beta necromancy

[northwoodschopper]

is there any info left about the beta necromancy way before AOS, which was to use the pagan reagents? or is that still a forbidden topic due to the bugs that were involved?

that was one thing that i was always curious about, yet never found any information at all about it's development and testing.

 

[JC the Builder]

It would be hard to find. That was long before AOS, 4-5 years before in 1998 I think. The addition was so close that they added to Necromancy reagents to the game. Anyone remember why the system was scrapped?

 

[Lord Patapon]

Really curious, too ...

 

[Zodia]

All I remember was that it was being tested the week before Everquest came out, and that's when the necro regs started spawning.
The casting of the spells required candles (sorta like the old Ultima games) and I knew someone who got a skull candle at the time from one of the devs who was testing it (skull candles were very rare then).

Then it sorta fizzled out and was "returned to the drawing board"...

Many thought it was just a plot to distract people from Everquest's launch.

 

[Lynk]

Does this have to do with the 'Bad Circle' I used to see in my spellbook back then?

 

[northwoodschopper]

i do remember that the spells were actually spoken, like how we cast armageddon now, and like glacial staves when they first came out. but i have no clue at all what the spells were, or anything. i do remember many years back, like in 2000-2001, it was forbidden to talk about it on stratics as it fell under the whole 'discussion of bugs' rule then. must've been some big flaws for them to just scrap it after adding the reagents to the production shards.

it kinda sounded like there may have been more than just necromancy spells, and that it might have included thaumaturgy and sorcery spells too from Ultima 8. i sort of recall the candle, pentagram, and focus bit too. i wonder if magery was going to switch to spoken words too...

 

[Amber Moon]

All I can remember of it now was how it became the cliche for any effort by the dev teams that seemed unlikely to be implemented completely or correctly.