DAoC Vegas Roundtable and Darkness Rising Preview

The Safehouse Network

By Aaron "Zato" Tarvin

Sep 26, 2005, 17:24

I'm fresh back from the Vegas Roundtable, which was a hugely successful event. First off, of course Mythic was promoting their upcoming retail expansion, Darkness Rising - which should be available as a download towards the end of October 2005. So, I'll cover that first for those that don't care to hear about the rest of the event. Unforunately, out of all the pictures I took, only a few of them are clear enough to post (the rest are too blurry or grainy.. argh!). I've added them to the bottom.

Darkness Rising

Here are the highlights of Darkness Rising:
- New expansion for levels 30-50.
- Encounters are mostly geared towards 1 group or less.
- Addition of new Champion Levels and subsequent abilities
- Addition of class unique Champion Weapons
- Addition of customizable player controlled mounts
- Revamp of Darkness Falls

Once you initiate the Champion quest, there are five total Champion Levels you can achieve. Each level you gain a small HP and power increase as well as 1 champion point which you can spend to subspec your char with minor abilities from any other class trainer. You can choose to spread out these abilities among various subspecs, or you can choose to go (up to) 5 deep in one particular line. For example, a primary tank class can gain a small casted heal with the first champion point. While spending all 5 in this line will give a slightly bigger heal, as well as single target cure poison and disease. The Champion Levels are gained through Champion XP, which can be gained through the Champion Quest, RvR XP, or PvE XP. The preferred (and likely fastest method) is through the Champion Quest, which takes the player through the main storyline of Darkness Rising. However, the XP from this quest only awards half the Champion XP needed for all five levels. So players will have to earn the rest of the 2.5 levels through one of the other 2 methods. The good news about the PvE XP is that there are no restrictions. ANY PvE XP will also give Champion XP. There will also be a new title (Demonslayer) available specifically for Champions. In addition to all this, a realm Champion will gain access to new vendors selling certain coveted items (respecs, weapon tints, etc.), and unlock new mounts and mount equipment. Champion level attacks will be level 50 spells are far as being resisted, even though in reality they are version of very low level spells.

Each class will have a new and unique Champion Weapon. Let me tell ya, they look pretty dang spiffy. The stats have ToA-type bonuses, and rival (but don't exceed) many artifacts in usefulness. These weapons are meant to help level the playing field with those who have trouble getting an artifact weapon. Each class will get a very unique weapon with all new "glowy" effects. Here's one of the cool things I learned at the roundtable. For classes with multiple weapon choices, you will be given your choice of weapon type upon completion of the quest. If at a later time you decide to respec, or want to switch your epic sword for epic bow (for example), you can switch it out by turning your weapon back in to the King. All of the items will have the exact same bonuses and a similar look to them. Oh, for Bards and Minstrels they will have the option of an instrument that functions like Phoebus Harp, allowing them to use abilities that require drums, flute, or lute.

Here are a couple examples of stats (these are NOT FINAL, and do not include the special abilities):

Cleric
6% power and healing, 4% casting speed and range, 4 acuity (mistake?) and dex cap, 5 power cap

Armsman
+4 melee, +12 str/qui, 4% style and melee damage, 8 str cap

Did I mention they look cool? Click here to check out this video teaser! (Right-click, save-as. Requires DivX)

The player controlled mounts are pretty cool. Their overall speed is pretty lacking (just a tad faster than casted speed), but there is definitely a coolness factor to seeing groups of people on horseback decked out with guild colors/emblems and armor. When using speed, your horse will be brought up to that speed (assuming it's faster than horse speed). You CAN use sprint while on horseback as well, so groups will still be able to use speed 6 (speed 5 + sprint). Horses are usable in RvR, but you cannot initiate combat from a horse. If you are attacked while on horseback, your horse will poof so you can immediately defend yourself. It takes several seconds standing still to summon your horse, but it goes away instantly when desired (or attacked as already mentioned). You cannot use a mount while shapeshifted, with Necros and Bainshees being the exception (they will float on top as they do now). Players will be able to earn a standard mount starting at level 35, by completing a quest. You do not need to have the expansion for this mount. However, you will not be able to customize this mount. What you get is what you get.

Advanced mounts are available at level 45. However, there might be a few available earlier as rewards through the Champion Quest. These mounts are faster than standard ones, and very customizable. Besides the type and color of horse, players will be able to add things like barding, armor, saddle, and saddlebags! Saddlebags will have 16 slots that are only available to the player while the horse is active. Items contained within remain in the saddlebags when the horse poofs, and become available again after the horse is summoned. Besides your general horse types there are additional ones such as unicorns and nightmares. Some horses and associated horse gear can only be gained through special quests or as rare loot. Barding can be emblemized as well as dyed, giving players lots of options.

Mounts are more or less an extension of your character. They don't have HP, and they can't be killed. They don't generate aggro (but you still do like normal). You can have as many different mounts as you can carry, each one taking up 1 equipment slot, selecting which one will be your active mount in the new mount interface. Customizations stay with the mount once placed, but they can be removed and put on another horse, except for saddlebags which all your horses will share the same.

One of the cool things I wasn't expecting, was new emotes while on horseback. You'll see a few of them in this video teaser. (Right-click, save-as. Requires DivX)

Another thing coming with DR, is a complete revamp of the Darkness Falls zone. The graphics have all gotten a HUGE facelift, the loot has been upgraded, and encounters changed. Rest assured, the main storyline of DR will not require players to have access to DF to complete the quests.

Conclusion: To be honest, I was lukewarm about the expansion for quite awhile. But I'm getting more and more excited about it. It's definately a must have for any active player.

Roundtable Stuff

At the morning kickoff, we were treated some thoughts from Dave Arneson, co-designer of the original D&D. He expressed his thoughts on computer games in the RPG genre, stating most of them aren't "role-playing" games at all. He listed the challenges facing game companies today to keep the content fresh. He made a great point that players need to take control over their game experience - help new players get established, and put forth an effort make the game more enjoyable. He also mentioned that the official D&D that came out awhile back was pretty bad, and although he did have a short cameo in it, he had no influence on it's production.

The winner of the Camelot video contest was that "Viking Rap" one by Tilary. You can find it in the movies section over on www.camelotvault.com. We were then treated to the winning videos from all the previous Roundtables.

Two "Game" shows were run by Mythic, the Camelot Feud and 100 Plat Pyramid. Both were extremely fun (if not a little bit frustrating) to watch. The Feud winning team (all 5 of them) got the newest Nvidia video card as their prize. My team was robbed :p.

Of course there was a costume contest, as well as a live quest. Check out the pictures over on Sanya's blog.

New Server Types

There was lots of discussion on the new server types proposed. They were very clear that this is in the discussion stage only, if you feel strongly one way or another, please continue sending feedback. The 3 types talked about were: Homeland Invasion, BG Server, and Evolution Server. Homeland Invasion would be a server where a realm would somehow be able to break past the borderkeep to invade an enemy realm, and achieve some goal such as slay the enemy King or something. Then the server would reset. The BG Server would allow players to achieve milestones (RP and XP) through the BGs. Not quite sure how this would work.

The most discussion was with the Evolution Server, as it's certainly the most abstract and different than current gameplay. Mythic mentioned this server would have 8 streamlined classes available per realm, with certain problems addressed such as rebalancing CC, pace of combat, style chain difficulty and downtime. They also mentioned adding new things like group style chains.

They recognize the concern with new servers thinning out existing server populations, and are keeping that in mind. I believe their intent is for the new servers to be more of a temporary escape than a permanent home.

Other Tidbits

Mythic is working on a way for guilds to form cross-server alliances within a cluster (Yea!).

The reason cure poison and disease were recently added to many classes is because these lines would not be available to them through Champion Levels, due to these abilities being on their base class trainers.

There was a concern raised that mounts in RvR would add to the server lag. Mythic stated that the actual data being transmitted between server and client has not changed much at all, the only thing that might be adversely effected is framerate, which is dependent on your client's hardware.

Once DR is released, they will be looking at additional changes to ToA to make it less painful. My specific question was in regards to making all artifacts require the same amount of XP to level, which they said was on their list to address.

One topic that was brought up by several different people was how discouraging RvR is for new players. That many people finally finish leveling up and equipping their chars, only to be completely destroyed in RvR every time they go out. These people don't stick around for long. The general consensus from Mythic was that they agree that something needs to done, but there are no specific solutions at this time.

Another expressed player concern was lack of rewards for support and thankless tasks such as keep repair. Mythic says they agree and are trying to work out some changes where all efforts in the frontiers are rewarded.

Someone had a concern specifically on 8 man groups, and Mythic made a comment that the game is focused on realm vs. realm combat which takes precedence over 8 mans (I heard this 2nd hand, and was personally happy with their response. I feel the game has lost most of it's RvR focus.)

Mythic's response to a player concerned with taking upward of 4 weeks (Hi Betme) to finally craft a masterpiece armor was that they were looking at taking some steps to make "crafting suck less", much to the amusement of the crowd. But they did say that they had no plans to adjust the frequency as these items are intended to be rare.

Mythic acknowledges that many RR5 class abilities are never (or rarely) used, and they are taking a look at them. The Cleric one was specifically mentioned from concerned players.

But in the same discussion as RR5 RAs, they talked about how at this point they are overly cautious to make changes that might effect realm balance.

The topic of player collision detection was brought up. It's something Mythic has been discussing since the game's conception, and will not likely ever be implemented due to the all potential problems it could cause. Namely, massive additional server processing and bandwidth, as well as potential exploits.

That about wraps it up for me. Thanks to Sanya, Walt, Juli, Yvonne, Jeff, Eugene and the other Mythic staff who helped make the Roundtable a success and for answering countless questions. Oh, and a special thanks to Larian and Serapis for putting up with me during the event!

Tip of the zerg at checkin

The "server" room

Eugene

Dave Arneson

The Girls of the Roundtable (all active players)

Dan Dunham, Sanya, and Yvonne make up the "general" panel

Action shot... what a ham!

Jeff Hickman - Executive Producer

Saturday night toast at the Tilted Kilt