the Paladin theme has been established as blue fire. Look at our mythical. Just as a note.</p>

[Josgar]

<p>Is it bad I just resubbed to see how much worse my spell FX got?</p><p>Why do I feel like I went from watching a bluray on an HD TV down to a betamax on a 12 inch black and white TV?</p>

[Titigabe]

<p>As the majority of the testers, I'm concerned and really disappointed about the flatness of the new spell FX !!!</p><p>I never thought Sony would have made a step backward in regard to what was supposed to be an upgrade!</p><p>Actually, it's a downgrade to the game, which is completely weird because they were supposed to be appealing in order to bring new players!</p><p>What you needed to do was just to improve the impact of some spells (such as Ice Comet who looks ridiculous in both old and new version) in order to strengthen and consolidate how the spells were rendering ...</p><p>Instead, you blown up the spell FX quality with ridiculous small and geometrical new spell fx, directly coming from game with the <strong>worst</strong> spell FX and<strong> the most uninspired animations ever</strong> such as Vanguard, WoW and Lotro (eventhough I found some WoW Mages spell FX to be better than the new one you created).</p><p>If your intention was to clean up the fights, than you should have been tweaking the options a bit to offer the players the possibility to reduce the visual effects, but not to change them totally! With all the tweaks you are doing to the engine to improve performance, mostly any not too old computer can handle the game! This change is all but an improvement to the game!</p><p>The only positive aspect of this change is that spell FX renders differently in Apprentice, Adept, Expert and Master ... This would have been better if you had kept the quality of former spell FX, just redoing some boring animations and just improving the look of some spells.</p><p>As one said, EQ2 graphics is the reason I spent over 1000$ in a computer in order to make this game run smoothly. Now that I can turn the graphics on Very High Quality with a smooth FPS, enjoying all the nice spell effects, you removed what made me loved this game.</p><p>As a result, I've already closed the second account I created ... And if this ever goes live, I'll turn my Station Access account into a normal one ... Until I stop playing this game that starts to scare me.</p><p>Will there be <strong>AT LEAST</strong> an option to keep the old one? Or a chance you take your time and restart the job from scratch, asking the community what were our expectations?</p><p>A very disappointed player that feels his favorite game is going right in a wall ...</p>

[Gargamel]

<p>In an attempt to steer this thread into a more constructive direction, IF you are posting as a caster class affected by this change, please include the top 3 spells you think need to be made awesome in your post.</p>

[Josgar]

<p><cite>Gargamel wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>In an attempt to steer this thread into a more constructive direction, IF you are posting as a caster class affected by this change, please include the top 3 spells you think need to be made awesome in your post.</p></blockquote><p>Waiting for my character to copy.</p><p>EDIT:</p><p>For most of my spells, I can't even really tell if I actually cast them or not. I used to depend on the flashyness to know when to cast my next spell :/</p><p>They completely removed the effect that caused the monster to be covered in ice that expanded off of them <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>The vampire bats don't fly to the target anymore.</p><p>The pet summoning effect looks like the one from EQ1.</p><p>The crystal shard makes more sense since it isn't the pretty sword graphic anymore, but this wasn't the answer either...</p>

[Turb]

<p>Since they added the new wizard and fury 'ring of fire' animations I've had to raid with all particle effects off - not for performance but due to a visual disability I have.</p><p>The problem with those ring of fire effects is you can't set 'show max spell results per character' to 0 to get rid of them, you have to turn particles off with /r_particle_priority -1.</p><p>At the moment I can enjoy particle effects in groups if I avoid wizards and furies, but if there's more of this coming it'll be very disappointing.</p><p>I don't think SOE cares about players with visual impairments, which is a shame.   They could easily create settings that made it easier for players like me to enjoy the game more, e.g. an option to show spell effects on NPCs not players, so you can see when a raid mob is casting, or options to disable certain classes of effects in general.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Copied my Troub over who is 90 with mostly masters/Adept 3. I'm afraid to say underwhelmed isnt enough. I rolled a Templar as well and Faith Strike as well as Divine Strike are hilariously low key. I mean Faith Strike was a tiny toy yellow hammer instead of the decent sized one coming at you.</p><p>My Ranger's stance abilities are just hilarious. My offensive stance is a brief appearance of a couple of tiny arrows over my head, defensive is a 0.0001 second appearance of a two tiny shields.</p><p>Seriously....these arent blowing my skirt up fellas. I've gone from being epic to epic fail...</p>

[Josgar]

<p>Earthen Avatar, Aery Hunter, and Fiery Magician:</p><p>The pets just appear, there's no kind of smooth enterance.</p><p>Its hard to tell on Winds of Velious, Crystal Blast, Fiery Annihilation, Aqueous Swarm Petrify, Quicksand, and Vampire bats that anything actually happened.</p><p>Planar Shift, no smooth transition.</p><p>Heal Servant: I can't tell if im healing my pet!</p><p>Ice Storm the ice growing on the monster was cool why was it removed? Earthquake makes sense. </p><p>Shattered Earth, does anything Happen? </p><p>Why do NPC's use all of our old spell effects? Why not give them new effects and let us keep our old ones?</p>

[Aetherscribe]

<p>The quality of the new wizard effects is absolute trash. Normally I expect to hear the 'could you do better' approach, but yes, I absolutely and positively could.</p><p>I was thrilled when I finally learned Glacial Wind -- THAT is one beautiful spell, icicles raining down. I'd cast it just to marvel at it. I loved the way Immolation would converge on enemies with a screen-shaking, fiery BOOM. Same with Solar Flare, except as applies to electricity.</p><p>The new spell effects convey NO sense of power, NO sense of impact. They are ugly and bland. I thought it was stupid that all the single target mage stuns used that animation of the hammer flying through the air and exploding on impact: Be careful what you wish for, I guess. Now Magma Chamber is a few pale cylinders with a motion tween. None of the heat spells look hot. There was absolutely no effort put into these effects.</p><p>I had my account set to roll over to an annual billing cycle, figuring I was loving the game and was in it for the long hall.</p><p>Unfortunately, I play mages in these games because I love obliterating enemies in flashy displays of power. These new effects are SO BAD that they /actually make the game less fun/. It's garbage, so I backed out of the annual sub and returned my next cycle to one month, where it will probably stay until I get sick of this trash and quit for a game with better mages.</p><p>My suggestion? Not the most efficient, but if I was in charge I would say start this revamp over -- do it right, or DON'T DO IT AT ALL.</p>

[Kordran]

<p><cite>Kemt@Venekor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Demonstration of FaithWas: Blue shields surrounded the target then spun faster and faster until they disappeared inside the target. The target's skin turned a shiny blue color, to show they were covered.Now: You duck and cover your head like a wimp and then a golden aura/bubble/shield surrounds the target before shrinking down and solidifying. The bubble itself is too small, it ends up "inside" my body as a Barbarian, looks fine on Elves.Upgrades: Flashiness and number of pulses of the shield.<p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Very happy with this. Make the bubble bigger so it doesn't get swallowed by large bodies in platemail. We paladins are known to be like that.</span></p></blockquote><p>So let me get this right. A ward with an animation that makes us crouch/cower and cover our heads with our hands, that's a "major upgrade" that you're very happy with?</p><p>I can pretty much assure you, if that's the case, you're in a minority (and may actually be the only Paladin who thinks this is an improvement).</p>

[Dimgl]

<p><cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kemt@Venekor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Demonstration of FaithWas: Blue shields surrounded the target then spun faster and faster until they disappeared inside the target. The target's skin turned a shiny blue color, to show they were covered.Now: You duck and cover your head like a wimp and then a golden aura/bubble/shield surrounds the target before shrinking down and solidifying. The bubble itself is too small, it ends up "inside" my body as a Barbarian, looks fine on Elves.Upgrades: Flashiness and number of pulses of the shield.<p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Very happy with this. Make the bubble bigger so it doesn't get swallowed by large bodies in platemail. We paladins are known to be like that.</span></p></blockquote><p>So let me get this right. A ward with an animation that makes us crouch/cower and cover our heads with our hands, that's a "major upgrade" that you're very happy with?</p><p>I can pretty much assure you, if that's the case, you're in a minority (and may actually be the only Paladin who thinks this is an improvement).</p></blockquote><p>The spell effect is a major improvement. The casting animation is already confirmed as a bug in this thread. It is obviously going to be fixed.</p>

[Myrien]

<p>I actually like the fact that animations and spell effects are going to get more complex with better-quality spells.  That's intuitive, I think.  I wouldn't expect a level 1 wizard's spell-casting to look the same as a level 90's.  Good change, in my book.  Hopefully, some of the bugs and some of the animations will get fixed (the crouching fighters have got to go!) but the concept of increasingly complex animations/spell effects is great!</p>

[Captain Apple Darkberry]

<p><cite>Josgar@The Bazaar wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Why do I feel like I went from watching a bluray on an HD TV down to a betamax on a 12 inch black and white TV?</p></blockquote><p>If this goes live...I am out...for good.</p><p>You don't take a >5 year old game with amazing graphics and do this to the people who stuck with you through those years.</p><p><span style="font-size: medium; color: #ff0000;">If you want to make a new game that will attract many new players who want something that EQ2 isn't, then make one...quit messing up this game.</span></p>

[Verrie77]

<p>Just tested my warlock on testcopy.Tbh I couldnt see much diffrence in the spell, and by that I ment they all pretty much looked the same.Dont get me wrong, I can see they arnt what they are on LIVE, but on Test they seems to share the same green. I couldnt see or tell if I was doing this spell or that spell.</p><p>Not impressed.All I remember now after loggin out was some green beams, and tiny cracks in the floor with rocks coming up.</p><p>This needs alot more work.</p>

[KniteShayd]

<p>My reaction/criticisms:</p><p>Druids have the best effects of the healers. I love the fact that there are some autumn leaves thrown in here and there, instead of verdant green ones all the time.</p><p>Underwhelmed with Starnova and Thunderbolt. I like the sun over our head, but miss the crashdown like everyone else.</p><p>Liking Tempest and Death Swarm better than the old effects. Death Swarm was just a gas cloud before, now it's bugs!</p><p>Favor of the Phoenix and Spirit Guide are great now, not too keen on the chalice for the Clerics though.</p><p>Karana's Hold effect is an awesome change, Snare should be more like the effect of Ranger's Thorny Trap after it gets set off.</p><p>I like the wispy spirits for the new Mystic feet effects.</p><p>The magic runes are being used waaaaay too much for all the classes that cast spells.</p><p>AA abilities need graphics changes too.</p><p>Ranger's Storm and Streams of Arrows is win!</p><p>Liking the effect for setting the Thorny Trap, now can we get rid of the ugly trap itself? Maybe use a maintained graphic of the old Fury casting ring instead?</p><p>Going stealth and invis looks alot cooler now.</p><p>Troub buffs look great. Especially now that the flute is being used.</p><p>Mezz is a bit underwhelming. Something over head to flag a mezzed mob would be nice.</p><p>Blink looks really nice.</p><p>The maintained psy effect for Charm was a cool idea!</p><p>Not liking the Warlock's grean beam thing for their primary nuke. It just doesn't fit.</p><p>Cataclysm looks cheezy.</p><p>I like the acid splash effect on the mobs for the Warlocks.</p><p>Cleric reactive triggers is underwhelming.</p><p>Necro's offensive spells are the worst effects so far.</p><p>Like Ice Spears for Wizzy, but Solar Flare looks kinda dumb.</p><p>The new floor graphic for clerics don't really fit the class aesthetically. A square with runes for Temp, and the star with runes for an Inqy?...</p><p>I'm liking the over head tribal runes for the Mystic.</p><p>Liking the hand effects when casting.</p><p>Those are what really stand out to me of the classes I have seen so far.</p>

[Hikinami]

<p>Gold for paladin spells is bad. Blue fire was the way to go and it should have been kept as the theme.</p><p>I'm not thrilled with the wizard spell animations now. have not tested my other classes.</p>

[Jaremai]

<p>I almost blinded myself with the Call to Guild Hall.</p>

[Lavenderboi]

<p>I play an Illusionist and personally, I really like the new particle effects!  I'm so happy they got rid of the "hula hoop" effect from the breeze spell!  One thing I'd like to suggest however, one of my main pet peeves is when players accidentally break mez, because they are unaware that a mob has been mezzed.  Since you guys are changing the particle effects anyway, I really, really think it would be a good idea to make a mezzed mob more "noticable".   Maybe you could even put the "hula hoop" effect around a mezzed mob, so there will be no question as to which mob is under the mez effect.  Just a suggestion, but I'm sure all Enchanters would apprecitate anything you guys could do to ensure that out mez is not constantly being broken, thank you!</p>

[seamus]

<p><cite>Arandar@Everfrost wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kemt@Venekor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>Demonstration of FaithWas: Blue shields surrounded the target then spun faster and faster until they disappeared inside the target. The target's skin turned a shiny blue color, to show they were covered.Now: You duck and cover your head like a wimp and then a golden aura/bubble/shield surrounds the target before shrinking down and solidifying. The bubble itself is too small, it ends up "inside" my body as a Barbarian, looks fine on Elves.Upgrades: Flashiness and number of pulses of the shield.<p><span style="color: #008080;">Comments: Major upgrade. Very happy with this. Make the bubble bigger so it doesn't get swallowed by large bodies in platemail. We paladins are known to be like that.</span></p></blockquote><p>So let me get this right. A ward with an animation that makes us crouch/cower and cover our heads with our hands, that's a "major upgrade" that you're very happy with?</p><p>I can pretty much assure you, if that's the case, you're in a minority (and may actually be the only Paladin who thinks this is an improvement).</p></blockquote><p>+1 Sounds like the animation used for SK blessings. Never liked that animation, too verbose and distracting, but the spell effects were great.</p><p>I originally thought they were trying to tone down the animations and effects to be more effective in raid situations. Wrong, they're changing for the sake of change.</p><p>There are a few effects I like, the Fury heal I've seen is great. Some of the changes for SK and Pal are ok, (not good or great), many are terrible and are actually more distracting then the originals.</p><p>The jolly roger that fires for many of the sk taps has got to go.</p><p>A white flash of light for stealth? /boggle</p><p>I'd prefer the Pal effects to be silver based not gold. The gold actually has a sickly yellow cast to it.</p><p>Between the SOGA default and these changes are they marketing this to the Asian market? I thought the Asian market got their own build?</p><p>For the classes I play this revamp is definitely a loser. I'll wait and see what gets released but I am really disappointed.</p>

[Barx]

<p>I took a look at the Warden effects this weekend. Most were ok, very toned down. I don't mind not having flashy effects as a healer, so that's ok with me.</p><p>The only thing I really don't like is that circle of 4 glowing runes that hovers around your feet while casting. I'd <strong>love</strong> an option to turn that part off -- it looked the same for pretty much every spell I saw it on, and it's just in the way.</p>

[Myrien]

<p>I copied my necromancer to Test Copy this weekend, and had a chance to take a look at the new spell effects.  I sent /feedback in-game, but figured that I'd post it here too.  I like the concept of spells becoming more complex as the player increases the quality, but honestly, if this is what spells look like Mastered at level 90, then .... what do level 10 spells look like?  I'm playing a level 90 necromancer, with spells at Expert or Master quality.  I'm rather disappointed by the changes to spell animations and effects.  I like the idea that as I improve my spells, they'll become more complex-looking.  Sadly, that isn't what happens.  Please, forgive me for being so candid, but sometimes you guys don't seem to respond to much else.As I said, the idea of spells gaining visual complexity is good.  In reality though, all of my offensive spells look the same!  Every single attack spell is just my character looking like he's holding a ball by his right hip, and then releasing it into the air.  How about some variety?  Bloodcoil, Soulrot, Lifetap, Pandemic, and Bloodcloud all look exactly the same now.  I don't want to see the same subpar animation over and over.  How could you all think that this is an improvement?  It's horrible.What did you do to Vampire Bats?  It looked so amazing before.  The necromancer pressed his fingertips to his temples and rose off of the ground, calling a flock of vampire bats.  Now?  It looks like he's conjuring something up from the dirt.  You didn't do a new animation, you simply replaced a great animation with a crappy one that already existed.Please, change necromancer animations back to the way that they were before.  Your idea is good, but honestly, your execution is horrible.  Just leave them alone, if this is the best that you can do.Why do my weapons magically return to being sheathed when I begin casting?  It's irritating and distracting.  Please, fix this mess before you send it to the live servers.  This isn't even close to being ready or acceptable.  You haven't added any new animations that I can see.  All you've done is replace existing animations with other existing animations (that suck) and replaced spell effects with WoW-ish spell effects.  It looks to me like you guys are trying to copy WoW, with the changes to the UI and now these spell effects.</p><p><em>edited to correct a spelling error</em></p>

[jimibar]

<p>Just tested my conjy 90 with expert/master. All nice looking spells are gone <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Like my wiz, all spells looks bland. Shattered earth is dead, no more rain of stones with big earthquake ...</p><p>I feel upset about this new spell system, every time I copy a new char, I'm very disappointed about the new effects.</p><p>We NEED an option to keep the old system.</p><p>Could one of the devs come to this post and stop to keep us inform about this issue ?</p><p>Thanks a lot in advance.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>While I do agree the old spell system was a case study for epileptic seizures in game. You need to create a few marquee spells lines for each class that feel SOLID and class defining. With casters defintely having more paticle effects then melee classes who should have better animations.  </p><p>Case in point the old warlock skeletal hand was good. The old ghostly chains for the casters root was good.</p><p>For instance lets choose a class say WIZARDHe should have a giant ICE comet spell.Where he summons a growing ball of ice above him that shoots across the screen at the target in a massive explosion. of ice.He should have a spell that summons a rain of icicles that fall onto the target with an efect of icicles sticking out of the target and the ground around the target.</p><p>Wizards should be able to Encase thier target in ICE.Or have their target feet encased in ice when they root them.</p>

[Maergoth]

<p>For classes like Illusionists and Coercers, it will be very hard to develop any kind of detailed particle effects because of how often they cast and how quickly the spell actually goes through.</p><p>My suggestion is simple.. every one of their 5 or so primary spells should place a symbol in front of their character for a decent duration; 5 seconds should work. It should be accompanied by a blast or a beam originating from that symbol.</p><p>Chaining all 5 of their spells together should result in 5 symbols in front of their character and a barrage of different colored particles coming from it.</p><p>While some flair is important for the really important spells, I think creativity outweighs it. The particles themselves don't need to be absolutely incredible as long as they are presented in a creative way. So far, I've seen more of that with the old particles.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>These effects will <strong>lose </strong>subscribers. I've always played DDO since release and considered its engine to be primitive compared to EQ2. However the majority of these new animations make DDO's decidedly low tech ones look absolutely awesome by comparison.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For classes like Illusionists and Coercers, it will be very hard to develop any kind of detailed particle effects because of how often they cast and how quickly the spell actually goes through.</p><p>My suggestion is simple.. every one of their 5 or so primary spells should place a symbol in front of their character for a decent duration; 5 seconds should work. It should be accompanied by a blast or a beam originating from that symbol.</p><p>Chaining all 5 of their spells together should result in 5 symbols in front of their character and a barrage of different colored particles coming from it.</p><p>While some flair is important for the really important spells, I think creativity outweighs it. The particles themselves don't need to be absolutely incredible as long as they are presented in a creative way. So far, I've seen more of that with the old particles.</p></blockquote><p>As i said before i dont think every spell needs to be this sollid form massivly detailed giant explosion, but marquee spells should be.</p><p>For illusionist I would say make thier mezz should be noticeable. Maybe a particle effect of a swirling vortex around thier heads with an animation of the character swaying side to side if humanoid.</p><p>Prismatic shower should look like fireworks firing from an illusionists hands.</p><p>I would love to see enchanters stun turn into a blue/white globe surrounding their target with runes circling the globe. Kinda like an enlarged version of a brawlers claymore fist weapon.</p><p>I would love to see more detailed animations like wards summoning a transparent wall in front of a character and as the ward loses amount it cracks and crumbles and falls apart.</p><p>I prefer the sollid particle effects and animations to the sparkle explosions many spells had prior. eq2 was always considered on eof the best MMOs for realistic graphics and these graphics took a step back. Not something you should see from an MMO 6 years old with a recent shader 3.0 update.</p>

[Gomora_Toad]

<p> checked out a handful of expert/master quality T8 & T9 spells today, some thoughts:</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Necromancer</span>Vampire Bats - I loved the old animation of the caster rising into air and the huge swarm of bats rushing the target. The new animation is very dull in comparison.</p><p>Mortality Mark - The spell effect looks fine, but it makes the caster cringe, which is a bit weird.</p><p>Lich - The new effect for this looks great, but you can only see it if the illusion is disabled. Otherwise the animation starts as you cast it, but stops as soon as the character model changes. (This is actually an issue for every buff that changes a character's model mid-cast, it just sucks to see it happen to such a cool looking one.)</p><p>Transfer Life - Looks a bit too "holy" and doesn't really fit the spell, in my opinion. I always loved EQOA's animation for its equivalent of this spell. A cloud of blood surrounds the target as it sort of pulses out of the necromancer. You can see it pretty well in this video, from 1:00 onward:<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G5GswJh2ho" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G5GswJh2ho</a>If a similar animation exists (or is created) in this game, it would be all sorts of awesome if that was used for Transfer Life instead, perhaps Necrotic Reconstruction as well.</p><p>And while I like the swirly green skull effect, I think the nukes/dots could use more variety. At least change the colors, Soulrot could be black and Lifetap could be red or something.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Dirge</span>Looks good, I really like the variety of musical animations for buffs and such.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Fury</span>Snare - Hard to see on the target.</p><p>Starnova - I agree with those who said the new graphic is underwhelming and weightless. I prefer the old version, where the fireballs smash down on the target.Hibernation - I'm happy that this no longer causes broccoli to sprout from my head. I do think a bear graphic would be better though, or at least a cat if you don't want to steal the Mystics' animal.</p><p>Everything else looks good. I love the new nukes (Starnova aside) and the new leaves. I like the additional animal-related graphics, like Ferocity of the Eel creating a little eel silhouette as it's cast, instead of everything being a lion or a wolf (although it is a bit strange that Peerless Predator has a housecat silhouette instead of a lion).</p>

[jimibar]

<p>Sadly we won't have the option to keep the old system.</p>

[Hyst]

<p>The new particles effects are completely craps, if we dont have a option to get the old one, i quit EQ2.</p><p>They look like WoW, if i want wow particles i go play to WoW.</p><p>Clones are always worst than original.</p>

[xpraetorianx]

<p><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For classes like Illusionists and Coercers, it will be very hard to develop any kind of detailed particle effects because of how often they cast and how quickly the spell actually goes through.</p><p>My suggestion is simple.. every one of their 5 or so primary spells should place a symbol in front of their character for a decent duration; 5 seconds should work. It should be accompanied by a blast or a beam originating from that symbol.</p><p>Chaining all 5 of their spells together should result in 5 symbols in front of their character and a barrage of different colored particles coming from it.</p><p>While some flair is important for the really important spells, I think creativity outweighs it. The particles themselves don't need to be absolutely incredible as long as they are presented in a creative way. So far, I've seen more of that with the old particles.</p></blockquote><p>Incorrect.   I have played a coercer now for 4 years and just because we cast fast doesnt mean the effect should be less than interesting.</p>

[Whilhelmina]

<p>I haven't read the topic and will do that later and perhaps edit my post if needed.</p><p>I copied my bunch of healers, checked all my Test chars and am underwhelmed by this change.</p><p>One of the main features I loved in EQ2 was the beautiful particles effects when I cast my spells (and I play mostly mages and healers, with necro and templar at the top). Sickly red for fears, sickly green for warlocks, beautifull particles effects at my feet, learing skulls, shields encompassing the player when a healer buff is cast, flickering animals around my defiler, hordes of fantasmal undeads rising from mother earth to do my biding... All that was the core of the game for me. It's the first thing I looked at when I started playing 5 years ago.</p><p>Where are all those features now? Gone. Ok, it will be great for those that raid and need performance, or on some laggy dungeons. Great. And what about the pleasure of playing?</p><p>The only nice spells that exists now are for rangers because we see the arrows now. And only on some spells like storms of arrows. All the rest is cartoonish runes all over the place. It's plain ridiculous. I Hate it with a passion. When I first tried my necro I wept for all the evil beauty that was lost. Now I feel stupid with those ridiculous black runes hovering around my butt like some sick cartoon peacock. I never adventured much but I know I'll never adventure anymore if I have too look at those "spell effects", if I keep playing which is becoming unsure.</p><p>All over those years, I loved my spell effects. Even when they where crashing my computer due to lag, just because they're beautiful. What are you doing there? Working on DCUO spells? All those flashy colours, solid black, red circles, solid white lightning are just pure cartoonish spells. Between that, the UI and SC everywhere, I have the impression I'm playing Free Realms... Time to switch back to EQ if you don't destroy it in the same way or move on.</p><p>If you really want to leave those <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">stupid cartoonish things</span>, sorry, "beautiful spell effects" on, PLEASE GIVE US A SWITCH LIKE WITH SOGA MODELS! So those that want performance or even like those can use them but don't ram this down our throat !</p><p>EDIT 1 : I see Xelgad reporting from the art team :</p><p><cite>Xelgad wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The purpose for these changes are primarily to optimize and individualize as many spells as possible so there will be more uniqueness to each class.   Also we would like for more players to have the ability to keep the spell FX active during group and raid content and still be able to tell what is going on.(...)</p><p>When you start a new character you will have Apprentice spells.  This spell tier along with Journeyman will have a beginner level of FX in both size and quantity.  Later when you acquire Adept or Expert versions of the spells the level of FX will increase.  Finally when you acquire Master and Grandmaster versions of the spells you will experience the full FX force of that spell.  (...)Mages, Bards and Priests will see the spell wheel spin while casting and the corresponding Rune will show up when that skill is used.  Attacks will show in front of caster, buffs and debuffs behind the caster and Heals and summons at the casters feet.</p></blockquote><p>On the first point: sorry, I don't feel individualized. I don't have anymore my effect ring under my feet when I cast which was the main individualizing effect I loved. I don't feel either that runes poping over my head in different colours for different classes are individualizing either.</p><p>On the second point: I'm glad my main necro is using expert, masters and grandmasters mainly as I feel I can see nearly no effects anymore! I never saw the difference between this high level necro and my test necro with full apprentices either, so it's either not working or the difference is so small there is nothing to see, and I think the second answer is the best. Sorry Art Team</p><p>Third point : so I see a hideous leering bright green skull in front of me when I attack or a peackock black tail around my butt when I debuff and black cartoon of nothingness at my feet if I heal or summon... It makes some sence but it's... hideous. Sorry Art Team.</p><p>EDIT 2: I see the spell sounds changed too. I'll suggest adding the sounds to the opt off button if you do one. I had my sound off when I checked and I'll have to check all my classes back to see what changed.</p><p>EDIT 3:</p><p><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>These effects will <strong>lose </strong>subscribers. I've always played DDO since release and considered its engine to be primitive compared to EQ2. However the majority of these new animations make DDO's decidedly low tech ones look absolutely awesome by comparison.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, what he said</p><p>Sorry Art Team</p>

[Aurel]

<p>I hopped onto test copy to show someone the green cackling skull and crossbones that was pretty much my only real dislike with necromancer spells only to find, as far as I can tell, it's gone.  Neither of us see it!</p><p>I don't know who made the change, but thank you.  To me, it's made all the difference with my spells.  I actually like them now that the skull isn't there irritating me.  (;</p><p>Thank you!</p>

[Whilhelmina]

<p>checking my necromancer...</p><p>I still see the ooooh-so-great skull everywhere.</p><p>Here's a screen from Soulrot IX (Master)</p><p><img src="http://guilhemette.ambroise.free.fr/eq2/images/eq2-necro-soulrot.jpg" width="425" height="357" /></p>

[Aurel]

<p>Weird.  I was on high quality and couldn't see it, neither could my friend...  Test or Test Copy?</p>

[Griffinhart]

<p>I really wish we could keep the same spell effect for a few of my current spells.</p><p>Flames of Velious currently has one of the coolest effects in game, the changes make it something else entirely.</p><p>Glacial Wind is also one of my favorites, but now it looks like an EQ1 rain spell effect.</p><p>Honestly, most of the effects seem to be taking a step backwards and a lot of them remind me of EQ1.  I always though the EQ2 effects were a lot more polished, and this just seems to be a step in the wrong direction.</p>

[Whilhelmina]

<p><cite>Aurelis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Weird.  I was on high quality and couldn't see it, neither could my friend...  Test or Test Copy?</p></blockquote><p>Test copy and High performance.</p><p>On Test, with a 29 necro, I don't see the skull on Lifetap (grandmaster), Soulrot V (apprentice) or bloodcoil III (apprentice) but I see it on Bloodcloud (Apprentice).</p>

[Titigabe]

<p>Thers are no reason for the spell effects to be so downgraded !</p><p>If it's for performance reasons during raids or for players with lower systems, then just turn them off! Or create a light version of the actual spell effect and adjuste other that need to be updated a bit such as ice comet or ball of fire for Wizards.</p><p>But don't change the whole thing!</p><p>You made a step backward and even if I'm concsious that what I'm about to say is not constructive at all, I swear I'll stop playing EQ2 and will never come back until visual effects are restored to what they were previously!</p><p>(same state of mind regarding the SC buton and the SC items now appearing in the item list of city merchants, but it's another subject).</p>

[Aurel]

<p>VERY bizarre.  Test copy, level 90, Soulrot IX master... and I see no skull and crossbones -- even went down to high performance.</p><p><img src="http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/3088/aurenoskull.png" /></p><p>(tried to time it to be the same spot as your screenshot... kinda sorta off!)</p>

[Whilhelmina]

On Test, with a 29 necro, I don't see the skull on Lifetap (grandmaster), Soulrot V (apprentice) or bloodcoil III (apprentice) but I see it on Bloodcloud (Apprentice). It's weird

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Can the team dealing with EQ2X PLEASE talk to the art department because everything you are trying to do with EQ2X will be ruined by these spell effects.</p>

[Travleer33]

<p>I dont realy care how great they look as long as I am able to turn them on in a raid and see SOMETHING.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p><cite>Travleer33 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont realy care how great they look as long as I am able to turn them on in a raid and see SOMETHING.</p></blockquote><p>If you have a microscope maybe.</p>

[Jaremai]

<p><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Can the team dealing with EQ2X PLEASE talk to the art department because everything you are trying to do with EQ2X will be ruined by these spell effects.</p></blockquote><p>Good.</p>

[Whilhelmina]

<p><cite>Aurelis wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>VERY bizarre.  Test copy, level 90, Soulrot IX master... and I see no skull and crossbones -- even went down to high performance.</p></blockquote><p>ok, so I worked a bit more on it and I see green skulls on :</p><p>- Soulrot IX Master</p><p>- Bloodcloud VI Apprentice</p><p>- Bloodcoil VIII Master</p><p>- Pandemic VII Expert</p><p>- Grasping Bones Master</p><p>- Lifetap V Master</p><p>- Siphoning of Souls III Apprentice (and Servile Soul)</p><p>- Mortality Mark V Expert</p><p>- Fear V Expert</p><p>- Chains of Torment VII Expert</p><p>- Dooming Darkness III Journeyman</p><p>- Undead horde II Expert</p><p>- Awakened grave IV Expert</p><p>- Blighted horde V Expert</p><p>EDIT : I just found out... It's Lich!</p><p>Without lich I see it only on Bloodcloud and Consumption when it ticks</p>

[Maergoth]

<p><cite>xpraetorianx wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>For classes like Illusionists and Coercers, it will be very hard to develop any kind of detailed particle effects because of how often they cast and how quickly the spell actually goes through.</p><p>My suggestion is simple.. every one of their 5 or so primary spells should place a symbol in front of their character for a decent duration; 5 seconds should work. It should be accompanied by a blast or a beam originating from that symbol.</p><p>Chaining all 5 of their spells together should result in 5 symbols in front of their character and a barrage of different colored particles coming from it.</p><p>While some flair is important for the really important spells, I think creativity outweighs it. The particles themselves don't need to be absolutely incredible as long as they are presented in a creative way. So far, I've seen more of that with the old particles.</p></blockquote><p>Incorrect.   I have played a coercer now for 4 years and just because we cast fast doesnt mean the effect should be less than interesting.</p></blockquote><p>I never said they should be, I said they pretty much HAVE to be. A complicated spell effect being repeated constantly won't only be laggy but it will be repetitive, boring and nonsensical. If you're going to be "magine gun" casting, it shouldn't look like you're starting fresh with every spell cast -- because your character actually isn't. You just basically keep them at hand instead of clearing your mind of them and spit out whichever ones you want to use at a whim. There's very little loading and unloading of them in your mind, they are practically always at your finger tips. A persistent particle effect from which each individual particle derives exemplifies that in a creative way, without being limited by short cast time animation restrictions.</p>

[Aurel]

<p><cite>Whilhelmina@Storms wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>EDIT : I just found out... It's Lich!</p><p>Without lich I see it only on Bloodcloud and Consumption when it ticks</p></blockquote><p>Lich... hahahaha!... I would have never figured that out!</p><p>Well, if the effect remains on lich (*giggle*  I feel silly not realizing that)...  I can just live without lich!</p>

[Kilnger]

<p>To preface this, I want to say that I did my testing at level 69 using a mix of apprentice and master abilities. Almost all of my nukes, save one, were universally apprentice, as I am an inquisitor class and rely entirely on CAs. I cast a spell multiple times, cooldown permitting, and generally did everything in my power to look at them. I also ran max quality/max particles.</p><p>Now, my interpretation of inquisitor has always been a militant, commanding leader/presence that motivates others through an extremely forceful personality. Among all the classes, the one phrase that pops into mind for inquisitor is, without a doubt, "The beatings will continue until morale improves." This is not to say that inquisitors are cruel and merciless, instead they are the epitome of bluntness and efficiency; a drill sergeant, if you will.</p><p>A recurring theme within the inquisitor, both in fiction and in this game is fire. A fun spell lights their group on fire, the original Heretic's Doom (which I miss) caused the entire group to light on fire, they light people on fire to purify them....they may not be wizard level pyromaniacs, but fire is a pretty versatile tool. Likewise, the color scheme that has persisted through their armor and spells has generally gravitated towards dark red and black, fierce colors.</p><p>Of all the animations, I've an overall problem with the whole feel. To me, after looking through all of them (save Inquisition), it genuinely operates like two seperate teams were given a series of abilities and told to change them, even in class. One team kept thematic and interesting, doing what they could to salvage what many (including myself) feel are fairly low res and flat abilities. Another team made liberal use of the copy paste function, spending only enough time to change the colors and move on.</p><p>To get down to specifics, I want to start off with what was done right. Purifying Flames and Heretic's Doom are my key winners of everything, creating a real sense of shock and awe that the inquisitor didn't have before. The former causes a small spark to ignite at the chest of the target which immediately causes them to engulf into flames. The flame remains on them for some time (5-10 seconds) and they cringe and writhe in agony. At Apprentice, this is still very thematic and fits the mood. Heretic's Doom, likewise, causes a sudden spark which explodes into a COLUMN of fiery death. The animation's over quick, but you get the distinct sensation of "BURN THE HERETICS!" that fits into the inquisitor's character overall. As an honorable mention, Fanaticism gets points for a particularly dazzling ending which features a pulsing light coming from the Inquisitor (and presumably the rest of the group). The beginning of the spell is rather boring, though.</p><p>This is more a sidenote then anything, but I do love Swill/Unending Breath with the bubble forming over the head. Kudos.</p><p>That being said, with the good comes mountains upon mountains of blah. In my opinion, Inquisitors have two main class defining spells plus reactives. These spells, Inquest and Verdict, are immediately recognizable when cast on you/the enemy and emphasize the inquisitor's zealousness. Inquest, on live, has one of my favorite animations (waving hands around in the circle, come down with both in the middle i.e. the totem animation) and, as a result, causes a giant pulsing tentacle to whip around the ally while they cringe in fear. When you strike someone (and this part could obviously have used some love), the definitive mez sound plays as you suction power from them (Pain of Confession). On test, the inquisitor's hands glow blue while they cast default spell animation (hands going up and down) and little wisps curl up and into the target. Pain of Confession is just a little glow with the traditional heal sound.</p><p>Wait, what? You're imbuing, frightening, your target with the very wrath of your god to go out and -force- the enemies to confess their faults....and it's accompanied by silver wisps?! Pain of Confession I can forgive, and I realize that this is just a buff (that is reapplied every death), but COME ON. Pusling tentacle that causes fear and confusion in your ally versus...swirling wisps and little circles around you. In my opinion, this ability should cause the target to catch on fire, ala Unholy Fear, and force the target's hands/weapons to glow blood red monentarily. This is a class defining and powerful buff that reduces a class whose chief weapon is surprise and fear to one that, well, I have no clue what it's supposed to be.</p><p>The other one, verdict, is more a giant dose of "[Removed for Content]?" The original verdict is a judge's gavel banging down onto the target, a rather massive gavel at that. On test, it's the exact same animation except miniaturized above the target's head. Now, something funny about Verdict, you never get an upgrade (Save for ranks) and once you cast it, you will only ever see it once since the battle is obviously over. At Expert, please explain why we get a little squeaky toy hammer and not a big one? Or really, why did this even get changed at all? Giant hammer strikes on the target, rendering its judgement. Death. Moving along.</p><p>My last -monumental- gripe about the class is reactives. Now, I've been playing since a little before DoF (I quit temporarily for RoK/TSO) and the thing that has always stuck with me is the heals. Just from watching a fight, you -know- when the class heals go off both in sound and appearance. While reactives were always the weirdest (in Soviet Russia, giant helmet and shield protect you!), their sound and appearance was absolutely unmistakeable. You felt protected, safe, and you knew they were there. When I first cast Penance and Malevolent Diatribe on test, I had to check if particles were turned on. Then I had to check the quality of the spell (one was adept and one was master).</p><p>Why do I dance when I cast Malevolent Diatribe? Why are the effects so muted? Why are we gold colored? What happens is that a (brief) spark of golden light shines above the character raining golden sparkles down, they then gain a temporary golden sheen (that is very bright at master) and nothing else happens. It's sneeze and miss it sound file as well. When did an inquisitor become a templar and rain golden sprinkles and sparkles on other people? What happened to the satisfying *BOOOOOOONNG!* of normal reactives with the swirling suction away after a cast? The new soundfile is particularly terrible when you chain cast them (which, as they are our reactives, we will be doing) because the wind chime...thing...sound accompanying the shimmer cuts off violently to resume.</p><p>This is inexcusable. What's worse is that there's a perfectly amazing and well done reactive alternative....as our emergency single reactive. It's extremely obvious that Team A, the one that was trying to keep thematic, designed Radiance while Team B designed Penance, Malevolent Diatribe, and Evidence of Faith. As far as I can tell, they all have fundamentally the same exact animation. Radiance's glow should be the BASE appearance for reactives (it causes a golden glow to surge out of the target's chest, and it remains for about five seconds) and make Penance, Malevolent Diatribe and Evidence of Faith (and a new Radiance) from there. The visual recognition is -extremely- important and Radiance more then proves that it can be done WITHOUT being imposing. Templars should be Gold and Silver Glows for Group/Single and Inquisitors should be Black/Red. I feel exceptionally bad for anyone wearing any manner of silver or gold armor, since you'll never otherwise be able to tell when a normal reactive is running (I should point out that Radiance has an alternative of the live reactive sound, and works just fine for what it does).</p><p>One side note, Fervent Faith was fun how it was. CC Breaker showed the Inquisitor catching fire/glowing red and breaking free. If you must redo this, just give is Crusader CC breaker animation with us catching fire and call it a day. Higher rank spells = more fire. Repetitive Buff Animation_02 is not acceptable for something like this.</p><p>The buffs, as have said by virtually everyone else, are extremely repetitive, boring, and dull. See live except worse looking in terms of quality. Divine Awakening has to be one of the most hilarious spells I've ever cast, since it feels like something Clippy would do. To give a brief description, the inquisitor's hands glow red, they perform Tradiitional Conjurer Summon_00 spell cast, and then an itty bitty chalice with the sound of "Ohhh!" pops over the head. Blink and miss it hilarity. Ding! You has Essence! At the very least, add the hand from healing spells in game over the chalice or make it tip over and pour liquid, -something-</p><p>Nuke and debuff wise, it's fundamentally impossible to make heads or tails of what's going on. At apprentice to adept, they're universally "blink or miss it" abilities while at master, it's still somewhat hard to tell. Vengeance, Dogma, and Repentance are (surprisingly) varied, though with how often Vengeance triggers you'd be shocked to hear the machine gun level sounds. Invocation is near impossible to see what it looks like on any enemy bigger then a human, same with Litany and Torment (I tested them on an elephant and didn't even notice the spells going off). Soothe is pretty awesome and fitting the spell as it should be. I couldn't even tell you what Smite Corruption's animation was since it lasted no more then a second with a shimmer. Same with Deny at all ranks and apprentice level Condemn (start the latter off with the Master effect then work from there). Forced Obedience was passable.</p><p>The lsat thing I want to talk about is Incarcerate and Tormenting Conversion. I gotta admit, the former felt very thematic and interesitng (giant golden bars shoot up around the target, jailing them in), even though I miss the awesome giant skeletal hands (which just flat out look better, but not thematic). Make the bars a more silver/steel color and, for the love of everything, make the effect persist until it wears off! I realize the hands didn't do that, but this is a -very- visual effect that -should- maintain for the short duration for the root. Tormenting Conversion made me chuckle as the enemy ran off with skulls pulsing around their head. Perhaps make 'em catch fire or have a fiery crown or something during the mez, just to make it more obvious.</p><p>Beyond that, I really need to echo what everyone else has been saying: These things -need- to be optional. I can fully appreciate and understand the lower res/better performance these things could bring, but some of these really break the flow and feel of the classes we've come to know and love. Muscle memory, accompanied by visual and audio  recognition is hardcoded into many, many players and it's simply a matter of reacting to sounds and sight we know and are comfortable with. It's plainly obvious that all the mobs retain these animations, so there's zero reason that we cannot choose to retain them ourselves. If we're forced to accept this, it's going to be a painful and awkward few weeks, even months, for us to relearn and gain new muscle memories and reactions to things that, quite frankly, are just extremely repetitive. I can't even begin to feel bad for magi if my nukes are so terrible, save the two. Despite even liking some of the abilities, I'd fully suggest an all or nothing switch, you choose what spells/animations you see for -everyone- and call it a day.</p><p>Thanks for reading.</p><p>Edit Protip: Do not post while exhausted. Typos galore.</p>

[Gilli]

<p><cite>Euri@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Mezz is a bit underwhelming. Something over head to flag a mezzed mob would be nice.</p></blockquote><p>+1.  I'd love to be able to say "see that rainbow swirly?"  It means the mob is mezzed!" and then explain the benefits to tthose who have never played with an enchanter who actually mezzes before (or have a clue how/why/when it can help).  And while you're tweaking mezzes, build turning off autoattack into the script. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /></p><p>One more thing, too.</p><p><strong>Please communicate in the patch notes that spell effects upgrade with mastery level</strong>.  I think this will help the market for expert and master level abilities from levels 1-79.   Don't leave out this important detail, you will have disappointed people thinking the Apprentice effect is all they will get.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>I copied my Ranger and Templar over today ( both 90) in the vain hope something might be alright. Storm and Stream of Arrows were ok.</p><p>All the other effects were terrible. Most were barely even noticable. I thought my Ranger was bad until I loaded my Templar.</p><p>Oh my god.</p><p>What have you done to this game guys?</p><p>These effects are nothing short of <em>disastrously</em> bad. I thought I'd post something constructive so here goes:</p><p><span style="color: #ffcc00; font-size: medium;">LEAVE THE OLD EFFECTS FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!</span></p><p><span style="color: #ffcc00; font-size: medium;"><span style="color: #000000; font-size: x-small;">Sorry but that is the most constructive thing I can think of to say.</span></span></p>

[Iskandar]

<p><cite>Maergoth wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>A complicated spell effect being repeated constantly won't only be laggy but it will be repetitive, boring and nonsensical.</p></blockquote><p>The same (except for the laggy part) can be said for a very simple spell effect as well. I found the new combat effects for Fury, Paladin and Necro (all I've gotten around to testing so far) to be very... <strong><em>plain</em></strong>. There were a few that stood out with a little extra oomph , but most were simply a two or three second color shift over the mob's skin with some tiny little sparkle over my head. That's... well, that's... umm... yeah. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/1cfd6e2a9a2c0cf8e74b49b35e2e46c7.gif" border="0" /></p><p>Perhaps I have a lucky configuration in Options, but I currently raid with particle effects on at Very High quality (terrain and player textures are at High) and I love it! (Machine-wise, I have a 2.4ghz quad core with 4gb of ram and a 9600GT running Win7.. a decent machine, yes, but at 3 years old it's far from top of the line) As they are now on Live, a raid with full effects looks great -- heck, it looks <strong><em>epic</em></strong>! And yes, even with all the lighning, fire, and blasts of power and force, I can see the mob just fine. I experience no lag or loss of FPS as compared to an overland zone. The only time I see a performance hit is in heavily scripted encounters, such as TSO's Ykesha or Ernax in Labs (and Ernax has gotten much smoother since SF was released).</p><p>Personally, I'd rather see more options for players who <strong>can't</strong> play as I do to tone down the effects better than the current system allows, so that they too can experience that same epic feel. Replacing all the magical fury we have now with a lot of shimmery skin effects is just... plain... in comparisson.</p>

[Anastasie]

<p>For Fury - I also noticed that the Call of Storms (our big blue ae spell) was changed to the same weak graphic as Thunderbolt (our single target big nuke). They have been changed to a very weak, thin flash of electricity.  It's just too thin to represent either of these spells.  Calls of Storms on live has a great graphic, but this new one doesn't even suggest it's a blue ae hitting multiple targets.  Please beef these up and distinguish our single target from our ae spells.</p><p>Also - just to reiterate. Please change Hibernation from a tree to a hibernating animal animation like a bear or something and please change Back into the Fray back to the animated lion instead of the Hibernation tree. Those 2 spells have nothing to do with each other and most definately should not share the same graphic.</p>

[Yimway]

<p>I'm not going to nit-pick over any of this, I just have one question.</p><p>With these changes are all particle effects finally moved to the GPU?</p><p>If not, why are we bothering?</p>

[Gungo]

<p>For bruisers the particle effects were always lackluster. Although the new effects are better. What draws me to this class is the animations more then the particles. </p><p>Blaze kick has a new animation which is great. One hundred hand punch could use an animation that punches the target extremely fast consecutive hits. I do like the ghosting effect it has though.Bonebreaker and Savage assault have extremely similar effects. Savage assualt could use the ghosting effect OR Have savage assault given a more dynamic animation</p><p>Alternative advancement (feedback for abilites not touched yet)Drag is an ability you havent touched yet but I would love to see it have an effect similar to scorpian in mortal Kombat where the bruiser throws a spear/rope at the target and pulls the target toward him.   </p><p>I would like to see crane sweep turned into a leg sweep effect instead of reusing the aoe animation the third time. I would like to see baton flurry turn into a hammer animation with the brawler fists dropping down on the target.I would like to see pressure point turn into the beginning sequence for dreadnaut kata with his hands poking at the target in rapid succession. Eagle spin should be a high side punch animation wild beating should be a spin motion with the bruiser having  both his hands extended. Staggering blow should be a jump and foward punch animation. </p>

[Gungo]

<p>nt</p>

[Sydares]

<p><cite>Travleer33 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I dont realy care how great they look as long as I am able to turn them on in a raid and see SOMETHING.</p></blockquote><p>This is all I care about. Firework spell effects looked terrible.</p><p>Bravo, art team.</p>

[Sydares]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm not going to nit-pick over any of this, I just have one question.</p><p>With these changes are all particle effects finally moved to the GPU?</p><p>If not, why are we bothering?</p></blockquote><p>I'd really like to know that, too.</p>

[Myrien]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm not going to nit-pick over any of this, I just have one question.</p><p>With these changes are all particle effects finally moved to the GPU?</p><p>If not, why are we bothering?</p></blockquote><p>To make the game look and feel more like WoW, of course.</p>

[Aerfen]

<p>Ok I copied over to test to see what all the fuss was about for myself.  I was very, very disappointed that some of my favorite spell animations had been changed, and not for the better...</p><p>Devs, please consider an option for those of us that like our spells animations and have no problem with our graphics.  A toggle option would be wonderful.  Your time and effort are greatly appreciated.</p><p>-Aerfen</p>

[xpraetorianx]

<p>Just thought I would add on to this thread... every class is different...  to give you guys an idea...</p><p>Coercer's had almost NO noticeable spell effects for the last 5 years.  Heck even Shockwave our biggest nuke didnt really have much of anything... so with this update... ANYTHING is better than what we HAVE had... but I think the general consensus is that the effects need to have some kind of "awe" along with it.</p><p>There are a few classes that have had the luxury of actually HAVING real spell effects for a long time and I think thats where most of the posts are from in here.. lots of warlocks, lots of necros, lots of wizards..ect ect.</p><p>Classes that have had spell effects..anything short of mind blowing is gonna be a disappointment to them..   For me, sure i was expecting things a little more flashy but heck... my toon actually has real effects now at any rate.</p>

[jimibar]

<p><cite>Aerfen@Lucan DLere wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Devs, please consider an option for those of us that like our spells animations and have no problem with our graphics.  A toggle option would be wonderful.  Your time and effort are greatly appreciated.</p><p>-Aerfen</p></blockquote><p>I had the information from an official. Dev team won't put this option. They are releasing the new system and you won't have the choice.</p><p>I'm sad ...</p>

[Josgar]

<p>Invisibility's new casting animation on the conjuror is very pretty and definitely an upgrade.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Kizdane@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm not going to nit-pick over any of this, I just have one question.</p><p>With these changes are all particle effects finally moved to the GPU?</p><p>If not, why are we bothering?</p></blockquote><p>To make the game look and feel more like WoW, of course.</p></blockquote><p>No, if the processing isn't moved to the GPU with the updates, then the vast majority of players will play with them turned off, just as they do with the current ones.</p><p>I'm just curious if all this effort is being put into updating them without the most important part (the performance) not being addressed.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Only time I heard someone say they turned them off or lowered them was in raids. The rest of the time they are in full technicolour. On my current machine I can and do have them on max during raids as well for a laugh. Its only a modest machine as well.</p><p>Epic spells are part of games like this. Nobody wants to play a toon that has feeble effects or looks like a tramp. I'm reassured the animation guy is tweaking the new animations apparently. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e8a506dc4ad763aca51bec4ca7dc8560.gif" border="0" /> </p>

[iceriven2]

<p>My thoughts on Wizards</p><p>Overall i perfer a slight reduction in particle effects but greatly endorse the use of them on each classes big/main spells.  Case of Wizards, thats Ice comet, Fusion, Ball of fire.</p><p>Ice Comet - Overall its a decent start, but too small with little bang.  I noticed after hrs of testing several of my alts, the Comet actually forms above, suggest moving the forming comet down on the Z axis Slightly so its more visable.   Also the formation of the comet can use some more effects on it. And MUCH larger Comet. Still too small.  The after effect(when it lands and hits the mob) is nice but again, has a small impact for a big spell.  Thinking something like the old lightning spells , the ones where when the strike the mob/ground you see rocks fly out.  Add something like that.  </p><p>Ball of Fire - Overall better, but the impact on the you and mob is small.  Maybe have a chard effect with more Fire/smoke colors on impact and something while casting.</p><p>Solar Flare - I Dont mind a "beam" effect but the one in place feels more technology based then magic based>  I believe b/c it looks more like a multi colored beam that would come from a ray gun.  My suggestion would be to start over.  keep the beam idea, but make a white crackling beam zig zag to the mob while casting and then use mutli colored stuff to swirl around the beam and upon impact  you get a final impact effect, small blast effect on the mob.</p><p>Piercing Icicle/Flames of Velious - I like the smaller ice effects but i think there too small,  Make them a little larger. </p><p>Glacial winds - old effect is liked by many, best to repeat that in some way.</p><p>Magma Chamber - needs more of an impact, doesnt feel like there is a stun to it especially since it shares the same effect  from our fire dot.</p><p>Casting ring - i dont like that the casting ring/ circle rune is in front and back of you.  Its still annoying even after several days of trying it out.  Suggest placing it at the casters feet for everything.  If you want to make the magic type more noticable, increase the size of the ring at your feet</p><p>Also, minor suggestion is the new animations have little connection and impact.  Magic just appears from you in some way shape or form, then hits the mob in some way shape or form, but most spells show little impact on the mob.  Even if its small effect you dont see it.  Blast the mob with a beam, the beam should show a chard mark, some smoke, some crackling energy, but instead nothing.  Gives the spells a very large feeling of diconnect.  Doesnt feel real.  Feals very fake actually.   Dispite the Huge particles in the old effects,  You felt the impact, and what your spells did.  That i think is super important, without it, could have far more reaching impact on gamers than just turning off the spells.</p>

[Diern]

<p>I hope sony has the sense to make this optional. because these new effects don't suit the art style of the game, not one bit I am sorry. Do you guys realize this is one of the best features of your game which makes it stand out from other mmo's? If this is not optional I am sure you will lose subscriptions over this. I am sorry to sound overly critical but this is all a bit heart wrenching.</p><p>There are many problems that need to be addressed with the graphics before you touch the spell effects, especially with such a bland and 2 dimensional update such as this. How about.</p><p>Hair/Fur</p><p>A new Flora system </p><p>Combat animations.</p><p>I could go on. But basically if this is for Performance, I think it's best you focused on other aspects of the game so running these effects is not such and issue. Why not just move the current engine off to the GPU? (I understand thats a lot of work but....)</p><p>So far the only positive is the fact that they animate faster, which makes the combat look a little more fluid with some actual combat animations having a chance to trigger sometimes.</p><p>Other than that though I actually get worse performance with these new effects and some stuttering in the AOE's for a trade off of worse graphical quality that doesn't fit the shadowknight concept or environment or the game. I am sorry but even Eq1 has betetr particle effects than these. This feels more like an anime style of system that doesnt fit this world.</p><p>Why would you got to the extent to change something like this? I think this thread speaks in volumes. I think I counted maybe 3 people who are pleased with the changes in 10 pages. If it's for performance, I will just turn them down or off. I dont need a nerf to the visual quality of the effects.</p><p>Shadowknight Spells for the most part are a HUGE disappointment. I am not going to single much in the way of examples because they are all without exception 100x times worse than the old ones.</p><p>All life tap effects are absolutely abysmal. The crossed bones it is constantly triggering on a shadowknight (and sometimes all the enemies in an encounter) due to procs and ward and it looks absolutely tacky and stupid. The disease spells I guess suit the green bile like effect but I miss all the actual darkness and skulls effect the originals had.</p><p>All the new spell effects I have seen in general look like a big step backwards visually. My friend was watching me play on live the other day and commented on how nice the particle effects looked in this game compared to other mmo's. They had a "realistic" feel which suited the games environment and graphical quality. Now they are very cartoon like.</p><p>I don't see how this is an improvement. With the recent frame rate improvements I have been able to run the game with the old effects at a much better quality than ever before. These new effects actually look worse and stutter my pc.</p><p>I am sure some spells have seen an improvement, but for the SK, it's a huge leap in the wrong direction.</p><p>Again I implore you, if this must go live please let us choose which system we wish to see. Call the new engine SOGA Particle effects or something.</p>

[Titigabe]

<p>Also, I'd like to give a feedback on the spell visual progression system.</p><p>I don't understand the difference between for example:</p><p>Ball of Fire I (Master) vs Ball of Fire V (Apprentice).</p><p>What you might consider is improving the visual aspect of a spell depending on its level (1, 2, 3 ...) and maybe not his version (Apprentice, Journeyman, Adept, Expert, Master and Grand Master). In it's actual state, the difference between Apprentice and Master is barely not noticeable.</p><p>Plus, keep the type of effect we have on live servers, go on this way because that's one of the many reasons many of us started playing this game 5 years ago! Just redo some spells that really needed a revamp (such as the too tiny Ice Comet and Ball of Fire we Wizards have).</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Maybe this is the art departments' silent protest at the way SOE employees have been treated of late. On the eve of an exciting new RMT server to entice more players they subvert the entire effort by firstly inflicting SOGA on unsuspecting new players then hitting them with the broadside of feeble spell effects!</p><p>Passive resistance fellas! My Templar sure loves his new bright yellow toy hammer he can play with and his 1 centimeter wide yellow puffballs with bright yellow lightning from the pages of a 1936 edition of a Superman comic! That will <em>really </em>bring in the punters considering Templars are one of the few free classes on offer!</p>

[naMessiah]

<p>Wow, I'm speechless... I can't believe this could make it all the way to testserver and might even go live. I love the old spelleffects and this just looks and feels wrong in so many ways. Give the raiders an option to switch to 1999-mode if they want and leave the old effects for the rest of us, please.</p>

[cr0wangel]

<p>I tested the monk class so far, my opinion echoes what the others have said, I like the old spells effects better. <strong>Give us the option to keep the old system</strong> if we want to. Right now it may only be 30 people posting against it, but if this is go live, you will get ton of unhappy players, really. The new spells effects are cartoonish and does not fit EQ style, if some are flashy, most are 2D and cartoons. It simply does not fit. Why not let the veteran players use the old system if they wish as an option.</p>

[Isoloki]

<p>Well tested out quite a few classes on test for the new animations and all I can say is,..... NO WAY!!!!!</p><p>I have been playing the alpha for the free server and saw the animations and thought they were horrid, but said at least it is only on the free server. This is not acceptable at all. They look old and outdated. Animations are terrible also. Sound effects don't mesh or sound out of place.</p><p>I have not been happy with the last 2 expansions. Found them to closed in/linear and boring. But I stayed because of my friends and I love my spell effects for my classes. I feel the game is going backwards not forward.</p><p>What is everyone thinking? Why would you remove something that makes most players feel epic and put in this trash? My favorite classes Swashbuckler, Shadownight and Necromancer was fun to play because of their animations. Now it is like ugh.</p><p>Well Sorry this is the last straw for me. If this goes live I will be cancelling my station pass.</p><p>I hope that Everquest Next looks nothing like what is on test server now. I was willing to stick around and wait for that game to come out. Even though I won't play in the expansions from the last 2 years. There is more than enough content to keep me happy. But I want to feel epic. Not some WOW cartoonish clone.</p><p>So please reconsider.</p>

[Kilaelya]

<p>Meh, I think the new animations are weak looking compared to the old ones, but I'm not exactly heart broken to lose the old ones. I rarely ever get to play with particle affects on anyway. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/136dd33cba83140c7ce38db096d05aed.gif" border="0" /></p>

[Titigabe]

<p>Ice Comet, level 90, Expert ...</p><p>Not impressed and not pleased at all !!!</p><p>Do you call this a comet? I would have accept this if the name was Snow Ball ! keep this effect for frostfell and give us something that feels more Epic ... The comet could actually come from the sky, through magic clouds! And please, forget or reshape this impect effect you use on barely each spell, like a vertical choc wave that really needs soften edges! It's too angulous! I don't call this a "particle effect" but a bland polygonal effect ...</p><p>And why does each mobs corpse has this stupid effect of a flat animated texture supposed to render as if the mob was covered by frozen magic? Why don't you use something better like the nice flame effect Wiz have (the fun spell effect), but in blue colour.</p><p><[Removed for Content]"application/x-[Removed for Content]" width="640" height="380" src="http://img24.imageshack.us/flvplayer.swf?f=Mspellfxwiziceco"></embed><a rel="nofollow" href="http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/2436/spellfxwiziceco.mp4" target="_blank">http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/24...lfxwiziceco.mp4</a></p>

[Myrien]

<p>That's the same (horrible) animation that's used for all of the necromancer's offensive spells, albeit with slightly different particle effects.  The art team really screwed the pooch on this one, I'm sorry to say.  <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Titigabe]

<p>And is this really what you are calling a "Lightning Storm" ? This one is the Expert version and I can hardly imagine that the master version is going to make any difference ... This sucks.</p><p><a href="http://vimeo.com/13979150" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://vimeo.com/13979150</a></p><p><object width="853" height="480"><param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><param name="movie" value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13979150&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" /><[Removed for Content]"application/x-[Removed for Content]" width="853" height="480" src="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=13979150&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=1&color=00ADEF&fullscreen=1&autoplay=0&loop=0" ></embed></object></p>

[Titigabe]

<p>Here's what they've done with Numing Cold and Firestorm ... The same effect, just anonther colour ... And still this wow-ish look, 3D from a 90's game!</p><p><object width="1280" height="745"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rj9kCUUSvjI&hl=fr_FR&fs=1" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><[Removed for Content]"application/x-[Removed for Content]" width="1280" height="745" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rj9kCUUSvjI&hl=fr_FR&fs=1" ></embed></object></p>

[xpraetorianx]

<p>But what I do find a tad disappointing is that earlier in the post it was stated by a developer to give feedback and ideas, yet we havent seen a post or comment from anyone about this change...</p>

[iceriven2]

<p><cite>xpraetorianx wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>But what I do find a tad disappointing is that earlier in the post it was stated by a developer to give feedback and ideas, yet we havent seen a post or comment from anyone about this change...</p></blockquote><p>Probably b/c of fan faire, if you hear nothing from a dev or change in a few days than its time to worry, but they been busy all weekend.</p>

[Bilil]

<p>So, I started playing two weeks ago. I was immediately drawn in by how awesome it felt to be flashy with great moves as my bruiser, then as troubadour, and through paladin and whatnot. I loved how the game looked and felt in general, pretty much all about it, UI and models and everything.</p><p>Then I hear this. I browse the forums and look to the test server to see what's up. I hear a lot of awful things. Oh, bad, I think. Then I decide to log on the test server and oh my -god-, this is a serious downgrade to how awesome it felt before. A huge part of the allure of the game was that right off the bat I felt my character was absolutely awesome with the fantastic looking spells.</p><p>If this goes live, I doubt I'll stick around. Played for two weeks, probably going to stop playing now. Well done, SOE.</p>

[Kamimura]

<p>I brought my main (a conjuror) over to test copy to check out what her spells looked like. I am truly dissapointed in what I saw. Crystal blast was the only one I somewhat liked. The rest? I hardly even look like I'm doing anything for most of my spells! <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/e78feac27fa924c4d0ad6cf5819f3554.gif" border="0" /> I fought several MOBs and the animations were so underwhelming. Veru much a downgrade. I really hope this does not go to live in it's current state!</p>

[fred3111]

<p>I've got only one question. What made you decide that so-called revamp (a major dealbreaking downgrade, if you ask me...)</p><p>Please, don't tell me b...... like, "it's because of performance issues" ! I've been running EQ2 smooothly for 3 years, on a 1920x1200 screen, at max quality settings, even in raid ! And I'm not alone in that case in my guild.</p><p>Don't tell me either, it's because people implored you on forums for that. I did'nt see a single demand for 2D poorly-made, wowish and cartoonish FX.</p><p>So why ? Why Rothgar ?</p><p>In fact, I can only see 2 possible reasons.</p><p>1/ It may be an attempt to kill EQ2. You want to cut off the server costs by merging them, and for that, you need a huge number of cancellations. And as a bonus, it could maybe help the launch of Final Fantasy XIV ! Well, in that case, I can only say two words: good job !</p><p>2/ It might be a despaired try to catch new audience, by making EQ2 able to run on netbooks or other prehistorical computers. Why not ? But in that case, please, let people with decent computers chose between the good old eyecandy graphics and your new crap.</p><p>Sorry for my poor English.</p>

[Diern]

<p>All my spells are master and they still look like crap. I was raiding the other day on live and I didn't have any performance problems. These spell effects look worse than eq1, they remind me of lineage 2 or some substandard cartoon MMO.</p><p>Add another who will probably be hitting cancel subscription if this crap is forced on us.</p>

[Murdo]

<p>I have to agree, these new spell effects are terrible. If they would just have an option to use the current ones, this would no longer be an issue, but if these are forced on us, I see a lot of cancellations.</p>

[Piju]

<p>As I don't fancy the new animations either, I'd like to encourage to add an option to switch between new and old animations.</p>

[Brook]

<p>The new animations are bland and I would also like the option to opt out of ever seeing them.</p><p>You don't seriously think I am going to continue to pay money for this kind of garbage do you?</p><p>I don't do f2p because of this kind of crap development so I don't want you mucking up the game I am already paying for.</p>

[Lhunara]

<p>You all have said the new animations were bland, uninspiring, etc... Honestly no words can do justice to how awful these animations are.  Please either leave them out or make them optional.  Never before have I played a game that released an update setting the game's graphics back 10 years. </p>

[Yimway]

<p>Are they on the gpu or not?</p><p>I don't really care how un-awesome they are, cause currently I see NO legacy effects cause they are 100% cpu bound.</p><p>Given the choice between un-awesome gpu particle effects I could actually turn on without dropping framerates to single digits, vs ones I've not had enabled in over 3 years due to performance,  I'll always take the ones that can actually afford to be turned on.</p>

[Murdo]

<p>The fact that no Dev has replied to all our concerns makes me think that they really don't care and will go ahead with these horrible "upgrades" without any concern on what the population thinks, Our voice is no longer heard, since we are now in the past and Sony are now looking to build their new FTP audience. We will be strung along for the ride, until the time comes to pull the plug on our servers and force everyone onto the FTP model.</p><p>These new spell effects are a game breaker as far as I am concerned and I can honestly say I don't think I have played an MMO going back all the years with spell effects as bad as these new ones. Who the hell at SOE actually thought this was a good idea?</p>

[Kilnger]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Are they on the gpu or not?</p><p>I don't really care how un-awesome they are, cause currently I see NO legacy effects cause they are 100% cpu bound.</p><p>Given the choice between un-awesome gpu particle effects I could actually turn on without dropping framerates to single digits, vs ones I've not had enabled in over 3 years due to performance,  I'll always take the ones that can actually afford to be turned on.</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I'm not sure and I don't think anyone's been able to check. In the little bit of testing I've done, I can tell you the mobs all use the old effects regardless, at least the zerker mobs did. So it's PCs with new effects and NPCs with old, if that helps any.</p>

[Necroluvin]

<p>Total BS! I made a necromancer today and lvled him up to 5 since i didnt have any toons on the test server. Well every single spell i got had the SAME particle effects, casting effect, sound..EXACTLY the same. So i went and made a wizard, every spell was different! When i found this out i was honestly [Removed for Content] off because they are spending more time on one class while just copying and pasting effects for the necromancer and probably for some other classes.</p>

[Barx]

<p><cite>Murdo@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>The fact that no Dev has replied to all our concerns makes me think that they really don't care and will go ahead with these horrible "upgrades" without any concern on what the population thinks, Our voice is no longer heard, since we are now in the past and Sony are now looking to build their new FTP audience. We will be strung along for the ride, until the time comes to pull the plug on our servers and force everyone onto the FTP model.</p><p>These new spell effects are a game breaker as far as I am concerned and I can honestly say I don't think I have played an MMO going back all the years with spell effects as bad as these new ones. Who the hell at SOE actually thought this was a good idea?</p></blockquote><p>The fact that no Dev has replied just means that no Dev has taken the time to reply. Many of the Devs were at FanFaire the last few days (and probably preparing for it for a bit earlier). At FanFaire they specifically mentioned that the artist that was doing the spell effects was <em>reading</em> but not replying to the thread and was making changes on feedback. No news =/= bad news.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>Xelgad posted about the change of particle effects I do not beleive Gary Daughtry the artist who did these changes ever posts or even has a forum account to post. <span ><span style="color: #ffffff;"> </span></span></p><p>I am not dissing Gary Daughtry's work, but alot of the new particle effects on test seem weak and hollow at the master level at lvl 90.  </p><p>There is an entire thread on specific spell issues so I do not feel the need to repeat them here. </p><p>But I do feel some extra work is needed on at least the major class spell lines to make them more visually appealing, more solid and more dynamic. I hope this is not just another push to live feature that doesn't receive the touch ups it deserves. I know at fanfair it was stated he was reading the feedback and making as many adjustments as he can.</p><p>Also it was suggested for some time that the spell effects have an option in game to separate PC and NPC spell effects. So that a player could control the amount of spell effects shown. Maybe I would like to see all the spell effects on NPCs, but only would like to see one or two of the most dynamic spells from each pc. Regardless of Garys work I would like to see that option in game. </p><p>In a game with such a strong emphasis on visual quality. I suggest SOE spend more time on making a Ball of flame look like a ball of flame. An Ice comet look like an Ice comet. Rain of icicles from the sky, a wizards root look like they are encasing their targets feet in ice. I and it seems alot of player prefer effects with more sollid feel. Even enchaters should have a Prismatic shower that appears to be fireworks firing from thier hands. Or mezz appear to be a vortex around the targets head.</p><p>I also wonder what these particle effects mean for the combat animations for melee characters? will we be seeing further upgrades to animations on melee as well as the new particle effect system?</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Kilnger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Are they on the gpu or not?</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I'm not sure and I don't think anyone's been able to check. In the little bit of testing I've done, I can tell you the mobs all use the old effects regardless, at least the zerker mobs did. So it's PCs with new effects and NPCs with old, if that helps any.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, thats why I keep asking the question, cause otherwise I wont know till I risk testing it in a raid.</p><p>Currently, only a dev could answer for sure, and they're not actively responding to this thread.</p>

[naMessiah]

<p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Kilnger wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Atan@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Are they on the gpu or not?</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I'm not sure and I don't think anyone's been able to check. In the little bit of testing I've done, I can tell you the mobs all use the old effects regardless, at least the zerker mobs did. So it's PCs with new effects and NPCs with old, if that helps any.</p></blockquote><p>Yeah, thats why I keep asking the question, cause otherwise I wont know till I risk testing it in a raid.</p><p>Currently, only a dev could answer for sure, and they're not actively responding to this thread.</p></blockquote><p>Doesn't look like particles at all, just simple 3d-objects with shaders?</p>

[Kikiriki]

<p>This is a repost from another thread I wrote in but it fits here too:</p><p><span ><p>Have you seen Rift?</p><p>The word "pathetic" is not descriptive enough.</p><p>It used to be massive worldshaking boulders. Now it's just glowing cracks in the ground with tiny rocks. The screen doesn't even shake. The whole reason I rolled a Lock is because I watched my husband's Lock annihilate everything and it looked like so much fun. I like the little magic circles, but everything else is awful.</p><p>Way to make a Warlock seem like a pansy.</p><p>Why are they giving us things we never asked for without the option to have it the way we LIKE IT?</p></span></p>

[Armawk]

<p>I dont think its much to do with the artist, its about the technology being used.. if what you have to work with is planar surfaces and simple geometry spheres/cylinders with simple flat trans/colour mapping, and your instructions are 'bright colours and simple bold icons' then you will get that.</p>

[Necroluvin]

<p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ok my lvl 90 fully mastered necro just got copied to test and i have to say im really liking the new particle effects! Not sure why a bunch of people are hatin but i think most of them look badass with the exception of a few. Hopefully they will reduce lag in raids as that is there main purpose.</span></p>

[Lhunara]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Xelgad posted about the change of particle effects I do not beleive Gary Daughtry the artist who did these changes ever posts or even has a forum account to post. <span><span style="color: #ffffff;"> </span></span></p><p>I am not dissing Gary Daughtry's work, but alot of the new particle effects on test seem weak and hollow at the master level at lvl 90.  </p><p>There is an entire thread on specific spell issues so I do not feel the need to repeat them here. </p><p>But I do feel some extra work is needed on at least the major class spell lines to make them more visually appealing, more solid and more dynamic. I hope this is not just another push to live feature that doesn't receive the touch ups it deserves. I know at fanfair it was stated he was reading the feedback and making as many adjustments as he can.</p><p>Also it was suggested for some time that the spell effects have an option in game to separate PC and NPC spell effects. So that a player could control the amount of spell effects shown. Maybe I would like to see all the spell effects on NPCs, but only would like to see one or two of the most dynamic spells from each pc. Regardless of Garys work I would like to see that option in game. </p><p>In a game with such a strong emphasis on visual quality. I suggest SOE spend more time on making a Ball of flame look like a ball of flame. An Ice comet look like an Ice comet. Rain of icicles from the sky, a wizards root look like they are encasing their targets feet in ice. I and it seems alot of player prefer effects with more sollid feel. Even enchaters should have a Prismatic shower that appears to be fireworks firing from thier hands. Or mezz appear to be a vortex around the targets head.</p><p>I also wonder what these particle effects mean for the combat animations for melee characters? will we be seeing further upgrades to animations on melee as well as the new particle effect system?</p></blockquote><p>I don't mean to be a jerk, but after seeing the new spell effects myself, I'm perfectly willing to diss his work.  Extra work is not needed in this case, have you seen the "upgraded" spell effects?  Asheron's Call has better spell effects, and that game's over a decade old at this point.  What's needed is everyone involved in this product needs to be reassigned to work on something else, and the plans scrapped. </p><p>We have solid, dynamic spell effects now.  What is needed is not this abortion of a graphical "upgrade", it's either a slider, or some sort of preferences to enable/disable spell effects on groupmates, NPCs, self, etc.  Dark Age of Camelot managed this, why can't EQ2?</p>

[fred3111]

<p>For people naive enough to hope master versions of spells are huge graphical improvements of the apprentice ones...</p><p>Stop dreaming.</p><p>My warlock throws the same small fluo greenish bubbles at the mobs, the same, not even larger.</p><p>Only difference, at apprentice level, his hands become as greenish as the bubble.</p><p>At master, he "wins" a kind of 2D ugly runic shield in front of him.</p><p>That runic BS doesn't fit the rest of the game graphics AT ALL.</p><p>In fact, if you asked me to chose between the crappy revamp of apprentice, and the crappy revamp of master... Apprentice would get my vote hands down ! Pathetic......</p><p>And I play the game at 1920x1200, particle effects maxed !!!!</p>

[Buneary]

<p>please just allow us to choose which spell effects we see!</p><p>let us choose to have the original ones or these new ones in options!</p><p>it satifys everyone!</p><p>also, me never saw an issue with the current live effects.</p><p>me have all particle effects on lowest (while the rest of the game's textures and such are on high) and can raid with 30+ fps. and thats not even on an awesome PC, its kinda dated. me cant believe anyone is having issues getting fps drops with the particle effects on lowest currently on live.</p>

[Jaremai]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>What's needed is everyone involved in this product needs to be reassigned to work on something else, and the plans scrapped. </p></blockquote><p>The problem is this is already happened.. the original devs of this game are long gone (reassigned, laid off, moved to greener pastures, whatever).  The current batch of devs are trying to reform the game in their image, under guidance of someone whose best interests lie elsewhere outside of existing customers' satisfaction and enjoyment of the product.</p>

[Gungo]

<p>I think the idea was to improve performance and to cut down on the flashy effects that made grouping (and heaven forbid raiding) into an epliptics worse nightmare.</p><p>I don't think performance was a major issue from spell effects and as the server upgrades on AB/nagafen show it wasnt needed.</p><p>I do think many old spell effects could of been made better.I do think some of the particles overload on some spells could of been toned down slightly.</p><p>What they really needed to do was what people were assking for in the first place. A slider that allowed you to adjust the npc spell effects vs your spell effects, vs others spell effects.</p><p>For instance maybe I wanted to view ALL npc spell effects at thier max settings. Maybe i wanted to see at max 1 spell effect per person at minimum setting.and maybe i wanted to see up to 3 spell effects on myself at medium settings.</p><p>We should be able to do this and control them independently or at worse npc vs pc.</p><p>Bottom line with the current changes on test the dev in charge of this needs to make more sollid, more 3d, more dynamic spell effects. not weaker smaller transparent 2d effects.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p><cite>Necroluvin@Nagafen wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: x-small;">Ok my lvl 90 fully mastered necro just got copied to test and i have to say im really liking the new particle effects! Not sure why a bunch of people are hatin but i think most of them look badass with the exception of a few. Hopefully they will reduce lag in raids as that is there main purpose.</span></p></blockquote><p>If you have a Templar alt - you will be in "point and laugh city". Which is really stupid because its one of the few free classes you can play.</p><p>Gone are the trademark chrome helmet, sword and shield that hovers over the caster when your reactive is cast. Instead you get some yellow wibble.</p><p>This is firmly in cancel territory for me as it stands.</p>

[Banditman]

<p>I truly hope that SOE are really listening.  Because I've gone through this thread, all 13 (currently) pages.  The feedback is generally running about 85% negative on these new animations / effects.</p><p>It seems to me that if 85% of your feedback is negative, it *might* be a  bad idea.</p>

[Diern]

<p>Stop being Lazy on this SOE. The right solution is to work on moving the current particle effects engine to the GPU.</p><p>and from what I have seen, the old effects engine actually seems to work better on my machine than this new one, with much less detail.</p><p>Thats really the only "constructive" feedback I can give at this stage.</p><p>How can anyone like these new effects after seeing the old ones in all their glory? Are we even playing the same game.</p>

[Lhunara]

<p>I think with this patch, SOE is at a crossroads with the remaining players, either they prove that they are listening and respond to the various criticisms about this patch, or they don't, and prove that they're just going to ram whatever random stupidity they feel like down our throats. </p><p>If the problem is lag in raids, fine, add the ability to customize what spell effects we see and when.  DAoC did this, why can't SOE 6 years later?  The changes as proposed are like fixing a leaky boat by draining the lake.</p><p>Honestly, this spell effects issue is huge to a lot of people, to continue to ram it through despite the overwhelmingly negative feedback is unconscionable at best.  On the other hand, if they listen to us on this one, my respect for SOE as a company would skyrocket. </p><p>This isn't some little change that irritates a fringe segment of the community, this is a sweeping, arbitrary change that many feel destroys one of the things that was done quite well with this game.  If forcing this sort of thing on the community is what SOE is all about, why should I spend another cent on games they produce?  I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who feels this way either.</p>

[MacDaddy62]

<p>I echo the concern that seeing a bright flash of white light before going stealth is dumb.  Also, you guys changed the sound for ranger stealth to the one currently on live for rogue stealth, but this sound simply doesn't sound as cool.  I much prefer the current (live server) animation and sound for ranger stealth.</p>

[Hemophobe]

<p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you for your feedback on the Spell and Combat Art FX Revamp.Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on this and feel it is now ready to go.  I would also like to take this time to respond to some of the questions posted here.There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.Once again, thanks to those of you that provided constructive feedback.  Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p>

[Myster]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I think with this patch, SOE is at a crossroads with the remaining players, either they prove that they are listening and respond to the various criticisms about this patch, or they don't, and prove that they're just going to ram whatever random stupidity they feel like down our throats. </p><p>If the problem is lag in raids, fine, add the ability to customize what spell effects we see and when.  DAoC did this, why can't SOE 6 years later?  The changes as proposed are like fixing a leaky boat by draining the lake.</p><p>Honestly, this spell effects issue is huge to a lot of people, to continue to ram it through despite the overwhelmingly negative feedback is unconscionable at best.  On the other hand, if they listen to us on this one, my respect for SOE as a company would skyrocket. </p><p>This isn't some little change that irritates a fringe segment of the community, this is a sweeping, arbitrary change that many feel destroys one of the things that was done quite well with this game.  If forcing this sort of thing on the community is what SOE is all about, why should I spend another cent on games they produce?  I'm fairly certain I'm not the only one who feels this way either.</p></blockquote><p>I have to agree with this sentiment.</p><p>Yet another thing pushing myself and some of my friends away from EQ2 and SOE as a whole.</p>

[Dreyco]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you for your feedback on the Spell and Combat Art FX Revamp.Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on this and feel it is now ready to go.  I would also like to take this time to respond to some of the questions posted here.There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.Once again, thanks to those of you that provided constructive feedback.  Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p></blockquote><p>I really liked the casting wheels though to some extent. (Even over the old casting effects at the feet).  Hopefully these stay...</p>

[fred3111]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you for your feedback on the Spell and Combat Art FX Revamp.Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on this and feel it is now ready to go.  I would also like to take this time to respond to some of the questions posted here.There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.Once again, thanks to those of you that provided constructive feedback.  Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p></blockquote><p>I'm afraid SOE has not really understood... We don't ask you to get rid of your new FX, we would just like to have the choice, in the graphical options, between the old ones and the revamped ones.</p><p>Is it so difficult ? You did it with SOGA, why not with FX ???</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>fred3111 wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you for your feedback on the Spell and Combat Art FX Revamp.Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on this and feel it is now ready to go.  I would also like to take this time to respond to some of the questions posted here.There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.Once again, thanks to those of you that provided constructive feedback.  Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p></blockquote><p>I'm afraid SOE has not really understood... We don't ask you to get rid of your new FX, we would just like to have the choice, in the graphical options, between the old ones and the revamped ones.</p><p>Is it so difficult ? You did it with SOGA, why not with FX ???</p></blockquote><p>It is not that easy graphics are not tied to your account its connected to the spell. Anyway i rather have the best of both FX then getting the worst of both. </p>

[fred3111]

<p>Then, why not implement two versions of each spells ?</p><p>IMHO, nothing can be saved in the new ones..... and they are not even GPU generated !</p><p>I shouldn't give them such an idea, but I'd be ready to pay in Station cash to keep the old ones........</p>

[Captain Apple Darkberry]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you for your feedback on the Spell and Combat Art FX Revamp.Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on this and feel it is now ready to go.  I would also like to take this time to respond to some of the questions posted here.There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.Once again, thanks to those of you that provided constructive feedback.  Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p></blockquote><p>5 accounts...all current and paid and played...going bye bye.</p><p>Its been fun...thank you all at SOE who made the game a great memory, but due to your flipant lack of consideration and thought in cramming unasked for crappy graphics down my throat...most likely to make the game easier to run for the new F2P market you seem to want...I'm out.  Not only out, but you have forever tainted my desire to play any SOE game.  Why would I come back to play EQ3?  If I start to like it, you will gut it years after release, for no reason...</p><p>P.S.:  It is apparant from the recent avalanche of poor decisions on your part that you need to consider doing a "graphical revamp" of those in charge...</p>

[Gungo]

<p>Did you guys even read what he typed?</p><p>He changed alot of the spells based on feedback and reverted alot of class defining spells or class favorite spells BACK to the old graphics. </p><p>He also moved the new rune wheel and casting rings back to the targets feet. </p><p>Test hasnt been updated yet so cut the emo wrist slitting down a notch. </p>

[Wurm]

<p>Why even bother doing this if you aren't going to move the stuff to the GPU? Seriously?</p>

[TheSpin]

I think this shows that just because a dev doesn't comment about every post you make, it doesn't mean they aren't reading. 90% of posts by a red name gets a lot of harsh negative feedback, so I'm not suprised they don't post frequently.

[Lhunara]

<p><cite>TheSpin wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>I think this shows that just because a dev doesn't comment about every post you make, it doesn't mean they aren't reading. 90% of posts by a red name gets a lot of harsh negative feedback, so I'm not suprised they don't post frequently.</blockquote><p>The "harsh negative feedback" isn't without merit.  They asked for our opinions, we gave it.  Just because we're not happily swallowing everything they throw at us, doesn't make our opinions any less valid. </p><p>As for the dev response, alright, so we get some of the spells back... ?  In other words 90% of our spells are going to look absolutely horrible, the other 10% will remain as they are?  In fairness I don't know what this means, maybe it's 50% good 50% horrid, but the question remains, why not allow those who are running something better than a 486 to keep *all* of their beloved spells, and let those who either wish to see minimal spell effects, or have poor performance computers switch to the new animations?</p><p>Please advise me why I should continue to pay to have the game watered down around me?  The spell effects in this game were magnificent, why in the name of all that's holy would you go and screw with that instead of allowing users to optimize their settings themselves??  If nothing else, at least answer that one.  Never before have I seen a company do something this stupid, and I watched what Mythic did with Warhammer.</p><p>This is genuine confusion here, I wish it could be anger, but in order to be angry I have to believe that you have any idea whatsoever what you're doing with this game, and are deliberately sabotaging it.  Honestly, this change, and the responses we've received seem to point to the fact that you're just oblivious to the effect this will have on the game and for some reason refuse to consider that you may have it wrong. </p><p>I didn't play SWG, so I only know about the NGE thing second-hand, but I believe promises were made somewhere along the lines.  You may want to Google that, as I feel that it's been forgotten.</p>

[Titigabe]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Thank you for your feedback on the Spell and Combat Art FX Revamp.Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration.  Over the past few weeks we have been working on this and feel it is now ready to go.  I would also like to take this time to respond to some of the questions posted here.There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.Once again, thanks to those of you that provided constructive feedback.  Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p></blockquote><p>Hi Hemo, thanks for the answer. Now we nearly know where it goes ...</p><p>Are those changes already on the Test Server? I logged in this morning but I can't see any difference. For example, <strong><span style="color: #ff9900;">Iceshield and Numbing Cold for Wiz</span></strong> are still looking like "<span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">giant multi polygon" ... Made me think of Donuts! (Homer, get out of this body!). <strong><span style="color: #ff9900;">Numbing cold</span></strong> for example <strong><span style="color: #ff9900;">should be a blue/white smoke effect that covers the ground and the air surrounding the Wiz</span></strong>, maybe mixed with the rain effect we have now on Live servers.</span></p><p>I really appreciated the rune thing to go away (in its current state) but maybe you can keep the idea to redo it in a better way.</p><p>I hope that <span style="color: #ff9900;"><strong>Ice Comet</strong></span> will get some love to become the most visual defining spell, like Fusion (sorry for the names, but I play on a French Client...) because those spell are our big nuke so they should be rocking on the screen.</p><p>I maintain the fact that, client side, you should tweak the engine to introduce more option for players getting lower frame rate so that they can configure the particules effects like they want. (Though, I think that for players getting lower frame rate, the "High Performance" profile is just fine!).</p><p>I'd like to be more constructive, but English is not my mother language, so it's a bit hard to describe my vision of magical spells in a detailed way.</p><p>You know, I think that this change is not urgent. Maybe you could create some kind of a form on each class forum, to ask the community a few question on their spell visual desire/vision to help you aim your work. Just like what was done for the spell renaming change.</p><p>One last think I'd like to add is that there are many ways to create new visuals for Wiz based on their fire and ice mastery, things we have not seen in this game (ok, maybe in other ones but ...), like ball of fire rains, ball of ice rains, some nicely designed gigantic ice prison (root). The new swirl animation could have been great, but in its current state, it looks flat.</p><p>Hope all this could help in any way, making our EQ2 visual experience greater.</p>

[Sordes]

<p>I haven't really seen enough of them to say for sure what I think either way.  I created a new newbie on test (wanted to try out new UI from a newb's perspective, Gfay newb zone seems to have changed, etc. ) </p><p>So far all I can say is that I see how they can help performance, but I'm not overly impressed. I liked some of the old effects, though some (hibernate hello) were a pita.  I'm actually restarting now and gonna enable shader 3.0 and play for a while with that and see if they look any different.  I have a feeling though that just fixing or dumbing down the current ones may have been more what I would of liked to see rather than the complete overhaul.  But my mind may change about it.</p>

[Jaremai]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">-snip-</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Although this will be going to Live soon, that doesn’t mean we will never revisit or make more changes based on player feedback.</span></p></blockquote><p>Hang it up guys.. they've spoken.  Sometime around GU80 they'll put in a toggle to go back to the old FX.. and whoever's playing EQ2X at the time can enjoy having an option - assuming they paid 1000 SC for the "Retro Mystical Spell Token".  Per character.</p>

[Thistleknot]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">There are currently no plans to allow players to switch back to the old FX, but we put the new Spell FX on the Test Server first to get feedback and replace those Spells that were deemed “Class Defining” and/or “Most Beloved.”  We have gathered the information from players and Devs and have restored those FX to their former glory.  Also the Class specific casting rings are back and the Rune wheel has been moved to the feet of all classes.These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.</span></p></blockquote><p>So what you're saying is that I have a master spell of DamageYou II. I level and get DamageYou III (at app or say I even upgrade it to expert) and my spell effects get lamer.  Your game has spell tiers on two levels, both Apprentice to Grandmaster AND actual spell level, you can't just quantify the spell effects based on one of the tiering systems.</p>

[Murdo]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration. </span></p></blockquote><p>So basically, all of us saying "these new efffects are horrible" are being ignored. Only if we took 3 hours to list every single [Removed for Content] spell that now looks like a 5 year old created it, would you pay attention to us?</p><p>This is a terrible decision, and I really hope SOE suffers for launching this abortion of an "upgrade"</p>

[Barx]

<p>They can't make everyone happy. Personally I'm waiting to see the revised versions to render judgment. The old system was way over the top, and yeah some people liked that. But a lot of people either didn't like it (can't see crap but particle effects) or couldn't use it at all (not enough computing umph).</p><p>And yes, saying "this system is horrible" is non-constructive feedback. They're making the changes, that part was not on the table for argument. Specific cases of how & why they look bad gives them something to change, saying it all sucks doesn't.</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Murdo@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration. </span></p></blockquote><p>So basically, all of us saying "these new efffects are horrible" are being ignored. Only if we took 3 hours to list every single [Removed for Content] spell that now looks like a 5 year old created it, would you pay attention to us?</p><p>This is a terrible decision, and I really hope SOE suffers for launching this abortion of an "upgrade"</p></blockquote><p>Ya I expected them to listen to actual feedback instead of 5 year olds stomping thier feet and crying.The new system wasnt completely bad. I actually liked some of the new animations. I also liked some of the old animations. </p><p>So while doing actualy testing instead of crying. I put up 2 versions of eq2 live and test. Did a side by side comparison of each effect and wrote down which I liked and didnt. Then added additional feedback of what i thought should be changed. </p><p>So in the end if he changed most if not all of the individual spells people were complaining about as well as improved class marquee spells to be better. </p><p>And removed the casting wheel and Rune wheel (< which actual was pretty nice) to the feet. Then yes this is BETTER then the old system. </p><p>He still has the AA spells and the fun spells to tweak. I am actually excited to see what he can do for those spells since most of them are lacking in any spell effects. </p><p>EDIT: And for people crying about the gpu partical effects they cant move them to the gpu because particle effects are tied to animations. So when you flap your arms around the particle effects sync up. If they moved then to the gpu then either they wont have any animations (which looks horrid) or they will not sync up and look horrible. Currently particle effects have improved in performance so they are better. And honestly i still rather see a slider for npc and a slider for pc particle effects to control the amount of particles i see on the screen. </p>

[Lhunara]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Murdo@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">Based on those of you that provided constructive feedback with specific class/spell information, many, if not all, of your concerns were taken into consideration. </span></p></blockquote><p>So basically, all of us saying "these new efffects are horrible" are being ignored. Only if we took 3 hours to list every single [Removed for Content] spell that now looks like a 5 year old created it, would you pay attention to us?</p><p>This is a terrible decision, and I really hope SOE suffers for launching this abortion of an "upgrade"</p></blockquote><p>Ya I expected them to listen to actual feedback instead of 5 year olds stomping thier feet and crying.The new system wasnt completely bad. I actually liked some of the new animations. I also liked some of the old animations. </p><p>So while doing actualy testing instead of crying. I put up 2 versions of eq2 live and test. Did a side by side comparison of each effect and wrote down which I liked and didnt. Then added additional feedback of what i thought should be changed. </p><p>So in the end if he changed most if not all of the individual spells people were complaining about as well as improved class marquee spells to be better. </p><p>And removed the casting wheel and Rune wheel (< which actual was pretty nice) to the feet. Then yes this is BETTER then the old system. </p><p>He still has the AA spells and the fun spells to tweak. I am actually excited to see what he can do for those spells since most of them are lacking in any spell effects. </p><p>EDIT: And for people crying about the gpu partical effects they cant move them to the gpu because particle effects are tied to animations. So when you flap your arms around the particle effects sync up. If they moved then to the gpu then either they wont have any animations (which looks horrid) or they will not sync up and look horrible. Currently particle effects have improved in performance so they are better. And honestly i still rather see a slider for npc and a slider for pc particle effects to control the amount of particles i see on the screen. </p></blockquote><p>Serious question, are you a Sony employee?  I can't see how anyone can see what was done with the spell effects, and then get "excited" over what he can do for the ones they haven't ruined yet.</p><p>Also you can call it "whining and crying" all you want, but you are in the minority here.   Remember threads like this, and your responses when you're looking back 2 months from now wondering where everyone went.</p>

[Zechirian2003]

<p>I hardly ever post but this one grabbed my attention and while attendin Fan Faire, something they said really makes sense now.</p><p>You figure everyone has to turn down particle effects during raids right? Because it's usually way to much for some of our machines.</p><p>At Fan Faire one of the panels was the Art panel and in that panel they said that the new weapons and armor for DoV will have lots of very cool effects, one of them being increased particle effects, yes even now your armor will have particle effects.</p><p>I think that this move to reduce spell effects NOW is in anticipation for the coming extra particle effects with the new expansion.  One can only hope they take our feedback and with enough time between now and the expansion, are able to enhance some animations of the new spell graphics.</p><p>Just my 2 cents!</p><p>Pirotol</p>

[Styrkarr]

<p>I kinda find it ironic that EQ/EQ2 players sorta paint this image of themselves as sorta the hardcore, old school MMO players that are all about the gameplay and the content and not about the flash and the fluff.  hehe, guess not.  I dunno, just kinda funny to me.</p><p>Personally, I'm psyched to actually be able to see a mob in a group/raid fight again.  I'll actually be able to see <span style="text-decoration: underline;">what the hell is goin' on in a group or raid</span>!  Can you believe it?  After all these years.  I'll actually be able to position myself behind a mob with my Brigand not according to my wether my Auto-Attack meter is rollin' (because I can't see a [Removed for Content] thing staring into the center of the Yellow Giant star that is the mob), but because I can actually SEE his back.  It almost brings a tear to my eye.  And no; turning OFF the spell effects is not an option.  I'd like to be able to get <em>some</em> indication of what the rest of my group is casting.  </p><p>Gee, if only the dev's would come up with a compromise.  Maybe animations that had style, but were more about functionality, more about gameplay than they were about some big stoopid exploding fireworks nobody even pays attention to anymore after a few days of seeing it half a million times an hour.  If only they could come up with a design philosophy about spell effects that would make a given classes spells a little more readily recognizable, not only as a spell for their specific class, but simple and recognizable as a particular spell period.  And yet not some absurd, ridiculously over-the-top orgasmic pyrotechnic display that serves little purpose.  If only I could look at some guy casting a spell, and (after trainin' myself to recognize it) be able to go: "Ok, he's got that particular runic wheel spinnin', so I know he's a Wizard.  He's got that rune over his head, so it's probably gonna be a debuff.  It's yellow, so it's probably single-target.  So it's either this or this..." and then not have my computer try to punch itself in the balls over the framerate hit his spell might cause.</p><p>Oh, wait...</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Ya I expected them to listen to actual feedback instead of 5 year olds stomping thier feet and crying.The new system wasnt completely bad. I actually liked some of the new animations. I also liked some of the old animations. </p><p>So while doing actualy testing instead of crying. I put up 2 versions of eq2 live and test. Did a side by side comparison of each effect and wrote down which I liked and didnt. Then added additional feedback of what i thought should be changed. </p><p>So in the end if he changed most if not all of the individual spells people were complaining about as well as improved class marquee spells to be better. </p><p>And removed the casting wheel and Rune wheel (< which actual was pretty nice) to the feet. Then yes this is BETTER then the old system. </p><p>He still has the AA spells and the fun spells to tweak. I am actually excited to see what he can do for those spells since most of them are lacking in any spell effects. </p><p>EDIT: And for people crying about the gpu partical effects they cant move them to the gpu because particle effects are tied to animations. So when you flap your arms around the particle effects sync up. If they moved then to the gpu then either they wont have any animations (which looks horrid) or they will not sync up and look horrible. Currently particle effects have improved in performance so they are better. And honestly i still rather see a slider for npc and a slider for pc particle effects to control the amount of particles i see on the screen. </p></blockquote><p>Serious question, are you a Sony employee?  I can't see how anyone can see what was done with the spell effects, and then get "excited" over what he can do for the ones they haven't ruined yet.</p><p>Also you can call it "whining and crying" all you want, but you are in the minority here.   Remember threads like this, and your responses when you're looking back 2 months from now wondering where everyone went.</p></blockquote><p>No unlike you I actualy test things instead of emo raging on forums withotu testing anything. And if you paid any attention to my posting history i have complained about soe more then most.</p><p>But when 5 years olds who obviously havent tested stuff on are raging on the forums, when its pretty apparent they havent tested crap I feel the need to prove them wrong because there are many people who have tested these changes and provided feedback.</p><p>As i said before i put up 2 clients of eq2 I tested each spell effects on training dummies in guild halls both on live and test. I compared each effect on each spell/Ca on my class side by side. I wrote down what i liked and didnt like. For instance in the old system EVERY SINGLE defensive buff i cast had me doing the same crappy animation I would put my hand in the air and turn blue or gold and spakles would fly everwhere. In the old system EVERY SINGLE offensive buff i cast did the same animation of me putting my hand in the air and turning red. Under the new system a blue shield will appear over my head on defense buffs, or red crossed swords will appear above my character on offensive buffs. But wait that wasnt all some offensive buffs made my hands glow red. Some made lightning arc through my hands. All of my buffs were VAST improvements over the old FX.</p><p>So next time try testing the new FX instead of going straight for the razor blades.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>/shrug I like all the ranger ones I have seen on test lol. Seems like they added more effects for us, just more gratituous use of arrows flying around which I like. Actually reminded me of some effects I have seen on Guild wars 2 and Rift.</p>

[Sydares]

<p>The Ranger ones are great. Fantastic job.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Maybe there is hope then because as soon as I saw these I thought "well, there goes EQ2". I tried what Gungo had done as well, unfortunately I found every single effect was worse than the original - even on my ranger so it didnt seem much point continuing.</p><p>Toons are important to me, how they look, how they fight etc. I want my toons to feel powerful and look it as well. These effects dont really make me feel powerful at all. It feels like they just took away the appearance slots or something to me.</p><p>Regarding Rangers - it would look better if your arrow actually followed the particle effect. Some constructive feedback at least :p</p>

[Gungo]

<p><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Maybe there is hope then because as soon as I saw these I thought "well, there goes EQ2". I tried what Gungo had done as well, unfortunately I found every single effect was worse than the original - even on my ranger so it didnt seem much point continuing.</p><p>Toons are important to me, how they look, how they fight etc. I want my toons to feel powerful and look it as well. These effects dont really make me feel powerful at all. It feels like they just took away the appearance slots or something to me.</p><p>Regarding Rangers - it would look better if your arrow actually followed the particle effect. Some constructive feedback at least :p</p></blockquote><p>Odd then how the 2 other rangers who posted before you think the new spell effect are awesome.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p>Well I do have one complaint/bug report. Some of the new ranger arrow effects seems to be going straight to the enemy while the actual arrow goes on its typical arc. So on trick shot the arrow arcs and the red spell effect goes on a straight line to the enemy. I don't care if they both arc or both go in a staight line but would be nice if they both did the same thing heh.</p><p>I did love the effect of arrow rip putting an arrow in my guys hand after using it though, didn't notice that before.</p>

[Lhunara]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>No unlike you I actualy test things instead of emo raging on forums withotu testing anything. And if you paid any attention to my posting history i have complained about soe more then most.</p><p>But when 5 years olds who obviously havent tested stuff on are raging on the forums, when its pretty apparent they havent tested crap I feel the need to prove them wrong because there are many people who have tested these changes and provided feedback.</p><p>As i said before i put up 2 clients of eq2 I tested each spell effects on training dummies in guild halls both on live and test. I compared each effect on each spell/Ca on my class side by side. I wrote down what i liked and didnt like. For instance in the old system EVERY SINGLE defensive buff i cast had me doing the same crappy animation I would put my hand in the air and turn blue or gold and spakles would fly everwhere. In the old system EVERY SINGLE offensive buff i cast did the same animation of me putting my hand in the air and turning red. Under the new system a blue shield will appear over my head on defense buffs, or red crossed swords will appear above my character on offensive buffs. But wait that wasnt all some offensive buffs made my hands glow red. Some made lightning arc through my hands. All of my buffs were VAST improvements over the old FX.</p><p>So next time try testing the new FX instead of going straight for the razor blades.</p></blockquote><p>I'll digress to prevent this from turning into a flame war.  Suffice it to say, I don't report my daily activities to you, but I have tested the new effects, every last one on my Shadowknight, as well as testing the new effects on a wizard, and a swashbuckler.  Every effect I saw was so far below the originals that I didn't feel that a blow by blow list of "Insidious Whisper:  Worse; Death March: Worse; Harm Touch: Worse" was really necessary. </p><p>You're quick to belittle other's opinions, and impugn them for being emo wristcutters and 5 year olds, but only one of us immediately resorted to namecalling and insults in this discussion.</p><p>Maybe in your world, Sony can do no wrong, but I fail to see how disliking everything I've seen of the new spell effects immediately means I haven't even looked at it yet.  But I imagine that's as hard for you to grasp as it is for me to believe that you've actually seen some of the effects I've seen and *liked* them.  So I guess we'll have to agree to disagree on that one.</p>

[Yimway]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance. </span></p></blockquote><p>meh.</p><p>Perpetuating one of the biggest client design mistakes makes me a sad panda about the time spent on this project.</p>

[Anastasie]

<p>I'm curious to see the changes and if it indeed is an improvement.  /crosses fingers</p>

[I_am_Me]

<p><cite>Hemophobe@Unrest wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><span style="font-size: small; font-family: arial,helvetica,sans-serif;">These new FX are processed using the CPU just the same as the old ones, but the Optimization and Standardization was done for design, as well as performance.  Particle size, amount, and those giant multi polygon meshes have been reduced to improve frame rate.  Since the spells are tiered (Apprentice, Adept, Master, etc) we felt there should be some difference in the size and amount of FX for each major tier so players will be rewarded with a bigger visual when an adept or master drops or when a spell is created using trade skills.</span></p></blockquote><div><span>Have you at least added threads to process particles? Added a multi-thread rendering engine? No and no? Then </span><span>[Removed for Content]</span><span> is the point. This doesn't fix the main issue that </span><span>cpu</span><span>-processed particles is an archaic method of ineptitude</span><span>. I'd blame the programmer but I know the game's render engine is </span><span>cr</span><span>4p. I hope you enjoy wasting time because that's what you just did.</span></div><div></div>

[Isoloki]

<p><cite>Torgaard@Antonia Bayle wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I kinda find it ironic that EQ/EQ2 players sorta paint this image of themselves as sorta the hardcore, old school MMO players that are all about the gameplay and the content and not about the flash and the fluff.  hehe, guess not.  I dunno, just kinda funny to me.</p><p>Personally, I'm psyched to actually be able to see a mob in a group/raid fight again.  I'll actually be able to see <span style="text-decoration: underline;">what the hell is goin' on in a group or raid</span>!  Can you believe it?  After all these years.  I'll actually be able to position myself behind a mob with my Brigand not according to my wether my Auto-Attack meter is rollin' (because I can't see a [Removed for Content] thing staring into the center of the Yellow Giant star that is the mob), but because I can actually SEE his back.  It almost brings a tear to my eye.  And no; turning OFF the spell effects is not an option.  <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>I'd like to be able to get <em>some</em> indication of what the rest of my group is casting.  </strong></span></p><p>Gee, if only the dev's would come up with a compromise.  Maybe animations that had style, but were more about functionality, more about gameplay than they were about some big stoopid exploding fireworks nobody even pays attention to anymore after a few days of seeing it half a million times an hour.  If only they could come up with a design philosophy about spell effects that would make a given classes spells a little more readily recognizable, not only as a spell for their specific class, but simple and recognizable as a particular spell period.  And yet not some absurd, ridiculously over-the-top orgasmic pyrotechnic display that serves little purpose.  If only I could look at some guy casting a spell, and (after trainin' myself to recognize it) be able to go: "Ok, he's got that particular runic wheel spinnin', so I know he's a Wizard.  He's got that rune over his head, so it's probably gonna be a debuff.  It's yellow, so it's probably single-target.  So it's either this or this..." and then not have my computer try to punch itself in the balls over the framerate hit his spell might cause.</p><p>Oh, wait...</p></blockquote><p>I bolded and underline the part I would like to respond to.</p><p>As far as I am able to tell from playing on the test server. You may find it hard to determine what is being cast. For example;</p><p>My Shadownight's Taunts went from a fire bloom on the mob to little red lines above the mobs head. Even battling solo, I find it hard to tell if my taunt went off at all, nevermind some else in a group seeing it.</p><p>His Area of effect damage and taunt, use to have large dark blue ghosts that would shrink down into the mobs, so everyone would know you did an AOE, Now it is a little green swirl that goes around my toon, but don't see anything on the mobs except 3 little red lines.</p><p>The classes I have tested are Shadownight, Fury, Necromancer and Swashbuckler. I have a hrad time seeing the spells solo never mind grouped. Especially when everyone is right next to the mobs. So knowing what others are casting will be more difficult in my opinion.</p><p>Now for the topic and hand.</p><p>I have posted here earlier. basically ranting and raving, and I do apologize for that. But my emotions got the best of me. I have been dedicated to this game for the past 5 years through the good and bad. My problem with this new spell effects/animations and sound effects are they just don't seem to fit the classes very well.</p><p>I'll stick to my Shadownight for examples:</p><p>Old, Self buff defense: Sword movement towards ground with blue aura around toon. New, No movement what so ever small blue shield appears over head with a tinny sound.</p><p>Old self buff offense: Sword movement towards ground with red aura around toon. New 2 little red swords over head with a tinny sound and no character movement at all.</p><p>My life taps use to have a nice green skull that would appear with a red stream down to my character. Now you get crossed bones with a tiny skull that just appears and sits there for a scond.</p><p>I use to have all types of poisonous types clouds in dark colors surround me with certain spells cast, they are no long there. Now I see a quick little green thing on the gorund with a couple of bubbles in it. I just don't feel evil anymore.</p><p>Is there any way to darken colors of the spell effects for evil classes? Can we have our buff animations back please?</p><p>Can the casting animations be different for what we are casting? For example, when my necromancer casts damage spells, no matter what damage spell I cast it is the exact same animation. A little verity is needed.</p><p>At least make the spell effects a little more ??? so we can tell what they are, I can't tell if I healed my pet except by looking at his health bar, I never needed to do that before.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p><cite>Gungo wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Guy De Alsace wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Maybe there is hope then because as soon as I saw these I thought "well, there goes EQ2". I tried what Gungo had done as well, unfortunately I found every single effect was worse than the original - even on my ranger so it didnt seem much point continuing.</p><p>Toons are important to me, how they look, how they fight etc. I want my toons to feel powerful and look it as well. These effects dont really make me feel powerful at all. It feels like they just took away the appearance slots or something to me.</p><p>Regarding Rangers - it would look better if your arrow actually followed the particle effect. Some constructive feedback at least :p</p></blockquote><p>Odd then how the 2 other rangers who posted before you think the new spell effect are awesome.</p></blockquote><p>I know...just shows you cant take your own tastes for granted. I'll admit Storm of Arrows is a bit better but thats about it - for me at any rate. My Ranger I can live with having meh effects since I no longer play him much. Its my Templar that I'm crying into my keyboard over <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Elepian]

<p>Well bah and blast it all!.. (<< not really what I wanted to say but would rather not have my post moderated or censored hehe ^^ )   </p><p>As a wizard , We should be doing Devastating attacks, we're the Glass Cannons, and Manasuckers! In the great words of that Erudite Wizard on the Queen's Colony : "BOOM!! Haha! I love my job!" </p><p>But thats all kaput because raiders were complaining that the particle effects caused too much lag and that they didn't want to turn them off during raids because they wanted to see SOMETHING hitting the raid mobs during their glorious venture into the new content!  But what about the casual players? What about the ones that don't raid much but instead go out with their friends tackling a dungeon... or just grinding quests or even doing it solo?  My gut tells me we got overlooked in this change.. Sure, some of our spells didn't necessarily fit the damage type like Fusion and.. well wait .. no just fusion is all that came to mind for the Wizards, everything else was on par with its damage type.. When you think about it fusion reminded me of Plasma being harnessed by the wizard and shaped into a cataclysmic blast, not molded completely into a ball but kept mobile so it could better separate when UNLEASHED upon its targets!! A BIG UNSTABLE CONCOCTION OF PLASMIC GOO!  I'm not necessarily sure about my next statement but I don't think all Plasma is necessarily hot, some of it could be so cold that when fired , is just blasts through its target unhindered because its concentrated enough to do so! And our roots as a wizard?  Chains, chains shackles and chains!  When we cast that spell it was superb to see chain links moving in a circular motion around the wizards hands.. IT LET OUR TARGET KNOW THEY WEREN'T GOING ANYWHERE!!! .. Ice Comet, its a comet and when it lands in the old particle effects, it actually bursts and the target is covered in ice and snow! in a sudden blizzard when they get up they're stunned that it could be bright as a summer day and yet they still got smashed up with Ice and Snow!  I am pleased with the Fire Ball effect, but thats all for the wizards!  I wasn't really happy to see my Furnace of Ro changed, granted I didn't care for the old one so lets discount that opinion of that specific spell.. This is a horrible time for wizards my friends A DARK TIME! Because now instead of letting our victims know they wont be going anywhere, we're throwing velcro mover balls at their feet and threatening them with the chance of relocation!  OI!!!  I've always as a casual player tried turning my particle effects up as I found them beautiful and to the point.  When I raid, If I lag I'll face the blasted wall while I annihilate my opponent! I've never wanted to turn those effects off but you know what? thats exactly what I'm going to do when they hit live.. is turn them off because I'd rather not look at particle effects that make me queasy to see, something that raiders could've and technically should've done in the first place.  You wanna see something hit your target? Look for that Orange number that rises above their head, guess what? THATS YOUR DAMAGE! WOOHOO! </p><p>Say no to drugs and dummed particle effects -  That is all. </p><p>Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go practice my accuracy with these new moving pad particle effects for a root spell I've got.. </p><p>Signed-</p><p>A very P!$s&D off WIZARD! </p>

[Dreyco]

<p>There needs to be a more obvious effect on mezzes.  Right now, the little swirling particles are not enough.  The effect on the mob needs to be consistant all the way across the board so that it can be seen, and left alone.</p>

[Neiloch]

<p><cite>Elepian@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>But thats all kaput because raiders were complaining that the particle effects caused too much lag and that they didn't want to turn them off during raids because they wanted to see SOMETHING hitting the raid mobs during their glorious venture into the new content! </blockquote><p>lol at thinking this is for raiders. These effects are, more than likely, two fold.</p><p>1. designed to have a more obvious effect rather than a big overzealous one. Kind of like the difference between a flash bomb and a firework. Flash bombs are obvious when seen in full but overwhelming. Fireworks are obvious too but aren't overwhelming. Sort of like 'ooo thats pretty' instead of constant 'GEEZ could there <em>be</em> any more stuff on the screen?!;</p><p>2. To be less resource intensive while still having them mostly 'on'</p><p>Both are these are for new players they expect to bring in with EQ2X, nothing more.</p><p>Another reason its silly to think this is something done by/for raiders is that out of ANY player style or base, raiders are the ones more than likely to actually be able to handle the massive amount of effects since thye are more likely to have better rigs. Also the majority of raiders would not hesitate one second to turn their stuff down to get better framerate and hopefully a better performance and response out of their character.</p><p>Really think this going out with all the EQ2X changes that's a big drive for new players is just some coincidence?</p>

[Dreyco]

<p>I filed a bug report with this:</p><p>Illusionist personae pets are still using some of the old effects, and they look wierd.  Needs to be updated to be the newer effects, cause it's bugging out otherwise.</p>

[Castonu]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Elepian@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote>But thats all kaput because raiders were complaining that the particle effects caused too much lag and that they didn't want to turn them off during raids because they wanted to see SOMETHING hitting the raid mobs during their glorious venture into the new content! </blockquote><p>lol at thinking this is for raiders. These effects are, more than likely, two fold.</p><p>1. designed to have a more obvious effect rather than a big overzealous one. Kind of like the difference between a flash bomb and a firework. Flash bombs are obvious when seen in full but overwhelming. Fireworks are obvious too but aren't overwhelming. Sort of like 'ooo thats pretty' instead of constant 'GEEZ could there <em>be</em> any more stuff on the screen?!;</p><p>2. To be less resource intensive while still having them mostly 'on'</p><p>Both are these are for new players they expect to bring in with EQ2X, nothing more.</p><p>Another reason its silly to think this is something done by/for raiders is that out of ANY player style or base, raiders are the ones more than likely to actually be able to handle the massive amount of effects since thye are more likely to have better rigs. Also the majority of raiders would not hesitate one second to turn their stuff down to get better framerate and hopefully a better performance and response out of their character.</p><p>Really think this going out with all the EQ2X changes that's a big drive for new players is just some coincidence?</p></blockquote><p>I have to agree with Neiloch on this. I raid and I have a custom config which is saved and I just load it before I enter the raid zone. It keeps the particle effects to a minimum, it keeps all damage numbers above the mobs head off, other than my own and it also turns off all the names above everyone. I play a brig and I never have any trouble seeing a mobs back or seeing what other raiders are doing this way. And almost everyone that I know who raids regularly normally does this to some extent.</p><p>And when I want to see all the pretty graphics while I group or roam solo, well I just load my other configuration. It's so simple.</p><p>So I have to believe that all these changes are nothing more than aiming at less stellar computer rigs to be able to run the game on EQ2X adequately. When SOE released EQ2 at the same time that Blizzard released WOW and WOW could run on about any computer very well, well that was one of the big reasons that WOW became so popular so quickly. Anyone could play WOW and their computer rig didn't have to be upgraded. You could just jump in and play and didn't have to monkey with settings to make the game look good.</p>

[Kikiriki]

<p>The difference is.... drastic.<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/67MyeOBEkUY?fs=1&hl=en_US" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" /><[Removed for Content]"application/x-[Removed for Content]" width="640" height="385" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/67MyeOBEkUY?fs=1&hl=en_US" ></embed></object></p>

[Neiloch]

<p>Personally I think actual rifts opening up in the ground and rocks coming out is cooler than big boulders seemingly coming out of no where blocking everything. big boulders just looks like a bad magicians quick change. Enemies standing, big boulders cover everything, enemies on ground. Think there are other attacks that show rocks like that and it looks really cheesy.</p><p>Still think it needs to be tweaked though. The range of effects needs to be expanded to match the range of the attack, looks like it was coming up short yet stuff was still getting hit. Maybe replace the flying rocks with big spikes shooting out of the ground and going back in? Spikes would be single objects, simple texture maps and the spikes themselves would probably be low poly.</p>

[iceriven2]

<p>New rift graphic has its pluses...  I like the opening in the ground, but it looks more like a conjy spell thean a warlock.  I always thought of it as opening a rift to/from the void, so when i picture a rift, i think purple black energy, and bigger rocks :p</p>

[Lhunara]

<p>Inspired by Kiki, I figured I'd post my own.  I have a short attention span though, so i didn't clean it up at all, ignore the UI in the first segment.</p><p><object width="1280" height="745"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WvecXn3EMT8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;hd=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WvecXn3EMT8?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US&amp;hd=1" type="application/x-[Removed for Content]" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="1280" height="745"></embed></object></p>

[Lhunara]

<p>Oh ffs, I'm a newb, whatever, here's the link:</p><p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvecXn3EMT8" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvecXn3EMT8</a></p>

[Diern]

<p>Here is some constructive feedback. Take a look at the above video, and change everything back to how it was for shadow knights... This isn't even funny. These new effects do not capture the flavour of the old vastly superior effects at all. Personally I don't need more performance, If I raid I load my custom profile which has effects to minimum. (which has the same effect to what you are doing here.)</p><p>The notion of standardization is a misguided joke. Do you guys really believe what your saying here?</p><p>Thanks for the %$%$ you, and ignoring the request for us to keep the old effects. That was a deal breaker for me. If this had been granted I would have got some major respect for SOE in general but,</p><p>You can kiss another 3 subscriptions bye bye otherwise. It almost seems thats what you want and force the entire game to micro-transaction.</p><p>Very angry customer of SOE since 1998. I've supported you guys through the thick and thin, but this is probably the last straw for me. I can't see myself investing in any of your future products, if you are so obsessed with gutting the parts about your games that aren't broken and blatantly ignoring the majority of your vocal player base.</p><p>I may stick around a little to see the lynching you guys get when this travesty goes live....</p>

[Ciara52]

<p>I know in the long run that the spell animations are probably not important as some other things but for me it is important.  Look and feel plays a very large part in whether I like a game or not.  I've been trying to like it and playing on EQ2x but well  I haven't played for more then 5 minutes in a week.  Now there is what 4 days left?  Kind of takes away my desire to play.  Maybe that's childish of me but it makes a big difference. </p>

[Neiloch]

<p>Hey guys, take a look at the section this thread is in. Its called "In Testing Feedback" From this we can conclude:</p><p>1. this stuff is 'in testing'</p><p>2. they want 'feedback'</p><p>Now I'm sure they wish they could call "in testing which means its definitely subject to change and please post constructive feedback that we could actually take in and possibly apply" but that's a little long. BTW constructive feedback does not include:</p><p>"this is not what I am used to! Make it like before! no more now! more like the before time!"</p><p>Telling them to scrap the whole thing, all efforts were wasted and nothing good has come of it is ALSO not constructive feedback. It is quite literally, destructive feedback.</p><p>See how people are suggesting ways to improve upon the base of what they are putting in? This is because they are aware that it is inevitable some change will be going in, and are trying to make it as personally palatable as possible. So why don't you try pointing out specifics of what you don't like, and offering alternatives. I'm sure blow by blow lists of every little thing you don't like and what you do like is much more appreciated than saying 'no want' in a large paragraph. If you don't like any of it, list exactly what you don't like and why. Ideally refrain from using buzz words and vague terminology like "it just doesn't POP" or "it ain't doing it for me" or the inevitable "this sucks" because you will, apparently, only be surprised and disappointed when they dismiss these posts since they offer NOTHING.</p><p>It doesn't have to be a thesis, iceriven2 made a very good, short post and how this new rift is disappointing, what they expected, and what they think it should look like. Dreyco also made some very good posts on this page. Those are good, what isn't good is things along the lines of 'you guys screwed up royal and I'm taking my ball home!'</p><p><strong>Back on topic</strong>, I'm still finding the particle effect and arrow misalignment bug very messy and I doubt I will ever get used to it. I'm referring to the particle effect going straight to the target, while the arrow makes an up, over, and down arc. I submitted a bug report with a list of effected ranged CA's. Will this be adjusted before the next GU?</p>

[Armawk]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>BTW constructive feedback does not include:</p><p>"this is not what I am used to! Make it like before! no more now! more like the before time!"</p><p>Telling them to scrap the whole thing, all efforts were wasted and nothing good has come of it is ALSO not constructive feedback. It is quite literally, destructive feedback.</p></blockquote><p>On the contrary, if the best advice to give from ones perspective is 'no this is not an improvement in any way' then failing to say so is not constructive, it is just polishing egos at the expense of telling the truth. Not everything they do is a good thing and they should expect to hear if people think that, or they should not have feedback forums.</p><p>I HAVE tested this reasonably and I am unable to find anything that is better now for the characters I tested. Nothing at all. I wish I could in all honesty say different. Therefore my request is that they mitigate the damage to my experience by only changing things that they feel they really have to to be able to do whatever they are trying to do (it is unclear what this is), and that they really do something about the 2d 'popup icon' graphics like the skull and crossbones on that shadowknight video as they are a complete downer.</p>

[Lhunara]

<p><cite>Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey guys, take a look at the section this thread is in. Its called "In Testing Feedback" From this we can conclude:</p><p>1. this stuff is 'in testing'</p><p>2. they want 'feedback'</p><p>Now I'm sure they wish they could call "in testing which means its definitely subject to change and please post constructive feedback that we could actually take in and possibly apply" but that's a little long. BTW constructive feedback does not include:</p><p>"this is not what I am used to! Make it like before! no more now! more like the before time!"</p><p>Telling them to scrap the whole thing, all efforts were wasted and nothing good has come of it is ALSO not constructive feedback. It is quite literally, destructive feedback.</p><p>See how people are suggesting ways to improve upon the base of what they are putting in? This is because they are aware that it is inevitable some change will be going in, and are trying to make it as personally palatable as possible. So why don't you try pointing out specifics of what you don't like, and offering alternatives. I'm sure blow by blow lists of every little thing you don't like and what you do like is much more appreciated than saying 'no want' in a large paragraph. If you don't like any of it, list exactly what you don't like and why. Ideally refrain from using buzz words and vague terminology like "it just doesn't POP" or "it ain't doing it for me" or the inevitable "this sucks" because you will, apparently, only be surprised and disappointed when they dismiss these posts since they offer NOTHING.</p><p>It doesn't have to be a thesis, iceriven2 made a very good, short post and how this new rift is disappointing, what they expected, and what they think it should look like. Dreyco also made some very good posts on this page. Those are good, what isn't good is things along the lines of 'you guys screwed up royal and I'm taking my ball home!'</p><p><strong>Back on topic</strong>, I'm still finding the particle effect and arrow misalignment bug very messy and I doubt I will ever get used to it. I'm referring to the particle effect going straight to the target, while the arrow makes an up, over, and down arc. I submitted a bug report with a list of effected ranged CA's. Will this be adjusted before the next GU?</p></blockquote><p>I believe what you're failing to understand here, is that, speaking for myself in particular, I feel these effects as a whole are a huge step back, they're simplistic, greatly understated, and in general appear very poorly done.  </p><p>Either they want feedback, or they don't want feedback, but "this is all wrong" *is* a valid complaint.  I work in software development, and in my previous work, if we implemented something that customers just completed hated, we didn't tell them that they'd need to deal with it and to be more precise in their complaints, because inevitably they're going to say "absolutely everything".  "Absolutely everything" is a valid criticism, maybe not for you, but when they're implementing something that just looks horrid, it's going to impact existing customers, as well as influence the decision of potential future customers on whether or not they want to spend their money on a 6 year old game that for some reason, feels that graphical regression is a viable option moving forward.</p><p>By way of example, if someday in the future they decided that EQ2 needs to look precisely like EQ1, and implemented that, can you honestly say that someone complaining that "this is a really bad decision, please revert it" isn't appropriate criticism?  </p><p>Maybe this isn't important to you, but clearly to some it's game breaking.  Those people aren't going to stick around, especially after feeling ignored on the subject, no matter how hard you brow-beat them into thinking their criticisms aren't valid.  In the end, it comes down to personal preference, and it seems the majority opinion on this is overwhelmingly negative, yet some feel the need to invalidate those opinions because they don't share them.</p><p>As for me, I feel this new FX system on the whole is a huge step back, and I have yet to see an improvement in any of the spells I have tested.  Not to say there aren't any, but at least not any of the spells that I use on a regular basis or have tested.</p>

[Dreyco]

<p><cite>Lhunara@Guk wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p><cite>Neiloch@Kithicor wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>Hey guys, take a look at the section this thread is in. Its called "In Testing Feedback" From this we can conclude:</p><p>1. this stuff is 'in testing'</p><p>2. they want 'feedback'</p><p>Now I'm sure they wish they could call "in testing which means its definitely subject to change and please post constructive feedback that we could actually take in and possibly apply" but that's a little long. BTW constructive feedback does not include:</p><p>"this is not what I am used to! Make it like before! no more now! more like the before time!"</p><p>Telling them to scrap the whole thing, all efforts were wasted and nothing good has come of it is ALSO not constructive feedback. It is quite literally, destructive feedback.</p><p>See how people are suggesting ways to improve upon the base of what they are putting in? This is because they are aware that it is inevitable some change will be going in, and are trying to make it as personally palatable as possible. So why don't you try pointing out specifics of what you don't like, and offering alternatives. I'm sure blow by blow lists of every little thing you don't like and what you do like is much more appreciated than saying 'no want' in a large paragraph. If you don't like any of it, list exactly what you don't like and why. Ideally refrain from using buzz words and vague terminology like "it just doesn't POP" or "it ain't doing it for me" or the inevitable "this sucks" because you will, apparently, only be surprised and disappointed when they dismiss these posts since they offer NOTHING.</p><p>It doesn't have to be a thesis, iceriven2 made a very good, short post and how this new rift is disappointing, what they expected, and what they think it should look like. Dreyco also made some very good posts on this page. Those are good, what isn't good is things along the lines of 'you guys screwed up royal and I'm taking my ball home!'</p><p><strong>Back on topic</strong>, I'm still finding the particle effect and arrow misalignment bug very messy and I doubt I will ever get used to it. I'm referring to the particle effect going straight to the target, while the arrow makes an up, over, and down arc. I submitted a bug report with a list of effected ranged CA's. Will this be adjusted before the next GU?</p></blockquote><p>I believe what you're failing to understand here, is that, speaking for myself in particular, I feel these effects as a whole are a huge step back, they're simplistic, greatly understated, and in general appear very poorly done.  </p><p>Either they want feedback, or they don't want feedback, but "this is all wrong" *is* a valid complaint.  I work in software development, and in my previous work, if we implemented something that customers just completed hated, we didn't tell them that they'd need to deal with it and to be more precise in their complaints, because inevitably they're going to say "absolutely everything".  "Absolutely everything" is a valid criticism, maybe not for you, but when they're implementing something that just looks horrid, it's going to impact existing customers, as well as influence the decision of potential future customers on whether or not they want to spend their money on a 6 year old game that for some reason, feels that graphical regression is a viable option moving forward.</p><p>By way of example, if someday in the future they decided that EQ2 needs to look precisely like EQ1, and implemented that, can you honestly say that someone complaining that "this is a really bad decision, please revert it" isn't appropriate criticism?  </p><p>Maybe this isn't important to you, but clearly to some it's game breaking.  Those people aren't going to stick around, especially after feeling ignored on the subject, no matter how hard you brow-beat them into thinking their criticisms aren't valid.  In the end, it comes down to personal preference, and it seems the majority opinion on this is overwhelmingly negative, yet some feel the need to invalidate those opinions because they don't share them.</p><p>As for me, I feel this new FX system on the whole is a huge step back, and I have yet to see an improvement in any of the spells I have tested.  Not to say there aren't any, but at least not any of the spells that I use on a regular basis or have tested.</p></blockquote><p>Honestly, I watched your video, and in the first video, I could identify three unique effeccts.  The green gas spray, the strange purple smoke effect from your weapon proc, and the skull.  In the second, not only were the effects a lot cleaner and higher in their definition, they were identifiable.  IE:  I could tell the difference.</p><p>To each their own. *Shrugs*</p>

[theriatis]

<p>Hi,</p><p>as i read through the Comments, i thought i give them a try on test, here's my feedback:</p><p>Level 90 Wizard, Full AA, Nearly Full Mastered, tested on Single Mobs in Kunzar.</p><p>Numbing Cold: Looks good.Flames of Velious: Looks now like Ice Spears, just make it a lot bigger or get me the old one back.Solar Flare: Looks good.Magma Chamber: Looks good, but wheres the Hammer ? Please add it again or get me the old one back.Shackle: Whats with those tiny Shackles ?! Get me the old one back.Furnace of Ro: Looks good.Incinerate: Looks nice, but where is the Big Flame roaring ? Get me the old one back.Storm of Lighning: Hey, nice ! Can live with that one. But could be bigger.Surging Tempest: Hey, nice ! Can live with that one. But could be bigger.Glacial Wind: The Ice-Wind Effect is nice, but i miss the falling Ice-Spikes.Iceshield: Nice, but i want the old one (still can hear the sound of it).Fireball: Oh Well... better than others / But TINY.Ring of Ice: Well... tiny, isn't it ?Ice Spears: Looks good, could be a little bit bigger.Immolation: Looks nice, but i want the old one back.Fusion: See above !!!Firestorm: Ok.Rays: Ok.Ice-Comet: TINY TINY TINY TINY TINY. [Removed for Content] ? Thats a Snow-Ball, no Ice Comet. And, please,back to throwing it myself instead of materializing over the Monster. Or - make it REAL BIG.</p><p>Generally: Get rid of that Purple circle in front of my Char while casting, thanks.If there has to be one, then make it yellow. Same goes for the Ring around the feet.</p><p>And: Whats with all those tiny animations now ? Most of them where a lot bigger before, nowthey look like... tiny. Full Mastered, Max Level. TINY. Nobody fears a tiny Fireball <img src="/smilies/9d71f0541cff0a302a0309c5079e8dee.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p><p>Regards, Mandragore.</p>

[Calthine]

<p>I miss the constant music notes around my troubador from various buffs.  Other than that, I'm enjoying the effects I see so far.</p>

[Kenrod]

<p>Wait...they took away the swirling notes that bards get??</p><p>EQ1 even had those. If that isn't a huge step back, I don't know what is. This change takes away all of the flair and immersion the old spell effects had. Some needed to be toned back, yes. But taking away the swirling notes that bards have had since 1999 and EQ1? Give me a #@$%# break.</p>

[Zedius]

<p>I have to agree. Spell effects are a HUGE part of each class, and the game as a whole.  This needs to be done right not some slack job low budget time crunch craptastic puke.</p><p>SOE please please dont screw this up for everyone, take some real pride in this, its something we all look at every day, and is a key compnent that forms the big picture when someone looks at your MMO.</p><p>Do you want new players to look at your MMO and think to themselves... "Wow, that looks like crap, look how old that game looks"  OR  They could say "Wow, that looks pretty awesome, I like that!" </p><p>Its totally in your hands.</p><p>So far I feel they are pretty dinky and dont show much effert, most all of my spells are little small flashes and nothing more. take a look at the other MMOs on the market, if your MMO can't do it, fix it! Don't fall behind, lead the way!</p><p>I'll keep my fingers crossed.</p><p>I am editing this to provide some feedback as the title of the post says.</p><p>1. Spells need to have specific effects that are relational to the puropse of the spell.</p><p>2. Spells graphics need to be unique for each spell, using the same graphics for each spell on the same class simply says that your too lazy or cheap to devote the dev time need to do it right in the first place. You don't want your mmo to look half baked.</p><p>3. Spells effects need to be large enough to see, so far a lot of the effects are too small to make them worth even having.</p><p>4. Remember that spell effects are relyed upon in groups to indicate the effect that is on the mob, especially mezzes and roots, snares, and slows.</p><p>I will say I am SO glad to get rid of the spell lobbing effect as arch was wayyyy to high and spells need to travel faster to their target. Were not throwing 3 miles and arrows do not need a 120 degree angle of fire to reach their target, flatten that out and make them look killer, add some effects to those shots, make them look unique from each other.</p><p>I can't stress enough to look at some of the other games on the market, do it better then them, or at least match the effort they put in, don't let your game look old and dinky, make it look incredible!</p><p>New edit:</p><p>Went back to test, turned particle effects all the way up and I gotta say, for necros the spell effects aren't bad. I DOOO miss the pet buff spell effects, I really liked those burning swords, and the spinning shields. They were really nice, but the rest of them are pretty decent. To be clear, I wouldn't complain about them when they went live. So good job, could have been a lot worse for necros.</p>

[Callim]

<p>Have  mastered out 90 SK I copied over to test to check these new animations out.  Review below.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Unending Agony:</span>  Green bubbles at your feet, fine.  But practically unviewable on the mobs, I have no idea which have been hit.  Its way way too fast, and the animation has your shield/weapon disappear instantly as you raise your hands, only to pop back into existance when the arms warp back into place.  Horrible.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Death Cloud:</span>  See Unending Agony.  Only thing better is at least your weapons don't disappear.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Tap Veins:</span>  What is this even supposed to be? Again, no understandable particles on the mobs.  You have green streamers that spin?  I am a SK, not a cheerleader with a ribbon wand.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Doom Aura:</span>  Losing my black spinning cloud of horror made me want to weep, revert this.  This spell used to be so awesome I would just spam it to see it when bored.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Grave Sacrament:</span>  Used to be instantly recognizable, unmissable, a ghost would rise from the ground and grow huge on each enemy, amazing.  I don't even know if this has particles on the mobs anymore, it looks kind of like a like pink/red blink of maybenothing now.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Shadow Coil and Malice:</span>  Both now look like an instant puke green 2d crayon quality line that connects to the mob.  Upside, unlike the rest of the effects I can actually see this one on the mob.  Downside, no one in their right mind would want to see this one at all.  Bring back the bluish spinning bolt of energy that flew in an arc to the mob.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Taunts (all):</span>  All taunts now seem to just bloom a 3 prong 2d pink/red spike above the mobs head, it reminds me of the fireflowers from Super Mario Bros.  And every taunt does this, including reactives and procs it seems, its incredible annoying, as a group of mobs will be procing this above their heads every second of every fight I am every going to be in.  This effect alone will probably make me want to kill myself from repetition boredom.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Mana Sieve:</span>  The PINNICLE of old SK graphics, the blue/purple neon-esq lines that actually seems to be alive as they twist from the mob slowly enough to be appreciated back to your hands.  You could tell that one was made with love when they revamped the spell before.  Now you just glow a little blue, and if anything connects to the mob its impossible to notice.  The guy who made the old effect must be crying right now.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Dreadful Wrath:</span>  Old - a giant bolt of lightning slams into the target from the sky.  Nobody could miss it, you knew they just got hit with the snare nuke, period.  New - nada so far as I can tell, the mob glowed a bit red for a split second.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Harm Touch and Devour Vitae:</span>  Before, a huge glowing skull appears above you as it pukes out flaming orange life down onto you for like 5 seconds, a wonderful effect.  For HT a skull eats at your target and an identical one opens puking purple lifeforce back on you.  Also amazing.  Now, a terrible looking tiny 2d green skull ubiquitously appears for a second above the mob for every lifetap.  They are tiny, boring, ugly, and identical for every darn lifetap, inlcuding procs it looked like.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"></span></p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Devouring Mist:</span>  No longer has any spell particles on the mobs, the SK glows blue and does a small sparkly thing, not sure what it was.  It used to make a mist of blue/purple particles literally explode out from each target.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Unholy Blessing:</span>  Used to actually see 3 deathly colored wards/runes go up, and ominously appear and disappear for the duration of the ward.  Now you just fountain out a few 2d green spikes a foot into the air and then blink like pac-man getting immunity for a second.  I feel like I'm seeing an 8-bit nintendo effect from metroid or final fantasy 1.  I am nostalgic as the next person but this change is just mind blowingly bad.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Death March:</span>  A plethora of neon purple/pink stick figures identicle to those seen on resteraunt bathroom doors flys up from my head...[Removed for Content]?!  Used to be you glowed a more and more intense orange red as your floated up into the air arms splayed, character shaking in anger or something, you literally seemed to vibrate.  Boggle at the change.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Pestilence:</span>  Such a unique effect before, black and dark blue expanding bubbles of oil appear, grow, and consume the target.  That is the old one.  The new one is a neon green glowing mob for a moment with a few more neon green fuzzies leaving it at angles.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Grim Harbinger and Unholy Hunger:</span>  Not bad, not great, but not bad.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Unholy Strength:</span>  I glow neon blue while a blue bear foot symbol appears above me...not sure i understant that one.  Meanwhile my feet glow red in a red circle.  I guess I at least look like an American Flag for a moment...</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Offensive / Defensive Stances:</span>  Total letdown.  No more animation at all, zilcho.  The animation was so expressive before, your toon looked like someone you don't want to F with when he slammed the sword into the ground.  And now you've replaced that in favor of a 2d crossed sword or blue shield for a split second above my head, with ZERO character movement.  One screamed what you are doing using body language, this just assumes you are too stupid to know which you pressed.</p><p><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Feign Death:</span>  This one looks kind of cool, I am unsure though what is covering your face.  Looks like tenticles, wish they lasted longer to tell.  And the body changing colors for a while isn't bad, you can tell its hit you.</p><p>I know I missed a few, too dishearted to even bother with them at this point.  Overall you cannot tell what is being cast, what is landing on whom, or if things have even succesfully been cast in some instances.  I don't know if my taunt landed, or if the taunt spikey thing I'm seeing was from my damage shield taunt, and that makes a huge difference in things like PVP.</p><p>It really took losing them to appreciate how amazing the SK effects were, I mean I always like them, but in hindsight you had made some truely fantastic spell effects.  Its a tragedy what you are doing to them.  Yeah, I can see them in a raid now maybe, but I don't want to, in fact I'm sure I'll turn them all off full time now.  It WILL kill my immersion into this game, at least on my SK.  Haven't tested the brig and conjy yet.</p><p>Revert all of them fully, just scrap this, its a joke, but its not funny.</p><p>Sadly signed,</p><p>A disappointed SK.</p>

[Guy De Alsace]

<p>Someone should make a vid of the Templar animations. It could go in the "comedy" section of you tube. Even supporters of these new animations would have to balk at just how intensely poor they are.</p>

[Kenrod]

<p>Thanks for that post, Tubby. A lot of what you had to say was really spot on to how I feel, I'm just unable to write it down as eloquently as you because i'm so unbelievably upset by these changes.</p><p>Around launch, I saw the first preview video for this game, and it was a group of adventurers going to kill a dragon in what now looks to be Cazic Thule. They were buffing up, and as they cast buffs the effects would surround the whole group, like casting SoW and cleric buffs, and I just sat there stunned and said "wow". Out loud. Called my roommates in, they too said "wow." Out loud.</p><p>We all bought the game at launch JUST from seeing that video, and how amazing the graphical effects were.</p><p>What this new update is going to do to that feeling is akin to your mother giving you a brand new sports car for your 16th birthday, letting you drive it once, then blowing it up in front of you with a smile on her face.  She'll then give you a 20 year old sedan and say "it's ok. it drives better."</p><p>The powers that be need to do a poll, or need to do SOMETHING to get feedback on this. I raid with particles on, so that couldn't be the issue as my computer isn't even all that great. SOMEONE needs to see this feedback and realize "oh crap. maybe we should think twice, or maybe we should work on these a little more."</p><p>But, we all know that won't happen. This is SoE. They made this "upgrade", said "hey d00ds. Here ya go. It's awesome. Really. It is. We swear." and we're stuck with it. Some of the effects were over the top. It's true. But changing everything..even the [Removed for Content] SOUNDS that are associated with the spells is just flat out stupid. The game is 6 years old. Leave it alone.</p><p>People WILL leave over this. Mark my words. I may or may not be one of them, but the outcry will be of biblical proportions when this goes live and everyone logs in and sees this atrocity that has been created. Some will like it, the majority will be furious. You guys and gals really need to think this thing through. It's going to be bad. It's going to be real bad.</p><p>Durzin</p><p>A paying customer of almost 6 years.</p>

[archikauri]

<p>C'est moche, même affreux.</p><p>D'aucune utlité puisque c'est le processeur qui continuera a gérer les traitements.</p><p>Y'a plutôt intérêt qu'on ais une option pour garder les anciens sorts avant le passage en prod.</p><p>Bisous <img src="/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" alt="SMILEY" /></p>

[Nakash]

<p>As some of the above SKs already said.The old SK effekt particle effekts fits al lot better to the SK class one as the most of the new ones.</p><p>I know this change is driven from streamlining the spell effects to make this game more accessible for new players (f2p streaming client etc.) But what this game shouldnt give up is the point that some of its effects look far better then in diffrent games. Some of this things of this are it that motivates players to play this game.</p><p>We have been already told that there will be no switch to get the old effekts back.I will guess that there will be no chance that we can keep all of out old effekt, wich is however sad.So i will try limit the ammount of damage that will come over the Spell Effekts of my class</p><p>The following Spells are those that i will think are the most coolest anmimation from the SK Class.</p><p>Doom Jugdement !- Old one: a blue glowing black Smoke Tentakle whirling around. This is by far one of the coolest animations for the SK class. please leave it the way it is.- New one: a light blue and Pink Paper Streamer whirling around you.Suggestion:  Please let us keep this animation. It stands for our class ( And forgod sake let even the pallys keep it.. <img src="/eq2/images/smilies/3b63d1616c5dfcf29f8a7a031aaa7cad.gif" border="0" /> )</p><p>Unending Agony- Old one: A disease cloud that surounded you and your enemys- New one: a Neon Green circle with some boubles pops up to your feet (this animations is shared with Death Cloud)Suggenstion: switch disease cloud animation to Death Cloud, would better fit the name. Keep new Aura for unending Agony.</p><p>Liftaps Spells (Siphon Strike,Devour Vitae, Harm Touch)-Old one Purple energies sparkle around your hands, youre surounded in a blood cloud and a stream of orange glowing life force emerges to a big Green skull who devours it.-New one: Your Hand lights up neon green an a small cartoonish looking Pirate skull symbol in neon green yawns over your head...Suggestion: Please let us keep or OLD Green Life Tap Skull. Its Old ... but its cool...</p><p>Mana Sieve:-Old one: A large cool looking swirl of energy is drain from the enemy to the Shadowknight.-New one: Hands glow blue, a hardly visible cone with a zick zack without animation connects enemy and Shadowknight.Suggenstion: please keep the old animation. It is really cool already.Deathmarch:-Old one: SK raises his hands and floats of the Ground while firy energys suround him.-New one: White circles soounds SK while some Space Invader looking incons in "pink!" starts from the SKs head. aditional a neon blue symbol pops over your head. Suggenstion: How about replacing the Space Invaders with the Ghost skull anmimation that is in game ( see darklight wood fountain of souls, near starting village)</p><p>Tap Veins:- Old one: Only the Lifetap animation- New one: a green Paper Streamer whirling around you. Suggenstion: Please dont do that. Better nothing than a paper streamer...</p><p>Pestilenz:- Old one: black boubles infect the target.- New one : neon green boubles infect the target a shorte while.Suggestion: let the pest be black...</p>

[Yimway]

<p>Honestly, bench the changes and come back to them when your ready to get these things on the GPU so that we might actually enable them in the first place.</p>