increased xp weekends on tha regular

title pretty much says it all. what do you think?

I think it depreciates multiple facets of the game, including but not limited to:

1. Special Events

When the IMMs decide that something like this is warranted, it is seen as a special event. Having it be special -- as you can clearly see from the forums lately -- encourages older players to come back and explore, breathes fresh life into the game with current players rolling new experiments, and develops a more well-rounded playerbase.

1. Character Value

If you want a game to be played on easy mode, FL isn't (or shouldn't be) your cup of tea. Aabahran (Thera) was designed to be a scary-*** place full of scary-*** people, and the only way to make an impression was to get better and become a scary-*** character yourself. I am fully appreciative of the game having increased experience gain, or increased training time, or similar events on a semi-regular basis (every other month? every three months?), but to give those benefits every weekend is like buying a new car at a used car price -- yeah, you're getting a great deal. But for anyone who has ever bought a new car vs buying a used car, you know there's a certain amount of care, affection, and value to the new car.

1. OOC Abuse

I have seen it entirely too many times: Player A gets killed by Player B and logs on to their alt to track down their killer and have a second go. By making it easy for anyone and everyone to have five or ten alts at 50 at any given time, you increase the chances of this happening more frequently.

1. Equipment Inflation

The other downside to making it easier for people to have multiple alts is that those alts will most likely be equipped to one degree or another -- and then left on the shelf for an indeterminate period of time. This will result in more rares being unavailable, which will lead directly back to square one as far as our in-game equipment issues are/were concerned.

Just the first couple thoughts that come to my mind when we think about taking large steps like this.

I appreciate the idea, because it looks on a lot of the positive things that this past weekend brought to the table as far as new character creation, old foagies returning, etc.; however, I think there are some serious issues to be considered when contemplating this.

Well, I was going to make an argument against the idea, but it seems Bali covered all the bases. My compliments, sir.

Not only that.

I took advantage of it last weeked.

I fully trained and ranked a toon to 50 in 16 hours.

Borders on rediculousness but I am quite pleased.

I don't agree with the idea. Reasons stated by Bali already.

I fail to see how 1-2 exp weekends a month are going to allow OOC groups to get a bigger edge on the pbase. If 3 guys are gonna make characters to do some trashing, as they have many times in the past, then the onset of random exp weekends is not really going to change that for the better or worse. It will, however, give newbies, and time challenged vets a chance to get a pinn going without truly grinding their face off. There are rarely more than 7 people on in my play times, over the EXP weekend you had many more than that strictly because there was an incentive to be there.

Personally I like the idea.

I do feel that it could put a damper on the rare situation espescially when you get people playing 2-3 characters who are all trying to get those l33t wares. But with the existing rare changes, I have had 0 trouble equipping my current pinn.

But with the existing rare changes' date=' I have had 0 trouble equipping my current pinn.[/quote']

Same. I just kill yours

<3

Man I LOVED Azzar. He wooped my *** on one of my characters so bad it made me cry

Azzar is my current pinn

Nice come back, ba$tard.

:~(

I felt that a nuclear missile would have been a weak come back compared to that.

<3 ya f0xx

Pretty much agree. Maybe x3 is a little too extreme to be a permanent thing, but I don't see the harm in it being doubled. The main reason I say this is that other than for a few hours during the special weekend, I basically haven't had anyone in my group range, ever. So levelling has been kind of an awful experience.

Also, since I wasn't here, can someone explain to me the thinking behind the increased rare amounts? Why would there be a need for more rares when I haven't once seen more than maybe 15 people online at one time, maybe 7-8 of them actually being at 50. I understand Bali's comment about not wanting this game to be easymode, but Nameless subsequently said that he has no problem ever getting all the rares he needs at any point. Is this how it's meant to be?

before the rares where absolutely insane to find. Even non viable things where gone. You would have cases of people hunting for a month for a titanium fullplate, only to have it crumble on their next death etc etc.

Basically the rare count let you focus more on the game than the armoring aspect only.

As I mentioned before, more rares isn't a good thing. Maybe I was the only one against it, and probably the only one who is speaking openly about it affecting: but good luck playing any casters with easy-to-get vuln weapons. Feral clerics, duergar clerics, shamans, etc. Trident and solar mace always being around is bad. I'd loot it off my enemies and hold it for weeks, only to have them come back with another, endlessly. Taking specific weapons or armor meant nothing since in reality they weren't rare anymore. Just OP common crap.

The rare inflation is a test that's still going on, not necessarily a permanent change.

I agree that certain weapons should be addressed and made a bit rarer.

As I mentioned before' date=' more rares isn't a good thing. Maybe I was the only one against it, and probably the only one who is speaking openly about it affecting: but good luck playing any casters with easy-to-get vuln weapons[/quote']

Casters in general get the shorter end of the stick with more rares, given that saves and hit/dam are a good deal higher on average.

i personally like the fact that vuln weapons are more accessable... if you roll a feral with a fire vuln, you should embrace that. Its meant to be a balance mechanic, if i have to fight people for 3 weeks to get a fire weapon there is no point to vulns at all. I'm only using ferals as an example, but they are a very strong race to fight if you dont have access to a vuln weapon/spell.

That being said...

It's been nice to see people leveling again and i think alot of it stemmed from the XP bonus, shady OOC people will always be shady OOC people. Atleast this may help some of the vets who are short on time or bring in new players and encourage them to try more new things. Not really trying to sell the idea, but it did seem to bring a positive outcome atleast this time around.

I say drop leveling and make 5 class specific quests, for each class, that advance you in blocks to 50. Make pracs stop at 90%, and open up cabals so you can join them easily.

Leveling, training, grinding period all take away from interaction. Isnt interaction, rp and pk, the point?

You are all still ignoring that the problem is that power is tied too heavily to EQ, and not class skills/spells.

You can play with the rare count all you want, but until you deal with that, you are still going to have serious imbalances.

I can agree strongly that more rares just means stronger melees, and it probably wasn't a well thought out idea--more of a let's just try it and see what happens kind of thing.

Ranking too fast is a bad thing for newbies as they get rushed too quickly into the end game of PK. They were rushed too quickly before the 3x.

I just think with eq you are evening the gap. Shamans can pk naked, wars cannot. Your still going to have strong mages, it just requires more patience. A dwarf should not have to wait months to fight against a tempest trident. Etc etc.

As a matter of fact i will play any non bmg and i guarantee i will at least do decently. Keeping a low rare count is only making melee difficult to play because you cant be competitive in a mithril suit. I mean hell celerity you had both eyes of hakeashar for almost a year? How is that close to fair? How many months did it used to take to get a great suit? That is gone now. You know that you have a good chance of getting tit fullplate. Power hammer is there. Monorod is not being hoarded. Trips now benefit the whole group, not just 1-2 people who get lucky.