Posting some snippets from the Friday in-game talk with Means on RK2. I went through the chat and posted the questions with answers..so some of the timestamps are out of order. It was a nice chat and pretty awesome of Means to make himself available like that to the community in my opinion. Enjoy!
[Vicinity] Dagget: when will the new flora be rolled out for the new engine?
[Vicinity] Means: Dagget: First tree was made this week...we are working on how far we can push the limits of the new engine to make the trees/flora look good
[Vicinity] Ekarona: Hmm, any eta on patch about no-nodrop LE types, my trader needs shotgun upgrades ;D
[Vicinity] Means: Ekarona: The next update has that in it...I'm hoping inside the next two weeks
[Vicinity] Dagget: how automated it that? or is it gonna be labor intensive?
[Vicinity] Means: labor intensive...we are not using speed-tree or anything
[Vicinity] Means: Dagget: I think it is doen
(13:46) Vayde: Will we be seeing new body models to coincide with the new heads? So far they look fantastic, but a little off when slapped on the low-poly bodies
(13:46) Means: Vayde: New bodies will come at the same time as new heads
(13:47) Means: we will be working on replacing old textures from now until eternity after the engine release...but we will try and get through the most used ones first
(13:47) Dagget: what kind of rewards do you get from The Collector? Only so far have heard about 'social' armor
(13:49) Means: The Collector will drop social armor...but have a chance at pretty much ALL rare loot in the whole game...and some items that have not dropped for a very long time
(13:49) Ekarona: ELLTS?
(13:49) Means: Ekarona: probably
(13:50) Replica10: let it drop pumkin bikes .)
(13:50) Means: Replica10: Maybe next halloween
(13:47) Traderjill: Means, any chance that sk from inferno mission rewards can work like the daily missions.. where overflow will do multiple hits to your research line?
(13:49) Means: Traderjill: We haven't thought about it
(13:48) Vayde: No more grass textures that make me feel like I'm in Honey I Shrunk The Kids I hope.
(13:50) Means: Vayde...the artists made me promise we would replace ALL those horrible grass textures
(13:53) Dagget: any plans for new Veteran booth items? lot of us collecting Vet pts and nothing left to spend them on
(13:53) Means: we definitely need more Vet items
(13:54) Dagget: where will the new german playfields be located?
(13:55) Means: Dagget: in the gap in the map between Wailing Wastes and Newland
(13:55) Replica10: will they have whompa / grid access?
(13:56) Means: Replica10: at first no access at all. After there will be Whompa/grid access
(13:55) Ekarona: will you thow couple dynas in there too?
(13:56) Means: Replica10: no plan for Dyna's in there at all
(13:54) Traderjill: Means, any idea when transfer to test will be fixed? And also, any chance that we'll get the option to purchase character slots like you can do in age of conan?
(13:56) Means: Traderjill: I'm hoping the copy to test gets fixed next week...and I don't think we will have account slots for sale...our database is different than Conan's
(13:55) Scorpion2005: Question, can player shops be removed and u can be able to buy right off gms? i dun liek runnin'
(13:57) Means: Scorpion2005: Some day we might move towards a traditional auction house system...but it isn't likely to be soon
(13:57) Vayde: On the subject of paid services, what about name changes? Will we at least see one with the eventual one-time breed change post-rebalance?
(13:58) Means: Vayde: Name changes will be a paid option at some point soon-ish. The breed change option does not come with a name change
(13:59) Jantunen: nick changing system says that one is able to change his nick below lvl20
(13:59) Jantunen: that doesnt work anymore
(13:59) Jantunen: even @ lvl1 it says that you cant change
(14:00) Means: Jantunen: it should...we'll need to look into that
(14:01) Cromage: Will there be log of this for download?
(14:01) Means: Cromage: if there is it isn't put up by me
(14:02) Mezzedj00: Wasnt there a discussion about adding new mobs or bosses to regular pande with new loot added?
(14:03) Means: Mezzedj00: We decided to add a whole instance to Pandemomium instead
(14:04) Dagget: what the current estimate of the time, starting next week, that it will take Bejing to do the heads?
(14:04) Means: Dagget: HOPEFULLY before new engine is done :P
(14:04) Cromage: Also, will the textures of char body be enhanced?
(14:05) Means: Cromage: yes..just like the heads
(14:05) Dagget: the impression I got from the December letter was that it woudl take 2 months, starting in january but then TSW and/or RoTG bumped the head project down the list
(14:05) Means: Dagget: 2 months sounds about right
(14:05) Berinda: Will the new engine fix the issues with waterfall textures that have been messed up since the Mikkelson instance came out? It makes a couple places look horrid right now.
(14:05) Means: Berinda: Waterfalls are being replaced with new ones in the new engine
(14:06) Jekoblastah: Second try *** How is the current balance of population now that majority of the Germans have moved to rk1. If there is some differences, how you are going to respond to them? Transfer between rk2->rk1 / rk1->rk2 possible in the future? ***
(14:07) Means: Jekoblastah: There were more people on RK2 than RK1 before the German transfer...there is still not a large difference. There will not even be thought of transfer between RK1 and 2 any time before the release of the new engine.
(14:05) Traderjill: Long question.. nowadays most of the end game instances in LoX are being done with what I'll call super-teams.. generally docs/enfs/solds/crats (in some cases keepers) are the only wanted/needed professions to complete a raid. What are your thoughts on that? Do you think the rebalancing will change that or are there any plans on the table to try to make other support professions play a more meanignful role in raiding?
(14:10) Means: Traderjill: We are hoping to make support classes more desireable in teams in the future. Though currently we believe that support professions do contribute in a meaningfull way in teams now.
(14:09) Atreon: WTF MEANS IS A GIRL?
(14:10) Means: Atreon: G.I.R.L. = Guy In Real Life
(14:10) Rubyzero: hey means, when are you going to get rid of that alien protection field nano that you get when you exit APF properly, I remember quite some time ago it would be removed eventually, well that eventually was 1-2 years ago
(14:11) Means: Ruby: You can still see it...but it doesn't do anything outside of those sectors
(14:12) Contrabands: any eta on next patch with the collector instance? like 1 month or thereabouts?
(14:13) Means: Contrabands: Hopefully less than a month
(14:12) Falkvinge: Means will opifex get better looking arms and no elven ears?
(14:13) Means: Falkvinge: the arms will be better but the ears will stay
(14:13) Shuzzy: How do we kill Superman?
(14:14) Means: Shuzzy: Bad box office sales...and Kryptonite
(14:14) Cromage: Teh ultimate question: Can we expect the new engine this year?
(14:14) Means: Cromage: Yes
(14:13) Darkstabber: One question I do have for means though: Is there any words on aerial mech combat? It would be kickass to have some flying mechs, and you could even make flying tower fields (or sort of an exterior BS)
(14:15) Means: Darkstabber: No aerial mech combat is planned. That would be a nightmare to make.
(14:15) Vayde: Are particle effects still something planned to be reworked in the new engine? Can we expect new art and effects, or will it just be more colored lights?
(14:16) Means: Vayde: The old effects will be there from the start...but we will have access to a new effects creation system...that the designers can't wait to get their hands on.
(14:18) Shuzzy: When can we expect infants and children to enter the game? I already bought a baby atrox onie
(14:18) Shuzzy: errr.one-sy
(14:19) Means: Shuzzy: There will never be children models in AO due to the ratings issues that can cause
(14:17) Sheffs: tbh on the subject of support profs - it seems crats are more overpowered compared to other support profs (to the degree of making docs obsolete) Is there any plans to make traders/mps have similar power?
(14:20) Means: Sheffs: I don't think Crats make Docs obsolete
Trust me
Originally Posted by Traderjill
