Hey all, I saw this in the thread about boxing: And it made me wonder: for one, is it going to be considered beta until all of the content is done? If so, will the chars that went through the progression here be wiped? I don't at all mind being part of alpha or beta if its going to be wiped; for that matter I've been having a blast as I began playing around PoP era (its pretty classic for me haha) My other question was: how are char transfers going to work? I wasn't sure if that has been gone over, but I thought I heard that some of the mac chars have been used on tgc and was wondering if it would be a possibility for tgc chars to at some point transfer over(*edit* I got a tgc rogue that would be fun to mess around with here), or if the mac chars will be xferred from tgc or somewhere else that they had been originally been stored. In any case the servers been really fun so far, thank you for the hard work.
Beta to release will not be wiped. Alpha to beta however will be. TGC chars won't be transferred sorry.
Will alpha consist of you guys testing and releasing all of the content? Beta starting after or where is the guideline of when u plan to start beta?
I'm sure Speedz will answer this when he gets back but I think the alpha to beta line (loosely drawn in the sand) is when the net code, desync, LDs, connection stabilities are fixed.
They have said before it will basically be a progression server. From my understanding they will release classic when open beta starts(a wipe will happen). Once the server issues are figured out I am sure this will happen shortly after. Then they will work on the next expansion, in this case Kunark. When Kunark is done they will open up kunark, as long as we complete all the objectives like on the EQ progression servers. Then work down the line. The final wipe will happen between open alpha to open beta. And as long is there isnt a real issue there will be no wipes after this point.
furst and Quaos pretty much nailed it. The plan is to release Kunark in alpha when and only if Classic is 100% done and Kunark is playable. Meaning content mostly done or in a playable yet incomplete state. The release of Kunark and any other expansion in alpha will be based on content dev completion, not player advancement. The netcode, desyncs, vendors and other crippling bugs have to be resolved prior to beta status. Once those are smoothed out, beta and final wipe will happen. If by chance we get Kunark and any other expansions released in alpha, the wipe will also consist of rolling back to Classic for a community progression based advancement. The primary reason for this is to make sure one final time that content is correct in a playing environment. As well as allowing everyone a fair and equal chance to progress into higher content, unaided by potential bugs that artificially advance progression as a whole or individually.
haha that would open the Luclin cat wannabe can of worms then (Which I am one of those) **waits for Placer to chime in on that...sigh, wait for it!
And char transfers won't happen until post Elemental Planes in PoP for obvious reasons of gear imbalance.
This is just so cool ... I hope this is the way of it as I would just LOVE to play in this world under those stated conditions =)
He pretty much nailed it. We will look into some sort of tracking system to keep track of who completes the content/expansion (ie. end kills). I pretty much have the idea that the next expansion will open once the content is done and 85% of the active population reaches and completes the kill or optimally if we can get some sort of progression tracking system like SOE had for their progression servers. But instead of it being a system where 1 guild can open everything. The 85% thing is in place.
Not thrilled by this. Since the long-term goal as I understand it is to have something on par with our old, beloved Al, content was a question of having it up to some semblance of how it would look there. Not perfect, of course, cause Al never was itself. I know you thought about other servers that could be based on the code and expansion oriented. But that was not how Al worked and in many ways works against the (pre free-to-pay) culture. Al was about the journey and the dynamic was such that everything was otherwise open for people to take their own paths. Expansion is a literal path and it is all about a destination.
I agree with Placer, I wouldn't want some sort of hard-coded progression. Expansions should be released when they are playable. Speedz while your suggestion sounds interesting, wasn't this to recreate Alkabor, and not a custom content/progression Emu? I
This is to recreate AK. but releasing it by expansion as we complete work is not going to be by time-line. If this would to to be. then it is not going to have all the goodie newbie armor quest in game. Everything there is going to be there as it is on AK. Even the spells (port spells) will be there. but it is not going to be useful anyway since you'll need to have a status greater than 0 to access the zone. When Naggy, Vox, and Phinny is defeated. We will open the old plane but I doubt anyone will be able to defeat CT and Inny as is since it was designed for level 60s. Shortly after old planes is open, We'll open Kunark when kunark coding and contents is completed regardless.
The question is, would players be stuck having to kill Vox to see Kunark? That would not be the way it was. If Kunark is ready then its ready. If not then not. If some zones were held back on a limited basis until players could demonstrate they are ready (e.g., old planes) that might make sense. But only with respect to how it could de-stabilize the server if we suddenly had some major wipe of a lot of the people on here and they could not enact a recovery. Old planes could be like that. So too Veeshan's Peak.
Well for me, I would just release each zone as they are completed. But as a dev team, we agreed that we would release by expansion in order to have each expansion in complete state with extensive testing and so on before moving on.
To expand on rob's 1st post a bit. You guys will likely beat the snot out of the latest and greatest far before we are completed with the next expansion. A staged release based on not only our development progression but player progression allows you all to focus on what is in front of you and playable. We will always work on content and we are only a few. It takes time. So enjoy what you have as you have it. The idea behind a player base of 85% is 3 fold. 1) Help each other. Build a cooperative community for an end goal. 2) It helps ensure we have all content accurate. 3) Patience. I have mentioned time and time again about the time line. We can't and won't snap our less than magical fingers and get you a fully working up to Luclin server. This is not in the cards. I know you want a Cat but you'll just have to focus on #3. Play what ya got man. We do this for fun, nostalgia, and keeping the spirit alive. This project will not die. Dev tends to be slow at times but that is what happens with few people doing this for fun not profit that have RL to tend to as well.
This has next to nothing to do with what I want to play as a class or race and everything to do with how I play and test. I will be up front, I absolutely think Vah shir, iksars and beasts should be in from Day 1 of beta. Because they existed on AK and this server might well be skewed for a long time by those not existing. Vah shir could be allowed most likely and relocated momentarily to Halas. Iksar to be with trolls and/or ogres. Beasts being in would allow those to start being tested as there is liable to a be work there. Otherwise those newbie zones will have to go through it all again for the barbs, ogres and trolls to have their beastie things tested out. That should clarify my point there. It is not my point here. Content being ready fine. Players being zone ready fine. AK did this by having quests/flags for high end content. But AK never required 85% of players to be able to kill Vox to get into Kurns. Kill tally to see Great Divide? King Tormax for Paludal? If it is ready, it is ready. If it is not, it is not. As for your point 1. That for people/groups/guild to decide on their own. They should have as many options as possible and not be limited by what others have done to progress. Point 2 has an inherent contradiction. If so much of the releases wont be permitted until near all content is right for a whole expansion, then it wont be out there to be tested by the larger community. People will be split between a test and real server. It could also lead to debugging things that few need relative to bigger issues all could benefit from and would be forseeable in what comes next.
If I really wanted to I could grind to 50 and get a crew of 15-25 people in like less than a month, and that following month I would have the planes and the dragons on farm; and probably a good bulk of epics done; especially since this XP is much faster than say p99 it would take me literally a month to smash all of the current content, so patience is a good thing.
I could be mistaken, but I believe the experience rate is doubled (or more?) to cut down on the pre-wipe time investment in leveling, and imagine it will be reverted to normal with beta. Not that determined people won't hit the cap in ridiculously short amounts of time regardless, of course. I'm content for the devs to release expansion content by whatever process and on whatever timeline they've decided, but am particularly pleased with the progression idea. Everyone I've talked to about the project is excited about it.
I also like the idea of a progression server. I know AK was not a progression server. However, AK started with PoP and we will be starting with original. I believe I will enjoy being on a progression server until we finally get to PoP a few years from now. Vah Shir are one of my favorite races, however, I know I will enjoy playing a gnome warrior as much as I enjoyed my Vah Shir warrior.
Yes, the experience rate will go down in beta and will take a bit longer to level up then it has been in alpha. We appreciate the thoughtfulness on the progression idea. Thank you
That could still be viewed as a big undertaking for something that would be un-done later for continuity. But, Vah Shir should be fine if they could be re-routed to Halas. Iksar, I'm less clear but Oggok I might think were ok or Grobb. Places that would need to be changed themselves when the later expansions were opened and those npcs, functionality, spell lines, etc... would have to be added to the old world zones. So, arguably it'd actually be more efficient to include them sooner and improve the game play. Also they'd have debugging of their issues more on par with other classes and races. Else, people like Theus might find themselves wedded to those gnome warriors a lot longer.
well if we were to allow Vah Shir and Iksar. I would just open up cabeast/cabwest, field of bone, sharvahl, shadeweaver thicket, and perhaps open up poknowledge as a central hubs. I would rather do that than to put in more work to move stuff around that aren't true to AK. screw that.
I think you guys may have a good idea with opening the PoK; it would certainly change what class I would make initially (a druid was my first thought but if transportations not going to be an issue then ) Will probably move onto making the char I would consider a main first if PoK from day 1 was the case. *edit* not sure about vah shirs but I do know that such a move would definitely help there be more iksar players right off the bat.. thinking ahead to when Kunarks open (or Kurns is considered open) Kurns would probably be a lot more fun/easy to group in if the pop was able to access it without long distance travel involved.
