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Update 9:00PM EDT / 0300 CET: Pendragon is back online!
Pendragon will be coming down for patch 1.115! Estimated downtime is 3 hours. An update will be provided when the server comes back online.
Keep an eye on the Camelot Herald for full patch notes!
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In celebration of Midwinter, the following bonuses are now live:
On Ywain:
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons.
100% bonus to normal BP in all NF zones.
25% bonus to RP in all NF zones (including Darkness Falls)
On Gaheris:
100% bonus to normal XP gain in all classic zones and dungeons.
100% bonus to normal BP gain in the capital cities.
100% bonus to normal RP gain in the capital cities.
In each Capital City:
40% Bonus to Crafting Speed
20% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain
In all Housing Zones:
20% Bonus to Crafting Speed
10% Bonus to Crafting Skill Gain
Enjoy the the bonuses, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
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The days grow short, a chill is in the air, and warm fires glow in our homes. The Midwinter Festival has come once again to the Realms! Visit the festival grounds to take part in the festivities and challenges.
Olibar, the Midwinter Tomte, will be paying frequent visits to Castle Sauvage, Svasud Faste, and Druim Ligen seeking assistance. He seems to have lost some Midwinter presents throughout the battlegrounds. Speak to him if you wish to assist him. Players on Gaheris between the levels of 35 to 49 can speak to him to receive a special Frontier Gift Retrieval quest instead.
Santa Nicholas, Lucia of the Light, and Jack Frost will arrive with gifts for the people of the realms, but there’s been a bit of a crisis: their presents were hijacked and are now in the possession of dangerous enemies. They will offer the Saving Midwinter quest to all adventurers level 48 and above. Save Midwinter and earn a Cloak of Midwinter and a Medal of Honor! Visit them at the Winter Villages outside of Ludlow, Ardee, and Vasudheim.
In Albion, Clara sets up a giant tree at the festival tents. Speak with her for information on obtaining an appropriately-sized one for your own home or yard. Nearby, Sister Samantha is collecting toys for the children of Albion. She offers some fine holiday greenery as a reward to those generous souls who answer her call.
In Midgard, Kevin somehow manages to decorate a tree all for himself. Ask him about it and he may give you a few pointers regarding your own arboreal home decorating. The Gythja of Frigg is taking donations of toys from passers-by and granting them wreaths and garlands in return.
In Hibernia, the rather small elf Noelle brings her tree to the festival grounds. She will help you start your own holiday tradition if you want one of your own. Matron Elleweh is looking for assistance in gathering gifts for the children of Hibernia, with a promise of some festive decorations in return.
The Trinkets for Tots quest is available for all levels.
The Midwinter Tree quests start at level 35, however rumor has it that there may be a more advanced challenge to follow for those of level 48 and up.
Midwinter will start today, December 11th, and will run until January 7th, 2014.
A Happy Midwinter to all from the Dark Age of Camelot team, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
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Banners have been raised, commands shouted, and battles fought. Towers have been razed, Keeps overrun, and Relics captured. What we’ve long called “New” Frontiers has hosted hundreds of thousands of players over its lifespan who have fought tooth and nail for every inch of terrain. So long, in fact, that New Frontiers has been in use much longer than Old Frontiers ever was. Which brings us to the point of this posting: On December 12th, 2013 The New Frontiers Revamp is coming to Pendragon!
Below you will find our outline of planned changes. Click the ‘More’ Button to read on!
Please note that these are not final patch notes, which will have the finer details, but the breadth and scope as well as the ‘what’ of the revamp will be made clear. In addition to the forthcoming patch notes, we’ll be doing a live Q&A session to explain the ‘how’ and ‘why’ for some of our changes as well as answer any other questions you all are certain to have.
First, this revamp is only Part One. Part Two will focus on Keep fights, Siege mechanics, Relic bonuses, and overall Realm incentives for participating in the Realm War. Part One will focus on Layout, Porting, Boating, Movement, and RvR Objectives.
Second, we want to take your feedback into account before and after these changes go Live. We want to get this right, even more than usual, due to the magnitude and fundamental nature of these changes. Please submit feedback, hop on Pendragon when the changes appear there, and participate in our to-be-announced Q&A session.
Without further delay, here are the changes!
The changes outlined in this section largely have to do with Tower removal, Keep and tower moves, and a few impassable area edits. Combined with the changes outlined in the Porting section, we hope to focus action into essentially the four zones of Agramon, Hadrian’s Wall, Odin’s Gate, and Emain Macha as the default state of the Realm War.
These changes are intended to free up some space, in these four zones particularly – well as the rest, in order to allow for greater freedom of movement without running into NPC guards and safe areas. We view these changes as necessary given the amount of players we expect to be traveling and fighting within the zones at any given time.
That said, the goal is not to prevent the Realm War from ever reaching the center zones or relic keep zones, but rather to require a more planned and staged assault of a realm in order to do so. And when that assault happens, still facilitate quick and predictable action around that invasion.
Players should first break through one of an opposing realm’s milegates, then establish a foothold by capturing the realm’s dock (more on this later), and finally by establishing port to one of the 2 remaining beachhead keeps in each realm.
Additionally, we want to facilitate predictable, yet still varied, action. Predictable can sometimes have a negative connotation but in our view here it is a positive. Predictable thoroughfares and locations that players can venture through and to in order to find action help facilitate player strategies and behaviors that are conducive to a Realm’s defense, offense, reinforcement, and general fun.
Conversely, in the Frontiers currently it can be too unpredictable at times where an invasion will occur or a fight will happen that players can spend too long running, boating, or porting around just looking for an enemy to engage.
Albion Frontier Changes:
Hadrian’s Wall
Pennine Mountains
Snowdonia
Forest Sauvage
Midgard Frontier Changes:
Odin’s Gate
Jamtland Mountains
Yggdra Forest
Uppland
Hibernia Frontier Changes:
Emain Macha
Breifine
Mount Collory
Cruachan Gorge
Permanent Portal Keeps
With this revamp, one of our major goals was to facilitate a more staged, progressive, and predictable avenue for attack, defense, and reinforcement. This means utilizing the Agramon milegates as natural defense points and the island of Agramon as a major thoroughfare. However, Agramon can only work if players have consistent and predictable access to the island.
With that in mind, we will be introducing one Permanent Portal Keep inside each realm’s frontier with the following attributes:
The following existing keeps in each realm have been altered to be PKs:
Portal Ceremony
The portal ceremony is back!
Returning the ceremony, along with the permanent portal keeps, helps give the Realm War a more predictable reinforcement pattern that will facilitate realm organization and grouping.
Portal Stones and Keep Porting changes
Realm portal stones have been removed from the following locations and these locations can no longer be teleported to via the remaining stones:
In Albion:
In Midgard:
In Hibernia:
Portal stones in the Relic Towns will now only teleport players to the classic side of Border Keeps.
The remaining Portal Stones will function as before:
In addition to porting and the layout affecting the flow of realm defense and invasion, boating is another important aspect. As such, the following changes and limitations have been placed on purchased boats:
With the removal of permanent boating and the focus on running being the primary means of travel outside of the portal ceremony we have some exciting changes coming to movement speed.
Crafted:
o Heroic Saddle (Champion Level 0) (still have to be level 50 for this)
o Heroic Light Armor (CL1)
o Heroic Medium Armor (CL3)
o Heroic Heavy Armor (CL5)
o Sinister Saddle (CL1)
o Sinister Light Armor (CL2)
o Sinister Medium Armor (CL4)
o Sinister Heavy Armor (CL6)
o Mystic Saddle (CL2)
o Mystic Light Armor (CL3)
o Mystic Medium Armor (CL5)
o Mystic Heavy Armor (CL7)
Dropped:
o Albion/Midgard/Hibernia Saddle (CL5)
o Albion/Midgard/Hibernia Light Horse Armor (CL8)
o Albion/Midgard/Hibernia Medium Horse Armor (CL9)
o Albion/Midgard/Hibernia Heavy Horse Armor (CL10)
Ruined Keeps
Ruined Keeps are meant as a break in the terrain and defensible locations that players in smaller forces can venture to try and hide from, defend against, or to ambush larger forces passing by. Ruined Keeps and Towers will also provide a Realm point and Bounty point bonus for fighting in and around them similar to normal keeps. Once again, there are no NPCs in or around these structures, the doors are open, and the keep outer walls have several holes in them.
Capture-able Docks
These docks provide a realm objective that rewards the capturing players with TBD items and other rewards and their realm with access to valuable boat routes. Preventing the capture of your realm’s Merchant Keep dock will also be the first step of preventing a full scale invasion.
Milegates
The Agramon milegates are largely unchanged with the revamp but will be much more of a focal point of action. They are each realm’s first line of defense and the first place to overrun when invading another realm. Milegate Doors will now remain permanently open. The guard house doors on the 2nd floor of the milegates will be more easily destroyed but still only function for the home realm’s players when they are up.
Minotaur Relics
Minotaur Relics in the frontier have had their locations and bonuses changed and one new one has been added. The restrictions on frontier Minotaur relics spawning and several of them requiring players to be grouped in order to hold them have been removed. They will always be spawned and available on the map now. The locations of Minotaur relic holders will still be displayed but the bonuses should now balance out this penalty more.
Uruz (Agramon)
Farsia (Pennine):
Thatanu (Hadrian’s):
Benun (Jamtland):
Unver (Odin’s Gate):
Temel (Breifine):
Mahir (Emain):
Individual Objectives
Doppleganger Quests have returned!
The Doppelganger Quest makes its return as a permanent feature of the Frontiers. This popular quest will remain the same in how it generally works except for a few very important changes:
Keeps
In an effort to incentivize the Realm War, we have increased the bonuses realms receive for keep ownership. Additionally, we’ve altered the amount of keeps required for each bonus since the maximum amount of keeps a realm can ever own is now 13 instead of 21. Finally, realms now start off receiving the first 3 bonuses listed and will lose them as they are invaded.
As you can tell from the picture, Darkness Falls access is once again only controlled by Keeps owned instead of both Keeps and Towers.
What these changes mean for…
Relics
With the possible number of capturable keeps now reduced, there is 1 less keep than there are relics. For now, we will be allowing 2 relics to be placed in Caer Boldiam, Glenlock Faste, and Dun nGed. Part Two of the revamp will address this further.
Labyrinth
With Agramon being a major thoroughfare the Labyrinth has undergone a few changes:
In order to reach the safe areas within the Labyrinth, players will need to use the maze entrances and then run a short distance to the safe area. Using the Gateway spells or /release to return to the Labyrinth’s Bind Stone will work as they always have.
These changes and those yet to come are designed to improve the RvR experience in many ways. We are looking forward to this update, and it is our fervent hope that you enjoy the ‘new’ NF experience.
We’ll see you in the Frontiers!
John Thornhill
Lead Designer
Dark Age of Camelot
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All Pictish Weapons have had their sell value reduced and their salvage value increased. Please note that this change does not affect Pictslayer Weapons.
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Witches, Goblins, Ghouls, and Demons! The time to imbibe your Costume Potions and run about the lands of Albion, Midgard, and Hibernia is upon us!
The restriction on Costume Potions has been removed and will be reinstated on the morning of Saturday, November 2nd.
Speak to the Crazy Old Lady in your Realm’s Capital City to obtain the potion of your choice!
We hope you have a blast in whichever form you choose! Happy All Hallows Eve to one and all, and we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
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The Melodic Mantle of Samhain may now be traded in to Nera, the Ghostly Harvest quest NPC in Mag Mell. Handing the helm to the NPC will present players with the option to choose another Ghostly Harvest quest reward.
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October is here once again and that means haunted cities, costumes, and candy for the Realms and of course… the Pumpkin Moon!
Festivities begin Thursday October 17, 2013 and will conclude Tuesday November 5 2013.
Follow the jump for a list of all the activities happening this year:
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Edit 6:20PM: Gaheris is back online.
Gaheris will be coming down to rectify an issue with housing.
Downtime is expected to be about 1 hour. We will update the Herald when the server is back online.
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Welcome to another edition of the Grab Bag!
Please click the ‘More’ link to review this round of questions from our fervent players. Among today’s topics are: pet buffs, upcoming events, and some information on the priority order for combat events such as blocking and evading. Read on, there’s some good information in there!
Please visit the Post Count Grab Bag Submission page to submit question for our next Grab Bag on Frday, October 25th!
Q: Some of the template programs give a Utility number based on the amount of stats on an item. I find this handy to tell the power of an item at a glance, and then I can look at the stats to decide if its an item I can use. Would you consider adding utility scores to items in game to help people see the sheer amount of stats on an item at a glance?
A: We won’t be adding anything like this to the items themselves, but we would like to make changes to the UI system so that UI designers can add things like this to their custom UIs.
Q: When can we expect the changes to legendary weapons?
A: We are still planning to roll out those changes with 1.115, which is tentatively scheduled for the end of the year.
Q: Archer block mechanics, it appears unless I engage arrows can not be blocked, why is it that I block 50% of melee blows and that arrows are at best 1%?
A: We tested this with a RR1 L50 Ranger (50+9 Archery) vs. RR1 L50 Warrior (50+10 Shield) standing still, facing each other. The warrior passively blocked at least 2 out of each of 5 shots fired of each Archery shot type. This was a cursory test but it demonstrates that blocking arrows does not require engage and happens more often than 1%.
Q: Any chance on getting new weapons? Would be really awesome to see some new weapons to throw in templates or even update states on a lot of old TOA weapons that used to be good
A: We can certainly look at this. Once the NF revamp is done and enjoyed a few weeks of being stable and fun, we’ll be shifting our focus back to endgame PvE content as a lot of it needs polishing and updating. Expect more weapons around then. In terms of Class Balance (because we know you are all wondering!), we’ll still be adding changes here and there but we’d rather not introduce huge Class Balance changes (like last patch) around the same time of something as impactful as a New Frontiers revamp.
Q: How do player concentration buffs affect pets? (ie: druid base/specs on an enchanter’s pet)
A: Strength buffs increase a pet’s melee damage.
Constitution buffs decrease damage done to a pet.
Dexterity buffs reduce a pet’s spell cast timer, decrease damage done to the pet and increase its chance to hit with archery and bolts.
Quickness buffs reduce a pet’s melee attack timer.
Q: Will there ever be any interest in giving incentives to boost the idea of 8v8? I understand the large scale of this game is ‘zerg warfare’, yet no offense to them- The elite players of this game do in fact 8v8, it is who has the better group of players to best the other group.
A: We respect all play-styles. Certainly 8v8 combat can be some of the most strategic, rewarding, and compelling in the game. The idea of the various ‘best’ group setups comes into play heavily when we determine the direction of class balance and is also a big factor in our upcoming changes to the New Frontiers. Indeed part of our goals for those changes is to make NF a smaller and more engaging landscape for all players, including our fervent 8v8’ers. I suspect, however, that your question has more to do with incentivizing group vs. group fights in a general way.
We’ve had wish list meetings where we talked about an Arena system (2 groups enter…1 group /rofls.) but features such as this would almost certainly pull players away from the Frontiers to say nothing of the fact that it would require the dedication of nearly all of our resources for a nontrivial amount of time – so we always return to the feedback and do our best to apply the resources we have to features and changes that are requested most often by the highest number of players. That said, we’re always open to suggestions, so leave feedback, start a thread on PostCount, or get a discussion going amongst your friends and realm mates. We’re listening.
Q: What is the order of operations used to determine whether a combat swing hits the enemy? (ie: miss/fumble/block/evade/parry/etc)
A: They’re checked in this order: target Evade, Parry and Block, then attacker Fumble and Miss.
Q: I recently read somewhere that if a class has access to a certain level of armour (say plate), that any levels below that armour, except cloth, will give them the same absorb bonuses. People often run studded chests/sleeves because the procs are better or the stats fit, and I thought it was a trade off on defense – but is it in fact the same?
A: It is a tradeoff with defense. An Armsman wearing Leather is going to get melee’d for a lot more than one wearing Plate armor.
Q: All my artifacts have a /reuse of 15 minutes apart from Traitors Dagger which has a /reuse of 30 minutes. Why is this?
A: There are a good number of spells which require revision and normalization. Customarily, longer re-use timers were an indication of a more powerful spell or ability, but what was true several years ago may not hold up in today’s game. We can look at adjusting these (and other) spells or abilities with a significant disparity in re-use timers. Please don’t hesitate to bring them to our attention via feedback or bug reports!
Q: Why do we still have to lvl arti’s on test servers? They should be lvl 10 for testing purposes!
A: We can look into a Mob or an item which grants Artifact Experience for Pendragon. It’s certainly possible.
Q: Could we get some info on the next set of events planned? Halloween quest? Infernal merchant tents perhaps?
A: Halloween event is just around the corner. We’ll then be capping the final piece of the Pict event at or just after the NF revamp. Once the dust has settled around that we’ll begin a brand new long-term event and quest line in addition to the usual seasonal events we do. And yes, we’ll do the Infernal Merchants again, but probably not until next year.
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Once again, we thank our question contributors and our friends at http://www.postcount.net for their participation in the Grab Bag! We encourage you to submit more questions for us – there’s so much left to learn about Dark Age of Camelot!
Until the next edition, friends – we’ll see you in the Frontiers!
