Kander's Candor Episode 4: Tatertots and Class thoughts

It's time for a new episode of Kander's Candor! We're joined by our second guest ever, Caith is here! We spend time chatting about his design philosophy surrounding systems and mechanics. There is also a little bit of PvP news to discuss! 

It's time for a new season of Kander's Candor! Mostly because Dreamweaver lost track of the episode numbers over the break and they're a chaos robot from another dimension anyways.  Welcome to Season 2 Episode 1, more of a recap and teaser episode for what is coming. Regular episode format with your questions being answered will return for episode 2.  So buckle up Norrathians. We're hitting the ol' dusty trail once more. (We promise we aren't letting Chrol do another Diaku Corral, this is just a phrase.)

This episode doesn't have a number! Mostly because Dreamweaver has now completely lost himself somewhere in Norrath. Check out this podcast for a quick update from Kander on the upcoming patch!

It's time for another episode of Kander's Candor! After having a guest on last episode Dreamweaver and Kander knew it was time for more questions to be answered. So listen along as they dive back in with episode 10! Reader questions answered this episode! Vibrid33 - New Question: Is there any chance that we'd be seeing another server merge in the future? I just feel like it would be better for everyone to have less but more populated servers, so groups would be easier to find and there would be less for Darkpaw to maintain. -Every raider ever. Ankou - Here's my question: Kander, this is a 2 part question and a request for some quality of life improvements on 2 different issues that could help raiders going forward. First, flawless buffs. Can we please make this a buff in the knowledge book so that it may be re-cast without having to go back to the guild hall? Example: Person A has to swap specs mid-raid for reason X but now must go back to the guild hall, potentially wasting everyone elses time in order for them to retrieve the buff so they can perform to their max potential. And is it possible for this to PLEASE be an account wide flag once it is achieved on one character? Going back through tons of previous tier content isn't fun to do on multiple characters and it's getting increasingly difficult to get these buffs again on any character that doesn't already have them. Second is, PLEASE make it so that snacks auto-consume. Thanks! Breanna - will the in game browser ever get fixed? Bludd - were the (translated) voices for the akheva recorded for Blood of Luclin since this was the expac we learned their fleshless tongue or was it recorded previously and just not used? Acuba - We don't really like to admit it, but, as everyone's rig gets better tech, we're all getting older. With each higher resolution, the text is getting smaller, and harder on our, sadly, aging eyes. So, I was wondering if there were any plans to look at updating the scaling of the UI for higher res monitors, or at least a way to resize more of the windows and text, much the same way as bags, hotbars, tooltips, and chat bubbles do now?

Welcome to Episode 9 of Kander's Candor. It's our first guest episode! This week Kander and Dreamweaver are joined by Gninja to talk about raiding in Blood of Luclin and where it currently stands. No player questions but those will return in Episode 10. 

Welcome to Episode 8 of Kander's Candor, It's a quick one this week we want to make sure you get to dive into this quickly. Kander works with dreamweaver to pronounce his name a little better and the questions come at a quick clip.  Questions answered this week! Grrrrl - (TLE) Is there going to be an upgraded mount like in DOF from instance bosses in EOF? Its the bestest and especially going into ROK it would be a shame to not have a new upgraded version since DOF drops will no longer be accessible because of level increases/ mobs being grayed out. (Pretty please and tosses up some metal horns for emphasis) Liav -  How difficult would it be to get replicas of Mage mythical weapons that are flagged as appearance only for the ranged slot? I know this is a super fluff question, but since the introduction of wands to the game it has always saddened me that mage mythical weapons are only ever seen sheathed. Especially with RoK coming up soon on Kaladim, I had been wishing I could display my Wizard mythical weapon as a wand. Nucleear -  Been wanting to ask this for a couple of years now. Heroic Opportunities. They were the thing that got me addicted to this game initially when it was in its infancy. As we all may know, heroic opportunities are a system of symbol combinations in which players synergize and chain to achieve a cool effect, buff, or damage strike. Those "symbols" are found on your profession spells. These combos can to my knowledge run up to 4 seperate abilities in a chain. To me, it was a way for players to get a bit "extra" out of teamwork; or just matching the symbols on a pretty wheel. Unfortunately, the scaling for those effects, buffs, and damage strikes have by and large not stood the test of time. My question is, are there or could there be plans to scale this system to the numbers flowing now, or perhaps an expansion upon Balanced Synergy? SgtPmpkn - I know its been said many times, but as a player from launch i want to emphasize that the recipe/book drop rate system is the worst its ever been. Missing so many regular books as a crafter sucks (never have I needed regular expert sage books at this point in any expac), and the RNG for runes is even worse. So question - what are the plans for this system? Will we see any change, or is this the way it will be for the expac? Austerity-  I would like to know if the ethereal tokens from last summer will be made heirloom. Thanks.

Welcome to Episode 7 of Kander's Candor, we've been gone for a few weeks but we're back and hotter than ever (No seriously it's really warm in here, someone should have checked the AC.) Questions answered this week! CharbrynEQ2 - With the recently released ability to buy the epic 2.0 abilities for 0c on the Seru merchant at level 120, can it be possible to put the Awakened Abilities recipe book on that vendor for purchase with status/plat/expac currency, or similarly priced at 0c if you are crafter level 120 (perhaps requiring the crafting timeline being completed as well)? Barring that, adding it to the Anchorage merchants to be bought with chits (high amount even) would be nice. I've been doing all the dailies that can drop this book well, daily, and no dice. With all the fragments we get now, would be nice to be able to upgrade my alts without having to commission (it's a lengthy process since you have to make every single tier). Chikkin - Thanks for these podcasts, and let me say I can listen to you talking about stupid stuff for a long time lol /thumbs up More fun stuff, reminiscing, behind the scenes jokes and anecdotes would be awesome, with your years of experience in this business I'm sure you guys have tons of things to share. My question: Can you please implement some sort of Class reset token. Like race token, or betrayal, or tradeskill reset NPC something that will allow my once played characters to be converted to a class I actually enjoy now and will play. I, and many others, have toons we once tried and played, accumulated cool or non tradeable, non transferable items, houses, mounts, toons who now sit and gather dust, hesitant to delete because of the hoard of items that would be deleted with them. And I realize this can cost DB cash, or Loyalty tokens or whatever other means of payment, but please let us switch classes /plead dirgenoobforreal - I would like to ask two questions here: 1) Can we talk a bit about the raid lag. What is causing it and when can we expect a fix? 2) Will there ever be implemented a way to improve your character outside of raiding? The current meta is do heroics for a month and then raid until summer events. A way to improve your character outside of raiding would be welcome as the game is currently extremely top heavy with raiding being the only way to improve your character. FracasCrusher - Damage numbers are pretty outlandish. Is EQ2 ever going to squash/revamp combat system? Aradar - Any chance you'll allow mounts to be used in all player housing?

It's time for another episode of Kander's Candor, Dreamweaver and Kander are still at home and trying not to melt in this episode. But it's time to talk about TLEs, Spells, and Veteran's Rewards!  Questions answered this week! Aradar - Is there any cooperation with the EQ1 team, when it comes to sharing good features? Here are two major things I would like to see implemented in EQ2 that is available in EQ1: 1: Option to filter spell effects to "My spells only", "Group spells" "My spells and NPC" etc. It's a much better option than the current EQ2 one. 2: Can we have EQ1 loot system please? It's such a great feature in that game, to have the game remember if you want to greed, need or never loot the item again. Rippit - 1. So this question specifically applies to TLE, (Kaladim) I would love to know the thought process behind removing what can easily be classified as the most nostalgic or defining part of the game, set bonuses. 2. Add on to the above question. Will we see set bonuses return in the most crucial expansions, such as RoK and even more so TSO? This change sucks the life out of the game.... 3.Will we continue to see additional content such as the Avatars? I think this was a great addition for the TLE how ever to make this more successful and engaging/fun for the community the loot should be "Top Tier" and properly itemized, a defining mage weapon should not have scout stats etc...Moving into ROK/TSO the avatar charms should be the greatest thing next to sliced bread Replay - I would like to know if there are any plans to expand on the Guild hall amenities and rewards for guild levels past 100 (or whatever the level is that stops giving amenity slots). Also, I, for one, loved the Arena areas (not the battle grounds), the pvp areas like in Maj'Dul, etc.. We held guild FFA and Last-man-standing challenges; and sometimes just hung out for a change of game pace. Is there any way to introduce these back into the game? Being a 20-veteran of EQ/EQ2, I always looked forward to the veteran rewards. I was disappointed to see them done away with. Can these be brought back?

Rain, Hogwarts houses, Heritage Quests, and more on this week's episode of Kander's Candor!  Notes! Questions from players! Heritage Quests missing from the last few years! From forum user Bendigeidfran -  1. Can we have a heroic gem merchant added to BoL - the gems are really stacking up beyond what'll be needed even to upgrade to challenge-level gear! 2, Can some consideration be given to giving heroic-only players a pathway to the raid gear? Allow a conversion of heroic tokens to raid tokens, even at a high conversion rate of (say) 100 to one. I appreciate the age-old argument that "if you don't raid, the raid gear is too OP" and whathaveyou, but with the advent of challenge/expert levels, that raid gear would be nice (even just the red adorns available on the Sanctus Seru merchant)! A conversion of heroic-raid tokens would also provide an going reward for repeatedly running heroics while waiting for the next GU/expansion. 3. How about some upgraded heroic gear (and/or red or blue adorns) on the Sanctus Seru merchant? From Forum User - Codan Elessar I returned to the game last year after a few years away, still have alot of catching up to do... 1.) Enjoyed the crafting in the CD xpac, to me the mastercrafted experimented items were comparable to the better solo loot drops especially when infused and/or leveled. The BoL xpac...not so much. To make a mastercrafted item seems so intensive and costly that it isn't worth the effort. The mastercrafted items also seem so much less desirable than the lowest "trash" loot items that it kinda seals the deal. Please, can the EQ2 team rectify this and bring the joy back to crafting in the next xpac??? 2.) When I returned to game was looking forward to my 15 year Veteran Reward when it came time...only to find that they no longer exist. Any chance of that coming back at least on a quinquennial basis with something unique that the loyal players can enjoy and show off??? 3.) Dungeon Finder...to the best of my knowledge never worked well. Can the team rework this feature and not just have past dungeons but include the current content from the latest xpac dungeons and heroic zones??? 4.) Please can you do something with the Familiar quest so it is not impossible to level our familiars???

Welcome to Episode 4 of Kander's Candor, this week your hosts Dreamweaver and Kander tackle some tough questions like their favorite tatertots, what's going on with Battlegrounds, and Dreamweaver's deep-seated fears about unorganized bags.  Questions answered in this episode were asked by forum users Clintsat and Pixistik, check out the episode for the answers! Pixistik - 1) Are you bringing back the old battlegrounds? 2) Do you like tatertots? Clintsat - I would still like to hear more specifics about things like class balance such as: 1) What does that mean to Kander 2) How balance will be observed/measured/monitored 3) What role player-driven feedback will play in the process 4) How does the marketplace factor into balance?