Big Spring Patch Preview
PATCH DATE: Probably April, 2010
Turbine Announcements
From November, this is the Letter from the Producer, outling the changes that are going in for the "Big Spring Patch".
New Content and Features
A Wedding!
There will be an important wedding announced. The preperations started in the Lay of the Land patch.
Tailoring
Greetings,
For a while now many players have posted concerns about multi-slot pieces of armor and clothing and the ways they are unfriendly to the play experience. In particular is the desire to have the visual impact of certain multi-slot pieces without totally sacrificing stats.
We are working on solutions to make this a little more player friendly. Our goal is to make this better without invalidating current suits or trivializing the process of acquiring armor. I wanted to go over several thoughts we had in our early design stages to let the players give some input.
~ First, shirt and pants clothing (we are not talking armor) would be fixed so any pants and shirt combination gives abdomen coverage. Basically all pants will cover, at a minimum, abdomen and upper legs. This means existing pieces will be extended to cover the abdomen. All shirts would also be fixed so they only cover chest so as not to interfere with pants. This should leave existing player suits intact without additional holes in coverage.
~ Second, a new quest would be introduced so once per month players could, at some effort and/or expense, transform one coat/shirt/hauberk into a breast plate while retaining the visual look of the piece. The piece would be set up so it would still visually cover multiple areas, effectively overriding the visual piece that is already there.
~ Third, a new quest would be introduced so once per month players could, at some effort and/or expense, transform one set of pants into a girth while retaining the visual look of the piece. The piece would also be set up so it would still visually cover multiple areas, effectively overriding the visual piece that is already there.
~ Fourth, we are considering changing all long leather gloves into single slot hands and shorts into single slot abdomen pieces. They would still cover the same areas visually, but they would be single slot armor. Our main concern is some exisiting characters that used these items would now have holes in coverage they would have to fill.
We could also in the future add the capability to the once per month quest to change sleeves into pauldrons and leggings into tassets while, again, keeping the same visual look.
~ Finally, with all this look swapping I am going to look at adding armor coverage into the examination panel when you look at another character. No promises on this; I would need to examine the tech involved.
(We looked at a few other suggestions; for example to allow single slot pieces to be crafted onto multi-slot pieces but they were not feasible with our current tech.)
Sev~
How does "looks" transferring work?
As an example, you have a blue AL 260 platemail breastplate. You also have an epic war AL 220 leather breast plate. You like the look of the plate mail. After you transfer the look, the new piece *looks* like plate mail but it still has the 220 AL of the leather. Nothing that affects combat moves over from the blue platemail.
On the other hand, if you've always liked the look of leather but didn't want to sacrifice the AL you could make your platemail look like leather without sacrificing combat effectiveness.
Sev~
What can you transfer looks to and from?
What about Cov and Olthoi Cov?
Covenant and Olthoi armor appearances go towards indicating the type of resistance to attack the player wearing them has. The highest likelihood is that Unbuffable Armor stat transfers will be completely separated from that of buffable armor. So you'll need to find a Covenant Breastplate of the Color you want and a Covenant or Olthoi Breastplate of the stats you want then switch them over.
New Hairstyles and a Barber
New Races
In regards to certain races being more suspectible to certain attacks than others (IE, lightning being good against Lugians):
The members of other races that step forward to join the Isparian kingdoms will be the most balanced members of their race in both temperament and metabolism. The races will have the same resists and armor as humans.
The only statistical advantage will be the racial skill given to the race. Even the free augmentation can eventually be purchased by other races. We made this decision so the game remains as balanced as possible.
Sev~
In regards to "human slayer" weapons
Those of Dereth have traditionally called the weapons that are empowered to slay Isparians "human slayers" but this term is technically incomplete. These weapons are empowered by Bael'Zharon, and that curse allows them to be much more effective against not only Isparians but also the allies and members of their kingdoms. As members of other races accept the invitation to ally with and join the Isparian kingdoms they too will become susceptible to the power Bael'Zharon has bestowed upon these weapons.
As such, the peoples of Dereth will begin to refer to these weapons as cursed or empowered by Bael'Zharon and they will be effective against the members of alternate races who also join the Isparian kingdoms. Bael'Zharon hates Asheron and his power will be more deadly against the Isparians that Asheron called and to any of the other races who fall under Asheron's protection. (Which is to say, the player characters who choose these races.)
As for racial skills, I will give you another hint. Each new race will have a racial skill and a specific free Augmentation to start. We want the races to be cool to play, but we also want the other races to have the same potential as existing races since anyone can (eventually) purchase the augmentation.
Sev~
How many races?
Our current plan is to introduce one new race with the big April update, and then follow up with a new race every two months until 4 new races are introduced.
Sev~