Since we have recently announced Fan Faire, I thought it would be a great time to ask the people planning on attending what type of panels that they would like to see. We always have the typical spells, content, and general topics that we cover but we all always open to suggestions! If you have always had an idea that you thought would work into our format please send in your comments.
I would love to see a few of the panels be more interactive. Thoughts???
A few years back, there was a panel forum which had various guild styles on it. I forget the gentleman’s name who ran it, but I was one of the panelists and it discussed various things that affected each of our guild types (we had family, roleplaying/niche, family trying to become a raiding guild, and a hard core guild represented on the panel).
As a panelist I found it helpful and we were told by the audience that they also enjoyed it. Given today’s changing/feel of shrinking environment, perhaps another panel like this of various guild styles would be useful?
By: private on May 12, 2008
at 9:02 pm
well…you could do something with LoN, such as give out collectible non digital LoN cards? maybe have a tournament, and the winners get something? lol i’ll leave the thinking up to you
By: Ssliasil on May 12, 2008
at 9:04 pm
Personally, I think that a panel dedicated to Classic EQ (For those who missed out) would certainly be very interesting. With that awesome UI, and crisp 1999 graphics.
By: Soulcold on May 13, 2008
at 3:16 am
Would sure love to see one of these Fan Faire’s in a location other then the US. Canada or the UK would be awesome.
By: ShadowSoldier on May 13, 2008
at 5:00 am
Last FF, the EQ panels had a focus for what was supposed to be discussed, but the nature of many questions often is hard to pin down (spells/items/general gameplay).
I found the panels at the end starting to repeat questions from earlier panels but we were digging for questions by the last one of the day.
I think a /bit/ more freeform on the variety (apart from Class Balance panel, that was hilarious at Atlanta, that needs to be a dedicated panel) would be more beneficial.
Or, plan B), one panel in the day, rest of the panel is handled in a more informal manner down the pub in front of a beer or 6.
The Dev Brunch at Atlanta was also an excellent chance to interact with devs, found that a more usefull experience than a rigid panel structure. Even the room parties that go off with devs in attendance gets some great feedback, so I guess I’m saying the rigid structure of a panel/ask a question/make a note might not be the best thing todo too often. Have one or 2 formal panels, then informal booze ups.
By: Bardo Extremo on May 13, 2008
at 6:22 am
Maybe…sell/Give away ACTUAL LoN collectibles, that have a code on them that you type into a new feature on LoN and get that card in game too?
(i dunno heh ill leave the thinking up to you)
By: Ssliasil on May 13, 2008
at 11:48 am
With all the recent client changes, I would like to see a panel that delves into the inner workings of the eq client and server engines. As a software developer I often wonder why/how certain things are done in the EQ environment.
By: Doug Younger on May 13, 2008
at 2:17 pm
What type of panels that they would like to see?
Well I have never been to a Fan Fair but I would love to see a discussion of quests.
Why dont we have some quests based upon AT – like you need to out drink peeps in a bar contest to win a prize after paying a entry fee.
Why dont we have a discussion about events in older zones (like the War) what did we like or not like , what type of things would we want to see for some thing like that in the future.
Why dont we have discussion about bocks or the current raiders, like changing play time from hardcore to a few hours a week.
By: larry workman on May 13, 2008
at 5:41 pm
I second Doug’s suggestion of a technical panel. A few years ago, one of the Fan Faires had a panel that showed how the devs developed pathing for zones. I found that to be quite fascinating, as it made the game a lot more comprehensible.
On a related note, I’d like to see a panel about the extensibility of EQ. EQ originated as an insular game that would crash if you so much as pushed the Windows key or tried to swap out to a different application. However, those days are long gone, and EQ has made strides to open itself up. It’s still a long shot from other, more modern MMO’s, though. Those are much friendlier to third-party apps that seek to read info from the client. They have sophisticated in-game scripting engines, easily accessible hooks to extract game info into external applications, and cleanly-integrated Web interfaces for in-game content and statistics. I’d love to see a panel about what Sony is doing along these lines.
By: Kyroskrane on May 13, 2008
at 7:09 pm
Archetype Discussions:
Priest
Plate/Tank
Hybrid
DPS
Items/Item Diversity Discussion
Tradeskills Discussion
Raiding Events Discussion
Grouping Events Discussion
Spells/Spell Diversity Discussion
Future Direction of EQ Discussion
By: Aithzarx on May 13, 2008
at 7:15 pm
Panel Suggestions:
1) Customer Service
Cocerns, comments and ideas on ways to expedite and improve customer service, spammers and so forth.
2) EQ Players
Keeping the site operational and updated with each patch, improving it’s content (re: add discovered items to the bio page of the player), undiscovered items/recipes clues.hints, etc.
3) EQ Game Direction/Ideas
Field and discuss ideas on ftutre EQ. 2 more earring and ring slots? Bank expansion? Task reward unclaimed limit expanded? Plat slots in the Guild bank? LDoN Raid count as wins or losses? Updated LDoN? Keeping old content relevant? Opening zones a mistake? Merging servers again? 5 new levels or just one new level per expansion? Etc.
4) Known game bugs and problems.
Talk about them, discuss them. Players may even bring up new ones and/or have an idea how to fix or by-pass old ones.
By: Bonzz on May 13, 2008
at 8:57 pm
Thirding the Technical aspects of EQ and what makes up the guts of the game and how things work.
Another idea maybe a life cycle discussion, going through what it takes to make an expansion and a time line of what happens when. That knowledge being out there would help let people know when it’s a good idea to be offering what sorts of suggestions, like when is a good time to suggest new AA’s (by Beta everything seems more or less locked down), and so forth.
Last year, there was a Quest panel that worked out well I think, but could have used a bit more prepwork ahead of time, maybe a handout or a Powerpoint describing the limits of the quest engine (as in what sort of quest events you can have). I’m still waiting to see that Katta to Katta quest Ngreth’s group worked on.
By: Saroc on May 14, 2008
at 1:39 pm
The EQII panels last year were fantastic, but we had two panels for EQ2 scheduled at the same time. It was awful trying to choose which one to go to.
As far as EQII went, I loved the Kunark panel (expansion info, that’s a no-brainer, lol). The Mechanical and “Into the Future” panel were jam packed with great info too.
By: Calthine on May 15, 2008
at 3:18 am
i think there’d be interest in a panel on “what goes into designing a raid”
By: anon on May 15, 2008
at 6:58 pm
I would like to say no thanks to a tech. panel becuase something aren’t meant to be known, would kill some of the magic.
By: Nogood on May 16, 2008
at 6:08 pm
I would like to see a panel on the future direction of Trade Skills.
Also I’d be interested in a panel on the general subject of AA’s; a breakdown of how the new accelerated earning of AA exp works; possibly even tips on prioritizing AA purchase, ectera.
Finaly I’m interested in any new in game tools or improvements to old ones, for example, I’d love to see some refinement of the Options/Keys making commands and keystroke combinations more searchable in game. Frankly what they have is rather bare bones and not easy to use. If I had a nickle for every time I had someone ask me “how do I get this window back” or “how do I add someone to my expedition” I’d be wealthy.
By: Bara on May 20, 2008
at 3:32 am
I might get laughed off the boards for this but here is what I would like to see:
This would also take some time for the Dev’s to figure out…I would like to see a small discussion group aranged with people who have a playing time but dont comment alot on the various EQ boards.
There are several players in this catagory who probably have great ideas, but for various resons do not post on the boards. These could be raiders and non raiders.
I just think this might bring in new ideas.
By: Yinta on May 20, 2008
at 1:17 pm
As a longtime EverQuest player, I’d like to see more of what goes on behind the scenes.
I was in the EQ “Make a Quest” workshop for the last Fan Faire, and although 15 people were too many to work on one quest efficiently, it was still a fun experience. I would love to see the same thing, but with smaller groups, and maybe another dev or two to help out. Also, I would love to participate in making a quest that doesn’t require endgame access!
I would also like to hear from developers about some of the problems they’ve had to deal with, why they don’t do things that we might expect, describe some of the thought processes that went into certain aspects of the game, or some of the difficulties they faced in the upcoming expansion without going into spoiler territory.
By: Kalthanan on May 20, 2008
at 6:31 pm
I would like you to make raid level items, or 80% of raid level items available to to solo-via quest or small group via instance, like in DOD, work through a few mission and get an item, or earn crystal etc, would be great. Seems like the best groupable items are about 50% of raid. I know groupable should not be the same as raid, BUT I say thats crap, just because I can not raid at 4pm in the afternoon(weekday) which is the time most raid guilds start, (I work) on my server, I am forever to have to be happy with items that do not do my characters/experience justice. I loves DOD, great group instance and you got a reward for completing. Granted not raid level by anymeans, but it could be. Is the risk greater when your 1 or 6, getting nailed or 1of 42+/-. So raid level items should be available to group via instance or something
I also like being able to do missions and get rewards with out having to do the same thing over and over to get faction. I completed the group missions of Solteris, plus other various missions, and still had to do some missions over and over and over to get my faction high enough. -Faction is boring- unless its like Velious that made sense, merchant faction is boring, merchants like money, not faction.
Instance, killing over and over trying to figure what make X spawn, is boring, lets move away from that, and do more instance like DoD. I was awsome to get a mission and know if you beat it you would get a item, or special crystals used to buy items. Also making crafting a way to get raid level items through groupable items, raid guild get raid items and raid level craftable items, Give groups a chance, wheres the group/solo love
Peace see ya at fan fair
By: Steven on May 27, 2008
at 7:24 pm
I’d love to see a live cooking or brewing demo using recipes from in game…
By: Andorra Bell on June 8, 2008
at 7:27 pm