EQ2 plans more stuff

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A couple of days ago I was planning to write a few lines about the two new expansion planned for Everquest 2. The first is “The Splitpaw Saga”, an “adventure pack” sold as a digital download for $7.99. Scheduled for release June 28th. The second is “Desert of Flames”, the first actual expansion pack with a price of $29.99 and to be released September 12th. I decided to glide over this news simply because the press release I had under my eyes was completely devoid of informations. Promises about innovative PvP systems, promises about gameplay-changing features but absolutely nothing concrete and worth commenting.

Now there’s a slightly more interesting version with at least a few more details.

The first thing jumping to the eye is that the next adventure packs are going to cost 7.99 instead of 4.95 as previously stated. I guess the experiment of the first one (“The Bloodline Chronicles”) didn’t go so well even if they’ll probably pull the excuse that this one is bigger in scope and everything.

This makes me suspect that they are also trying to further boost the all access pass. For 22$ each month they offer the access to the classic EQ, SWG, Planetside, EQ2 and, if nothing hasn’t changed in the meantime, these adventures packs in the case you are subscribed from at least one month. For sure this is good marketing. If they still have a strong point, after all the screwups of the last month thanks to their awesome and creative president, it is on this offer. Right now I don’t even remotely plan to play one of their games but in the case I’ll return on this choice (won’t happen) I’ll probably consider just this option even if in my case there’s that smart VAT tax that I happen to have to pay only if I play a SOE game.

To notice the fact that they stopped to release the subscription numbers for each game. Now we get the total number of accounts active: around 750k. I guess this choices is probably to sustain the skyrocketing numbers coming from Blizzard, without revealing the gap too much. Meanwhile, the “worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online” brag remains just too funny and definitely out of place.

Aside the price increase and the useless yadda-yadda about more mudflated, irrelevant content, the other two points of interest are the introduction of PvP and some sort of Tomb Raider plug in.

It’s some time that they rave about this innovative form of PvP “never before seen” in a mmorpg. The informations are still lacking about how it is supposed to work but at least we know (as anticipated) that it will happen only in special arenas available in the zones of the new expansion. It’s rather obvious to everyone already playing the game that this game isn’t really built and balanced for the PvP and I don’t think there’s to expect much fun from it. The press release hints the possibility to fight against other players as well other creatures and even some sort of unspecified “shapeshifting”. The idea for sure has potential but only if expanded and developed thoroughly. An arena-type of gameplay requires increasingly hard encounters, ladders, official competitions, appropriate rewards, a bet system and so on. I don’t think SOE will really focus on this, in general they always try to do as much as possible but doing it in a superficial and bland way in order to gather a long list of pointless, unfun features. Maybe we’ll see something more about this approach when Mythic will release “Imperator”, maybe not. I’ll just repeat that this form of instancing, mixed with PvP and a global ladder/event system can be really exceptional and, in particular, perfect in the case the instances are able to matchmaking the players coming from all the servers (so no more empty PvP zones or long queues, and an interesting way to open the “server Vs server” competition). Of course that’s also the target of Guild Wars, with, from a side, a wonderful gameplay that no other game was able to reach till now, but, from the other, another PvP system that doesn’t seem to have a real depth or compelling purpose (so growing rather boring, pretty soon).

The Tomb Raider plug-in is probably the only actual manifestation in the game of those “exciting gameplay-changing features” that they keep repeating. This will come out in two forms. The first is in the adventure pack and is about the possibility to interact with barrels and crates in order to solve puzzles and blow ’em up. The second part is with the retail expansion coming out in September where they’ll add the possibility to climb walls and reach new places. I wrote in my ravings something similar but, again, I can see how they’ll avoid the actual potential. A better and meaningful interaction with the environment (and the new role of the environment right on the gameplay) is something that I can see as the real true potential of the genre. It’s part of that 3D interaction that brings these games to a new level, detached from the limits of the design of the textual games from where these mmorpgs came out. The heart of this type of approach isn’t as simple as it could appear. It mixes a lot of different requirements to be planned correctly. It’s a complete new work on the controls, on the world design and the actual gameplay. It’s a complete change of focus. Not anymore the character within a box represented like a fixed background (think to Squaresoft’s rendered background or the old Lucasarts adventures), but the background becoming the real environment and subject of the gameplay. Now… Can you see SOE going toward this? Obviously not, they just picked from this approach the pointless, superficial feature: the possibility to move a barrel or climb a specific wall tagged for that action.

About the rest of the content I’ve already commented. It doesn’t matter how much stuff they add, it will be completely mudflated to remain a cool feature on the game box but that only a fragment of the subscribers will actually see and have fun with. What is important in the PvE is the role of each piece you add, not how many pieces you have to offer in total. Obviously this requires again a type of approach not completely superficial. So not coming from SOE.

Finally, reading about the “Arabian Nights” theme of the expansion can trigger some fancy, good expectations, but finding “twin metallic dragons” on the same line does not bode something good…

Somewhere, Aracnakat is giggling to herself

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Does someone remember Katricia?

She was the only Community Manager for World of Warcraft till July of the last year and she was also doing a good work for what it was possible. Then she left for no apparent reason and I never found any other information about where she landed, or about the reason why she decided to leave. Did she dance with Caydiem? (Caydiem came to WoW from Horizon, you know. Check the note near the end of the link)

Some more informations come from an habitue of Corpnews. An unconfirmed rumor but that I really have no reasons to doubt about. It comes as a comment to the drama of the last days that is worth archiving in its entirety.

J.:
Somewhere, Aracnakat (or Katrice or whatever) is giggling to herself.

Faust:
She doesn’t know about it… or she doesn’t care. I’ve been grouping with her and her Hubby every night this week and there’s been no mention of it. Speaking of great mysteries, there isn’t one there either. Her husband got a job requiring relocation, she went with him.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch… I’ll give you an alternate viewpoint on the whole thing: I’ve been playing online games for nye on an eon now (yadda yadda yadda) and I have yet to see a game where somebody who knows somebody didn’t get juiced by the Dev’s/GM’s in one way or another. Maybe it’s Beta Accounts, Little Upgrades, a little hint here or there, or tickets to the E3 party. Maybe its a little bit of inside info which points people toward an unreleased objective. Or even just paying a little more attention to their observations about gameplay and using those opinions to allocate resources. All “special treatment”.

And ya know what? It’s OK. It’s perfectly fine. It is not a big deal. These people are more than paying customers.

That said, I must admit that the reason it’s OK is that situations like this one blow way out of proportion and keep it all in check… so I guess that’s OK too. Anyone getting overly excited about it is a lamer.

uh… you know, like making a front page article about it (?)

Last news from the Drama

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This is the last official statement from Blizzard. It doesn’t add much to what we already know.

My reconstruction is that the guild was able to build a bad reputation on the Uther server, it doesn’t matter if well-deserved or not. That brought to a direct collision with the other guilds in the server and the involvement of GMs. The problem is that this guild probably defended itself from the badmouthing, stating that they were victims of it. For sure there was a split at some point. Some member could have taken the offense more seriously and started to blame each other till the point where a GM intervention was required.

From a side there were peoples blaming this guild, from the other the guild itself self-proclaimed victim of the drama-conspiration. When the reputation of a guild is ruined (it doesn’t matter if the rumors are true or false, that’s part of the drama) there isn’t anymore a lot to save. This is why the GM probably decided to give the supposed innocent part of the guild (not the whole guild was moved) a “second chance”. On a brand new server they could have demonstrated their innocence and that all that happened wasn’t their responsibility.

But, you know, it’s not that hard to spot a big group of strangers coming in your hometown. In particular when so badly disguised. And now their reputation is ruined even more ;p

Earlier this week, characters belonging to a guild on Uther were moved to Eldre’Thalas to protect them from harassment. Understandably, members of the Eldre’Thalas community were very concerned about this and contacted us through the proper channels, so we investigated the matter internally. After reviewing the steps that were taken, we’ve determined that the appropriate procedure for addressing harassment was not followed.

The person responsible for making this decision saw this case as a good way to test the complex realm-to-realm transfer functionality that we would like to make available to players, while at the same time addressing the harassment concerns in a positive way for everyone involved. Unfortunately, the action caused confusion for both the community and the characters moved to Eldre’Thalas.

We have decided that in order to correct this situation and put the resolution in line with our current policy, all characters transferred to Eldre’Thalas will be moved back to Uther. Furthermore, the appropriate disciplinary action will be taken in regard to the harassment that took place on Uther. In addition to this, we will be reevaluating our communication procedure as it relates to enforcing policy, in order to avoid similar situations in the future.

We apologize for the confusion caused by this matter, and we want to reaffirm that the complex procedure of transferring characters between realms is in no way appropriate for addressing harassment concerns or other policy violations. We also apologize to the players on Eldre’Thalas for having disrupted the current state of their realm with this issue.

I guess… it makes sense?

*goes back to snicker at Lum*

EDIT: Terra Nova is all over this. Timothy Burke wrote a very good analysis of the two important aspects. The importance of the reputation within the game between the players and the reputation of the company itself.

EDIT-2: Ahahahah, oh my god. Comedy Gold on the Vault boards:

– Scott Jennings, How’s WoW treating you?
– Isn’t he the guy that won all that money on Jeopardy?
– That’s Ken Jennings
– Isn’t he the guy that did all those text based adventures back in the 70’s and 80’s?
– That’s Scott Adams
– Then who the hell is Scott Jennings and why is he playing WOW?

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All the roads lead to Lum(‘s wife)

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Ahh the drama… (that I missed)

I was on this a couple of hours before Foton, my spider sense was weakly tingling so I decided to investigate some more. Unfortunately I discovered just what everyone already knew. I spent some time asking question to their guildmaster but only to discover how idiot he is, so I decided that there wasn’t anything interesting behind to write about. I guess I should have searched the right name on google…

Not “Displaced”, the name of the guild after the transfer to Eldre’Thalas, but “Crusaders of Apathy”, as they were known before the move, on Uther.

I find asolutely hilarious how Lum is able to attract and produce drama no matter how carefully he tries to avoid it. The more he pays attention, the more he drowns in it (and goes “mad”). Come on, this time Lum’s wife happens to be in the guild, Lum offers them a subdomain to host a board and the result is a marvellous drama masterpiece filled with nostalgic remembrances. Bwhahahaha!

Now. Maybe this time he really has no responsibility. But when a year and half ago Mythic introduced spellcrafting along with the unintended possibility to enchant the cloaks (quote: “My wife has, since the introduction of spellcrafting in DAOC, been crafting cloaks non-stop. THE CLOAK FACTORY IS IN MY LIVING ROOM.”), I believe Lum had some influence when it was time to decide if those cloak should have been reverted or not.

How could have anyone have guessed that? Lum is just a puppet in the hands of his wife ;)

(btw, I really doubt that Lum has good contacts at Blizzard. Last I heard, October of the last year if I remember correctly, he had to beg to a Blizzard guy during a conference in order to get a beta account for the game.)

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Raph comments SOE sellout

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For sellout I mean this. He commented on a thread on Grimwell.

—

Raph:
For that matter, I made my feelings known about it back when I was on UO.

Short-form:

– the fact that people want to pay real money for virtual stuff is a massive validation of the emotional power that online world can possess.
– the level playing field is a myth, and these generally aren’t competitive games anyway.
– your achievement is not diminished because someone else took a shortcut. I know this hurts deep in the gut somewhere, but it’s still true.
– any design approaches to removing RMT tend to involve ridiculous design compromises. Removing all forms of trade? No thanks.
– these are worlds anyway, not games. They embed games. You can eliminate RMT on an embedded game on a case by case basis, but trying to remove it from a world is pointless.
– look to Korea and their current biggest business model (hint: it isn’t subs). They are the harbingers, and they got over this already.

I tend to agree but about the third point I’d say that the achievement is conditioned by what others do. If everything is solo-accessible, okay. But if the achievement requires multiplayer (or PvP), what other players do affects my experience as well. There’s no need to discuss the specifics of the virtual economy, just try to build a group to do a mudflated quest: it won’t be possible. The virtual-real economy is a direct mudflation process and it has an effect for everyone living in the same environment.

And about the fourth point I agree that it’s pathetic to try to fix the consequence of the problem when it is already obvious. But, for sure, it’s not pathetic to fix the origin.

He goes on but I won’t criticize since I have different ideas and our directions become different aims, not directly comparable (for example I believe that trading can and should be removed to be rebuilt in other ways and yes, you can get rid of scarcity.)

I don’t think the issue is capitalism.

What is the difference between outfitting a guildmate, and RMT?
What is the difference between twinking, and RMT?
What is the difference between gifting a newb with some goods, and RMT?
What is the difference between handing over phat lewt to a pretty female avatar who promises to have hot netsex with you, and RMT?

You’re going to say “money.” But I’m going to say “there isn’t one.”

Because if the gripe is the alteration of the game world, then it’s already been altered. Trading opened the door to all of this. There was no level playing field in the first place. Any demeaning of your achievement already happened.

If the concern is farming specifically, then yes, I agree. But farming occurs quite independently of real money. It exists because there is scarcity in the game world and demand for the scarce good. Do you want to get rid of scarcity? I didn’t think so.

The question really needs to be “what part of a game world is being altered here?” I haven’t gotten any good answers yet.

My answer to the last question:
“The game is at loss.”

(but he knows already that one)

Guild Wars is patching

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I’m still in an honeymoon with this game. I was already writing up a comment on the Q23 forum to complain about the complete lack of community support for the game (no dialogue with devs, no discussions, no official forums and not even patch notes. All completely dark) when I found out that they actually added a page with the patch notes.

Now I go to play.

Artifacts – How to keep something rare and special while making it accessible and fun for everyone

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This is a comment I posted on Chris blog about the role of artifacts in MMOs:
“How can developers reconcile the rarity (or uniqueness) of an artifact with the desire of players to own it?”

My answer starts in the specifics but then opens up to criticize the current solutions in other game and explain some more my idea behind the “dream mmorpg” that I keep shaping up from time to time. It’s another recurring topic in mmorpg design and another of those with the most awful answers till now. So worth looking at to see if there’s a space to improve and bring something new to the table.

I guess I should rewrite it to pull a better and more complete and readable analysis, examining all the different cases to see where they worked and where they didn’t to conclude with general considerations about the viable, better paths that could be available. But that would require time and commitment. But right now I find harder and harder to even put two lines of text together and even if I managed to do that I’ll just finish a comment too long that noone will be interested to read. So the comment will remain a rough shape of the same ideas.

—
Is this coming from our discussion or you are just gathering ideas freely?

Of course this interests me since it’s one of the systems I was tinkering with. The design questions you made at the origin are the same, but I found different answers in order to adhere better to the rest of my plan.

Some of your ideas sound rather interesting even if I see some problems here and there that won’t be that easy to solve. For example it would be rather hard to even code the pathing in the right way in order for the guardian spirit to chase the players along all the world and with his minions. Considering all the problems WoW is having right now with the train of mobs (like Lord Kazzak invading Stormwind) I also fear that the whole mechanic could become more fun as a creative exploit than for the actual use of the item. And, of course, this doesn’t look nice.

I personally don’t love too much the idea of countdowns and “at loss” situations. This directly aims for the pure catassers that will have the guild support to gain and keep up the artifacts and its “requirements/side effects”. And this isn’t really appealing as it should be.

So what I don’t like is the actual mechanic of the guardian chasing the player and the negative, progressive side effects. But you also suggested me new elements that could be fun to develop and expand.

My own idea remains connected the “design” purpose of an artifact (not the “lore”, just the design pattern):
– A rare, special item to offer a substantial (unbalanced) power up that shouldn’t become a direct requirement.

In a PvE environment this type of tool could be a “key” to solve a particular puzzle (like the special magic item that can slay a particular mob), but it’s in PvP that the design comes to the surface as an unbalanced power. As I commented in our discussion I think that the unbalance is an interesting mechanic, in particular in PvP (another of my heresies). This is why it should be used instead of feared and this is also why my answers to your questions pivot around the PvP.

Artifacts are unique -> they can be gained through instanced PvE but they have no effect till they are pulled out to the persistent world (where PvP happens). Once this passage is complete only “x” number of artifacts can exist. In the persistent world they become persistent items. Let’s say that they “solidify”. They are unique or rare based on the type.

Note: The artifacts cannot be used to access other instanced PvE content since the artifacts banish the player from the access of portals. So they are exclusively PvP tools and this because of another design reason. In PvE an overpowering tool just begs to become an exploit tool and will be used directly to bypass the difficulty that the devs have planned for a specific encounter. I believe that overpowering tools in PvE do not offer anything that is fun or interesting, they just become pattern-breaking tool, hence they should be put aside.

Artifacts are powerful -> They are. They are directly planned to transform a player (along with bonuses for allies) as a “raid encounter” himself. Veguely reminding the old ideas of players playing as mobs. In a 3D graphical game the wielder of an artifact will become a demon, graphically. The size will increase, it will use different powers, attributes and so on. The player with an artifact becomes “content” for the players of the opposite faction. A goal. A target. (I explain later the actual “reward” the encounter represents)

Since the artifacts cannot be traded or dropped and since they banish the player from accessing the PvE instances, the player won’t be able to get another artifact. So the problem of stacking these tools is solved at the root without developing specific systems.

The important point, though, is nested in your first question: “artifacts need to have a mechanism to regularly leave the characterâ

Instancing Vs Persistence – Again on the two paths

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I save a comment spawned around the release of Guild Wars. It’s tied to other comments I wrote in the past and in particular to the two-parts article about the death of the genre (one, two):

—
We are back at discussing the Original Conflict.

From the “game design” point of view the use of the instancing technology is the very best way to deliver good-quality PvE. Instancing means control and control means that the devs have more tools to balance the type of “pattern” they are going to offer.

It’s obvious that the fun of PvE comes from a balanced challenge.

Now the conflict is between THIS model, that Guild Wars achieved perfectly, and the “original mmorpg myth”.

This second model isn’t game-y design but more near to a “simulator”. So the persistence becomes the actual pattern to reproduce. The “verisimilitude”.

That’s the basic conflict between two different models. Old time mmorpg players usually expect to find the second, so they feel upset or dissatisfied.

More infos about DAoC’s hypeless expansion

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I snagged and somewhat organized comments here and there from the boards. As a follow-up of this news.

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It seems that my suggestion to look at Darniaq’s idea (“Class Blending” to offer progression above the level caps that doesn’t completely suck) was actually followed, or better, anticipated. This is how the “Champion Levels” are supposed to work:

– By visiting the king of the realm the players will start the journey through the “Champion Levels”.
– While on this journey the experience points coming from PvE and RvR (and both from new specific quests and RvR tasks) will represent the progress through these “Champion Levels”.
– These points will unblock five levels and as many specialization points.
– These five specialization points can then be spent between various “Champion” paths.
– The player will be able to choose if to spend all five points in just one path or spread them around.
– Each level will grant slightly more health/endurance/mana, depending on the class.
– Each path will grant the use of new skills/spells/abilities.
– The paths/skills are based on the starting archetypes but the player will have access only to the archetypes that aren’t at the origin of the character class.
– Finally the characters will become officially “Champions” and gain access to the “royal armory” where they’ll probably get the “Champion Weapon” quest-line along access to vendors (“purchase respec stones, unique weapon dyes, and other stuff”).

Basically this system is supposed to accomplish the exact same goal that ToA missed: open up, broaden the possibilities of each class without just stacking the powers.

In this case the design, from the few elements we have, has more hopes to center the objective. The fact that each class will gain powers directly coming from another is near to Darniaq’s idea of “Class Blending” and it basically works as a fix to one of the basic problems of the game that we already discussed:

I’ve been arguing a similar point for some time. I think Blizzard made a brilliant move by limiting the number of classes. EQ2 and SWG like DAoC and EQlive before them got into some sort of wierd overdesign mode where the developers thought more classes were better.

Not so. More classes just means more balance headaches at best, or marginalized classes at worst. They inevitably become super-specialized, and in ways that become boring for most players. Darwinized playstyles emerge. If a class/template is boring to play but deemed a requirement, it will be bot’ed. The developers can get pissed and ban players and cajole them and pay them off and invent new servers all they want, but they’re fighting a losing battle.

Don’t make boring classes. Anyone with a conscious can identify boring classes. Your players will. Better to do so before launch though.

Having a few classes that can do many things is better than having a zillion classes that can only do one.

The design principles on which these “Champion Levels” are based seem solid. Let’s hope that they do not screw the whole thing along the development because even ToA had wonderful premises that collapsed along the way thanks an awful planning and broken design.

But noone can spot the fun on this? Mythic resumed “precasting” from the old Ultima Online with the last Catacombs. Now what they do? They resume the tank mage! Now I wonder if their implementation of the Realm Invasion servers (I know, it won’t happen. But still..) will be close to the pre-Trammel age.

About the “Champion Quests”, quoting:
– “Champion Quests. These are going to be in 3 phases, presently undetermined as to how it is going to be separated. But will be able to be started at Level 30. The 2nd phase may be at Level 40 with Phase 3 being the Champion Levels at L50.”

About the “Champion Levels”, quoting:
– “Champion Levels. These will additional abilities that you will be able to get, but not as powerful as ML’s. Each Champion Level will give like a 50 HP increase or and increase to Power. etc… small things but will give the ability to work on Subclasses. Subclasses are being able to get abilities not normally available to you as a specific archtype. Example: A paladin would be able to get a low level Caster DD, or a Caster could spec in slash and be able to wear and use a sword. etc… certain things WILL NOT be allowed according to Mythic. Stealth, Speed, CC, Climb Walls, and several others will not be able to be Subclassed into. Completing each Champion Level will give one point to put into a subclass culminating to a total of 5 CL points. Titles will also be available at the completion of the Champion levels. Completing all CL’s will lead to getting the Champion weapon.”

About the “Champion Weapons”, quoting:
– “Champion weps-class specific, and there will be weps for each type that your class can use, bards and minstrels will have the option of champion instruments, Valks can get a sword or spear, 1 hander or 2 hander sword , etc. You will be able to trade in a champion wep whenever you want, if you happen to respec your character for example.”

About the Horses, quoting:
– “Horses-personal horses will be about as fast as skald/bard/minstrel speed, they *may* be useable in the frontiers, but not for combat. They are summoned like a puppy, and if you are attacked, you are knocked off the horse and it is unsummoned.”

“Completing CL’s and other undefined quests, will unlock different abilities of the horse. Saddlebags will be available for additional storage. There is also a plan to be able to name your own horse.”

“The basic horses will be available without buying the expansion.”

My comment -> From what I read it seems that the graphic quality and the animations look decent but I’m actually worried about the controls. If they develop this without building a specific system and just by putting the character on speed 5 and with an horse below the ass, it will be another screwup like the boats were in ToA: bugged, annoying, unusable.

About the new PvE zones/content, quoting:
– “Like the previous ones the new expansion brings new PvE contents dedicated this time for players of quite high levels (30 to 50). Indeed, the realms will call for their best inhabitants to deal with a rebellion which aim is to overthrow the sovereigns. No one knows who leads the plot and adventurers will thus have to unmask the enemy, find his territory and invade him to put an end to the threat. The invasion of this territory will not be simple and many epic battles will certainly come.

A few high level epic zones will also appear and will also be the place for group quests. They will of course ask you to venture in the adventure wings for some parts of these quests – giving to each one the occasion to become the hero of the adventure.”

“The next expansion will be based on each realms (Hib, Mid, Alb) is being “attacked” from within and is having his thone threatened. Players will talk to the king to start the process.”

“There will be 3 new zones total. One in each Realm. The concept art was not really shown for those zones and nothing really was stated as to where they were going to be. What was stated was that the zone will be where the 3rd phase of the Champion Levels will be.
There will also be an addition/change to each capital city. The King will be there… not sure specifically where, but will be there. The “doors that go nowhere” in Cammy Castle were mentioned and the devs got a strange look in their eyes when they were asked about them. They were very elusive about more on those doors.”

This can also hint that the graphic of the capital cities interiors will receive an update as it happened shortly after “Catacombs” with the exteriors.

—
There are also less optimistic news. It seems that the live development will slow down consistently. Only two patches (1.76 – 1.77) are planned before the release of this expansion at the end of the year. One in June and another in September. Quoting again:

1.76
– An update to the Guild Interface. Making guild management more accessible.

– Instituing a merit system. This will have several aspects, but will be a good way to try to keep people in a guild.

– Guild Banners. Usable in RvR. This was very interesting. Each banner has a different ability (ie. with it Abs buff, mez reduction, etc..) Only one banner can be in RvR/Guild at a time. However, if the banner holder dies, the banner falls to the ground and an enemy realm will be able to pick it up and take it back to their guild house and display it like a trophy. The specifics on how long the banner stays in one place before it can be picked up have not been difined yet, but were being worked.

– Guild Missions. Much like RvR missions, but guild specific.

– Guild Dues. A system to pay guild dues. Not much was discussed about this.

1.77
This update will be giving Classic Camelot a much needed rework. Specifics that were mentioned were updates to Epic Quests and Epic Armor. Making it worth wearing and doing the quests for. Updates to Classic high level areas. Updates to the dungeons. etc… Specifics were sketchy but lots of good things were discussed.

– Epics. The big downer on the Epics was that one would have to redo the epic quests from the beginning to get the new updated armor. However, the quests are being reworked so that everyone would be doing the same final quests for the armor.

– Many individual class bugs were discussed, too many to list, however, not many were new bugs not stated in TL reports.

– Talk about reducing the repair timer on razed towers was mentioned, and other thought on RvR. Some far fetched, some not so far fetched.

And finally another, long awaited, design fix:
“The devs are in the early stages of looking at a revamp of the durability/decay system for irreplaceable items, like the new epic armors (look for them in september), the champion weps, and artifacts. No details, but the implication seemed to be you wouldn’t have to worry nearly as much about durability loss on those items.”

At last. Three years to fix that stupid system.

—
All these infos are coming from the players present at the “Camelot Roundtable” that Mythic held in Washington D.C. this last weekend. From the sound of it, it seems that the development is still gliding on the surface and only marginally addressing the real problems of the game. If this is the roadmap till the expansion I cannot do anything but shake my head. That isn’t what the game needs. What’s in the patches and in the expansion isn’t bad, but it still should come after the basic level is fixed.

I see Mythic repeating the same mistakes of ToA. Developing content without planning and building the basement in advance.

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