THE HERALD

Back to our regular style Grab Bags! 🙂 Also, March?! Already!?

Our February newsletter went out yesterday, and can be viewed it in your browser here. Or to get it as soon as we hit that send key, sign up!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Read on for the questions!

Are there any plans to address the X-Realming (cross-realming) in the game? (Up to and including planned fights in populated areas of the frontiers?)

I do not understand how this would not be considered Cross-Realming.

While it is understandably frustrating, these specific scenarios are classified as Cross-Teaming.  The act of Cross-Teaming is distinct from Cross-Realming in that the actors involved are not communicating information to members of an enemy realm to actively sabotage the Realm War-at-large.

There are engagements where working with an enemy Realm against a third Realm may provide a superior strategic advantage in terms of risk and survival. Standing idly by while a member of one’s own Realm is attacked is certainly not an honorable action, but this too does not qualify as Cross-Realming.

If you believe that a player of your Realm is colluding with an enemy by having an account logged in to communicate location or tactical information, please submit an appeal with the names and a description of the events, and one of our CSR’s will conduct an investigation of the incident and take all appropriate actions based on our findings.

Are the armor resist tables still accurate?
https://darkageofcamelot.com/content/armor-resist-tables

Yes, these are still accurate.

Do spells that increase your combat haste (E.g. Darkened Haste in the Vampiir Embrace spell line) allow you to swing faster than the 1.5s hard cap on swing speed?

The short answer: No, the 1.5s swing speed is not able to be broken; it’s a hard cap!

The long answer: Spells that increase a character’s swing speed are increasing that speed up to the 1.5s cap. One-handed, faster weapon users like the Vampiir, who also get access to a high-value buff like Darkened Haste’s 45% combat speed buff will hit that 1.5s swing speed cap very easily. They get the benefit of not needing a ton of quickness and/or celerity to hit the 1.5s cap!

When are you going to implement white dyes and enamels? I NEED white enamels!!

It’s on our wish-list as well but will involve a complete re-work of how the dye system works.

The current dye system uses a mechanic that tints the undyed armor or weapon to the dye color. In a system like this, a white dye shows up as a totally transparent dye, meaning your armor or equipment would look the same as undyed. The “color” white is actually what we use on the dye-remover items like mild acid enamel remover to return equipment to their natural colors. It also means extremely light grey or cream color dyes are not going to work as they are essentially transparent themselves.

It’s not impossible to alter this system but unfortunately there are currently a lot of other things on our to-do list that take precedence. We look forward to adding in white and other lighter-hues as soon as we are able to!

Is mezz immunity always 1min? What abilities break immunity timers?

Yes, mesmerisation immunity is always 1 minute in duration.

There are no abilities that remove it, bypass it, or affect its duration.

As always, much <3 🙂

See you in the frontiers!

The Frontier Generals Kogis, Bruki, and Vegda have delivered an urgent report of strange earth-shaking events in Hadrian’s Wall, Odin’s Gate, and Emain Macha!

• No known cause is reported but they suspect this could be Manannan mac Lir’s doing… somehow.
• Caer Benowyc, Bledmeer Faste, and Dun Crauchon and all of their towers are in ruins!
  • These Ruined Keeps’ walls and doors cannot be repaired and postern doors can be used by any realm.
    • Wholesale repairs on these keeps will be too costly and impossible for some time, however some Repair Supply shipments are beginning to be stockpiled at the keeps.
      • Players on the Supplies for the Cause quest can now visit these Ruined Keeps and gather Repair Supplies.
      • Repair Supplies remain available at Folley Lake, the Trellebourg, and Moydruim Castle too.
  • Teleport to these outposts is still available.
    • Players can use the /realmwar map to teleport to these outposts as normal.
    • Ownership of the keep and all of its towers is still required for teleport.
    • Ownership of these keeps is still required to open telepot to enemy realms or to the Ellan Vannin towers.
  • The Lords of each keep and their tower captains maintain their ever vigilant watch.
    • These Ruined Keeps can be captured and controlled normally but will not spawn any extra guards.
    • These keeps and towers cannot be claimed by guilds.

Time for another edition of the  Grab Bag!

This Grab Bag we’ve taken some of the hot topics discussed many times on our official forums as our “questions” for this week. While we still have much, much more to say on these topics, we felt, just as much as you asked, that some info was needed right now. For those who sent in specific Grab Bag questions, don’t worry we’ll return to those soon 🙂

You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Read on for the updates disguised as questions!

Can you give us any information on Endless Conquest’s current progress and what you’re looking at restriction wise?

Endless Conquest development is currently underway and will take the bulk of 2019 to complete.

Our Endless Conquest FAQ has been updated and show’s our current plan:

What can Endless Conquest accounts do and not do?

Please note that some of these may change prior to launch:

• Can play for free on the Ywain server.
• Can obtain max realm rank.
• Can earn Master Levels and Master Level Abilities.
• Cannot earn Champion Levels or Champion Level Abilities.
• Can fully participate in PvE encounters or quests and earn endgame loot but cannot earn existing alternate currencies.
• Can obtain level 50 but cannot use the /rp off and /xp off commands.
  • The rate of character progression will also be limited.
• Will have “classic” buffing rules.
  • EC-characters must stay in range and be grouped with any other character that they buff or are buffed by for the buffs to work.
  • Cannot use existing buff potions.
• Can play on any pre-existing character of any class as long as the account was previously subscribed.
  • Newly created characters are limited to the following classes:
    • Albion:
    • Cleric
    • Friar
    • Paladin
    • Sorcerer
    • Mercenary
  • Midgard:
    • Shaman
    • Healer
    • Valkyrie
    • Runemaster
    • Berserker
  • Hibernia:
    • Druid
    • Warden
    • Bard
    • Mentalist
    • Blademaster
• Cannot own or be given permission to access a house or guild house.
• Cannot create a guild or be promoted to guild master.
• Will have access to all tradeskills except Siegecrafting and Bountycrafting.
• Will have access to all three realms on a single account.
• One EC-account logged-in per person.
• Will not receive veteran-based account rewards.

As you can see, EC accounts will be full-participants in PvE, the game’s economy, and in RvR but will be limited in ways that maintain the integrity of the game and still provide excellent benefits and value to our loyal subscribers!

An official bug/issue tracker is really beyond needed.  Would really help with transparency/reporting and knowing bugs are getting attention.

We agree! We already have one in the works and hope to release it in the coming weeks.

Is there anyway possible that you can fix it that our house merchants and toons will hold more than 200 plat ? It is so annoying to have our gold spread out among toons we don’t play often. Also full merchants are filling up the CM’s and make it so hard to find one you can buy from!

The full-merchant issue is one we’ve discussed previously and do have plans to address it in conjunction with the planned Housing update (post-Endless Conquest).

The 200 platinum cap on characters is a much trickier issue. Not only does it affect the game’s economy in drastic ways, there are also significant technical barriers to changing it (which we’ve discussed previously). That said, it is something we’re investigating changing as in general we would like to increase the cap in conjunction with offering game-time-code sales for platinum. We’ll have more news once that investigation is complete!

Is there any update on what’s going on with the Jord crash?

This has been a VERY tricky bug to track down. Until we can pinpoint exactly what is causing the crash for some players (it does not happen to all players all the time) it’s going to remain an issue. While some of our fixes have alleviated the issue for certain players, it is still happening quite frequently for others.

If you are still experiencing the crash frequently, please visit this form and send us your information!

Can we get some updates on Broadsword’s vision for DAoC in 2019 and beyond? What’s on the roadmap?

There will be a Producer’s letter coming soon that will outline this in greater detail but we are happy to share a short outline with you all, now!

Endless Conquest development will dominate the bulk of our time and resources for 2019. It’s a major, major upgrade that we have to get 100% correct. However, there are some features that are part of Endless Conquest that we plan to release as they are ready, instead of holding them for the major launch. With that context out of the way, here’s our 2019 roadmap and beyond:

• Endless Conquest preliminary launch features (launched as completed):
  • Realm vs Realm population-balancing feature
    • Group-finding and forming improvements as part of this.
  • User Interface improvements including UI-scaling
  • Overall progression and economy changes
  • Web-based community tools such as item search, spellcraft calculator, realm war status, leaderboards, etc.
• Content updates throughout the year
  • Ongoing bug fixes and class changes
  • New and recurring events
  • Potentially expanding out the Dynamic Keep Siege objectives to other battlegrounds and the Frontiers.
  • Monthly Mithril Store updates
• The new website launched and tied in with the already-released community-based tools.
• The launch of Endless Conquest itself

Post-Endless Conquest:

• Catacombs expansion revamp
  • This involves re-launching the Catacombs zones and content as entirely end-game focused.
  • Small-group-based PvE encounters and instances with a focus on obtaining unique armor and weapon skins that share existing item stats/abilities.
  • A major surprise. *wink*
  • More details to come!
• Housing update
  • Existing housing art revamped!
  • New housing types and new art!
  • Update to many of the housing system features
• Alternate “progression” server(s)
  • Subscription-only access
  • Will have potentially varying alternative rulesets
    • First server will start out as a “Classic” + Shrouded Isles + Housing ruleset
    • Will remain in its launch-state for as long as its playerbase wishes (vote-based) and then will advance through the major updates of Dark Age of Camelot’s history until catching up with Ywain’s state, at which point players will be able to transfer to Ywain.
    • Depending on the success of this server, there may be others added with similar rules but forced advancement/progression, etc.
  • Full details are currently being discussed and we’ll have more information after the launch of Endless Conquest!

As you can see, we have a lot of exciting developments coming this year and beyond and we look forward to hearing from you to make them the best they can be!

Lots to talk about there, very exciting! Don’t forget to head over to our official forums and join the chat 🙂

That’s it for this week, enjoy the weekend!

The ghostly incursion has come to an end but Manannan mac Lir seems to be growing restless. The realms’ generals, ever vigilant, have taken notice.

For now, there’s nothing much to do but ensure Manannan mac Lir’s sway doesn’t expand beyond his temporary holds on the underground keep of Knoc Meayll. 

• As a precaution, the realms have devoted extra resources to Ellan Vannin, opening up direct teleport to the Towers of Korazh, Deifrang, and Graoch!
  • Teleport to these towers is one-way only and can be initiated via the /realmwar map.
  • Teleport is only possible if the realm’s supply line is intact:
    • Albion must hold Caer Boldiam and Caer Benowyc to teleport to an EV tower
    • Midgard must hold Glenlock Faste and Bledmeer Faste to teleport to an EV tower
    • Hibernia must hold Dun nGed and Dun Crauchon to teleport to an EV tower
• Level 50s should visit their realm’s General to obtain the [Manx] [Daily] Preventive Measures quest!
  • Speak to General Kogis in Catterick Hamlet
  • Speak to General Bruki in Godrborg
  • Speak to General Vegda in Crair Treflan

Welcome to the first Grab bag of 2019!

Our first newsletter of the year went out yesterday, and you can view it here. Don’t forget to sign up to get our newsletter in your inbox as soon as it’s released!

As always, thanks everyone for your questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in any game related questions you have for our DAoC Devs through our Grab Bag submission form. Please note this is for game mechanic questions. Feedback/ideas/suggestions should be sent in through our feedback form.

Click more for the questions!

I play a mauler and I am spending my points a little more unorthodox than most. To make a long story short I am putting 18 points in staff and 44 points in aura specialization.  That will result in me having a rank of gift of Hibernia that is too high to use with my staff rank.
My concern is whether or not I will be able to cast a lower rank of that ability by default, despite having a higher rank unlocked so that it doesn’t penalize me for putting additional points into aura specialization

I know in the past we had access to lower ranking spells, but now they automatically overwrite one another, and with this specific mechanic, there is that possible negative effect. I am wondering if that issue was overlooked or intentional.
Thank you so much!

Currently, no, only the highest ranked version of the spell is available as you specialize into Aura Manipulation. This was done to strongly encourage Aura Manipulation and Mauler Staff specializations to be raised in tandem.

However, this is certainly something we can look at changing going forward and allow the lower versions of the Gift-spells to remain in the spell list as Aura Manipulation is trained up. As always, we welcome additional feedback on the matter!

I’m trying to farm Icy Rock Paralyzer in laby for weeks now, killing all mobs that I’ve found on various sites as mobs that drop it over and over, but none have dropped it. Does it still drop and from which mob?

Yes, the Icy Rock Paralyzer shield still drops on all 3 realms. I

t has a very small chance to drop from almost any ‘Named’ monster in the Labyrinth. However, in Albion and Midgard, Prelate Quietus II is your best bet to obtain it and in Hibernia, Tiller Prime Peche has an equally high chance. Don’t forget that a list of monsters that drop a given item is freely available within our official Item Database!

When running with BGs it seems like there can be a lot of players ditching the “losing team” and joining the “winning team”  Is there anything you can tell us about anything in the works to deter realm hopping/jumping on the band wagon and promote more true RvR action? For example the idea of a realm timer has been floating around.

Realm balance is an important topic that our development team has and continues to discuss at length.

As we’ve mentioned in previous updates, we are planning to have an RvR population balancing system that replaces the current Dynamic Population Bonus system with the launch of the Endless Conquest update.  Whether that is a new ‘Realm Loyalty’ system that offers account-wide rewards for sticking to a single realm *in RvR* (PvEing on other realms wouldn’t interfere) for certain lengths of time or another, more active population balancing system specific to the Frontier regions remains to be seen!

At this time, we have no plans to bring back realm login timers.

How is the 25% reduction to blocking from dual wield applied?
I.e. if my rate of block is 40%, is my rate reduced to 15% or 30% (25% less than 40%?)

The 25% reduction to blocking bonus from dual-wielded attacks reduces the target’s block rate by 25%, it does not subtract 25% from their block rate %value. In the example given, it is the latter: a block rate of 40% is reduced to a 30% rate when facing a dual-wielded attack. 

For testing purposes and context: this dual wield bonus is applied to the mainhand and offhand swings separately. Meaning if a swing test of 1,000 is performed, the 25% dual wield reduction bonus can be seen when looking at the number of blocks on the mainhand OR offhand swings; but tallying up the total number of blocks from both mainhand and offhand swings would not give an accurate account of block rate.

Using the same example above, if there is a 40% block rate before the dual wield bonus, each of the mainhand and offhand swings will get blocked 30% of the time (benefiting from the 25% reduction bonus), but 60% of the time at least one of the mainhand or offhand swing will be blocked.

Hello, I have a question about certain  savage’s Hand to Hand styles procs, in particular:

How does this evade and parry chance bonuses works? Do they stack  with Savagery’s selfbuffs? Do they last just until the next attack?

Yes, these bonuses only last one enemy attack round and are essentially added on to any other parry and evade bonuses that are active but will not exceed the caps to parry or evade chance.

Thanks, all!
Remember the Ghost Keep event ends February 6th, so don’t miss the fun and rewards!
Enjoy the weekend 🙂

Update: Maintenance complete! The Account Center is back online.

The Account Center will be down today, Thursday, January 31st for maintenance. 

Downtime is estimated to last until 12:30 PM EST / 5:30 PM GMT. Please note that there may be issues signing-in to the Official Forums for the duration of this downtime.

Thank you for your patience and understanding!