Announcements - 2005/07 - Throne of Destiny (expansion)
July 2005 - Patch Page
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Fiction
- A Primer on Halaetan Geography
- Assassination
- Discovery
- Sanamar Under Siege
- The Armor of the Viamontian Invaders
- The Execution
- The Fall of the Fiun
- The Invasion of Ispar
- The Malika and the Individual
- The Origins and Current Disposition of Viamont
- The Ruschk
- The Tournament Part I
- The Tournament Part II
- The Tournament Part III
- The Viamontian Knight
Throne of Destiny Fact Sheet
Original Link (now dead) - No Link Available
Throne of Destiny Fact Sheet
Publisher: Turbine, Inc.
Developer: Turbine, Inc.
Distributor: Station Publishing
Availability: May 11, 2005
Cost: $29.99
Game Description:
Asheron’s Call: Throne of Destiny is the second major expansion to the classic online massively multiplayer fantasy RPG Asheron’s Call®. Boasting a completely rebuilt graphics engine, the game is more immersive than ever before. The game’s epic storyline pits players against the encroaching menace of the Viamontians, a new race bent on conquering all of Dereth. In their battle to defeat these would-be rulers, the people of Dereth will uncover new mysteries and experience new challenges. Asheron’s Call: Throne of Destiny opens the portal to fantastic adventures for players of all levels.
Features:
- Major graphics update
- The entire graphics engine has been updated, with thousands of new textures and improvements to key models.
- Completely new user interface
- The UI has been totally rewritten to allow for cool new features in future updates.
- New playable heritage group.
- The game introduces the Viamontians, a fully playable race bent on world domination.
- New weapons & armor
- A full complement of weapons and armor will be available to players who choose to play as Viamontian characters.
- Raising the level cap
- The level cap is being raised from 126 to 275 with the game now offering more rewarding play to the most dedicated players.
- Augmentation Gems
- Players can acquire Augmentation Gems to enhance their abilities in amazing new ways, such as improving combat abilities or adding additional storage.
- Hundreds of special rare items can be found by any player!
- These rare items will range from interesting and useful tools to very powerful weapons and armor.
- New lands
- Players who join this adventure can explore the Halaetan Islands and the city of Sanamar, launching point of new quests and adventures.
- Dozens of new creatures and quests
- These fresh additions increase the already impressive depth and breadth of the world of Dereth.
- Hundreds of new items
- With new items in nearly every category, players will be rewarded in ways never before possible.
System Requirements:
Minimum
- One of the following operating systems:
- Microsoft Windows 98
- Microsoft Windows 2000
- Microsoft Windows XP
- 128 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM)
- 733 Megahertz (MHz) processor
- 2 gigabytes (GB) free hard disk space
- 32 MB 3D DirectX 9.0 compliant video card
- 4x CD, sound card and speakers or headphones.
- Microsoft Mouse, or another compatible pointing device.
- 56 Kilobits Per Second (Kbps) or faster connection. You must have Internet access to play.
Recommended
- One of the following operating systems
o Microsoft Windows 2000 o Microsoft Windows XP
- 256 megabytes (MB) of random access memory (RAM)
- 1 gigahertz (GHz) processor
- 2 gigabytes (GB) free hard disk space
- 64 MB 3D DirectX 9.0 compliant video adapter
- 4x CD, sound card and speakers or headphones.
- Microsoft Mouse, or another compatible pointing device.
- 56 Kilobits Per Second (Kbps) or faster connection. You must have Internet access to play the game.
FAQ - AC:TD Level Cap and Augmentations
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=281
AC:TD Level Cap and Augmentations
What is the new level cap going to be?
What is the new level cap going to be?
Throne of Destiny will increase the level cap from 126 to 275.
What will my new level be?
Treestats says that I'm level 210 already. Will I be level 210 after I install Throne of Destiny?
Either 210 or a level very close to it. Your new level will be calculated based on your total available and invested experience, which is generally how most third-party applications calculate it.
Will the caps on maximum skill level be increased?
Will the caps on maximum skill level be increased?
Not in Throne of Destiny, no.
What about the extra experience?
So... if I can't spend it on capped skills, what do I do with the experience I earn at the highest levels?
You use it to buy Augmentation Gems! Augmentations will grant one of a range of interesting abilities, stay tuned for examples.
What about fellowships?
Will the level limits on XP-sharing fellowships be changed?
We don't anticipate that this will be a huge issue immediately at the launch of the expansion, so we're not planning on changing the system as part of Throne of Destiny. We are, however, considering redesigning parts of the fellowship system through the monthly updates in order to make it generally more social and inclusive, and we will doubtless address this issue at that time.
What about monarchs?
What will you do about the fact that my level 126 character used to be able to have anyone swear to him, but now won't be able to take the same characters as vassals if they're over 126?
We are considering several different options here, including:
- Leave the system intact, with the understanding that players have the next five months to arrange their allegiances in whatever fashion they wish;
- Allow any character over level 100 to swear to any other character over level 100;
- Allow any character to swear to any other character with some safeguards related to experience pass-up, i.e. no experience pass-up from vassals who swore to you when they were lower level than you.
Our goal is to facilitate the management of allegiances without leaving so many loopholes for fast experience gain that the social purpose of allegiances is occluded. We will be paying close attention to feedback from the community before we make any decision on this question.
What about creatures?
If I get up to level 275, won't the experience that I get for creatures that are listed as level 150 decrease because they're now well below my level?
The expansion will include a number of new higher level creatures, and we're considering other possible fixes, including:
- Revisiting the display levels (but not the difficulties) of creatures that are targeted at level 126+ characters to take into account the fact that these characters are now 150 or 200 instead of 126;
- Providing Augmentation Gems that ameliorate the effect of the scaling;
- Revising the underlying system of experience scaling.
What's the curve?
What is the exact XP curve from 126 to 275? The exact chart is rather too large to be posted here, the best way to describe it is that the well-known extrapolations of this table that currently exist in the player community are close enough for basic planning.
What about skill credits?
Will we get more skill credits?
Our current plan for skill credits is to award these at the following levels, although please understand that this is subject to change:
- 130
- 140
- 150
- 160
- 180
- 200
- 225
- 250
- 275
The cap on the number of credits you can spend on specialized skills will not be changed.
What about rate of advancement?
Will there be any change to the rate of advancement for uber-level characters, or is this high level just for folks who macroed and used XP chains in the past? We recognize that there's a real need for more content for uber-level characters and up, and we are definitely committed to creating it.
What about death items?
Will the number of items I drop on death go up?
Yes. At level 126 you can drop up to 14 items, at level 275 you could drop up to 29 items. That's a lot of items, and a large burden on very high level players in terms of pack space. We're considering several methods to ameliorate this burden: possibly an Augmentation that allows you to drop fewer items on death, or a revision of the vitae system to focus the penalty of death more on vitae and less on item loss. We will be discussing this question more in the near future, especially as it concerns changes to the PK dynamic, and of course listening carefully to your feedback.
FAQ - AC:TD Level Cap Update
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=374
FAQ - AC:TD Level Cap Update
Q: What is the new level cap going to be?
A: Throne of Destiny will increase the level cap from 126 to 275.
Q: What will my new level be? Third-party apps tell me that I'm level 210 already. Will I be level 210 after I install Throne of Destiny?
A: Either 210 or a level very close to it. Your new level will be calculated based on your total available and invested experience, which is generally how most third-party applications calculate it.
There are actually some situations in which a character who is under level 126 will gain a level after installing Throne of Destiny. When you train a skill at character creation, a small amount of experience is put into that skill in order to give you 5 additional points in the skill. (This is as opposed to specialized skills, which receive 10 points free, without any experience.)
This small amount of XP will be taken into account when your new level is calculated, so it is possible that characters that are very, very close to their next level will gain that level the first time they log in. This will also happen to level 1 characters that were created before Throne of Destiny – some of them may be recalculated at level 3 the first time they log in.
Q: Will the caps on maximum skill level be increased?
A: Not in Throne of Destiny, no.
Q: What about the extra experience? If I can't spend it on capped skills, what do I do with the experience I earn at the highest levels?
A: You can use it to buy Augmentation Gems! Augmentations will grant one of a range of interesting abilities; we'll be publishing the full list of gems very soon.
Q: Will the level limits on XP-sharing fellowships be changed?
A: We don't anticipate that this will be a huge issue immediately at the launch of the expansion, so we're not planning on changing the system as part of Throne of Destiny. We are, however, considering redesigning parts of the fellowship system through the monthly updates in order to make it generally more social and inclusive, and we will doubtless address this issue at that time.
Q: What about allegiance swearing? What will you do about the fact that my level 126 character used to be able to have anyone swear to him, but now won't be able to take the same characters as vassals if they're over 126?
A: We're making some major revisions to the requirements for allegiance swearing in order to make it more flexible. After Throne of Destiny launches:
- Any character will be able to swear to any other character, regardless of level.
- If you swear to a character who is lower-level than you, you will not pass up any experience to that character (or the characters above him/her) until that character's level is equal to yours.
- Once you begin passing experience up to your patron (or if you are currently doing so) you won't stop passing experience to your patron, even if you outlevel him or her.
- These changes will be true for all characters, whether or not they purchase Throne of Destiny.
Here are some examples of the new system in action:
- My level 100 character is sworn to Aldryth's level 80 character. I currently pass experience up to him. Nothing will change in AC:TD; I will continue passing experience up to him.
- Meanbeard wants to swear his level 100 character to Aldryth's level 80. Right now, he simply can't do it. After AC:TD, Meanbeard will be able to swear to Aldryth, but he will not begin passing up experience until Aldryth catches up to him. If Aldryth hits level 100 but Meanbeard has gotten to level 105, Meanbeard still will not pass experience to Aldryth. Once Aldryth does catch up to Meanbeard – if Aldryth hits 105 while Meanbeard is still 105 – Meanbeard will begin passing up experience. After that happens, Meanbeard will continue passing experience to Aldryth for as long as Aldryth is his patron, no matter which one is higher in level.
We decided to use this system to create maximum flexibility – in many ways this is even better than the way things work now. For example, right now if I outlevel my patron and then accidentally break from him, I can't re-swear until he catches up to me. Once AC:TD ships, I'll be able to re-swear to him immediately, although I won't pass up experience until he catches up. The new system allows players to focus on the social aspect of the allegiance without being restricted by experience pass-up concerns.
One last note on this topic – Throne of Destiny will also remove the penalty for breaking from your patron. This penalty will be removed from all characters regardless of whether or not they have purchased the expansion pack.
Q: If I get to level 275, won't the experience that I get for creatures that are listed as level 150 decrease because they're now well below my level?
A: No. We are removing the experience scaling system completely. Under the old system, if you were killing a creature that more than a few levels below you in level, you received only a fraction of the experience for that kill. This was meant to prevent high level players from camping low level areas for experience. However, because of the exponential experience curves in Asheron's Call, even the full experience value of a creature more than a few levels below you is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to what you are likely to need for your next level or another skill point. So high level players aren't going to be camping low level areas for experience anyway, because that practice just isn't very efficient. Given that, it makes more sense to simply remove the scaling system.
Q: What is the exact experience point curve from 126 to 275?
A: The exact chart is rather too large to be posted here. The best way to describe it is that the well-known extrapolations of this table that currently exist in the player community are close enough for basic planning.
Q: Will we get more skill credits?
A: Yes. You will receive a skill credit at the following levels:
- 130
- 140
- 150
- 160
- 180
- 200
- 225
- 250
- 275
This means that a level 275 character will receive 46 skill credits over the course of his or her lifetime, not counting skill credits received from quests. The cap on the number of credits you can spend on specialized skills will not change.
Q: Will there be any change to the rate of advancement for uber-level characters?
A: Throne of Destiny includes some content specifically designed to improve the rate of advancement for very high-level characters, without unbalancing the rate of advancement for lower-level characters. We'll be posting more information about this content in the near future.
Q: What about the number of items that I drop on death? Will that change?
A: Yes. The number of items that you drop on death currently depends on two factors – your level and the cause of death – that is, whether the death was caused by PK combat, PKL combat, or by some other cause. We will be adding a new factor to this: is the character on a Throne of Destiny account?
The "old formula", ignoring all other factors, is currently your level divided by ten, with a chance of dropping an additional one or two items. This formula will generally apply to characters on accounts that have not purchased Throne of Destiny.
The "new formula", again ignoring all other factors, will be your level divided by twenty, with a chance of dropping an additional one or two items. This formula will generally apply to characters on accounts that have purchased Throne of Destiny.
Here's the full system:
PKL Deaths: No change – No items dropped, as before.
NPK Deaths at or below level 10: No change – No items dropped, as before.
NPK Deaths from level 11 to level 20: No change – 1 non-wielded item dropped, as before.
NPK Deaths above level 20: Changed.
- Non-Throne of Destiny: Uses the old formula, but only non-wielded items may be dropped.
- Throne of Destiny: Uses the new formula, but only non-wielded items may be dropped.
NPK Deaths above level 35:
- Non-Throne of Destiny: Uses the old formula. Since characters without Throne of Destiny can only reach level 126, the maximum number of items dropped is 14.
- Throne of Destiny: Uses the new formula, for a maximum of 15 items dropped.
PK Deaths:
- PK deaths will always use the old formula but will cap at an effective level of 126. So a PK death will never drop more than 12-14 items (126/10 items plus a chance of one or two additional items). This is true whether or not the character has Throne of Destiny.
So in conclusion, characters on a Throne of Destiny account will generally drop fewer items from an NPK death than they did before, and at the very highest levels the number of items dropped will be about the same as at the very highest levels before. We felt it was best not to change the death penalties in PK – taking a foe's death items is one of the rewards of a successful PK kill and we didn't want to change the existing balance.
Q: What about vitae? Will that change?
A: Yes.
The vitae system has not changed substantially since Asheron's Call launched in 1999. Since that time, the experience awarded by killing creatures has increased considerably. This means that a 5% vitae loss currently is much easier to work off now than it was in the past. In addition, the maximum cost to work off a point of vitae was capped at 12,500 experience points.
Currently it takes, on average, 2-3 creature kills to work off 5% vitae loss, up to around level 55 or so where that begins to drop off because of the 12.5k cap. With Throne of Destiny we are revamping the vitae curve. After the expansion pack, vitae will scale higher for higher characters, as it was always meant to do.
A low level character will still be able to work off 5% vitae loss by killing 2-3 creatures of an appropriate level. (By "appropriate level" we mean creatures intended to be fought by characters of that level.)
The cost to work off a single point of vitae loss increases based on character level. By level 15 or so, it should take about 5 kills to work off 5% vitae loss. Around level 70, it's 10. It reaches 15 around level 160 and 20 at level 275. This is true for all characters, whether or not they are on a Throne of Destiny account.
Yes, this does make death sting a bit more – however we feel that this balances out well in combination with the lowered item drop described above.
Q: Are there any other new level-related systems coming with the expansion pack?
A: There is one that we'd like to mention here, which is tied to the Rares system.
If you kill a creature that is lower-level than you, and is lower than level 100, it has no chance of dropping a rare. This is to prevent high-level characters from, say, farming Drudge Skulkers to try and find rares. At higher levels, the difference in power between creatures and players begins to flatten out enough to counteract this concern, so we chose the arbitrary cutoff of level 100. It's a nice easy number to remember if you're hunting for rares.
Q: How will %-based rewards like Tusker Tusks and Gaerlan's Sword work for level 126 characters and above after Throne of Destiny?
A: Experience rewards based on the amount that you need to get from your current level to the next level are referred to as "PXP" rewards. After Throne of Destiny, all characters – those who have the expansion pack and those who don't – will have PXP rewards correctly calculated. There are two caveats – the first is that characters that have hit the maximum level cap of 275 cannot earn more experience at all, so they will not gain experience from these awards. The second is that many PXP rewards will have their maximum reward capped so that very high-level characters can't get a reward that isn't appropriate for the comparative difficulty of the quest.
In all of these cases, the cap is at least the amount that you can or should get for completing the quest at level 126. For example, currently a level 126 character who turns in a Gaerlan Sword receives an experience award of 15 million points. As the quest is intended for characters up to level 126, we've set the cap on the reward to 15 million. Characters above level 126 will receive 15 million experience for handing in the Sword.
For another example, consider the Tusker Tusks. Currently the tusks that grant a PXP award do not properly award level 126 characters. This will change with Throne of Destiny – characters at level 126 will receive an appropriate reward; the rewards will also cap at the experience reward for level 126. A character at level 250 who hands in a Rampager Tusk, for example, will receive a reward as if he were level 126: approximately 11 million experience.
Raising the Level Cap
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=285
Raising the Level Cap
At Turbine Nation we announced that the upcoming Throne of Destiny expansion will raise the Asheron's Call level cap. We also announced that players who purchase the expansion will be able to use Augmentation Gems to develop their characters in new and unexpected ways.
But what does all of that mean? How will it affect you? Since Turbine Nation, you've been asking for answers to these questions, for more details about exactly what we are doing and exactly what it means to you. This article means to provide those answers in exhausting detail. Some of this gets a bit technical, however, so if you're looking for quick answers to basic questions you may want to start with the FAQ.
Some Definitions
Before we start discussing the changes in store, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of the current advancement system in Asheron's Call. It is especially important to understand some of the odd side effects of the current system.
First, some definitions. Characters earn experience (XP) in a variety of ways, including by killing monsters, by completing quests, and by using skills. When a character earns XP, the amount they earn is added to a counter of total experience. Total XP is used only to determine that character's level – it cannot be spent to develop the character; and it can only go up, never down. Depending on the source of the earned XP, the amount earned is also added either directly to a skill or attribute, or to a counter of available XP. Available XP can then be spent to raise skills and attribute.
This gives us three generic types of XP we can talk about:
- Total XP: The absolute total of experience the character has ever earned. This XP cannot be transformed into other types of XP.
- Invested XP: The sum of the experience that is invested into all skills and attributes (including secondary attributes). This XP can be turned into available XP through skill sellback.
- Available XP: The XP that the character has available to spend on skills and attributes. This XP can be turned into invested XP by spending it.
The following diagram provides an example of these definitions:
The Level Cap Today
It's easy to see that total XP should equal the sum of available XP and invested XP. In AC as it stands today, however, that isn't always true. There are some minor ways that these numbers can become out of synch – for instance, when you break from your patron and then swear to another patron, the swearing costs a small amount of available XP without increasing your invested XP, so the sum of available and invested is now less than the total. More common, however, is the situation in which invested XP far outpaces total XP – this happens whenever a character hits the current level cap.
See, in our current system, all the XP values of a character – including the counters for total XP, available XP, and the XP invested into each skill and attribute – are stored in 32-bit integers. This means that there is an implicit cap on these values. You cannot store a number larger than about 4.2 billion in a 32-bit integer. So total experience is capped at approximately 4.2 billion – or, using our handy XP-to-level table, level 126. So a player character can never exceed level 126.
Invested XP, however, can continue to increase even after total XP has run out of room. Because invested XP is the sum of the XP invested into each skill and attribute, and each skill and attribute can hold up to about 4.2 billion XP, the maximum possible invested experience is almost 150 billion. That's 26 skills with capped XP – the most you can afford with every skill credit in the game – plus 6 attributes, and 3 secondary attributes all capped at 4.2 billion. Note that different character templates have different numbers of skills available to invest into, and therefore different maximum possible invested experience.
It is important to understand that invested XP is the only XP that actually increases the power of a character. Because AC is primarily skill-based and not level-based, a character's total XP does not actually confer any direct benefits to the character (except the ability to enter certain level-restricted dungeons or use certain level-restricted items). Total XP – and thus character level – is merely a measure of how much XP a character could have invested into skills and attributes if they invested everything they earned. In a sense, then, character level is a rough measure of the maximum potential power level of a character.
But after level 126 the character level no longer reflects the relative power of the character in any way at all. And this is not a small discrepancy: 4.2 billion vs. 147 billion is a pretty big difference. To counter this, some players with characters above level 126 have extrapolated the AC XP-to-level table all the way up to 150 billion and now use their calculated invested XP to figure out their effective level.
So, to sum up: There are currently two level caps in AC. The true level cap occurs at level 126, when total XP can no longer be increased. The effective level cap occurs somewhere between the extrapolated levels of 233 and 261 (depending on character template) when invested XP can no longer be increased.
In the Throne of Destiny expansion, we are fixing this entire mess and raising both of these level caps. Read on to discover how!
The Level Cap Tomorrow
Level is just a reflection of your total XP, so in order to raise the level cap we must increase the highest possible total XP. And indeed that's just what we are doing. By switching the internal storage of total XP to a 64-bit integer, instead of a 32-bit integer, we can store numbers as large as 18 quintillion. That gives us plenty of room for new levels! We're not initially going to use all of that space, though. We've decided that the new cap will be level 275, which can be reached with about 191 billion XP.
But if we just allow total XP to increase without fixing the current mess – in which total XP and invested XP are terribly out of synch over level 126 – then we've merely added more confusion to the system. So in addition to increasing the storage for total XP, we are also going to recalculate total XP based on the sum of available and invested XP. We'll do this once for each character, the very first time they log in after upgrading to the expansion pack. During that recalculation, characters will also be awarded any new skill credits for the levels they pass.
For example: Let's say that your character is level currently 126, and in fact you've been level 126 for almost a year now. You have 4.2 billion total XP, 1 billion available XP, and 8 billion XP invested into your skills and attributes. The first time you log in after upgrading to the expansion, your total XP will be set to 9 billion, you will advance to level 146, and you will receive 2 skill credits.
Or, another example: Let's say you're one of those driven players who has trained as many skills as possible in order to drive your invested XP as high as possible. You have maximized every skill possible, plus all your attributes, and you've even capped your available XP. It is not physically possible for you to earn XP anymore – there's nowhere for it to go! The first time you log in after upgrading to the expansion, your total XP will be set to about 150 billion, you will advance to level 261, and you will receive 8 skill credits. Note that you will not be at the new level cap of 275 – you will still have about 41 billion XP left to go to get there.
Okay, so that gets everyone on the same page again as far as total XP is concerned. But what about going forward? What happens when the first character reaches the new cap? Currently, you stop earning total XP at level 126, but you continue earning available XP until you eventually maximize all of your skills and attributes and your available XP, at that point you stop earning experience all together. With the Throne of Destiny expansion, things will work fairly similarly: you will continue earning total XP and available XP all the way up to the level 275 cap, and then you will stop earning both total and available XP. This means that the next time we want to raise the level cap, we can do it quickly and easily without all of this fuss.
A technical note: Yes, this means that the storage for available XP is also increasing to a 64-bit value. One side effect of that change is that it will no longer be possible to lose experience during skill sellback. Skill and attribute XP will remain in 32-bit values, with a maximum of about 4.2 billion. We're not prepared at this time to deal with raising the maximum possible skill levels, although we are seriously considering it for the future.
Augmentation Gems
Now, if you've been paying close attention, you may have noticed a small issue with all of this. It's great that you'll be able to get to higher levels than ever before, but what use are those extra levels? In AC, experience is only useful if you can spend it on something. Since we're not increasing the amount of total XP that can be invested into skills and attributes, then in what way does the higher level cap actually benefit players? Is the only purpose to give your character a slightly higher number to sport around?
The answer to this question is twofold. Firstly, a higher level means more skill credits, which mean more skills trained and therefore more XP invested into skills. Note that you can still only spend a total of 64 skill credits on specialized skills, so those extra skill credits will probably be more useful in broadening your character than in deepening it.
Secondly, we're introducing new ways to spend XP called Augmentation Gems. These are special gems, somewhat akin to skill sellback gems, that you obtain via a quest. Each Augmentation Gem has a unique effect and an associated cost in experience. When you use the gem, the experience cost is subtracted from your available experience (only if you have enough, of course!), your character receives the benefit, and the gem is destroyed.
All Augmentation effects are permanent, some can be repeated and some cannot, but they cannot be undone – there is no Augmentation sellback! On the other hand, with enough time and experience, it is theoretically possible for any character to collect all the Augmentations. It will take some time, however – we currently plan on a one-month timer for completing the Augmentation Gem quest. With more than 30 Augmentations planned, that's over two years of character development.
It's important to note that Augmentation Gems can be used by anyone who can obtain the gem and who has enough available XP to purchase the Augmentation. In other words, you don't have to wait until you are level 260 to use Augmentations. Note that the quest to obtain the gem is targeted at characters of level 100+ and is restricted to those players who have purchased the expansion.
Let's look at a simple example: One potential Augmentation that we announced at Turbine Nation was the ability to carry an extra backpack. Let's say that the cost of this Augmentation is 4 billion XP. (This cost is subject to change, but it is interesting to note that this Augmentation is planned to be one of the most expensive available.) So you do the quest, obtain the gem, and use it. 4 billion XP is drained from your available XP and invested into this Augmentation, and now you have an extra backpack slot on your UI. This slot is yours for the rest of eternity, and you can place any backpack you like in that slot.
We are in the process of finalizing the list of Augmentations and their associate XP costs, but you can anticipate more information on these effects in the coming weeks.
Other Considerations
So that's the basic plan for raising the level cap and providing alternative character development through Augmentation Gems. There are a number of additional issues related to the level cap – these are addressed in the FAQ.Rares: Frankenstein Lives!
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=340
Rares: Frankenstein Lives!
By Jessica Mulligan
It started after the third drink at a Friday "girl's night out."
Wouldn't it be neat, someone said, to have very rare items drop in loot? Like, you know, really cool stuff, potions that boosted your health 200 for a short period or a pearl that increased strength by 250 for a few minutes. Now, wouldn't that be way cool?
Pulling my Cosmopolitan-tinted gaze from the cute guy at the end of the bar, on whom I had been unsuccessfully practicing mind-control techniques, I fixed my eyes roughly in the direction of the speaker and said (somewhat snidely, it must be said), "Why stop there? Why not a healing kit with a +500 skill modifier or a dye pot that never fails? How about foolproof salvage for perfect imbues? And no skill or level restrictions; anyone can use any rare item, whether they be a level 1 player or level 126-plus."
"Exactly!"
This is how Frankenstein was born.
The next day, while downing prodigious amounts of orange juice and aspirin and trying to explain again to my steady why he had to come get me at a bar at 2am, I remembered that conversation. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. The advantages were obvious: a way to reinvigorate the in-game economy, a new class of items we could add to every month, something to help push the lore along occasionally. And it would be just plain fun to come up with the items.
Of course, there would be potential downsides, too. We've been reading the threads in which you've been commenting about the plan for rares and we agree that there are some issues with the plan as it exists now. For example, balance will be a tricky issue; we wouldn't want to make a one-shot-kill weapon, for example, or PvP would become an absolute joke and never able to be balanced again.
And if rare items were only found in loot, then UCMers would have a natural advantage in finding them. Heck, it would encourage pharming just to get the items to sell on eBay. There isn't much more we can do about UCMs than we are already doing, e.g. find and ban them. However, we can do something about making sure the hunt for rares doesn't become a pharmer's paradise. We've put our heads together and come up with a two-pronged approach, which we now propose to you for discussion:
Rare items from loot will be rare.
The easiest thing to do would be to pull rare items out of loot drops altogether. However, we feel there ought to be at least a small chance of finding a rare in a loot drop, even if it is a really small chance.
At Turbine Nation, we gave some figures for how often rare items would drop in loot. Throw those numbers out the window; loot rares are going to be a whole lot harder to find than that, as much as an order of magnitude more difficult to find. This ought to keep the pharmers from monopolizing rare items from loot drops; the 'ROI' (Return on Investment) of pharming for rares will be very, very low. In this case, the time investment spent to acquire even one rare by pharming will be extreme, so there won't be much sense in trying to create a business out of it.
For the Future: Everyone gets a chance.
While the rares implementation for Throne of Destiny is just about complete, we're considering an improvement to the system that we could add shortly after launch as part of a monthly update.
We want everyone to have a chance to find a rare, on a more or less equal footing. In fact, we'd like you to have a small chance of finding a rare item every day that you log in – and I do mean small; they are called 'rare' for a reason. What we propose is that each day, when you log in for the first time in a 24 hour period, there will be an invisible die roll. If your number comes up for receiving a rare, you'll see a special message, such as "You feel especially lucky today! You might want to go to the nearest Temple of Rares and consult a priestess."
If you receive that message, you'll need to go to a special temple or other building we'll set up in each of the starter cities, where a priestess (or Guide or Acolyte or whatever) will guide you to a special chest. When you open the chest, you'll receive your rare item. As to which rare you receive from the chest: that will be random chance. You could get a tier 1 item, you could get a tier 5 item, you might get something in between; you just never know.
The only limitation here is that every character only has one chance to get lucky every 24 hour period. For example, if you log in 15 times in one day, you don't have 15 chances to be awarded a rare; you only have one chance, the first time you log in. It also works in the reverse; if you don't log in for three days, you still only get one chance the next time you log in, not three.
Again, this is in addition to finding rares on loot. Active hunters will still have a better chance of finding a rare than those who do not hunt, but that chance will be much smaller than initially presented.
As we said, this new system would not be in the initial release of Throne of Destiny, but would follow shortly afterwards as part of a monthly event.
So, after reading your comments and contemplating on them, that's our current thinking on rare items. Now we want to know your opinions. Fire away; I have on my rare Level 5 Everlasting Pantaloons of Fire Resistance.
Rares: Rare Item Images
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=339
Rares: Rare Item Images
Below you can see some examples of the unique appearance of Rare weapons. Click on an image to enlarge it!
Augmentations: Augmentation Gems
Original Link (now dead) - http://ac.turbine.com/index.php?page_id=294
Augmentations: Augmentation Gems
By Ibn
Throne of Destiny provides a brand new way to spend experience points: Augmentation Gems. These gems provide new and unique ways to enhance your characters. By completing a quest to acquire a gem and paying an experience point cost, you can add a new permanent ability to your character. These gems are a new form of character advancement for the most powerful heroes in Dereth, and can only be found in the Throne of Destiny expansion pack.
To acquire an Augmentation, you first need to obtain a Blank Augmentation Gem. Once you've found one of these, bring it to one of the NPCs listed below. Each NPC carries a different Augmentation Gem, which he or she will exchange for a Blank Gem or one of the other Augmentation Gems.
Once you have the Augmentation Gem you want, and enough unassigned experience points to pay for it, simply use the Gem and the new Augmentation will be added to your character! Some types of Gems can be used more than once to further increase your new ability, others can only be used one time. You can always open your Character Information panel to see which Augmentations your character has acquired!
Below is the complete list of Augmentation Gems and providers that will be available at the launch of Throne of Destiny.
Innate Attribute Augmentations
Cost: 500 million experience
Each of these Augmentations will increase one of your innate attributes by five points. No innate attribute can go above 100. You may use up to ten of these Augmentations over the life of your character.
Example: My character has an innate Coordination of 75. After using an Oswald's Enhancement gem and paying 500 million experience, my character will have an innate Coordination of 80. I could then use nine more Innate Attribute Augmentations by acquiring the gems and paying the experience point cost, although I could only use 4 more Gems on my Coordination.
The Keepers of these gems can all be found at the Fiun Outpost in the Halaetan Isles.
Name: Reinforcement of the Lugians
Attribute: Strength
Keeper: Fiun Luunere
Name: Bleeargh's Fortitude
Attribute: Endurance
Keeper: Fiun Ruun
Name: Oswald's Enhancement
Attribute: Coordination
Keeper: Fiun Bayaas
Name: Siraluun's Blessing
Attribute: Quickness
Keeper: Fiun Riish
Name: Enduring Calm
Attribute: Focus
Keeper: Fiun Vasherr
Name: Steadfast Will
Attribute: Self
Keeper: Fiun Noress
Tinkering Specialization Augmentations
Cost: 1 billion experience
Each of these Augmentations will allow you to Specialize a Tinkering skill. The skill will use the Specialized rate of advancement and will receive a +10 innate bonus. You must have the skill trained to use this gem. If you complete the quest to unspecialize a Tinkering skill after having used this Augmentation, you will receive back the experience you have spent in the skill but will not actually unspecialized on untrain the skill. The Keepers of these gems can be found in Cragstone. Each Augmentation may be used once.
Name: Jibril's Essence
Skill: Armor Tinkering
Keeper: Joshun Felden
Name: Yoshi's Essence
Skill: Item Tinkering
Keeper: Brienne Carlus
Name: Celdiseth's Essence
Skill: Magic Item Tinkering
Keeper: Burrell Sammrun
Name: Koga's Essence
Skill: Weapon Tinkering
Keeper: Lenor Turk
Name: Ciandra's Essence
Skill: Salvaging
Keeper: Robert Crow
Might of the Seventh Mule
Cost: 1 billion experience
Keeper: Husoon of Zaikhal
Each use of this Augmentation will increase the total burden you can carry by 20%, and this Augmentation can be used five times over the life of your character.
Example: My character can carry 10,000 Burden Units of equipment before he becomes overburdened. After using this Augmentation Gem, he can carry 12,000 BU before he becomes overburdened.
Critical Protection
Cost: 1 billion experience
Keeper: Piersanti Linante of Sanamar
This Augmentation grants your character a 25% chance to avoid taking a critical hit in NPK combat and a 5% chance to avoid a critical hit in PK/L combat. If you have this Augmentation and are struck with a critical hit, you have a chance of reducing it to a normal hit. When this happens, you (and your attacker, if you avoided a PK/L critical) will receive a special text message. This Augmentation may only be taken once.
Ciandra's Fortune
Cost: 1 billion experience
Keeper: Kris Cennis of Cragstone
A character with this Augmentation will gain an extra 25% amount of material each time he or she salvages. This Augmentation can be used four times over the life of your character, for a total of 100% extra material.
Innate Renewal
Cost: 1 billion experience
Keeper: Alison Dulane of the Bandit Castle
This Augmentation will greatly increase a character's rate of regeneration of Health, Stamina and Mana – when lying down. This Augmentation can be used twice – the first use will give your character a regeneration rate of double the base; the second will give your character triple the base regeneration rate. Again, this is only when the character is lying down.
Archmage's Endurance
Cost: 1 billion experience
Keeper: Nawamara Ujio of Tou Tou
Any spell that has a duration, when cast by a character with this Augmentation, will have its duration extended by 20%. This Augmentation can be used five times, each time granting an addition 20% of the base duration, for a maximum duration increase of 100%. This applies to any spell with a duration that you cast, including spells that you may cast on items or on other players, even Fellowship spells.
Clutch of the Miser
Cost: 2 billion experience
Keeper: Rohula bint Ludun of Ayan Baqur
This Augmentation reduces the number of items dropped by a character upon death. Each use of this Augmentation reduces the number of items dropped on death by five. The Augmentation may be used up to three times over the course of a character's life and can potentially even reduce your death items to zero. This Augmentation does not change the number of items dropped in a PK death.
Charmed Smith
Cost: 2 billion experience
Keeper: Lug of Oolutanga's Refuge
A character with this Augmentation gains an extra 5% to the chance of successfully imbuing an item. This can increase the maximum chance of a successful imbue to 38%. This Augmentation can only be taken once.
Innate Resistance Augmentations
Cost: 2 billion experience
Each of these Augmentations will grant a character 10% innate resistance to one damage type. Only two of these Augmentations may ever be used, but you may use any combination of two. For example I could use two Fiery Enhancements to give my character 20% innate resistance to Fire damage, or I could use one Fiery Enhancement and one Icy Enhancement for 10% resistance to Fire damage and 10% resistance to Cold damage. The Keepers of these gems can be found in Hebian-To.
Name: Enhancement of the Mace Turner
Element: Bludgeoning
Keeper: Nawamara Dia
Name: Enhancement of the Blade Turner
Element: Slashing
Keeper: Ilin Wis
Name: Enhancement of the Arrow Turner
Element: Piercing
Keeper: Kyuoju Rujen
Name: Storm's Enhancement
Element: Electric
Keeper: Enli Yuo
Name: Fiery Enhancement
Element: Fire
Keeper: Rikshen Ri
Name: Icy Enhancement
Element: Cold
Keeper: Lu Bao
Name: Caustic Enhancement
Element: Acid
Keeper: Shujio Milao
Shadow of the Seventh Mule
Cost: 4 billion experience
Keeper: Dumida bint Ruminre of Zaikhal
This Augmentation unlocks an eighth pack slot on the character that uses it. It may be used once.
Enduring Enchantment
Cost: 4 billion experience
Keeper: Erik Festus of Ayan Baqur
This Augmentation will cause any spells cast on a character to persist after that character dies. This includes both beneficial and harmful spells. This does include PKL deaths, but does not include PK deaths. This Augmentation may be used once.
Quick Learner
Cost: 4 billion experience
Keeper: Rickard Dumalia of Silyun
Video
The movie introduction to Throne of Destiny that comes on the game CD. It explains the story behind how the Viamontians came to Dereth.
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