Grabbing Flying Mounts by the Reins

For level 86~90 characters, the introduction of Flying Mounts had a not unexpected result — the vast majority of ground-based mounts have been retired to player stables. Even mounts that grant persistent buffs have been eschewed in favor of the convenience and freedom of flight.

While some players have hotbarred different mounts to be able to choose from their desired mounts on the ground, airborne players have limited options. We can choose one of the 8 gryphon mounts available from adventuring, crafting, the collector’s edition, or raiding. At this time, the only other option for flight is the Enterprise-like tinkered C.R.A.S.H. pad available in the Velious launch days event and subsequently available during City Festivals in the first week of each month.

What a lot of players would like to know is:

• When will we see other flying mounts introduced?

• Will existing flying type mounts be upgradeable for use as appearance flying mounts?

Players have been following a thread with interest on the EQ2 Forums on the subject “Are we going to get to see these become available in game?“. Some players have expressed interest in seeing new mounts, while others hoped for a means to upgrade existing mounts that we acquired through quests, live events, tinkering, Legends of Norrath, etc. The thread has received attention and interesting responses from Tom Tobey (ttobey), Senior Animator on EQ2.

When initially asked, for instance, if the flying sokokars we quested for in Kunark would ever become free-flyers, ttobey initially responded with a flat no. When queried, he explained:

It’s not a small task getting a sokokar working as a new flying mount and to me seems like time is better spent working on new and cool rather than rehashing something that’s been around for a few years. That’s just my opinion though.

and later:

It comes down to where is animation time better spent, rehashing a sokokar, and (that means reanimating him on the ground too, the hopping won’t work with any of the player mount animation sets) or animating something new. It takes 6 weeks to knock these out, so I’m always going to push for something new. If we did a sokokar, everyone would be meh, it’s a sokokar. I’ll ask you in a few weeks if what I just finished is more fun.

When asked about converting carpets, flying discs, hoverpads, etc.:

[It’s] not difficult. It takes time though. The flying mounts have 29 states, and the carpets and discs have 4 states. I have to plug the states of the carpets into the character mount text files and repoint all the animations. There’s 27 text files for the pc’s that need to be messed with. It’s mostly copy and pasting once the first one is done.

and later:

Yeah Disc and carpets are relatively easy to implement on my end, just a lot of copying and pasting text. That’s how the aether tinkered mount thing was done, and was also a test on my end to see how easily it would/wouldn’t work.

When asked about the possibility of a giant black bat, or a giant eagle or vulture:

I like the bat, I also think an owl would be really good, although they may be pretty ungainly on the ground!

Some of us wouldn’t mind our flying mounts continuing to fly rather than run when on or near the ground, and Tom could see the logic in that:

I guess a flying mount doesn’t necessarily have to run on the ground. They could stay in the fly_idle and use  fly as their “run”. What do you think?

Lest ye give up hope on sokokars…

You know what? I just opened the old sokokar animations, and they aren’t as bad as I had thought, so I guess I should say never say never.

A number of players have continued to ask why flying mounts cannot simply disappear when the player is on solid ground. This would help with Public Quest lag and also some players just do not like the appearance of certain flying mounts when grounded. Tom again:

I really can’t answer this one, it’s a coding/designer issue, not an art/animation issue. I can try to get one of them to drop in here and give you an answer. That means I have to walk over there though and I don’t have any donuts with me today, it could get dangerous.

So at the very least, it looks like we have a whole new flying mount to look forward to, and depending on available time, may see some options for other mounts. Of course we’ll keep you informed!

Oh, and about those reins…

Reins are very problematic to get working correctly for each race. Most of the players share a set of animation, but the joint lengths in the arms are all slightly different. This means that if the reins worked perfectly for the humans, they will be off for the ogres and barbarians.

A particle effect of some sort would work better.