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Inside the Mind of a Game Designer

By Keith Cross on May 15, 2008

EverQuest designer Keith “Merloc” Turkowski has posted a behind the scenes look at the design process in the EQ Dev Blog, where he shares a picture of his white board and explains some ideas that didn't make it into the game.

In the upper left is a cubic representation of the different elements used to create power sources. I wrote some background lore that never actually made it into the game, but I’ll share here:

The Combine Alchemists fuse magic, science, and engineering together to achieve technological advancements.

The efforts of these alchemists have born much fruit over the centuries, teleportation, advanced construction techniques, and powerful magics (to name just a few).

Infused Armor is the most recent Combine achievement, and is a testimony to their continuing advancement. By understanding the 9 fundamental (known) elements of life: Water, Light, Shadow, Growth, Decay, Ice, Fire, Earth, and Air, the Combine are able to isolate the pure energy component. This energy, extracted by magic and concentrated by science, can be used to imbue carefully engineered armor with particular properties.