Update to Update #2

[Aredhel]

WAY too much to post here, but the jist of it is that there are about a zillion updates that are going to be pushed to Test and they need help! So, whoever the folks are saying they'd rather spend time ingame getting their levels and other phat l00t, do yourself and everyone else a favor and help test the fixes. Here is an outline:

Game Update #2

1. Guild Halls

2. The Brotherhood System

3. Bind on Equip

4. LFG Improvements

5. Rest Experience

6. Level Based Diplomacy

7. Diplomacy UI

8. Deconstruction

9. Item Level Requirements

10. PvP bug fixes

11. Crash To Desktop fixes and Optimizations

12. Quest Journal and Quest Tracking improvements

13. Item UI

14. Scrolling Combat Text

Any other questions? Then go here and see what else Hasium has to say about it! Don't take my word for it, ok?

Good job, SoE!!!



there I go again....what's wrong with me? Must be something I ate....

[Arctic_Slicer]

All equipable items that were bindable are now either bind on equip or bind on pickup, with the majority of the items being bind on equip. Here is a quick overview of the affected items:



· All equipable items that were bindable are now BOE or BOP

· All uncommon and common items are BOE

· All rare world loot items are BOE

· All rare (and higher) items that are not on world loot tables are BOP

· All containers are BOE

· Quest rewards will remain soulbound as they were before this change

Am I the only one who sees this as a bad thing? What items weren't bindable? The days of hand-me-downs and reselling of gear are a thing of the past. It also means that the death penalty will now be now be virtually non-existent as you will always respawn with all of your gear. At least it brings back the balance of crafted versus adventuring gear but then again they shouldn't have messed with that balance in the first place.

Sure you can argue that it's necessary to remove items from the economy or whatever but it does so because it practically removes the economy itself. The lack of no-drop items used to be one of the things I liked most about this game because it helped bolster a stronger real-world role-playing environment. I mean why shouldn't someone else be able to use a sword just because I used it? It also damages the community aspect of the game a I can no longer help out any friends and guildmates I might have by giving them items I no longer have any use for but may have been upgrades for them.

Honestly this seems to a be a change brought on by the few who wish to see significant profits from items but can't compete in an economy already flooded with the items. So now that few who are only in it for themselves have whined about it we have to make all items virtually no-drop to the loss of all.

[Ysharros]

I'm pretty concerned about the BOE thing too, as is the spousal unit, and we're both crafters. Crafter or not, I don't think this is going to be a good thing. However, I'm also cynical and aware that this has been planned out so meticulously, it's going to happen no matter what we say.

As usual, this is being presented to us as something *we* wanted. Well, this "we" didn't want it, and still doesn't, and remains firmly unconvinced of the merits of across-the-board binding.

Not to mention the extreme dilution of the original vision, but to be fair that was pretty diluted well before SOE's involvement.

Edit -- I've just checked around a few forums and in some, folks are screaming about EE, in others they're screaming about decon. Nobody seems to be bothered about BOE much. I guess there's more WoW in the playerbase than I expected.

[SwordMage]

The binding thing was added to EQ2 about 6 months after it came out for the same reasons and worked well there. It didn't destroy the game there either. I think people realized that even for looted items, it kept the market prices up and the economy healthy.

[Ysharros]

That's a fair point, Sword. I think a lot of my concerns stem from the fact that I'm primarily a Test-based player, where gear is a lot more rare to begin with and a lot of our stuff gets passed down through several generations. However, I can't really judge live effects from what will happen there - there's just not enough population to draw any parallels.

[Aredhel]

Honestly, I've never been a fan of BoE! E-VER!

I know what it can do for the economy, but it takes something away from the characters - especially new ones or RP'ers - when they like to hand things down that they've worn for so long and have made memories with. It lends well to the tone of the game!

But, no, it hasn't ruined EQ2. Just some of the mood.

If you can actually do what Guild Wars does, make used equipment into components for something else, then I actually liked that part of GW!!! If you haven't played, you might not understand, but I really enjoyed buying the solvents (or whatever they were) that would turn a sword into 3 pieces of special metals, etc. You could sell them or use them to make things, which was very cool!

[Pirotess]

Sounds like deconstruction on test is pretty much exactly that.

[Aredhel]

Yup! I can't wait to try it, actually!

[Arctic_Slicer]

Sure it might not "kill" the game but this change is a game breaker for me. I have "Guild Wars" I know about such systems and sure they work for that game but if I wanted to play that game I would be playing that game, not "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes". This is the kind of change that takes away a lot of the identity of "Vanguard: Saga of Heroes" and makes it more like all of the other games. Sure it might be good for the game but it doesn't mean that it best for the game.

This something I see as being similar to instancing. Instancing solves many problems that crop up in games like this but it comes at the cost of the role-playing environment that games like these are supposed to house. Also like instancing this seems to be one of those "throwing the baby out with the bath water solutions" that should still try to avoid, even now 6 months after release. Sure it's not quite as game breaking as instancing but I am stating to get the feeling that instancing isn't going to be far off at this rate.

I will probably stick around to see how this pans out, but I have the feeling that this is where I get off the ride.

[SwordMage]

It may be that by now I am used to BoE systems.

The primary alternative to them (assuming that one accepts the need to remove items from the economy in the first place) is some form of permanent item decay. I haven't seen one discussed that many players are comfortable with -- the main argument seems to be that having earned the uber sword of back scratching, the notion that it could fall to dust after x months of end-game activities is troublesome.