GU 52: Poison Loss and AAXP Gain

Patch day in any game is a time of wonder and dread and Tuesday’s launch of GU 52 in EverQuest 2 was no exception. I logged into my woodworker and racked up server discoveries by making the new bows until work called. An hour and a half later I was able to return to the game but a quick search of the broker told me someone else had had the same idea I had so I switched to my main character to do a little adventuring.

I decided that with the limited time I had left I would forgo battling the invasion in Kunark and just do the faction crafting quests in the Moors of Ykesha. I discovered two things. The first is that all my poison damage proc’d for 1200 damage. No more, no less. Given what I read on the forums, that worked as expected. I wasn’t pleased, but it was expected. The reason I was not pleased is that during my testing before Tuesday, my average poison damage was 1316 a proc. Why the loss? Was it the change to Toxic Expertise or did intelligence no longer affect poison? I had heard whispers that intelligence would no longer be a valuable stat for rangers, and I was beginning to suspect why.

But I needed to do the crafting quests, so I continued on and completed the Survivor Accord and Tupta quests and picked up the Grobb quest to do Wednesday. I was pleasantly surprised at my AAXP gain. On Monday I received about 2% of an AA point gain (I’m at 183 AA points) for completing each faction crafting quest. With GU 52, I received about 3.5%. I had heard that the conversion rate for combat experience to alternate achievement experience was really boosted, but I didn’t know that the crafting quests would receive such a boost.

Inspired by the amount of AA I received for the crafting quests, I decided to stay up past my bedtime and test the combat xp to achievement xp conversion. My test was doing the four Qeynos city writs in Jarsath Wastes. As I posted Tuesday, before the game update I received 1.5% AA gain by doing the quests as a level 80 character with 183 AA points. On Tuesday night, I received between 4.5% - 5% of AA experience gain. So from my little test, I think I received 3 times the AA experience gain for killing mobs after the game update went live than before. With this change I think gaining the Bellywumper faction to get into Kurn's Tower won't be so painful after all.

EQ2's GU52 - Toxic Expertise and XP Conversion

I heard it from a halfling that EverQuest 2's new game update, Monument and Might (aka GU52) is coming out today. I've already discussed the item proc nerf and research assistants so instead I'll look at two other subjects I'm interested in: Toxic Expertise and the XP conversion to AAXP for level 80 characters.

As a ranger, the change that may most affect me is the change of the Toxic Expertise passive ability in the Predator's Intelligence line from being an increased chance to crit spell damage (and thus poison) to taking away poison being able to crit and just having the ability add a straight percentage increase to poison damage. As a test, I attacked training dummies in my guild's hall and using Expert's Caustic Poison my average poison damage for 420 poison procs was 1316. Once the GU goes live, I'll conduct a similar test and see what the rate is. Perhaps I should have done more testing, but Expert's poisons are kind of expensive even when I make them myself.

Now, I should add that the test was conducted with no items that increase my spell damage crit percentage. Unlike a lot of players, I only wore one piece of jewelry that increased my spell damage crit percentage on a regular basis, so I figure my dps is going to take less of a hit than most players who min/maxed their toons.

The other item I'm going to look closely at is the conversion of regular experience to alternate achievement experience for level 80 characters. Right now I am at 183 AA points and with approximately 20 weeks to go til the next expansion, I'm wondering if I will hit the 200 point cap before November. If the conversion rate is significantly increased, I may start grinding out the Qeynos writs in Jarsath Wastes. Believe it or not, after almost three years of playing the game I still need a lot of faction with the Qeynos city guilds. Doing those quests would give me three benefits: gaining Qeynos faction, status for the guild and decent AAXP. I don't mind grinding so much if I am accomplishing multiple goals.

To establish a baseline I completed all four of the Qeynos city writs yesterday and found that my AAXP gain was only 1.5%. I'll be interested to see what the gain is the next time I log into EQ2.

That's all for now. I'll probably post the results next Tuesday. I'll try for Thursday, but I have the feeling that real life is going to get in the way.

What I've Been Listening To: June 7-13, 2009

Yikes! I only listened to 3 podcasts last week? No wonder I was in such a bad mood. Podcasts are one of those things that helps me take my mind away from work, along with reading and playing EverQuest 2. Looking back, I didn't do any podcast listening on the train going to and from work. Instead, I was thinking about what I was either going to do at work or what had happened at work during the day. Ugh!

But enough whining about wasted time. Here's what I did (or wanted to) listen to last week.

(Almost) First Time Listen

Gamers With Jobs Conference Call #139 - I was going to listen to this podcast not only because I have heard it referenced favorably in a couple of podcasts, but because Michael Zenke was making a return appearance. The fact that the discussion was about E3 was a bonus. I believe the GWJ Conference Call is usually focused on console and non-MMORPG PC games so it is something I normally wouldn't listen to. But the purpose of this segment is to force me to expand my horizons.

Old Friends

The Instance #148 (Hosts: Scott Johnson & Randy Jordan) - The premier World of Warcraft podcast covered the first kill of Algalon and the guilds who try to gain world and server firsts, druid skin changes, Activision/Blizzard's press conference at E3, and a gold seller's unique method of advertising. Don't forget all the additional content provided from contributors. I am really becoming a fan of Steve "Buxley" Pietrowicz.

Free Game Podcast #20 (Hosts: Riknas and Andras) - Riknas and Andras are back with lots of F2P news and a review of Crowns of Power.


Massively Speaking #56 (Host: Shawn Schuster) - In this episode Shawn is joined by WoW.com's Mike Schramm as they review their time at this year's E3 conference. Shawn gives Mike a lot of air time as Mike got a little excited about the upcoming games for this year and beyond. When a major game conference like E3 or GDC comes around, I usually try to listen to Massively Speaking before listening to the other podcasts, unless Brent comes out with a Virgin Worlds podcast first.

Partially Listened To

Van Hemlock #55 (Hosts: Tim Dale & Jon Shute) - A week go by without mentioning Van Hemlock? Like that would ever happen. I would have finished listening to this 1 hour 40 minute podcast but real life got in the way and I had to make some money instead.

Episode 55 is an E3 special with Jon informing Tim of all the events that Tim didn't hear about, which seems to be everything. That E3-proof bunker under the hills of England that Tim was hiding in was pretty effective.

GU 52 Coming Out Week of June 15

The new senior producer of EverQuest 2, Alan "Brenlo" Crosby, posted that the next game update, Monument and Might, will come out the week of June 15. Given that game updates, usually come out on Tuesday's, I'd plan on the game update being posted to the live servers on June 16. Here are some quotes from Brenlo from the forum thread.

When GU 52 will be released:

Game is doing well. Monument and Might comes next week with lots of goodies. I need coffee. PVP Server merge is coming *soon* (after Fan Faire sometime). Rangers are being nerfed (okay not really). All is right with the world other than those cats and dogs living together. . .

On the alt restrictions for research assistants. On this, I'm guessing that players don't like the fact that only 1 spell/combat art can be researched on an account at a time.

I will check on the reasoning behind the ALT restriction and if I get some good info, I will post it in one of the other threads that already exist on RA.

On Vox, the PvP server that is not being merged:

Vox is a tough situation for sure. What I would like to do is take some time to look at PVP rewards etc . . and see if we cannot make some improvements to the experience. THen we might see some growth on Vox. We have a designer currently going through the PVP items and finding the "suck" and working to see what we can do to beef em up, so to speak.

I do not see us allowing moves from Vox anytime soon though, nor forcing all PVP players to play on an Exchange enabled server.

WoW Video - Taylor Swift and LightonRox

I've written before that I like country music. One of the up-and-coming artists that I like is a young lady named Taylor Swift. Not only do I like her music, but I like her story. How many other singers have ever released an album at the age of 16 on which she wrote or co-wrote every song and watched that album go triple-platnum? She was also the youngest writer to win the Nashville Songwriters Association International's Songwriter/Artist of the Year award and the youngest to win the Country Music Association's Album of the Year award.

Why do I bring up all of Taylor's accomplishments and stress her youth? Because of the young lady who's work I found when I was looking for Taylor Swift WoW videos. Her YouTube handle is LightonRox and according to her site she's only 14. Despite her age (or maybe because of it) she has produced some pretty good work. Being a Taylor Swift fan, I'll link two of LightonRox's videos, Love Story & You Belong With Me, here. Enjoy.

The Allure of Eve

In the world of MMORPGs, the fantasy setting, led by World of Warcraft, dominates the landscape. But a small independent company has bucked the trend of games losing players over time and now dominates the science fiction genre of MMOs, surpassing game studios like NCSoft (Tabula Rosa) and Sony Online Entertainment (Star Wars Galaxies) to a point that it now rivals fantasy MMOs like Warhammer Online in subscription numbers. That game, of course, is CCP’s Eve Online. Eve, famous for being a one-shard world, is on the verge of opening a second world for players from China. If projections are accurate, opening the game to China could make Eve one of the largest Western MMOs of any genre.

What is so special about Eve that leads players to want to play the game? I’m sure that people who have played the game can start ticking off all the features that keeps them playing or keeps them coming back. But what draws those people into the game? As one of those people looking at the game wondering if I should play, my perspective might shed some light on what makes Eve so attractive.

It’s Space! – I’m not saying I’m old, but I was 4 years old when Neil Armstrong first set foot on the Moon. At the same time I became a fan of a series called Star Trek and later on the Star Wars trilogy (the good one). From there I started reading authors like Asimov & Heinlein, Drake & Pournell, and love David Weber’s Honor Harrington series. How could I not be intrigued with a game like Eve?

The Challenge Starts At The Beginning – Eve has a reputation for having a steep learning curve. I’m not saying that the game is hard to learn (because I’ve never played) but players have set up a university in the game to help players learn to play once they get past the tutorial. Eve is not World of Warcraft, where for many players the game begins at level 80. The game is challenging from the first day, or so I’m told.

The Journey Is The Game – If you look over at my Bartell Gaming Profile, I rank extremely high as an explorer. I’m not sure how accurate that is, but I really like the journey to the end game. I don’t like the end game. As far as I know, if Eve has no end game. At least that’s what Tim & Jon said on Van Hemlock #52.

The Economy – I’m a player who signed up for SOE’s Station Access so I could make an alt for each crafting class in EverQuest 2. As much as I like crafting and the broker in EQ2, Eve really intrigues me. CCP actually has a staff economist who is a PhD. The ability to move around from market to market is really attractive. I wonder if I could play with the big boys in Eve.

Skills, Not Classes – From what I’ve heard, Eve is all about gaining skills, whether it is mining, gunnery or ship handling. So I can be anything I want as long as I train properly. That is sort of the attraction of Runes of Magic, where you can be two adventure classes and various skills in all crafting classes, and Free Realms where you can be any class you want as long as you have a member account.

Space Ships Instead Of Avatars – I know that a lot of Eve players would like to have avatars that can leave their ships and wander around space stations. But the idea of being able to change your identity by changing your ship has an appeal to someone who has been playing MMOs for about 4 years now. In EQ2, you can go to the barber for superficial changes, while in both EQ2 and World of Warcraft you can spend real money to really make changes. In Eve, "just" train up and buy a different class of ship.

Now, I have a lot I still want to accomplish in EQ2 so I won’t be starting up Eve anytime soon. From what I’ve heard, I should take a week off of work to really get a good start. And some of what I’ve written above may be completely naïve. But I’ve never played; I’m just like the kid at the candy store window looking at all the goodies inside.

Update: Sometimes I really need to read closer. The post from the Eve forums (at least, I think it's from the Eve forums) I read about Eve's Serenity server was from last year, and the OP got some more things wrong. If I would have read the rest of the thread, I would have gotten some facts straight. But I've been interested on and off in China's space program since they put a man in orbit when I was writing my political blog over 5 years ago and I wonder if their space program fills China with the same fascination America felt back in the 60s.

What I've Been Listening To: May 31 - June 6, 2009

I think I finally caught up with my podcast listening last week. I'm now encountering another problem. How do I keep everything straight? My memory is slipping and I'm not sure I captured everything correctly. I'm going to have to start carrying around a notebook in order to make sure I don't miss any of the highlights.

Here is what I listened to last week.

First Time Listen

PODDED Podcast Season 2 Episode 3 and Episode 4 (Hosts: Dillon Arklight and War Childe) - I heard that the Eve Online-based PODDED Podcast was back up and running after a long hiatus, so I headed over to the site to check it out. The lastest episode of the PODDED Podcast is episode 5, but I was intrigued by the show notes for episode 3. Five motherships destroyed in a single fleet action? I don't play Eve myself, but I've heard enough to know that is a lot of motherships.

I think the hosts are aiming for what I think of as the BBC-style of news presentation. I think that style works well when talking about game updates and dev blogs, but I don't like that style when talking about fleet actions. I liked the excitement that crept in when Dillon described the fleet action in which a first-time fleet commander made the decisions that led to the destruction of 5 enemy motherships and a carrier.

I liked episode 3 enough that I downloaded episode 4. In episode 4 the hosts talked about a major capital ship battle between the Northern Coalition vs. WTF involving up to 1000 pilots and a battle between corporations who just recently had been alliance mates.

I've been looking for a good Eve podcast to listen to and I think I've finally found it. The major difference between this podcast and others I've listened to is how the hosts describe the space combat. I think PODDED is geared toward a more general audience while a podcast like Fly Reckless is more geared toward Eve players.

Old Friends

Shut Up We're Talking #48 (Hosts: Darrin & Karen) - This episode came out a bit late, but that's about all I have bad to say about it. The guests were Jonathan from Through the Aftermath and Randolph from Grinding to Valhalla. The topics discussed were the demise of The Matrix Online and what it means for the Sony Station Access concept and a revisit of the avatar discussion from episode #47.

The show ended with Randolph asking questions of Darrin, Karen, and Jonathan somewhat similar to what he asks on his blog. After listening to Randolph's segment, I think podcasters should not only take part in the Valhalla project but invite him as a guest if it doesn't break the format of a podcast.

Van Hemlock #52 (Hosts: Tim Dale and Jon Shute) - My favorite podcasters from across the pond produced another news/what we've played podcast, with the twitter question being "L44 in CoH and the end is in sight! Which MMOs, if any, have you level capped in and what happened next?" For Van Hemlock's take on the show, click here.

Van Hemlock #54 (Hosts: Tim Dale and Jon Shute) - The show begins with Tim proclaiming that the closing of The Matrix Online is not his fault since he never played the game. From there the hosts run through both console and MMO news, with an amusing detour to Goonswarm research in Eve Online. Episode #54 was a topic show, and the topic was SecureROM and other anti-piracy software that makes playing games harder for the honest gamer. The twitter question was "Which new MMOs are you waiting for and how patient are you?" For Van Hemlock's take on the show, click here.

The Instance #147 (Hosts: Scott Johnson and Randy Jordan) - More news and entertainment from Scott & Randy. I just have to say I liked Scott and Randy's response to the listener who wrote in about wanting to use a power leveling service because leveling in World of Warcraft is too hard.

Spouse Aggro #77 (Hosts: Beau and Leala Turkey) - In episode 77 the Turkeys discuss Beau's return to Vanguard to play the free trial area. At the end, the discussion shifts to Leala's guild engaging in a little role play.

Channel Massive #88 (Hosts: Noah, Jason & Mark) - I hope the M Team doesn't take offense, but I haven't really noticed a difference in the format since the big format change introduced in episode #86. In other words, the show is amusing to downright funny with some adult language included. And of course, Blog-O-Steria remained! The M Team took aim at statements made by a forum moderator for Star Wars: The Old Republic stating that homosexuality does not exist in the Star Wars universe.

Channel Massive #89 (Hosts: Noah, Jason & Mark) - The M Team + Richard Garriott equals humor. Throw in a discussion of the Darkfall/EuroGamer fight and Tipa's associated rant and I had a podcast I enjoyed listening to.

EQ2's-day Show from May 19, 2009 (Hosts: Dellmon and Zanadai) - Dellmon returned from a work-induced absence to hear Zan tell him about her adventures while he was away. Also find out which character class in Free Realms is based on Dellmon.

The New Player Race In Runes Of Magic Is Elves

With the number of people visiting my blog to find out what the new player race will be in Runes of Magic, I did a little investigating. The answer is ... elves.

Yes, my favorite race will hit Runes of Magic with the release of Chapter II of Runes of Magic - The Elven Prophecy. The announcement was made at E3, and here is what Frogster posted over at the the Runes of Magic site.

We are proud to announce Chapter II of Runes of Magic - The Elven Prophecy. Release of Chapter II is planned for September in 2009, and completely FREE! During the Electronic Entertainment Expo
(E3) in Los Angeles, we already showed parts of the first new content coming out in August, like the new region "Weeping Coast." With this first addition, the level cap will be raise to level 52. (and then raise to level 55 in September)

As the name already suggests, one of the main elements of "Chapter II - The Elven Prophecy" will be the introduction of the Elves as a playable race. Coming along with a huge new background story, new regions and many new quests.

According to the legends, demons of human origin - having degenerated into underworld beings under the influence of the runes - forged an alliance with the nagas in ancient times. Together, these evil forces brought war and devastation to the world of Taborea. An alliance of elves and humans succeeded in banishing the demons into the void and drove back the Nagas behind a magical wall. However, when elven prince 'Sig'aylas' removed the holy sword 'Arclight' from the wall to defend his human truelove, the wall
perished and the naga threat flared up once again.

You probably heard that there are two new character classes coming along with Chapter II, but here is more info: These two classes will add in as a perfectly addition to the already huge possibilities of the dual class system.

It looks like I'll have to make a visit back to RoM to see how the game has changed.

EQ2 Research Assistants My Way

Research Assistant. Those two words are causing so much angst on the EverQuest 2 forums. A lot of players, mainly raiders, are upset with the ability of casual players to obtain tier 8 master-level spells and combat arts by purchasing or making the adept 3 version of the spell/combat art, giving the adept 3 to an NPC and receiving the master version after about 30 days. I’m upset because I cannot get one to put in my home.

If I were a developer, this is how I would implement Research Assistants.

You need a big home – If you need a home to put your AA mirror and altars in to use, then you need to put the RA in your home. But no self-respecting RA is going to settle for being stuffed into a corner. So I would require that in order to have an RA, a player must have at least a 3-room home. And you can’t just leave your rent unpaid for 3 weeks and then expect to get your spell. If you don’t pay your rent, the RA would stop working on your spell. It’s hard to work on something if the landlord has thrown you into the street.

You must equip your RA – If you really expect a research assistant to produce master-level spells, you must equip your RA to do the work. So a player would need to purchase either a work bench, engraved desk, or chemistry table in order to do the upgrade.

And don’t think you can get away with not feeding your research assistant! Players already feed and water their plants to get cool stuff, research assistants should be no different. So if your RA becomes hungry or thirsty, the research stops. And the food and drink must last for the actual real life time, not game played time. So if you load up your RA with 5 hour food & drink, you would only need to give your research assistant 144 food & 144 drink to last for 30 days. And to make the food and drink make sense, the tier of food & drink should the RA requires should match the tier of the spell the RA is researching. For example, if the RA is creating a tier 5 spell, the player would have to give the RA tier 5 or better food and drink. Since I’ve heard that a research assistant can make a tier 8 master spell in 27-29 days that means a player would only have to give their RA 7 stacks of food and 7 stacks of drink.

Is this proposal extreme? I don’t think so. I currently live in a 2-room apartment in the inn in North Qeynos and do not have any of the crafting stations and these requirements would lead me to expand into another area of EverQuest 2 that I’ve neglected in the past. I’m sure I’m missing a few problems that programmers would have implementing these features, but I really think my idea is really way better than what we will see in Game Update 52.

Related Post: EQ2 Research Assistants: The Reality

Thoughts on Test Notes for EQ2's GU52

Note: If you are looking for information on EQ2's GU53, I have a post here.

EverQuest 2's Test and Test Copy servers were updated last Tuesday with Game Update 52. Having thought about it for a week and read some of the arguments on the forums, here are some of my initial impressions on the upcoming content.

Kunark Overland Quests - So we get to fight a mysterious army, do we? I'm hoping these new solo quests are a prelude to the next expansion. Feldon over on EQ2 Wire says they are and has the pictures to prove it. Grouping is fun, but with my guild's schedule there is a lot of time we don't have enough players on to have a viable group to do the TSO instances. Plus, I need the alternate achievement experience.

Kurn's Tower - The exciting part of this news for me is that the instance has two difficulty settings; one set for a single group and one set for a 12-toon raid.

The Item Proc Nerf - As a going away present, former EQ2 Senior Producer dropped this little bombshell on the player community:

Fairly often the data confirms something that one of you has pointed out in a post, or in feedback, or a ticket with Customer Service, and we start looking at ways that we can correct whatever that issue is. There is not a one of us who enjoys putting something into the game that eventually needs to be "nerfed", but at times changes get in that end up doing something completely unexpected, despite our testing. Even the mostinnocuous item or change can make a significant difference in a game with the complexity of an MMO, especially with the size and scope of EQII.

This is the situation we've run into now. We've discovered that with the items that we released with The Shadow Odyssey, that proc additional damage, the amount of damage being caused has grown considerably, and we need to adjust it. So, in the next game update, we're going to be adjusting to the way triggered procs on items work.

The first change of note is that we're removing critical damage from the item's base proc. This will help us even out damage from the items we've already released, and also assist us in maintaining a standard going forward.

The next thing you'll see in this update is that the values of the procs can no longer be modified, with a few notable exceptions like achievements or item set enhancements. Generic bonuses will no longer apply to triggered damage generated from items. This will allow us to move forward with creating items that can have higher damage item procs in the future.

Predators will see a change to Toxic Expertise, The spell will now improve the base damage of poisons. We're also making adjustments to the Death Mark and Inspired Daring spell lines so that they trigger melee attacks instead of spell based attacks. This is to refocus the combat art back to improved poison damage, rather than the spell crit damage it has been doing.

We recognize that these are substantial changes. We wouldn't be making them if we didn't feel that things were currently unbalanced, and becoming more so as the game continues to grow. These changes will bring the item procs and spells back to a reasonable standard.

I don't know what to think about this yet. As a ranger, will the change to Toxic Expertise mean I will not lose any dps? The math seems to indicate this. In that case, poison damage will be pretty steady and the lack of critical poison hits may actually help me manage aggro better. But since this also affects healers, I'm wondering if my small guild's 5-toon trips into some of the TSO instances is about to come to an end.

Research Assistants - If the item proc changes are not the most controversial item in GU 52, then that title belongs to the new Research Assistants. Here are the details as compiled by Arbreth on the EQ2 forums.

Answers below are from Kirstie (the lead game mechanics developer)...

Where this is at this time? GU52 will probably hit the test servers on the week of the 18th, and this feature is slated to be part of that. Once it goes to the test server we'll be looking for feedback again on the specifics of the implementation which should be fully spelled out then.

How to get it? The research assistants are going to be moving out into the world instead of staying in people's homes. You'll find them in many of the places where you would have previously bought App II's. There is
also a good chance that we'll be adding a research assistant as a guild hall amenity either in 52 or future update.

What if I get the spell as a drop before the RA is done? As it is implemented now, if you change what the researcher is working on you'll be refunded one third of the days he's been working on the spell. So if he's been
working 10 days on a spell you'll get 3 days back (it's rounded down) to apply to the next thing you want to research whether he's part way through the research or all finished.

How long for a spell? A level 80 upgrade from Adept III to Master I is set to take about 30 real life days to complete. Even if we don't get a full 30 days on test, there are a lot of other levels of upgrades I'm hoping people will try on test to help us make sure its working correctly (range is 1 to 30 days). The time spent researching a spell is based on the spell level, not the player level.

What are the requirements to get a spell? There were a few changes made between my initial post and now. The primary one is that we removed the tradeskilled versions of spells and combat arts from the progression of the research assistants. This means that in order to use the research assistant you will have to have scribed one of the tradeskilled versions (APP IV or Adept III) of the spell/ca you want to research.

How many can you get? Each account can have one character working with the research system at a time. The only exception is if you have characters on separate servers. Antonia Bayle researchers don't talk to Sebilis researchers so one account could have one character on each server researching.

Right now there is no limit on how many you can get other than the time investment. Getting all the spell upgrades for a full account of characters would take a long time.

What is the cost per spell? The only cost associated with the RA is acquiring the previous tier of the spell (Journeyman or Expert) and the time required by the Research Assistant to finish your upgrade.

One other thing alluded to was the veteran rewards system. Currently you only acquire time towards your veteran rewards while you have an active subscription. In the past it has had some problems, but the RAs are using the same logic to find out how far you are in researching your spell as we use in determining veteran reward time. In the process of implementing the RAs we've cleaned up some of the bugs that system had.

Does this mean we can upgrade "masters" to "grand masters"? Nope. The Master II system is not being touched right now. You'll get Master II's or "Grand Masters" as they will soon be called the same way as you did previously.

To tell you the truth, I'm really disappointed in the fact we will not have research assistants in our homes. Besides the fact that requiring a player to have to work to get a research assistant shouldn't be too much effort to ask of players who want to obtain their masters, I really wanted something new and cool to put in my apartment.

What I'm wondering about this new system is can it help players level? In particular, I'm thinking about the pet classes who get charged an arm, a leg, and their first born child for all of their pet spells. Getting master level spells for pets would make leveling much easier. But how about just the upgrades from apprentice IV to adept 1 spells while levelling? Due to the requirements of transmuters, adept I spells are rather expensive.

Shadow System - Yes, I know this isn't content, but the fact that shadows will be built on the computer's graphics card instead of the CPU should lead to not only better in-game graphics but better performance as well.

Spell Renaming - In a move to simplify the game, all the spells are being renamed. I'm pretty sure this will require all players to modify their macros. On the plus side, any bets crafters will get disco credit for making the first of the new spells?

User Books - Yawn.

TSO Faction Quests - The faction quests in Tupta, Grobb and Firmroot Moot will now award more faction. All I can say is it is about time.

Tradeskills - GU 52 once again proves that Domino loves us, and not just because she is working on getting us peacock feathers. From her sticky post in the Tradeskill Forums...

Stuff to look forward to, coming soon:

Level 50+ Sages will soon be able to make a set of notebooks, which can hold user-created content (see Rothgar's EQII blog post and the related forum thread for more information about this).

Carpenters may find it worthwhile to investigate -- or send their friends to investigate -- the Estate of Unrest a little more closely.

Tailors will see some changes to their hex dolls, which include a much reduced casting time, stat increase, and a set bonus for the mastercrafted ones.

Woodworkers and tailors will see their ranged weapons (bows, satchels, bandoliers, etc.) get a stat upgrade also!

Adventurers may find some small goodies in the new Charasis West wing, including perhaps a couple small
goodies for provisioners.

A few minor changes to the void tradeskill instance that folks have been asking for... including a slightly more satisfying ending, and more harvests per click.

For a good preview of the crafting changes (with lots of pretty pictures) visit Niami Denmother over at EQ2 Traders.