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Folks,

Well, it’s Friday and time for another Sneak Peak at the next major patch. In this case it will be an early look at the Patch 1.2 patch cycle. While we could easily call this patch Combat & Careers Part Deux, I think a better name is the Bugs, Careers, RvR, Bugs, Items and Bugs Patch. Over this patch cycle we will have addressed and resolved about 500 bugs and issues (some internal, most external) and some of the changes have already been pushed to LIVE. Now, while a lot of these are teeny tiny little bugs, such as grammatical errors in tool tips, the majority of them are substantial. This patch is intended to be made available to our Core Testers next week on our Public Test Server (PTS). We also intend to break with tradition a little bit and make the entire patch notes available to the community before the patch goes to the PTS. So, without further ado, here are some highlights from the 1.2 patch cycle.

1) Bugs: I’m certainly not going to list 500 bugs/issues here, but the list is rather lengthy and right now bug fixes alone are coming in at about 16 pages of notes.

2) New Careers: Two new careers have been added, the Slayer and the Choppa. For those that got a look at the Choppa during Beta, you’ll see some changes and improvements but the Slayer is all new and ready to take the field for the first time.

3) Combat and Careers Adjustments: Lots and lots of bug fixes, adjustments and tweaks to all careers. This Balance patch focuses on addressing a number of global issues identified by the players that have been affecting the overall feel and balance of the game. This includes items such as Resistance stacking, Disorient effects, and Damage Absorb shields. In addition to these more global changes, we continue to work on each individual career addressing many of the more significant balance concerns and bugs brought up by the community. This includes a focus on the following careers; Witch Elf, Witch Hunter, Chosen, Knight, Black Orc, and Swordmaster.

4) Realm vs Realm: RvR is introducing several great changes including the new Open RvR Rallying Cry, Zone Domination System, and Siege Weapon Improvements and more!

5) Items: Itemization improvements and fixes for Gunbad, Bastion Stair, Lost Vale, Fortress Raid Rewards, City Invasion Rewards, and more!

6) Crafting System Improvements: Overall improvements to the system with Apothecary being the focus of this patch. New ingredients, improved interfaces and more.

7) Public Quests: Easy PQs for Tiers two, three, and four! This completes our first pass at the Easy PQ system and we will continue to review and tweak the system as necessary. As we have already done for Tier One, we have gone through the PQs in each Tier and made sure that at least one per chapter can be completed by 1-3 people.

8) New Live Event: The Bitter Rivals event will be launching with this version as the official kick off for the anticipated introduction of the Slayer and Choppa!

9) New Scenario: The Twisting Tower Scenario will be making a special preview appearance!

10) User Interface: Lots of UI improvements for both old and new systems! These improvements cover everything from crafting to RvR.

11) Mail: Send multiple items attached to each mail! Easily one of our most requested features by the players.

12) Client Stability: Continued improvements to the client in the areas of stability performance and visual quality. Improvements to an MMO’s client, just like the server, are ongoing and these will continue now and in the future to be one of our priorities.

As always, there’s a lot more to this patch than I can hope to cover here and things are subject to change during testing, but 1.2 is a huge patch for us and it will be followed by another large patch, 1.3. I’m also working on a State of the Game that will lay out, in more detail, our plans for the rest of 1.2, 1.3 and beyond. And once again, this is only a Sneak Peak.

Mark

 

Depending on how they implement finally the Zone Domination System, it may be the turn around that T4 ORvR needs.  We will see.

i cant wait for the swordmaster update oh man hope they really fix them

Originally posted by snowchrome2

i cant wait for the swordmaster update oh man hope they really fix them

I think they mentioned that most if not all combo finishers were improved.

Anyone have any idea what the zone domination system consists of?

Originally posted by Mallarky

Anyone have any idea what the zone domination system consists of?

They haven't been overly specific on it, but I think the gist of it is that pq's and scenarios will count less for zone locking, making rvr kills, keep takes, bo takes more important, and something about holding the entire zone for a couple hours will flip it if there is no opposition, so that people can't do the "defend by not showing up to fight" defense.

I can't promise that this is accurate, but this is basically what I've heard from various forums and interviews and what not.

As far as I've read it it doesn't diminish anything of how the system works right now, it just adds on top of it the rule that if you hold all keeps etc in the zone for a certain time then the zone will flip regardless of the other rulesystem.

Something about capturing the keeps and keeping them for half an hour, then they have to be claimed by a guild and then kept for another 2 hours. So not exactly a quick system for dominating zones, just one that makes sure that if one zone stays controlled too long by one side it will inevitably flip.

Originally posted by Pheace

As far as I've read it it doesn't diminish anything of how the system works right now, it just adds on top of it the rule that if you hold all keeps etc in the zone for a certain time then the zone will flip regardless of the other rulesystem.

Something about capturing the keeps and keeping them for half an hour, then they have to be claimed by a guild and then kept for another 2 hours. So not exactly a quick system for dominating zones, just one that makes sure that if one zone stays controlled too long by one side it will inevitably flip.

Well, imo, and depending on what exactly they finally do (you know that sometimes their implementations end up being far from what they should) it adds some nice things: first, it makes keeping a keep useful so defense is important (now defense is not always done and you know about the keep trading) and, second, it adds a short term objective... if I log and play for 2 - 4 hours, I may help in the flipping of a zone.  Right now, most people log, fight for several hours and nothing is accomplish.

If done right, this is just a first real step, imo, towards a good T4 ORvR.  We will have to wait and see.

Originally posted by Mallarky

Anyone have any idea what the zone domination system consists of?

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/239/feature/2647

Man, it;s so nice to be playing a game with devs that ae really busting their ases to put in new content, patches and fixes.  WTG Mythic.

These live events are just fantastic, having a great time in the game.

Originally posted by Stradden

Originally posted by Mallarky

Anyone have any idea what the zone domination system consists of?

 

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/239/feature/2647

Wow, I completly missed that article.  Thanks for the link and to Jon Wood for writing it!

Originally posted by Pheace

As far as I've read it it doesn't diminish anything of how the system works right now, it just adds on top of it the rule that if you hold all keeps etc in the zone for a certain time then the zone will flip regardless of the other rulesystem.

 

Something about capturing the keeps and keeping them for half an hour, then they have to be claimed by a guild and then kept for another 2 hours. So not exactly a quick system for dominating zones, just one that makes sure that if one zone stays controlled too long by one side it will inevitably flip.

Yeah, Zone Domination doesn't replace the Zone Control system, it simply adds on to it.

Good link OP.