EZ Server

I deleted my post and figured id make a new thread realized I sorta troll'd someone else's post so

I was thinking of a similar idea like that but instead of making the epics Weapons just make them augs make the whole damn epic an aug. not sure how many aug slots can be put on a weapon if its 3 or if you can have 4 or w.e but before anyone shoots this idea down hear me out..
If you take the epics and make them all augs and put a vendor in the game or multi vendors in the game one for each weapon type, put a ton of weapons in to choose from so everyone can have what they like you wouldn't ever have to change a graphic or anything again instead you could add others ect. Also in that matter everyone wont look as much alike would give a semi "custom" look to each toon. I kno that this would take time to do ect. But it would also save time in the long run instead of having to look for new graphics for upcoming epics ect, there would be no need simply make the aug with the updated stats and bam your done.

Ps If this idea was already presented and I missed it some place.. Don't link a ton of crap saying its here! just a guy killing mobs trollin forums in downtime =D

Don't think that It would work here well. We would lose alot of  effects that way.

Not a bad idea for a new server though /em begins to think of away to open that new server :P

how and what effects would we lose bro you can change everything on a server and put almost every stat on an aug alone

Do I have to remind you of the fickle mistress that is the Birdbath?

There are enough people already crying over losing epics, gear etc, and now almost any caster class isn't augging their weapons (no use, only dps augs exist).

By forcing augs into weapons as being your epic, possibly combining several augs, you risk opening the floodgates of the QQ-continuum.

you could make em magic box combine :).
I think this idea has merit but it would all depend on time and effort .

Plenty of people here able to provide code.
For something like using the magic box it would require the snipit posted on the emu forums with possible slight alteration.

If the idea is to keep the looks of the weapon from becoming stagnant or too similar to everyone else, then I suggest a custom "molds" option like Live released with the LoN card game.  Keep the weapons the same or alter their graphic to a more basic look and then create weapon molds that combine in the magic box to give a new weapon graphic.

Sell the molds on a merchant in the guildhalls or something.  Could make vast options for weapon graphics with this method.

I really like this idea. Having your epic is obviously very nice, but to zone into Nexus or any zone with higher level characters and seeing that almost every class that is the same as you has the same exact weapons makes it a little depressing. Atleast with the molds it would give a lot more options and you wouldn't have to listen to people QQ about crappy graphics for the epics.

New graphic would require a new (copy) of the weapon to be created in the items database.

We're also limited by Titanium Graphics. I want everyone to be able to view the graphics reguardless of their client.

That's true. I always hated when I was on Titanium and went to another server that had SoF or something and all I got was cloth chokers.

I am not familiar with the coding or what it takes to get the molds/anything really so I was just throwing out a suggestion. If it takes too much work then nevermind. =D

Exactly.  I know that it would be a lot of work but possible if you didn't go overboard.  Possibly limit this to only 5 or 6 options for the 3.0 and above for each class.  

Of course not a high priority since content is greater than aesthetics.  Would be a killer addition to the list of EZ server's one and only content and features.

What about just making it an aug all together and forgoing the whole vendor with different weapons thing. Just make it an aug and let people find a weapon to put it in throughout the game. Your bound to come across a few people that know about certain weapons dropping in this elusive place that very few know about. It would create a lot of diversity as far as looks of weapons without any extensive work.

Yeah yeah I know, what about the augs being eaten by the aug pool. This is easily solved with the creation of 6 instances called "Epic rooms". When you get your epic aug you are also flagged for an instance, just like how right now upon turning in all 15 coins you are flagged for various zones. Each "Epic Room" would have a vendor selling the lvl of aug you need. For example, you get your Epic 1.5. You are now flagged for Epic Room 1.5. Doh, you just lost your epic aug in the epic eatery aug pool. Simple, go to the big fat red epic guy, (unless your a gnumez) hail him, and you are presented with the option to enter "Epic Room 1.5". Once you are there you will see a vendor that will sell 1.5 epic augs. Hell, you can even put a aug pool in there since the room would likely see very little traffic.

How would you stop users from getting three 1.5 augs after they are flagged for the room as opposed to doing the epic quest 3 times?

That is an extremely good point. The only thing I can think of is to make them lore and make multiple rooms for each one.

For Example:
Your first epic aug would be <insert name here> 1.51 and would come with a flag for the Epic Room 1.51 instance. Your second epic would be <insert name here> 1.52 and would come with the Epic Room 1.52 instance. And so on and so on. All augs would be lore of course.

It does add to the amount of work but we are talking 18 instances and 18 vendors as well as the epics being converted to augs. It would take a little bit of work, but the yield would be explosive in the diversity it allows.

There would be a bit more work involved there if the idea is to still allow users to have augmentation slots based on the epic version unless the idea is to get rid of some of the fire/ice/anger augs we use now.

I think you would have to allow new tradeskill combines to ... fake aug an augment?  IE:  Combine epic + icestrike = icestriking epic?  And do this a few times... and then recipes to remove the augments.  That said, that would be a -lot- of recipes since it has to handle every possible combination... has to have a new item for epic 1.51, then a new item for epic 1.51 + ice, then a new item for epic 1.51 + fire, then a new item for epic 1.51 + mossy, then a new item for epic 1.51 + mossy + ice, then a new item for epic 1.51 + mossy + fire, then etc.  Recipes to remove those also.

I love the idea but it does seem to lead to a few issues with augments.

I am not sure what you are saying. With my idea I am not suggesting the use of the magic box to do a combine. It would be a straight up aug. If anything, make the epic augs 11 or 12 type and then if there is a way to do a batch change to all weapons in the game and make them all have that slot available. I think the other ice/fire augs are 4 and 8 so they would not conflict with one another.

Sorry - I think I was a bit confusing there.

One of the benefits to the epic weapons is that they contain multiple aug slots so that you can add multiple firestrike/icestrike/anger augs to them.  With your change, you would be forced to rely on the aug slots available on normal-in-the-wild weapons.

It is possible to add a new EpicAug slot to all the weapons to guarantee your epic aug will always fit on them... but... what about the additional firestrike/icestrike/anger aug slots that the players use like crazy?  Could add ____ aug slots to all weapons, but then that negates a major draw of the epic 4.0 (another aug slot).

The other problem would be in weapon delay... it would be a fight to see who can get the weapon with the least delay.  As opposed to everyone looking like they are holding warrior epic 1.0's they would be holding a mossy twig ;)

Not trying to shoot the idea down, just trying to understand how one would work around the limitations it would provide.

This +1.  Creates much more workload involved and wouldn't reliably work without a complete and total revamp of all possible weapon drops available.

Adding the option to put a weapon mold (these "molds" could be any set of 5 or 6 graphics that are currently supported by the titanium client) is much less work, easier to work with for players, and keeps the epic weapons as they are in their current state minus the option to change the graphic with a simple magic box combine with the desired "mold".  Honestly, I can't imagine a simpler process than that.  The only issue is it's a serious drain on Hunter's time for tedious work.  He needs another coder for the boring work. =P

To give more specifics to my thoughts:

If you create 5 "molds" for each epic, that's 5*(16 classes*3 epics [3.0, 3.5, and 4.0]) = 240 possible combinations (or 240 individual "copies" of each epic from 3.0 and above that has to be created in the database).

Each class epic could have 5 possible "molds" that correspond well with the weapon type.  For example: Warrior epic 3.0 could have 5 molds with 1HS graphics that look appealing as a warrior type weapon.  Cleric would have 5 molds with shield graphics.  Rogue would have 1HP graphics, and so on. 

To ease the work on this, you could limit to 5 molds that are universal for each class so you wouldn't need 5 seperate molds for 3.0, 5 more for 3.5, and 5 more for 4.0.  Just 5 usable molds per class corresponding to the epic weapon type.

Would be even easier if players submitted their top choices for weapon graphics for their class epics so Hunter wouldn't have to go digging around for 90 different weapon graphics on his own.

Honestly, I'm biased towards my own opinions, but I really think this to be a very workable solution and give more variety towards weapon graphics.  But then again, that's all just opinion. =)

It is good to know that batch adding aug slots would work. You could simply add the new aug type to each weapon as well as 4's at 8 slots. There would have to be some weapons just simply taken out of the game because of the crazy delay factor, or at least take the new aug type out of them. I imagine it would be an on going thing, but not one that requires a crazy amount of time.

The thing about getting an extra aug slot with the 4.0... not sure what to do with that. Maybe add another benefit some other way.

You know.. the more I think about it this sounds pretty neat.

There would actually be -camps- outside of those in the new zones to find weapons that either look cool or have low delay and look cool etc.  Might even expand the EZ Economy a bit with that.

The problem (on top of coding time) is those blasted augmentation slots on the epic 4+... I would also have a slight concern that adding augmentation slots to all weapons (4 and 8) may be overpowering given you could then just use your /auction bought augments in crap items before you get your epic 3.0+.  Of course, this particular thing doesn't matter if there exists easy-to-get items in the wild that contain both aug 4 and 8 slots.  Dont feel like querying it right now on a stock peq db...

BTW since alot of people seem to be wondering how to support newer weapon graphics on titanium client, I posted a guide at eqemu: link (http://www.eqemulator.org/forums/showthread.php?t=32835)

In case you wanted to option to use newer graphics for an ornamentation thing.

It isn't a secret that you can batch edit items in the database.  I do get it that it makes an easy solution to some work spent.  The problem, I feel, comes in the fact that you're changing a large portion of the server's game dynamics when you create the opportunity for players to essentially add their weapons' epic stats to a completely different weapon.  It may seem as simple as adding an augment slot to each weapon in the game to accommodate it, but the complexity of it comes in the fact that you would then need to design weapon drops to follow the content also.  More specifically, you would need to go through the entire database of all possible weapon drops, and either remove them from the database if their delays or other stats create an imbalance or remove them from the list of "epic" augmentable items.  You would then need to alter the rest of the stats on the items to prevent some epics from being stronger than intended.

For example, consider the fact that some weapons currently available in Qvic have relatively decent damage to delay ratios when compared to all other available weapon drops.  Now, add an epic augment slot to those items.  Suddenly they become tremendously more powerful augmented with an epic augment.  So basically, players will be camping Qvic again for weapon drops.  Then we're back at square one where all players will be wielding the same 1hs, or shield, or piercer from Qvic and now we'll see much less diversity.

All in all, however, I feel that epic augments are a very cool idea.  In fact, I think it would work spectacularly well if designed for a server from the ground up.  Having multiple "hollow" weapons drop along the way through custom content without ANY stats at all, except for a single augment slot to place an "epic" augment (and perhaps more augment slots as you increase through the custom contents difficulty) would give MANY options for item graphics.  Of course, you're talking about creating new items in the database again, which I get the feeling is something Hunter is shying away from.

Hmmm, I'm on the fence though, because the more I think about it, the more I really like an "epic" augment idea.  I just think EZ server is too far into it's content that it's just no feasible to create such a large-scale content changing update.  Hence why I am leaning towards the epic molds/ornamentation.  As Caryatis details, we have options as players to ensure we can see item graphics beyond what the Titanium Client supports out of the box.

Sorry for the wall of text, I felt compelled to write what came to my mind.  I'm sure Xiggie will chastise me soundly for it as he loves to do.

Last couple posts are good. Caryatis thank you for that link.
Now if only there was a way to set it so
If client = seeds display item graphic 1 else display item graphic 2

Would be fairly cool indeed....

Have a few ideas and I am by far not the only person interested in this. Hopefully its possible and made working or a way is figured out to code it in.

Havent read whole thread yet but I can make special epic aug "type" number and "blank" weapons with different graphics. Would just take some time but it's easy. Basically dupe each epic into aug.

Put the blank weapons as rare drops from bosses, that would be fun. :)

Farm blank weapons or maybe craft them.

Maybe have standard ones that are available on a vendor then some others that are rare drops from bosses. Additionally some others that can be crafted in the crafters guild.

Oh if Hunter goes this route we could get all the cool graphics, make the weapons TRADEABLE but the augs NODROP so once auged you cant trade it.
This would provide a minor boost to the economy because I could farm for the graphic I want and maybe someone else has it and I can buy it from them.

Yes yes?
Ideas / comments

Sounds good. Will try to implement during vacation (Feb) at latest.

Vendor, Drops, and Crafted for blank weapons.

easy way to deal with the birdbath issue also, if epics get turned into augs set it as a char flag, birdbath eats it, hail the epic NPC and get it replaced

Dont worry about the bird bath, just get ready to go treasure hunting to find all the cool graphics you want

Not to many of them are in the titanium db. I hope he makes some of the best ones super rare.

Hunter - Please don't make these cost several million pp to craft. Some people have that kind of cash, but I dont play regularly enough and I need all the drops that drop (or my guild does), so there's hardly any cash flow coming in except from gems (which mostly go back to creating instances)

I think it would be more fun (and more appropriate) if you have to go out and farm some of the components (for example, to craft a blank weapon that looks like centi sword, you need to go farm 5 or 10 centi swords etc).

I think it might also make more sense to, instead of creating weapons per class, creating weapons per type and add everyone who has that type to that weapon. That way, you only need to make 5 2hs blanks, 5 1hs blanks, 5 2hp blanks, 5 1hp blanks, 5 2hb blanks and 5 1hb blanks - 30 weapons, which is a lot less than having 5 blanks per class - and most classes would actually have more choice, since no class is restricted to just one weapon type. Heck, make all weapon types all/all - I'd love to be a crazy enchanter with a lance on a horse! Don't think that makes a big difference in terms of game balance - most classes for which it would, would probably go for weapons they have proficiency in anyway.

Don't matter to me anymore since I play with modified global file that doesnt draw any weapons.  Started that up right after the great warrior 4.0 debacle of '10.

What, the walking sticks of shame? Yeah, that was fun.

You must have some pretty interesting sights. Do you also turn off all armour and box all chicks, so doing MCP looks really like you're all gathering around the great big pink dildo, fighting for some action, with Gnaughty standing there like some wizened old porn director, frapsing the entire thing?

If so, I want copies.

common show us those screenshots