1) Encouraging players of a wider level range to group. Over the last few months we have been looking at the affects of changes we made to the grouping code a few months after release. Based on all the data we gathered, we see that the code works a little too well, which has resulted in greater difficulty for some players in grouping with their friends. We are thus making some adjustments so that players of more disparate levels are able to group together without anyone taking too much of an experience point hit.
2)Speeding up the leveling time between levels 41 and 50. As above, we have seen that these levels take longer to go through than we believe is optimal. Thus, we are greatly reducing the time it will take to complete them.
3)Doubling of available character slots. Based on both user demand and the fact that we have an expansion pack coming out soon, it seems prudent to increase the number of slots available to the characters. We have worked out the technical issues involved with this, and thus, we are going from four to eight!
4)Spellcrafting/Alchemy going LIVE. We will continue to work carefully on these two crafting skills, as their potential to change the balance of the game is quite large. While work on them progresses nicely, we will err on the side of caution in releasing them to the LIVE game. They will start testing on Pendragon later this week.
5)Housing is still being developed and we are committed to adding this to the game as part of subscriber content so it will not require the expansion pack. Like Spellcrafting we are taking our time with housing to make sure that it is done right the first time.
6)Self-evolving encounter areas with changing locations. Okay, this is a little tricky to explain so please bear with me. One of the complaints about most (if not all) MMORPGS to date is that the content tends to one extreme (created by the developers) or the other (lots of randomness). DAoC of course falls into the former group. What we are working on is a way to add intelligent monster groups to the game that will actually evolve on their own over time and based on player interaction. While this type of content will not replace developer-created content, we hope that when used in the right situations (bandit camps for example), we believe this will add a new facet to our game.
7)Continued improvements to the interface. No interface is ever perfect and no interface can truly ever be said to be finished. We are looking at ways to improve the interface for all our users and not just those who buy the expansion.
8)Improved melee classes. More love coming your way now check out this week's Pendragon version.
9)Improvements to the RvR areas. We are looking into ways to give you more reasons to take and hold keeps. We will present them to you over the next few months.
10)A major new server type will be added to the game. As always, we listen to our users and based on popular demand we will be adding a Cooperative server to our game. You will not be able to fight any other player on this server, and, like the PvP server, all realms will be open to all people. This means you will be able to group with any other character and race from the other realms and adventure with them without worrying about being PKd. We are also working on another server type that will appear after the release of SI. We are committed to adding many other types of servers over the DAoCs lifetime.
11)A special bonus for any player who has a character that attains 50th level. Players who achieve this level will be able to create new characters without being forced to go through all the lower levels once again. You will not have to retire, sacrifice, delete, destroy, spindle or mutilate your 50th level character to take advantage of this system - your new character will simply start at the higher level. We havent decided exactly at what level we are going to start at but it will be at least 20th. Two caveats though, first, you will not be able to do this with new SI characters since doing so would ruin all the fun of exploring new class/race combinations; and second your new character, while at a higher level, will start the game as a new character does in terms of money, clothing, etc. You will be able to skill up your characters of course, its just a money/equipment thing.
12)More information about Shrouded Isles. We intend to begin weekly Shrouded Isles Sneak Peaks on our SI website. Lots of new content will be revealed there right up to the release of the expansion pack. Look for exclusive screenshots and details there as well.
OK...so wasn't #3 impossible a few months ago?
#4...heard this before
#5...see #4
#6...Mythic, programming, AI. Anyone else sense a problem? Level 14 bleeders in Mithra will attack my 48 minstrel. Yes, we trust you Mythic.
#7...you know, like the helpful and intuitive changes to the icons
#8...see 4 and 5
#9...gee, think they're noticing lack of endgame content? Doh, now that I mention it, this applies to 1 and 2. For example...if I get bored of my 50 minstrel (someday), I can play my 50 warden! At ~30 days played to hit 50 currently...if I'm a casual gamer who plays 3 nights per week, 3 hours per night...do the math. (answer: 1.5 years to hit 50)
#10...granted, it would be interesting to group with classes from other realms...but without RvR, what will endgame content be?
#11...nice, but aren't the first 20 the easiest? Oh well, now you can rotate yer alts into BG's for fun I guess.
#12...might wanna get that out before WoW, SWG, and Shadowbane
1: cool
2: woohoo!
3: about damn time
4-12: ill believe it when i see it.
..they do mostly seem like good ideas...even if i doubt we'll ever see most of them
bwahahahahaha
1. Looser grouping rules. Yeah right -- expect some more ridiculous changes to the challenge code that open vast loopholes for powergamers (oh hey, that's me!) and accidentally punish the casual gamers, just like last time.
2. Faster levelling 41-50. I think they'll actually do this. Probably two days after lil axe dings 50. Bastards.
3. Doubling character slots. Nah. Never see it. This will turn out to be harder than expected.
4. Spellcrafting misses its end of the week deadline (that's tomorrow) and slips from test into late next week. Implementation on test is so comically broken the boards are filled with amusing stories of horribly overpowered items (I put +75 dex, +75 str, +75 con, +75 qui on my storebought gloves for 2g and resold them to a vendor for a plat!) and spellcrafting gets pulled. Then we'll never hear about it again.
5. We will never see housing. Product will hit its end of life cycle before housing is added.
6. AI that learns. Um... sounds like somebody's pet project. Expect it to go live in six months after thousands of hours poured into a piece of code that powergamers will zip through and become bored with in under a half hour. It'll be the new Camp Forest.
7. Interface improvements. We'll continue to get new and obscure icons every patch to ensure nobody knows what the fuck spells are active, and we'll have to suffer through two weeks worth of adjustment periods where tanks get nothing but acuity buffs and squishies get lots of strength buffs. The interface is FINE, consistency is the most important rule in interface design, leave it alone.
8. Improved melee classes. Please, improve me some more -- last time I got improved you took away 77 spec points and made it harder for me to damage my opponents in melee combat while making it easier for lower level people to damage me, and easier for lower level people to nuke the crap out of me. Still waiting for the "paladin leg removal" patch.
9. New ways to take keeps. Ok, I've been pretty negative so far. I believe they can deliver on this one. Last time they added DF and it gave people a reason to fight over keeps. It's definitely given us more frontier defense engagements and so I think they can handle this one.
10. Yay, a carebear server with no RvR endgame. I wanna level up a guy so I can... what? Teh Ghey!
11. Anyone with a 50 can start a dude at 20. Kickass! People will roll 20s, xp them to 24, rock the BGs, delete, and do it again. That would be great! If they do this, I don't expect many people to play their mains anymore. But who cares? It'll be fun and I think this would be a welcome change.
12. SI expansion. I don't know about you guys, but I've kinda lost interest in the expansion. It just doesn't seem... relevant to my gaming experience. I don't really care to hear about it.
They still have a long way to go to achieve a balanced playing field, so they only one I really care about is the melee issue. Not that I think they can fix it. But that's what I care about the most.
Axe: I share your jaded view. A lot of the things they're working on (and I use "working" very loosely) sound interesting, but I'll believe it when I see it. The only thing I'm really looking forward to is the new expansion with the updated graphics engine, improved framerates and more content.
I've been playing with the AC2 Beta and I restarted my AO account to see if it has improved since I last played it a year ago...IMO it hasn't.