EverQuest II: Dungeon Maker Webcast Recap

[Isulith]

<p style="text-align: center;"><img src="http://eq2players.station.sony.com/images/en/logos/EQII/EQII_Logo.png" width="350" /></p><p><strong>EverQuest II: Dungeon Maker Webcast Recap</strong></p> <p>On Thursday, November 17, 2011, we had an exciting webcast where we talked all about the new Dungeon Maker feature coming with EverQuest II's new expansion "Age of Discovery." Linda "Brasse" Carlson grilled Greg "Rothgar" Spence (EQ2 Lead Programmer) and Akil "Lyndro" Hooper (EQ2 Lead Designer), with the help of a record number of player questions! If you missed Thursday’s webcast, you can watch it below, or head over to our <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/soevideos" target="_blank">YouTube channel</a>. </p><p>Check the video out here: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EdLQDWnTLw" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EdLQDWnTLw</a></p><p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.everquest2.com/news/read/current/5038" target="_blank"><img src="http://everquest2.com/images/en/community/buttons/readmore.png" border="0" width="175" height="44" /></a></p>

[Crombie]

<p>For those who didn't care to watch all 40min of the Webcast</p><p><strong>Design Your Own Dungeon Rundown (DYOD)</strong></p><p>Dungeon Maker allows players to make dungeons with the use of ingame tools and can be published and played by other players.  There will be a whole new UI window designated for the use of building dungeons and house item placement.</p><p><strong><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Dungeon Builder Play-through</span></span></strong></p><p><strong>Dungeon Layouts will be obtained in any way possible (except raiding)</strong>  The layouts for a dungeon may be obtained from a clicky item off the floor in a zone, a drop off a mob, purchased from the DYOD merchants, for SC, and so on. The same goes for certain monster spawners you can aquire. It was stated specificly that there will most likely not be any that come from raids at this time.  Some of these items will be tradable.  Each layout will be different and the "<strong>house" item count will be "large" but <span style="text-decoration: underline;">not currently specified.</span></strong></p><p><strong>Any item you can place in your house will most likely be able to be placed in a dungeon.</strong>  It is also claimed that there are several unique items that are dungeon designer only.  With the new house item editing system, there will be an easier to manage way to select how you wish to manipulate an object through a new raidal menu when selecting an object(this is easier seen than explained)</p><p><strong>There are unique Dungeon items that are not required to be in your bags to place.</strong>  The example used in the webcast was a particular style of torch that you could place 50 or so on the walls, but not require to have that many in your bags.  This particular style of item will be dungeon placeable only.</p><p><strong>Mobs you place in Dungeons can NOT be edited "completely"</strong> Currently, the mobs you setup will be placed in your dungeon with a set name at level 50 and have a particular appearance (assuming you have the mob spawner for that appearance).  You can NOT change the names of mobs, nor can you give them dialogue or scripts.  The main options of customization are appearance, movement (either static, free roaming in a room, or patrol a particular path), and buffs (which will be covered next)</p><p><strong>Unique Monster Buffing items can be placed in player made dungeons. </strong> These items have different appearances and give off an "aura" that grant special effects"to monsters within range.  The example given in the webcast was that of a monster obtaining the ability to "mem wipe".  ALSO, it was stated that having multiple items that give off auras for monsters can combine and make "new" effects - which either means different challenges or actually different effects is yet to be seen.</p><p><strong>There are currently not triggers you can place to activate "events" in a player made dungeon.</strong>  It was stated in the last topic discused that there are currently no means of making "events" in a dungeon by means of triggers.  For example a trigger would be if a player walked near a torch, gnolls would rush the player.  <strong>Also in the same boat, there is currently <span style="text-decoration: underline;">no way</span> to alter dialogue or add Quests to a dungeon.</strong>  Player made books and city signs will supply a simplistic way of adding content to your dungeon.</p><p><strong>You can own up to 20 dungeons, but only a few may be published at a time.</strong>  It was specificly stated that players can own upwards of 20 dungeons, but only have a few posted at a time for the public to use.  Also, the rating system for player dungeons will be identical to that of the current housing star rating system.</p><p><strong><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="text-decoration: underline;">Dungeon Adventurer Play-through</span></span></strong></p><p><strong>You can <span style="text-decoration: underline;">NOT</span> play as your actual character in these dungeons.</strong>  Each player plays an "Avatar" when they enter the dungeon.  These avatars are supposedly aquired in every way imaginable, except from raids.  Each avatar will have unique abilities, and as quoted from the webcast there will be more than there are classes, but less than 50.  Each person will have some to pick from when this goes live.</p><p><strong>Loot will not "drop" from anything in the dungeon</strong>, except tokens that will be used for purchasing gear.  The tokens you aquire will be based off of the difficulty of the encoutners in the dungeon.</p><p><strong>The Zone in point will be from your Character Window, not a location in the world. </strong> When you want to join a player made dungeon, you can zone into one of your chosing from a list.  When you enter, you will then select which Avatar you will play through the dungeon. </p><p><strong>Player Dungeons difficulty scale based on number of players in the dungeon.</strong>  Player made dungeons support 1 - 6 players.  If you are alone in the dungeon, the encounters will be around solo difficulty.  If someone else wants to play the same dungeon, they will be automaticly invited to your group and the difficulty of the dungeon will increased.  Player levels will not be involved in changing the diffuclty <strong>( ALL avatars will be the same level (50))</strong></p><p><strong>You will gain Adventure Experience for your actual character while playing an avatar.  </strong>The Avatars themselves do not level, nor is it planned to change this.  Your actual character will gain experience for killing mobs in the dungeons.</p><p><strong>Tokens obtained from running a player made dungeon allows the purchase of gear classified as "<span style="text-decoration: underline;">Glass</span>"  </strong>Glass gear is equipment that <span style="text-decoration: underline;">can never be repaired</span> once damaged.  This allows for consumable gear (which would most likely give some replay value to player made dungeons)  Some of the gear was claimed to be "Top Tier", but there was no mention of if that equates to top tier solo, heroic, or raid aquired.</p><p>------------------------------------------------------------------------</p><p>Personal Notes</p><p>Overall, this sounds very interesting in the sense that anyone will be able to create something that the masses may enjoy!  I'm looking forward to that aspect.</p><p>The parts that bother me though are the limitations to the dungeon design. </p><p>There is currently no way to give a mob a certain "attitude" or "Social action"   For example, goblins in Runneye may be minning rocks, visually attacking furniture with tools/weapons, or even just sitting.  Without the ability to give the mosters something to do, it will be basicly a bunch of NPCs standing around.  Unless this was just not covered in the webcast, there was no mention or obvious addition of these things.</p><p>Also, the lack of triggers will make the dungeons stale over time.  The ability to use triggers can give a dungeon a particular feel of uniqueness.  For instance, lets say a fake shiney (the house item) is placed somewhere and someone walks near it.  This would set off a trigger that might spawn several things around the shiney or perhaps set off a trap of sorts.  This same mechanism of triggers would also be useful if it were allows to manipulate an object once activated.  For example, someone steps on the right floor panel "trigger is activated" and a wall vanishes and allows the players to continue on. </p><p>I'm just hoping the dungeons don't turn into giant furniture collections with mobs standing around, otherwise each dungeon will be extremely similar.  Time will tell how this pans out! </p><p>In the long run, it should be an interesting"escape" from the normal grind.</p>

[GrunEQ]

<p><span style="font-family: comic sans ms,sans-serif; font-size: small;">I have to say that before viewing this video I was a little apprehensive about Dungeon Maker, but now after watching the interview ....OMG !  I can't wait to get my hands on this.  This is <span style="color: #ffcc00; font-size: x-large;">AWESOME !</span></span></p>

[Katz]

<p>I was not really interested in the Dungeon Designer feature until I watched the webcast.  Now I'm pretty interested in it.  It might be a lot of fun. </p>

[feldon30]

<p>A written transcript of this 40 minute webcast is now available:</p><p><a href="http://eq2wire.com/2011/11/19/soe-community-webcast-everquest-ii-dungeon-maker-transcript/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://eq2wire.com/2011/11/19/soe-c...ker-transcript/</a></p>

[Varinn]

<p>I'm not interested in not being able to play my own character.  I'm not interested in starting a new character.  I guess there isn't anything for me in this expansion.  Looks like it's time to cancel my four accounts, take a break, and try some new games. </p>

[Zabjade]

<p><span style="color: #00cc00;">I know I would love to have my Mobs be able to do things aside from loitering and patrol, Like a previous poster mentioned Mining/Crafting, Sparing would also be nice if I wanted to make a Dojo style Dungeon. I would also love to be able to root the ranged mobs while still having them support the Melee & Healer mobs. Or pull the players out of their position by having the melee Mobs pull back toward advantageous places for them. </span></p><p><span style="color: #00cc00;"></span></p><p><span style="color: #00cc00;">My Current Ideas include a Training Dojo, a Vault that Paladins of a certain Order store items of Darkness, a prison escape (you as the prisoners)</span></p><p><span style="color: #00cc00;">/em Evil Laugh that makes Lucan Cringe </span></p>

[Cloudrat]

<p><cite>Bink@Butcherblock wrote:</cite></p><blockquote><p>I'm just hoping the dungeons don't turn into giant furniture collections with mobs standing around, otherwise each dungeon will be extremely similar. </p></blockquote><p>LOL  Before you worry about extremely similar furniture collections, please go to the bottom of the forums and find the section called Norrathian Homeshow and looks at some things like :</p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=481028">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=481028</a></p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=481028">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=481028</a></p><p><a href="http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/posts/list.m?topic_id=504399">http://forums.station.sony.com/eq2/...topic_id=504399</a></p><p>Just to list a few similar collections of furniture. </p>