Isaya said:..EQ1 was awesome in that way. You always could find a list and it was nice to know where to go to get the spells. Traveling to surefall and Firiona Vie and other far places to purchase your new spells was a great release from just killing.....
I don't think there was a list initially but as a druid I do remember buying my spells from the trainer and traveling to zones to buy druid ring spells and other stuff that was there. I only found out what it was after hearing it from other druids higher than me (there weren't many). We also wondered what certain spells would do and it wasn't until much later that we actually found out what harmony did.
I'm for hearing about general spell abilities but I think it would be way cooler to find out about spells in game and find out what the spell does. Experimenting with spells, imo, would make one a much better player then just accepting stuff you read or hear. Especially in the early days...
Amusing that people who pay for pre-alpha/alpha/beta are worried about discovery in the actual game considering we need to test all this stuff in alpha. I'd like the list so I know what the spell is supposed to do vs. what it actually does in game.
Leave the mysteries for people who play at launch.
I think rather than giving us a big list of spells and abilities it would be important to let us discover them ourselves during testing. After all we need to test how players will discover all of this stuff when the game launches and they have never played any of the testing phases. We need to test how easy or hard it is to discover our spells and we need to test whether there are merchants in-game that don't have spells on that should and merchants that do have spells on that shouldn't.
I see this as a big testing opportunity for pre-alpha / alpha testers. After all if it is impossible for us to discover all of our spells maybe there is a problem with the game design that needs tweaking? Same goes for skills.
If we are just told about all of them ahead of time we won't be able to do that testing.
Shucklighter said: How are you going to test whether or not spells/abilities are missing from vendors or trainers if you don't know whether or not the spells/abilities exist?
True. But what about spells that don't happen to be sold but are dropped or are crafted or are quested? We need to be able to test their discoverability. Maybe a list that just said what spells were out there with the secret ones missing but mentioned (just say how many secret spells per class there are without giving any information on how they are discovered) and then during testing find out how many players of each class actually managed to find all of their secret spells? If hardly anyone did maybe it needs to be made easier and if everyone found their secret spells then maybe it needs to be made harder?
Just thinking of ideas here. I guess a list of spells with no information on where to get them from would be fine because players would still have to discover where to get the spells from but if there are any secret spells (I really hope there are) then they should obviously remain secret although it might be worthing saying how many secret spells there are per class so we know if we have discovered them all or not.
I fail to see how a list of spell names and a generic description, or even a good description tells you WHERE or HOW the spell is obtained.
All the people I see saying they don't want this list cite having to discover the spells in game but getting a list of spells doesn't change that you still have to discover the spells once you get in game. I'm sure some of them will be able to be gotten at a class vendor but we also know for a fact that many of the truely powerfull spells will have to be found at special trainiers or dropped or some other way to get it. Just knowing that a spell exists in the world doesn't take away the discovery aspect.
Cromulent said:Shucklighter said: How are you going to test whether or not spells/abilities are missing from vendors or trainers if you don't know whether or not the spells/abilities exist?True. But what about spells that don't happen to be sold but are dropped or are crafted or are quested? We need to be able to test their discoverability. Maybe a list that just said what spells were out there with the secret ones missing but mentioned (just say how many secret spells per class there are without giving any information on how they are discovered) and then during testing find out how many players of each class actually managed to find all of their secret spells? If hardly anyone did maybe it needs to be made easier and if everyone found their secret spells then maybe it needs to be made harder?
Just thinking of ideas here. I guess a list of spells with no information on where to get them from would be fine because players would still have to discover where to get the spells from but if there are any secret spells (I really hope there are) then they should obviously remain secret although it might be worthing saying how many secret spells there are per class so we know if we have discovered them all or not.
Yeah tbh I never got the impression that the list would include a detailed explanation as to how to acquire each of the spells. That wouldn't make much sense. Just a brief description of what they do.
Zaide said: To simulate the experience just don't read the spells and abilities thread. Boom, mystery preserved.
This.
Cromulent said:during testing find out how many players of each class actually managed to find all of their secret spells? If hardly anyone did maybe it needs to be made easier and if everyone found their secret spells then maybe it needs to be made harder?
I'd be happier if they found out a way to make acquiring spells fun.
Just like how you have to climb to a forge that is difficult to reach in order to craft a specific item there.
Players might need to seek adventure to unlock the secrets of spell and abilities
Some spells are rare and hard to get ,others could be easy to get,hard to master.
The journey holding the secrets to unlock alterations/enhancements of spells and abilities
Then there always is a challenge to finding rare spells,mastering them.
No need to question if finding spells needs to be made easier/harder.The content is king and keeper of the keys
Shucklighter said: How are you going to test whether or not spells/abilities are missing from vendors or trainers if you don't know whether or not the spells/abilities exist?
This is the truth. How will testing the difficulty to find the spells or get them to drop help in the overall alpha/beta tests. If we spend too much time trying to find them and not enough time using them we will never get the balance we need. Maybe they need to make spells easily accessable and dropable for alpha/beta so they can be tested. Then after the launch they can adjust the drops and avsailability to thier hearts content. As I have said the most aggravating thing is to have an ability or spell nerfed after release to balance the systems. I always thought the beta was there to test the game mechanics and balance the systems for everyone?
If we cannot find the abilities how can we get a good look at whether they work well or not? Hide the spells and abilities after launch if they think that it is better to hunt for them than just buy them. Better to know what you are looking for than not know at all that they even exist.
There will be some nerfing and adjusting after launch I am sure but we should be able to get things close during beta to keep the after launch nerfing to a minimum.
I am not sure if the alpha/beta will have a nda,which they should, that would keep these things from being published ahead of release. But that may not stop personal gathering of information and people from posting it after release..So I think all spells and abilities should be readily available during testing so as to help with the balancing andtesting of the game.
Then if they want they can adjust the drops and the merchant availability to make it a little tougher to get them.
Isaya said:Shucklighter said: How are you going to test whether or not spells/abilities are missing from vendors or trainers if you don't know whether or not the spells/abilities exist?This is the truth. How will testing the difficulty to find the spells or get them to drop help in the overall alpha/beta tests. If we spend too much time trying to find them and not enough time using them we will never get the balance we need. Maybe they need to make spells easily accessable and dropable for alpha/beta so they can be tested. Then after the launch they can adjust the drops and avsailability to thier hearts content. As I have said the most aggravating thing is to have an ability or spell nerfed after release to balance the systems. I always thought the beta was there to test the game mechanics and balance the systems for everyone?
If we cannot find the abilities how can we get a good look at whether they work well or not? Hide the spells and abilities after launch if they think that it is better to hunt for them than just buy them. Better to know what you are looking for than not know at all that they even exist.
There will be some nerfing and adjusting after launch I am sure but we should be able to get things close during beta to keep the after launch nerfing to a minimum.
I am not sure if the alpha/beta will have a nda,which they should, that would keep these things from being published ahead of release. But that may not stop personal gathering of information and people from posting it after release..So I think all spells and abilities should be readily available during testing so as to help with the balancing andtesting of the game.
Then if they want they can adjust the drops and the merchant availability to make it a little tougher to get them.
I agree. These are things that can be pretty easily tweaked even in between beta and launch, so info/stats discovered during testing may not even be applicable post-launch, leaving us to essentially have to re-discover some of it all over again.
And FYI yes, pre-alpha/alpha/beta will have an NDA.
Bazgrim said:Isaya said:Shucklighter said: How are you going to test whether or not spells/abilities are missing from vendors or trainers if you don't know whether or not the spells/abilities exist?This is the truth. How will testing the difficulty to find the spells or get them to drop help in the overall alpha/beta tests. If we spend too much time trying to find them and not enough time using them we will never get the balance we need. Maybe they need to make spells easily accessable and dropable for alpha/beta so they can be tested. Then after the launch they can adjust the drops and avsailability to thier hearts content. As I have said the most aggravating thing is to have an ability or spell nerfed after release to balance the systems. I always thought the beta was there to test the game mechanics and balance the systems for everyone?
If we cannot find the abilities how can we get a good look at whether they work well or not? Hide the spells and abilities after launch if they think that it is better to hunt for them than just buy them. Better to know what you are looking for than not know at all that they even exist.
There will be some nerfing and adjusting after launch I am sure but we should be able to get things close during beta to keep the after launch nerfing to a minimum.
I am not sure if the alpha/beta will have a nda,which they should, that would keep these things from being published ahead of release. But that may not stop personal gathering of information and people from posting it after release..So I think all spells and abilities should be readily available during testing so as to help with the balancing andtesting of the game.
Then if they want they can adjust the drops and the merchant availability to make it a little tougher to get them.
I agree. These are things that can be pretty easily tweaked even in between beta and launch, so info/stats discovered during testing may not even be applicable post-launch, leaving us to essentially have to re-discover some of it all over again.
And FYI yes, pre-alpha/alpha/beta will have an NDA.
Good point. In that case they could just have a special pre-alpha / alpha merchant that just gives all the spells away for free in each city for testing and then during beta they could put all the spells in the right place after they have been tested and we can use beta to discover if it is possible to discover them all and do other testing like that.
I say you gives us a complete lists of the first 20 levels of spells to us, this would fuel the communtiy enough to talk about these spells for quite some time but keep the improved versions/and the ones we have no idea about at bay and keep us wondering what the class still has in store for us to keep us on our toes.
Riahuf22 said:I say you gives us a complete lists of the first 20 levels of spells...
This is a good idea. Gives people an idea of how a class works without showing too much leg. Do this with general descriptions in lieu of specific numbers and I think we're getting somewhere.
Lol Shai. It can get tough navigating the tides of logic/reason around here eh? Must be a lot of ogre players on the forums :D
Agreed; balance must be struck (can't think of an mmo i've played that released a comprehensive list, unless the desciptions for upper level spells were omitted). Players just need enough description to know what their role/extra curriculars as a class will be to avoid the wasted hours of "finding your class" while your friends and guild are 20 levels ahead of you.
All the information will be out before release, as is the way of things these days, so may as well NOT just do some limited nonsense. Make the official site/pages the accurate hotspot where people initially get their information before finding other sites. The first 20 levels or so won't do as some of the real fun or interesting spells tend to come later in a classes life, but really the full scope is what is desired by many for making a fully informed class decision. You can leave the particular numbers to other sites that pop up during beta/pre-release if you must, but full lists of abilities/spells are important and I'd rather get that info from VR and their hype train than a third party site down the line.
If you want to keep your head in the sand, don't look or maybe if they put specifics they can be hidden behind a "spoiler" click to expand button. Arguing to keep these things a mystery for everyone is ridiculous.