MERCS & BOTS

BeQ May or may not have custom Mercenaries and Bots available

Renamable Mercs, Bots AND Pets, but on some kind of cooldown

Retintable armor and skinnable weapons and shields

PLAYER PETS

Druids will get beefier Bear pets

Shaman will get better pets

Clerics will get a persistent Hammer Pet

Enchanters can get beefier Animations with full Pet Control AAs

Wizards may get a type of swarm pet that will help rip aggro, talk to Dreadbox Dave

...

Command hierarchy and BoT Command overhaul

GM Owner/Operator/Cosmic Unlimited

GM Admin/Cosmic Limited

GM Developer/Cosmic Limited

GM Lead

GM 

GM Race

GM Class

GM Monster Advocate

GM Guide

GM VIP

Player

Temp Banned Player

Chat Only

# hash

/  slash

.  dot

^, ' caret or apostrophe

The really annoying, game breaking issues with bots and lore items needs to be addressed. In the present, the short term fix would be to limit "Lore" items to more than ONE (unique) item; some kind of "Lore +1" code in the very least; ideally replacement "Lore code" or "Lore tag" to be separate from the amount of items any player can have simultaneously.

TRADESKILLS

In the Bazaar shall be various NPCs with "dropped items" on them, for crafting just about anything, including research materials, organized by trade and era and/or skill level (Beginner, Apprentice, Master, Grand Master, etc).

Alchemy (WAS Shaman Only)

Baking

Blacksmithing

Brewing

Fletching

Jewelcrafting

Poison Making (WAS Rogue Only)

Pottery

Research (WAS Caster Only)

Tailoring

Tinkering (WAS Gnome Only)

GENERAL ABILITIES

Some General Abilities which are/were Race and Class Specific are now open to all player characters; those former races and classes which held exclusivity will maintain their inherited supremacy, but now everyone will be able to have sub-basic general abilities, and improve them with AAs:

Feign Death

Forage

Hide

Sneak

Track

COMBAT ABILITIES

Some Combat Abilities which also are/were Race and Class Specific are now relaxed, open to MOST played characters; those which have grandfathered supremacy will still maintain a significant advantage over all other characters, who can now:

Bash (ALL but PRE, Berserkers will require the 2H Bash AA)

Kick (ALL, including Snakes!)

Slam (ALL "Large" Races and now- Half Elves, Humans, and Iksar

These Combat Abilities will ALL share the same combat timer, and though they will each have a minimum value on hit, it will be in each PC's favor to use whichever ability that "caps highest" for them -OR- if/when there is no choice -OR- is all are capped at (50), they can simply use what is available or provides them a preferred animation to watch; BASH will always require either a Shield or a (2H) Weapon which has a significant Armor Class (AC) rating (and is so-flagged in the DB, like the Pal/Shd Kunark Epic 1.0 swords).

NEW is the possible improvement to the reuse time through the acquisition of haste and/or spell haste (undecided, leaning towards regular melee haste and overhaste). Default timer reuse will be 2 tics, or 6.0 seconds (6000 ms) and combined haste(s) cannot exceed 500r, or 50% reuse reduction; most common will be a reduction of somewhere between 0.5 and 0.8 seconds for non-melee characters (worn haste), and between 1.2 and 1.5 seconds for hasted/overhasted melee characters.

NOTE players of Bards will have to use a client which supports unhooked combat abilities and potion drinking from twisting and /melody casting (RoF1, RoF2, etc) to be able to use these abilities fully, as intended.

BTEQ UNIQUE CHARACTER "PAUSE" COMMAND

Well, okay, not exactly a pause button in an MMO, but it is a very useful ability (command, accessed through the HASH COMMAND hierarchy) usable at level 1 onward:

#elbereth

Using #ELBERETH will immediately park the character issuing the command, stopping all forms of auto-attack from themselves and any pets or charmed pets they may have out, wipe the hate lists of all creatures attacking them, and clear all targets not dead of any and all dots and debuffs on them from the affected player and their pets.

This command is very powerful and meant to ease the burden on casual players and those who have RL emergencies arise while playing BTEQ/BQ. It is intended to be an antidote for "accidental" #aggrozone or should players unintentionally aggro their guild master or bank guard(s) or what not.

Undoing a circle of elbereth will likewise make that character unable to interact with the world for a short period of time; this can allow a character who is KoS in a particular area the chance to safely leave before the NPCs around them re-aggro; to prevent players from abusing this command (which will take significant CPU clocks per use) there will be a significant reuse cooldown, also bosses and events which are triggered and scripted will not return the trigger materials and anyone soloing such events (Thurgadin Shawl Quest Waves, for example) will auto-fail and have to be restarted when the timers have all reset. Also, timers will not be stopped for LDoN or any other instance success/failure, and bosses which can respawn- WILL-- sometimes preventing the top zone boss from spawning (NToV Vulak`Aerr for example, if not cleared within 1-2 hours).

Cooldown should be on the order of 5-6 minutes FROM THE TIME OF RELEASE...

If players have a second emergency in that time, too bad- what's the worst that can happen? Character death is trivial and non-permanent in BTEQ, with token loss of experience and "optional" corpse runs. 

AA EXPEDIENT RECOVERY

The Veteran Reward / Special AA Expedient Recovery has a ridiculously long cool down of 164:00:00, which is 6.833 days (essentially a one week cool down). Granted, this is a powerful AA, as it summons all non-shadowrest corpses and restores 100% rezzes for each and every corpse the DB can find, but BTEQ believes that every player deserves "better" and stuff happens almost "daily"- so we're going to let our players use this ability on each and every character they have-- once per day. Actual cooldown time will be just twenty hours (20:00:00) just like Lesson of the Devoted, and other Veteran Rewards AAs.

EARNING VETERAN REWARDS AA'S

BTEQ is actually going to keep track of who's WHO; Who plays and who stays. Rewards are going to be per account and effect ALL characters on that account. Even in the unlikely and unfortunate event that all an account's characters are deleted, any restored characters and/or any newly created characters will retain their "veteran status" and the extra special earned veteran reward AA's will be available at level 1.

These will include, but not be limited to:

Clockwork Banker (additional ranks will lower cooldown time and extend pesist time)

Clockwork Merchant (additional ranks will lower cooldown time and extend persist time)

Riding Mount

Riding FAST Mount

Riding FAST FLYING Mount

Swarm Pet(s) Rank I

Swarm Pet(s) Rank II

Swarm Pet(s) Rank III

AA's TO TRAINING POINTS

On the Special Tab in the AA Menu (v) will be a Conversion Button "Create Training Points" which will provide individual characters with excess AA points to be able to convert them to Tokens which can be handed into any registered regular class Guild Master for 5 Training Points per Token (one level's worth), which can be used to train up everything from general and combat skills to tradeskills and languages; even swimming; everything on the trainer, up to the limits allowed by that character's level and class.

UNDECIDED AT THIS TIME is whether or not to make these AA Tokens tradeable (leaning towards yes)- they will NOT be Lore, and will stack up to 20 or possibly even 100.

ALSO UNDECIDED is whether or not these particular Tokens will be used solely for Training Points, or could possibly have some other use, such as "alt-currency" for a unique server "AA Token Vendor" which could sell stat-food and drinks, illusion clickies, and fireworks and other "fun" items (leaning towards yes, but not at release-- more of a one/two/three year anniversary thing).

This is a work in progress. Random periodic edits with everything from server hardware procurement plans to fiber and bandwidth solutions to world configuration settings and custom code modules.

BTEQ = Better-Than-EQ or  " >EQ " for short

BetterQuest = BQ

Hardware:

Used HP Z820 workstation, budget $2,000 +/- want 3.4GHz, 8 cores, 64GB+/- DDR3 ECC RAM

RAID SSDs for O/S and for data, then RAID HDDs for backup(s), then non-raid HDDs and offsite STG for backup

http://h20195.www2.hp.com/v2/GetPDF.aspx/4AA4-0130ENUC

Software:

OS MS Win 10 Pro

World Parameters:

Allowed Clients: Ti, SoF, UF, RoF

Recommended Clients: RoF1 or RoF2 ... Titanium may be obsolete; we may require SoF+

Zones, TLC & Character Offline Movement Options: ALL zone level requirements- high and low-- will be relaxed (except LDoN type instances), the Tutorial Button will be available at the Character Select Screen for all characters at all times, regardless of level, and the Return Home radio button will likewise be available to all characters without the long cooldown requirement. Also, Trivial Loot Code (TLC) shall be OFF in all zones since there is a player time investment involved with vanquishing foes all any level, even if the associated mortal risks of a given encounter are attenuated or minimized.

Static Zones (always spawned, scripts running, cannot be camp-reset): Abysmal Sea (GoD), The Bazaar (PoP), The Nexus (SoL), Plane of Knowledge (PoP), Guild Lobby (DoN), Plane of Tranquility (PoP), Shadowrest, Sunset Home, Tutorial-B, Plane of Time-A (PoP), Gulf of Gunthak (LoY), The Shores of Natimbi (GoD), Dranik's Scar (OoW)... Standard Guild Hall? Player GHs are Instances and expire (why?)

Dynamic Zones (Noteworthy) : Nedaria's landing, Crescent Reach, Guild Hall(s), Plane of Time-B(s)

Sanctuary (non-combat) Zones: Abysmal Sea, The Bazaar, The Nexus, Plane of Knowledge, Guild Lobby, Plane of Tranquility, Light Chapel, Dark Chapel

PvP Zones (auto-flag/unflag) : Plane of War, Arena, PvP areas (zone specific)

Buff Preservation Zones; Abysmal Sea, The Bazaar, The Nexus, Plane of Knowledge, Guild Lobby, Guild Hall, Plane of Tranquility, Sunset Home, Light Chapel, Dark Chapel

Instances : granted per character, per guild, or per "raid group" (community raid)

Lockouts : minimal and reasonable, no more than 24 hours

EGs : a single char can be able to be part of 3 different potimeb instances; their own, tuned for single play and their own unique power score rating, their guild, tuned for the average power score of their level 65 players, and an actual community raid set to a slightly higher difficulty and loot matrix. A solo instance will have 1/6 or about 1 drop per boss and 1/6 chance on other random drops, and a guild instance will have 1/3 drops or 2 or 3 per boss per run for a slight increase in NPC strength, while a community raid will have 6/3 or 2x drops or about 10 or 12 drops per boss so that players are almost guaranteed that all possible drops are represented. NPC health and damage output will be scaled accordingly to keep "community runs" just that- rather than mere loot piniatas for the best geared players and their groups.

NOTES

Instance code will have to account for Linkdead players. How long to preserve their instance?

How to make named spawns more common, or, maybe even "always up" for solo/duo instances?

EXPERIENCE

Types of Experience: Normally, there are three basic types of "Exp" earned over time per kill, or per quest. We're going to introduce a fourth and fifth kind, on top of levelling, alternate advancement (AA) and leadership alt advances (LA)-- which #4 is bestowed per character for simply being alive and engaged in the world, even if AFK, this will be tied to and use the same counter(s) as the /char age/online/veteran and give a very small but noticeable exp reward per character and per account, lastly introduce Exploration Experience, awarded for being in a (new) zone for XYZ minutes.

Gnolls will be a playable race, and females are distinguished from males mainly by their coat colors and slightly more "foxy" faces and tails. Gnolls can be almost any class, except Monks (will Gnoll Beastlords have domesticated Human warders??)

Max Player Level: Somewhere between 70 and 80 (top FULL Expansion GoD; SOME OoW; A BIT of DoN; ONLY Crescent Reach of TSS

Custom Content (Noteworthy) : Plane of Hate 1.0, Plane of War, EPIC 1.0, 1.5, 2.0, (alternate quests!!) CUSTOM EPIC 2.5 and 3.0 weapons

Veteran Reward AAs ON

Exp Curve(s)

Custom Code [CC]

[CC] Group Exp

[CC] Group LAs

[CC] Group/Raid Exp

[CC] Group/Raid RAs

[CC] Diablo Global Loot XL

NPC Summoning Abilities OFF

NPC Death Touch Abilities OFF

/* For those DT's triggered by scripts, call spell NULL, or SHADOWSTEP players */

NPC Annoying Shit Abilities (Blind, Snare, 3 hour long curses and shit) OFF or significantly altered

NPC Annoying Shit like Corruption and Magic based effects ALL Curable/Dispellable

NPC Health = ( N / 10 )  +  ( 10 * L ) ,  N= HP(>=1), L= LVL(>=1, <=100)

/* Typical level one creature would then have 11 HP, L10=, L100=

/* Level#=N, X

LV1=11, 11

LV2=24, 22

LV3=39, 34

LV4=56, 46

LV5=75, 58

LV6=96, 70

LV7=119, 82

LV8=144, 94

LV9=171, 107

L10=200, 120

L11=231, 133

L12=264, 146

L13=299, 160

L14=336-420, 174-182

L15=375, 188

L16=416, 202

L17=459-510, 216-221

L18=504-540, 230-234

L19=551-570, 245-247

L20=600-700, 260-270

L21

L22

L23

L24

L25=875, 338

L26

L27

L28

L29

L30=1200-1350, 420-435

L35=1575, 508

L40=2000-3420, 600-742

L45=2475-3848, 698-835

L50=3000-23438, 800-2844

L55=3575-55750, 906-6125

L60=4200-901000, 1020-9610 (Akhevan Warder)

L65=4875-1M, 1138-100650 (an onyx protector: Inktu'Ta)

L70=5600-2564789, 1260-257179 (The Tribunal)

L75=6375-3.5M, 1388-350750 (The Fabled Venril Sathir)  @800dps, 7m20s fight

L80=7200-2.3M, 1520-230800 (PIxtt Xxeric Kex)

L85=

NPC MIN DMG, IF=0, 0 ; IF>=1, update to 1+LEVEL (or 1/10 LVL?)  

/* Drastically lowers Min dmg */

NPC MAX DMG, IF=0, 0 ; IF>=1, update to N/6 (or N/8?  N/10??) 

/* Reduces Max dmg significantly */

NPC MR, IF=0, 0 ; IF>=1, update to =LEVEL 

/* Debuffs/Lures remain useful, but no more NPC immunities */

/* Bane Weapons will do extra damage, but no longer will be required for Melee */

NPC ON_KILL and QUEST FACTION HITS:

Positive Faction Hits ; range 2x - 10x

Negative Faction Hits ; either 1/10th(x) or ( 1 )

BTEQ FACTION Basics

Face it, rep grinds and faction tensions are a bit ridiculous; they aren't really immersive and can actually keep players who are otherwise close (even IRL) -apart- for a number of levels, perhaps even indefinitely ingame. It used to be something to marvel at when a non-Iksar became un-KOS in Cabilis, or when an Iksar became un-KOS in much of Felwythe, or even Neriak. 

In the old days, due to circumstances beyond your control, certain cities or areas were simply out of reach for your character to explore safely; and it was one thing to have to deal with xenophobic merchants at dubious, but quite another for random newbie guards to haul off and indiscriminately slay characters based on nothing more than looks or -even stupider- their suspicion of your character's religion or choice of deity (which in many cases, was a non-choice).

To mitigate all this, the religious component of inter-regional and racial tensions has been eliminated, and almost all characters of all races will start un-KOS to all other factions, even those of many monster's homes and dungeons; furthermore, there will no longer be any faction that one can lower than cannot also be reset or raised somehow autonomously, ingame; in fact, there may actually emerge some hidden quests from certain monster NPCs in certain dungeons once you are friendly enough to actually talk to them in their language.

You may wish to brush up on your Gnoll or Goblin proficiency, then visit Blackburrow or Runnyeye Citadel.

Characters will start high amiable to their own race and home city, and low amiable to all other same-race NPCs in all other zones and cities, PCs will also start high amiable or fondly to their chosen god or goddess, and all PCs will start indifferent to all other played races NPCs in all other areas, even dungeons, and no less than high dubious to all other factions, except -perhaps- undead.

At last, players are the "content of their character's character" and their actions, and  they can travel safely at almost all levels to play with their friends or simply explore the world, since BTEQ will be a newer, better game altogether, only, taking place in a familiar and time-tested environment.

BTEQ Artifacts, Global Drops and "Diablo" Loot

There is a need in every MMO for players leveling up to acquire meaningful upgrades for strong and weak slots alike, and to have to manage their character's stats depending on any given situation in the world; with past attempts to provide random artifacts and diablo-style loot distribution to players, these used to simply come down to luck after an on_kill condition (which could reward automated characters run by cheat programs) and either a lookup table of loot, or a random item generator which balloons the database. NOW, when a reward condition is triggered, there will be an interactive popup and a typed key process that players will have to adhere to which will narrow their selection of loot they would like; spell, coin, materials, and other gear are all fair game, and the goal is to make every player feel like a lottery winner from time-to-time (and on a hidden cooldown per character and per account).

BTEQ Player Convenience NPCs

Ever thought about how cool some 'combat' zones are that have unusual merchants, and even bankers? Now, many more of your favorite zones will have such interesting and useful NPCs. We suggest obtaining the most recent maps for all zones from us, which have such 'convenience' and rare spawn NPCs and important places clearly labeled.

BTEQ TRIBUTE

All tribute values of all items have been overhauled to be between 1x and 2x the Merchant Value to eliminate "exploitable" items being farmed ad nauseum (Kael, Grieg, etc). On the bright side, Tribute Merchants will now ignore the NO DROP tag on most player-attuned items, and there is at least one item that is easily available to players of all levels that allows every character to build up a decent "cushion" of Tribute Points early, so that they can play without having to micro-manage their ALT+U window.

BTEQ TRADESKILLS

All trades recipes are available (old and new) up to the player caps. Almost any race and class can adopt any or all tradeskills, including Research, Alchemy and Tinkering, and possibly even Poison Making- although Poisons will likely still be appliable only by Rogues. Custom items are required for races and classes which are not usually allowed to adopt these formerly-exclusive trade skills, but they are easily purchasable in the Bazaar and select merchants elsewhere. Additionally, so-called rare-drop items used in tradeskills- including Research-- will have more than one means of acquiring them, including rare item traders around the world and in PoK--- but beware, they may be rare-spawns and/or charge quite a bit for what you are looking for.

BTEQ ITEMIZATION

All items will have some sort of value associated with them, whether it is coin or tribute or anything else. It will be a daunting task but all items will be "zero'd" to 1 cp and then new values created based on whether the items are statless junk, tradeskill items, quest items, or weapons or armor. This will mean that items such as the dropped defiant gear will have significantly higher vendor values than, say, plain fine steel weapons (right now it is the other way around). 

BTEQ QUESTS

Right now, almost all quests are ridiculously under-rewarded, in faction rep, coin, and experience. With BTEQ you will be able to acquire AA's, LA's, significant EXP, measurable Faction and even gaga Coin rewards for your time. It is another daunting task, but that is the nature of this project; it is bigger than either a useful database or a single server.

LDoNs

Temporary Mercs/Bots at every LDoN camp allow anyone to acquire and complete LDoN missions without the usual three player requirement. Also nearby are "Shortcut" NPCs which will teleport you and your group to your assigned instance (no more running across zones for every mission), and while inside, you will find two options to exit any given instance; to be returned to the entrance outside of the instance, or to be teleported back to the nearest Wayfarer Brotherhood LDoN camp (yet another time saver and convenience feature which SOE should've thought of).

Better Than EverQuest: BEQ, BTEQ

BEQ is a complete overhaul and rebalancing of the game, and is considerably faster-paced and truly soloable. Leveling curves have been smoothed overall, but players can expect to spend between one and two hours per level raising any given character; that is at least one level per daily session on average, and preserves the need for content of all levels. Experience-increasing Abilities and Buffs are easily obtainable for players of all levels to make leveling go much faster. Regular Exp is limited to between 1.4x and 2.2x, but general AA XP (available once characters reach level 51) is a blazingly fast 10x. Players will notice that coin is going to be harder to come by than they are used to, but their relative power and purchasing power will increase due to a complete item value overhaul! 

HardCore EverQuest: HEQ, HCEQ

HCEQ is hardknuckle, oldschool, unforgiving and tough-love EQ; the way EQ was originally meant to be. You will have to know your characters inside and out and be willing to group to be able to survive here. About the only thing going for you here is that there is no IP limit and we allow the use of programs that will "assist" players, but NOT the use of bot-ware or cheat modules. Experience is slightly harder to come by here than other servers, and easy to lose, but thanks to features like Shadowrest and some unique web-based AND ingame  player tools, you are able to retrieve any/all corpses and you will not lose all of your gear due to "corpse-rot" unless You really Really WANT to. Some abilities and potions are available to players of all levels to help level up faster, but it will still take time and effort to max a character here. On average, players can expect to spend between two and five hours per character level. One Merc is allowed per player starting at level 15(20?), but you will still need a partner to be able to acquire LDoN missions and you won't be duo'ing HARD missions, even twinked out. Also, the Merc's are going to be rather greedy, especially at higher proficiency and confidence levels; this is intentional in order to discourage instance and raid molo-ing and encourage "light" grouping or boxing. Also, there is a MAJOR grouping bonus here (as long as at least three of the group mates are in_zone) to encourage pursuing Leadership Abilities (LAs) AND meeting new players.

Given the vast differences between these two types of servers, Characters are not transferrable between our realms, but they may be cloneable if the character's name is unique, available, and within bounds of that realms rules.

...

SPECIFIC UNIQUE IDEAS

PETS PETS PETS Players will have some autonomous means ingame of changing their pet's name; some classes will acquire this ability free at a certain level, others will have to quest or barter for this. We're of the opinion that pets are who they are when they are conjured or tamed, and that they need to retain a certain amount of their innate spirit and personality. It will be subtle, but every pet class and player with a summoned pet will notice (if they pay close attention) certain behaviors are unique to their chosen present pet, and that of others; it may be a random emote, or noise, or pacing behavior, or even something else, but each pet will be rather unique, and a HUGE change from what player have been bored by and subjected to all these many years. Ever see what happens when a wolf pet eats a portion of tainted goo? It can get teleportitus, or even shapeshifteritus, or both... or worse! (MIMIC!?!!)

The allowed weapon and armor restrictions have been relaxed for the standard and custom classes and improved somewhat so that there are more choices for players in how they wish for their characters to look.

Two new classes are available for players to choose (Prelates and Hunters), and Wands are now a viable range weapon for all pure casters and some priests.

PRELATES are cloth wearing agile members of the Priest Hierarchy who are adept at a few martial skills, relaxed melee restrictions, and masters of curing ailments (blindness, corruptions, curses, etc); they may use wands like pure casters (tho at a lower skill level), and have innate spell haste which makes many of their spells practically "instant-cast" at the highest levels. The top level Prelates will be desired for the cures, debuffs, and instant spot-heals and HoTs and will solo very well, on par with Clerics, though much of their DPS will either be ranged item (wand) or martial melee. Their weakness is a complete lack of crowd control skills; no root, no snare, no paci, no mez, no pet parking; if they pull too much or get an unlucky add it will be a fight to the death with whatever cooldowns and elixirs they have available. Their travel and utility spells are pretty much limited to Bind Affinity and Gate and they do not have any Unique buffs for their groups. Players of Priests from WoW will find this choice of Classes very familiar, and players of other Priest Classes in EQ will find Prelates to be quite different since they do not always have to stand still to cast their spells; they will have Aires, like Songs and Auras, that are interruptable only by Silence, and which are temporary short-term buffs/debuffs.

HUNTERS are essentially Leather armor wearing hybrids of two other hybrid classes: Rangers and Beastlords; they forsake the Hand to Hand melee and agile combat prowess AND the super pets for 2nd best sustainable ranged physical damage (cannot be resisted, unlike spells, and which is immune to Silence effects) and the inability to really "tank" (no Taunt) behind Rangers, along with a useful array of pets at high levels that improve their abilities (like Wizard familiars) for everything from Foraging to Tracking to Cures and Health and Mana Regeneration. Their pets can take a beating and offer a respectible amount of innate threat but they do not actually deal much damage and overall their pets are about as useful as SK pets. Many Hunters will actually choose to run around with their familiar's buff and no apparent pet much of time. Yes, they will get Feign Death and will make decent pullers (in a pinch) but not quite as good as SKs or Monks.

AA's (and LA's) are bestowed below level 51 as quest rewards, and are spendable on many useful and practical abilities- even below level 51. Bear in mind however with LA's that when soloing, those benefits will NOT be viable; if you want to trade in or cash in on unused awarded LA's (up to X qty) there will be a merchant for that purpose. General and Advanced or Special Abilities such as Forage, Permanent Illusion, even Hide and Feign Death will be available to every played character regardless of race/class or deity, and those which get those abilities may in some cases acquire them sooner by spending the AA's, or improve them, and maintain their significant class or racial advantage over others with it. 

The small AA self-heal will be restricted to followers of a deity, while the AA Mend ability will be available to everyone; Monks and Prelates will maintain a significant superior degree of utility of this ability and will be the only Classes which can benefit from further AA improvements of it.

Race and Class combinations have been relaxed, but may or may not become fully "ARACAD" due to the lack of certain graphics for players; some players may not care that their Goblin, Gnoll, or Ogre caster cannot display their chosen robe; other will; we'll have to see and release these odd combos selectively after testing. ALL races will have at least two choices of deity or agnosticism, but do be aware that adopting a religion or losing one is very Very VERY hard to do; it may take a ridiculously hard in-game quest to reset or modify your character's religion, and except for plastic surgery, the grace of the gods, or an inebriated GM- your actual base race is fixed ingame for all time, and it will be easier and cheaper and otherwise better for your character when they want a race-change, to simply acquire an illusion clicky and reap the benefits of their new beauty with the permanent illusion AA's (which will be offered to all players, not just Enchanters, Rogues, and Bards)

Many Guild Masters and Class Trainers around the world will now buff or even teleport you; if they like you they may even buff you  or port you for free. You may ask for SoW, SOE, KEI, or even level-appropriate 'haste'-- but do so politely. We don't need stupid "buff bot totems" in any custom crowded hub zone(s)- just use the NPCs that already exist and add a bit of extra code and gossip/dialogue.

Many useful NPCs hang out by zone-ins and zone-outs and succor points, and even all the LDoN camps ready to assist you and your bot(s), box(es), merc, or your other friend(s) seeking to complete relevant missions; also, the LDoN camps will offer translocation near to the correct instance you and your group is presently assigned to; also there will now be a translocation NPC (some who may actually offer buffs too) or two inside each instance who can send you back to the closest Wayfarer camp (or even a different one), eliminating the built-in travel time-sink that causes unnecessary PC/CPU usage, and which is even better than #zone or #peqzone.

ALL Spell cast times AND re-cast times HALVED; spell haste for ALL casters easier to come by and more AA's added for casters. Melee classes will also get AA's which allow ingenious self-buff extensions and benefit from worn spell focus items. 

Potion imbibe times will be HALVED or MORE; in addition, they will be a bit less "interruptable" than normal spells for casters and bards and melee classes alike- the only sure way(s) to cancel drinking one for players will be to duck or jump; simply moving in one direction a little bit may not be enough of a jolt to break your character's natural reaction to swallow!

SPECIAL NPCs

BUFFING NPCs - Some are static, some wander around their respective dungeons and world zones; some Guild Masters and other existing NPCs have new dialogues for players, in addition to their already known and/or well established interactive text repertoires. TIP: Players can take an open social button and hotkey things like 'buffs' and 'sow plz' and 'may i have some buffs, please?'... interestingly, being polite to NPCs counts for something... (saying "please" or "pls" or "plz" can almost always give "max extended" buff times with shortened cast times)

Note to self: add  'grp buffs pls' or "group buffs please" or 'grp buf plz' etc etc

DRINKING BUDDIES - Some are static, some wander around here also; all want to get drunk with you and will give characters of "proper levels" free booze from time to time when asked ("booze pls" +/- "gimmie a beer"), most are smart enough to realize you shouldn't be abusing or exploiting their generosity, and may or may not check their conversation against your character's [Alcohol Tolerance] skill value.

TRAVEL NPCs- Wayfarer Magus NPCs have a few new popular destinations available to those who have unlocked this faction and obtained an Adventurer's Stone; Abysmal Sea, Guild Lobby, LDoN Dungeon Entrances around the world, and the Plane of Knowledge and The Nexus, etc.

Wizard and Druid NPCs at just about every Stone Circle and Magic Spire; almost all will be "Find-able" and both will be able to cast travel improving spells (and more); SoW, invis spells, water breathing, levitation, see invisible, invis to undead, level <=50 damage shields, etc, etc, etc

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CLASSES

MELEE

WAR Warrior, Plate

BER Berserker, Chain

ROG Rogue, Leather

MNK Monk, Cloth

CASTERS

ENC Enchanter, Cloth

MAG Magician, Cloth

NEC Necromancer, Cloth

WIZ Wizard, Cloth

PRIESTS

CLR Cleric, Plate

SHM Shaman, Chain

DRU Druid, Leather

PRE Prelate, Cloth

HYBRIDS

PAL Paladin, Plate

SHD Shadow Knight, Plate

RNG Ranger, Chain

CRU Crusader, Chain

BRD Bard, Leather

HUN Hunter, Leather

BST Beastlord, Cloth

SHS Shapeshifter, Cloth