Grab Bag - June 16, 2006

A few nibbly bits tonight:


All single target bolts belonging to the Wizard, Runemaster, Eldritch, Shaman and Warlock have had their cast timers reduced from 2.5 to 2.0 seconds. Is the warlock bolt (spec and non-spec) getting the cast time reduced to 2.0 sec from 4.0? or was warlock added into the list by mistake?

Not a mistake, says the Big Wheel in charge of class design. Let us know how it works.

Does the Scepter of Intellect still drop off the upgraded mobs in Avalon Marsh? It's a level 15ish item, but the mobs have been upgraded.

We sometimes overlook a few drops when we upgrade an area, so I'm always glad to check. The forest smugglers and trackers both have the chance to drop the item, more tracker than smuggler, but it’s a hell of a rare drop either way.

Are the higher spec mend spells for Valkyries actually supposed to be health regens, or are they supposed to be HoTs as originally stated by devs?

We changed them to regeneration spells because that was the only way we could get them to stack - and stacking was part of their design.

Why doesn't Mythic use game cards for people who don't have credit cards?

Those little plastic cards, preloaded with several months of subscription time, are pretty neat. But any question that begins with "Why doesn't Company X do Y" can be answered with "Money."

Other MMO companies that use the game cards will admit that 2-3% of their players use them, and that it comes out to a loss for their company. Retailers sell them on the same terms that they sell software boxes - meaning half of what you pay is going to the retailer. So, a month's play time on one of those cards costs you twelve dollars or more, but the game company only gets half.

2-3% of our customers use Pay By Cash (http://support.darkageofcamelot.com/kb/article.php?id=455), and less the processing fee, the subscription money comes to us.

(There are various "pre-loaded" credit cards out there, that act as a debit card on a total dollar amount that you pay up front. Some of these, MC and Visa, work pretty well. One provider is located here: https://www.greendotonline.com/contents/login.aspx. The American Express preloaded cards almost never work, be warned.)

With all that said, we'd like to offer the game cards, and we have business guys constantly trying to negotiate an arrangement on this topic. For now, Pay By Cash is the best option.

Are there any plans to permit focus level gems to be imbued on items other than staves now that casters with enough champion levels can use one handed weapons and shields?

When we originally decided that the gems could only go on staves, it was a fairness issue. From the designers: "This was a balance issue during DR, when we gave the ability to wield basic weapons with Champion Level 3. It was decided that we would not add the ability to put focus on other weapons because casters would gain a significant advantage at templating (SC'ing) their gear because they would be able to imbue on both a sword and a shield and have focus covered." There are people at Mythic on both sides of the argument to make a change, so I could not begin to tell you what the future might hold.

I have a question about champion levels and things that come with them. Im a cleric and I can activate Battler as a crush weapon. Now that I can use swords through Champion Levels can I activate Battler as a slash weapon to receive the old sword graphic?

Champion levels don't affect artifact access, so the answer is no, sorry.

I recently farmed two "bracers of the deep" and found that one has different stats then the other. They have identical stats, except one has 22 dex/acuity, while the other has 16 dex/acuity.

Whoops, you caught a bug. The one tagged as Albion is mistakenly too low. This will be fixed in the next version.

***

Please turn out for Pwn Missy tomorrow night - there's a lot of stuff going on, and we'd love to hear the feedback from your playing experience on Pendragon.

I have no other announcements this evening. This week's been quiet… too quiet. I'll see you all next week, when the other shoe will no doubt drop on my head.