Service Abilities

[PrestoAdam]

Repair
Warriors are able to repair damaged magical items of any sort. Through the course of regular use and abuse, items containing wyr stop providing the positive benefits of those wyr, starting with the most powerful effects. Repairing the item restores all positive effects.

Alchemy
Gearknights know enough alchemical magic to be able to transform basic items into precious metals, usually providing characters who take advantage of this service with more than they would have received from selling those items to a store.

Disable Device
Heroes often find coffers and treasure chests that are trapped and locked. Rogues are adept at disabling traps and locks, thereby helping their fellow adventurers gain access to their hard-won loot.

Sure Footing
Rangers can call on the powers of Elanthia itself to grant characters with increased movement speed in outdoor environments, and resistance to knockback effects.

Imbue
Wizards can channel magical energies into those magical items that use wyr, making them more resistant to damage. They can also use this ability to recharge some magical items that have been drained of their power.

Soul jar
Necromancers can create magical talismans that hold a portion of the target character’s soul. A character in possession of such a talisman incurs reduced penalties when returned to life through resurrection, departing, or other means.

Resurrection
Clerics have the ability to bring the dead back to life, causing a character to suffer either item damage or an experience debt (decided by the player whose character is being resurrected). Additionally, the character’s body is moved adjacent to the Cleric, and has some of its health and endurance recovered.

Loresinging
Sometimes Heroes will find ancient magical items with unrecognizable and/or inactive properties. A Bard’s loresinging ability can uncover the true nature of these items and reactivate their power.

Healing
As a character suffers damage to his health, he also slowly acquires wounds that require more deliberate care from a Healer than a quick healing spell will provide. With enough such wounds, a character’s abilities suffer penalties, and he will find himself unable to benefit from the effects of friendly spells.


So basically, by determining our professions, we are also determining our service specialties.

Is this crafting, or will we have other forms of tradeskill?

 

[Foxeye]

There isn't any crafting in HJ afaik, so these are the closest you get.

My question is...do you get the service ability for both your classes, or just your primary? A rogue/bard with open lock and identify would be an EXCELLENT treasure hunter. Just the sort you want with you when you are all about the shinies.

 

[PrestoAdam]

Good points, and if you do get both abilities, is the second one gimped in any way.

 

[Silver001]

sounds like... WoW.

 

[crisisfox]

Can a Necromancer also collect soul jars, because the glow makes him look very pretty when they are all arranged by magnitude of suffering on the proverbial deathbed?

 

[z80]

Is the cleric the only means of rezzing? If not, being cleric rezzed isn't really any better than rezzing the "normal" way. Might as well not even roll one.

 

[thedarcynumbers]

Originally posted by Foxeye@May 23 2006, 08:59 PM
There isn't any crafting in HJ afaik, so these are the closest you get.

My question is...do you get the service ability for both your classes, or just your primary? A rogue/bard with open lock and identify would be an EXCELLENT treasure hunter. Just the sort you want with you when you are all about the shinies.

In the mmorpg.com article I believe they said that you get both service abillities. I'm also fairly certain that crafting is in HJ in some way or form that hasn't been announced yet. Or at least I think I am fairly certain.

This doesn't really affect what job I was going to pick as I haven't really decided. Though I am still leaning toward Wizard/Bard.

 

[Foxeye]

Originally posted by Nephelle@May 23 2006, 10:25 PM
I'm also fairly certain that crafting is in HJ in some way or form that hasn't been announced yet. Or at least I think I am fairly certain.

Hmm, I could have sworn I read a dev saying they had decided to throw out crafting, because it was tedious, but when I looked through the articles, all I see are comments that they are going to have a nontraditional kind of crafting that isn't really like crafting. *confused headscratch*

 

[Sabastian]

Originally posted by Foxeye+May 23 2006, 10:39 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Foxeye @ May 23 2006, 10:39 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'> <!--QuoteBegin-Nephelle@May 23 2006, 10:25 PM
I'm also fairly certain that crafting is in HJ in some way or form that hasn't been announced yet. Or at least I think I am fairly certain.

Hmm, I could have sworn I read a dev saying they had decided to throw out crafting, because it was tedious, but when I looked through the articles, all I see are comments that they are going to have a nontraditional kind of crafting that isn't really like crafting. *confused headscratch* [/b][/quote]
You read wrong!

 

[Jaraeth]

Originally posted by Sabastian+May 23 2006, 04:32 PM--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE (Sabastian @ May 23 2006, 04:32 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>

Originally posted by Foxeye@May 23 2006, 10:39 PM
<!--QuoteBegin-Nephelle

@May 23 2006, 10:25 PM
I'm also fairly certain that crafting is in HJ in some way or form that hasn't been announced yet. Or at least I think I am fairly certain.

Hmm, I could have sworn I read a dev saying they had decided to throw out crafting, because it was tedious, but when I looked through the articles, all I see are comments that they are going to have a nontraditional kind of crafting that isn't really like crafting. *confused headscratch*

You read wrong! [/b][/quote]
Then if someone read wrong, how about pointing out the correct articles, posts or what have you. Cuz I could swear I saw the same, and just telling someone their wrong is like saying "There's cookies in the house" to a small kid with a need for sugar B)

~ Jaraeth

 

[Ikiru]

It was my understanding that these activities replaced crafting.


And knowing what the class skills are now I'm excited to try out my class combo

 

[Arremus]

Silver001:
sounds like... WoW.

Erm.. what..? The lockpicking is about the only thing that's close to WoW, but of course you realise people have been picking locks in Simutronics MUDs for a decade before WoW was even conceived.
If anything else is remotely close in WoW to how you think it might be in HJ, chances are it's been done in MUDs and MMOs for years before WoW came about.
WoW bought nothing new to the table.
This current set of Abilities goes so far beyond WoW that your comment is an insult.

z80:
Is the cleric the only means of rezzing? If not, being cleric rezzed isn't really any better than rezzing the "normal" way. Might as well not even roll one.

There are many possible counters to this statement, all due to the fact the you and I have no idea how the gameplay will be. If you res the "normal" way (I presume you mean ressing back in a town etc) do you forfeit the quest you're working through? Do you receive a lot more armour degradation or exp debt by ressing back in town that from a Cleric?
If having a Cleric along means you get the touch of life and are back into the fight, as opposed to ressing in town and having to start over?
There's too much we don't know about the game to decide that any of these Abilities are worthless or not.

It seems to me that gameplay is going away from the generic bullcrap we're fed from WoW, EQ2 etc, where you have a person standing back lobbing in heals, and if you die, you just get ressed and continue on.
Here you get scars from doing stupid things, and the worse they get the worse you perform. Healers are as much a part of the battle as Clerics are fighters, not healers, so our Special Abilities are optional, not integral parts of gameplay.

That's how I am reading it anyways. I am looking at all of this through Dragon Realms tinted glasses.



Also, as I wrote at mmorpg.com:

Personally, I think this is top stuff from Simutronics. Anything at all that goes beyond CharacterClassClone#325B9 is great, and they're one of the only Devs doing it.
What I would love to see though is for each class to have the choice of say 2 out of 4 special abilities at creation. Thus a Rogue would need to choice two from the choice of 'lock picking, fencing, cloaking other or disarming traps'. Or some choice, you get the idea.
That way reaaally creating choices with services and thus giving us even more customisation.

By the way, to any of the Devs, are the skills something that improve in skill and you get better at? Like, will you need to find a very qualified locksmith to open some dangerous box? Or will just anyone be able to have a good go at opening any box?

Will we as individuals get known for our service abilities?
For example, me being a Healer. Is it possible to get to the point where you'd see someone say "Wow, with a wound like that you'll need to go see Arremus"?

Looking great Simutronics, very fun indeed! (Would love to hear more about wounds and the impact of them please?)

 

[Rics]

*sigh* I'm not much of a crafter myself, but I would be very bummed if they scratched crafting all together. A LOT of people enjoy it and those who enjoy it most will prolly not want to play HJ. It doesn't affect me personally, but I can feel for all those who make crafting a huge part of their MMO experience. These new abilities will help a little, but it's no where near the same as crafting. All of these "services" are in other MMOs...they just call them "spells" instead of "services"

And though I am excited about these "services", I'm also not amazed, as they are nothing new at all. I'm especially not very impressed with the poor Ranger's service. It's just a buff spell.

The only service that I am in love with is Loresinging (Gemstone anyones?), as it is much more creative than the simple "Identify" spell. Other than that, I've seen an Open Lock spell, I've seen Resurection, I've seen a travel buff spell, I've seen a healing. The closest of these that resemble crafting of any sort is repair and imbuing. Of course I've seen "repair" in every other game as well...it's just done at an NPC instead of a person.

Ok, with all that said, overall, I'll enjoy these service abilities a lot and I'm looking forward to using them...it's just honestly not something to get overly excited about.

Oh...no, this doesn't change my class at all. The class I was going to play comes with the services I'd like, so that's nifty!

 

[Azdel]

Here's what I was able to find on crafting. I would just put the quotes directly into the post, but apparently that makes it too long. Anyway, it seems like all you can do is hone pre-made weapons. Hard to tell though. They're not real clear about it.

 

[z80]

by Arremus :
There are many possible counters to this statement, all due to the fact the you and I have no idea how the gameplay will be. If you res the "normal" way (I presume you mean ressing back in a town etc) do you forfeit the quest you're working through? Do you receive a lot more armour degradation or exp debt by ressing back in town that from a Cleric?
If having a Cleric along means you get the touch of life and are back into the fight, as opposed to ressing in town and having to start over?
There's too much we don't know about the game to decide that any of these Abilities are worthless or not.

I never presented it as an argument in the first place. So all "counters" are welcome. Never did I claim to know how gameplay would be. I actually want to be wrong about clerics rezzes being worthless. My response to the cleric ability was based purely on what little data was given and based on that, I don't like it. Even if it turns out I am wrong, I just don't like it (and that is irrefutable btw). But really, for the sake of being ironic I could counter your counter by saying that because we don't know the gameplay, for all we know rezzing in town (or at the graveyard) could have a smaller penalty (by your own observation, we just don't know) hell there might even be a reward for rezzing at the town or local grave. There might not even be a grave...we might go to heaven and be rewarded by our gods untold riches just for giving our god a glass of water. Sounds rediculous? but the fact is we don't know. My point is there are many possibilities but I don't like the fact that cleric rezzing has any xp debt and equipment degradation at all. Perhaps I should've said it like that in the first place. But It was also to say your "counter" was a non counter because it was just as speculation based as my initial statement. In other words potkettleblack.

 

[Arremus]

Originally posted by z80@May 24 2006, 12:37 PM
I never presented it as an argument in the first place. So all "counters" are welcome. Never did I claim to know how gameplay would be. I actually want to be wrong about clerics rezzes being worthless. My response to the cleric ability was based purely on what little data was given and based on that, I don't like it. Even if it turns out I am wrong, I just don't like it (and that is irrefutable btw). But really, for the sake of being ironic I could counter your counter by saying that because we don't know the gameplay, for all we know rezzing in town (or at the graveyard) could have a smaller penalty (by your own observation, we just don't know) hell there might even be a reward for rezzing at the town or local grave. There might not even be a grave...we might go to heaven and be rewarded by our gods untold riches just for giving our god a glass of water. Sounds rediculous? but the fact is we don't know. My point is there are many possibilities but I don't like the fact that cleric rezzing has any xp debt and equipment degradation at all. Perhaps I should've said it like that in the first place. But It was also to say your "counter" was a non counter because it was just as speculation based as my initial statement. In other words potkettleblack.

Hehe so in other words we agree!

I do get the feeling though that the HJ healing/ressing/health-in-general system is going to be of a different focus than what we're used to in MMOs, so the Cleric ressing ability may play out a lot different than 'run in, get killed, res, repeat' etc.

Like we agree, who knows. So let's hope we get some more information from one of the lovely GMs pretty soon eh... Eh? *nudge*

 

[Sisca]

First of all let me make it clear that I don't have any information other than what everyone else has seen so these comments are just me reading between the lines. The onsite staff have said they have a plan for crafting but they have NOT given us any details yet. Likewise, we don't have any details on the death penalty or the whole death mechanic yet.

Lets start with the rezzing thing. The way I'm reading this is that the Cleric will be able to provide you with a "battle rez" and even pull your corpse out from under the feet of the beast that ate you. So this makes clerics handy to have in a group but it comes at a cost. Now I would imagine there would be a cost associated with a "normal" rez, to use EQ terminology - appearing at your bind point, but it might be less than the battle rez since if you take that you'll have to get back to where your group is hunting. So there's a trade off there, a decision left in the players hand. The one cool thing I like about the Cleric rez is that I can choose what type of penalty I'm willing to accept. Is my group flying through quests and churning out the XP, then maybe that XP debt isn't so bad. Am I a warrior, or am I good friends with one, then maybe that equipment degradation isn't that big a deal to me. In my book choice is always good.

Is the cleric the only means of rezzing? If not, being cleric rezzed isn't really any better than rezzing the "normal" way. Might as well not even roll one.

This sounds like an EQ player to me . I'm not sure if they've given out the list of skills/abilites for each class but if you'll read this Dev Journal Entry you'll see that Clerics are more than your standard heal/rez bot. In fact if you're looking for a healer you don't really want a Cleric, you want a Healer so if you're looking to create that all around healer/rezzer then you'd want a Cleric/Healer or maybe a Healer/Cleric depending on how you wanted to focus.

On to crafting. My reading of this is that it's a part of the overall crafting system but, again, I don't have any details on how or what that system is so I could be completely off. I do know that you won't see typcial MMO "crafting" in this game, there will be no sitting in front of some device churning out item after item trying to increase a particular tradeskill. This is a game about being the Hero, not the baker or blacksmith. Yes, there are people that really enjoy crafting in these games - I know my wife is one of them - but, as Mike said in the journal, they mainly enjoy it because it gives them a chance to feel like they're part of the community. The goal with HJ is to provide you with different ways, more Heroic ways, to get that feeling.

Overall I liked the list of services, I think they fit the classes well and add one more level of depth to them.

I do have to agree that the Ranger one sounds a bit weak in comparison but I'm withholding judgement until I see it in action. Of course if anyone has suggestions for different services for any of the classes I'd be glad to compile them and forward them on to the team. As Mike said none of this is set in stone and can - and probably will - be adjusted as we test things both internally and in beta.

Oh and for the person that asked I read it as you get the services of both your primary and secondary class so yes a Bard/Rogue would probably be very handy to have around when you go looting the dragons horde.

 

[z80]

I FEAR EQ never had the heart to play it. I am a WoW player tho.

 

[Xhar]

As an old EQ player, AND an onld D+D player, I have to say I love the concept HJ is going with. The good ole undead hunter who can channel the powers that be to resurect their friends. Add that to my all time fave class, the wizard, and I will be hunting broken to my little hearts content

Xhar

 

[Cobalt Katze]

I'm definately digging the concept of service abilities. As the original article stated, this kind of stuff really helps out the community by getting folks out there and communicating.

Regarding the actual abilities, I have to agree that the Ranger one seems a bit like the odd-man-out. I'm not entirely certain what might be a better choice for one, though the speed buff sounds like something better suited to an actual class skill.

Perhaps something like a scavange ability that allows the Ranger to discover usable items that are tradable but not sellable to NPCs. In lieu of a food/alchemy crafting system, they could find rare herbs and plants that gives minor buffs or heal a little bit when used.

Regarding crafting, really, I'd say there's a good portion of crafting already designed into the character creation engine... By making and designing all our armor, we're in essence crafting armor from a visual standpoint