THE HERALD

They say that when you take the last breath of life, that you go to a better place. This a false promise. To them, I am what the Creator is to us. I am a being of the light, of hope, of a greater promise. I am what they once were and with their callowness, what they wish to be again.

But it is thanks to them that I am telling you this now. For even in the darkest hour of the night sky, there are infinite shining stars. So it is true with them, too, as they have proven to me. In the sea of death there is yet still a soul. This changes everything, the very foundation of us all. Perhaps the Northmen were right. Or the Elves. Or all of us, in some way. Perhaps our King is still too out there, in the darkness. Watching us, protecting us, fighting a war that we do not know exists.

The stars have shown me. The heir of mighty Golestandt has awoken deep beneath Albion. Sleeping for years, protected by the darkness. We have been careless without our King. Too distracted by the Ice and the Forest, we have ignored the evil. We must end this dragon before it grows. Before it becomes more powerful than its father. Before it has an army of darkness.

And as such, we must venture once again into the deepest, darkest burrows of the underworld; which we vowed to never return to again. But this time, we will not go alone.

The stars will guide us in the night sky for as long as they can. With their light, we must shine brighter than ever; for the darkness of death is coming.

This week’s Grab Bag is a right mix of questions, and a good read. So grab a cuppa and a minute, and read on!

Thanks to everyone who sent in questions, keep ’em coming! You can send in your questions through our Grab Bag submission form.

On to the info!

Will we see additional PVE Campaigns that utilize underused zones such as SI?

Yes! As stated in the Producer’s Letter we are introducing our next PvE campaign with the launch of 1.122C to the Live servers. While this one won’t go into Shrouded Isles zones, another future campaign almost certainly will. This next campaign will last a bit longer than our previous ones and will focus on both the classic world and eventually another expansion area. If you’ve been reading the recent lore-posts so far for hints I’m sure you can figure out which areas are involved!

We’re especially excited to bring this next campaign to you because much of your recent feedback regarding PvE will be incorporated into it. First, we’ll be toning down the power of the rewards to coincide with the upcoming 1.123 item changes. This campaign’s rewards will still certainly be useful and coveted but they won’t shift the power of gear nearly as much as the Otherworlds campaign did.

Secondly, we want players to be able to complete *most* chapters at their own pace and not have to wait for a battlegroup to form up in order to continue. While most chapters will require just the help of a few friends to complete some will be able to be completed solo, and a select few will still require multiple groups. Regardless of the chapter’s difficulty, all steps will be battlegroup credit.

Finally, with the conclusion of this campaign we’ll be launching a comprehensive revamp of an entire expansion. Updated lore, enemies, dungeons and of course, loot! With this revamp, we’re most excited about introducing a new system for obtaining and potentially upgrading loot found elsewhere in the game; as a solo player.

More details about the upcoming campaign will be found in the 1.122C Live Patch notes (coming next week!) and as it unfolds we’ll be releasing more details on the revamp of the soon-to-be-revealed expansion content!

Would broadsword ever consider adding new terrain obstacles around high traffic areas, similar to the “towns” on the outer ring of EV, in order to offer a partial haven for solo and smallman action the way the ruined keeps and mazes have?

This is certainly something we’ve considered! There are many “high traffic” areas that have already been given some obstacles and features for smaller forces to use such as the milegates, the many standing and fallen towers, ruins, and staircases on Ellan Vannin, the removal of monsters from some of the Roman ruins in Hadrian’s Wall, new fallen trees and wooded areas in Emain Macha, and the new mountainous paths in Odin’s Gate.

That said, we’re absolutely open to adding some more so long as they don’t inhibit the larger forces too much from their objectives. Just send us some feedback on where you’d like to see them and we’ll absolutely take a look!

Will guild Bounty Points and Merit Points ever be able to be used for more than house rent and guild buffs?  Something that benefits the guild in a big way such as special bonuses for double XP for 12 hours, or being able to put up more than two guild buffs at a time?

We toyed with re-incorporating guild-bounty points into a more robust keep claiming and upgrading system but decided against it for now. Perhaps in the future we can add that in if desired. For the merit points, there are already some valuable bonuses that can be put up and many high realm rank guilds are actually seeing a lack of available merit points. We’d like to address that issue prior to giving any other bonuses to spend the merit points on.

Does your weapon skill affect whether or not your shield styles (like slam) penetrate defenses like it does for your weapon or is it solely based on your shield spec and your dex? For example could a thane spec 50 shield and no weapon, and still be able to penetrate defense trying to slam or brutalize?

In short, your shield specialization, dexterity stat, and +shield skills are the determining factors for landing shield styles. Your other weapon specializations do not affect your penetration chance when using shield styles. So yes – one could spec 50 shield, 0 weapon and land your shield styles just fine!

That said, “weaponskill” doesn’t really determine defense penetration for “normal” weapon specs either but is rather an index value that takes into account things like your spec, stats, +skills, and your class’ inherent ability with that weapon line to give you an idea of how well you might stack up against others.

Additionally, the weaponskill value displayed on your character’s attribute page is only for your “normal” or “main” weapon specialization. This means if a Thane adjusted their Sword, Hammer, or Axe specialization it would update its value but it wouldn’t if they adjusted their Shield spec. You can test this by fully respecializing and then training up your Shield spec. You will see that the displayed weaponskill value does not change.

For Shield spec, there is a hidden “shield weaponskill” value that gets adjusted based on your shield spec, +skills, and your dexterity stat but again, that weaponskill value doesn’t directly determine your defense penetration, anyway.

What are the angles (degrees) of the front, side, and back arcs for landing styles? Similarly, what is the angle (degrees) of the front arc for casting spells (having target in LOS)?

For landing melee styles, the front and rear arcs of a target are each 60 degrees wide and each of the side arcs are 120 degrees wide. Meaning if your target stood facing due north, you could land frontal positional styles on them if you are standing north of them, facing due south, and are within a 30 degree angle to the east or west of their position.

For spell casts, the frontal arc is 180 degrees – meaning if you are facing due north, you can cast on a target standing 90 degrees from you at due west AND on a target standing 90 degrees from you due east, without moving your character’s facing.

Additionally, the frontal arc for melee defenses like parry and (non-360/advanced) evade is 120 degrees; for block it is 180 degrees.

Bola and Patella Shot – What affects if these shots “Miss” or not. Is there a certain mechanic that makes it miss? I am not talking “resisted” but when it says the shot missed.

These shots’ miss rates should already be fixed in patch 1.122C which is currently on the Pendragon server. Please give them a test!

Is there any update on the player-base survey and its results?

The recent survey was a huge success! We were heartened by both the number of respondents and the responses themselves. In short, there appears to be an appetite for some sort of alternative ruleset server. Our team is continuing to flesh out and iterate on the the best approach to deliver one that accomplishes the following goals:

• Closely meets the most-desired ruleset based on survey results.
• Can be released in a reasonable timeframe.
• Allows our team to continually develop and update the Live servers.
• Ensures the Live servers’ remain engaging in the near term after the launch of an alternative ruleset server with the long-term aim of increasing their population.

We won’t release an alternative ruleset server unless it can meet ALL of those goals. We will be doing a more targeted, follow-up survey in the coming weeks once we are confident in our plan. Until then, stay tuned!

Ice, snow, frost. Blood, war, honor. These are the minerals from which Northmen are forged. We are men made of stone. Should the fiercest foe stand before us…it matters not.

Our frostbitten axes and iron hammers will conquer any enemy. We have proven ourselves. Gjalpinulva. A dragon. What a beauty she was. Some may remember those times as dark and filled with death. No – Midgard was never more alive. The mead-halls were filled with Warriors! Skalds sang of her frozen glare! Warrior after Warrior marched into Malmohus, ready to be welcomed by the gates of Valhalla! But Gjalpinulva had a death sentence. Midgard made sure of that.

It may be odd, this tale coming from me. I was not one of those men. But I am now. It is in times like these when all of Midgard must band together. Here, you are a Northman if you’ve proven yourself in battle. Even if you were foes the night before. Battle? A simple task for those of my kind. But for what is coming – we cannot afford to stand apart.

In the depths of Midgard, ancient relics yet lie dormant. I have seen them. They are here. And their power is fearsome. The race to hold that power will begin soon. The realm will be tested, and not only against itself, but by a foe whose power approaches Odin’s. Were these weapons ever meant to be held by our hands? No – but we will need them. All of them.

I write this from the deepest depths of Midgard. That some might read this gives faint hope. We must act decisively –  and soon. The dragons, the Catacombs, the Drakulv, the relics, the Glashtin – Midgard. We are all intertwined. We are all the North. And when this darkness comes, our bonds will be tested like never before.

The Veil. It is endless. It is the end of all things. An orange expanse of nothing, yet…everything. We are all the Veil. We start as the Veil, and we will end as the Veil. I have learned as much by now…

Those who can harness it are deemed gods. But there are no gods here. No, just…. life. Life like you and I back home. Kings, queens, magi, slaves, beasts, and dragons. They are all here. Yes – dragons. And so it seems, after all, that we do indeed share something with those mighty terrors. We are not bound to reality. We are all the Veil. Alas, I am getting ahead of myself. Allow me to start at the beginning.

Years ago, I was among the many cadets, vagrants, and now heroes looking to make a name for myself during the Dragon Campaign. Cuuldurach, who we came to know as the Glimmer King, had been a menace to Hibernia for decades, and it was time to stop his reign of fear. Some of you men and women may recall the hardships the Glimmer King bestowed upon us. Sheeroe Hills was twisted from lush, green forests to the dark, raging skies of today. The Dark Elves, the Veil, Darkspire – not a thought then. Not even an existence. Now look at what it has all become.

Yes, we struck down Cuuldurach. Hibernia rejoiced, and deservingly so. The reclamation of Sheeroe Hills did not come without its toll. Many of us were lost during that campaign. But it was not over. The Glimmer, those mystical creatures, still lingered among the hills. How could we exterminate them all? The dragon eggs – was the spawn of the Glimmer King himself out there? It is here, at this point, where a new chapter begins – not the epilogue we had once assumed. If only we had known it then, we could have prevented what is coming. There is no stopping it now.

They are a curse. Beings so powerful, yet so evil. If their hearts were pure, what instead would our realm be? They plant their evil seed in the darkest depths of the hearts of men. The seed grows, and before long, that evil blooms. And it spreads, like the glimmer plague did once before.

Those seeds? The dragon eggs. Imagine – an egg of the Glimmer King at your feet. A source of endless power. What choice do you make? Do you take your hammer and end its evil? Do you take it back to the Veil from whence it came? Surely that answer is simple now after what I have seen.

Or is it? With power like that, is good possible? Or is an inevitable evil tied to these beasts?

 

The Grab Bag doth return!

Below we have 5 questions collected from the community by our Knights to get us started. If you want to send in your questions for a future Grab Bag, you can do so through our Grab Bag submission form! 

Additionally, we have been blown away by the amount of responses to our playerbase survey. Thank you for the several thousand (OMG!) responses and for taking the time to give us such valuable feedback and insight. The survey is now CLOSED while we analyse and discuss the results internally. We will return with a follow up survey soon, so keep your eyes on the Herald!

Onto the questions!

Have you considered adding any color effects to say a players shoulders or somewhere to signify if they have certain abilities up? I’d love a small way to be able to read what my opponent may have up, even if its not super easy to tell. Purge, Moc, ML abilities and class defining seem like the most important for my solo and small man style of play. To add on to this would it be possible to show if a specific items abilities are active by making it more sparkly?

Many of these are good quality of life suggestions that fall under our over-arching goal of improving the UI/UX (user interface/user experience) of the game. While we haven’t gotten to the point with the game client or UI to specifically look at these suggestions yet, we’ll certainly keep them in mind when we do!

What is the internal process for the feedback forms?

Each feedback is read by myself, the Producer, and if warranted, shared with relevant members of the team. Topics from feedback are sometimes discussed on our internal boards as well if we want more insight on them.

The best types of feedback we receive are ones that highlight an issue, explain the context of how it affects their experience/play-style/realm/class directly in-game, and then offer some possible solutions.

We do *not* reply to feedback as it would be a severe resource drain and the topics that would merit a reply are worth replying to the whole player-base instead of just to one person.  If you do want a discussion about your idea(s), the best bet is to post the feedback on Postcount’s Dark Age of Camelot board or on the upcoming official forums when they launch. There, other players will be able to discuss and expand on your ideas and we may chime in as well!

Some new items have been added to the game since the introduction of Platinum Bound Chests. Can we expect their loot tables to be updated to reflect the additions?

Eventually. There are no immediate plans to add these new items to the chests. Our immediate focus is taking a hard look at item procs/uses and addressing the really powerful ones; as well as addressing the amount of /uses a player can have up at once. Once that re-balancing has been done (coming in patch 1.123!), we can take a look at which new items still deserve to go in these chests.

Can the ruined keeps be returned to their original state? Or return non home realm porting?

Good question! This is a great example of a popular feedback topic that warrants a broader response. We receive a lot of positive feedback about the Ruined Keeps from solo and small-man players. However, we also receive a good chunk of feedback from large-scale focused players who would like to see the Ruined Keeps made whole again. We’re going to take the slow approach here and will be allowing non-home realms to once again port to these ruined structures in 1.122C. Depending on how things look in RvR after that change, as well as your continued feedback, we’ll revisit the decision to leave them ruined.

What is Broadsword’s opinion about the support classes in their current state, especially following patch 1.121 and the changes most of them got with it?

Overall, we feel that Bards and Shamans are in the best place out of all the support (including Healers, Druids, Clerics, Regrowth Wardens, and Rejuvenation Friars when using the term ‘support’) with the recent adjustments in 1.122. While Clerics are preforming better with the new mesmerize in Smite and Druids are faring better with their pet improvements, we still feel that the lesser-used lines are lacking (Nature, Cave, and Smite). However, given the lessons learned from the 1.121 and 1.122 updates, we are looking at only minor tweaks and adjustments focused around those lesser-used lines in the 1.123 update.

That’s it for this week! Happy Friday all 🙂

Carol <3

Greetings all,

We’re already a month and a half into what will be an exciting 2017! We’ve been busy discussing, planning, and working on what’s coming this year as there are a LOT of things on our plate. In this letter, I’ll be giving our take on where things stand currently, addressing much of your feedback from the past several months, and outlining the plans for this year!

Over the past year much has changed in Dark Age of Camelot: a complete overhaul of the Necromancer class, brand new RvR bonus systems and layout changes, returning player rewards, pet class improvements, stealther class changes, Siege-craft streamlining, and the introduction of some challenging PvE instances just to name a few!

Many of those changes helped reinvigorate certain classes and aspects of the game that had not received much attention in a long while; and we thank you for the great feedback on those!

That said, a few of the changes have gone too far, too quickly and have impacted game-play in unanticipated ways. Dark Age of Camelot can be enjoyed in many fashions and our goal has always been to improve the game without negatively affecting preferred play-styles and we regret that that line was crossed. We appreciate your patience as we revisit and tackle those changes based on your feedback in early 2017.

First, we’ll be focusing on the pet changes to bring down both the number and power of pets that are available in-game. We still believe in the need for many of the pet-class changes that were done to bring those classes up to date, but it’s clear that a lot of the pets themselves still need adjusting. We’ll also be looking at some further Necromancer class adjustments. Light tanks and their roles will be reviewed again and most likely will have their pet procs removed along with a few other changes.

Next, we’ll be looking at addressing the new Slow CC so that it is harder to use in conjunction with other powerful abilities in smaller scale fights. Finally, we’ll be looking closely at damage values on a myriad of abilities and styles to once again increase the duration of fights.

These changes are coming quite soon, in early March, along with several other much-requested improvements and bug fixes. We’ll be adding in-game UI displays for the Buggane’s RvR objective control and the dynamic underpopulation bonuses, fixing a common mouse-targeting bug, allowing direct teleportation to relic towns via the /realmwar map, and more! Along with these changes, adjustments, and bug fixes that directly respond to your feedback, we’ll be launching a new PvE Campaign with this update that involves some familiar, large, and fearsome foes of each realm. 

Beyond the March and ongoing campaign updates, we will be looking forward to addressing many of the classes and specializations that haven’t made it into the previous few patches. Specifically focusing on the hybrid and support archetypes, reducing the power and ubiquity of item-based abilities, introducing some cosmetic-only options for armor, cloaks, and mounts that can be bought with real money (MTX), and offering players the opportunity to achieve Champion Level 20! These changes are currently planned for late Spring, so there won’t be too long of a wait after March’s update!

For the hybrid changes we’ll be focusing in on Skalds, Minstrels, and mostly melee specializations of the other hybrid classes that are currently struggling in solo, small-man, and group combat. Learning our lesson from the previous few class-balance change patches, the plan is to offer more tweaks and evolutionary changes rather than completely new roles and revolutionary abilities. Similarly, for the support classes, we’d like to keep their roles essentially the same but continue to increase their flexibility so that groups can more easily be formed around their nucleus. 

Item-based abilities have become a common complaint in feedback and we’re glad to be able to finally address them! This again, will not be a wholesale removal or upheaval but instead will be targeting the biggest offenders (ablatives, among others) and the ability to have so many active at once. With this change, we know that base survivability will need to be looked at and so we’ll be allowing characters to obtain Champion Level 20 along with the typical increase in health that goes with it. In addition to that, we’ll be looking at reducing some of the damage values on certain abilities too!

Next, the introduction of MTX items with this late Spring update is a first step into providing some much-requested features later on. To be clear, we never intend to offer any “pay to win” items for real money and will be only selling already-existing items with unique cosmetic skins, as well as new mount types, to start.

The MTX system will include the introduction of a new, account-based currency (Mithril) that is initially purchased from the Account Center website and applied to the selected game account and can be viewed from any character on the account. In-game, players will see the new Mithril currency and be able to use it on specific in-game stores just like how any other in-game store works! Most excitingly, once this system is in place and working smoothly, we’ll be able to work on the much-requested quality-of-life features like race, gender, and name respecs as well as potentially account to account character transfers!

Additionally, we are re-doubling our commitment to ensure that our communication with you is a two-way street. As such, we are happy to announce the return of the Grab Bag, in a bi-weekly form, and the monthly Newsletter. The Grab Bag will be where we answer questions about gameplay mechanics, reasoning, and address any concerns of the moment. The monthly newsletter will go into greater detail on upcoming changes as well as highlight many of our community’s efforts! 

Lastly, we are still hard at work on the new website and official forums. After much of the groundwork has been done, we’ve gone a different direction on the layout of the site and apologize for the delay in getting it out. We hope to have this new version of the site out by this Summer with tools like a searchable Item Database (an official downloadable version will be released sooner) and Realmwar/Leaderboards included! 

As you can see, the first half of 2017 has a lot to be excited about! We’ll be providing much more information on these upcoming changes as we get closer to their launch, as well as providing another update on what can be expected in the latter half of 2017.

And on THAT note, we’d like to request additional feedback from you on a popular topic of late: an alternative ruleset server.

Below, we have a link to a survey we humbly request you fill out so that we can get a better understanding of our existing and former playerbase’s views. Please share it with your friends and let us know your thoughts by answering each question truthfully as we are eager to see what you all have to say!

Survey link HERE. Please note that the survey requires a Google account in order to be completed.

Onward,
John Thornhill
Producer