Experience gain in a party

Q u o t e:
I asked this question before but never got an answer. Say 4 people are playing together consistently, and remain relatively close together throughout. Will all 4 players gain experience at the same rate, or is it in any way possible one player could advance beyond the others? (either through the use of experience gain equipment or from killing more monsters)

If you're far from your party while they're slaughtering dudes, you won't get experience for the kills. So long as you stick together, your experience gains should be equivalent. We've toyed with the idea of having an experience bonus affix, but we're not sure whether or not that's something good for the game.

Q u o t e:


Are there still Shrines throughout the game? In this case, Experience Shrines?

Yes there are. As long as the party is within the same relative area, everyone will get the shrine buff.

Q u o t e:
Will there be any 'rested' experience bonuses or anything like that?

No.

Q u o t e:


If the boss you are fighting is at 5% hp.. then you die and get sent back to town, does the boss drop any loot for you as your team finishes the boss off with out you? Or does the proximity rule exclude you from loot?

The way it works now, if you are dead when a boss is killed you will miss out on experience and loot. We want to make sure the design isn't such that it becomes a standard for high-level characters to carry low-level characters through content, without risk of penalty should the lowbie die. But, there is a new resurrection mechanic which allows other players in the party to click on a dead player's corpse to bring them back on the spot, rather than having them be sent back to town.

We'll see how gameplay elements such as these play out in the beta test and adjust accordingly if necessary. ;)

Q u o t e:


Sounds like some big decisions that should be made soon. Probably a good time to open up the beta so that people can test these hugely important gameplay elements. ;)

Teehee. I see what you did there. ;)