A holiday present in the works

[Smeglor]

Now that I'm back from vacation, I thought I'd givea little more detail on what we plan to "gift wrap" for you soon.

Blighted Equipment will be found as loot from Withered Aegis creatures, as well as (rarely) the formula to make them.

Blighted Equipment has random techniques installed. These techniques are not the same as those that can be installed in a crafted item, though some will have similar effects. Some of the techniques add a benefit to the item, others install a penalty or restriction, and some do a little of both. While only techniques appropriate for the item are eligible, they are completely random, so it is possible to get three beneficial techniques and have a truly amazing item, or have three penalties/restrictions that make it less desirable than its crafted equivalent.

The techniques are random when a Blighted Equipment item is crafted as well as found as loot.

To craft a piece of Blighted Equipment will require the use of Blighted Cores as one of the resources. These are tiered resources that can only be acquired by deconstructing an existing piece of Blighted Equipment. So while the aforementioned Blighted Item with three penalties on it might not be very desirable to an adventurer, it still has value to a crafter for its Core.

Blighted Equipment has limited use in combat. The amount of Blight in these items is represented as charges. A charge is equivalent to one minute of combat. Combat is defined as the time in which you or a nearby member of your group is attacking or being attacked by a monster. Also, equipping a piece of Blighted Equipment will reduced the number of charges by 5. However, the charges will not then be further reduced on such items for 5 minutes of combat. In effect, only put on a piece of Blighted Equipment when you intend to fight. When an item's charges are gone, it is forcibly unequipped and can no longer be equipped.

Blighted Equipment can be recharged to extend its useful lifespan. Recharge kits are created by crafters using the appropriate skill (i.e. armorcraft to make an Armor Recharge Kit), and once again require the use of Blight Cores as a resource. An important fact to keep in mind, however, is that the maximum number of charges on an item are reduced when using these kits, so eventually the item will become permanently unusable.

The systems for the above are in place; we are now in the content creation phase. For theinitial release, we plan to have:

Armor - at least one piece of each material and type, such as Iron Chainmail, Flaxen Padded, Leather, etc.
Weapons - at least one of each skill at each level
Jewelry - at least one of each type (earring, necklace, ring) of each material
Dragon Scales - at least one piece of each type (chest, wing, etc.) for eachmaterial (where appropriate, i.e. there are no Bronze-Sandstone Head scales)

In addition to more of the above, new types of Blighted Equipment may be introduced in the future.

New techniques will also continually be added.

I'm excited about this new feature, and look forward to my first piece of Blighted Equipment!

[Vito]

Wow! Thanks for sharing and I really like it.....I think: <<<<<1/2 giants are slow thinkers.

[padishar]

Thanks Smeglor! Sounds very cool, can wait to get some [H]

[Jah]

Excellent, sounds fun [:)]

[evilkarl]

This sounds interesting good to see some useable loot for adventurers as well.

When this is released will t6 mobs drop t6 blighted equipment? Or will they still drop t5?

Even though at best we would be limited to the lowest t6 eq due to level.

Also are there any plans to make any of these items similar to the blade of rending? in that they just have a skill requirement but no adv level requirement?

[Korial]

That looks very interesting Smeglor, however I have one concern:

If I provide a crafter with the necessary stuff to craft a blighted <thing>, what proof do I have that the item I get in the trade window is the item that the crafter just made? Also, as a crafter, what proof can I provide a customer that his/her blighted core just made an item with 3 bad techs?

As an example: crafter has a blighted sword with 2 good techs and 1 bad tech already. I give the crafter a blighted core and whatever else is needed, and he/she makes a new sword. Luckily, this new sword has 3 good techs on it. But, if the crafter hands me the 2 good/1 bad tech sword, how do I know that was the one made?

Another example: a customer provides me with all the necessary bits, and the item that comes out is utter trash (3 bad techs). How can I prove to the customer that the trash item was just made? How can I prove I haven't kept a good item that was just made, and palmed off a junky item that's been in my vault?

EDIT: Earth & Beyond approached and solved this problem by notifying the whole group any build results performed by any group members (builds in E&B were of a random quality, anything from 40% to 200%, factors include skill, some special equipment etc). Of course, this won't help when a group member grinds out 200 items as part of levelling, as I'm sure the group doesn't want 200 lots of "Fred has crafted [Iron Tree Axe]"

[Vesuvius]

Sounds neat. Any info on the ARoP, its requirements, and lairs?

[Drevar]

AC does the same with tinkering results. The tinkering action sends a local message with the results. <player> applies <material> of quality <x> to <item> and <succeeds/fails>.

We have all experienced the lovely food spam in game, I am sure they can add a similar local message when crafting blighted equipment.

Drev

[gopher65]

that food spam is annoying isn't it:)? Imagine 50 of those when agroup ofblighted swords is created:P

[Pharcellus]

Booyah!

1) Where's the lore associated with the reason for the existence of this stuff and what player toons can do with it?
2) What's its hoard value going to be like and, more importantly, what is the lore-based rationale to convince me to put blighted crap into my hoard? My first impulse is "yuck!".
3) Is there any use/purpose for this stuff for Dragons besides hoard, or is it pretty much more biped candy?
4) Sorry if this sounds like I am throwing a soaking wet blanket over you and beating you with a broom, but WHY is this a priority over MANY more important things? (and if you have to ask "what do you mean by more important?", I have a spiked cluebat with your name on it [:P])

[Tympest]

That looks very interesting Smeglor, however I have one concern:

If I provide a crafter with the necessary stuff to craft a blighted <thing>, what proof do I have that the item I get in the trade window is the item that the crafter just made? Also, as a crafter, what proof can I provide a customer that his/her blighted core just made an item with 3 bad techs?

*nods* A way to see what item the crafter just created would be a very good idea.

In EQ you can fail to create something even with a very high skill. So what they did was display a message to all your group members whenever you crafted or failed to craft an item. If you were making something for a customer out of their hard earned components, you just invited them to your group and attempted to craft the item. If you failed, the customer could clearly see the results for themselves.

Some sort of message like that would be handy, especially if you can filter it on/off to prevent getting spammed by "Bob has crafted a [sandstone brick]" x100......

[Vesuvius]

The systems for the above are in place; we are now in the content creation phase. For theinitial release, we plan to have:

Armor - at least one piece of each material and type, such as Iron Chainmail, Flaxen Padded, Leather, etc.
Weapons - at least one of each skill at each level
Jewelry - at least one of each type (earring, necklace, ring) of each material
Dragon Scales - at least one piece of each type (chest, wing, etc.) for eachmaterial (where appropriate, i.e. there are no Bronze-Sandstone Head scales

Content for us too, Malt.

[Pharcellus]

OK, I missed that the first read-through, so I take back one whack with the broom. [:P]

Still, I am more concerned with the concept being backed by lore than anything.

"Ooo! Lookie! More rules and mechanics! We need more skeletons without flesh!" [8-)]

[Smeglor]

EDIT: Earth & Beyond approached and solved this problem by notifying the whole group any build results performed by any group members (builds in E&B were of a random quality, anything from 40% to 200%, factors include skill, some special equipment etc). Of course, this won't help when a group member grinds out 200 items as part of levelling, as I'm sure the group doesn't want 200 lots of "Fred has crafted [Iron Tree Axe]"

I see no reason not to broadcast the creation of all items to the emote channel. I mean, if you're standing there and can see someone crafting, couldn't you see what they make?

Obviously this doesn't provide security when giving a crafter resources to make an item (even though you can see what they made, they can still simply not give it to you), so I always recommend selling the resources to the crafter for a fair price, then giving that "deposit" back when they return the item.

[gopher65]

good idea Smeglor. I actually hadn't thought about that. It always bothers me to give 200s of tech comps to some crafter I don't know.

But what about ingame lore for these items? I like lore:). It is fun to read that stuff. And maybe a few very simple quests (run hither, run there, run yourself into a lather). Could be fun:).

[Smeglor]

There is lore attached to Blighted items, but I'm not the one to tell it. [:)]

[Varangaard]

Or perhaps create a separate craft designation for these reports so they can be turned on and off at will. And of course, make sure the reports cannot be faked with /em; that is, don't have it start with the crafter's name. Something like "[doohickey of usefulness] was crafted by XYZ". And since batch crafting would create terrible spam, one report of the entire process would be enough... "50 x [doohickey of worthlessness] were..."

Oh, and those blighted items sound interesting. [:)] This dragon isn't likely to throw some green-glowing stuff into the hoard though. A trophy from defeated foe or not, I'm not going to be a dragon with a Blighted hoard.

[Korial]

I see no reason not to broadcast the creation of all items to the emote channel. I mean, if you're standing there and can see someone crafting, couldn't you see what they make?

Heh, I've never thought along those lines, but I have to admit, you're spot on. If someone is crafting at an anvil, you should be able to clearly see what they're making as you walk past. In the case of the new Blighted items, just make sure we can see the techniques that end up on a newly created item. [;)]

Obviously this doesn't provide security when giving a crafter resources to make an item (even though you can see what they made, they can still simply not give it to you), so I always recommend selling the resources to the crafter for a fair price, then giving that "deposit" back when they return the item.

Personally, I'm not overly worried about this; generally, all the crafters I've run into wouldn't pull a stunt like this. However, it is a valid concern.

[Poony666]

Thanks for the information Smeglor, hope you had a good vacation = D

Interested to see these new items in game.

[Jaraiden]

Blighted Equipment has limited use in combat. The amount of Blight in these items is represented as charges. A charge is equivalent to one minute of combat. Combat is defined as the time in which you or a nearby member of your group is attacking or being attacked by a monster. Also, equipping a piece of Blighted Equipment will reduced the number of charges by 5. However, the charges will not then be further reduced on such items for 5 minutes of combat. In effect, only put on a piece of Blighted Equipment when you intend to fight. When an item's charges are gone, it is forcibly unequipped and can no longer be equipped.

Blighted Equipment can be recharged to extend its useful lifespan. Recharge kits are created by crafters using the appropriate skill (i.e. armorcraft to make an Armor Recharge Kit), and once again require the use of Blight Cores as a resource. An important fact to keep in mind, however, is that the maximum number of charges on an item are reduced when using these kits, so eventually the item will become permanently unusable.

[snip]

Dragon Scales - at least one piece of each type (chest, wing, etc.) for eachmaterial (where appropriate, i.e. there are no Bronze-Sandstone Head scales)

In addition to more of the above, new types of Blighted Equipment may be introduced in the future.

New techniques will also continually be added.

I'm excited about this new feature, and look forward to my first piece of Blighted Equipment!

Ahh, so dragons will be able to recharge blighted scales. Nice, a use for the 10/level Ingenuity skill, or will it be the effectively 9/level Scalecrafting skill?

Now, when will the dragon adventure skill quests be done to level 100?